Escape

Alright so I have to be honest. After the fear started to wear off I got really bummed about this whole situation because the promotion I got was actually the one I had been hoping for since I transferred back to the navy. But now all I wanted to do was get on a ship and fly into the non-existent sunset because suns can't set in space... Unless something blocks them. Not the point.

Not that I wanted to join the Rebellion or anything. They were a bunch of barely organized terrorists. Though with with ranks like 'Imperial Warlord' being thrown around it seemed like we were going down the same route.

The only issue was there were a lot of contingencies in place to prevent people from going AWOL, and any attempt was also punishable by execution. Though at this point I was convinced thinking about deserting was enough for them to execute me. Which I obviously already was.

For those of you who don't know, an Assertor-class Dreadnought is a sector command vessel. It has a complement of approximately 125,000 crew members, along with 20,000 troops and their support staff. Outside of the people it also has 108 TIE/LNs, 12 TIE/INs, 30 Alpha-class Xg-1 Star Wings, 50 Lambda Class T-4a Shuttles, 40 Gamma-class ATR-6 assault transport, 40 Y-85 Titan dropship, 30 AT-ATs, and 40 AT-STs.

Despite this large complement, it was not known as a transport vessel. The Assertor's real strength was in its armaments. It has 40 quad heavy turbolaser batteries, 30 quad battleship ion cannon batteries, 10 dorsal twin heavy turbolaser batteries, 30 quad light turbolaser batteries, 20 ventral twin battleship ion cannons, 20 dorsal medium ion cannons, 60 turret-mounted quad laser cannons, 90 concussion missile launchers, 20 heavy tractor beam projectors.

How do I remember all of this? I take a lot of notes and we had a test on it so…

Anyway moving on. There were several obstacles I needed to overcome to get out of there. Starting with the most obvious issue, I could not just eject myself into the vacuum of space. Not even the Jedi could fly around without a ship. However, it couldn't be just any ship. We were near the center of the Tion cluster, several lightyears away from even the closest planet, so I would need one with a hyperdrive so I could get back to civilization.

The ships though were not just lying in the middle of the hangar unattended. My best chance was to steal a ship as close to the hangar doors as possible, though most of the time the closest ships to the door were your standard TIE/LN and TIE/IN which didn't have hyperdrives. Not only that, but the hangar doors had a sensor on them that sent an alert to the bridge any time a ship left and entered the hangar for easy accountability. That meant I was going to have to hack the door and the cameras before I even attempted to steal a ship.

I wasn't worried about the hacking part. I had done so well in our hacking courses at the academy I had to be interviewed by an Imperial Officer because they suspected I was a Rebel Spy. That was a weird day. I cried because I thought I was in trouble, but that convinced them I wasn't a spy and they put me in the advanced class which was great… The Officer also bought me ice cream because he felt bad about making me cry. Weird to think that happened only three years before this and I was an actual traitor now.

Again, getting off topic. The actual things that worried me were the facts that there were Stormtroopers patrolling the hangars, and the ships with hyperdrives were latched to the wall with a physical lock and were set on electronic pressure sensors. Ships with hyperdrives were also kept far from the hangar doors which would make it easier to spot me. Also, the ships were always being rotated between the four hangars so only the ships pilots knew where their ships would be at any point in time.

Also, the Assertor-class Dreadnought has an amazing long-range sensor suite, so I couldn't just fly away without being seen. Even if I somehow avoided being shot to ribbons by the on-board weapons, the Assertor was also equipped with a complement of Gravity Well Projectors, which made it impossible to jump into hyperspace while within their surprisingly large range. Which meant I would need to avoid all the guns for about 30 minutes to get outside their sphere of influence… Or it would be 30 minutes if it weren't for the ship's 20 heavy tractor beams which I would also somehow have to avoid.

As I said there were a lot of contingencies. Not enough though, because I had a plan… Hopefully.

The first step was to get a good night's sleep because I always make my best plans in my sleep. When I woke up and only had a partial plan, I slowly started packing up my stuff to move to my new quarters. I packed my armor, E-11 blaster, and a few other necessities into one bag that I set to the side to move last. I needed to execute the latter part of my plan in one smooth motion. I couldn't go do one thing, go back to my room, grab my gear, come back, then escape.

Once I had moved half of my stuff to my new room, which was actually really nice unfortunately, I took a detour down to my old post in Communications. I had a few knickknacks on my desk I wanted to collect, particularly a floating orb that randomly altered to look like different planets. It also gave me the opportunity to set up the opening of my plan.

Firstly, I found the frequency our communications were on today. Secondly, Communications was the center for the flow of information throughout the ship. Including the camera feeds. So, while I was saying my farewells to everyone, even though normally I would still see them every day in the mess hall, I made my way into the camera room. Luckily, one of the people working in there was also, one of my now former roommates. So no one expected a thing when I walked up to their station, shook their hand, and asked to see what they were working on.

While I was actually interested in the finer details of the camera system we used, he mostly just complained about how his job was "just staring at screens all day". It was probably this lack of interest in his job that made it easy for me to secretly slip a small drive into his workstation that would let me remote access the cameras.

With that in place I took my leave and made my way back to my old room where I set about the start of my plan. I pulled out my old Stormtrooper black body suit and helmet then yanked the integral communicator out the helm. It had its own battery so the rest of the suit's functions would still work properly, though now that I was making a mess I was on the clock.

Putting the helmet back in my bag I pulled out my officer's tablet, a small multitool, and got to work. Since I knew the frequency our communicators were going to be on today, all I needed to do was alter my communicator to put out a small radius counter frequency that would render other small form communicators useless. While I was working on this, I watched the camera, noting how often a team of Stormtroopers would march passed the hall by the main hangar and how often the troops in the hangar patrolled it.

A lot of Stormtrooper duty was utterly mind numbing. You do a lot of patrolling and when you're in a ship, in space where no one can really secretly get to you it becomes a chore reaaally quick. I couldn't see 90% of the ships in the hangar, which was bad because my entire escape hinged on there being a ship capable of transporting me near the door. If not… well this was going to be really hard to explain to the higherups.

As I worked, I recorded a few clips from the hangar and hallways leading up to it then started doing the math in my head. Once I had finished making my counter communicator, I spliced the recordings together into as seamless a video as I could, then cropped them so the date and time at the top of the camera feed would still be visible. With the video's ready I set them up to appear on a timer. The fake feed would begin in fifteen minutes, and would end in the hallway after an hour, then the hangar would return to normal in eight hours, at the same time as the shift change.

I stared at my tablet and jammer apprehensively as I put on my body suit then put on the officers uniform over it. Once I had changed I sat down and continued to stare at the table for a good ten minutes. This was it. Once I hit enter there was no going back. They would be able to trace the hack back to my computer once they found the driver. If I did not hit enter though I could probably play it off like I was just testing my former roommate. I was a superior rank to him now and he always talked about hating his job. Heck maybe under this leadership that would earn me a commendation.

I couldn't do that though. Not only because my roommate was a nice guy but because this life wasn't what I wanted anymore. I needed to get out. So, I hit enter, then immediately checked to see if I could undo it as I quietly screamed before giving up and slipping the jammer and a few other things into my pockets, picked up my bag and left my room.

There was no way I didn't look suspicious walking down the halls. I wasn't going the wrong way or anything and I had a built-in excuse for why I was walking with a bag. However, I don't think there was any reason in the galaxy that I would be sweating this much. The dark Naval Officer's uniform hid it well, except for the fact that I could feel sweat dripping down the sides of my face.

I kept a close eye on the time, but my math was perfect. The camera feed changed 45 seconds before I hit the final hallway. The team that was patrolling this hallway would be there in approximately 3 minutes, meaning I probably had that long to do something about the four-man team in the hangar that were doing staggard patrols.

With a deep breath I walked straight up to the hangar door and slipped inside. Once inside I let my bag slip off my shoulder and kicked it behind a nearby storage container. I had to give it a little extra nudge to get it fully hidden, but once it was I straightened my back and clasped my hands behind me as I walked with as much faux authority as I could muster.

I felt like a bird strutting around trying to find a mate but when the moment of truth came, and I walked passed where the Stormtroopers were taking their break they gave me a respectful nod which I returned as I made my way deeper into the hangar. Once I was out of view I allowed myself to relax, though I had to keep my sigh of relief quiet enough that they did not hear me.

As a Midshipmen I was used to Stormtroopers stopping me anytime they saw me in the hangar to see my orders. Thankfully my new promotion apparently put me high enough in rank to make things easier. Now I just had to hope that luck kept up.

I only went a short ways down the length of the hangar before turning and walking up to one of the large storage rooms. After double checking that I was out of the Stormtroopers line of sight, I popped the control panel for the room off the wall and started pulling the connections for the inside panel then put the panel in place.

Once I had it back in position I walked into the closet, leaving the door open as I emptied everything out of my pockets onto a small table in the room. A lightly used deck of cards, a small book on Hyperspace Lanes and How to Traverse Them which I had read about six times and knew well it enough it only hurt a little bit to leave behind, and a mostly empty notebook. On the first page I had written a small note apologizing, just in case this worked.

Setting the communications jammer to one side I took a deep breath. I needed to make this look convincing. So, I walked up to one of the shelves with miscellaneous ship parts, turned my back to it, then threw myself full force against the shelf. I slammed into it with a loud crash, parts and tools falling to the ground and onto me as the wall shook, including a can of fuel which drenched my shoulder.

This probably would have been enough, but I needed to be sure, so I took a step forward and threw myself back again with similar results. This time no fuel spilled on me, but a plasma torch did land directly on my head, knocking my Officer's hat askew.

With that I grabbed the jammer from the table and stumbled out of the closet, not having to fake my dizziness as the torch had actually really rocked me, and closed the door behind me.

"Stormtroopers!" I shouted, though it appeared to have been unnecessary as the four of them had already started making their way towards me, weapons at the ready. At first I thought they weren't buying it, then I realized their weapons were aimed behind me, and one was approaching me.

"Are you alright sir?" he asked, his voice projecting through his helmet speakers.

"There was a stowaway," I said, pointing at the maintenance closet. "They tried to attack me when I walked near the room, but I fended them off."

The Stormtrooper nodded. "Stay back sir, we'll handle this."

I nodded and moved to the end of their formation. "I don't have weapon, but I'll stay on rear guard in case there are more of them."

"Roger that sir," he said then the four of them moved in formation towards the small room.

Say what you want about Stormtroopers, they are very well trained and know how to move as a unit. Luckily I had received the same training, so I knew how this was going to go. Just as I had planned it they stacked up to one side of the door, and with a quick countdown communicated through their helmet comms, they moved. The lead man pressed the door button, and the four of them rushed into the room, fanning out with weapons at the ready.

They scanned the room, their weapons following their eyes until they all heard a loud ding-dong. All of them turned back to the door at the sound to see me standing there with a very embarrassed smile on my face as I had hit the doorbell button instead of the door control and barely managed to press the button in time to keep the rear-guard from grabbing me.

The door slammed in their face and one of them started banging on the door as I pressed the activation button on my jammer and set it against the door before pulling the panel back off and carefully removing the rest of the wires so it would take time to free them.

With them trapped I ran back to collect my bag then hurried over to the hangar door. Opening the panel below the control pad, I was easily able to plug in and find the alert routine. Once I had it isolated it was easy to set up a flicker in the system for approximately thirty seconds every two minutes.

I checked the time then finally started scanning the ships. As I did though I felt my stomach drop. The entire hangar was filled with TIE/LNs. I felt dread growing in the pit of my stomach as I ran down half the line. There wasn't a single T-4a Shuttle. It would have been hard to break any of them out, but there weren't even any to try. I had never seen them in this style of rotation. Had they expect someone to try this and moved them out to prevent it?

Rounding the bend of the hangar I ran down the other side, my despair growing the more TIE/LNs I saw. There weren't even any TIE/INs.

Finally, I slowed as I reached the final bay, the shadow already telling me it was a TIE before it came into view. When I finally rounded the bend to see the ship I froze in place. It was a dark red TIE/IN. The Royal Guards TIE/IN. While it looked like a standard TIE/IN save for the red paintjob, there were a few very important differences. For the most part TIE/IN were just faster, better armed TIE/LNs, however the Royal Guards ships were even faster, and were also equipped with their own shield generator and a hyperdrive.

Looking to the far side of the ship it saw that whoever locked it up was unaware of these upgrades as the ship was just docked like a normal TIE/LN. It was sitting there, easy pickings… however if I stole this ship I was guaranteeing the Royal Guard would eventually hunt me down and break every bone in my body if he survived. Not just the major ones either, like even the small bones in my hands and skull.

I wanted to abandon it. I even went so far as to turn around and do a double take of the room to make sure I had not missed anything. I had not, meaning it was decision time. Turn myself in and be executed, take a TIE/LN and probably starve to death in deep space, or take the Royal Guards TIE/IN and likely face extreme consequences if they survived fighting the New Republic.

I wish I could say it was an easy choice, but sometimes I question which decision I would have made if I was not slightly concussed when I decided to board that dark red TIE/IN.

The interior of the ship felt like any other TIE/IN, just a little more spacious. "This is insane," I said aloud to myself as locked the door behind me. I sat down, adjusted the seat, then slipped on the pilot helmet. "I'm going to die. This isn't going to work."

Despite my words I began the startup sequence and slowly increased the lift of the ship until it was floating just above the landing platform. I checked my clock, and the next flicker would be in sixty seconds. Maneuvering myself into position I took a deep breath as I thought back over the plan.

There was only one last hurdle I needed to get over, and there was only one real solution to it. If the sensor system saw me, it was game over. The only way to avoid it was to be in a stealth ship, or to turn off every system in the ship as I exited the dreadnought. If the sensor operator was paying super close attention, or if I was too slow they'd easily blow me up or pull me back in with the tractor beams.

My heart was beating so hard that it shook my entire body. I wanted to throw up but if I did in my helmet I might asphyxiate. I counted down the last few seconds until the flicker began, my hands shaking on the control stick, but I was already beyond the point of no return.

Finally my count hit zero and I flew the ship out of the hangar into the darkness of deep space.