Part One:
Terrorists and Rebels
Corran Horn maneuvered his modified Z-95 Headhunter gracefully over the Corellian Ocean's coastline.
The small ship, an older design similar to the Incom T-65 X-Wing, proved useful for many operations, though less formidable than the X-Wing. And cheaper.
The ships Corran and his flight were flying were heavily modified; sockets for Astromechs and advanced targeting systems weren't standard with the Headhunter.
Today, Gil Bastra, Corran Horn, and Iella Wesseri were hunting "terrorists", who also supposedly traffic the spice glitterism- a standard day at the office.
"Hunter one, spearpoint one. Surface contacts mark three-nine," remarked Horn over his commlink. Hunter flight, commanded by Gil Bastra, was tasked with finding the antagonists, a couple terrorists in a skiff running for the eastern shores of the Corellian Ocean.
Corran looked out over the daytime horizon, trying to make out any possible visual identification of the contacts. The young cop was brought back from his visual awarness when Gil chimed in on the mission's encrypted frequency.
"Roger that, spearpoint one. Already on the way there. Request target info, spearpoint one," said Bastra through his comlink. His flight soared over the coastline in a tight formation, also hunting down the enemies.
"Roger that hunter one. Feeding you the data," answered Corran. "Whistler, upload the data to Gil's astromech."
A few whistles and beeps later, Gil Bastra was recieving the target coordinates.
"Spearpoint flight, proceed to the target area and provide fire."
"Roger that Hunter one. Proceeding to target." Corran pulled his Z-95 hard to starboard, his flight following him in the maneuver, to follow this surface target. The hunt was on.
***
Iella Wesseri unloaded her landspeeder near a rented water skiff. On a beautiful Corellian Summer day, a woman taking a rec skiff onto the water would not attract any attention at all. In fact, the shores were quite crowed this day in particular.
With the "reacreational supplies" (blasters, sensor equipment) on her vehicle, she sped off towards the horizon.
***
Nearing the target area, Corran Horn issued another order to spearpoint flight. "Tighten up, flight. Three, on me. Two and four- on each other's wing. Two and four take the skiff to the north, we'll take the southern one."
Spearpoint three fell into formation on Corran's port wing. Four followed suit, but on Spearpoint Two's wing.
The Z-95s dove close to the sloshing waves of Corellia. At around 150 feet above the surface, they closed in on the target areas. Water sparkled and gleamed in the sunlight, and a small flock of birds skimmed the surface, looking for fish. They dove in unison and disappeared momentarily beneath the water, ending the distraction.
Sighting the boats, the cops' awareness level rose dramatically, and adrenaline pumped.
"Lead, three. Permission to blast glit biters into oblivion?"
"Permission granted, three," replied Horn grimly.
***
Iella's sensors picked up multiple surface contacts. Taking a gamble at who they were, she sped towards the fight, feeding target data into her small, relatively low-powered turbolasers.
***
"Lead, two. I have a new contact, six klicks northeast and closing fast," said one of the pilots nervously, obviously sweating the hypothetical encounter out.
Corran pondered this. Iella? "Three, DO NOT fire. Repeat DO NOT fire at unkown contact, spearpoint flight."
Staying steady on their course, the four Headhunters kept their flight path constant, rapidly speeding towards the "terrorists".
***
Iella closed in, blaster charging. Sighting the criminals, she drew her blaster and accelerated.
Within seconds, she was there. Slow, but heavily powered lasers shot at her in sequence, taking time to recharge. One bolt barely missed the woman's head, leaving a hot space of burned atmosphere. Iella took this break to ram the first skiff.
Contacting Corran on her comlink, she commanded "Spearpoint flight, I've got the northern one right now. Soften up the other."
"Will do," was the reply that came from Horn's mouth, ready to do whatever it takes to mantain order on his homeworld, Corellia.
---------------------------------------------
Sithspit that was stupid. A rec hoverskiff against a fully armed one. Only chance I have is to take out the repulsors. Metal clanged on metal as the criminal's skiff was rammed back a few meters suddenly. Now damaged plates of armor twisted and crunched at the impact.
Blaster fire rung out it's deadly, eerie music on the skiff's hull, as Iella drew her own weapon and took aim. Squeezing the trigger, a bolt of pure energy left the device, heading straight for the opposing craft. It hit with deadly accuracy. With a florescent plume, the criminal's vehicle burst into flames at the stern.
Must have gotten lucky and hit a fuel line.
The first man jumped off the skiff with a yell, plunging deep below the greenish-blue sea, or as pilots called it, the Drink. Iella never saw him come back up.
"Spearpoint flight, a little assistance please," Wesseri requested nervously. Sweat dripped from her hand as she took cover behind a piece of equipment. Seconds later, the sensor burst into flames right where the CorSec officer was, once again missing closely when Iella sought different shelter from the rain of fire.
The other terrorist brought what was left of the battered vehicle over towards the recreational skiff. Jumping on, the criminal made his way over to Iella. He picked up a piece of the sensor's remains, and swung it at her, missing by a small margin. Then, forcefully grabbing Wesseri's weapon, he target his own vehicle and pulled the trigger.
A scarlet burst of flame erupted and the enemy craft sunk beneath the water, descending to the murky depths of the ocean.
The terrorist jabbed at Iella, but found air with his fists. She had moved to the side to counter. With a hard punch, the agressor fell to the ground.
Quickly, Iella took the moment to pick her taken blaster back up, and aimed it at the man. "Sir, you're under arrest for-"
She never finished. The man cried out, "You'll never find us all!" as he shot his own blaster at himself. His own blaster bolt hit him hard, knocking him off the deck of the ship.
Sith, why do people do this stuff? No one may ever know.
Instantaneously, it seemed, blaster bolts from the CorSec Z-95s sliced throught the other craft, destroying it outright.
*************
Hours later, Corran, Iella, and Gil Bastra sat in a tapcaf on Corellia's shores at sunset- a beautiful site indeed.
"They must have been hiding something... he didn't just shoot himself and destroy his craft for nothing," remarked Horn.
"Yeah, but we don't know. He might have been trying to lead us away from the real evidence," Bastra replied.
Iella put in her two credits. "It's worth a look down there, he scuttled the craft in some relatively shallow water."
Corran answered, "Definitely. If we don't find anything, then we've wasted a measly three hours, and if we do then it's worthwile."
With a thoughtful look on his face, Gil remarked, "Agreed. Tomorrow, we take the subswoops and take a look."
---------------------------------------------
CorSec's CorOcean division was situated on the coast. With picturesque waves, birds, native mammals, and a bright sun, it was the perfect scene for relaxition, recreation, fun...
Not terrorism. But that's what it was the scene for.
"Sithspit... we have six more incoming contacts seven klicks out..." Corran Horn groaned.
"Come on, this shouldn't be that tough for a fly boy cop like yourself," Iella remarked.
"True..." said Gil Bastra as he strode in quickly. "Come on people, lets move. Get the subswoops and go. Techs have 'em loaded out with torps."
Corran and Iella ran for the equipment room to get wet suits and gear.
***
Passing through smooth currents of water, Corran and Iella's machines made a soft cavitating noise. Their subswoops, much like swoop bikes for underwater purposes and with a single torpedo launcher, sped along at a good clip, hopefully fast enough to catch up with the terrorists.
***
Gil Bastra stood on the bridge of the Corellian Justice, overseeing the operation. This ship was a light craft, with bow and stern turbolaser batteries, plus other artillery. The surface vehicle moved extremely fast, even with the multiple guns weighing it down.
Running into the sensor room, Bastra took a look at a monitor. Brining up the display of a small dot, he ran back up on deck, grabbing a pair of macrobinoculars hastily.
Holding them at his eyes, he fixed the lenses out over the horizion. Grabbing the comlink quickly, he said into the device, "Spearpoint group, proceed to mark one-three-niner. Repeat, one-three-niner."
"Copy that, Hunter one," came the staticy reply.
***
Forcing the accelerator pedals all the way down, the underwater propellor system created more and more power, steadily increasing Corran's speed.
Minutes later, the two sub swoops spotted the enemy surface vessels.
Using a hand gesture, Iella gave the "engines off" signal, and they two CorSec employees shut off their props. Iella gave the "fire and make your shot count" signal, and all hell broke loose.
***
On the deck of the Corellian Justice guns blazed red-hot beams of energy back and forth between the two ships. The enemy craft's aft section started burning when the Justice took a severe hit to the bridge, engulfing several gunners in flame.
Officers worked diligently at getting target data, while Gil Bastra maneuvered the ship, trying to get a better target angle than his opponent in this real-time game of chess. Suddenly, two blue streaks shot from underneath the water, and the terrorist ship's entire stern erupted into a plume of flame. With cavitating now being picked up on sonar, Gil knew Corran and Iella hit their targets.
"Spearpoint flight, get the sith outta there," Bastra commanded.
"Happy to oblige, Hunter one," came Corran's voice, as the two subswoops rose to the surface and sped away. Drawing their blasters, the two CorSec agents took a few final shots at the enemy ship.
***
10 minutes later...
***
The remains of the Corellian Justice plunged below the Corellian Ocean's fickle waves, bringing equipment, turbolasers, survival tools, etc. with it. Gil Bastra floated helplessly in the water, concerned about his crew's state and what was to become of him.
He thought he found his answer when three armed terrorists drifted towards him.
---------------------------------------------
The troops, blasters raised, floated closer to Gil Bastra. Pointing their weapons at the CorSec officer, one stated, "Rebel Alliance troops. Identify yourself."
Startled by this new revelation, Gil answered, "Cri'skran Lirkia. CorSec will get after you, Rebel scum."
"I think not," remarked one of the troops, placing his blaster right at Bastra's head, holding him at gunpoint.
"No one has to get hurt in this whole exchange... I have..." Bastra paused. "Influence in the government here."
"You're not in the position to bargain."
"Point taken."
"Why were you hunting us down, huh? Just an imp wannabe vigilante?" questioned the Rebel officer.
"Maybe. I just don't enjoy seeing terrorists try and stop law and order in the galaxy," answered Gil.
"Listen, pal, we're not terrorists. We're trying to take down your beloved Empire, the one that enforces tyranny everywhere, discrimination against non-humans, and countless war crimes and injustices. Got a problem?" he went on, angered at Bastra's comment. "You're coming with us."
***
"Where's the Justice?" was the question repeateadly asked among the local CorSec officers. The ship had misteriously disappeared and stopped transmitting an hour ago.
Corran Horn took action. "Iella, lets take some Z-95s and go look for him."
"Sure, just a sec," Iella remarked and ran off to retrieve gear for the flight.
Corran said, "Whistler, lets go. Run the preflight checks on Iella's and my headhunters."
***
An AT-AT Swimmer, a deadly, large, armored, and fast craft, sped quickly for the site of the Rebellion's battle with CorSec. Blaster cannons all fully charged and operational, they approached the sunken craft's personnell.
"Sir, Rebels on my scopes 30 degrees starboard," reported an officer.
"Very well. The Rebel Scum shall die on the spot."
***
"Do you hear something, Gra'skrryn?" asked the Rebel Commander.
The man Gra'skrryn answered, "yes... I believe it's a surface craft... proceeding this way."
A minute later, the AT-AT swimmer was spotted heading over the horizon, blasters all trained at the personnel.
"Sithspit."
*********************************************
---------------------------------------------
*********************************************