Cassie's Tale
- 3 -
Two days later, as the Gallant Venture soared through hyperspace on its way into the Core Worlds, Cassie began wondering if she should have turned the job down. While the danger had so far failed to materialize, the headaches had mounted rather quickly.
The Venture and her crew were not the problem, quite the contrary. The liner belonged to a passenger cartel which ran several such ships, and was more than used to accommodating private security arrangements. Indeed, Cassie had been introduced to the heads of five other security teams aboard, each guarding a different person or group. Space had been made available for her fighter, and the fighter had even been hooked up to the liner's umbilicals, allowing her to conserve her limited resources.
Even the other passengers and security were no problem. The other security types were more than happy to have a Jedi aboard, all of them assuming that she was someone they could all trust to be neutral. The passengers, for the most part, were content to treat her with the deep respect shown to most Jedi, or ignore her presence entirely, depending on their personal prejudices.
The problem was her charge. Prince Hanjin Tobin Ud Lars, firstborn and heir of King Rikos III of the Minari Confederacy, was a royal pain. He had apparently decided that, since he was returning to school after a month long holiday, he had condense as much partying and celebration into his remaining free time as possible. That she could have dealt with. The liner included a small casino, several lounges, theaters and clubs, which Hanjin was determined to sample each of them. Even that would not have been bad. Annoying, but deal-able.
What made the situation unbearable was the Prince's attitude towards her. He had come aboard with a valet and small escort from the palace, as well as Lord Shudin. Shudin introduced the two of them, and then departed with the escort. While the Prince's valet settled his (rather substantial) baggage in the suite reserved for them, the Prince apparently decided Cassie was a type escort other than a bodyguard.
"So, Cassie," he said, leaning over the arm of his chair to study her closely, a confident smile plastered over his too-handsome young face, "I was thinking of taking a swim. Care to join me? I understand there are private pools all over the ship..."
Cassie had settled for shaking her head, then replied, "The proper form of address is 'Jedi Lorus', Prince. If you wish to swim, feel free. I will remain on duty."
He had just laughed, and things had gone down hill from there. It took her a day to convince him she had been hired solely as security, and not as more entertainment. Even then, she had come close to pining him to a wall with the Force, before he gave up. At which time, her situation had become more difficult – Prince Hanjin took to avoiding her. He seemed to think it was some sort of game, getting away from her and forcing her to hunt him down. The Gallant Venture was a large ship, if not space-station sized, and provided plenty of spaces to hide, even if you were determined to simultaneously have a wild time.
She was on another such hunt at present. The Prince had lost her in one of the casinos by the simple expedient of going to the bathroom, then ducking through the maintenance systems. Now, she was tracking him by the equally simple expedient of having her droid, Ace, track the marker she had placed in his pocket when they left the suite that morning. Rather than parade her mistake in front of the entire crew, she was following the staff passageways herself, towards the private club in the bow where he was currently debauching himself.
It was down one such corridor that she received her first warning of trouble. A figure in worn ship's coverall ducking into a side corridor. What caught her eyes were the goggles, and the tattoo on his shaven head, of a star fighter. It clicked immediately, as did the fact that no luxury liner would hire a tramp free-spacer like him, not and let him wander around with his own ship-suit.
She reached the hatch he vanished into, just in time to feel the ship lurch slightly. It wasn't something most of the passengers would have noticed, but Cassie was fairly sure she'd been born aboard ship, and the feel of a ship leaving hyperspace was quite distinct to her. She lurched, and for a moment her mind froze. They were still days out of Coruscant, and that was the Gallant Venture's only stop. She stood there for a moment, and then a sharp jab of fear hit her, and she remembered Hanjin. Whatever was going on, she had to keep Hanjin out of it.
She kept to the staff corridors. Without the main corridors' need to keep the passengers entertained and aware of their own wealth, the staff corridors were both less cluttered, and more direct. She charged into the club just as the first alarm sounded, two minutes later. Silently, she thanked the Force for that favor, as the crowd was only just starting to panic when she reached Hanjin.
He looked at her in surprise when she grabbed his shoulder, hauling his attention away from the emergency flasher which had appeared in the ceiling. "Cass! What's going on?"
"Not our concern," she answered, "We're leaving." A quick visual check assured her that he was intact and decently attired, and then she hauled him behind her.
Hanjin cried out in surprise, probably not expecting someone as small as Cassie to be that strong, but managed to twist his way clear. "What? Leave? But Cass, the party's still going strong!"
She stopped when he got clear, turning to look at him, then sighed heavily. Reaching up, she grabbed his ear and twisted, bringing his head down to her own, ignoring his hissed protest. Whispering harshly, she snarled, "The ship dropped out of hyper a couple minutes ago, at least a day early. Those alarms mean someone's attacking the ship. That means that in about five minutes the entire population of this ship is going to panic. We have until then to get as close to the hanger deck as possible. After that, things are going to get messy. Now follow me, shut up, and run when I tell you."
She turned, relinquishing her grip on his ear only to grab the first article of clothing to come in reach. Unfortunately for her dignity, that proved to be his belt. Ignoring the catcalls from his friends, especially those referring to her child-like size, she hauled the still protesting prince out of the club, back into the crew passages. Once there, she saw the first sign of panic as a crewmen ran past with his arms full of a medical package and a bag full of his personal belongings.
She ignored the crewman to continue on. Reaching within her, she called upon the energies of the universe and felt the Force answer her call. Her body grew lighter, and she could almost see the lines or probability stretching out ahead of her. Something out there tugged at her senses, a distortion, but after a quick determination that it was far away and unlikely to involve her or her charge, she ignored it completely.
They made it halfway to the hanger, with the Captain's broadcast request to 'please remain calm' behind them, before she found a problem she could not avoid. Where the staff corridors crossed primaries, they could see clear signs of others ignoring that warning, and after the first sight of wealthy fellow passengers fleeing down a passage, Hanjin ceased his own complaints, and she no longer had to haul him behind her.
She found herself with a choice. She came to a junction with the main corridors, and knew that if she followed them, she would have to risk the confusion therein. But down the service corridor, she knew trouble awaited her. The ship had shuddered a minute before, and the call had gone out announcing boarders, along with the Captain's admission of surrender. She knew that, either way, she would have to fight her way through the boarders. The question was, which way would be easier.
Hanjin decided her. Leaning over her in the corridor entrance, while she studied both passages, he jerked his chin at the service hatch across the way. "There's a shortcut to the hanger down that corridor. Hundred meters on, there's a ventilation main. It leads to the hanger, another forty, fifty meters down. I found it last night with Miga, when we went to the..." he actually blushed, then concluded, "ah, never mind. Shortcut, like I said."
"Good enough," she muttered, "stay behind me." She pulled her light-saber, but left it dark. All the better to surprise whatever trouble they ran into.
Trouble proved to be a pair of boarders. Fitted out in armored pressure suits and helmets, she couldn't tell what race or type they were, only that they were armed, not in the ship's pretty security uniforms, and swirled about with the dark energies she associated with pirates. They came out of a maintenance closet, and started down the corridor away from Cassie and her charge. To her surprise, it was not Hanjin that gave them away, as he became even more silent behind her.
It was the snap-hiss of her light-saber igniting, surprising her almost as much as them, which drew their attention. The green blade flashed up between her and them as they turned, and she charged. Both fired before she covered the distance, one shot going wide, the other bouncing off her light-saber as she twirled it before her. The chaotic swirl of light preceded her, the blade moving so fast it seemed to flicker through various positions around her. The two boarders were as confused by the light-saber's rapid motion, and the suddenness of the attack.
Her rapid assault drove the two against each other. One managed a second shot, as she cut down his partner, but the shot deflected off her blade before she sliced his rifle in half. He followed his partner momentarily, and she shut off her light-saber before she even finished the stroke. For a moment, she could only stand there, surprised by her own ferocity.
Hanjin brought her back to reality, pushing past her, said, "Okay, now I believe you're a Jedi." He grabbed the intact rifle from one pirate, and continued, "Still, I'm surprised. Aren't you guys supposed to be all chivalrous and friendly, asking for surrender and whatnot?"
"We are," Cassie answered, shaking off the last of her surprise, "but I don't like pirates. Personal reasons. Let's keep moving."
She stepped past the bodies, putting them from her mind for the moment. Later, she would have time to analyze the whole scenario, and determine why she hadn't sought a safer course. Jedi or not, one miscalculation on her part, and one good shot could have ruined her entire mission, and it was not like her to simply attack, even with pirates.
By the time they reached the ventilation cross-over, she had steadied herself back down. She was calm enough, even, to avoid the temptation to simply cut her way into the shaft. Rather, she took a little extra time, with Hanjin fidgeting beside her, to remove the locking pins with her pocket multi-tool, and once they were in the ventilation ducts, the pirates' bodies with them, she replaced the grillwork and spent even more time, and precious personal resources, to set all four pins back in place, floating them on the force until they were seated firmly enough to pass casual inspection.
The ventilation tunnel was small, cramped, and unlit. For Cassie, they were a reminder of her childhood, on a world she never bothered learning the name of, living the life of a nameless orphan. For Hanjin, with his larger size and more comfortable upbringing, they were apparently much worse. She could sense his discomfort and nervous tension easily, the entire distance, and was forced to block the shaft to prevent him from lunging out the grill when they finally reached the hanger.
"Hold on a minute," she ordered. She looked him over, wishing Master Lorus had been able to teach her more of how to calm others with the Force, before his death. "There will be pirates in the hanger bay, unless this bunch is terminally stupid. Possible, but not likely. The transition wasn't rough enough for an artificial gravity-well generator to have dragged the Venture out of hyper, which means someone high up in the crew played some games with her navicomp. That means skilled, experienced, and patient pirates. Thorough pirates."
"Probably not pirates," Hanjin countered. "Even if they're not after me, they have to be after something specific aboard this ship. The Indrallian Cartel has always made a point of how safe their liners are, partly because they have a habit of paying ridiculously large bounties on anyone who attacks one. These guys are playing with fire, even if they kill the whole crew and all the passengers. Not something most pirates go in for, I shouldn't think."
"Bright boy," Cassie replied, "and they are after you. A feeling, but a strong one. So, there'll be guards on the hanger deck. Probably at each hatch and, given how crowded it was, wandering about. They may settle for security droids, but don't bet on it. So, you are going to wait here, Prince, for my signal. I'm going to go out, take a look, and see if I can get Ace to spin up the Dancer. You don't come out until I physically come and get you."
Hanjin was affronted, obviously, "but I can help. I'm no marksman, but I'm a good enough shot for this scum."
"And I'm not going out there to fight. It's a good way to get both of us killed. Now stay here until I come to get you."
He looked rebellious, but nodded, "Yes ma'am."
She considered continuing, but settled for nodding. Here, she didn't have the option of removing the locking pins, they were outside the grill, and she didn't have enough reserves to exert the force necessary to remove them solely with the Force. So she opted for her light-saber, this time. She scanned, as best she could, the area near the grate, looking for observers. As near as she could tell, the closest hatch was thirty meters to her left, and there was a fair sized personal shuttle parked just in front of the grate. After a few moments she decided it was enough cover, and, using the barest tip of the light-saber, cut the grill away from the duct. It almost fell to the deck, but she caught in a mental grip, and set it lightly down.
Once through, she wedged it loosely back in place, then ghosted over beneath the shuttle. It was fair sized, but even she had to crouch to move beneath it, crawling her way to the forward landing strut. There, she found a relatively unobstructed view of the two-hundred meter expanse of the hanger deck, and scanned it.
Hanging from the ceiling were the liner's ostensible defense fighters. Small, one-man craft, they were quite obviously fast, maneuverable, and mostly psychological reassurance. Several more shuttles were parked out of the way against the hanger's walls, all obviously civilian designs, including one flamboyantly decorated private yacht. The blue warning lights of the hanger's atmosphere shields glowed around the two launch windows, one at each side of the hanger, and crouched in front of the starboard window was the ugly bulk of an assault boat. Parked fifty meters to her right, the Venture's port, was the Spiral Dancer, with another shuttle between her and it. She could see the hulking mass of the after hull over the sleek civilian craft, and the sight reassured her no end.
It took her another few minutes to sneak her way over to the Dancer. There were two pirates patrolling the hanger deck, walking a leisurely course past the various craft, and she took pains to keep out of their sight. They were more interested in comparing the various ships, from the sound and the attention they gave the ships, paying more attention to their prizes than to their jobs. There did not appear to be a guard at the aft hatch, however she could not get a clear view, and reaching the Dancer took her further from the hatch.
She crawled underneath the civilian speed-boat between her and her fighter, and took a few moments to study it. The huge double-wedge of the after hull, holding power-plant, engines, missiles and most of the sensors, towered over her current hiding place, but none of the maintenance hatches were open. The dual-cockpit control module, looking vaguely saurian with its blunt sloping form, was similarly sealed, and plugged in to the base of that she could see the truncated cone of Ace, currently quiescent and immobile.
After reassuring herself that the pirates hadn't touched her fighter, she reached into another pocket and gently tapped a button on the droid-caller she carried. Ace immediately blinked to life, whooping once loudly, then trailing off in a series of indignant beeps, its head spinning this way and that. Cassie hissed, and punched another button, "quiet, you stupid hunk of tin." The droid fell silent, and she pressed herself into the landing strut, making her already small form as compact as possible, willing the pirates not to notice her.
One of the two came over, wandering down the line of parked ships. It took him a pass to determine what the noise had been, and then he shouted down the line, "Oi! 's a droid, up inna junk-heap fighta." Cassie felt a flair of indignation at that, but suppressed it ruthlessly. "What a' we gonna do wi' it?"
The answer was unintelligible, thanks to a combination of accent and distance, but it was clearly a dismissive comment. The pirate near her precious fighter laughed harshly, then strolled back down the flight line, studying the other, more expensive craft with an avaricious eye. Cassie waited until he was out of sight and sound, then relaxed, slightly, and glared at Ace. "Stupid machine," she muttered, then pulled out the remote. She had hoped to be able to whisper commands to it, but now she wasn't willing to risk it, with the guards alerted once. Instead, she took the time to laboriously enter the commands via the remote, ordering the droid to bring the ship's internal systems on-line, and pre-light the engines.
While the droid took care of those processes, she slipped back to the grill. It was a moment's work to get herself back in the relative safety of the air duct. To her surprise, Hanjin was still crouched where she had left him. "Good," she whispered. "There are two guards, but they're more interested in looking over their potential loot than standing guard."
"What was that siren?"
Cassie grimaced, "My idiot droid. I keep trying to program it to wake up silently, but it persists in announcing itself. It's getting the ship warmed up now, but I'm going to have to disconnect the umbilicals myself, and I don't want to spin up the engines until we're safely aboard. Now, the trick is going to be getting you there and into the front seat without anyone noticing. Don't worry, you won't break anything, the controls up there are disabled. I've had occasion to carry dangerous types aboard, and the Dancer doesn't have a cargo bay anymore. She's third ship down the line, to your right as you exit the vent. I'll go first, check the area again, then you come out and head for the ship while I keep watch. Stay between the shuttles and the bulkhead, stay down. Don't try to climb aboard. Ace'll scream bloody murder, and that'll blow our secrecy."
"Got it. Right side out of the grate, two ship's down, wait for you before I touch anything."
Cassie nodded, then turned and left the duct again. A quick, crouched scan showed her no one in the area, and she waved Hanjin forward. He came out, noisier than she, but credibly quiet. He went to replace the grate, but she tapped his shoulder and shook her head, so he set it down again, quietly, and moved out. Cassie, for her part, checked the area she could see again, then followed.
The ladder built into the back of the Dancer was, like its twin on the port fore side, unusual, in a cramped star fighter, but one of the small features which she loved about her fighter. At eight meters, the two engine pods were too tall for anyone to perform ground-maintenance, yet the ladders allowed her access to the whole ship fairly easily. Now, she used the aft ladder to climb up and over, hidden from view of anyone on the deck by the bulk of the fighter's port-side pod. Once there, she whispered a few quick commands to Ace before returning to the Venture's deck.
"Right, Ace'll let you past," she whispered to Hanjin. "Crawl along the top of the ship, it'll hide you from view. Stay to the right. There's a ledge along the turn of the cockpit hull. That'll get you to the hatch. Get in, climb into the front seat, make yourself as small and still as possible, and wait for me."
Hanjin nodded, and she ducked under the fighter while he started climbing. The one problem with maintaining the Gunstar was the sheer number of umbilical attachments. It was a big ship, with a bigger ship's appetite, and the access panels and ports were inconveniently far apart. Fortunately, she was small enough to maneuver under the ship without much trouble. It still took her several minutes to disengage all the umbilicals without nosily dropping the connector-heads.
Finally, she slipped out behind the Dancer, climbed over the top, and took a moment to check the deck again. The two guards she had spotted before were still at the far end, now standing on a shuttle to inspect the Venture's fighters. They were more impressed with them than she was, judging by the expansive gestures and nodding heads. Satisfied that they weren't paying any attention, she crawled down the ship and found the hatch open and waiting.
She swung in, landing in the over-sized acceleration couch with a thud, and her eyes ran over the status read-outs while she reached behind her for the helmet racked there. "Hanjin," she said, "there should be a helmet behind your seat."
"Already got it," he answered, sounding rather more stressed than he had a moment ago, "Nothing's on, though!"
Idiot, she thought to herself. "I told you, the controls up there are disabled. Put the helmet on, and stay down. The Dancer's armored to a fair-thee-well, but you can still get flash-blinded." She was stabbing buttons while she talked, and behind her the shrill whine of the ion engines and repulsor-lift systems began spiraling up, while the hatch sealed beside her with a soft whuff of displaced air. "Strap in, too. Thing's are going to get interesting, now," she finished under her breath, "unless the Force is really against you."
Ace had brought most of the systems on-line, but they still required pilot interface to do anything other than idle, an old fashioned approach she approved of. She pulled the monocle atop her helmet down, centered its cross-hairs on the small one painted on the starboard frame of the cockpit, and calibrated the gun sight. While she was doing that, her free hand flew over the control panel, and the Spiral Dancer rose slightly.
She heard a shout, through the external pickups, and spun her head to look. The two 'guards' were now running down the flight deck, blasters drawn. A quick mental calculation, and she grinned. My Baby's waking up, she thought to herself, and her guns should be hot just about...
Before she finished the thought, the belly-turret beneath her whined to life. The twin cannons dropped into ready, and then the entire assembly spun, viper-quick, to bear with her monocle, right on the lead pirate. She didn't even notice the ready chime, but her finger tightened on the trigger, and the hanger was lit by green back-scatter as the dual-cannon went to full-auto.
She felt the ship rise on its repulsor-lift a moment later, and that indefinable sense of utter freedom she loved came with the motion. Light touches on the controls slid the Dancer forward, and spun it horizontally to face the pirate assault boat, almost as quickly as the turret had moved. As she had half-expected, it was manned and ready, and someone over there was more serious than the two 'patrolling' the deck. But they were still moving with the slowed reactions of surprise, and her laser lit up the assault-boat's cockpit.
As the Dancer's bow came around, the sensors in the four missiles readied in their tubes caught sight of a hostile target, and the rapid sound of their tracking system sounded in Cassie's ear. She ignored it and, as soon as the bow was roughly in-line, her thumb hit and held the upper trigger. Four concussion missiles spat from their tubes at the wing-roots in a ripple-fire, backlighting the cockpit brightly enough to trigger its auto-polarizing feature.
She didn't wait for the impacts, either. While her right hand dealt with the missiles, her left latched onto the quad-throttles, punched the activation for full baffles, and rammed the throttles to the stops. The last missile cleared the tube and Cassie grunted in reaction as a horse kicked her in the chest. Three gravities of acceleration slammed her forward against her harness, and behind her she heard a strangled cry as Hanjin, unprepared and untrained for the sudden maneuver, was slammed about by the same forces.
She watched, as the Spiral Dancer screamed backwards out the Gallant Venture's port hanger bay, and saw three of the four missiles strike the assault boat. Its shields were not up, but it was designed for heavy combat, to take and absorb damage. The small warheads on her missiles, adequate for fighters, were insufficient to destroy the assault boat outright. However, the cumulative blast picked up the massive ship, and blasted it out the starboard hanger, holed and out of control, and as thoroughly out of the fight as she could have wished for.
The Spiral Dancer shot away from the Gallant Venture for a few seconds, Cassie relying on surprise and the raw power of the engines to get clear of ship. Then she flipped the fighter end for end, releasing the baffles at the same time. The sudden changes in acceleration caused the ship to shake and slide for a second, but she anticipated the changes with the skill of practice and natural talent, riding the ragged edge of controlled flight. The fighter settled back down on a straight course, and she immediately had to begin evasive maneuvers again, as a hail of weapons-fire came her way.
A frantic beeping from Ace caught a fragment of her attention as she maneuvered, and she snapped back, "Yes, Ace, I am fully aware of the heavy cruiser at two klicks! You just concentrate on plotting me a hyper jump!"
She jinked the Dancer through a sliding 'S' turn, noting the pair of fighters now trying to close with her. Again, part of her attention remained on Ace's screen, which came rapidly on the heels of her comment. She grinned at the droid's comment, and snarled back, "No, you blood-thirsty chunk of plastic, we are not going to attack the massively armed capitol ship."
Ace's reply was overshadowed by a strangled voice ahead of her, "Then why are we heading right towards it!"
The cruiser was, indeed, almost directly ahead of the fighter. Another part of her fractured attention was absorbed cataloguing its identifying features, especially the paint scheme and symbols. Mostly, however, she was trying to anticipate and avoid its guns. Another part of her mind was busy balancing the various power levels in the ship, trying to bring her shields up faster without loosing thrust in the engines. Yet more of her attention was taken by the two pairs of fighters maneuvering to intercept. So the only answer she could come up with was one of her Master's favorite sayings, one she had long ago made her motto, "Ride the Whirlwind, and make its essence your own."
Then she was too busy to pay attention to Hanjin any longer. The Dancer was close enough now, that the cruiser was trying to hit her with a tractor beam, and she barely avoided the first. A flash of inspiration, a touch of outside guidance, and she set the fighter spinning about its long axis, aimed right for the cruiser's bridge. She held it there, pouring on the full power of four massive engines, the broke to the side at the last possible second, wrenching the fighter around in a hard climbing turn. No longer spinning, she kept the cruiser beneath her and raced down its length, firing every laser she had into the massively armored warship, to add to the general confusion.
The Dancer screamed past the cruiser's quiescent engines, barreling out into open space. Fire slackened as the majority of its guns lost bore, and the raw power of the engines opened the range to the fighters. Seconds later, Ace flashed up a valid jump, and Cassie lunged forward to pull the hyper throttles, without even looking at where it would take them. With a flicker of motion, the heavy fighter vanished into hyperspace, beyond the pirates' reach.