Alright, so this is a bit of a weird one. I wouldn't blame you if you waited for the next pilot/one-shot. You still here? Damn, you must be as crazy as me. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. We'll let whatever higher power there is judge that *laughs*.
I guess I've stalled long enough, "what is the new story?" I know you're asking. Well, this one comes from an idea that another fic here on the site brought up. Now, this particular fic is called "A New Frontier" by Rogue Pizza (id: 11452496) which is a Vandread/Titanfall crossover fic which I do recommend reading as it is quite interesting and it hasn't hit 100 followers yet so go on over and hit it up and give it some love. Now before you ask, no this will not be a crossover of the same properties as you can probably tell from the chapter header. No, this will be a Vandread/Star Wars crossover.
So how will I do this? I was doing a lot of thinking on this last night after I read the most recent chapter of that story and ideas ranged from a Rebellion/New Republic scout ship to an Imperial/Imperial Remnant scout ship both of which lost in space. Then I doubled back since I've done a few of these in the past in this repository alone. So I started thinking of other methods/ways I could make this work. And then I had an idea: why not make the characters from Star Wars all OCs and have them part of a smuggling crew inspired from Star Wars: The Old Republic but set in the time of the Rebellion? I personally thought that sounded a lot better than rehashing old characters I love in a bizarre adventure from an anime that I did find to be quite entertaining.
Rating: T+ - M for some ecchi scenes and possibly an eventual smut/lemon scene (but not in this pilot; if anything it might be towards the end of the story), violence, suggestive language (innuendos, etc.), and explicit language.
Disclaimer: I only own my copy of MS Word and my laptop. Star Wars belongs to Disney and Vandread belongs to Takashi Mori and Gonzo/Funimation. I only own OCs that originate from me. See the foreword for the full disclaimer.
XxXxXxX
"Talking."
'Thinking.'
"Radio communication."
XxXxXxX
The Intrepid Condor floated through space near the Maw Cluster, a series of black holes in a small space that would be considered unnatural that was also known commonly as The Maw. Everyone who ventured close enough always felt a chill run down their spines that made them want to get the hell out of there. But for smuggler Gavin Draydock, it was part of a dangerous stretch of space for smugglers known as the Kessel Run. In fact, there was a competition with smugglers to see how fast they could complete it. As odd as it sounded, the speed was recorded in distance because of the proximity to the black holes of the Maw distorted chronos making them unreliable, unlike distance which while distorted was still reliable. The current record is still held by smuggler employed by Jabba the Hutt, Han Solo with a total of just under 12 parsecs. Gavin really wanted to break that record that Han set well over a few years ago.
The Intrepid Condor is a YT-1300 light freighter, one of the Corellian Engineering Corporation's most successful designs that has a massive following and popularity due to its durability and customizability. Gavin's freighter was like many others of the series that existed out in the galaxy, but it also had many customized and borderline illegal modifications that many smugglers and bounty hunters made to their craft to give them an upper hand in different scenarios. For example, on the Condor it had upgraded sublight engines that gave it more maneuverability and base speed. He had just upgraded the main hyperdrive with a Class 0.6 generator that he found in a junkyard on Tatooine that took months and several months of trial and error to get it to work as he wanted it to. He, with help, even managed to figure out a way how to link the primary and emergency hyperdrives to perform a 'bug out' jump in the case of an extreme situation which would push the Class 0.6 to a Class 0.4 temporarily for one jump, but it had the likelihood that it would burn out either of the hyperdrives or both; so use was only recommended in a life or death situation.
One of the other things that he did was upgrade the blaster cannons so that they could hit harder against pirates that would target ships like his. The shields were also upgraded to the point where it could be considered to be the same strength of a frigate's shields; so it could take a beating as well as dish out one as well. The proton torpedo launchers had an expanded magazine, but he rarely had to fire a shot as the heavy anti-ship weapons were expensive and watched carefully by the Empire. If you weren't an Imperial or an Imperial contractor (see: bounty hunter on their dole) you were investigated.
The freighter shook as a blast barely missed the smaller ship's hull.
It was all supposed to be an easy transportation mission. Get some guns, take them to the other side, profit. But SOMEONE had to go and narc on them.
Another blast shook the freighter.
"Someone get on those guns!" Gavin shouted as he dodged another blast narrowly. "Those TIES will tear us to shreds if you can't get them off our back!"
"On it, Captain!" the voice of female Mandalorian Marlil Stocoff said as she left her co-pilot's chair. As she passed him she said, "Crazy Corellians."
"Nines, I want you on whatever gun port she doesn't take!" he shouted to a repaired CIS Commando droid.
It replied in a much deeper, "Roger, roger." It also left the cockpit.
Alarms blared throughout the cockpit as the gauge that detailed the status of the deflector shield depleted rapidly. He started hearing fire coming from his own ship, knowing that at least they were fighting the TIEs off.
"Gavin, we've got a destroyer coming quick up our ass!" Marlil said over comms.
Gavin looked out the cockpit and saw the Maw and had an insane idea. "Hold on to something and keep those TIEs off my back! I'm about to do something stupid!"
"What are you… you're not thinking of… you're insane!"
"That'd be just as crazy to follow us." Gavin maneuvered the freighter to head towards the closest he could get to the accretion disk of the closest black hole. The fighter followed, but even they knew what Gavin was going to do was borderline suicide. It didn't take long before the freighter reached the safest point where he could still easily maneuver out of the mass shadow well before it became impossible to escape.
"Master, they're still behind us, roger, roger," Nines stated.
"I'm working on it!" Gavin shouted back as he ran computations on the console next to him while flying in the turbulence that the gravity well created. He accelerated into the well and allowed it to swing the ship around. Once he passed the half-way point he pushed the sublight engines past their recommended specifications and accelerated out of the black hole's gravity well at absurd speeds that no ship should be able to without a hyperdrive. The Condit sped past the Star Destroyer that had stopped well outside the black hole's gravity well. Gavin then did something even more insane: he jumped blindly into hyperspace.
The blue tunneled dimension that was hyperspace managed to finally calm Gavin's frayed nerves. There weren't many thoughts in his head as he was to just be grateful that his gambit worked and that he was alive. He even started softly laughing like a maniac, which is what Marlil and Nines walked in on. "And so the Corellian has finally lost it," she remarked. "Then again, you would have to in order to think that slingshotting around a black hole was a good idea. Where are we heading anyway?" she asked as she took her seat in the co-pilot's chair.
"No idea," he bluntly replied as he watched the instruments.
"You made a blind jump?!"
"I made sure to set the safeties back on the hyperdrive and we'll be pulled out of we get too close to a gravity well. Ideally, we'll drop out in less than an hour to assess damages internally and externally. Then if everything's golden we'll make a precision jump and make the delivery." An alarm started to blare on the command console and the Condor immediately dropped out of hyperspace. "Ok, that was a little bit too early," he muttered.
"Well you did make a blind jump and based on your slingshot U-turn maneuver we could be back at…" she trailed off as she looked out of the viewport, "that's not Kessel."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious. I would have never guessed that," Gavin snarked. "Nines, run local star charts against our maps and see if you can get some coordinates for us."
"Roger, roger," the droid replied as it started to work at the navigator's console behind him.
As Gavin watched the short range sensors for debris, asteroids, or even fighters lurking about he looked out of the forward viewport to see a fairly large gas giant with rings. It was beautiful even if he had seen numerous gas giants before. It was always how the gasses swirled in the atmosphere that was just stunning. No matter how much you traveled the stars and while seeing distant stars for boring, seeing a planet from orbit was always a visual treat.
"Master, the star arrangement does not match any known systems on record," Nines reported.
"How, we haven't been in hyperspace for more than five to ten minutes?" Marlil asked.
"Nines, how far have we traveled?" Gavin asked his droid.
There was a pause before it responded, "Unknown. Searching for any stars charted. Hypothetically, we would have traveled no more than a few hundred light-years at the most."
"Ok then, create a max radius around our point of departure." A ring appeared on the map on the console. "Looks like we're not that far out from Norval if these charts are correct. While I would rather be near Corellia or Mandalore, as impossible as it would be based on our location, where we have friends, Norval will have to do for refueling." He stood up and said, "We'll do an assessment on the Condor before taking off and repair anything that isn't the way it should be. Nines, you're going for a spacewalk to search for microfractures or other substantial damage that needs to be immediately repaired." The commando droid nodded in acknowledgment. "Mar, I want you to team up with Nines internally to seal any fractures as well as checking the cargo holds to make sure our inventory hasn't shifted too much. As for me, I'll check on the hyperdrive and sublight engines. Let's get this done quickly so we can get out of unknown territory."
Later, down in the engineering bay, Gavin held a datapad as it wirelessly connected to his hyperdrive to give him schematic and data readouts on it. Gavin was shocked to see that his precious Class 0.6 had almost burned out entirely, which should have been impossible based on their time in hyperspace. 'Is it possible we went further than expected?' he thought. 'But how?'
His comlink earpiece then chimed. "Master, there are no fractures in the hull. There are a few scorches from TIE blaster fire, but no breaches," Nines reported.
"Alright, come back inside. Mar?"
"Everything's still tied down where it was when we left. Need a hand in engineering?" she asked.
"No, but I'm confused on something, the main hyperdrive was to the point of burning out."
"That should be impossible."
"Indeed, we should have only traveled a few hundred light-years," Nines added.
"That's what I was saying too," Gavin sighed. "At least we still have the Class 3.0 backup generator. It'll be slower but at least we aren't stranded."
"Master, there appears to be something strange on sensors," Nines reported. "It's heading right for us."
"Is it on a collision course?"
"Negative. It appears to be slowing down… detecting scanning pulse from the object." There was a pause before Nines reported, "Master, I can confirm that the object is a ship."
"Hopefully they're friendly," Gavin muttered.
"Unknown," Nines replied to the muttered statement. "The vessel does not match any known ship classification in my databanks. Although, it does appear to be similar in the shape of which Mon Calamari vessels take with their aesthetic."
"I'm away from the cockpit, send the standard Spacer greeting," Gavin ordered as he pulled himself out of the subdeck that the components of the hyperdrive were attached to.
"Roger, roger."
The standard Spacer greeting was a transmission protocol stemming from back when humanity and other races first began spacefaring with both colony generation ships and later sleeper ships, but continued on well after the discovery and implementation of hyperdrive technology. The message would greet the other vessel and assure them that they were not pirates and would not attack so long as they were not attacked first. Another part of Spacer etiquette was to offer assistance when asked. After all, in the emptiness of space, you only have yourselves and common courtesy when you get in trouble. You help others and they help you in return, or at least that's how it was supposed to work; many times in the past pirates abused this etiquette for their own gain by booby-trapping ships with a distress call and would strike when another kind crew came by it.
"Master, they have not transmitted an IFF signal yet," Nines reported.
Gavin walked towards the cockpit with increased haste. Whenever a ship hasn't broadcasted a signal when it was the courtesy to do so that usually meant pirates. "Nines, get back inside; Mar, meet me in the cockpit. I've got a bad feeling about this."
Gavin walked into the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's seat. He looked out of the viewport to see what looked like a giant, black mollusk; that, or an aquatic mammal of some kind. Gavin looked at the long range sensors and saw that it had no visible viewports for a pilot or command crew to visually look out of.
"That's one weird ship," observed Marlil as she walked into the cockpit.
"Agreed," said Gavin. "Nines, status?"
"I am here, master," the droid replied as it too entered the cockpit.
"Great, the gang's all here. Still no response from the vessel?"
"None," Marlil reported as she watched the comms.
"What in the Nine Hells-?" Gavin trailed. The strange ship's entire fore section opened up like a pair of lips and 'spat' out a cube on which lines glowed on it like an old school circuit board. The cube traveled a good few hundred meters from the craft before the cube broke apart to reveal large headed, bipedal droids with spindly arms that resembled tentacles. They seemed to activate moments later before they started rapidly accelerating towards the Condor. "Ok, friendly spacers don't launch droids. Time to go."
Gavin immediately activated the deflector and ray shields right as the first set of energy blasts came from the droids. The blasts were low leveled and splashed harmlessly over the Condor. Gavin started up the sublight engine sequence and both Marlil and Nines didn't need to be told to head towards the gunwales to lay down suppressing fire. Soon enough Gavin could hear the humming of the sublight engines as more energy blasts splashed against the shields with a much lower yield that TIE fighters used. He immediately gunned it as while a single laser was below the yield of a blaster cannon, many would wear down the shields if they swarmed him. The gun turrets of the Condor shot back and managed to destroy quite a few of the droids, but more kept coming. No matter how many the crew managed to shoot down, the larger Mon Cala style ship just sent out more droids to collect the remains before it pumped out another droid cube to chase after them.
Gavin had to think quickly. This ship could keep coming after them as many times as it liked until it wore down their power and fuel to the point where they would be sitting ducks ready for an opportunistic hunter. He looked down at the map that the navicomputer was giving him and noted that in order to make the jump to Norval he needed to be on the other side of the gas giant's gravity well. He would need to keep the enemy's fire off of him and his eye trailed off to the side to see the ring around the gas giant.
"Nines, I'm going to need you to pull double duty," Gavin ordered as he maneuvered towards the rings.
"Master, you aren't seriously thinking what you think you're thinking?" Nines asked.
Gavin didn't answer but increased the power to the sublight engines. Soon enough the first of the rocks and ice that make up the rings sped past him. First, they started as smaller rocks, but sooner became larger rocks appeared at the size of snubfighters. While the droids were quite maneuverable they could not dodge the rocks entirely and some couldn't maneuver out of the way and crashed into the rocks, detonating from the impact. Gavin used his years of piloting experience to dodge rocks that would easily squash his freighter when they drifted together like a bug. Despite what the droids had in maneuverability, they could not process all the random vectors that the chunks and ice took as they were not predictable and needed split-second decisions that only organic beings could do on the fly. You could program as many algorithms as possible into a droid body, but they could be susceptible to errors and paradoxes which could easily cause the droid to be destroyed.
Soon enough the bulbous manufacturing ship started ignoring picking up the pieces and started to chase after the Condor itself through the debris field. The ship's 'mouth' parted and shot out some kind of zig-zagging heated beam that fractured or destroyed rocks in front of it. Gavin started to fly closer to larger rocks to use them as natural barriers as the bulbous ship kept firing whatever its weapons were and kept missing as rocks flew into its sights, blocking it from firing on the Condor. The Condor's guns fired back causing the bulbous ship to be careful in its positioning. Close to an hour later, a long agonizing hour of dodging rocks and ice as well as an unknown enemy weapon, the Condor emerged from the gas giant's rings and all power was put to the sublight engines to escape the gravity well.
The other ship picked up on this and fired once more when Gavin started to program the coordinates into the navicomputer for the Norval system. The ship shook as it was hit by the odd weapon. The Condor's automated systems automatically sealed the section of the ship that had been exposed to vacuum by closing and maglocking the bulkhead. Gavin looked over to see that it was the starboard maintenance bay which housed the shield generator for the entire starboard side and the generator's power converter. Luckily, whatever weapon they were using didn't damage either piece of equipment even though they were currently overloaded by the strike. He saw in aft cameras that the craft was about to strike again. As soon as he saw the coordinates for the jump were calculated, he immediately threw the lever for the hyperdrive. The Condor leaped into hyperspace leaving the unknown craft alone in the vastness of space.
Meanwhile back on the Condor Gavin breathed a sigh of relief. He took a moment to look out the viewport to relax for a short time, allowing the adrenaline to wear off so he could thoroughly process what he needed his crew to do. Marlil walked into the cockpit and Gavin asked, "You guys alright?"
"A little banged up, but no worse for wear. Did you see what the giant clam did to the starboard-?" she asked.
"I saw. Luckily the system already sealed off the hold and we don't have any other breaches. We'll have to land to repair it, though," Gavin sighed. "Let's hope that we find safe harbor on Norval. Try and get some rest, we'll have a few hours before we drop out of hyperspace."
XxXxXxX
Hours later. Intrepid Condor. Near "Norval III".
The Intrepid Condor dropped out of hyperspace right in the orbit of Norval III, but something was wrong about it. Well, two things. The first was Gavin immediately needing to dodge a large piece of debris that scratched the ventral hull of his beloved ship (see: home). He realized that Norval III was red when it wasn't supposed to be. Not only that, but the entire planet was ringed with a debris field that you might find over a war-torn world or a planet in the Outer Rim that was constantly plagued with pirates.
"This isn't right," Marlil observed as her eyes drifted over the scene in front of her. "Are you sure you put in the right coordinates?"
"No, I put in the coordinates for Geonosis," Gavin sarcastically replied. "Of course I put the right ones in." He maneuvered through more remnants of what looked like warships and asked, "Anything from the local holonet?"
Marlil looked over the screens next to her and replied, "Nothing. There isn't a holonet buoy to connect to."
"I don't like this," Gavin muttered, to which Marlil agreed.
"Master," Nines spoke up, "there's a transmission coming from the surface. It's an audio-visual transmission, but the debris is scrambling the visual portion of it."
"Open a channel," Gavin ordered. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Captain Gavin Draydock of the independent freighter Intrepid Condor. My crew and I require immediate clearance for landing at the nearest spaceport for repairs." Gavin then released the transmit button.
"Intrepid Condor, you have entered Tarak Imperial territory, state your intentions or you will be fired upon," a male voice replied from the transmitter.
"Great another empire," Gavin muttered before pressing the button once more. "My crew and I were attacked by a group of unknowns that damaged our freighter. We require clearance to land to perform repairs and refuel." Gavin maneuvered his ship out of the debris field, as he did he could feel eyes upon him both behind his freighter and in front of him as he saw several large capital ships. They weren't as large as Victory II-class Star Destroyers, but they were certainly large and had very big guns pointed at them. But so far they haven't fired, so at least that was a good sign.
"Those accursed women strike again and try to kill another man just trying to live his life."
That set off alarm bells in Gavin's mind. "Mar, you heard that, right?"
"I did," she uneasily replied.
"Put your helmet on," he carefully said right as the comms lit up again.
"Activate your video feed to confirm that you are a man," the man ordered.
"One moment, I need to reroute power from other systems to boost the transmitter," Gavin replied over the comms. Gavin watched as Marlil put her Mando helmet on and gave him a thumbs up. "Opening a visual channel now."
A grizzled man appeared on the holotank which was turned to look at Gavin particularly. "Ah, it's good to see another man's face that survived the female horde," he said. Behind her helmet, Marlil raised an eyebrow and Gavin thought it was a weird phrasing of words. But the man continued, "How many are on board with you?"
"Just me, my first mate, and my droid."
"Droid?"
Gavin immediately pinged that as odd. Everyone knew what a droid was. "Automaton, robot, et cetera. Same principle, different name."
"Ah," the man sighed in understanding. "Seeing as none of you are women," Gavin looked over to Marlil seeing that her armor made her look more like a man without close-up scrutiny, "you are being sent coordinates for a landing zone. Do not deviate course."
A text transmission appeared on his console containing coordinates and laid it out on the hologram of the planet. "Adjusting course now. See you on the ground, control. Out." Gavin then closed the channel. "I don't like this," he admitted to his crew. "Fighting against women? What kind of planet did we come across?"
"That's what I should be asking you," Marlil replied as she removed her helmet and set it on her lap. "This is excessively odd, though. Human men and women fighting against each other? The closest thing I've heard of that sounds like this is are the Witches on Dathomir."
"We should be very careful, master," Nines suggested.
"Agreed," Gavin replied as the Condor breached the atmosphere and started descending towards the set of coordinates that he was given. A few minutes later the Condor extended its landing struts and landed with some swirls of red dirt that the repulsors kicked up. He stood up and walked towards the boarding ramp. "Here's what we're going to do. Mar, you stay in the cockpit with your helmet on to dissuade suspicion and be ready to bug out if something happens." She nodded. "Nines, you're with me. Keep your blaster rifle ready to fire, but only engage them if they fire first at us."
"Roger, roger," Nines replied with a nod of its head.
Gavin reached down to his holster and unsnapped the leather strap that kept his DL-44 blaster pistol from slipping out and turned off the safety. Nines held an EE-3 carbine that he held at rest and pointed it towards the ground. "Time to face the locals," Gavin muttered as he pressed the button on the console that released the maglocks on the bulkhead door.
He walked out onto the surface of the planet, making sure to watch his head as the ramp was just finishing lowering. He walked a dozen meters from the Corellian freighter as he spotted armed men in uniforms that reminded him of Imperial officers but were a lot more colorful (which was an understatement as they wore khaki and red uniforms. They seemed to be carrying slugthrowers of some kind and held them in the same way that Nines currently held his blaster rifle. The leather duster that Gavin wore blew in the breeze revealing his pistol, but as his hands weren't currently grasping it, the soldiers apparently let it slide.
The leader wore a green uniform that looked a lot like the ones that the soldiers wore, the color more than likely denoted rank of some kind. "Captain Draydock?" he asked.
"I'm he," Gavin replied.
He looked around but didn't see the third person. "Where's your first mate?"
"Finishing shutdown procedures," Gavin lied expertly. "My ship has very… particular sequences that need to be performed for shutdown. I left it to them to perform it as they've done it many times before."
The man walked closer to the ship and examined it closely. "This is a fascinating ship; I've never seen anything like it."
"She's a Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 class light freighter. She's one of the fastest ships of her class. I only know of one other ship that's faster, and that belongs to the pilot Han Solo. Hell, he still has the record for the Kessel Run, despite my trying to break said record."
"Hmm… fascinating," the man trailed before catching himself. "Wait… did you say 'she'? As in 'women' 'she'?"
"Why wouldn't I? It's my galactic tradition to call your ship 'she'. Some kind of ancient superstition that we still abide by today for good luck or something," he shrugged.
"But women are the enemy!" the officer shouted.
Gavin briefly caught his droid twitching slightly, as if acquiring targets. "Your enemy isn't my enemy until they fire at me first. I'm an independent contractor who ships things, and to me, all credits are good credits. We'll have to agree to disagree here."
"It won't matter for long," the man spat.
"Oh?"
"Soon we, Men of Tarak, will launch our secret weapon to finally deal with the Woman menace!" the officer replied with fervor.
"And how will you do that?" Gavin prodded, appealing to the man's sense of patriotism.
"With the Ikazuchi, of course! It will smite the world of women from the face of the galaxy. And with your exotic ship, we could further our victory!"
"Yeah… no," Gavin replied dismissively.
"But… why would you not side with your fellow man?" the man asked in confused anger.
"I'm Corellian, not… whatever you call yourselves. I want no part in your little skirmish."
He then took a step forward, "Then we'll take your ship and press it into service."
Gavin showed borderline no emotion and cocked his head slightly to the side as his right hand settled next to his DL-44. "Oh, you should not have done that." He then quick-drew his pistol and shot three of the six soldiers within a blink of an eye. Nines finished the other three off with similar accuracy. The blaster bolts exploded in the chests of these Tarak Empire soldiers, killing them instantly. Immediately the rest of the landing pad started to scramble away and call reinforcements. Gavin tapped his comlink attached to his ear and said, "Mar, time to go."
"But we didn't get any fuel or supplies! What did you do?" she asked angrily.
Both Nines and Gavin ran towards the boarding ramp with their weapons in hand. "Oh, you know. I met the locals. They tried to press us into service to fight their little war for them."
"And the reason that we now have to leave quickly?" she asked as Gavin could hear the sublight engines start to warm up.
"I might have shot the dock officer and his soldier escort when he threatened to steal the ship," Gavin admitted sheepishly.
"When will you stop shooting people that threaten to steal your ship?"
"In all fairness, two are completely justified," Gavin replied as a squad of soldiers tried to rush the ship bearing slugthrowers. He fired three shots, two of which missed two barely, but the third found a new home in a soldier's head. "Those thieves on Nar Shadaa and the scavengers on Tatooine had it coming."
"While that may be true, did you have to shoot them BEFORE we got the supplies we needed?"
The soldiers started firing on them, however, because they were flustered their aim was all over the place. Both weapon wielding 'spacemen' fired back with their blasters. The durasteel hull of the freighter protected them from the bullets as they hid behind the boarding ramp for cover. "Oh, you know me. No one tries to steal my ship."
Further blaster and gunfire were exchanged. Blaster fire scorched the earth and burned into bodies while gunfire pinged off of the tough alloy of the Condor. Due to the precision fire of both Gavin and Nines, none of these Tarak humans got close to the ship but were forced to either take cover or die.
"We're good to go, get your shebs in here," Marlil said over comms.
The freighter started levitating off the ground and the landing struts retreated into the hull of the freighter. All that remained down was the boarding ramp. Without a word said between them, Corellian and droid emerged from their cover and sprayed the cover that the soldiers were hiding behind, causing them to duck further behind their cover lest they gain a new smoking hole that they might not survive. The duo then ran inside the freighter as the ramp started to rise. Once sealed the soldiers were thrown away almost comically as the sublight engines accelerated the ship away from the planet at speeds the Tarakians thought impossible. Meanwhile, in the main city of the planet a large capital class ship took off to a standing ovation and chants from the crowd.
The Condor breached the veil that separated space from atmosphere and sped immediately towards the debris field. Gavin sat at the controls of the co-pilot as Marlil had already been at the helm. He immediately switched the shield type to deflector, transferring all power from the ray shields to it.
"Why?" Marlil asked.
"They have slugthrowers. It's safe to say that their ships have them equipped too," Gavin replied as he finished the recalibration.
As soon as he finished it they started feeling physical impacts coming from the ships firing on them. Due to the low yields that even asteroids had the shields were draining excessively slowly. "At least one thing is going right for us," Marlil muttered.
A holographic map appeared before Gavin that had several large red dots that represented the now hostile ships that were firing upon them. More dots appeared ahead on sensors, although they were slightly scrambled. "Stang," Gavin said at that revelation. However, instead of attacking them the dots flew past them and started attacking the Tarak cruisers. "Well, that was both unexpected and welcome."
"They're not coming after us?" Marlil asked.
Nines appeared to be synced with the ship's network as he replied without looking, "They appear to be attacking the newcomer ship recently launched by the humans we encountered." A few moments later the fire previously coming from the cruisers were directed at the newcomers, giving the Condor a well-deserved reprieve. Less than a minute later, bi-pedal robotic craft started to launch from the human ships and started to engage the fighter craft. The Condor flew right past what looked like the newcomers' flagship or mothership as it started to approach the fray. The Corellian freighter approached a good jumping point as the gravity well had been passed when Gavin ordered something surprising.
"Turn around," he ordered.
This shocked Marlil, "Why? We just got out of three fights today and now you want to go for a round four?"
"We know nothing of the area we're in. What we originally thought was Norval isn't Norval. We've stumbled onto some sort of sexual civil war between men and women and we're now enemies to those Tarak men-."
"No thanks to you," Marlil commented.
"-However, whomever these newcomers are we can cover their asses and befriend them into giving us some star maps and maybe some supplies for helping them out."
"This is a pretty risky move, what you're suggesting."
"My gut tells me that it'll pay off."
The Mandalorian muttered, "You Corellians and your gut feelings." She then maneuvered the ship into a rolling turn that led them back towards the battlefield.
"Nines, you and I are on guns, time to have a little fun."
"Roger, roger," the ex-commando droid replied in a surprising level of glee.
"And don't forget to turn on the sensor jammers!" Gavin shouted as he left the cockpit to the well-trained warrior woman.
Gavin picked up the controls of the dorsal turret and started aiming downrange at the bipedal robots. He waited for his targeting system to get a lock before he fired the first of many laser blasts from his turret. One by one many of the mechs, as Gavin would file the name away for later, flew into their line of fire and would be instantly killed upon impact, as if their armor wasn't rated for the particular composition of the blaster weaponry that the Condor had installed.
A couple of the robots that passed in a blind spot as the Condor flew through them managed to latch onto the hull near the sublight engines. They started to stab the rear of the engines with what appeared to be oversized vibroblades. Alarms began to ring through the freighter as decompression occurred in the engineering segment of the ship; once more the bulkheads closed to protect the rest of the ship's integrity. Turning around, Gavin targeted the two mechs and shot them where the occupants more than likely were. They were both destroyed, but one of them must've hit a major power line as power going to the sublight engines immediately plummeted to nil. All the Condor had were her maneuvering thrusters and repulsors.
"I've got no thrust," Marlil stated the obvious.
"I know, some of those karking mechs managed to latch on and score a few hits. Just keep us close to the ships next to us. We'll maglock the landing struts and hitch a ride out of here," Gavin replied, hoping that these newcomers wouldn't also try to kill them.
Gavin and Nines continued to lay down suppressing fire and after a time the mechs retreated. "They're retreating," Nines reported.
"They have us on the ropes, why run away now?" Gavin asked. Immediately after his question escape pods started to launch from the half of the Tarak ship that now had the newcomer's ship attached to it with an umbilical. "I do not like where this is going. Mar, try to get a hyperspace jump solution. Something's happening."
"Incoming missiles, and big ones too!" Marlil reported.
"Arm proton torpedoes and try to get a lock!" Gavin ordered.
Precious seconds passed and Gavin rotated his turret to see the missiles bearing down on them, well, more-so the gunmetal gray ship next to them. It seemed as though the red newcomer ship had the same idea as them as they too started firing what primary weapons they had at the two missiles while they were still at the range where a detonation wouldn't kill them with the blast radius. "I can't get a lock!"
"Well, it was a good run, wasn't it, guys?" Gavin asked. Every Corellian part of him wanted to fight until the bitter end, but there was nothing that they could do. They didn't have a jump solution that wouldn't randomly lead to their deaths. The turrets were bunk as the weapons on the red ship were doing nothing to the missiles, meaning they had some form of high, military grade shielding or armor making their much more powerful weapons bunk against it. And now the Condor's ace in the hole couldn't get a lock. They were dead. They might as well say their goodbyes.
"It was an honor serving with you, master," Nines replied.
"I can't believe you two, laying down so easily!" Marlil rebuked them from her comlink.
"Mar, unless we can restore power in the next sixty seconds to the sublight engines, we're doomed. I want to fight, just as much as you, but even I know this is the end of the road," Gavin replied despondently.
"We can if-!"
"Mar, it's hard vacuum in there. It was one thing when it was just the starboard side-room where we could vent the engine room to fix it, but both are gone and don't have a way for you to get in there quickly enough as you're the only one right now with space-rated armor. And the escape pods? We won't get out of range fast enough." Gavin laughed as he saw the missiles get even closer. "You know, it's kind of funny. I knew there was a high likelihood of dying at the hands of the Empire, just not one in the boonies of the galaxy. I do have one regret in life." The red ship disengaged the other one and started to futilely fly out of the blast radius.
"Oh?"
"I never told you how much I-."
Before Gavin could finish his sentence the two missiles connected with the gunmetal ship, causing everyone's vision to flash white. 'So this is what it's like to die,' Gavin thought. 'It's not that bad, really.' The white flash only lasted a moment, but another later what looked like the blue tunnel of hyperspace was there once more, but only for a moment. 'What the-?' was Gavin's thought as there was immediate deceleration. They were back in realspace with the two other ships and a lot of scrap metal.
"We're alive?" Gavin asked uncertainly. Looking around and pinching himself he felt the little pinch of pain that he expected. "We're alive!" he laughed.
There was an immediate blue glow that emanated from the gray ship and soon spindly arms of what looked like kaibur crystals of old attached themselves to both the front of the Condor and to the other ship as well and started pulling towards each other. "Gavin, get on up here!"
"I think I know what you want me for," Gavin replied as he jumped out of his seat and descended the ladder to return to the deck. As he returned to the cockpit he saw the scrap metal that had been brought with them had been flowing towards the gunmetal ship but felt the Condor shake too. "What the-?"
Marlil looked down at the schematic readouts for the Condor and saw that the scrap was not only attaching itself to them but repairing the damage that both those droids had done as well as the damage that the Tarak humans had caused. "Ok, this is a mixed blessing," Marlil remarked.
"Do we have sublight engines back online?" Gavin asked.
Nines reported, "No, we have some power to weapons and the hyperdrive, but sublight engines are completely down."
"Weren't they at full power when we were disabled?"
"They were then, but now they are not."
The Condor kept moving towards what looked like a large hangar on the forward section of the gunmetal ship. Gavin didn't need to be told to extend the landing struts. Once they were at the back of the hangar the crystalline arm broke off and retreated back into the ship, leaving the Condor and her crew alone. There was absolute silence until Gavin said, "Well, that was odd."
Another ship then arrived in the hangar, this one, though, had arrived under its own power. The occupants embarked as the door to their craft opened revealing women, and only women. A few more appeared from a hole in the wall and they exchanged words. The older one, as she had a cane, pointed at the Condor, but the blue haired one just shrugged.
"Please tell me we have power to the Z-6 rotary cannon," Gavin pleaded.
Marlil checked her console and replied, "It only has half power but full Tibanna cells."
"Well, at least we have some kind of defenses."
"So, what do you want to do? They won't be able to get in as we still have enough power to keep the maglocks on the boarding ramp up and the bulkhead sealed for a time."
"The last assholes were men and they shot at us in trying to take my ship, maybe they'll be different?"
"Nines, odds of that happening?" Marlil asked the droid.
The droid paused before replying, "Ten to one odds say they'll try to take the ship. They attacked the Tarak ship without provocation meaning they intended to take it in the first place for whatever motives."
"So we arm ourselves and dissuade them from taking her," Gavin replied.
"I'll follow whatever order you decide to give, captain," Marlil replied.
"Then we're going out. Plus, we need those star charts if we're going to get home and deliver these weapons. Nines, just as a contingency, use the upper hatch and cover us topside."
A few minutes later the boarding ramp for the Corellian freighter lowered and the two humans walked out. Marlil had her entire Mandalorian ensemble which included many weapons like poison dart launchers, flamethrowers, and even a wrist-mounted rocket launcher. Gavin stuck with his DL-44 pistol which was severely overpowered if the holes it could punch into things was anything to gauge its power by. The women were already waiting for them and had their weapons pointed towards them.
The blue one commanded, "Put your weapons down, now!"
Gavin didn't show any semblance of fear, instead, he showed amusement. "Is that any way to show thanks for the wonderful support my copilot and I provided?"
She pointed a ring which looked like it had a focusing lens on it towards him and commanded, "Drop your weapons now!"
"I don't know, Mar. Maybe we should be telling her to drop her weapon?"
"She seems to be the hardheaded type," Marlil's voice came out, revealing that she, a woman, was working with a man. For a moment their brains stopped working.
"You mean like you?" Gavin jested. She slapped him on the back hard, but not too hard as this was something between them.
"Who are you?" the older one asked. She definitely had an authoritative air around her.
"Gavin Draydock, son of Corellia, smuggler by trade, at your service. And this here is my dangerous and lovely copilot Marlil Stocoff of Mandalore."
"I can do my own introductions, di'kut," Marlil muttered.
"Yeah, but you know us Corellians, we love to step up our production value. How else did you think we have one of the largest navies in galactic history," he bragged.
"I thought that was their ego or compensation for something else."
"And you'll pay for that during our next sparring match," he dismissed.
"Enough of this!" the blue haired woman wearing a skintight flight suit shouted. "You will put down your weapons now or we will open fire!"
"Oh, that would be a bad idea," Gavin said darkly as he tapped a button on his command gauntlet.
"Oh, and why would that be?" the elderly woman asked.
"Oh, just this." Immediately a hidden panel on the ventral hull under the port pylon pulled away to reveal the Z-6 rotary cannon which tracked their movements. "And him," Gavin then pointed to Nines who just appeared aiming at them with his EE-3. "And my partner and I happen to be quite the crack shots and quickdraw artists."
There was a pregnant silence as the women contemplated their situation. First they had a machine watching them from the high ground and a multi-barreled weapon that would be able to get off more shots than them. "We can solve this without violence," the elderly woman said breaking the silence. "What do you want?"
"A little compensation for helping you out," Marlil replied. "Star maps."
"Star maps?"
"It seems my crew and I took a wrong turn and need to find our way home," Gavin answered.
"You mean you're not from Tarak?" one of the women asked.
Gavin scoffed, "Of course not! Those guys have no sense of style, just drab uniforms that scream 'conform or die' to me. Also, I said I was from Corellia. Lovely place to visit, if you're interested. Well, that and the Brothers."
"The Brothers?" another asked.
"Yeah. Two planets that orbit each other in the same system as my beloved Corellia. It's quite the marvel."
"We'll give you whatever data we have for charts," the elderly woman agreed.
"And you have to not attempt to steal my ship," Gavin added. "Or try to jump either me or my crew to steal my ship."
"Oh, and why would we agree to that?"
"Other than it's locked out with a set of locks only I or my crew can disarm and if they're not entered within a certain amount of time it'll overload the hyperdrive generators and primary power plant to take out everything in a kilometer radius," Gavin said with a dark smile. He could even see a few gulp.
Once more there was a pregnant pause once more, longer than the last. Finally, the woman agreed. "My crew and I will concede to these terms. After all, we only wanted this ship. Plus, yours looks like a piece of junk," she joked.
"Hey! This ship can easily push 0.6 past lightspeed!" Gavin remarked.
Marlil could only facepalm… or helmet palm at her captain's eccentrics. Today was going to be a long day, she just knew it.
To be continued…?
XxXxXxX
And this is what I have for this pilot. Hopefully, you all enjoyed it. I wanted to do another pilot instead of this one, or one of my main stories, but this one just wouldn't leave me alone; just like another, that won't leave me alone that hopefully I can get done quite quickly.
I don't really have any real notes for this chapter other that Nines is a CIS commando droid and that him, Gavin Draydock, and Marlil Stocoff are my OCs for this story. I don't really have any visuals for them in mind, but you can imagine them looking like Han Solo for Gavin and Shae Vizla for Marlil. These are just placeholder visuals for now.
So what would I have to do in order to make this a complete series? Well, first of all I would need to figure out what all I want to portray. I mean, I do want them to come across an old Harrower that's been long since abandoned so that it can be used in the final few episodes when they face the Harvesters. I also want this to be an action-comedy thing as that's what the anime is. I do want a romance subplot between my captain and copilot OCs that you might have seen the infancies of during the blast scene. I also want to have storytimes between the crew of the Nirvana and the Intrepid Condor of their plights; for the Nirvana their men vs. women war and Gavin's crew the whole Imperial vs. Rebel stories. After all, I do intend this to be set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back as there is a nice 4-year gap between them.
As for the reason I cut it where I did, I pretty much took an episode and a half of the anime and made it one-sided from the perspective of the Condor crew. I wanted to leave more to really explore without it turning into an easily 10k+ pilot. If I come back to this one, I do want to leave content to explore on. The last thing I want to explore on is will the Nirvana crew assist the Rebels in any way, primarily during the Battle of Endor, the best space battle in the series in my book? These things and more are things I need to consider. I mean for the whole romance thing I could have Gavin fall in love with anyone other than Dita as she's confirmed to hook up with Ibiki in the OVA novel and they have a daughter together. I don't want to break that up at all. So TL;DR, lots of things to think about.
That's all I have for now, lads and lasses. I'll see you guys all next time in the next one.
And remember: [quote about things relevant to this story particularly]. And I fail to channel my inner Drunken Uncle.