A flash of light twinkled in the darkness of interstellar space, near the edge of an uncharted planetary system in the Outer Rim. From the direction of the flare came an ugly green ship, looking like nothing so much as a flying brick with tapered edges. Painted on the side in yellow, sloppy letters was MUD DUCK in Aurabesh. The engine exhaust ports were coated in blackened carbon, and the ship looked on the verge of falling apart. The SoroSuub NB-7 was never designed to be aesthetically pleasing; built during the Clone Wars, aesthetic values had taken a back seat to defensive capabilities, and this ship exemplified that utter lack of beauty.
Its pilot and owner was Lan Feldris, a human hyperspace scout and member of the august Hyperspace Navigators Guild—one of its best pilots, in his modest opinion, and he wasn't even a Duro. He didn't need to be able to calculate hyperspace coordinates in his head like those gray-skinned aliens were reputed to be able to do; the MUD DUCK had enough cutting-edge scanner equipment packed into its already-cramped confines to make an Imperial eco-scout blush in shame. There was also a ridiculously expensive, state-of-the-art navicomputer custom-built by the Xi-Char.
The red and white astromech warbled questioningly.
"What do you mean, are we lost yet?" he scoffed, checking the scanners to make sure there was no hazards he was in imminent danger of running the ship into. He took a bite of the Happy-Patty from Biscuit Baron. "I know exactly where we are! A thousand light years above the galactic plane, a third of the way from Ryloth to Drexel." He finished the sandwich and tossed the wrapper over his shoulder to join the rest of the trash littering the inside of the ship. "I'll reach Drexel long before that garbage-scow pilot, Lira Bekett."
He grinned at the thought of the guildswoman getting pissed off because he'd beaten her once again, and this route would be far more valuable than the small-time routes around Arkanis. He couldn't help it that he was the best there was. The droid whistled a doubtful, four-note comment.
He laughed. "Really, TwoGee? She's good, but sh's not that good." He was certain of this. "Not as good as me," he added. He switched the sensors to scan-mode and pressed the REC button to begin recording everything.
The sensor computers went to work with a series of beeps, documenting the minor gravitational fluctuations of the red point of light at the center of the system to count the number of bodies in orbit. He knew they weren't going to find much, though; a red dwarf's planets were usually nothing but scorched rocks, and there was rarely any gas giants or asteroid belts, things that might have a resource value.
Too bad, he thought. The Guild paid bonuses for discovering planets and other objects on a sliding scale, with habitable planets bringing in tens of thousands of credits. The real money, though, was in selling those charts on the black market to smugglers and pirates; they paid handsomely for new places to hide from the Empire or build a base, and habitability mattered not, which could turn a barren system like this into quick cash.
He stood up. "Come on, you old clanker," he sighed, patting the droid affectionately on its dome. "Let's go see where we're going next." It would take several hours for the ship's sensor array to fully document the system, but he was far ahead of schedule and wanted to make a copy of the location and characteristics for future use. He had a certain customer-cum-pirate in mind that he could sell the chart to for a lot of fast money. The dimly-lit cargo hold was cramped from the large holoprojector he'd installed a while back, and reeked of old torve weed and spilled beer. More fast food litter was strewn about the floor here, too. He'd have to clean soon, but why do today what he could put off until tomorrow? Besides, his version of cleaning wasn't all that hard: go into space, lock everything up, and blow the main cargo hold to send all the litter flying into the void. Worked like a charm.
He activated the holoprojector, and a star field appeared above it, with a green arrow in the center indicating his current location and orientation, a dotted blue line projecting forward to indicate his current heading. A red line extended away from the back of the arrow and off to the side, showing the direction he'd taken from Ryloth. He tapped another button, and the view zoomed in on the green arrow until the solar system was displayed, showing a red dwarf at its center.
"Only one planet so far," he mused. It was far too close to the star to be of any value whatsoever.
TwoGee buzz-chirped.
"What do you mean, we've been luck so far?" he scoffed.
More warbling.
"Hey, that could have happened to anyone! It's not my fault that there was an asteroid field there." He went to the chill-box and took out a bottle of Hoth Iced Ale. "Besides," he said, popping off the cap, "we came out all right." There had been an asteroid field they'd found rather abruptly several jumps back that wasn't indicated on some drift charts he'd purchased on Ryloth from a rather shady Twi'lek named Doolan.
The R2 whistled dubiously.
"You're the one who wanted to avoid that star cluster. We could have shaved a half-hour off our transit time."
The droid buzzed rudely and rolled over to the holoprojector, then plugged its SCOMP-link into the computer. The star chart appeared again.
"What spectral anomalies ahead?"
A red circle appeared around a tiny pink blob, which then magnified and resolved into a vast nebula. The droid chirped.
"Are you rusted?" he laughed. "That's the Vega Nebula! The whole area is riddled with hyperspace anomalies, but it's way below the galactic plane. We won't be anywhere near it."
The Vega Nebula had been discovered by a Duro hyperspace Scout named Nolo Vega almost a thousand years ago. It was a vast reddish cloud that acted as a giant stellar nursery, home to hundreds of protostars and pulsars, and was surrounded by countless hyperspace anomalies, nearly invisible dust clouds, and who knew what other dangers. There'd been rumors that pirates had once used the nebula as a base of operations, but he was pretty sure that was a load of bantha plop. They would had to have nerves of steel to fly through that soup.
The only reason it wasn't being explored and exploited by the Empire because it was almost impossible to reach unless you had intimate knowledge of the very near proximity, and it was in a strategically unimportant region of space at the edge of the galaxy. Moreover, being a stellar nursery, it was unlikely to have any resources that wouldn't require more sums of money to exploit than could be made from profit, so there was no financial incentive to find a route to it.
The droid shrilled a rapid-fire series of tones.
"Radio communications?" he laughed. "Are you serious? There's nothing there, pal. You're hearing bursts of radio-frequency noise from the pulsars."
TwoGee chirped indignantly.
"I didn't say that, you tin can! I said you're hearing pulsars! That's why there appears to be patterns. They pulse in strange, repeating patterns that are unique to each star."
More electronic protests came from the droid.
"Yeah? Then what language were these so-called communications in?"
The droid issued a series of stuttering buzzes.
He laughed and threw up his hands. "I didn't say you were a three-pee-oh! Relax! All I'm saying is that you're chasing phantoms. There's nothing in the nebula." He took a sip of the ale. "Trust me." He grinned and sat down to smoke a joint of the finest Algarine Torve weed to be had in the galaxy.
The ship's proximity alarm went off.
"Stang!" he yelled, jumping up and running to the cockpit. Nothing had hit the ship, thankfully, but what could it be? He craned his neck to look up and out of the canopy, and gaped. "Palpatine's beard!"
Less than a kilometer off the port side was an old Venator-class Star Destroyer, or what was left of one. It's hull surface was knobby from the extensive durasteel plate patches welded on, and there were numerous cables and other systems that looked cobbled into the hull. The red paint and emblems of the GAR were gone, replaced by a strange, segmented blue triangle-on-white circle symbol. The most dramatic change, however, was that the twin conning towers at the back of the ship had their bridge command pods joined at the top to form one large, wide bridge, making it slightly reminiscent of the more modern Star Destroyer superstructures.
He suddenly got a sinking feeling. "Hail them, TwoGee," he said, hopping into the pilot's chair, then banked the ship to starboard to pass along side the Star Destroyer so that they could get a good sensor reading on him. His transponder was clearly labeled HNG, so he was immune to most regional governments when conducting official hyperspace scouting business.
Pinging the Star Destroyer's transponder caused the computer to squawk in protest as it told him that it didn't recognize the return signal.
The droid warbled negatively.
"No response, huh? What about other channels? No? Well, try using the emergency channel. Someone's gotta be home—the lights are on."
The computer beeped as the overload alarm went off, blowing several breakers.
"Shtako!" he swore, ice forming in the pit of his stomach. "They're jamming us! Deflectors!" He pushed the throttle wide open and the engines roared to life, rumbling through the deck and rocketing the ship forward. "Get us out of here, TwoGee!"
The droid trilled nervously.
"I don't know—back the way we came! Anywhere is better than—"
The ship lurched and the controls flickered as ion fire crackled over the surface of the ship, causing the engines to sputter.
"Oh, no, you don't!" he hissed, backing the throttle off, and then ramming it forward again. The engines roared back to life, but a beeping alarm drew his eyes to the indicator board. "Aw, son of a—"
The astromech shrilled.
"Yeah, I see it! I see it!" The hyperdrive was off-line. He banked sharply and headed deeper into the system, hoping for an asteroid belt or an ice ring around a planet he could hide in. "We haven't done anything, and there's no sector authority out here, so I don't know who these abos are." He flipped several breakers, trying to restore power to the radio, which suddenly crackled to life.
A woman's voice came over the speaker as her image appeared above the mini-holoprojector. "Attention, Mud Duck," the red-skinned Twi'lek woman said, turning away to talk to someone off-camera. "Mud Duck? Really?" she sneered. "Ridiculous." She turned back to face him. "Attention, Mud Duck. You have entered restricted space. Power down your engines, lower your shields, and prepare for boarding." She wore the royal blue uniform of the Alderaanian navy, which had been disbanded after the Clone Wars.
He doubted that she'd ever been in the Alderaanian navy. Toggling the radio, he replied, "Look, whoever you are, I am Lan Feldris of the Hyperspace Navigators Guild, charter number esk-esk-seven-five-"
"I don't give a flying bantha about you or your charter," the Twi'lek snapped. "You are under arrest. Power down your engines, lower your shields, and prepare for boarding. This is your last warning. If you attempt to flee, I'll be more than glad to do the galaxy a favor and rid it of both you and your rancor-ugly ship! Cut transmission!" The image vanished.
"Angle the deflectors to the rear, TwoGee," he said, fear tingling down his spine as more bluish ion fire streaked past all around the ship. He began to rock the ship back and forth in what he hoped were good defensive maneuvers. "Have you got hyperspace coordinates, yet?" His ship had several quasi-legal modifications that allowed it to fly a great deal faster than a stock ship, but he was no star jockey.
The droid chirped.
"Thirty—we don't have thirty seconds, in case you haven't noticed!" It was only a matter of time before they were pulsed by one of those ion cannons, and then it was game over. These people clearly had no respect for the Hyperspace Navigators Guild, so he doubted he would be greeted with smiles if he was captured.
TwoGee warbled warningly.
"Oh, that's wonderful!" he groaned, wishing now that he had invested in a fourth-degree droid to man the servo-turrets. Fighters flying around him were the last thing he needed.
The ship rocked violently and the lights flickered as three Vulture-class droid fighters screamed by, targeting him with their ion blasters.
"Where in the Maw did they dig those things up?" he shouted in frustration. More importantly, who had modified them to have ion weaponry? "TwoGee, have you re-initialized the hyperdrive core?"
The droid whistled in the affirmative.
"Good." His heart raced as he began a series of maneuvers he hoped would keep the fighters from hitting him again. He tried the emergency radio channel, and this time, the radio's front panel exploded in a shower of sparks as the Venator jammed his transmissions again. Well, it wasn't really like there was anyone else to hear him out here, anyway.
Suddenly, the ship lurched again and began shuddering as the engines struggled against the pull of the tractor beam that had locked onto him. This lasted only a moment as, suddenly motionless, the Venator's ion point-defense weapons blasted him in rapid succession with multiple pulses. The lights flickered and died out, along with the engines and his hope of escape.
"Well," he sighed, slumping back. "That's the end of that." Fear clenched his stomach as he watched the Star Destroyer swing into view from his ship being maneuvered by the tractor beam. "This is bad," he groaned, panic rising in his throat.
The droid agreed with a doleful whistle.
He grabbed an emergency lantern out of a stowage box and turned it on, then tried the auxiliary radio, which was shielded and ran on a battery, though its range didn't extend outside of the system, but there were no friendlies around. As his ship was drawn towards the Venator, he noted the distinct modifications and differences. The armament, for starters, had been vastly upgraded and expanded. Huge power cables snaked along the hull, and the armor itself looked impenetrable. He realized the patches weren't patches at all, but additional armor plates over what he supposed were critical areas.
He activated the landing gears as his ship floated serenely through the nose door of the Star Destroyer, which had its atmospheric containment field activated. The MUD DUCK was set down gently in the center of a long hangar bay that resembled a museum, full of a variety of Clone Wars-era fighter-craft that were all heavily modified and spotlessly clean. Outside, he could see at least a hundred black-lacquered B1 battle droids in squared groups of twenty, each armed with a blaster rifle. Military flags hung from rafters along the periphery of the hangar, containing symbols he was unfamiliar with.
"Weird shtako," he whispered, looking out as several droidekas rolled past. He put his hand on his blaster pistol, but he doubted it would be much help.
A set of blast doors on the side opened up on the left, and a squad of four B1 battle droids, red-lacquered this time, came marching through, followed by the Twi'lek woman, and they marched right up to the front of his ship.
What in blazes had he stumbled into? This was no small-time pirating operation or smuggler's base; this had all the trappings of a military organization, and last he'd heard, the Separatists were no longer in existence.
The Twi'lek woman walked up to the canopy and knocked. She lifted a hand-held radio. "Open the doors, MUD DUCK," she ordered imperiously, her voice coming through the auxiliary radio.
He frantically tried to think who controlled this area of space, , but it was empty according to all official records. There was no one out here, so who were these people, and where did they come from? "Uh, I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding. I'm just a hyperspace scout, and—"
"There's been no misunderstanding," the woman said, cutting him off. "Open the door and come out with your hands up, and we'll make this quick."
"What assurances do I have that will not be harmed?"
She laughed scornfully. "You get none. Now, open the door or I can assure you that you will be damaged!"
"Trapped between a bantha and a rancor," he muttered. "If I survive this, I swear, I'm moving to Adarlon so I can swim with beautiful naked women the rest of my—"
"Now, MUD DUCK!"
"Fine! Fine! Don't shoot! I'm coming out!" He stood up. "Go hide in the engine room, TwoGee!"
The astromech trilled its agreement and quickly vanished into the engine room.
He walked to the airlock and lowered the boarding ramp, and tried keeping his knees from buckling in fear as he exited his ship. The hangar air was unexpectedly warm and dry, and oddly, did not smell like life support machinery with the faint but unmistakable odor of gear oil. There were dozens of fighters everywhere, and all GAR trappings were gone, replaced by strange, geometric patterns adorning the bulkheads and beams, resembling an artistic series of triangles oriented in different directions, some filled in, others with dots. His heart pounded in his ears as the woman walked over to him, escorted by her red lacquered battle droids.
"My name is Lan Feldris. I have no contraband aboard my ship."
She looked over his shoulder at his ship, then back at him. "Are we sure this is the right one? Certainly doesn't smell like the right one," she said, wrinkling her nose as she looked him up and down as though examining a bug.
One of the red lacquered battle droids screeched something in a droid language he'd never heard before.
"Fine. Search his ship. If you find the sarcophagus, bring it out immediately," she said. "Talus will want to see it."
"Um, who is Talus?" he asked. "What sarcophagus?"
She finally focused on him. "Nothing you need to worry about. We're just lightening your load a bit. I wouldn't recommend stealing from the Black Sun. They tend to take a dim view of thieves."
"I'm not a thief!" he protested as the red battle droids walked up the ramp into his ship.
"Bring out any droids he has as well!" she called out to them, then turned back to him. "Oh, you are, you just don't realize what is in the crate you stole." He swallowed hard. He hadn't stolen any crate; he was merely transporting a large crate for a client from point A to point B. He had no intention of stealing it, nor was he the least bit curious as to what was in it. That his contact on Ryloth had been Black Sun, though, was news to him, but he routinely moved crates along his routes. Nothing illegal about it.
Within moments, he heard the crate being ripped open, and seconds later, the red droids were pushing a cryo-stasis pod down his ramp. He gaped—what in the bloody Maw had he gotten himself into?
Inside the pod was a small Togruta girl, no more than ten or twelve, dressed in a filthy white shift, frozen in place.
"I had no idea—" he started to protest. If he'd known he was transporting live merchandise, he certainly would have charged more.
"We know. Which is why you aren't floating around space as a dust cloud right now," the Twi'lek answered. She turned to her battle droids. "Take the girl to storage bay three."
"What about me?" he asked.
"Your droids will be manumitted, your ship is being confiscated, your memory will be erased, and you'll be dumped at the nearest hive of scum and villainy we can find," she answered matter of factly.
He laughed. "Erase my memory? I'm not a droid!"
She looked sideways at him. "No, you're certainly not." She took a blaster rifle from one of the battle droids and aimed it at him. "Goodbye, meat-bag." Then, there was a flash of bluish-white light, and then everything went black.