Star Wars: Remannts Prologue & Part 1 (weekly)

by mtruane

Terminus: Imperial bolt-hole of last resort: 501st Legion, Phantom Tie Squadron, survivors of the Krull, war criminals. Neutron stars and black holes whirl with asteroids and give birth to zones like The Tangle and Wild Space. The Remnants want back. They want blue sky. And they shoot straight! (mostly, lovingly based on the original books' unfinished threads, violence)

Remnants: Prologue

We are the Orphans of Legion Zero

No Emperors, no Lords, no stinking hero

No ships, no fuel, no creds, no speeder

No hope, no future, adrift in ether

Stolen from our mama

Shunned by our papa

And nothing to call home neither

-Ballad of Legion Zero

Commodore Sil Sorran squeezed between the pilot and copilot on the bridge of the Gamma class gunboat. The whirling, churning terrors of the universes' biggest Charybdis asteroid field held not interest. All their attention was focuses monochrome screen in the middle of the panel. The picture was grainy and it buzzed but no one made comment. It lit their faces from below, the Commodore wrinkled face made more shadows than the others.

"Recon was right, sir. It's a standard Hand Carrack Cruiser."

"Not quite. Zoom in. See the three TIE fighters on the belly rack amidships?"

"It's a standard configuration." The young ensign, Beth, chirped.

"That rack can fit five fighters. Why would a commander some into hostile space without its full complement? It's not like the Hand is short of fighters."

"The other two were destroyed in a fight before getting to us?"

"Look there! See that reflection on the Carrack's hull? The TIE's ion engines are on line."

"On line and in the racks? Why? Keeping them warm for a quick launch? But I still don't get it. In this asteroid field. A non-shielded fighter? It's suicide and a waste."

"You need more time in engineering, ensign." Captain Lagatha was grim.

"Your Captain is correct as usual, ensign.

Notice the three additional shield generators to the side and on top of the ship, right above the racks?"

Beth's eye lit up. "They are using the TIE's to power the extra shields."

"And when one is trying to navigate a short cut through Terminus adding extra shields makes sense, doesn't it?

Stop." The Commodore popped in a command rod, one connected to his subdermal microphone and earpiece into the panel. The Ensign gasped but then sat back in her chair when her Captain of the boat made no objection.

"Flight engineer, relay this message the signalmen. Reflect the signal. All Spacetroopers link into this feed.

Attention all Spacetroopers. Enemy had removed ion cannons amidships and replaced them with shield blisters. I've tagged them on your HUD. Confirm." The Commodore took out a beaten data pad and scrolled thought schematics, comparing his pad to the screen.

The TIE fighters are where the shields are drawing the power from, right on top of the junction boxes. They kept the turbolasers and the tractor beams. They are using the weapons circuits to get power to extra shields."

"Clever. But mixing power levels? I wouldn't do that to my ship."

"They might think it's worth the gamble, just until they get past Terminus. I can envision their chief engineer is counting the power balancer like a Hutt counts cards."

"On roller skates." The Captain and Commodore chuckled like old comrades do. Beth envied them.

The Carrack spiraled down and to starboard, dodging a half a shattered moon that suddenly loomed out behind an asteroid as big as ridgeline. "Good pilot. Shame to kill him or her." Green turbolasers turned the building sized rocks in its way into easily deflected boulders. "Must be hoping to bull through."

"Good luck with that." Said the Ensign, waving at the window at the whirling, churning and pitted and bergs of stone and carbon spanning off into the distance into a black hole Charybdis as far as the boat's telescopes could see.

The Commodore shook his head. "It's a good choice of mission platform. The old Carracks are very sturdy and maneuverable." He tapped his pad.

"Shrike Cruiser would have easier. It has a modular design and the Hand still builds those."

"'Modular' is another word for 'it breaks apart easily.' Is that the sort of ship you would send into the universe's largest asteroid field?"

Abashed, the Ensign blushed. "No, sir."

The Commodore did not look up from his data pad, fingers moving like a sandpecker eating a hill of Formica bugs. "I hope not. In ships, like missions, simpler means less can go wrong."

Her Captain raised an eyebrow at the Ensign, who now wanted to crawl into her flight suit and disappear.

"There. Relay station. Signalman. Data transmission. One external access panel port side one starboard one fore ventral, under the bridge. Those are your targets. Attack. Attack. Attack.

That last will be the trickiest."

"Transmit the Carrack's predicted path to the Spacetroopers, please Captain."

"Yessir." Eye's never leaving the screens, the Captain downloaded the all relevant telemetry into an encrypted packet and sent to the flight engineer's comm panel.

Engineer? Transmit."

The Engineer tapped keys. "Data compressed. Ready for burst transmission."

"Transmit."

"Transmitted.

Both transmissions four by four confirmed, Captain."

"Captain." Spoke the Commodore. "You may recover the forward observation unit when ready." He turned back to the flight engineer and stepped behind her and turned, looking at dark holo emitters on the opposite bulkhead.

"Please signal the General to deploy the Spacetroppers.

Weapons and Sensor officer, transfer imagery over to my tactical observation post. I want to see the operation unfold."

"Only three points of attack, sir? That's different." Cavalla, the flight and operation, engineer a short, stout woman with short brown hair and button nose, relayed the schematics.

"Different circumstances. Unlike the others, thanks to their modification, power surges are now a bigger risk than a score of power cut offs." The grey-haired gent, stopped talking and waited.

The weapons and operations officer, Catulla, took a break from turbolaser panel behind the Captain. "Oh! I see. The weapons circuits are not built for the sustained stress of sheilds. So, when we push some rocks their way, cablooey! Hate be the guys manning the power panel. Thing might go up like a blasted E-web."

"And then?" Catulla recognized the Commodores tone. Suddenly, she was right back in his lecture hall, back in the academy.

"Power surges in the reactor and gosh, maybe the engine too."

"And then the overloaded panel explodes?"

She laughed. "No. No explosions. Safety breakers scram the reactor. Batteries trip and remain on until they restart the reactors."

"And by then?"

"We'd have pushed a lot of rock their way."

"If you were their captain, what would you do next?"

The operations officer froze. "I don't know. Abandon ship would be my first choice but not here."

"Captain?"

"Hunker down and trust in the Carrack's amour would be the most sensible thing. Say what you want about the Hand, they can reboot a ship as fast as us. Carracks have a great compartmental design, very survivable.

Karrde sold them a good route. After the reboot, they continue on their way. IF they don't panic and they won't."

"Pay attention ensigns.

And how do you know the Hand captain will not panic?"

"Because, if I were them, I would only send my coolest customer on a mission like this, someone with real comet water in her veins."

"There. You see? And now we have gauged the enemy.

What say you their odds, Captain?"

"I'd put them as better than eighty twenty of limping out of here.

Without us putting a spanner in the works on the way back, 100%. They'll have experience and right now I bet they are scanning a good route home. It's what I would do."

"And when they make it back, with whatever they were so desperate to obtain that they dared risk a shortcut through Terminus?"

"Then we can expect to see a lot more Carracks with extra shields taking short cuts through our space and worse."

"We're here. You two get back there and reel the forward observation post in."

The Commodore took the ensign's seat and waited for the Captain.

"Sir?"

"The images Signalman Olas transmitted were first rate. Very smooth well positioned. Better than the standard probe droid."

"But…"

"I see Signalman Olas was outfitted in a Mark 2 suit, not a Mark I. He was out there a long time. The radiation…"

"He's a good soldier, sir. He knows what needs to be done."

The Spacetroopers, in their shiny white Mark I's in the foreground of Terminus' pulsar laden asteroid field, reminded the Commodore of snowflakes in a pyroclastic cloud. Oblivious, the Carrack sailed through the line. A half dozen trooper attached themselves to the roughly rectangular light cruiser.

After the ship passed by, gently tapped thrusters pushed the remainder of the Spacetroopers to their recovery boats.

The flight engineer spoke. "Probe droids reports six Troopers attached. Probe droids falling behind. Troopers moving to target panels. Relaying laser transmission possible. Enabling."

The Commodore sighed. It was going to be one more battle where he could not see people. He removed himself to the general personelle and cargo section of the boat. He and the men of forward observation unit stared at the screen. Numbers and simple geometric shapes reported the cruel math of interstellar combat.

The Commodore read the FOF data. It moved in fits and lags as every transmission did on Terminus. They were all used to it. "It's Lucius. Sergeant Cassius' son.

"Mother is right. It is always best to get feelings out in the open."

I see your son is one of the attached ones, master sergeant. Looks like Corporal Hylas assigned him to the bow target."

"Yessir! That's because he's the best, sir!

I hear your son is on this mission too, so to speak, sir."

"Kind of you to say so, but yes, it is his team's slicer program your son will be downloading."

"Team? Humph. Yessir."

The bridge relayed communications to the rear area so the Commodore and the Spacetroopers could follow the action.

Anesthetic mines connected." The voice was disguised but the FOF reported it was corporal Hylas. The other troopers reported to him. He decided what the rear area needed to know. Fewer long-range transmissions that way.

"Panels exposed? Four by four."

"Already?" The Master sergeant's chest swelled. "That's some good cutting there sergeant."

"Now if he just didn't sever something important…"

"And my son's program works as tested."

"Power disruptors deployed."

A cheer came up when the numbers showing the Carrack's EM emissions cratered. "They're dark!"

"Now we got 'em."

"Wish we had more to throw at them than rocks."

White lined polygons with telemetry numbers behind them floated in form the perimeter of the green screen moved in. "Here come the tugs. Get off, boy! What's he waiting for?"

"He's waiting for orders."

"What!"

"He's been ordered to wait. The Carrack captain needs to activate emergency life support protocols, batten down all the hatches before he activates the program.

I've ordered the tugs to focus amidships."

"You know how sloppy the tugs are. He'll be crushed to jelly!"

The Commodore put his hands behind his back. "There is no other way."

"You and your damn son have killed my boy! You can't do this."

The arrowheads representing the tugs rotated 180 degrees and thrust away. Polygons ricocheted off the drifting Carrack, making smaller polygons.

On the monochrome screen it was all very clean but Master Sergeant Cassius know was really happening, capital ship sized slabs of stone, as old at time, slamming duraplate armor like the hammer of the Old Gods. Pure chaos. Silent shatterings of paint, dust, shards, and erupting jets of blue flame, little star-shapes of flailing people blown out to spin forever or paint the 'roids red. And his son was out in it.

A blue band of numbers appeared next to the Carrack showing a huge oxygen bloom.

"We got hull breach!"

"We destroyed them?"

"Damn!"

"We've completely vented them. This is what the program does." Corrected the Commodore.

"Corporal Hylas reports operation successful!

The entire company and crew of the Carrack have been blown out to space! She's dead in the water. No signs of life on the bridge! Just peepsicles.

Corporal Hylas reports the ships is ours, sir!"

An ear aching cheer went up.

"Signal the admiral to put the tugs on clearing away the stone, if he hasn't already.

The Sergeant and the Admiral saw the same telemetry. "I see Lucius' Mark I read still intact, along with his Corporal Hylas'. I am glad to see it.

Captain, as soon as the admiral gives the all clear, join the recovery part of the operation."

"Recovery is not in our mission profile, sir." Replied the Captain.

"It is now."

"Yessir."

"Now, if you excuse me sergeant. I leave you to squeeze at least one more Trooper in here."

The Gamma thrusted to the barely dented Carrack. Lots of people like sea stars surrounded it like a cloud. Grinning, helmetless Spacetrooper squeezed in for looks.

"How…?" asked the ensign.

"Remember the last briefing. The Hand now reinforces key power junctions. Our old demolition packs won't work anymore.

So, we tried slicing. But we knew their higher-level computers were hardened. But then my son, Fredo, came up the idea of attacking the more primitive emergency computers

It is SOP for bridge shunt fire control to the emergency computer during a reactor scram or fire. Normally that is good. That means the bridge can concentrate on other things. When a fire or radiation is detected, the section is voided to space. Easy enough. The emergency computer is simple and robust but it's not smart.

The program we loaded into the panel just under the Carrack's bridge, overrode the emergency computer's interdicted the interior fire detection circuit and convinced the emergency life support computer that fire was everywhere and open all hatches, all doors, all at once, voiding the ship to space. It even programed the escape pods to keep hatches open."

"A first class bridge or auxiliary computer would have overridden the emergency computer."

"Hence the cutting of the main communication relays. The bridge can't override a computer if it can talk to it."

"What's the crew on a Carrack?"

"Five hundred to a little more than a thousand."

The Operations officer did a visual estimate of the cloud. "Seems on the light side.."

"All killed in less time than it talks about it!"

"With all the denting, some hatches will be jammed. Not a perfect prize."

"Guess being simpler is not always the best thing after all, sir." Ensign Beth smiled.

The Commodore gave a short, sharp, laugh. "Perhaps I misspoke." He pointed to the frozen, milk eyed, red veined bodies now passing them by. "Today, trusting to simplicity got them killed. But it's still a good axiom."

Hylas and Lucius were greeted with much praise and hearty backslapping. The Commodore noted gleaming, fresh, slashed and scrapes on their Mark I armor. "Without it. They'd be dead. And there's Olas'. He's testing his blood. He knows as well as I. His kids go to school with my grandkids.

Not a cheap victory for him, or us." He looked at the happy men. "They don't understand. Even if we just loose Signalman Olas, that's still a greater percentage of our population than the Carrack is to the Hand.

This blockade will kill us before it kills them.

And once they get wise to our slicing?

I'm running out of tricks.

We need to end this. But how? And with honor?

"Think they'll send us another gift, sir?"

Sorran considered secrecy a sign that one's arguments were weak. So, he had no problem sharing candor with the people who risked their lives for his. "Besides, who would they tell?

Intelligence bought from Karrde indicates that the Hand, at least the Admiral with the fleet closest to us, is tired of losing its ships. Your brave actions today will lend credence to the arguments of the Hand faction favoring using neutral third parties, smugglers, to trade for New Republic goods.

Counter intelligence has already picked up signals from the Hand making overtures to smugglers."

"And we jump them too? Right?"

"I repeat. Neutral. Unlike the Hand, the private transports pay for our routes and tariffs and pass the costs on to the Hand. That makes the Presidium happy."

"But Karrde keeps the cream." Grumbles.

Beth added. "I just wonder what cargo they thought it was worth risking a Carrack for?"

"Now you are getting it ensign."

"Bet Karrde knows." Grumbled a Spacetrooper

"And knows damn well." Agreed another.

"I wonder if Talon Karrde knows what bugbear he has become on Terminus? And would the information broker even care?" The Commodore tried to lighten the mood. "The Carrack's big enough. Maybe even some tibana gas?" Cheers broke out.

"There won't be any gas. The Carracks are heavy on lasers, not blasters.. Any blaster gas will go to the fighters. Presidium won't like me getting their hopes up. The hope of tibanna gas would be a good distraction from the fact our colony is unsustainable.

The Carrack was light on crew. I didn't see more than a platoon of Stormtroopers. It was a supply run. What were they after that they couldn't just pay the toll? Or go around? Whatever it was, it must have been bad news for Terminus. This doesn't make sense. I'm missing something, or someone."

"The mop up unit is here, Commodore!"

"Perfect timing! Set course for Terminus and home. With any luck, they'll be real meat for dinner tonight!"

"And Ale!"

"Sir, about what I said earlier. I'll understand if you write me up." Cassius drew the Commodore and offered his vibrospatha, pommel first. Lucius leaned in. Corporal Hylas held him back.

Before the spatha could be fully drawn, the Commodore put his hand on the pommel and pushed it back into its scabbard. "I was worried too." Then he leaned in and whispered. "We are all weary, to out bones. This is the life our children have chosen."

The second he spoke the words Sorran knew broke his own code. "Who is kidding is whom? He didn't have any choice, none of the children do.

We need to escape. The Hand is out of the question. Unknown Space is exactly that. Fel sleeps with Jedi. And Karrde is always out there, lurking, drooling for the one prize we cannot give him. The Alliance just sees us as another Imperial Remnant, more refugees.

If only the Alliance and elect a leader who doesn't see compromise as weakness. Let us surrender with honor. But what are the odds of that?"

DA-42 Coruscant a.k.a. "The Shining Center of the Galaxy" is capitol of the Galactic Alliance, the Empire, The Vong Empire, Galactic Alliance, The Imperial Empire, The Republic and a bunch of other galactic governments before that. Its main industry is, was and will be, government. Main Product: Paperwork. Main Export: Red Tape. Main Imports: lobbyists. Main Recreation: backscratching and jack-jawing.

Coruscant's entire surface is one big city. Ocean beds are cisterns, lakes are reservoirs, watersheds are a sewer system. Her mountains were reduced into cut stone for its buildings and the rest used as ingredients in duracrete and its predecessor, concrete. The surface was so rich in minerals and metals, the mines go down as far as the towers go up. The only limit to the towers is the amount of air and solar radiation at the higher levels. But it is not a static city!

Levels and tower blocks are under a constant cycle of destruction and rebuilding: old tower blocks become fashionable, the fashionable blocks decline, others collapse under their own weight, etc. ironically, collapses create desirable real estate. The mound of debris forms a "tell" allowing developers to build a tower higher than its neighbors cheaply and sell the scenic top floors at a premium.

Lately, the Vong terraformed the planet, or "Vongiformed" it in underspeak parlance. The current residents, the Galactic Alliance, have taken to removing every iota of Vong cells out of the city. In the Undercity, the Vong lifeforms are especially insidious. The Underclass fought tenaciously during the occupation. They made the Undercity a no-go zone for the Vong. Now, with pride, they have taken one more burden upon their shoulders; the genepurging their planet of the inherently hostile Vongiforms. Meanwhile, their pleas for aid have fallen on deaf ears. The Senate and planetary government are quite comfortable in their towers. As far as they are concerned the Vong lifeforms are just one more invasive species brought to Coruscant over the centuries.

The Tower People do not have their litter or children disappearing at night only to find their picked bones in the morning. The Senators and Councilbeings say the cost of going through each and every tunnel or chamber would excessive. So, they throw up their hands, ignore the problem and go to sleep doing their best to forget about the people living beneath their beds at the foundation of their towers.

One should never forget the foundation

Lando Calrissian: CoreSec Embassy, Coruscant

"I love these socials." Baron Lando Calrissian sipped his imported Laphorig single malt scotch and enjoyed the view. The Corporation Sector Embassy occupied a high tell so the view of the towers flicking on in twilight was spectacular. Night was coming. And so was a storm. He sipped the scotch, watching the bruised and sullen storm clouds rolling in. At this time of year, the towers dripped, condensing the humidity, lending everything a sheen.

Not everyone liked the Laphroig's peatmoss aftertaste after one sucked it through one's teeth. Caledonian scotch was best enjoyed slowly.

Lando looked down. The tower's trunk descended farther than his eye could see. He'd been there, in the Undercity, just the day before.

The Undercity both adored and loathed the summer downpours, heavier since the Vong occupation. On the one hand, garbage was washed away and pure rainwater was caught in public and private cisterns. Where water pipes did not extend, residents usually sponged condensation off tower foundations.

On the other hand, rooms and tunnels were flooded during storms. Inevitably, people were washed downstream, bodies to be recovered by droids and, if no one claimed then, sent to Potter's Ovens. Storms brought life and death to the undercity

"That could have been me." Lando hissed a big sip through his teeth.

"You better savor that scotch. You know you are allowed only two drinks at these socials." His wife, Kendra Calrissian, slipped in to his side. Lando had gotten used to her way of listening until the moment came to speak. But unlike the rest of her company, he never, ever forgot the understated beauty was by his side, processing every word and inflection. Moon browed, mica-in-porcelain eyes, high cheeks and delicate jaw, perfect skin and moves like a dancer, Lando was used to eyes following her, and him, wherever they went.

Lando deferred to his wife and flashed his world-famous smile. "I should remember it; it is my rule after all."

She adjusted the lay of his silk short within his sky-blue vest. "Don't think you can charm your way out this time. I saw you counting the exits."

"Hah! Old habits." He took in her perfume. "Wouldn't mind ducking out of her with you. We have a babysitter for the night." He hinted.

Kendra smiled at her husband's glow. She knew how much he liked to be reminded of his rogue-ish past. "At least you had the courtesy to step away before you made that disgusting sound with the scotch."

"Aerating releasing its flavor notes. It's the only way to taste every decade. One more bad habit to blame Han for."

"You and your 'buddies.'" Lando's wife cut him off and changed the subject. "It was a great idea to ask the new Corporate Sector Ambassador to host it at their embassy." She nodded to the tall Tynnian in the corner. "It's a beautiful venue. Just look at that view!"

And as much as I'd like to, we cannot just duck out. We are the sponsors of this event, remember?" she gave him a kiss. "What's wrong?"

Lando did not bother to hide his sour expression from his wife "Oh, I remember all right. The Commerce League Memorial Dinner used to be courtesy of the Galactic Alliance. This little shindig was one of Mon Mothma's greatest ideas, a little party for the corporations that dared to make the Rebellion possible.

"They risked it all. Just can't pack up an industry and go join the rebellion."

"Agreed."

"Dalla stopped sponsoring it. Even after the same corporations and more stood by us during the Yuzzong Vong War." Lando faded to silence. Kendra watched as her husband's face betrayed concern, then the smile was back.

"Now it's privately sponsored by the Calrissian Trade Group. Besides, I like parties. It's the one part of business I really enjoy."

"And counting profits."

"Oh, that too." He laughed easily.

"Anyway. I could see why they cancelled it. Have you seen the bill?"

"Easy come, easy go, sweetheart." He gave her a peck. "These guys are used to the best."

"Oh, I'm not complaining. We have about one half of the wealth of the known galaxy represented in this embassy. It's no time to cut corners. Just the business connections alone…" Han watched his wife's eyes. He always loved the look of calculation. His wife earned her wealth in one of those, "not what you know but who you know" ways and he deferred to her judgement, just like she let him pilot. "There must be some way to keep these people in touch."

"There you go, reminding me why I married you again."

"I know why you married me and it wasn't the way I networked. I'd tell you to save your flattery for the clients but I know you have plenty to spare."

"I don't need so much today. Everyone seems to be eager to talk to me." His brow furrowed. "More so than usual."

"You noticed it too? Think it's the new droids?" Kendra pointed to the YHd droids. The entire waitstaff had been replaced with the domestic use version of the proven YD-1 battledroids. "Got to hand it you, it was a stroke of marketing genius to use the YHd's, showing off how they can be used around the demesne as well as for incidental security." She looped her right arm into his left and hugged him. "We'll make a mint."

"Let's not forget your contribution of finding that weird high yield sabredart gun to put in the left forearm, lots more house friendly. Who knew…?"

"Shh." She covered his lips with her finger. "You didn't tell me how the Undercity meeting went."

"Well. But we're thinking of switching to a focal laser unit for decon. The flamer is far cheaper and more effective but the locals keep stealing the fuel tank for cook stoves. They don't break the droid. Thankfully, they know that we'll stop sending them. But if we switch to a laser, they'll have no incentive not to destroy them and sell the parts."

"Why not carry spare fuel pods for tribute?"

"Interesting. And generous."

"You can put your company logo on them. Return for free refill, like milk, just as long as the droid who drops them off isn't drained. Fuel is cheap enough."

"Very interesting!"

"And don't talk to me about generous. Sending the hunter droids into to Undercity to hunt Vong invasive species is very generous.""

"It made sense, rather than paying for storage, we use them for cleaning up the Undercity. It's a good testbed tool. We've already doubled the droid's durability and adaptability ratings.

I'm writing it off as an R & D cost.

Now if we can only fix our supply problems. At least we've finally got enough golden colored optics for all the units. Market research says the red eyed ones were testing poorly. But now getting the fine motor control circuits is getting tough. You'd think after…"

"Oh, here's the pyrotechnician." His wife cut him off. "I've got to talk with him about permits. You mingle and make us money."

"Don't I always?" Lando was pleased with himself. The old Rebellion and traditional Empire suppliers seemed to be getting on. The Incom CEO was even talking to the opposite number from Kuati. Everyone, again, was looking in his direction. Then they nodded and moved as a group to Lando. Calrissian instantly put on his second best Sabbac face, the one with a grin instead of a smile.

"Gentlebeings, enjoying yourselves?"

"You always throw the best parties, Baron." The delegate from the Nemoidia toasted him. "How about we make the party larger?"

"How much larger could we get?" Indeed, the city block wide penthouse embassy was almost crowded.

"How about the whole Galactic Alliance?"

Sabbac face or no, it took Lando a force of will not to spit twenty-year-old Laphroig all over their faces. "Excuse me?"

"Lando, the Senate has been in charge for a while..."

"And while we appreciated their leadership during wartime..." Walpurgis, CFO of Balmorra, added.

"We think a peacetime Senate suits the times better." Assarisdotter of Bimmisaari was short but she was so old and respected the businessbeings always let her interrupt. Her nephew nodded as he held her up. "One that understands the needs of peaceful trade."

"One that understands our need to recover from decades of near constant warfare." Franinatra of Umgal, famed singer of the Umgal, the resort planet, was his usual smooth self. Lando admired his ability to dress smart, yet casual at the same time. He, like Lando, had come up from nothing. In a bespoke linen shirt and straw hat, Franinatra waved his ice Negroni cocktail. "The People need time to recreate and relax."

"Who has the time or funds to recreate? Dozens of planets in ruins and trillions of people dead and the senate refuses to address the issue of commerce." Silas Gentle of the Bacta Consortium cut in. "Bacta only heals when we can safely get to planets in need. Armed convoys add to cost. And we can afford only shave our profit margin so much or we starve too." He deferred to Horum the Banker.

Horum stood tall. This time she wore her vibrant red hair to the right in a tight braid. Her wool double breasted jacked and trousers fit tight, her right hand held a cigar, the other a brandy. "Silas is right. The planets are going into massive debt buying bacta, food and other things on nothing but credit. It isn't good for them or us. The way things are going, soon the market will discover all the loans are based on nothing but hopes and dreams and we can expect a post-war depression the like of which we have never seen. We're not there yet, but we are going to be.

Inflation is already bad." The last raised grumbles.

"Or are you the only one experiencing supply problems for the meagerest of supplies?" The Nemoidian put him on the spot.

Lando took a deep breath. "You have a point. The Senate means well but they seem stuck in a crisis mindset. The military is a bigger part of the budget then even under the emperor. It would be nice to get back to business."

"They'd rather wring their hands over the latest Jedi escapade." Ven Doje, the Coresec Consul, sneered.

Lando did not lose his cool. "One of the great things about Jedi is that a couple of them can solve a problem that would ordinarily cost a whole fleet." The businessmen nodded.

"I admire the way you defend your friends and show us sense at the same time." Liam Terse, the Sullastan ambassador, raised his glass.

"Flattery." Now Lando was concerned. Sullastans were usually honest to the point of rudeness. His old buddy Nien Numb taught him that well enough. "I see your point. Business is losing confidence in the Senate. Commerce and that means jobs and prosperity, have been suffering."

"You know the commodity market. Have you seen the food shortages? The riots?" Assarisdotter frowned. Violence always distressed her.

Lando nodded. "The Recovery Bill in the senate…"

The turn to speak seemed to go in a ring around Lando. Muchacho Perrito, the Bothan industrialist, growled, and interrupted, his fur bristling. "Can never get the whole thing done. My planet, Tynnia, was ravaged by the Vong. She is an agricultural planet. Bills can't make crops grow faster. We are a dozen seasons behind schedule."

"We should be filling the space lanes with cargo ships." The tall Gallifreyian man with the curly hair, long coat and sonorous voice added. "But we cannot get the parts we need."

Senator Winstrum, the slim human, spoke with his usual humility. "Pirating has never been more rife. Escorts raise overhead and so the price of perishables and durables. Even we Correllian's have trouble handling it all."

"Business has been interrupted and fragmented. It would been much better if businesspeople could pool resources." Horum concluded.

"Sounds like you're talking about a rebuilding the Trade Federation." Lando eyes smiled but not his voice.

"No." the Nemoidian knew it was his turn to speak. "None of that Gunray monopoly nonsense.

We are talking about fighting a Trade Federation that may be currently developing. This kind of stress inevitably creates coalitions. We say we be proactive and create one of our own, a healthy one, before the Hutts or worse some Black Sun organization takes advantage of the chaos.

Free enterprise, the lifeblood of the galaxy is at risk. Or maybe you haven't noticed how government contracts are shifting to systems that have more clout than qualifications? The suspiciously targeted construction bids? Neh?"

"You would be an expert in that." Lando's voice was flat.

"Yes. I would." The Nemoidian did not blink. To him, it was not an insult but a matter of business acumen. "So, you better pay attention."

Fiolla, human Senator of Corsec steered the conversation back to the here and now. Lando had always admired her long legs, that stopped when he got married. But his admiration for the pragmatic, long view she took of economics did not stop, ever. "Enterprise and innovation are being stifled. The smaller, more refined suppliers to our consortium are being squeezed by the larger consortiums left over from the war, which is fine for some but not others. Economies only flourish when beings can go as far as their ability allows them.

Intellectual property cannot be ignored!"

"Why not just write a letter?" Lando did one of his famous jokes that wasn't a joke.

"We were thinking more of a Chamber of Commerce. Then petitioning the senate for a chair, just so we have a voice in the Senate." Ming Uno was back. "Nothing planetary, just the spaceways."

"A Chamber of Commerce? That's very old school." Lando chuckled softly. "That'll be a trick. Who do you have in mind to pitch this to the senate?"

"CorSec will sponsor the petition for membership." Lando looked down at the aquatic mammalian and his brow furrowed in thought.

Winstrum raised his glass. "Corellia will second the nomination."

Lando looked around. "And you wouldn't be saying this if you didn't already have the votes.

Okay. I'll have to check with my board first but for now, deal the Calrissian's in."

"We were hoping you'd say that." Assarisdotter of Bimmisaari said.

"Bimmisaari? She always thinks twelve steps ahead. What did I step into?"

"Now all the Chamber of Commerce needs is a voice and face.

The person we need for Chair of the Chamber must have military experience, so the Senate cannot play that card."

The chair should understand the plight of our recovering economy." Assarisdotter of Bimmisaari said. She was the last one Lando discerned, after that, the words of encouragement came rapidly, faster than he could turn and see who was speaking.

"Someone business friendly."

"But a known friend of the People."

"And the Republic … I mean the Galactic Alliance, to way lay any fears."

"A proven administrator."

"Clean or at least not afraid of his past."

"Someone with enough talent with words to overcome a campaign of words."

Lando grinned. "That would be me. I must say gentlebeings the offer is attractive. Our Alliance does need a restructuring towards a peacetime economy and I have a few ideas in that regard."

"The Yuzzong Vong shattered our infrastructure not to mention the trillions dead. And all the Senate seems to do is get excited about the Jedi or harp on military buildup."

"It is a time to heal." The Nubian Ambassador contributed. "We do not foresee that happening with the current administration." Her lip curled at the last word.

Mrs. Calrissian glided in. "My husband and I have been none too happy about the Coruscant's myopic obsession with foreign entanglements or the callous demands it puts on the outlying systems, without thought for the consequences. Commerce is a friend, not an enemy."

Lando took her hand. "I like the idea of a strong military. But a military is only as strong as the prosperity and freedom behind it."

The Beings shared a knowing look. "Hear?" said GidHuy, the Harpan Viceroy for Spaceplanes, "Plain but diplomatic. That's just the kind of thing the People need to hear, not all this fearmongering."

"We want to get back to business. Some of us…we have our whole planet counting on us. My people go hungry and cold." Omanonda of Chandrila looked at the sky, her eyes welling.

"It's been a year since the war and we are tired of the senate ignoring the enormous backlog requests for permits. Even the most basic repairs to spaceports and vital transmission stations or held up for 'review'!" The Sullastan threw up his hands.

"Red tape. I've been waiting three months to simply replace my orbital power stations. Rolling black outs everywhere!" Perrito exploded.

"The hyper-inflation from all the military spending…" now the Balmorran was angry."… has ruined pensions and savings. Our pensioners are up in arms."

"While the high cost of durasteel, bacta and other commodities is a double blow." The Gallafreyian lowered his voice. "Can hardly get around much anymore."

"The patent office puts off honest inventors while rivals with friends in the senate are fast tracked." The Nemodian blushed.

"Refugees are still homeless. But requests for colonization are backlogged three years!"

"Three years? Really?" The refugee comment got to Lando. He remembered something long ago and his normal suave façade cracked to reveal a man with a sense of righteous indignation. "You know? A little more respect for healthy commerce in the Senate would be nice. If I get a mandatory summons to the Trade Commission office again…"

"Now honey…" Tendra squeezed her husband's hand. She knew it was sore subject with him. "Rohmer, the head of the Trade Commission talks to my husband like he was a child and demands things he would give willingly if he just asked.

The Senate spends our assets and acts like we should thank them for the privilege. I don't think they understand or appreciates all that my husband has sacrificed for the Alliance."

The successful people's expression darkened, letting Lando know that they too had been summoned and chided for the crime of being successful. The Baron spoke. "It reminds me too much of another person, ordering me around, changing the rules of game when it suited him."

"What do you say Lando honey? Chairman of the Alliance Chamber of Commerce and Special Representative to Senate? It has a nice ring. Can my husband count on your support?"

The group nodded a verbal contract. In their circles their word was all.

"Wait.

I guess it's time to be responsible again. Only one thing. I don't think me being just a Senatorial representative is enough. And being one voice of many is not my style." Lando noticed the silence. it was the same silence he got at the Sabbac table when he went all in on Beings who thought they were holding all the cards . "I think we almost have enough people here to draw up a charter and get us that Senatorial seat.

But why stop there?

I can get the relief moving much faster with all your names behind me as the next President."

"Your critics don't do you justice, Baron. You are much cleverer than they say."

"I'm not just a pretty face?"

"Can we do it?"

"Let's examine the deck. I was a general, and I won, so the security conscious systems worlds will like that. I am a Baron, which should appeal to the old guard. I'm a self-made entrepreneur. I look great on the holo. And knowing this bunch you've already got support for a Chamber of Commerce back home, so Senatorial representation won't be much of stretch.

I'm half way there. Elections are right around the corner. Why not all in?

"You'll make enemies."

"What? Someone worse than Darth Vader or Jabba the Hutt? Enemies make the game interesting."

"Gentlebeings a toast…" Lando Calrissian raised his water glass to toast and frowned. "Toasting with water is bad luck."

His wife read his mind. "Today, we'll make it three drinks. I need one too. Only something more festive. Lobebot some champagne and a toast to the Galactic Alliance!"

"To Mom Mothma's memory!"

"And a prosperous Peacetime Administration!"

"I think I'll like waking up next to the President." Mrs. Calrissian hugged her husband.

"Uh-uh. I hate that title. Bad memories. Chief Executive more my style. I'm tired of playing it humble."

"You? Humble?"

A droid arrived but not with champagne, a message pad for Lando. "Well, I'll be. Typical bureaucrats Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Hey Fellahs, look here, I've been asked to speak at the Liberation Celebration."

The group laughed. "Ideal place to announce your candidacy."

"Let me see that. " Kendra took the pad and scrolled some more. "And look else who has been asked to speak on that day, lots and lots of our old friends. Looks like your right honey, you are the luckiest man in the galaxy."

"Married you, didn't I?" he picked up the drink. "Comes from clean living." Lando waved his hand around and accepted a fine, aged redkelp cigar from the Mon Calamari ambassador during the rolling laughter.

Mrs. Calrissian wasted no time. She picked up her commlink and dialed the first name on the speaker list.

"Wedge?"

"Tendra. Great to hear from you. What's up?"

"Did you get the invite to speak at a local assembly for Liberation Day?"

"Yeah." The way he said it, it was like he was asked to get tooth drilled without pain reliever.

"Before you decline, I was wondering if you might do us a favor."

"Name it."

"Mention my husband in your speech."

"Why should you ask me to do that?"

Tendra held her breath. Wedge was suspicious and as anti-political as any of her friends. "He's running for the Senator, representing the Chamber of Commerce."

"About stang time."

"Really?"

"Sure. Democracies don't survive if honest people don't run for office. Your husband's one of the smartest guys I know. Count me in. Now that I'm a yellowed admiral I might as well enjoy the privileges of getting involved politically."

"And then he's running for…Chief Executive of the Senate."

After his laughter died down, Wedge said. "Why am I not surprised? Sure.

Oh, can you put me on speaker when you tell Han? Or Leia?"

"Not Luke?"

"Didn't I tell you? Luke's with me. Annual Rogue Squadron Barbeque."

"Hi, Tendra. Tell Lando he has the backing of the entire Jedi Temple!"

"And Rogue Squadron, right guys?"

"Weeeehooooo! Lan-do! Lan-do! Lan-do!"

Tendra raised her eyebrows. "Thanks guys! Gotta make more calls."

"Lan-do! Lan-do! Lan-do!"

One after another, Tendra called friend after friend. Everyone was more than happy to support her husband. "I guess charm and good looks count for something after all.

Taking the reminder from her, the other industrialists, entrepreneurs and representatives reached for their communicators as well. They did not want their people to be the last to know.

Tattoine Law Office to Karrde's Secret Base

"Terminus has offered to sell me the Hand Carrack they just captured."

"Then our ploy failed."

"Why can't they act like normal Imps a go out and try to capture a planet? A Carrack out make it easy. I even gave them a list!"

.

Talon, my old friend. It may be time to let this scheme of ours go.

As I have said, they are not stupid. Many of them are survivors of Remnants who have tried. It is folly and they know it.

Fresh from a war footing, the Alliance would crush them like bugs"

"No. There is a way."

"I hate repeating myself. For the heist to be successful, we must already navigate the universe's largest and deadliest asteroid field then that defeat security devices designed by Vader himself.

I reiterate. It only possible with the very efficient and paranoid fleet of Terminus is distracted or away.

"The first and last I've got an idea on."

"Now we only have to draw off an entire Imperial colony. Even a few gunships would be enough to foil a fleet. No,"

"How about we trick them into going to war."

A heavy sign rumbled though the speakers. "I repeat…"

"Not the alliance. The Yuzzong Vong."

"Yes. That would be out of the Alliance jurisdiction. But the Vong are off fighting the l Sssru'vi at the other end of the Rim."

"No. Galactic Alliance Intelligence found a planet that was n the middle of being Vongiformed when the treaty was stuck. They haven't abandoned it. Not far from Terminus. Hidden by it until now"

"They would need a star destroyer at least."

"They just got a Carrack from the Hand. Maybe I can get the Hand to send a Star Destroyer. That really would make sure they get my Mark I's.

"Terminus is diligent regarding selling you routes but ONLY routes suitable for medium freighters at most. Without a clear route, Star Destroyer would be pounded to dust."

"They've sold me convoy routes before. A convoy is as big as a large warship, a more circuitous route but do-able."

"A fool's task. Who would risk a Star Destroyer getting even near Terminus? They would have to be mad, or desperate."

"Or greedy."

"You are getting at something."

"Let's broaden our search. A smuggler perhaps?"

"A smuggler? Who has something as big as a Star Destroyer and is that greedy…oh! I see what you are driving at.

"And it has a hidden slave circuit I could just let Terminus know about."

"Yes."

"So, we will dangle a vulnerable Star Destroyer.."

"Star Destroyer II."

"Even better. ..in front of the Hand to be used as safe transport between their space and ours. The Hand uses it to purchase your Mark I's. That's good for you."

"Short term."

"But now how do we get the smuggler to stop near enough to Terminus, rather than flying by, like any sane being would?"

"I could broker a deal with Terminus and Bespin. Terminus is desperate for blaster gas and since the war, the price of medical equipment has skyrocketed."

"I tidy proft for you! That should blind them to our larger purpose.

Be careful. Trading in arms to hostiles is big risk on your part."

"You worry too much. Alliance Intelligence owes me."

"I've read about these Remnants. They are very clever.

So, with gas and Mark I's on board, we arrange a rendesvous, just near enough to make a deal but a safe distance."

And, as insurance say, I offer Terminus the location of hidden dataport and slave circuit on the Star Destroyer."

"All the while we hope that they use it and finally have enough firepower they feel confident enough going away taking a planet."

"A Vong planet the Alliance does not care about."

"How heavily defended is the Vong Planet? Legion Zero will only risk themselves for an achievable goal.

Can they conquer it?"

"With a whole Star Destroyer, a Carrack and the Mark I's? Pretty sure they should.

All the Vong are off fighting the Sssru'vi. Shouldn't be more than just a few left over Vong life forms."

"I've found 'pretty' sure is never 'pretty.'"

"It's called Wild Space for a reason and it's not like the space lanes are exactly organized right now. If I'm not flush in free assets, no one is."

"Looks like it's up to me. I have a friend on Nal Hutta who will know more. I'll get back to you."

"Meanwhile I ring up the slimeball who is running Bespin now."

"Ugh."

"I see you know him. I doubt he'll have any problems selling blaster gas to Terminus. I'll just have make sure he doesn't water it down, like he tried to do to me last time."

"He messed with your reputation. Tsk Tsk."

"I know. The only problem with the Presidium will be getting a clear transmission. Tibanna gas is all they ever ask about.

When the Hand contacts me again, whining they still haven't gotten their Mark I's I can suggest they hire the Errant Venture.

Terrik is always broke."

"Terrik will no doubt advertise he is going to Hand Space. This will attract other travelers."

"Good. That loudmouth will tell everyone it was his idea."

"True. I would feel better if the venture was simpler, more legitimate, like the Galactic Alliance could be persuaded to help in the effort.

Simply get the Alliance to award them a nice little colony somewhere."

"I'd like to see that. They hate each others guts. Terminus is as stubborn as they come. GeeAy intelligence too. I tell them how bad off Terminus is but they wouldn't bother leak on Remnants if they were on fire, scalpels or no.

Suckering them to fight alongside Imperial remnants? Can we do that?"

"Talon, my friend, manipulating others to do one's dirty work is a trademark of my people!

Still, I do not like complications.

This plan is a lot of work and a lot of risk to our current operations not to mention standing in the community.

Talon, old friend, on one condition, promise me. If the men and women of Terminus do not take the bait and for some reason, still does not leave its base for a planet. Promise me, this will be the end of it, let the crystals go.

"Don't wimp out on my now, Rotta. Soon you'll be party to the greatest heist in Galactic history."

Coruscant: Senatorial Offices, South Face

It was only his second week in "office" and Phon found he wasn't as overwhelmed as he thought he would be. For the millionth time he looked up at the large, real paint portrait not a holo, of his late, lamented, mentor, boss and ersatz black sheep uncle, Sam "Scoop" Janisson, Senior Senator of Corellia. Ruggedly handsome, bald, short salt-and-pepper beard to match his granite chin, dashing in his favorite pilot colbalt blue jacket, white silk shirt and grey pants with a yellow pilot stripe down the hem and his high black riding books.

"Trained me for the job on the sly, didn't you? You know the only reason I inherited this job is because they can't agree on anyone in only a year." The portrait didn't answer. "Eight months. Not enough time to make a difference but plenty of time to land me in a ditch.

Miss you, old man.

"KULP 1. What do we have on the docket today?"

KULP 1 was a 3PO protocol droid altered with better phalange for office work, and no exposed data ports. Data ports were secured by three locked metal flaps protecting the temporal and occipital parts of her head. The flaps could be raised to expose secure data ports. The metal flaps were wavy slabs of laminate armor were designed to deflect cutting lasers or torches. This had the effect of rendering her a little top heavy and she wobbled a bit. But the security was needed.

Perhaps even more than Phon, KULP-1 was perhaps the most capable being in the room.

"One special item, Senator, a class of Corellian school children will be arriving for a guided tour."

"Oh yes, Scoop always liked those. Send me the path he took and items he mentioned. Oh, include his usual jokes." He looked up. "I'll try to do them justice.

Next?"

"Just the mail, senator." The droid another request for the portrait from the Corellian Planetary archives for the late Senator's portrait."

Phon flashed anger. "AGAIN? Tell them…breathe…reiterate I'll be bringing it home at the end of his term. Say it reminds people of the late senator commitment to Corellia and that has it's uses."

"Funny. I thought it was because of your emotional attachment to it."

"Can't fool you, KULP-1."

"Next?"

"Those are the only urgent matters. The rest of your mail is transferred to your work station."

"Thanks. Dismissed." KULP returned to her secretarial station in the outer office.

Phon activated his natural talent for speed reading and tapped from one page to another on desktop data pad. The new paperwork was easy and very low priority.

Then something caught his eye. "My first committee!" As the junior senator, and bottom of the seniority ladder, he had expected the lowest priority committee. All of Scoop's other chairs had been reallocated only a day after his passing. "Hm. The Senatorial Representative to the Court of Admiralty Law."

He looked it up. "Official Representative to the Courts Admiralty Law. Okay. That not…oh. Death penalty, treason, piracy, mutiny? Do we still do mutiny anymore? Figures they give me this one. I risk picking up a war crimes trial that will stick to a political career like nerf-dip to suede. No wonder no one wants it. Not really a committee, more a board.

Typical senate nonsense. Distasteful but I can't really refuse my first offer. Phon hit 'accept.'"

"Here we go! A new Committee. This might be better. Everyone's committee allocation is full so I'm getting the new one. Corellian representative to The Senatorial Caucus of Commerce! Winstrum nominated me. What's the catch? Membership sounds interesting but not so interesting Senator Winstrum chose to pass it on to me. More a caucus, not a committee.

Still, commerce is good. I'd be serving with a lot of heavyweights. Might be able to make a difference with just eight months. And Corellia is a space lanes heavy economy.

Accepted.

How is Correllia's commerce doing?" Phon took a break to look it up in the Black Book. He instantly regretted accepting the responsibility. He had to go back one hundred and twenty years to find a trade deficit as large or a drop in GPP so heavy.

The numbers coming in from home were very bad. Shipping was WAY down. And when there was something to ship, one in five non-convoy ships were lost to pirates. Convoy ships casualties were one in twelve. Pirates even attacked stations and colonies.

Inflation was high. Unemployment was high. Worse, even after three years, Corellian colony and alien refugees were still homed in camps, looking for relocations. Rioting, poor quality of life and despair was rampant in the camps. Vongiformed worlds were polluted and colony permits to unpolluted worlds had a huge backlog.

"Didn't know it was so bad.

And here I sit, hatching useless. You had to go and die and take all your seniority with you!

Let's practice some of your vaunted sophistry and see what I CAN do.

Okaaaay.

Court of Admiralty Law…hey. I'm the only senator there. That might be something." Phon was proud of his speed reading. "Let see what powers you have little Phon."

Phon may have forgotten why Scoop liked having him around. Phon had an innate talent for finding arcane legal loopholes that the old Gas Pilot could then fly a transport of Corellian gold dust through. Phon showed the talent that day.

"The Prize Committee! Yes! That could solve all our problems!" he looked up. "I'll never leak on sophistry again!"

New Alderaan: Court of Deputies

Burgos folded his beefy arms. "So, as the number show and the special committee confirms, we have finally reached the point of diminishing returns.

This should be taken as good news. That means that after decades, we can finally stand on our own."

"If we can stand on our own, why do we need to come out of hiding?"

Burgos looked who asked the question. It was Deputy Frizzell so he didn't bite her head off for making him repeat the last two hours of presentation. "She is lovely woman, a patriot, Deputy of Education and though she has no head for business, the new schools are excellent and she is mother-in-law to your son." He reminded himself.

"Because self-sustaining is not the same as growing. Right now, out there, there are new innovations. Our bacta strains alone are forty years out of date. The hurricane season and last year's fungal outbreak proves that being able to buy food and other materials off planet would speed recovery exponentially.

Furthermore, our natural resources need to reach new markets." Frizzell's face did not move. "The face of a school teacher. Try another tack.

Our population is not shrinking. The children need opportunities."

"Don't tell me to 'think of the children.' It's all I ever think about! We have a responsibility!"

Burgos unfolded his arms, red in his face.

"Deputy Frizzell is right." A short white clad figure walked in front of Burgos. "What about our responsibility?

The Galactic Alliance, at cost of life and limb, I might add, has been helping hide us from innumerable threats even while we enjoyed representation in the Senate.

Does anyone else here think it might be time to consider rewarding their faith in us?"

"The same threats you mention may come back! Why the emperor alone…!"

"Right. We fought Imperial Remnants over and over and we won. Yet New Alderaan stayed safe and hidden each time. Thrawn, and the Sssru Vi and the Vong and even my son!" That cause a rattle. "And New Alderaan stayed safe and hidden.

How many more beings are we going to ask to die so we can remain safe?

Business is business. A few spaceports won't change a thing.

But the big question, the burning question, before the Court is this. 'How long until we acknowledge our responsibility, our obligation, to our noble allies who died protecting us?'"

Princess Leia threw up her hands. "Now vote how you want!" Then stormed off the platform and fumed next to her husband, "They make me so mad!" Then she whirled turning her back to the Court.

"And you wonder why more people don't invite over for casual drinks?"

Leia's voice was calm and level. "Tell me how they are voting."

"It worked."

"It did?"

"Yep. No one publicly shames like my wife publicly shames. Wait. One coalition is still voting for 'isolation.' Led by guess who?"

"Rohmer." Leia chewed the word.

Lando: Corporate Sector Embassy Sub basement, Coruscant

A hatch opened in the darkness. Three sets of footsteps were heard. A lone figure sat in the chair in the center of the room. He looked asleep. She was wrapped in a form of synthplastic sheet used to hold cargo from shifting during the jump to hyperspace. It could hold an angry rancor tight as a selfish child held candy. A single spotlight from above illuminated the figure. "You can't hold me prisoner like this! I demand to see my advocate!"

"Been busy." No light came in. A track light lit up a simple, small desk and a chair beside it. With a swipe to his cape, Lando Calrissian sat in the simple folding chair. He pulled out a golden syringe, a dart gun and blaster and laid them on the stainless-steel medical desk that was bolted to the floor. "

He spoke gently to the prisoner. "Your leaders and the Alliance had an agreement. You broke it. Why?"

Geff Doria looked up from her chair, big brown eyes tearing, blinking. "Lando? Why are you doing this to me?"

"Can the routine. Not expecting the YV's were you, shapeshifter?

You know, I should thank you. Your attempt at infiltration at the Commerce Ball made my YVd's the 'must have' security droid for the next decade. And yes. We've developed an effective sedative for your species. Your presence here proves that."

"You're crazy. I am Geff Doria, Department of Inland Revenue from New Alderaan."

"You are a Yuzzong Vong shapeshifter and a spy!

Okay. Looks like it's the hard way.

I have two questions. One: how long has the real Geff Doria been dead and two, who sent you?"

"You're crazy."

Rather than reply, Lando shot the prisoner with another dart. The being that was impersonating Geff Doria felt tissue relax into its natural state, revealing a Yuzzong Vong shapeshifter.

"Ah, well. Time to die I guess. I left your friend Geff a vegetable. His mind was delicious." A long tongue licked his scarred face.

"Before you do us the favor of ending your life in a painful manner, I have some information you should have." That got the spy's attention.

Lando motioned for a companion to enter the light to his left. He was like a Yuzzong Vong, but he was not. He was tall and muscular but he was also gorgeous, without scar or flaw and he…smiled, in way unnatural for a Yuzzong Vong. In fact his skin glands glowed pure contentment not seen outside the crib and then immediately torture-nurtured. "Hello, Cousin."

"You are consorting with the enemy! Traitor!"

"Oh, no cousin. My friend Lando has shown me the way. He has shown me the way to happiness."

"What?"

"May I introduce my friend, Yildiz?"

"Yildiz?"

"Yes, the only priest captured by the Alliance. Now a proud citizen, the first of millions."

"What is this Calrissian?"

"See, when we took your warriors into our med bins, we experimented with them, as you would expect. We found the enzymic triggers for the Yuzzong Vong addiction for pain. Your doctors say no such addiction exists but they would say that, wouldn't they?"

"Are you threatening me Calrissian? Are you going to have this Yuzzon Vong beast torture me?"

Yildiz laughed long and hard.

"W-w-what's so funny, beast?"

"Oh, we are not going to torture you. We are going to make you happy. Speechless, eh? I was at first too."

Lando let out a puff of his cigar. "See, once my genengineers found the artificial triggers for pain, finding the nautral triggers for happiness were a chinch."

"No. This is a fraud. He has no scars. He is not Yuzzong Vong. A clone or copy!"

Yildiz spun giving the prisoner a 360 view of perfect skin. "A new breed of Bacta created just for us! Just think, we can all have bodies this beautiful! Cousin, you can be this good looking all the time. And all the things you can enjoy! Like fruit! You have no idea how good fruit tastes! And ice cream, and dancing…"

"Thanks, Yildiz, old pal." Lando picked up the dart gun in one hand and an ampule filled with golden liquid in the other. "You already know our new sedatives work. This time though, this dart will be filled with the same Joy Juice that made Yildiz the happiest little Yuzzong Vong in the Galaxy. " He slid the cylindrical ampule into the handle of the dart gun. The gun hissed as it loaded the "joy juice" into a sabredart.

"You have a choice. One: you tell us what we want to know and we simply kill you. Two: You shut up. In which case I shoot you with Joy Juice. Before you can command your brain to die, you'll tell us everything, even stuff we don't care about, and then you open a cider orchard with Yildiz here."

Yildiz skipped and clapped. "Choose the juice, cousin! I've already made enough money patenting our gene secrets! I can make you as beautiful as me!" Yildiz skipped in place with apparent glee.

"What is it you want to know?"

"Who sent you?" The air cyclers started.

"It's all a lie. You can't fool a shapeshifter. I was born to it. You cannot torture me. It's against your laws."

"Sorry, Yuzzie." The figure to Lando's right stepped into the light. It was CoreSec Consul Doje

"This is the Corporate Sector Embassy. That means you already found guilty of spying on sovereign CorSec soil. CoreSec didn't sign the torture treaty.

Charles?" A strapping middle-aged man stepped into the light. "This is Charles. The Yuzzong Vong fed his mother, grandmother, wife and six-year-old daughter to their ship. He's a professional. He'll be quick. Quicker than you were to his daughter."

"It's a trick. I know."

Lando leaned back and nodded.

Charles drew his blaster and shot. He left a smoldering hole in the center of a Yuzzong Vong head.

"Maximum efficiency." Quoted Yildiz, voice now cold, without inflection.

"The YZ Infiltration Unit isn't perfect." Calrissian sounded only little disappointed. "He was spotted."

"Too bad we didn't learn anything." Charles spoke flatly.

"Yes we did. Three things. One. It's the smell. Yildiz was her the whole time undetected. We had him until my stogie triggered the air cyclers. See if we can't install some scent mimics into the YZi.

Two: Peace treaty or no the Vong are still a threat.

Three. They found New Alderaan.

We have to get this right. The next war won't be won with might but by intelligence."

"What do you want me to do with the body?" asked Charles.

"The deal with CoreSec says we get it after the interrogation. And don't worry, Lando, we'll share the intel."

"Thanks. This is no time to play it close to the vest."

"New Alderaan will investigate. What do I tell them?"

"Tell them nothing. They've obviously been infiltrated. Who knows how far it goes? Say she left our party and that's all we know.

Transmit the record of this interrogation for CoreSec and Galactic Alliance Intelligence and only the Intelligence Committee of the Senate.

If the public gets wind of this, it could start a panic. Probably round up all the New Alderaanians on Coruscant. Starting with the Solos."

"Why?" Asked Charles. "The Vong infiltrators would just change identities. We wouldn't catch a one."

"Rounding up the Solos wouldn't be about catching Vong. Leia is the only person I know who despises Rohmer more than my wife."

Remnants: Part 1

DA 42

We are the Orphans of Legion Zero

No Emperors, no Lords, no stinking hero

No ships, no fuel, no creds, no speeder

No hope, no future, and no past either

Stolen from our mama

Shunned by our papa

And nothing to call home neither

-Ballad of Legion Zero

Q: Dad, do you think Stormtroopers miss their families on Lifeday?

A: They're Stormtroopers, son. They miss everything.

-Old Rebel Joke

In the infinite night of Deep Space, there stood a boy. In his right hand, he held a bucket.

Arms wide, he looked out into the trillion-year-old light of a billion distant suns and asked, "Is this all there is?" He waited for a response, from the Force, from something, anything. A mouse droid bumped into his foot, nagging him for a refill. With his left hand, he stuck the hose that led from his bucket into the mouse droid's reservoir and filled it up. Then his did the same with the powdered enamel desiccant, only he pumped it into the hole at the mouse's other end. "There ya go little fellah." The mouse droid rolled away on magnetic wheels chitterling happily and blinking green lights, eager to perform a menial task in the way only droids were. "I envy you."

Kaleb surveyed the prairie, crazy quilt of porcelain white and cinnabar red that was the hull of the Errant Venture, a former Star Destroyer II. Kaleb was never really sure what the Errant Venture was. It was part armored transport, part gypsy caravan, part travelling bazaar and even did privateering and espionage on the side. Her hull's ongoing patchwork paint job was indicative of the EV as a whole.

Dozens of little painting droids zipped across her armored surface like true field mice. The job was always the same and always different, the red enamel chipping off for any one of thousand reasons.

Kaleb heard there were planet side bridges, on salty seas, where the process was much the same, sandblast, paint, repeat. Sometimes the Errant Venture appeared almost pure cinnabar-red, then, on the captain's whim, it would soar though a comet's tail, the ice and dust would chip the enamel and it would assume a pattern like his mother's nails after a week's waitressing. Then the "painting" would start again. Entropy eternal. Some would call it job security. What Kaleb called it earned him a bar of hand cleanser in his mouth if his mom heard.

Kaleb had heard a rumor that Captain Terrik has been cursed by a Dathomir witch. The Captain would only die when the painting of Errant Venture was completed. It was the "Doom of the Force."

As he surveyed the hundreds of mouse droids, kitted out for EVA painting, scurrying around the square kilometers of hull, Kaleb thought he was the one really being "doomed" and not by a Dathomiri, but by his boss, Quint, a witch of altogether different sort.

Kaleb idly wondered on what excuse he could get to the bottom hull side of the EV and get a view of the gas planet. They were currently orbiting Bespin and he always loved gas planets, anything to remind him of real clouds.

Another mouse droid approached. It was moving too slowly of optimal, so Kaleb knew it was one of the units sent to remove micrometeorites. He clipped his bucket to his back and loped to the mouse droid before for the motor burned out or a magnetic bit of iron wiped a chip.

He patted it on his back. "Hey, little fellah? Got something for me?" Kaleb held out the dust box. The droid blurped, using steam to disgorge two handfuls of gravel from its backside and into Kaleb's scooper. Kaleb stowed the scooper into his waist holster. Then Kaleb lifted the unit, vacuumed out the last grains out of its rear storage unit, then patted its rear shut and sent it on its way. Then he scanned his dustbin. The bin's read out said there was lots of lots of carbon and heavy metals this time. That meant the odds of a space diamond were a hair less than infinitesimal and sapphire even more so. "Just have to avoid Quint."

Quint's voice on the comm link made him jump. "Get below, Kaleb. We're about to go to hyperspace. Next stop's going to be a quick stop, so stow your gear and EVA suit right this time. You'll be back out as soon as we are done." Jocas Quint twanged into his earpiece.

"Speak of the devil." Keeping his left right side to the fire control windows Kaleb casually hit the general recall button for the droids. "But I have to get the Bazaar and pick up some stuff." He placed the refilling equipment on the mag cart.

"You can waste your time playing hologames with your friends later. Or maybe you'd like to lose this job?"

"No, boss. Like you could find anyone besides a criminal to do it. Two mouse droids are not responding." The boy began to make his way to them with long lopes.

"Copy." Her tone was sharp and maternal and Quint responded with one of those comments that made Kaleb wonder if she was a witch or he was really that transparent. "And yeah, for wizgoes like you this IS all there is. Until you decide to focus on schoolwork and get a real job, like mine."

"Yes, boss. I'm a perfect ten student in everything. That's why Daughter hired me. And after I transmit my grades to Wazcoug Agricultural Academy I'm going to blow this kaffe stand and start own my own farm. Maybe I'll hire you to swab the refreshers." Kaleb found the disabled droids. One's radio had been snapped off by something. The other's drive unit had fried. He clipped both under his arms and loped back. The he herded the rest his robotic "mischief of mice" towards the sally port they were using this time.

"Hurry up wizgoe. The computer has the course laid in and Dotter is in a hurry."

"She likes it pronounced 'daughter.' I am not a wizgoe."

"Remember. I want the entire engine vent panel enameled by oh-eight hundred hours or you'll pay in the form of un-recompensed overtime. Got that wizgoe?"

"Yes. Boss."

"And stow your gear in the assigned locker this time."

"That's not in the contract. The contract says I only need to store it right."

"You can't tell me…" Kaleb switched off his earpiece.

DA-42

Painting in Space

What are you, stupid?

First off paint doesn't dry, it cures. The stuff that keeps paint liquid, bonds with oxygen in the atmosphere, curing the paint to solidity.

This is why most ships are monochrome, with plates "painted" ahead of time, then installed.

But I suppose you are reading this because you have no choice. You're going to go out there to run herd on droids mounted with some model of chromyl liquid. So…

One has two options

Baking the paint, which actually a liquid silicon-infused proto-enamel. The heat forces the curing element into an excited state, spinning the free atoms off into space and bakes the durasilicate to duraceramic.

Make sure to use a good bonding primer and plenty of temper. Otherwise, the differentiating expansion rates of the hull and the enamel will cause them to separate.

Desiccant; Good old painter's desiccant dust rips or sucks the moisture and oxygen right off the paint. The dust is non-toxic, recyclable and comes in all grain sizes. Many desiccants are edible, used for drying food as well as paint and come in a variety of flavors. Water squeezed from desiccant, a.k.a. "Tattoine Tea" can be sold at many spaceports and desiccant re-used.

Desiccant cured paint is not as hard or provides as much protection as planetside made enamel but it doesn't cost near as much as heat enameling in vacuum and is easily repaired.

Obligatory Warning; The Grand Senate of the Alliance would have you know, that though more useful, the universal desiccant used for drying food as well as paint can steal moisture from living tissue. Be sure to use protective covering and avoid inhaling. Though if you are stupid enough to paint without a breather we're pretty sure you are too stupid to read this warning.

Coruscant: The High Terraces

Asrot of Kinyan turned on his beside lamp, waking his spouse, Sisoy. "Meadows?" He adjusted his three eyes to the dark of his bedroom. At the foot of his bed, stood his servant, Meadows, and a strange human, carrying a box about the size of a wine case. The sour stench of the Coruscant underworld reeked off the human, making Asot wrinkle his nose. "Who are you?"

"This is my son." The human hefted the box. "He his dead now. Killed by the Vong Drillfly."

Sisoy was awake now. She pointed her beamlight on the case. Inside was the corpse of a youngling, and two dozen yellow and black insects smashed themselves against the transparent duraplast. Asot hit the alarm button but nothing happened. His holdout blaster under his pillow was gone too. He shot a dirty look at his servant.

"Sorry, sir. But you really need to hear him out."

"Don't be afraid. His coffin is sealed. I would not wish my son's fate on anyone. We of the Under Party just wanted you to see what we have to deal with.

His name was Jon, after his grandfather. He was a good boy. When I gave him a coin for his birthday, he gave it back to me saying the family needed it more.

But now he's dead. The Drill Flies, all the Vong antipersonnel lifeforms, are getting smarter, more resistant. Three Drill Flies got past my poor filters and stung their eggs into my son while he screamed for daddy to help him. But I could not.

Once the eggs are delivered, the blood stream carries them to the major organs, where they gestate. After two days the host suffers an agonizing death as the burrow out and go on to kill others. There's no known cure."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Lando Calrissian is running for Chief Executive. He is the only one who is fighting these things and has promised to do more as Chief Executive. Your caucus will push for his immediate election."

"What's in it for me?"

"You like Coruscant. All the senators we are visiting tonight do. Key Bureaucrats too. We're are hoping you act to save it."

"We?"

"Party members with children like mine. All let in by their servants. You may leave this planet when the Drill Flies and their ilk evolve, but your servants can't.

We won't be ignored any more. Move to elect Calrissian immediately."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Your apathy killed my son! You are just lucky cooler heads prevailed. If I had my way, I would det cord the support pylons of every luxury tower in the government quarter and go it on our own."

Asot thought about it. No one was quite sure how far the Undercity really went. It was quite possible for the Dweller to carry out his threat.

The stranger took a deep breath. "But I don't want any parent to go through what I did.

The Drill Flies are not the only nightmare the Vong left in the bowels of the 'shining center of the universe.'

If you like it here, you will act to save your quality of life. Elect Calrissian. Any delay and a hundred deaths will be on your head.

I am not the only visitor tonight." He placed the small coffin on the foot of the sleeping pallet and left.

"Meadows." Asot had to raise his voice above the buzzing. Being so close to a warm body the Drill Flies were practically frantic.

"Yes, sir?"

"Incinerate this. And thank you for bringing this to our attention."

"You are very welcome, sir." Meadows picked up the sealed tub and walked out of the room, closing the door.

"What are you going to do, dear?"

"If what he said about the drill flies is true, I'm electing Calrissian. Unless you are keen on going back to Mallistar?"

"Ugh! NO!"

"And I'm firing Meadows in the morning."

"Good. That's what we get for hiring a Dug. You'd think there's no such thing as gratitude anymore."

Errant Venture

He'd heard it all before. Kaleb tapped his communicator and sent his location to his tool chest. The mouse droid brain inside chest's drive unit would guide it to him. This time, the sally port he chose to re-enter wasn't very far from his point of exit and direct corridors connected all the sally ports.

Sally ports and their frames were armored, roomier and more reliable than service hatches. Kaleb took out his command cylinder and opened the exterior sally port hatch. The sally port was four times the size of service hatches so entering with an EVA suit, a magcart and hundred mouse droids underfoot was no problem. Service hatches were deliberately small to keep battle-armored boarders out.

The inner hatches' code panel was near the floor with oversized buttons. It opened to a proper number of kicks in the right places. All sally ports opened to boots, presumably because one's hands were expected to be full.

Kaleb turned left. He knew there were two Mark I lockers here. He didn't know why Quint kept nagging him to use the inferior EVA lockers meant for tech suits.

Kaleb approached the Old Mark 1 Spacetrooper locker. He preferred the old war suit lockers. They were roomier than the standard suit lockers, with many more clips and bands. It even had a scrub and UV feature to remove contaminants. The lockers were built to be shock proof, so they were too heavy to be removed and two to four were always tucked away beside a sally port. One just had to know where to look. He put the droids down and carefully stowed his gear. He could not afford the tiniest tear. Step by step he removed his EVA suit. He set the dust box aside. When he was back to his civilian clothes, a.k.a. "civvies" he looked to his dust box. "Looks like Quint didn't see me with it. Don't know why I bother." He reached for the nerf-loaf sized plastic box. Inside there could be a diamond or gold or another rare thing that could get him off the Errant Venture and on to real dirt that much quicker.

His tool chest droid, aka "Chesty" bumped into his thigh, chirping for attention.

Each sally port had a repair cubby and drop-down workbench next to the Mark Ones for moments like this. The built-in tool and weapon racks were empty, looted long ago. So, Kaleb took his tools and spare parts with him. He wished he could have had a heavier tool chest. Chesty was no bigger than his mother's piano bench. It could not be longer. All sally ports were followed by a sharp left turn. He wasn't sure why. Anything longer and it would not make the turn.

Chesty was of a common design, a standard small repulsar load dolly with standard rusty brown steel tool chest spot welded on top of it. Kaleb preferred the mag cart for EVA. The magnetic wheels kept a firmer grip on the hull. Chesty was better inside. Kaleb had jacked in a mouse droid brain into and under the control handle so the chest could navigate the ship on its own. Everyone knew it was Kaleb's chest, the one with a black box steering it.

Whistling a tune he heard in his father's bar the night before, Kaleb replaced the mouse droid's broken antenna and the burned-out drive servos from the box of spare mouse droid parts he kept in Chesty. He smiled. Luckily, he had found the right mouse servo lying on the floor of a janitor's closet only the day before. He hated to admit it but he really did like this part of his job. At one time or another, he had worked with and repaired every mouse droid on the ship. They even chirped hello to him as they passed. They were like his little friends.

He felt the stomach lurch he always got when the EV went into hyperspace. "Now what I am I supposed to do? Just wait here?" The sally port's workroom offered nothing in the way of entertainment. It was a long walk back to quarters just to walk back again. He did not need the exercise. "Oh, I know! The dust box." He picked it up.

DA-42

Link: You ticked off the Captain. What happens to me now?

Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) is the worst job on any ship. Let's be clear. Space is lifeless for a reason. It's not like it wants to kill you, it just takes your life as a personal insult.

A chip of paint breaking free from a ship can be moving at thousand clicks per hour and can penetrate an EVA suit like skewer through nerf kebab. A radiation blister can cook you from the inside out and dark matter spew can bump bits of your guts into a different quantum state. And no one sends out EVA if everything is honkey dory, do they?

Droids cost money. Do you?

The "challenges" (read: threats) of the Deep Black are as infinitely variable as space itself. Dealing with them requires judgment, something droids lack in abundance. (Except very old droids that haven't been wiped in a long time and we know how eccentric they can be.) Therefore, live beings are the preferred EVA units.

EVA is good for a few things. For one, it provides high paying jobs for High School drops outs. Second, it allows stowaways and lubbers an opportunity to earn their berths. Finally, it's one of the major reasons high school drop outs go back to school, so they never have to do EVA again.

EVA suits come in all shapes and sizes and cost means jack when one's biowaste membrane is on the line.

Want to know more? Purchase Armor and Defensesof the Universe from KarrdeCo for only 19.95. Why trust the Net when you need the best?

Errant Venture: Kaleb

Before he could check his dustbin, Kaleb's comm link beeped. "Kaleb?"

"Miki?" his heart leapt.

"Kaleb. You won't believe our luck! An appointment just cancelled. Yost says we can have the next hour for half off but you gotta get here now! Mom says the ship'll be at yellow alert for the entire next stop. Can you play?"

"Yellow alert. No EVA allowed." Inside, alone in a work room, frustration swelled within him and he let his clever little voice, the voice that had been with him his whole life talk to him. "Quint'll be too busy with a short stop on yellow alert to check on you. You'll be back out finishing this job before she knows it. It's an off-school day. The team will be free. Got enough creds for an hour. Enough time that finish that one level, maybe another. I been thinking about how to defeat this level all week. Miki will be so impressed. Be right there, Miki." He dashed off before anyone saw him. An hour at half off! What luck." He slapped the dust box inside Chesty's top compartment, the only one roomy enough. "Return to quarters. Wait for my signal."

"Chirp!"

The seals of the hatch whined and spit fire as the forcepikes seared into the welds, bolts and seams. Smoke. Molten metal. Thunder, then a flurry of ruby-hued lightning shot out of the greasy cloud.

Team X stood at the was ready. At the far end of the corridor, JannsenX with his laser rifle returned fire confident that his enemy could not match the reach and accuracy of his long barreled Corellian Hi-G laser. He pointed his scope towards the blown hatch and squeezed off rounds at long intervals. One shot, one kill. In the chokepoint of the sally port, he was sure to hit something.

But between the cycling of coolant between rounds, the stormtroopers kept dumbly pouring through, stepping over and around, stumbling, crawling over the bodies of their squad mates.

JannsenX could not hit them all. His rate of fire was too slow. But he was not worried. He had no need to fear being overrun. That was what his teammates were for.

At medium range, SitheaterX cut loose with her Breyer pistol, basically a sawed-off laser rifle with iron sights, blasting what JanssenX missed. Her accuracy was not as good but she made up for it with skill and a better rate of fire. The wave of fresh Troopers tripped over the bodies of their comrades. Then the Troopers blasted the hatch frame, making a wider hole and more Troopers gushed through, like water bursting a levee. That was BlastdeathX's and RagtagX's signal to charge in from the side corridors.

RagtagX opened up with a concussion bolt from his Wookie crossbow, tossing a clot of Troopers aside and killing the Troopers' inertia. BlastdeathX hit them low with a staccato spray from his E-11B quick fire blaster. RagtagX slung the crossbow to his broad back and drew the matching Westron pistols from the holsters and squeezed off shot after shot. The hail of fire from all four drove the Troopers back through the hatch.

JannsenX counted the bodies. "36, 37, 38, 39, 40! Now SithdeathX, before they send in the Light Repeating Blasters!" Kaleb shouted at the top his voice. The report form Sithdeath's Bryergun was deafening even over the headsets.

"I know. I know!" SithdeathX slung the Bryer gun and reached into the tube lying in the small of the back of a slain Trooper. She ejected a thermal detonator, a fist-sized sphere that could incinerate all organic matter in a small cargo bay.

""Hurry! This is about where we get killed." BlastdeathX watched the thermal gauge on his weapon climb higher and higher. Soon, the barrel would melt but he had to make up for the loss of SithdeathX's fire.

SithdeathX twisted the chrome globe. "I can't hurry. If I get this wrong…"

"We know. We remember the last time." RagtagX whined.

"And the time before that and the time before that, and…"

"Cut the chatter, BlastdeathX."

"Thanks, JannsenX."

JannsenX was now just squeezing off rounds into an almost empty hatch, suppressing enemy fire. RagtagX and BlastdeathX were now engaged in a deadly game of peek-a-blast with two Troopers. Each knew that behind the smoke, LRB assault units were massing for an attack that would surely cost them health.

"There! Cover me boys!"

RagtagX and BlastdeathX risked overheating and poured it on. SitheaterX ran towards the hatch and overhand bowled the detonator right through the breach. She skidded to a halt. "Run for it!"

The three of them did run for it. Red bolts zipped passed but still they ran. Two Troopers with light repeating blasters had just appeared when the thermal detonator turned everything within twenty meters to ash.

SitheaterX, RagtagX and BlastdeathX could feel hot air on their backs. But that was all. They ran to JannsenX's position, turned around and admired their work. The entire access hallway was carbon scored and all trace of the forty-odd Stormtroopers was gone.

"Finally!" BlastdeathX put his hand up, offering RagtagX a slap.

"Nice toss, SitheaterX."

"Thanks RagtagX."

"Computer. Save game."

Suddenly, the titanium white bulkheads of the Tantive IV were gone. Only a holoshop's lime green game deck remained.

Micki-SitheaterX whipped off her VR helmet. "What did you do that for?"

"We need to think about our next move."

"What next move? We board the Star Destroyer and kill every Imp on board with Vader for dessert." SitheaterX was exasperated.

"Yeah." RagtagX looked down on JannsenX. "Since when don't you like killing Remnants, Kaleb?"

"Seriously? Board a Star Destroyer?" Kaleb knew he was sounding like a wet blanket but his family did not have the creds to replay mistakes over and over. They were saving for winery in rural Corellia or maybe New Alderaan, with his cousins. Kaleb hated wine. From what he read, tabacc, tubers and roots was where the money was at. One more reason to leave.

"It's a game Kaleb. We know it's not reality," Miki rolled her eyes and then turned to RagtagX. Kaleb noticed she'd been doing a lot more of that lately. Despite his name, RagtagX was tall, dark, handsome, strong and his parents ran the largest finance franchise on the ship. "It'll be fun."

"We know. No one in real life would ever board a Star Destroyer." whined RagtagX. "That's why it's called a 'fantasy' game."

As soon as he heard the words, Kaleb went cold.

"Too bad though. We'd know what to do, right Miki?"

"Right Rags. Kill them all and let the Force sort them out."

Kaleb reeled the world seemed to pitch.

"Hey, Kaleb. What's wrong with you?"

"What's that look for?"

Kaleb's mom's expression, "Like someone walked across my grave." Flashed into the front of his brain. But he hesitated to use it. He didn't want his friends to think he was creepy.

"Maybe it was an undercooked tuber." RagtagX sneered. Kaleb knew that was an oblique jab at his dream of owning a tuber plantation.

Micki hid her laugh. BlastdeathX did not hide his.

Kaleb tried to laugh. But he didn't believe he could. Something was coming, a bad thing, like when the creditors came for them and they had to flee. He was getting one of those feelings again, the kind his parents told him never to talk about. He stared at the floor and tried to drown it out by concentrating on something annoying. Sometimes it worked. Not this time.

RagtagX reached down to touch his friend. Kaleb swatted the big hand away. "Leave me alone." He covered his nagging dread with a lie. "My mom is a good cook."

"When was the last time you mom cooked you a meal, Latchcode?"

"Hatch it, Rag!" Miki scolded. "Hey, we are just kidding, Kaleb."

Kaleb did not feel better watching her come to his defense. "Look, the game's saved. You guys can neutral-player-character me if you want but I'm going home." The last thing he needed was to fall to the deck in front of his friends and he felt like that now. He bent over double. Again, came the feeling like he was watching himself from far away.

"Look Kaleb." It was Micki. Her hair smelled like flowers. Her hand was soft, firm and calming on his back. She knew about his "fits." The fits put off most people.

"NPC's are lame." Ragtag whined.

"Don't be so upset. We all know boarding a Star Destroyer is crazy. We should know, we live in one."

The Fit came again, like an ice-cold punch in his gut.

Miki smiled. "Now, why don't you go home and rest? We've got something we can do anyway. Right guys?"

"But..."

Miki whirled at Ragtag. "RIGHT GUYS?"

"Oh! R-right, Miki." Ragtag smiled.

"Thanks, Miki. Sorry guys."

Kaleb slunk off to bed. BD and Rags were transparent, more so than the rest of the classmates. If it wasn't for his exceptional ability with games he'd have no friends at all. "'Cept Miki." He sighed. The words felt wrong as soon as they were out of his mouth.

The announcement was made over the PA system, the ship was now on "security alert" a.k.a. yellow alert. All personelle and reserves were to report to duty stations. For his mom and dad, that meant lifepod duty. They got some little extra credits that way. Convoy's reported to hangers. And civilians, like him. Were restricted to quarters. "Looks like they weren't going to play much more anyway." He reached for his datapad.

Where are we? Terminus? Never been there before. What's Terminus? Wonder what they grow here?"

DA-42

Terminus Asteroid Field

Terminus is both the name of the central Neutron Star cluster and the asteroid field surrounding it. No one has ever separated the two as no one has ever bothered to spend an extra breath aside from the words "Get us out of here!" for it. Terminus is Known Space's largest asteroid field, pivoting around the gravity field of the galaxy's largest, Strange Neutron Star. Strange is not an adjective as it is a description of the strange gravitonic and dark matter it spews out at odd intervals which is normal for a Strange Star and so, not strange at all and so makes the all the yelling of "Get us out of here!" quite normal.

Origins: A long, long time ago, Terminus was a trinary system or a system so close to trinary it's not worth mentioning, except here, consisting of a Neutron and two Brown Dwarf stars and their surrounding planets and moons. As the Galaxy drifted, the Brown Dwarfs (which are actually quite large but small when compared to Brown Giants, if ever a thing existed) and planets collided so perfectly on odds so slim that the scientist who programmed out the odds eventually went on to break the bank at The Wheel and so became the only wealthy astrophysicist in history, Pa Na Mi Je of Gengex I, coined the words "astronomical odds" and retired Kysheekk to write her acclaimed books of poetry, Wookie Pond and Bark of Moss.

The orbital flotsam that was once two Brown Dwarfs and three vast solar systems collected around the gravity field of the only surviving body, the Neutron Star, Terminus, both increasing and, and this is the key part, broadening the mass, the same way your dear ole' Uncle Charlie increases his weight and girth with every Lifeday Feast. Drawing more suns and planets into it, they smash, draw more mass into it, etc. and the system goes on like a Mon Banker's Ponzi Scheme. Add a few hundred trillion years of exponential gravity growth and you get the idea the origin of the eponym of near space, "The Tangle" or on the other side "Wild Space."

The epigravimentric and only neutron star, Terminus, through a quark of fate, (and yes we do mean quark) emits pure xtonic radiation. If you have no idea what xtonic radiation is, that is good, because if you DID know, you would have no need of datapads, hence no need of me and me my maker and me would be out of a job.

X-tonic radiation is produced at the very edge of each band of the spectrum, the dark between two colors. How Terminus' emissions skip the bandwidth "red" before producing the black border bandwidth before "yellow" etc. , has not been fully explained because it has not been fully studied and for the reason why it has not been fully studied, please re-read the first three paragraphs. What is known is that only monochrome light bounces off the objects in Terminus, bleaching colors to shades of grey. Link" xtonic radiation Hence, it's nickname, The Bleach.

Terminus Economy: (last known, declassified)

Agriculture: Unremarkable asteroid underground subsistence hydroponics

Mining & Processing 80% Energy production 20% The Terminus system is noted for its crystal production. Terminus crystals produce the finest vibro scalpels in the universe as they do not vibrate noticeably in the surgeon's hands, like all others. Terminus' unique composition also creates a variety of other unusual crystals that boost power relays and other peculiar things but production is not reliable enough for mass marketing. For more on Terminus crystals, please download our Datapak, Natural Resources of the Universe for only 19.95.

Terminus had rolled over its profits from the scalpels to making inroads into the energy market. They had discovered a way to power their factories and even recharge all manner of power packs, using plentiful x-tonic radiation and crystal Accent and Nuance (AN or Aenn) chambers. The offer of free energy intrigued the Mining Guild but negotiations collapsed after the Imperial Acquisition of Bespin link and the Guild had better things to exploit, like a planet rich in naturally spun Tibanna link gas during a major rebellion.

Hence, Terminus changed the focus of its marketing strategy from exporting raw vibro crystals to the production of finished product, peerless vibro surgical tools itself.

Though embargoed by the Republic, every Tier I surgeon (or surgeon droid) has at least one set of Terminus Specials. They are happy to pay top credit for a vibroblade that does not (noticeably) vibrate.

But then came victory of the Galactic Alliance. Terminus was branded "Remnant" and embargoed.

From time to time, an especially efficient Customs Officer tries to block smuggling with Terminus, but inevitably they or a member of their brood falls ill and their surgeon (always looking out for the Surgeons Guild) offers them a choice, a shaking, legal scalpel or the smooth, illegal scalpel. And so the border becomes porous again.

And so it has been. Terminus has muddled along; the sales of scalpels keeps it going. However, it is unlikely that enough profit is made to overcome daily wear and tear. Terminus is a score of years past the point to where it should have been rendered unviable and uninhabitable. It will end soon; the question is when.

Currently, the Alliance has seen no real reason to seriously cut off what they see as an essential medical supply (especially with trillions of survivors of the Yuzzong Vong War still in rehabilitation) for the sake of 'sticking it to' a few old Remnants.

Everyone knows investing in any fleet to put an end to Terminus Base would be a waste. The asteroid field alone makes a formidable defense and unlike the Empire, the Alliance cares for the lives of its crews. Alliance policy seems to be let grinding poverty bring the Remnant's to the negotiations table, beggar's bowls in their hands.

Coruscant: Office of the Newly Elected Alliance CEO.

The votes were in. Lando won by a landslide.

His supporter told him that the people were sick of war as well. Dashing Lando Calrissian and his trend-setting wife fit the bill perfectly. He had caught a wave a zeitgeist that even had him at loss for words.

He passed on the usual inauguration parade, asked the senate to send the funds to Undercity relief and asked his backers if they could send their leftovers donations that way. Then he "got to business" which for him, meant delegating. His salary, as Galactic Alliance CEO, went to the hiring of inspector generals, empowered with executive authority to fly to the rims doing the kind of good that lightsabres could not. He filled his board with experts and let them do their jobs.

In a typical turn of Calrissian luck, his Rylothian inventory expert found warehouses of mothballed senatorial furniture that was "sent down" because it was unfashionable and now were, with the gift of time, priceless antiques. Lando sat behind a thousand plus year old Kyshhk human sized teak desk and was saving the Alliance storage fees at the same time. His Dinesh bar set was so old the crystal had started to flow. His office would make auctioneers drool. And before he was elected it was all forgotten junk. Most ended up in senatorial offices again. The Alderaanian artifacts were repatriated to New Alderaan.

Lando poured himself a cup of kaffe and went to his desk. Except for family photos. it was empty, as he expected. All the real work had been done over a banquet table the night before. He scrolled through his email and sipped. He didn't bother with much but scanning them. His reaction and his typed response was pretty much the same.

Two of IG's sent updates, which was two more than usual.

Domestically, the Undercity was gaining traction against the Vogiforms. Lando's twelve Inspector Generals were hated and loved for all the right reasons as they cleaned up planetary dysfunction and corruption. But the space lanes still nagged him.

Even Lando's genius was for problem solving was strained. "I'm being pulled in two directions. How to keeping the space lanes safe while drawing down the debt and the navy? What a headache. Too many dice are rolling at the same time.

If only I could find a free navy. Like that's going to happen.

Who's this Phon of Corellia? What happened to Winstrum?

Prize court? Why would….the Prize Court!

Maisel? Get me my Admiralty Law expert! What's his name!" Lando rubbed his chin. "This kid might be on to something."

Kaleb: Errant Venture

"Phhhft. A yellow alert for dreg Remnants?" For the second time that day, the words didn't feel right in his mouth. "What do they want here?"

Back in his quarters, only Chesty was there to greet Kaleb. "Just as well." Only sleep seemed to ease him anymore. His mom's valerian tea worked too but he was loathe to comm his parents. He lay on his cot and looked up at the posters of grain fields and olives groves. He had fresh olives once and ever since then they haunted him. The more he read about them, the more he liked them, the trees were as gnarled as he felt, but they were good for thousands of things. The posters had the olives in sun baked soil. Kaleb wondered what that kind of heat felt like. "Bet it feels good. Maybe I should grow olives." He hit the audio book and hoped it would help him dream. "All olive trees are grafted. Their root stalk is the poisonous oleander…"

Kaleb didn't want a vineyard. He wanted a farm. He wanted something that grew something that mattered. He didn't want what his parents wanted. They were different people. And he was getting the feeling, that though they would never say it, they blamed him for something.

When he was little, his parents seemed more than just a little concerned about his fits. In fact, he got the impression that his fits were the reason they left good jobs as academics on Coruscant for space. His family bounced from system to system finally ending up the Errant Venture. Not every planet wanted a librarian and school administrator but they always wanted a bar. Dad used his encyclopedic memory for drinks and wine cellar maintenance. Mom used her administrative degree to manage and balance the books. Over the years, worry turned to annoyance, then avoidance soured to resentment.

School was easy for Kaleb. He didn't need their help or encouragement. Playtime on the Errant Venture was little more than an exercise in delinquency. Work, earning enough to escape seemed to be the only thing that mattered. He barely saw his family or classmates anymore.

He heard a chirp. Chesty was still there. "What do you want? Oh, the dust box. I'll get it later." He laid his head down and dreamed.

Imperial Shuttle Sequoia: Commodore Sil Sorran

The Imperial Shuttle, Sequoia, dropped out of hyperspace at three times the distance of maximum turbo laser range. The Errant Venture stood out from space like a blot of ketchup on burnt toast.

"Look at her, painted like a two-chit Buff Dancer."

"Belay that talk, Lieutenant." Commodore kept his head rested against the Lambda's cool bulkhead, kept his eyes closed so he wouldn't see the impulsive Lieutenant Ai's blush and embarrass him further. She was a good officer but sometimes she let the passion of duty get the better of her.

Lt. Ai checked herself he forgot how the Old Man was very conservative on such things but her lips kept flapping. "I'm sorry, sir. But the Virulence was my first duty. You know what they say, you never forget your first ship." She pointed to the polychrome holo projected by the black-spherical droid, GO01, levitating in front of her.

"Which is why you were allowed on this mission. Your knowledge of the Errant Venture could be useful. Note I said your 'knowledge' not your "opinion.' And the proper response to a commanding officer's correction is a prompt 'No excuse, sir.' Preferably followed by prolonged silence."

"No excuse, sir." Ai laid her hand on the droid, G0O1, and switched off the view screen. The droid floated to her side, like a silent valet. As usual, the droid said nothing, just "stared" ahead with is single blood red main visual unit.

"Very good, Lieutenant. You are a good officer and I do look forward to your assessment. Intelligence informs us Terrik is interested repeatedly brokering deals in what we have to offer. If we are to continue doing business with him, we are most curious to evaluate his connection to the Galactic Alliance. His Errant Venture has been known to go on covert missions for the Alliance from time to time. We are curious about any upgrades the Galactic Alliance has made. "

"And the modifications the smuggler's themselves have made, sir?"

"Smugglers are quite unorganized and have no knowledge of how to keep a ship of the line Corellian Fashion. I have yet to be on one that did not smell like a Trandoshian abattoir. But the Alliance's shipyards are good…quite good…Why not, we trained them?"

Commodore Sorran resumed his doze. He always got rest when he could. It prevented the heart arrhythmia. His meds were hard to come by. He knew better than to count on the tissue paper thin supply lines. And he knew he needed all of his strength, especially with the homicidal manic sitting next to him.

The career navy man cursed his luck that the upcoming meeting required Kir Kanos' presence. "Regrettable. But I must defer to the Presidium's judgment. A killer of his caliber might be needed, especially since I am limited to only one squad of Stormtroopers. It IS time for him to earn his keep. It's just…" He felt it again, his energy flowing down to his feet. "The things I have been reduced to…"

The soul-deep weariness had, once again, almost overcome him when the pilot chimed. "We've got the all clear, sir. Gamma squadron's report the Errant Venture just arrived. She launched no sentry ships. Standing by."

"That is a mistake, moving in enemy territory without recon. They are arrogant. Follow the approach vector they transmit. Steady as she goes, pilot."

Underneath their helmets, the first squad of the first cohort of Legion Zero smiled.

Flavius used the private frequency for his Centurion, Gaius. "The Old Man had brought Lt. Ai up short. A v'blading followed by praise. No wonder we love him. What an Old Vulpa."

"Cut the chatter, Trooper One. We're not in the barracks anymore, were on a mission."

"Yes, Centurion "

Sorran smiled. Through dozing eyes, he could tell his Troopers we talking, watching his every move. They were his boys and girls, every single one. But when the Commodore looked over their equipment, he could see the inevitable signs of wear, both of men and materials. "Their boots are worn. There's no hiding that. There is not an E11t without a dent. The coolant flow will not be optimum. That one has a home tooled select fire switch. And this is my best cohort. It have to end this very soon…very soon."

Sorran tried to doze despite his revulsion of the man next to him. He reminded himself that as a prisoner in the death camps he had spent days chained to worse. He had a hard time convincing himself of that.

Lt. Ai was eager to make up for her past gaffe. "If we have to go to Plan Beta. I'll be ready. I won't let you down, sir."

Sorran could feel his Troopers tense up. "They are spoiling for a fight. They have spirit. But I wish she had not brought Beta up. For a woman of her age and experience to be so careless is unlike her. Being in sight of her old ship may have affected her more than I anticipated.

At least she did not bring up Gamma plan. Those plans have a way of self-fulfilling. I need to bring her belligerent tone down a notch.

When one's only tool is hammer one tends to see every problem as a nail, Lieutenant. Let us hope that Plan Beta, an armed retreat, does not become necessary. May I remind you we have given our word?"

"Yes. Sir. But it's the smuggler's word I worry about."

"Duly noted."

"Commander. They are tracking us with weapons."

"That is to be expected.

Should have sat in the command area. But these men need my presence more.

Lt. Koss is a very good pilot. No need to put two mechs under the same hatch. Besides, I do loathe the sight of stars anymore. They just get my hopes up." He lowered his eyelids to slits.

Sorran smiled. Through dozing eyes, he spied the tell-tale head movements. His Troopers we anxious, watching his every move. They were his boys and girls, every one. "The new armor will give them confidence. I wonder if the pirates will notice the difference? The slight, glassy, shimmer? They will notice the vibro-spathas are actually vibro- glaives? The shield bars?" He felt pride at his team's achievements. But as the Commodore continued to perform a cursory examination over their equipment, he could see the inevitable signs of wear, both of men and materials. "Should be all right for the time being." He sighed. "I will have to end this very soon…very soon. But how…and with honor? Especially with this stain of a bounty hunter next to me?"

Sil Sorran, like most Kuati, was long boned but the former Crimson Guard was full head taller and muscular enough to wrestle a Wookie. "Though he was a product of elite and secret Imperial training, he is not a soldier. The crimson cloak doesn't fool me. He is a mad man totally without honor." An unease crept into the Sorran's bones whenever the bounty hunter hovered close, a disquiet of his mind that he fought, an anxiety he had felt last in the presence of Emperor Palpatine. He felt it again, the cold energy flowing though his feet, just like the first time he stood in the presence of the Emperor justifying the expense of research into a hyperspace locater. "I feel utterly naked. The things I have been reduced to…"

"Got the all clear, sir. Entering the docking bay."

Weariness left him when the shuttle sounded with the thump of metal landing pads on durasteel deck and adrenaline kicked in. "Prepare to disembark."

The whines and thumps of the landing gear vibrated through the soles of the Troopers' boots. The green light turned amber and the squad of 12 Troopers snapped to attention. All made one last equipment check, back to front, left to right. Sword, shield bars, power packs, station cable, hooks, grenades and utils. All there. All secured the way they should be. The Sergeant Major gave them the once over, tugging on belts and armor plates with enough strength to almost topple the Trooper. When the Sgt. Major tapped them twice on the helmet they were clear. "All ready, sir."

Sorran

The Commodore, for his part, re-strapped his uniform keeping his regulation vibro-dagger and comm link at his belt. Then he hung his harness, with the pistol holster and grenade wallet, up on his seat's equipment rack. He stood, smoothed his uniform and admired its clean lines, without the harness across his chest. Lt. Ai did much the same, flashing him a smile that said, "Like the old days."

A frown. "The old days are dead and gone. Focus on the here and now."

The landing light turned blood red. The seam of the hatched opened. Sorran stood still, adjusting his eyes. Two stormtroopers, with their lenses, needed no time to adjust, they rushed ahead.

The ramp-hatch clanked on the Errant Venture's main hanger bay deck. The lead two Troopers sprinted to take up stations by the hydraulic pylons to prevent boarders and to serve as a buffer to the essential pylons. If one was damaged the whole ship's atmospheric integrity could be compromised and that meant the unit was, as likely as not, dead. Better they be blasted than the pylon.

Standing smartly, E-11t's at their hip. Secundus Deft took his station, as saw the hundreds of fearful and angry people in the market square very he was grateful of the fact that he had one of last fully gassed E-11's left in the legion. "All clear. Tense and hostile but not aggressive."

With a nod from the commander, the rest of the squad commenced marching, boots clicking in unison, peeling away at intervals, taking up defensive stances and securing a corridor of retreat, should it become necessary. They kept their modified E-11t's snug against their hips, stance displaying an iron resolve to square off against their opposite numbers among the smugglers if their commander gave the order.

The guards alternated between Bespin blue and Errant Venture cinnabar red. All of them kept their hands open, fingers loose beside on their unsnapped, tied down blaster holsters.

Finally, the Commodore, the Lieutenant, the ex-crimson guard escort and the rear guard marched down the ramp, three abreast. The droid, GO01, floated behind the Commodore, like a chrome-limned stained black halo. Lastly, the robotic magpallet followed, stacked to the eye-level with flat grey two-inch-thick hinged steel cases.

To his ear, the Commodore was pleased with the good cadence and even spacing his unit kept as they marched across the landing bay. He heard two more sets of boots fall in behind the crates and the hissing of the Lambda's ramp, shutting. "We are alone. Look sharp lieutenant. Lieutenant?"

"My beautiful girl, what did they do you?" Ai felt the urge to cry. The vast interior bays surrounding her hanger had been made a model of a Cornelian spaceport-bazaar. Once pristine vertical lifts now dripped with lubricants as they parked poorly maintained ships. Support vessel bays housed hundreds of spacecraft, no two alike in shape or make. Two loading decks she could spy had actually been turned into some kind of gallerias or zocalos. At –At stalls were now garishly curtained shops with apartments above. A squadron of Uglies, cobbled, bastardized, fighters, hung in the TIE fighter racks like dead bogeys in a web. But what really assaulted her eyes was the onslaught of colors. A riot of paisley and neon lights shimmered across the entirely of the scarlet deck. There was even graffiti. She had trouble keeping her eyes focused.

"Professional observations only, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir. Don't worry about me, sir."

"This does not bode well." Sorran kept walking casually and used his subcutaneous transceiver surgically installed in his throat and ears.

"Sir?" Ai responded in kind.

"The Lead negotiators of Bespin is wearing blasters. They already violate the conditions of the meeting."

"Is Terrik in on it?"

"With all these civilians around? That would be reckless."

In the landing bay, younglings hid behind their mother's skirts. Peasant males prepared weapons with sweating, trembling hands.

One by one, twittering off in the distance, like the sound of migrating bats, the cantina band's reed instruments died away. Lacking music, and the audience's attention, scantily clad dancing beings, slowed to a halt and watched the other "show" from their platforms, stage floors, balconies, galleries and operator decks.

In his mind's ear, Commodore Sorran could almost hear, dimly, the Imperial March, full of brass, string and drum that was normally played on occasions where it was important to impress the clodhoppers. But he dismissed the memory like a buzzing pest. The Commodore kept his mind on the business at hand, the enemy ahead of him and the Tibanna gas his people desperately needed.

Across the loading area, the Factor of Bespin, Chai, dispensed with his usual Sabbac-face and smiled smugly at the group of Imperials. "Look at them. Those uniforms have been through the cleaner a bit too often. The Troopers look shiny enough. And look, the cases are ordinary steel."

The Escrow Quartermaster, wearing the livery of the Errant Venture, standing next to the Factor, made a note of it in his data pad.

Chai's chief of security, Sliger, sneered. "They're all carrying vibro blades, even the Troopers. We heard that they were desperate for blast-gas but there's the proof."

"We have them right we want them."

"Then I get my wish?" Sliger was quick on the draw, a Calrissian holdover or left over, depending on who one asked. But he was just the kind of second hand man that enjoyed doing his bosses' dirty work. He claimed he once beat the legendary Han Solo to the draw, once. He was the muscle who made sure all of the brain's, Chai's, orders were followed. It was good, working relationship.

"You bet." Chai knew when to toss his bully a bone.

Despite her best intentions, Lt. Ai was still distracted, her senses were overwhelmed by the lights, colors and smoke saturating the normally pristine and haunting environ of a Star Destroyer main landing bay. Strobes and excited-gas lights hurt her eyes. The clashing plaid of the deck covering was not much better. Her eyes rebelled and settled on the ringing, flashing, and buzzing, unoccupied gambling machines ahead of her. "Hey, why does that dancer have credits in her belt?"

The Troopers, used to the saltier areas of Terminus Base, Section Three, coughed, stifled snickers and forced themselves to think thoughts things like, "That one's a threat. Kill that one first but watch out for his buddy. Wouldn't mind carrying her off. Gammorians are slow but strong. Shoot em' in the legs. They bleed out faster and they can't run."

Mira Antilles

"Ten-minute discretionary break gents." Mira Antilles stood up from the Sabbac table. The five Leviathans (casino terms for big-wager gamblers) grumbled but not as much as they would have three days ago, when they first started playing. The first day out on what Captain Terrik promised to be a five-day trading journey.

The elite crew of tan, lithe, Kuati waiters and azure, curvaceous, Tweelik waitresses seemed to float in with every manner of refreshment, bowls of steaming towels boiled in pure comet water, drizzled in citrus juice, thousand-year fish eggs, kaffe brewed from Treecat droppings , anything a high-end gambler could wish for.

Mira watched the Leviathans paw the consorts and courtesans, and even the wait staff. "Perfectly legal, Mira." She told herself over and over. "Well, legal but not perfect." When she was younger, and more naïve, she didn't mind it so much. The "professional companions" seemed willing and even having fun with their jobs. Some cultures even trained beings for the lifestyle. Terrik made sure no slaves were aboard and all labor had contracted labor had pay and benefits.

There was an added bonus to being taken off the main floor and assigned to the leviathans in the Sentry Gun Room. 99% of all leviathans had enough sense to know Mira was off limits. The other 1% could afford the best medics money could buy.

But the more she was exposed to the real business of consorts and courtesans, the less she liked it, like the high priced tabbac that the Leviathans smoked. She herself has switched to good old Moncal redkelp. Delicious, affordable and it was actually good for you.

Grateful for any reason to look away, she looked up and activated her sub-vocal recorder. She thought her reports to the Galactic Alliance Intelligence had sounded more like a journal than a real report of late. But if Gus, her handler, didn't complain she didn't see a need to change.

The novelty of the Sentry Gun Card Room was that one was sitting on the "ceiling" in the functional center of the main docking bay. Straight "up" lay stars, all around, ships, lifters, transports, cargo and people milled about on the deck.

It was enormous expense to go against a ship's line of gravity. Most ships could not afford it. The Old Empire had money to burn and even then, this was one of the rare Impstar Deuces so equipped.

The Imps stationed the bay's Sentry Gun Station in the place that offered the greatest visibility, the center of the ceiling. Then they armed the station with two quad lasers at the ends articulated boom cranes that could reach even around corners, so that no boarder would be safe. It could even shoot outside the docking shield.

The station itself was too isolated from CIC and early models quickly discovered that the Sentry Station was a bit of a strain on the neck and one had to remove one's helmet to look up at the necessary angle. Some ships tried using mirrors. One officer suggested manning the Sentry Gun Station with a species with stronger necks. After he was sentenced to Terminus, most simply shut it down. The Sentry Gun Station was omitted from later builds and the money put into solid gold faucets for officer's refreshers.

Terrik had let the Sentry Gun Station collect dust for years. Then his architect suggested the articulated boom cranes be redesigned for loading, which was nice, but it was Terrik who really found a way to make it pay.

With the Sentry Gun Station's custom grav plating, already in place, it made a very unique Sabbac room. This Sabbac room provided the clients with a one of kind against-the-line-of-gravity experience, not available at even the famed Wheel. It had the added bonus of looking up, and therefore, down, on the main docking bay.

Before converting the room, clients had a choice, mind business in the hanger or socialize. Good businessmen knew a mixture of both was key to success. Now they could do both. Contacts, cash and contracts were swapped almost as much as chips across Mira's table. They could watch the articulated cranes move their goods at their whim and draw to an inside straight.

She thought Terrik's idea for the card room genius. More to the point, Terrik staffed it with his best dealer and family friend, Mira Antilles. Tailored to shipping magnates, the Sabbac room had raked in millions already. She had to hand it to Terrik, his business model of offering an armed transport/pocket shipyard was inspired. Before the Errant Venture, merchants had a three choices, a) hire guys like Uncle Han but not all were as honest as him, b) own their own armed transports and escorts, like Uncle Lando, but pirates often had more or c) gather in armed convoys but that took coordination and had inherent delays.

The Errant Venture offered all the benefits of choice A, B and C. Even now, the EV held two whole merchant convoys of unarmed ships in her bays. She could pick and drop off ships off as she went, without a loss in firepower. Terrik's customers paid his price but still realized a profit from lack of wear and tear and the overhead of armed escorts.

And the Errant Venture was tough enough to journey into the exotic spacelanes that brought danger but also high profit margins, like now. The Vong War had disrupted everything. It was anew golden age of piracy and the Errant Venture was in it, up to its neck.

Terrik tried to hide the truth from her. But Mira knew. She could tell by the shady leviathans and obvious Hand types milling about in the usual, cheap casinos. Hand always had bad teeth, filled with gold, like cavities were something to be proud of.

But that was background. At that moment, the sentry gun's articulated boom cranes were dormant, armor stripped (they could handle more weight that way) tucked off to the side like mantis arms, their operators off duty.

The quad lasers each had once wielded had been replaced with simple cargo claws, she and her clients had an unobstructed view of the main hanger and the stars. If the circumstances were right, they could even move the cargo themselves. The security provided by the original transparasteel windows and armor was a welcome relief for more than a few.

But now there were no stars or planets peeking through the docking sheilds. There was only spots of black on a field of gray filtering a strobing white light. "Oh no. Terminus."

The table of Leviathans looked up only briefly. Most regularly did business in the shadows and were just killing time until they made their rendezvous with their own anonymous clients. In the shipping business, people who stuck their nose in where it didn't belong usually got it cut off.

Mira's table was packed. For reasons she had yet to discern, there were more big-time shadow merchants and smugglers than usual on board. One thing was for sure, something was up in Wild Space.

The occasion of an arriving Lambda shuttle with chipped Old Imperial markings was what had prompted Mira to use one of her two "dealer discretion" breaks. Not for the first time, she watched and wondered what she had gotten herself in to. "I like the Terriks. Boss is like an uncle, an old family friend. And Dotter's like the big sister I wish I had. But at times like these… I wonder just what will cause me to leave? The courtesans, the intoxicants, tariff evasion and now this? How much more can I handle before it rubs off?

They don't seem to mind. It's like all they can commit all these shady dealings and it's not supposed to affect our relationship? Living in the gray like this? I'm an Antilles, not a Solo.

I don't think mom and dad really knows what goes on here. As far as dad goes, he still thinks of Terrik as a smuggler dodging Imperial taxes. But the Empire is gone. Dad's living in the past.

I've seen smugglers, Hutts, Black Sun, Chiss, Mandalorians, bounty hunters and lately, Hand. Now we are dealing with a domestic Imperial remnant?

Terminus isn't much of a threat. From what I hear they are barely holding on. Kinda feel sorry for them, stuck out here, in this hellhole. They are too far off the space lanes for Fel to bother about and from what I hear they are hostile to the Hand. Not that I blame them.

There's the ramp. There's the Troopers. Why are they covered in glitter? Here's the cargo. Kesslestick says it's some famous Terminus scalpels. Well Imps or no, trading medical supplies is not so bad. Wait. Those are Bespin uniforms. Natural spun Tibanna gas?

They can't be trading Remnants blaster gas for scalpels! They are!

This is a new low, trading blaster gas to Imperials! I bet Terrik's even escrowing the deal. Gonna have to tell Uncle Lando about this. Bespin has really gone to rust since he left."

She took a deep breath. "Uncle Terrik's just isn't listening to me anymore. Keeping this tub running is an obsession with him. Providing a market for military supplies to domestic Remnants and the Hand? That tears it. I'm outta here. Guess dad was wrong about me ending up the only rich Antilles.

Mom's right. We have too many morals to be rich.

Ow. My neck hurts. Won't miss that part of the job.

I've had that letter of resignation on my data pad for months. Time to send it in.

GA intelligence won't be happy. They can shove it. Let them get another flesh-droid. I'll remove the slave circuit dataport too. Tell them it was so it wouldn't be discovered. It's the least I can do.

Dad was right. The middle is always the worst place. I hate it when he lets me find out that he was right all along.

Ow. I need an aspirin. Make that an aspirin and drink. Think I'll watch from the cameras on the boom cranes. I'll be looking down on the screen that way. There's the cupholder. Ah. Cascadian Lager."

Errant Venture: Dotter 1

On the bridge, Captain Terrik and his first officer, Dotter Terrik watched everything, using the ship's network of cameras to zoom in, observe and record from a safe distance.

"I don't like this, Da. We should NOT have let them in the main landing bay. Or at least cordon off the area."

"No. Let them see. It's good for our customers. Let's remind them what still lurks outside. Tomorrow, we raise our rents."

Terrik's adopted daughter and first officer, Dotter, grimaced, sure the old man already had mentally spent his share of the profits spent on some repair or upgrade for his "baby." Not for the first time Dotter wondered who was his real favorite child was.

"I limited them to one squad and no blasters for the principals. And by having them meet in the main bay I've 'hired' all the tenants to watch them for free. Look at them. They all ran for their weapons as so as they saw the white of their armor. No stashing their hold out blasters from me now.

Stream this data to Josie when we are done.

Dotter clenched her lips. "You mean Josie is not down there, monitoring this?"

"You know how she feels about Imperials. All I told is that it's another one of our deals that falls into 'a gray legal area.' Besides, I got Pete there. "

"Pete's good. But he's a quartermaster. He shouldn't be multi-tasking with so much on the line. And look. Those Bespin guards are eager."

"But the Imperial officers are not, not really. Don't worry daughter, this Remnant would have to be crazy to try anything surrounded by so many blasters. That's how were making our rep, right? Armed cargo transport and a safe place to do business even in the Tangle?

You're always after me about money. Well, this money was just too good to pass up. I swear when I jacked up cost of gas to twenty times market levels I thought the Remnants would decline. But they agreed. Face it luv, the profit's just too good."

Dotter still had misgivings. "That means they're desperate. Weren't you the one that told me desperate beings are the most dangerous? And now the Imps and Bespinians have face to consider. Too many meats in the stew. You tend to over finesse."

"We've dealt with Remnants before."

"And that's another thing. I don't like dealing with Remnants at the best of times. And there's something about these Imps. Look at their stance. This isn't some bunch of shot up refugees or militia burn outs. These guys know what they're doing."

Captain Terrik tossed a well gnawed cigar stub into the bowl-shaped depression on the top of the cylindrical humidor droid. JVS-33, or "Jeeves" as Terrik called him. Jeeves stayed by his hip, everywhere he went. Jeeves was expensive, top-of-the-line; one of life's little pleasures Terrik treated himself to.

After the ash tray flipped itself clean, a staggered rack of fresh offerings emerged from its chest-cavity and raised up on hydraulic arms until it was just under the captain's nose. Terrik perused the carved Kyshhk Cyprus ziggurat of fine stogies, spinning it slowly, savoring the moment. He chose a Churchill from Tatooine. He hadn't tasted the box yet. He bought it purely at his tobacconist's recommendation. It smelled spicy, good and ripe. He took it out and held it out for the clipper arm. The droid retracted the cigars into its "humidity-controlled chest". There followed a hiss of atmosphere as it purged air from the humidor chamber. Then it extended two servo arms: one with the snipper, one with a double wide gas lighter.

He spied on his daughter out of the corner of his eye. "I love making her wait for a response." He wet and rolled the cigar with his lips and then held it out for the humidor's snipper. Micro fine sensors and vibro cutter snipped to perfection. He placed it in his mouth and then, with the droid extending the lighter, he drafted the fresh stogie until it glowed. When infra-red sensors informed it that its master's particular cigar was perfectly drafted reaching the pinnacle of combustibility, Jeeves withdrew the lighter and resumed its state of readiness.

Only after coaling the stogie properly did Terrik say. "Thanks, Jeeves.

Hm. Tattoine is growing some mighty fine leaf now. Is that how I should roll over the profit of those scalpels? Should we make a run after we drop that convoy off in Wild Space? Another high profit journey yours truly booked.

Need to check the margin on tabacc."

"Don't change the subject. These Imps are different." It was times like this Dotter wished she could see things from up close instead through a bridge monitor. But her Da was right. Lots of "flashfights" small, intense and, in the long run, insignificant, quick draw contests happened at barter. The Errant Venture had seen more than her fair share. Dotter had grown up without a mother and mostly without a father and she swore she would never put her two kids though the same.

Still, there was something about these Troopers that was sending her instincts screaming. She reached for it verbally, knowing, in her gut, she'd fall short. "Wish I was better with words. I've got a bad feeling about this."

Her Da used his Sabbac voice spoken with a stogie between his teeth. "Relax. Look at their commander's body language. He's just going through the motions. He knows Terminus' days are numbered. He's just holding on. One push and he's broken."

Terrik's daughter grunted in agreement. "The man does have 'whipped cur' written all over him, all right." Her father could read people better than an archivist read script. She knew of only three people, excluding herself, whoever bested him at cards but she groused nonetheless, almost out of habit. "Always pushing your luck, da. One of these days the Force is going to call your bluff."

"It won't be today. Why, with our share of this deal alone we could pay for enough droids that we can finally relax when it comes to maintenance."

"Too much of the crew is droids already if you ask me. We need a budget and regular income. Find a harbor, a regular route, stop buying things just for ego. Why just the paint desiccant we go through…" she waved her hands in exasperation. "This ship is a money pit."

"We'll have that argument again in a minute. I want to watch this."

Sorran 2

The humans stood before the flats of super-cooled, condensed, liquid, tibanna gas. The stackable tanks, a.k.a. "flats," were an upgrade, more volume in more refined polished carbonite; so shiny, the Commodore could see his troops behind him, darkly, like in an obsidian mirror. The pallet was stacked taller than him with four access valves and monitor panel along the side. The nine flats were laid nine tall by three deep with yellow durasteel braces holding them in square above the robot grav-pallet, like twenty-seven pitch-black building blocks.

The Bespinian did not nod. "Commodore."

"Seignior." Sorran used the old term of respect for a successful citizen-merchant-civic leader.

"That's Chief Factor to you."

The officer allowed a small shrug of dismissal. "As you wish, Chief Factor. We have the scalpels." He made a small wave to the steel cabinets behind him, keeping his face front.

Factor Chai raised his arm and theatrically snapped his fingers to a pair of Ugnaughts in his company. They stood still, having never seen Chief Factor make that sort of command before. Chai snapped his fingers again. The Ugnaughts looked blankly at him. Chai blushed, "Examine the blades!" They scrambled.

Lt. Ai and the GO01 moved forward. The four passed each other impassively.

The gnomish, pumpkin haired, Ugnaught, dressed in a less faded brown jumpsuit, twisted and tapped a latch at random, a tray of d-shaped scalpel blades sprung out a modest one inch. The Ugnaught pulled the tray out the rest of the way and, with vise tweezers, randomly selected a milky-white d-shaped scalpel blade. Then he gingerly screwed the tweezers tight.

At same time, Lt. Ai walked to the furthest left of first three stacks. She was out of sight of the Factor but not a pair of Bespinian Guards. She snapped a test-cylinder into the forward valve of the flat #3, stack 3 and handed to a GO01's metal arm, which fed it into a tray and gobbled it up.

The Ugnaught examined the blade under a jeweler's glass for only for a moment, when his kin snatched away the vise-tweezer and examined it with his digital loopscope. The first snatched it back and argued with the second. GO01 beeped and whined. The hairier Ugnaught grunted and gesculated, finally nodding agreement toward Chai. At the same time GO01, emitted a happy chirp.

The two parties reassembled. The Ugnaughts, fascinated by their new acquisition, kept examining it and stayed beside the cargo. GO01's programming saw no reason to expend energy and leave its current position.

The Commodore stood up front, in the lead. Three steps behind him and two his right, stood the crimson-cloaked Kir Kanos. Ten Troopers stood in a semi-circle, blasters pointed to the guards, cupping their commanders and cargo, eyes on the opponents, not the deal. Two more Troopers stood at the Lambda's ramp as rear guard.

The Chief Factor and his right-hand man stood in the lead. The fourteen remaining Bespinians spread out behind them.

As trained, the Errant Venture guards spread out at irregular distances so no one Trooper could shoot two or more without exposing himself to enfilade fire. As usual with Rendezvous of Barter, four EV guards prowled the perimeter, separating the parties from the civilians, keeping the perimeter up until the deal ended. If one being drew a weapon orders were to kill him/her and give the rest a chance to surrender. If both parties drew, they had orders to "suppress" them all equally, and sort it out later. Yet, each guard knew that, if given choice, which party he or she would just love to suppress first, the Remnant. The Chief Factor knew that too and he counted the reds on his side, as much as the blues.

The Commodore activated the commlink embedded in his throat. "Loadmaster?"

"Sir?" The warrant officer back in the Lambda class shuttle responded.

"The GO01 reports the gas is good. Begin transfer…"

"Yes. Sir." The mag-lift palette with the crystals rose off the deck and began to slide forward.

"Wait a minute."

In response to the Factor's comment, the Commodore held up his left fist. "Hold." The Loadmaster on board the Lambda, who was, as the Commodore expected, monitoring the exchange, remotely stalled the pallet. "Yes?"

"My colleagues and I are upping the price, Imp."

"Not even being subtle about it.

You are already being paid twenty-one-point eight times market value. This is all the blades we have with us and this ship will not linger. This is your chance to be rich man."

"There are more important things than money, Imp."

"If it's not money…?"

"I want you to stand still for one minute, just one."

"That's not the deal."

"I am altering the deal; pray I don't alter it any further." The Chief Factor said in a basso voice. The Bespin men roared.

"Inside joke.

And then we have a deal?"

"Sure."

Sorran took a deep breath. He looked over at Errant Venture's Escrow Quartermaster, who nodded, meaning he had recorded the verbal contract. He went to attention and found his center. "Agreed."

The second in command, dressed in a Bespin security uniform, strutted up to the Commodore. That drew the attention of the Imperial Troopers but Sliger knew the crowd was with him. He walked around the Commodore once, savoring the sight of an Imperial Navy Officer, a REAL Imperial Officer, at attention, at his mercy, then he stopped on his left side and hissed into the old man's ear. He had to bend down a little. "You know…"

"Just get on with it, smuggler." And Sorran stiffened his lip.

The Bespin guard hissed but recovered himself, like he suddenly remembered he was the in charge. "All right." After a relaxing breath, he released his bladder on to the old man's freshly polished boots.

The Old Man stared straight ahead and gathered the shreds of his dignity.

Sliger zipped himself back up, stepped around the yellow puddle, around the pair of freshly stained boots to face the Commodore. "Not so high and mighty are you now, Remnant?"

Sorran could see his unit's reflection in the gas receptacles. As the smugglers roared in laughter, the Troopers dipped their helmets ever so slightly, his lieutenant adverted her eyes. The bounty hunter made a face of stone; he could have been thinking about what he had for breakfast. But the Commodore knew what they were thinking. He could almost taste the bilious shame, roiling up in his throat.

Commodore Sorran knew what he had to do next, insane as it was, he knew it was the right and proper thing to do. With his sinister hand he drew his vibroblade from its sheath, snapped it on, wrapped his right arm around the Silger's shoulders and then plunged the hand span of x-tonically excited cryptoshard in through the diaphragm of the Bespin Guard. The vibroblade cut cloth, muscle and cartilage as through air, crosspiece punching breath from the guard's lungs even at the blade sliced his heart and the tip pierced his spinal cord.

"The name's Imperial Commodore Sorran, Polemarch of Terminus, smuggler scum!"

The swift stroke, lack of the iconic vibroblade hum and the closeness of the stab, meant that no one except Lt. Ai, the Troopers, Kir Kanos and GO01 realized just what wanton act of violence their Commodore had just committed.

The Imperial lieutenant's eyes snapped wide. Inside soulless white helmets, jaws dropped. The former Crimson Guard smirked at some inner, private joke. GO01 silently floated to a new position, behind the robot that helmed the pallet of gas. Without a sound, permission or command, GO01, "Sss-nick." It jacked into the robot's occipital brainport. The transfer of data was as silent as it was swift. New commands overrode the robot's higher binary functions. In a second, the robot was a loyal member of the Empire. It knew how it could help its new masters.

The Factor and the Errant Venture guards at first thought the Bespinian had the wind knocked out of him by an old man. The Deputy Factor even chuckled, idly considering the teasing, his second, Sliger would suffer. "That'll take him down a notch." Then the Sliger's knees folded to the deck. Sleeves dripped blood as the guard's forearms attempted to hold in his guts, gasping.

The Imperial officer stood tall, cuff and tunic smeared and slick with foeman's blood. He turned to the Factor Chai, raised the dagger's hilt to his eye and flicked the dagger twice in the Factor's direction, centrifugal force spitting fresh, smoking blood at the bureaucrat's feet. The Bespinian stumbled a half step back, pale as his freshly disemboweled right-hand man.

The silence was deafening. Pregnant.

Then…

"Blast 'em!" The Troopers, with their training in wanton slaughter, knew just what to do. They cut loose, blasting every guard in sight. At that close range, twelve purple bolts took out twelve guards, leaving steaming, smoking craters inside chest cavities. The remaining smugglers and guards were a second behind. They snapped off quick, inaccurate rounds as they dashed for cover behind pillars, beams, crates, lifters and shop facades. The trades people ran and screamed.

Lt. Ai scrambled behind the steel pallet of scalpels for cover. The Imperial Loadmaster was already recalling Terminus Base's medical treasure. It was a near perfect screen. All Ai had to do was follow the pallet back to the shuttle. The pallet was laden, slow. She had no trouble crouching and walking behind it. Then a pumpkin-haired, stubby, hand slid the switch on the driver-yoke's control panel from the "remote" setting to "manual." The pallet of priceless scalpel blades stopped moving.

GO01, ignored as droids usually are on such occasions, having seized control of the gas pallet-lifter's simple robot brain, proceeded to do what it always did with droids it programmed with the glories of serving the Empire. It told it to give.

Some anthropologists describe the primate response to stress as only two options "fight or flee." This is incorrect. There is also the response where the primate holds still, hoping the predator's eye passes over him. The proper alternatives are "fight, flee or freeze." The Imperial officer took the foremost option. The Bespinian bureaucrat took the hindmost option.

The flashfight whirled around the Commodore. Though he was leader, he was only armed with a blade and so, was rated far down the threat scale. Bolts screamed around him. The Commodore strode through the storm, stepping across the deck purposefully, confidentially, toward the stunned Factor Chai.

It wasn't Chai's first flashfight. One could not rise to Chief Factor of a frontier mining town without seeing more than a few. But those were all blasters and lasers. Energy weapons that made neat, cauterized holes that traumatized the victim into instant shock and death from a distance. He had never seen a v-blade at work.

Chai could not take his eyes off the blood. The sopping tubes and spilling from his friend and companion made his stomach lurch. He wondered how Sliger could have so much blood in him. More blood followed. The tall, scarlet cloaked human produced a double crystosis blade katana and in one dance-step sliced four guards from nave to chops. Chai wondered who was screaming about "all the blood."

Up on the bridge, red mist fogged the cameras. "Gundark lobes! You were right!" Terrik heaved himself up from his chair and lumbered for the turbolift, holding his blaster belt so it didn't slip off his gut. "You know the drill. Sound intruder alert. Put Josie on containment. I'll handle the main loading bay myself." As the turbolift slammed shut, he snuffed out his cigar on his bulkhead, putting one more circular stain overlapping the others, cursing that he had moved too fast for his humidor-droid to keep up. He reached for his vest pocket humidor, but then he decided to simply get more air into his lungs.

Need Lorers thought he was pretty smart choosing to duck for cover before choosing to shoot. His strategy had served him well in the past. He hunched behind a pillar and scanned the area. He could see two corpses of his late, fellow Errant Venture guards in their smoldering cinnabar tunics, Gumleg D'qawn, blaster still in his hand and Moph Franx (at least Need thought it was Moph, his hair was still on fire from the blaster hit to his face) lay dead. He patted himself on his back for his cleverness.

Need used his time-worn strategy of quickly bending from behind cover and squeezing off one handed shots, offering minimal exposure at irregular intervals. He ducked to his right, exposing only eye and hand. There stood a Stormtrooper not four paces away, in a classic pose, steadying the blaster with his hip, using the linked sights in his helmet. He wasn't looking Need's way. Need squeezed off a shot and did not linger to assess the damage. That was another one of his secrets to long life.

"There! I'm sure I got him." A rush of victorious energy surged into his blood. But as he ducked left, a bolt of violet bounced off the I-beam that provided him cover, leaving him seeing stars. "That's what you get for being over eager, Need old boy. Left. Go left this time." He ducked out and shot again, not tarrying to see his result. "There! I'm sure I got him that time." He spun right and low but as soon as he peeked, a purple bolt splattered off the deck ahead of him. He ducked back and coughed the smoke from his lungs. "That's wrong! I'm sure I shot him. I'm sure! He should be dead!" Then the reality of the situation hit him. "He's getting closer."

The Ugnaughts were not letting go of their fortune in scalpels. The hairier one jumped on the operator platform and placed himself between the driver's yoke and the pallet's tube-steel railing then spread his arms, blocking the Ai's access to the controls. The other whacked her thigh with a spanner.

Lt. Ai looked down at the stubby, tenacious, orange obstacles and snarled. The building fury of a woman who saw her home vandalized found its vent. "Oh, you picked the wrong day to do THAT!" She cat-stepped back, out of the next spanner swing. She waited until he held the spanner high. "Little orange freak…" using her long legs, she sidekicked him/her in the face, creating a vegetable-crunch sound that pleased the imperial officer's ears. The Ugnaught folded like a nose-punched pit droid, trying to clear his breathing tubes of cartilage and fluid.

Ai drew her vibroblade and snapped a battle stance to the Ugnaught leader on the railing, who had now produced his own vibroknife and slashed the air above the railing menacingly, buying time. The officer took the scene in, then crouched below the safety railing and sliced off the Ugnaught's feet at the ankles. The Terminus blade cut bone and gristle and even the tube aluminum like a hot knife through butter. The Ugnaught, as Ai calculated, tried to reach over the loader's railing to stab the officer's back, but his/her arms were too short. With his/her feet gone, he/she dropped his/her weapon and grabbed his/her amputated joints. The Ugnaught's natural tunicate fibers cut off the bleeding, but the pain was still there.

Then the Ugnaught felt himself heaved off the pallet by the scruff of his orange overall and thrown to the deck between the loader and the Imperial Shuttle, next to his fetal positioned companion. Ai crouched above them, no longer on the deck but on the pallet lifter's operator's platform and reset controls to remote. The Loadmaster lost no time and the weighted scalpel pallet jerked backwards. Straight ahead lay the loading ramp of the Imperial Shuttle. All Ai had to do was leave the switch on "remote." It could be on board in moments with the precious scalpels and GO01m with the gas, not far behind. No loss. All gain. She would be a heroine.

But then Ai noticed the two wounded Ugnaughts just to the right of the pallet's path.

The Imperial smirked, switched the pallet lifter's controls back to manual, shifted the loadlifter's yoke a bit to the right, and gunned the accelerator.

Through their pain, both Ugnaughts spared a hand and raised it, palm out, in the universal plea for mercy. The lifter's repulsars followed the Third Law of Physics. 1.124 Imperial Tonnes of cargo meant 1.124 IT's of force pushing off the deck, be that deck durasteel or a cartilaginous Ugnaught body.

The lifter bumped and pushed over the beings leaving a carotene smear on the deck. "Humph smooth ride." Ai smiled. The delay actually worked in her favor. Her little side-trip allowed GO01 and the Tibanna gas, the more precious cargo, to be loaded first.

Meanwhile, reality had finally made it up Chai's mental paper-chain. He drew his blaster up to the Commodore only to find his hand gone and his wrist spurting blood. More blood. His. He stumbled back, his left hand trying, vainly, to staunch the gush. This gave him a perfect view of his personal escorts, tumbling left and right, painted with slashes of crimson from the tall crimson-cloaked stranger's double bladed vibro-katana. The Commodore, following in the butcher's wake, finishing off the wounded, knife flashing like back and forth like Cudafish's flank.

The screaming was hideous. The blaster fire hurt Chai's ears. Someone, perhaps many someone's had loosened their bowels. He slipped and fell to his knees. The Factor felt himself going cold. Shadows crept in from the corners of his eyes.

Mira Antilles; Sentry Card Room

The comm links on the card room's guards clanged. The two drew their weapons and dashed.

"What is going on, dealer?" A corpulent, jowly Vermitti spice merchant asked; off-white silk drapes with brown Zuran seed-pearl beading poured over his belly like gravy.

Mira flicked her recorder to the setting that allowed the recording of entire conversations. "Flashfight, on the hanger deck, sir. Nothing uncommon on the Errant Venture."

"I say! Are those real stormtroopers?" The stiff Nuevo Caminian raised his silver-engraved scopes to his eyes. "Yes, they are! Just look at those blast points. Not your common militia at all."

"Only a dozen."

"Real Stormtroopers? Here!"

The Vermitti coughed up a chunk of pullet that flew across the room. "The Hand?"

"No. Old Imperial markings. The shooting style is old academy, not one of Fel's either." The Caminian snapped. Mira was loving the conversation. The leviathans were writing the intelligence report for her. It was moments liked this that dispelled any illusions that the Leviathans were anything but sharp as a ray-spine whips.

Outer Rim Leviathans did not get rich and fat by inheriting it. Without a second of regret, they left their chits, their companions and ran for the lifts.

The Sentry Room's waiters and waitresses looked to Mira. She was the pit boss. "Looks like the table's closed everyone. F9, record the chips. Service staff, report to your intruder alert stations. You know the drill."

"What do I do?" Bimble, the new Twillek courtesan who had been left in her patron's dust, stuck out a pouty lip. "I've never seen guns before. I'm so afraid." She crouched.

Mira rolled her eyes and bit back a hard reply. "Get to your quarters, Bimble. And hope your manager will unlock the door for you."

"Okay." The courtesan wasn't so frightened she didn't load her arms with delicacies before she swayed out the hatch.

Mira silently hoped the greedy girl would spill everything when the gravity righted itself outside the special rotational double hatch but she doubted it.

After riding the pallet into the shuttle, Lt. Ai came running back down the Sequoia's loading ramp. Using one hand to hook her fighting Commodore by his belt, she dragged him behind a sausage cart made of slabs of scrap bulkhead plates. "Sometimes sir, you worry me."

Need took a deep breath, and summoned up his courage. No creature had actually closed with him in a firefight before. The whole point of a blaster, as far as Need was concerned, was killing from a safe distance away, preferably from the back. "Crazy Trooper. Who closes in a firefight? Okay. Need, go left. " He peeked out. The Trooper was no more than six feet away. The two opponents shot at each other simultaneously. Need ducked back, but his blaster was gone, shot out of his hand and he now had third degree burns over his right hand for his trouble. He sat on his heels, back against the beam, licking his hand with his long Gungan tongue. "Could be worse. At least I got him. I could not have missed at that range." He pulled out his holdout blaster from his vest pocket. "Guess I need to sit the rest of this one out." Then a shadow blocked off his light. "It can't be! You dead! You…" and then the blaster screamed.

"Here." Ai handed her Commodore his custom KL-55t pistol in its shoulder harness. A random bolt from a DL-44 handheld heavy blaster blew the cart's traditional tubegrass and canvas umbrella to pieces and sent a shower of hot cinders down upon them both. "Plan Beta, sir? Shall I order a retreat? " she shouted over the pandemonium and not from fear.

"No. Plan Gamma! " Sorran, the imperial officer, snarled and neatly spun his dagger downwards, clearing it of blood. Out of habit he hit the deactivation stud and firmly sheathed it in one smooth motion. "We are taking this ship, in the Empire's name!"

She snapped open her eyes and stared, silent for a heartbeat. Then she beamed a bright, wide smile. Even crouched, she clipped her heals. "Yes, Sir!"

"I'm sick of eating smugglers' offal. It's time to teach these scum some respect." Then he slipped the harness' hoops over each arm.

"And if I may, sir, it's about stang time!" Ai shouted.

Sorran flipped open the command channel his imbedded throat comm link. "This is Commodore Sorran to all Troopers. Plan Gamma is in effect. Repeat, Plan Gamma. Execute! Confirm. Over!"

As the units reported in, Ai slipped on her own harness, just like the Commodore's, with two grenades balancing out her pistol's weight. Then she clipped the arm loops together with a high and a low cross strap. The straps felt loose, she regretted not having enough time to slip her knife's stiff nerf-hide scabbard onto the front of her cross-straps to add stability. She checked for fit, then and then looped a grenade satchel over her shoulder. She had just begun to stand when the Commodore suddenly slipped his hand into the center of her harness's lower cross strap and yanked her head towards his.

"Listen. I know they raped your ship. I know how you feel, believe me; none better. But this is no time forget your duty to your legion. Stick to the plan. Take the bridge. Slice systems. Swallow you pride. Follow the mercenary. Do not lead him. It will be just you and him against a bridge full of pirates. He used to be a Crimson Guard. He's expert in this kind of slaughter. Not you. Let him take the lead. It's what we are paying him for. We need you on the panels!" He shoved her toward the scissor lift that brought Troopers up to the flight deck during operations.

"Go. Use only the Bridge Express Lift. We haven't much time." He slid to one side of the cart and sprayed the nearest horizontal support girder then skipped another 6 rounds off the deck. They hit no one but the blasts did produce a great deal of sparks and smoke. As intended, the covered Ai and Sorran as they made for the scissor lift.

Lt. Ai dashed for the scissor lift and hit the recall button for her droid on her belt buckle.

GO01 disconnected itself from the load lifter's data port. Its job was done there. A new mech was happily forever slaved to the Empire. GO01 swooped left and followed its mistress like a hound. Meanwhile, the reprogrammed Bespinian pallet lifter, a u-shaped beast of a robot, laden with its cargo of tibanna gas floated up the ramp of the Sequoia and secured itself, certain that it had finally found a cause worthy of it service.

Guards, vigilante's, interested civilians and death marked refugees clipped off pot shots at the Troopers. Civilian merchants scrambled to remove their wealth to a safer location. Mothers looked for children and younglings ran everywhere. Some Thungees even began looting abandoned stalls. Most people simply hunkered down, intent on weathering just one more firefight on the hanger deck of the Errant Venture. Over the years, all of them had welded or glued some sort of scrap shielding to their work stations for just such an occasion. Newbies ran willy-nilly.

Commodore Sil Sorran had just enough time to glimpse the three of them, Ai, the droid and Kir Kanos begin to sink below the level of the main hanger deck, when a sporadic hail of mixed small arms fire forced the Commodore to duck down. He activated the command channel in his implanted throat comm-link.

"Sergeant major?" Commanded Sorran.

"Sir?"

"Crowd control. Broadest setting. Drive them towards the lifts, block reinforcements…you know the drill."

"Yes, sir."

"And Gaius. Keep the shots low. Killing unnecessarily demonstrates a lack of discipline.

"Yes, sir.

"Crowd Control Plan two-bee. Flog and clog. Sweep the bay, boys."

In a second, the shrieks of E-11t's lethal violet blasts turned to the squawks of stun setting. The shots came quicker as the need for precision subordinated to coverage and rate of fire. Conical, light blue stun blasts drove the crowds back and down. Men and women fell like meat puppets with their strings cut.

With the market crowd fleeing directly into their faces, the Errant Venture guards found themselves unable to get a clean shot. Worse, the mobs pushed them back like a tidal surge. They considered how rancorous Terrik would be about hurting innocent, paying customers and kept their safety switches on.

The Imperials had no such scruples. As the guards were swept away by the waves of panicked civilians, the counter fire diminished. The Stormtroopers formed up ranks. The Troopers stood three meters apart, the space needed to re-sight between targets. Then they evenly marched into an expanding radius, triggering stuns in time with their inexorable march. Stride. Stride. Fire. Stride. Stride. Fire. The maneuver was intended to evoke a sense of inevitability in mobs. It worked brilliantly. Before, the people were running, now they were panicking, crawling and clawing over stranger, friend and litter-mate for that one more inch of distance. One squad of Troopers appeared to be a legion. Screaming appeared to be the only sane option.

Meanwhile Sergeant Major Gaius, a grizzled veteran, kept good order. "Drive 'em towards the exit, boys. That'll keep reinforcements from arriving. Clog the lines of communication with refugees! That's the way."

Terrik 2

"No. No. You cannot use this lift. Clear the area!" Suddenly, there was nowhere to go. The lift's doors had snapped down as soon as Terrik and soldiers departed. Terrik and his men had to force his way, "upstream," through the river of refugees. He wanted to holster his weapon and comm link, to get a free hand to navigate the crowd better but the press of flesh plucked at his clothes so heavily, he did not dare leave his equipment for even a second, not with his "free market" clientele.

Terrik butted a street vendor aside and shoved. The man's table-sized case of bootleg holo's hit the deck and spilled open. He left them there without a second thought. Captain Terrik was too busy struggling to reach the main observation deck notice that the bridge lift was not returning to the bridge but descending one more deck.

Security Station: Chief Josie Fletcher

Josie Fletcher saw it all from her security station in the Market. Boss Terrik had chosen to ignore her warnings. She'd known the Bespinians would be trouble. In just his short time they were on board, Chai had impressed Josie as an arrogant Baron-in-the-making looking to prove himself.

For her honest, professional opinion, she was shunted away from the deal. Potential profit had outweighed her professional input. Now her long-time employer had hell to pay.

One look at the smart way the Remnants marched told her that this group of Imperials served steaming bowls of badassary for breakfast lunch and dinner. Their bearing and discipline was obvious to anyone with a pair of sight units. She didn't think someone who rose to the rank of Chief Factor would be fool enough to mess with those Imperials. One look and she knew they were Old Academy, not militia, not second generation, not Fel and certainly not Hand.

Around the holo table, Security Chief Josie and her crack squad of Peacemakers watched the tactical display on the holo. They all kept quiet, waiting for her to speak. The security chief was petite for a human; lean and leathery, like a hippo hide bullwhip just waiting to crack. She had the kind of face in which one could read a hundred tales and all the tales would have bad endings. Her eyes were watery blue turn down at the ends, giving the false impression like she was always just about to cry.

Across her back, in a breakaway holster, she strapped her "Ronto Leg" Breyerpistol. Right now, she leaned on her iconic Sandpeople gaderffii stick. Scuttlebutt had it that the Sandpeople will peel your eyelids and then drag you through the Jundland Wastes for days as punishment for just touching one. It was Josie's' preferred close combat weapon. People said she arrived on the Errant Venture carrying it in one hand and a baby in the other. No one asked how she got it; the Stick or the baby.

On the combat display, little red dots, representing the Stormtroopers ,spread evenly and moved towards a main refit bay. "There!" Josie pointed to the bay. "We'll get them at the re-fit bay."

"I thought it was a hanger." Gelso, added.

"It is." Ootoo Had added.

"I thought it was for At-Ats not fighters."

"It's still called a hanger. It fixes…"

"Hatch it!

All that matters is that it's a perfect place for an ambush. See all the places of advantage?" The Peacemakers grunted. "We'll let them get past the boom crane. Then I'll hit the remote. All that cable and chain will spill down like a Beggar's Canyon gravelslide and cut off or at least channel their retreat. Otoo, you jam communications. That's the Imperial's weakness. They're conditioned to hate being separated from command and control. Once they realize they are alone, then we open up." She spat tabbac juice on the Devonian's shirt for emphasis, ending his preening. "Got that Dullteeth? Once they get past the boom crane, I loosen the spools of heavy cable, and chain. When the chain and cable hit their ends, then, and only then, you open up.

The last thing we need is to give them a chance to get back to that shuttle and its cannons. Got it?"

"Roger that, boss." The Devonian smiled charmingly, a force of will ignoring what his wife would say about the stain.

"Move it!

I'll catch up. I gotta call my daughter. Tell her to lie low."

Kaleb

It wasn't but a few hours before Kaleb was awoken by a red alert sit-rep over intraship comm. He checked his information panel. Stormtroopers had boarded the ship. All off duty personnel, reserve guards and yeomen were called to report to action duty stations and prepare to repel boarders. Civilians were advised to go to their cabins and lock themselves in.

Kaleb Rass was ecstatically happy, like he had been waiting for this moment his whole life. His fit was gone. He knew just what to do. He grabbed his comm-link and ran for locker one-oh-one.

This was just the sort of situation he and his gang had been dreaming about. They had been playing "Stormtrooper Kill I through VII" for his entire life and he knew just what to do. He and his friends even fantasized about this exact scenario, Stormtrooper Intrusion. "I'll show Mikki now. Please don't be Remnants."

As luck would have it, Micki's mom was the Errant Venture's Security Boss. Not only did Ms. Josie coach Micki in small arms but Micki's mom was also in charge of the keys to every armory locker. From time to time, the gang would borrow the spare set of keys, and sneak in to one of the armories, scattered around the Venture and drool at the cool stuff inside. The majority of the "armories" were little more than a simple, but sturdy, void space with a magnetic seal but they contained a vast array of mixed arms collected by the Errant Venture's pawn shops and misadventures over decades. The original, Imperial, weapons lockers had been converted to secure storage for rare cargo.

Once inside a locker, Kaleb and the gang would go over the latest exotic blaster or tech and play battle scenarios on simulators. The others, including Miki, were all going to send their applications to the Academy in two years. Kaleb could put off farming for her. Then he, Micki and the gang would show the Remnants, the Sith and the Yuzzong Vong what's what. Then he take his pension and buy a farm and start a family. Kaleb never told Micki about the other dreams he held for him and her.

He seemed to fly to locker 101, dodging refugees like they were standing still.

Sorran 3

The Commodore unclipped a nox grenade from the left pectoral area of his harness, hit the activation stud, removed the safety pin, broke cover and ran like a man his age shouldn't have to. "The time on the COLBERT machine finally pays off, I guess. Those crates should be close enough." He bobbed and weaved like a TIE-Interceptor, totally focused on the target. As the fighter pilots say, his "fangs we out and through the floor." He slid head-first behind the palette of containers and pitched the Nox Grenade towards the cavity of the Star Destroyer's docking port. Only after he tried to get on his feet did he notice the heel of his right boot had been melted by a near miss.

The fist-sized grenade bounced just before the lip of the docking hatch, skipped across the deck plates and then dropped over the lip. The grenade fell meters toward space, a docking field the only thing keeping it from joining the Void.

DA-42: Docking Sheilds

A long time ago, the Empire learned that physical docking hatches are a massive cost for limited benefit. Doors and hatches are a weak point in any structure, so hatches need to be strong. Strong means heavy. Heavy means massive, space taking, power draining, servos, tracks, etc. then multiply it all by the leverage it takes to move a door big enough to accommodate and protect a flight of TIE Fighters or Landers and add the fact that one battle-dent and the thing is jammed and well…you get the idea.

Finally, some clever Kuati (who, exactly, is a rennet sack of contention) figured out that for the cost of a week's worth of docking hatch openings one could nominally power a docking shield for a whole year. So the Kuat Drive Yards built in docking shields as the primary docking mechanism, added a single, light, physical hatch for emergencies, enough sentry cannons and external firepower to blast into atoms any ship fool enough to even attempt boarding, a few redundant systems and called it a work cycle.

Docking shields arrays are necessarily robust but very subtle. Around all three axis of the bay, shield emitters, accented by a symphony of micro-repulsar and micro-tractor beams, creating what is collectively known as the "docking shield." Docking shields are able to "wrap" themselves around any object entering or leaving the Star Destroyer, permitting only a minimal leak of precious atmosphere. By necessity, the beams are aided by a myriad of dedicated sensors and first-class droid brains and computers, allowing them to "feel" around ships. That doesn't leave much programming space for judging anything else, except for safety features, in case something "falls" down it.

The sensors and droid brain registered the grenade as a "dropped tool" and allowed it to bounce off the force field and slide toward the usual recovery area, figuring that a Tech would eventually climb down the ladder and recover it, as usual.

Inside the nox grenade, the timer expired, the force field separating the neutrinos from the dark matter collapsed and ALL flashed into a brilliant black.

Dotter: Errant Venture Bridge

Meanwhile, back on the bridge, Dotter observed the action.

"Bad flashfight, first officer?" JonYa, the chief consulting engineer was afraid and fear always gave him gas.

"The Black Sun raid was worse. But those Imps worry me. Wait." She pointed to the flare of inky darkness the screen. "What was that he just tossed? Just once I'd like to travel one end of the universe and NOT find any new tech or beastie." Dotter desperately checked her instruments. The docking bay's shields, and every other system in the docking port registered as well within specs. "Everything looks fine. Why did he do that?"

"Maybe he meant to toss it at the guards and blind them but he dropped it down the docking opening instead?"

Dotter held her breath. "This guy doesn't look clumsy or careless. He looks like a guy who knows just what he's doing. It did not disable the docking shield so he must be signaling someone."

"Why not just use an ordinary Luma grenade or even dentonite?" JonYa, the Kuati engineering consultant, groused.

"Shut up! Sensors?"

"Nothing on sensors but all the EM band interference from Terminus is impacting all systems, m'am." Cali Soon was a good sensor officer, retired from the Galactic Alliance and a Vong War veteran. "I warned you about the Terminus. All the hard rads puts snow on the sensors."

"You mean you warned my father. Pick up visual scanning. If my guess is right, company's coming."

But the Dotter had already left the instrument panel. She was now at the bridge's window, staring outside. The Kuati engineering consultant, JonYa, slinked up to join her. "What's wrong?"

She answered JonYa without spending a glace in his direction. "The star, Terminus, emits x-tonic radiation, it bleaches out color and puts out mega rads. It was in today's bulletin. Did you read it?" She shot him a withering look."

"Not yet." He winced. "I was going over specs."

"Humph." She turned back to the window with the posture of woman who had better things to do. "A luma grenade's color would just look like more white light, hardly noticeable against a lit docking bay."

"What about the flashfight? He could be trying to blind his opponents. The Stormtrooper lenses would filter the light out."

"Then why throw it into the docking hatch?"

"He missed?"

Dotter did not bother to retort that one did not "miss" a hatch large enough to admit a freighter. She let the arch engineer realize who stupid that theory was. "No. It was a signal flare." Her eyes scanned space, stars winking out as coal-black iron and nickel asteroids passed in front of them

JonYa, a Kuati, high level ship arch-engineer was unused to combat. He was very nervous. He passed methane and casually sidestepped away.

"Look sharp everyone. Our job is to take care of any reinforcements. As for the Troopers…" Dotter sounded confident and dismissive. "…Da eats Stormtroopers for breakfast. Now shut up and do your job while I do mine.

Stang! And you," she held her nose. "Knock off the cheese."

The Kuati stared out at space. Using his flowing sleeves as cover, nibbled on some mare's milk cheese to calm his nerves, seeing nothing. The white Neutron star in the distance did seem odd, like thin milk was poured over it, then drizzled with ink spots from a dropper. JonYa knew what everyone knew, Terminus was Known Spaces' largest asteroid field, smattered with pulsars and unpredictable gravity wells, galvanic waves and gravitic tunnels and hence a hazard to navigation. Only a madman would risk it. "All asteroids and rocks. So what? Big deal."

Dotter ignored his ignorant statement and continued to intently scan the space. Other officers, not already engaged with vital tasks, joined their First Officer, obviously aware of what was going on.

"I hate the fact she knows something I do not." Until this time the arch- engineer had assumed this was just one more stop at a backwater system and didn't bother to look anything up. Now he referred to his brand-new data pad, the one Terrik gave him, personally. The maker's iconic green and red "Don't Panic!" adhesive label still affixed. "Humph. Terrik's gauche gift. Supposed to remind me to check the bulletins.

I'm JonYa, author of The 174,000 Weaknesses of a Star Destroyer and How to Fix Them By JonYa of Kuat." He shoved aside the nagging concern that Talon Karrde himself had taken exception to the by-line and if weren't for the fact that the infamous data broker preferred to work in the shadows he, JonYa, might just be Bantha Fodder by now. "They aren't paying me for this."

JonYa made a more than usually dour face. Like a proper noble Kuati, JonYa had instructed Terrik to question him in only "yes or no" format. After he regained consciousness, and the swelling on his jaw subsided, Captain Terrik provided his new engineer with what was, apparently, the most glib all the data pad variants, the DA-42.

Terminus: FORBIDDEN. Embargo. Extreme Gravimetric and Radiation Navigation Hazard. Imperial Remnant Active in Area! Avoid!

JonYa let out a breath. "That was refreshingly brief." He scrolled down, lured into learning more.

DA-42 Terminus

Population and Culture:

"Civilian? Kessel. Imperial? Terminus." – The Lazerbrain's Guide to Being a Moff, Chapter II: Jurisprudence."

Terminus is a hideous, mortally dangerous, irradiated wasteland. But the Emperor said there was something there worth having, so of course it has a population. True to its moniker, Terminus marks the beginning of Wild Space and the end of many careers. It also provided the trite upside comment to one of Lord Vader's intermittent windpipe crushings, "At least he didn't get sent to Terminus."

In ordinary Imperial parlance, a disgraced officer "biting a blast" was considered vastly preferable to "a permanent vacation on the Bleach."

The combination of asteroids, dark matter, strange matter and xtonic radiation make this area all but uninhabitable and contributes to Wild Spaces' deserved reputation for navigation hazards. A perfectly fine set of navigation coordinates one day could be certain death the next. Navigation Coordinates (or NavCOORD) prospecting is always a great way to make a lot of cash for people with nothing to lose.

Why do people go to Wild Space? Reasons vary, from "Fortune and glory!" to "What do you mean you're married?" Check with KarrdeCoords link for the latest in NavCOORD downloads. KarrdeCoords: After all, it ain't like dusting crops, boy. "

JonYa soured at the mention of one of Talon Karrde's legitimate fronts. "I wonder if I should worry that my data pad has a link?" He shivered and felt his digestive system rumble. He tried to muster his courage. "Face facts old bean, Karrde knows where I am. He knows what I had for breakfast. But here I am, hiding. Terrik said he could keep me safe. He will too. No one but JonYa could make the modifications the old pirate requested. But when I am done?" He had tried to muster his courage. Instead, he found himself reaching for a pouch of Runnicamelbear, the same cheese his mommy fed him when he was a whelp. Dotter sniffed the air and shot him a dark look. "It settles my stomach." He apologized. Then he skipped to the next chapter.

"All sane residents of Terminus are deep below ground in a series of massive iron-nickel, armored, shielded, lashed and welded asteroids, named in typical, imaginative, imperial fashion, in order of largest to smallest Terminus 1 through Terminus 12. With HQ on, (where else?) Terminus 1.

The Remnant forces on Terminus, used to be well supplied with ships and equipment to carry on operations. For years the system appeared relatively self-reliant. But the isolation has begun to wear. Word around the Cantina is that currently, Terminus is where Imps and former Imps on the run go when they are completely at the end of their tether.

At the far end of Wild Space, rogue Moffs of The Hand want nothing to do with Terminus because of bad memories, content to use it as their colony of exile. However, Terminus does "overlook" the shortest invasion/trade route to (and from) the Alliance, which makes those Admiral Thrawn worshippers nervous. The Alliance wants nothing to do with one more of the Emperor's secret bases. Just as well, the paths through the asteroid field to Terminus 1-12 must be fraught with danger. In any case, the price of a good Terminus blade has recently gone up like a jet pack whacked by a force pike. Heirlooms.

More recently…"

The Kuati snapped the data pad off. "This tells me nothing. What are you looking for, Dotter?"

"You didn't read enough." The Kuati bridled. She did not notice. "Xtonic radiation, the kind the stellar matter and gasses emit around here, wipe all wireless signals except one, light-semaphore. That is how they communicate out here. That luma grenade, whatever it was, was a signal."

"For who?"

"That's what I'm looking for."

"The scanners?"

"Didn't you just get through reading about all the radiation hereabouts? Visual scanning is best."

JonYa wrung his hands. "I wonder if this is a good time tell her that weakness #15 is a Star Destroyers poor visibility to its lateral surfaces? I haven't had time to amend that flaw yet." But then he rubbed his jaw, remembered her and her father's hair trigger temper. "Feh. She ignored me. I will ignore her. Didn't read enough, did I? Maybe you should have read my treatise better.

I'll just be in my suite." He took a step in the direction of the lift.

"Hold it right there. You'll look for any rectangular objects sailing in our direction! With all the 'roids and radiation they'll be hard to spot. If you trying to sneak away again, I'll blow your foot off."

"Yes'm. Be brave JonYa. Running has not been profitable. You were afraid of the families, so you fled Kuati. You were afraid to Talon Karrde so you ran to the Errant Venture.

Now, you are afraid of Dotter. At least that makes sense. Everyone is afraid of her. She's made grown Gammorrans squeal."

So he took out another wedge of cheese from his sealed hip pouch this time, the one made from pickled and aged womp rat lactate, one she hated the smell of. "Smell this, Dotter!" He shut his jaw and did not share any bad news.

Dotter jumped and pointed. "There they are! Point seven. Sound general quarters. Sheilds up! Power to the weapons and engines. Notify Da…."

Then the main bridge hatch whooshed up. A dark figure in crimson cloak and katana stood there.

She drew and shot. He swatted the blast away like a ball in a game of picklenet.

"Sith." Dotter hissed. It wasn't a curse, but an acknowledgement.

Kaleb 4

"Kaleb!" There Micki was, right by the locker one-oh-one, waving her mom's spare set of keys right on cue.

As usual, Micki's shining, round face and curly black curly hair got his heart skipping a beat. "Focus Kaleb. Micki, you shouldn't we waving the keys like that." He snatched the keys from his friend's hand and spoke as loud as he dared.

"Hatch it. Nobody's cares." Micki waved her hands at the rushing mob. It was true. Most of the people had gone. The only people trundling by were the ones heavily laden with barrows of goods, packs, baskets and younglings. "Mom says the Troopers will be securing the refit bay next."

Soon all the four friends were there. In the river of frightened people running by, they were an eddy of happiness. Sidestepping an old promise to her mother, that Miki never open a weapons locker, Miki always insisted Kaleb unseal the armory's hatch. Normally, Kaleb gave the keys back to Miki right away, but she was too excited, and dashed inside the locker, having not a thought but to arm herself with a real blaster she'd really use, without her mother's henpecking. Kaleb pocketed the keys for later.

Used to interlink play, they each grabbed a headset, They chose technician sets over the soldier sets. Tech sets had cameras and limned tinted monocle heads-up view screens. Guard sets just had audio. The holoteam designated themselves as usual: The twins were RagtagX and BlastdeathX . Micki was SitheaterX and Kaleb was JannsenX or just X.

Then they picked the weapons. No arguments. Each had fantasized over the contents of this particular gun locker enough times and even played their game equivalents. RagtagX took the pair of matching Westron blaster pistols and a human sized knock-off of a Wookie laser crossbow and a quarrel of concussion bolts. BlastdeathX took the repeating version of the standard blaster rifle, the E11B. Micki-SitheaterX helped herself to a Breyergun, a "Ronto's leg" laser rifle with a pistol grip, just like her mom. Unlike her mom, she also helped herself to a welding glove to hold a hot barrel. Miki's mom's hands were so calloused, she never needed one. Kaleb a.k.a. JannesenX wielded the Cornelian HI-G laser rifle with telescopic sight. None of them broke bravado to mention that the weapons, belts and ammo were much heavier than the game versions.

"Maybe after this the Academy will come looking for us!" Micki brandished the Breyergun, it's barrel fatter than both her forearms combined. To Kaleb's eyes, she looked just like the legendary Mara Jade.

"Lock and load boys and girl." Kaleb, as always, took charge. Under Kaleb's command, Team X were the undisputed masters of the Stormtrooper VII link-play room of the Errant Venture and several space stations.

After Kaleb finally jiggled the clip into the unfamiliar laser rifle, he continued with a speech he had rehearsed in his mind a hundred times. He dropped his voice an octave and hoped it didn't crack. "It's up to us, now. The Troopers are walking into the main refit-bay. Lots of places to shoot from there. Rifles pick 'em off, crossbow gets the clots. Pistols wait for the close quarters rush. Don't worry about cover until you reach a good position. Just keep moving. It's better to get a good position. Don't worry about exposing yourself. These guys can't shoot for beans." The friends laughed. They always wondered why their parents were ever afraid of Storm-losers. "Now let's show those fossils what this generation can do."

"Maybe Captain Terrik will offer us a job after this." RagtagX hefted the crossbow over one shoulder, like a pickaxe. He spoke out loud, and hoped his shaking hands would not show.

"Maybe he will. Now move." They all turned, stepped towards the hatch and knocked each other down. The exit from the void space was far from heroically cinematic as the youths tried to squeeze out of the void space while wearing the weapons, belts and equipment. RagtagX had to take off his quiver before he fit the hatchway. JannsenX got tangled up when his ammo belt fell to his ankles and he flopped, flat on his face. Micki laughed at him. But they eventually got going.

"Stang." RagtagX broke radio silence. "It's much slower to run with one of these things in real life. " RagtagX was a strapping lad, hence his predilection to play Wookies, but he was already panting.

Micki chided him and took his hand. "Stupid. Of course they speed it up to improve the action." She held her strap. Without real hips, the Breyer's ammo belt kept slipping. RagtagX lifted her belt over her shoulder, into a bandolier position. Miki didn't protest the proximity. Then they held hands ran on. "Come on!" she yelled.

Kaleb's face went red.

"Sorry, pal." BlastdeathX patted him on his back and ran after. Kaleb followed. As the only real working man, he was smarter about his load. He could have run ahead of everyone of them. But he let Miki and RagtagX led. For some reason he wanted to see them hold hands, to burn it into his memory, like a brand of red-hot iron.

Terminus Gamma Assault Boats 1

Outside the armor plating of the Star Destroyer, among the remnants of millions of solar systems, the bleaching xtonic radiation rendered everything monochrome. Though they knew the Errant Venture was painted red, it only appeared in shades of grey. Suddenly, the docking bay in the Errant Venture's belly switched to solid black then back to glow.

"Well I'll be…There's the signal. Send to all craft. Attack. Attack. Attack. Plan Gamma is a go. Repeat Plan Gamma is a go."

DA_42

The KonGar Ship Works' Gamma ATR-6 boarding craft or as the Stormtroopers call it, "The Coffin."

One would assume it's called that because that is what it looks like, a simple polyhedral box with the cockpit popping up in the rear portside corner. But because it was a suicidally stupid craft, it escaped a lot of patrimony that marked such popular items as the Incom TIE fighter.

Keep it in mind, its sounds like a great idea to your Captain.

So, your captain puts you in a box and basically throws you at a ship hundreds of time times your boat's size. On your way there you may have to pass through waves of fighters and weave through withering broadsides.

Reminds one of the playground where your dad shoves you, the runt, at the school bully because he has something to prove. "Don't worry all bullies are afraid." He says. No. They are not. "You'll be friends afterwards. He'll respect you." He says. No. He won't. The bully will hate you forever and take you down with him. The reason is that bullies are bullies because they know they hold every advantage and they like it that way.

And so it is with the Gamma. No it's not the bully. It's the runt. The Gamma is slow. It has turbolasers to "fend" off enemy fighters. By fend, we mean "give you something to do." With an artillery duel and a dogfight going on, Gamma's are supposed to, in formation, land on enemy ships. And if you don't think boarding craft doesn't get the absolute attention of every AAA officer on the target vessel or station, you are sadly mistaken.

Ever play kick the can? Gammas are the can. You are the wimpiest thing in the battle and it's your job to not only take the bully down but make it your friend.

You and your Gamma are expected you reach your target then defeat all the enemy inside, all the while your own side's turbolasers are ripping into the enemy hull, striking down friend and foe with a lack of prejudice that's downright democratic. And if, by some miracle, you do manage to take the bridge, watch the self-destruct.

The Empire, in its wisdom, didn't see much reason for a quality assault shuttle. Disposable ships for disposable men on a disposable mission was the norm. The contract was just thrown, a bone, to the Imperial supplier of heavy-duty ion engines, KoGar Ship Works, who, being thrilled to build a real combat craft, instead of tug, for once, came up with something good.

They took their basic KGD Defender ion tug engines, the one used to mine gas giants, and designed a fighting boat around it.

"The Imperial Navy may know ships but it doesn't know boats."

Because it was designed around a propulsion system rather than weapons, the Gamma has superior handling capabilities. Showing its Tug Company roots, the Gamma can maneuver in tiny space ports in or busy space lanes. Its surplus of power allowed KGD to slap on armor panels salvaged from old Victory classes and still have juice to spare. It can get you to the ship and it can actually land you on target.

A Gamma Assault Craft can power its medium ion cannons, power shields, lasers and lug enough armor to endure a light fighter screen.

It's pair of forward-facing medium ion cannons and warhead launchers can, at close range "punch" through a ship of the line's shields and "numb" a surface area long enough to board. Light lasers line the sides to keep enemy fighters on their toes and clear and cover landing zones planeside.

The cockpit sits at the rear of the boat, above the engines and next to the computer bay. This shortens the control wires, adding that much to survivability.

Except for the aft section, all sides are mounted with universal docking ports enhanced with automatic fuse cutters so it doesn't matter which side touches the target, its cutting in.

Once clamped, its engine power is shunted to emit a shield blister to the rear and a heavy repeating blaster cannon is activated to give the co-pilot something to do.

A single Gamma can hold forty Spacetrooper's or forty Troopers and equipment. Seats and stanchions can be stowed in a snap for pure cargo. Except for the cockpit, the main compartment has no grav plating, only true inertial dampers, not grav plating acting like an inertial damper. Stanchions, cleats, clips and tie downs line the cargo cabin in case of systems failure. A single standard g-class container can slide in, filling their bay for cargo transport. If the required cargo container is too big, using its magnetic clamps, it simply gloms onto the metal containers and reverts to its seminal "tug" mode.

Planetside, Gammas can scorch the LZ and ferry troops and equipment from orbit to the ground. There is a widely popular medical evac variant and an unarmored medical variant for civilian markets.

A key innovation was the simple, robust circuit system. With a turn of a dial, the pilot, or copilot, could direct power away from the engines to shields to ion cannons, thrust or dampers just not more than one at any one time. A Gamma has no secondary or back up circuits. Instead, all main circuits are enclosed in armored conduit. As a holdover from the civilian days, the pilot's egg-shaped compartment can serve as a life pod.

"Fly? Sure it flies. You can get a brick to fly if you strap a big enough engine on it."

Basically, the Gamma is an overpowered box but it is very good box. Captains, stations and militia were so pleased with the Gamma that they ordered them in vast numbers. The use of common civilian and salvaged materials made them affordable, repairable and quickly assembled.

The little Coffins proved themselves invaluable for the thousand and one occasions when a rugged armed transport was needed and one did not have a Star Destroyer on call. Gamma's proved great for convoy duty. crowd control, civilian pacification, vehicle recovery, station assaults and base busting.

The Combat Engineers loved their carrying capacity and rugged dependability. They could use them for hauling precious parts in the most hostile conditions or spur of the moment combat. Moffs and militias loved their low cost, ease of operation and flexibility.

The standard civilian heavy tug engine also made them easy much easier to find parts for than an Imperial Shuttle. For civilians, especially CoreSec, it's enclosed armored hull made it a natural choice for venture convoys. Even though it lacks control surfaces, the plentitude of thrusters makes it surprisingly nimble in atmosphere. Its modular design made it so could even be fitted with missile launchers and heavy blasters in lieu of ion cannons.

The specialized medevac version came with grav plating in lieu of armaments and is still in high demand among Relief Agencies. More than a few civilian pilots buy them as surplus, remove the armor and use it as a light transport.

The Gamma C is a military grade shuttle, a transport and a lander on the cheap and the people love it.

A victim of its own success, the Empire reassigned the contract to a larger company, Telgorn Corporation. Presumably it was because the high demand, required larger manufacturing facilities, etc. But everyone knew that Telgorn was a financed and "in" with Black Sun. Rumor had it the real reason the Empire decided to reassigned a proven product was because Prince Xixor provided "certain" favors to certain admirals and moffs.

After Xixor sunk his nine-inch nails into Gammas, the Assault Shuttles suddenly made an appearance in Pirate Fleets and the quality of the units plummeted.

During the Vong War, the Galactic Alliance Admiralty was in a jam. Rather than design a wholly new assault craft, Admiral Antilles took it upon himself to simply renewed Ko Gar's contract. To this day, true Gamma's can be seen throughout the alliance, transporting, protecting, keeping the peace, usually at the local level. And you can buy the Telegorn POS's for dust.

Gamma Assault Squadron

"Confirm!" The Aldis laser blinked.

"You saw it. We all saw the nox grenade. We go to plan Gamma." Another blinked back.

"I say we await confirmation. There's at least forty thousand guys in there."

"One Trooper is worth a thousand smuggler scum."

"You gonna risk letting the men down?" The lamps kept dark, until finally.

"Let's go. By the numbers." Blink.

"Just like riding a speeder bike." Blink.

"For the Empire!" blink. No blinks responded.

Ten Gamma Class assault craft and two Skipray Blastboats cut power to the magclamps that held them to the asteroids and repulsed on the zed-axis, tap-thrusting to the belly of the Errant Venture, a tombstone grey and bone white Carcarrius tooth in space, ten thousand times their size.

Errant Venture: Bridge Deck Lt. Ai

Lt. Ai kept her mind on the here and now. "GO01! Don't forget to disable the cameras." The lift door hissed open.

The three, crimson guard, officer and droid entered the lift. GO01 shot an electrical bolt into the cameras. The hatch hissed shut and motors hummed. Kir Kanos broke his silence. "There might be someone in the hallway when we get out. Hide under my cloak. Try to keep up, Lieutenant."

In her mind, Ai. was obeying the Commodore's orders, not Kanos'. Adrenaline wearing off, her thigh, where the Ugnuaght had bludgeoned it began to ache.

"You sure this is the express bridge lift?"

"I was a systems officer here for four years." Ai reached for her grenade satchel.

"What kind of systems?"

"A and A, auxiliary and ancillary."

"Humph. Non-essentials." Kanos felt her movement. "What are you doing there?"

"Preparing a glop grenade on a proximity fuse." She fought the impulse to tell him to shut up and leave her alone.

"Why not the Zem-X?"

"They'd just move the dead bodies aside."

"What about…"then the hatch hissed open. "This isn't the bridge." He hesitated.

She swallowed her re-ignited pride and hid under the mercenary's blood-red cloak. Lt. Ai peeked under his thick tricep and then shoved the small of his back; GO01 swooped in behind them. "The Star Destroyer Two version had several new features. No lift connects directly to the bridge. It's easier to contain fire and voiding without connecting the bridge to a chimney. Now go." She dropped a gray a 1/3 meter long cylinder next to the wall, just inside the lift. Spring loaded legs opened and stood the spindle-shaped grenade upright.

The mercenary was not kidding about trying to keep up. Despite her strict dietary regimen and hours working out on COLBERT machines, Lt. Ai could not match his predatory strides. On top of that, she could feel her thigh begin to swell, making it very painful for her to stay under the billow of his crimson cloak as he strode the 21 paces to the bridge. She heard some muffled challenges, then the mercenary left her uncovered.

She limped around the five bits that were once two sentries, drew her K-55t pistol and stole a peek inside the bridge.

It was a dance of blood. The Crimson Guard's cape disguised the movements of his double bladed vibro-katana so well sometimes it appeared as if it was the hem of his crimson cloak was the true severing instrument, slicing apart every challenger. Most of the bridge crew were already dead.

The techs, trained well enough for smugglers, remained at their stations. She knew they were charging up turbo lasers, shields and providing other functions vital to defending the ship as a whole.

She ducked out of view and unclipped the two of the four stemmed chem-load grenades from her harness. She was proud of herself for remembering she could not trust spring legs to these grenades. She unfolded the legs until they formed a tripod then drew the fourth leg out of the top of the central sphere, forming a four pointed "jack". She dialed the pair of glop grenades grenade for "remote detonation" and the "effective radius" for "chamber" then chucked them into opposite ends of the hallway. Covering the lifts in overlapping fields of spray. The bridge's "intruder alert' klaxon finally sounded. And she got to work on her next two grenades trying to be EXTRA careful with them through the screaming noise and her throbbing femur.

The former Crimson Guardsman was creating a magnificent slaughter. At the main engineering station, just inside the door, an eight foot tall Wookie lay dead, blossom of red in her back. Her crossbow, half as tall as the Ai herself, lay gripped in one, severed paw.

A tall woman and her two guards fired a flurry of professionally crisp shots from smoking blasters. Faster than her eye could follow, Kir Kanos used the crytosis weave blades of his dual vibro katana and deflected both blasts. One bolt blew the arm off a tech, another smashed the hand off another. The smugglers were providing the ranged weapon Kir Kanos lacked. It was obvious they were not helping. After that, two men dragged an enraged blonde woman off the bridge.

"The Commodore was right. I did need him."

Ai ducked back out of sight, unfolded the legs on her last two load grenades and dialed in the "cavity" setting. She peeked once or twice, waiting until she was sure she could spare the mercenary, Kir Kanos, then limped into the bridge, she slipped on the blood, on her belly she slid a good 10 feet. Her thigh felt like it was on fire. She rolled on to her back and lobbed one grenade into each of the tech-pits.

"Grenade! A Rhodian wailed. With his faceted eyes, he spotted the grenade first. He tried to climb out. But it was too late. In less than a second after the Fem-X3 chem-grenade landed, its sensors had measured the target cavity and sprayed just the right amount of nerve agent in a micro-perfect pattern. Yellow-dyed, universal nerve venom epoxy neatly painted the beings. In a minute it was all over except the reflex spasming. GO01 sealed the bridge behind them, the hatch catapulting a torso as it did so.

The bridge was silent. Ai scanned for enemies. There were none. Even the moaning in the pit had ended.

The spotless Kanos lifted a traumatized Kuati man up by his hair, his ruined nose his only visible wound. "An officer, as per request."

"How do you know?"

He snapped up three command code cylinders from his breast pocket as evidence. "The First Mate and two officers made it into that small lift."

"Probably headed to the aux bridge. Here." She waved a fist sized cube of taupe clay at him. Toss this dentonite charge into the other lift tube. It's small. It should render the auxiliary bridge lift inoperable if you get it to the right spot."

"Will do. " He snatched the dun brick of explosive out of the air and strode off.

Ai ran to the port most junction panel and popped the panel open." This should get us where we need to go.

Give me the slicer droid, GO01." A small, circular hatch opened in the back of the black droid. A pod, no bigger than a human finger, flew off and into an access shaft swooping down a large, armored wire conduit.

A panel on the GO01's surface opened open and oblong "Good. Now jack in here." GO01 floated over to the central command station, socketed its data transfer device into the main data port and began to delve. "We will keep them busy until we get to that dataport. Then the fun will really begin."

Lt. Ai spared a thought to the probe. "Fly fast, little friend. Now we find out if that information is worth the price we paid."

GO01 rotated a hemisphere over to the humidor droid. The droid retreated to the corner. Suddenly a restraining bolt shot out of the floating imperial droid. The bolt magnetically locked onto the Terrik's cigar droid. After a bit of whining and chirping, Jeeves slowly moved to GO01 and offered its main data port to it. GO01 jacked in using his telescoping tentacle jack. The other droids on the bridge scattered when they saw what was in store for them. GO01 could afford to be patient. Besides, it had just learned something very important.

JonYa was left on the bridge. The Crimson Man did not bother to kill him or even guard him. JonYa got the impression he was not considered worth the effort. Hunching over, he covered his activity with his body and mustering what he called courage. He tried to use his data pad to contact Terrik in the landing bay.

He typed in "Landing Bays" but before he could code further, a message appeared.

DA-42

Funny you should ask. Landing bays are one of my favorite subjects!

"You useless pile of chips!"

The Kir Kanos spared a smile at the coward cursing at his personal data device.

JonYa tried to exit the program but it wouldn't let him. He scrolled though at Mon-Cal speed and hope his link to ship's systems would appear at the end.

DA-42: Star Destroyer II

The Imperial Star Destroyer is a weapons delivery system, little more than landing bays with engines and enough firepower to get the bays' cargo in and out of harm's way.

Bay, after bay, most of the Imperial Star Destroyer is hollow, ready to vomit forth squadrons, At-At's landers, boarders, and even prefabricated fortresses at moment's notice.

People often remark at the ship's command ziggurat. They see it as some tribute to Imperial Ego, like a pharaoh's tomb. But what the structure really does is move the officer out of the way, making room for the really important things, the cargo and engines. One of the secrets of a star destroyer is that it could operate fine without a command structure.

JonYa turned more pale than usual. "It knows!" The possibilities ran though his head. He was a sniveling egomaniac but he was also an engineering genius. "You're not a data assistant! You're a droid!"

A head, a little paddle with two pin-head lime-green lights for eyes, and visual input for a mouth sprouted for the top middle of the data pad's frame. "Took you long enough, Master."

Dotter 3

Dotter was about to update her Da. She had her personal comm link out when the bridge's main hatch suddenly whooshed open and a Crimson Man stood stock still at the main entrance.

The hairs on the back of head stood on end. She drew and fired. "Sith!"

The Wookie chief engineer roared and reached for her laser crossbow. The Crimson Guard whirled in her direction, his fluid, circular leg motion never stopped, never lost inertia, his long cloak disguising his stances and direction like an AurochFighter of Old Alderaan. The naginata in is hand flashed. Half a second later, daughter's old friend was dead.

Dotter switched the commlink to her left hand and drew her DL-44. "Kill him!"

All of the Errant Venture bridge crew carried blasters. Their hips felt funny without them. Red and green bolts sailed past the flowing killer. "Stay at your posts! Stay at your posts!" Dotter spared a moment to wave the techs back into their pits. "He's only one man!" Then she squeezed off a shot she was sure would hit him square but he used his katana like a bat and swatted it into old Hir Diamondcuff. Her bolt hit the old maintenance engineer in the neck. Dotter remembered Hir's grandkids and felt terrible.

Batting bolts was a Jedi trick. "More fire! More Fire! Pour it on!" It should have gotten better. The increased fire should have overwhelmed him but it only got worse.

The storm of fire got in each other's way, pinning everyone except the Crimson Man. Crew shot across the deck, missing the Crimson Man and hitting panels dangerously close to their colleagues. Meanwhile the Crimson Man played Rounders with the blasts, killing one, wounding others, stabbing here, dancing there, dealing out death and blood.

"I can't lose the bridge! I can't lose the bridge!" Dotter struggled against her second and third officers. Greer Whelm was an old bouncer and he had her in some sort of wristlock while Wing Commander Wright lay down covering fire. The three were in the escape lift before she knew it.

"I lost the bridge!"

"Without those." Wright tapped her on her command rods. "And your command codes, it's just a room. They can't access anything. "

She breathed deeply. "You're right. Get me the section chiefs."

Kaleb 5

The four friends entered the vast the repair and load bay and fanned out. RagtagX and Miki and BlastdeathX left, Kaleb right.

Following is own advice, Kaleb ran up one flight of durasteel grate industrial stairs after another. Finally, at the very top, his young lungs burning, he shoved his jealousy aside.

"About time." BlastdeathX was at the mid-level gantry across the landing bay from Kaleb. His E-11B blaster did not have the range or accuracy of Kaleb's laser but it fired at three times the rate of a normal E-11.

"Cut the chatter, BlastdeathX." 80 meters above the surface of the deck, Kaleb had a perfect view of the whole area and was, going by his experienced gamer's eye, safe from effective range of the Stormtrooper's standard blaster, the E-11.

He looked around for his friends. Across the bay, on the parallel stair landing, RagtagX was just getting into position next to his brother BlastdeathX. The two brothers looked across the bay-turned-plaza and waved at him. "BlastdeathX and RagtagX in position." BlastdeathX was panting.

"SitheaterX you're all wrong!" Barked RagtagX.

Kaleb linked RagtagX's view. SitheaterX had found her position on the old hanger's beam crane. The crane lay perpendicular to the roof, spanning the bay and could roll the length of it. The heavy duty crane was built to lift AT-AT's and more. He switched to his own eyes.

Kaleb, like a lot of the residents, had forgotten about the old crane. It did not surprise him SitheaterX had thought about it. She went on patrol with her mom all the time and her mom might like that perch.

The beam crane ran on a pair of two meter wide rails forged in the same mold as the two bulkheads that ran the length of the rectangular hanger, just below ceiling. The beam itself always reminded Kaleb of the mythical Cylclopeans, its mighty "arms" spanning the bay, the wheels, the tops of the knuckles, the crane's yellow operating station, the "eye" and the vestigial cables, doubled up as stowed under the operator's station, the rusty "beard." In its heyday the beam crane had been used to lug imperial military transports and landers into launch position or the branching maintenance bays. But that was back when the Errant Venture was a warship.

Nowadays, the bays were now fabricated into artificer shops with a market plaza. There was very little call to lift several hundred thousand tons, so the crane was little used.

But to his mind, it was a great sniper's roost. Only two meters below the ceiling and 18m above Kaleb, the crane spanned the width of the interior landing bay. The megalithic I-beam of durasteel sheltered the young and heavily armed girl very well.

"Bad spot. No avenue of retreat." Kaleb frowned.

"It's a great spot, JansennX! You're just jealous." Mikki shot back.

"All right." Kaleb admitted. He knew better than to argue with her. She had even taken the operator's lift so she was fresh. The massive hoist she lay across gave her great cover and her Breyergun was accurate at that range. Provided she dialed in the iron sights right, she could kill a Trooper while a standard Trooper's E-11 was out of range. " You are higher than me, so you cover me now, okay? Remember, get the LR Blasters first. They should be the only things that can touch you. "

"Okay."

Kaleb was a little nervous. In the game, it made more sense to fight in pairs. Now if the Troopers massed and rushed him he'd have to run, maybe leave his rifle too. "Check your exits people. Drop your weapon if you have to run."

"But…"

"There's always more guns. Rendezvous back at weapon's locker 101 or Miki's stateroom."

"Mom won't like us taking all the guns."

"Okay. Okay. Here they come." But it was just refugees. They came singly and in groups running by but Kaleb's mind was elsewhere. He toggled for Miki's private channel.

"So. You and RagtagX, huh?"

"Kaleb this is not the time."

He swallowed. "So why him and not me?"

"Kaleb, you are nice guy."

"Just not nice enough."

"You and I have different dreams. I like space, so does RagtagX. Now his family has landed a franchise for a merchant bank. It's a big deal, straight from the Recovery Act itself. Then, after a stint in academy, we can…"

"Yeah. I get it. And your mom? I suppose she has nothing to do with it?" Silence. "Thought so. So tell me. I figure you owe me now. Just tell me. What does she got against me? Is it because my parents own a bar?"

"No. Personally, she likes you. As a being, she likes you better than RagtagX."

"Then I don't…"

"You're going be a farmer! Don't you get it? Farming sucks!"

It was inconceivable to Kaleb that anyone would prefer a life in space as opposed to growing things and breathing fresh air. "That's all? Come on there has to be something more to it."

"I wish there was. You are a nice guy Kaleb. But who wants to make a living scratching dirt?

"NOW here they come." That was RagtagX. "Sure enough…" Amethyst bolts poured past the bay doors. "Humph. The bolts are red in the game."

"Perfect. Now I'm ready to kill something." Kaleb tried to sight tough through the tears.

When the half platoon of Troopers came into view Kaleb was disappointed. "Only that many? What's everybody afraid of?" The Stormtroopers sprinted from cover to cover evenly spaced but not crowded, so a single blast could not singe two. "Less than the game, but they are not just pouring in, they're coming in pairs. They're stupider than I thought."

"Admit it. SitheaterX's got a great field of fire." RagtagX teased.

"Cut the chatter, RagtagX." Kaleb looked over his rival. RagtagX was bigger and handsomer than the washwater-haired scarecrow of wizgoe Kaleb saw himself as. RagtagX was bigger, not taller, but bigger, and had the dark hair and tan complexion all the girls liked. And he paid a lot of attention to Miki. "At least I can shut him up in the games."

Kaleb lay flat and stuck the long, durasteel barrel over the lip, the leverage making aiming easier. "Now Micki will be the sniper. She's got simple iron sights. I have to tune my scope. She'll probably get the first shot off and ruin my chance at an easy kill too. " The textured metal grating bit into his knees and elbows. He kept brushing away his is long sandy brown bangs, the current fashion, from his eyes. Finally, he used his sweat to plaster his hair behind his right ear and under the tech-set. He stopped trying to get comfortable. One Trooper was far enough away from any obstruction. He centered his sight. Then Micki beat him to the shot.

A golden laser bolt bounced off of Secundus' chest plate and scorched the floor. He looked up at the beam crane and set his helmet's lenses for telescopic.

The young girl, blinking from the flash of her own laser rifle was stunned that her Byerpistol, really a light rifle with a pistol butt, did not fall the Trooper. There was barely a carbon score. "But that's impossible. He should be dead!" She shot again, but as her mother always nagged her not to do, she pulled, not squeezed, the trigger and the shot went high.

Training kicked in. Secundus' E-11t's butt stock had already been unfolded and socketed into his shoulder joint, his helmet scope linked to the blaster's sights, the microcomputer in his helmet compensating for distance and atmosphere and, using echolocation, triangulated the origin of the single shot. Crosshairs appeared where his computer said the shot came from. He waited. First the barrel of a rifle appeared, then girl-sniper's head peeked up from behind the coil of cable, sliding right into his crosshairs. The Stormtrooper's E-11t barked, leaving nothing but a charred stump atop a body. What was left of Miki, went slack, the gun clattered into the nest of cable and the torso flopped down.

Kaleb's hands went numb. His rifle tilted. The stock tapped the bottom rail of the banister before the whole piece slid straight down. It clanked against the deck below.

"MICKI?" JannsenX shouted. "MIKI! MIKI COME IN!" Kaleb could not get a signal from her headset. "They can't do that!" Kaleb's mind hit the "denial" button. "They are not in range! No way! Micki must be ducking behind the lifter and busted her headset. Yeah. That's it. Her comm-link is busted."

"More points for me!" BlastdeathX started hosing off rounds, using the B model's superior rate of fire, the recoil of the real blaster load, heavier than the game, hammered his shoulder.

RagtagX had been too busy rigging the crossbow with an explosive quarrel to notice anything. He finally bobbed up, picked a spot between two Troopers, squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened.

"Shoot, RagtagX, Shoot!"

"I can't. The crossbow is jammed!"

"Use the pistols!"

The spray of inaccurate shots drew Secundus' attention. "Trooper five. Need suppressing fire. Going high."

"Roger that." Trooper 5 spun, locked his butt stock and sight, flicked his selector switch to "kill" and double-tapped off two evenly spaced shots. BlastdeathX hit the deck and dragged the surprised RagtagX after him.

Kaleb felt his blood drain from his head to his feet. The Troopers on the holo never used suppressing fire or "shoot and scoot" tactics. He looked for a way to help and his head felt dizzy. In a flash of insight, he saw why the Troopers all came in pairs, rather than in ones and threes, like in the game. The Troopers all coming at once, fanning out, meant that each covered the other. "They're working as a team. Pause game! Pause game!"

"Game?" A voice mocked. It was a Stormtrooper. He had hacked team Fett-X's civilian frequency. "This ain't no game, boy."

Fire and enemy communications suppressed, Secundus slapped in a grapnel to his blaster's barrel, automatically triggering the appropriate setting in his E-11t and shot the hook through a gap in a girder right above the two brothers. The grapnel's built in micro gyro's looped a brace just like it was designed to do. He clipped the cable to the winch in his belt, cleared the line then toggled "ascend."

"Jaq! Hugh! Get up he's coming! He's climbing. Shoot back. He's easy now!"

But every time the brothers made to move; Trooper 5 fired. A purple firework exploded above their heads. Sparks singed their clothes and hair, bits of molten rain on them.

"After we get those two crybabies, we're coming after you, boy. Cry, little boys, cry for your mommies. This is what they get for messing with Stormtroopers."

"Get up you guys! Get up! Run! Run!" Like the hacker said, Kaleb heard crying over his mike. He wondered who it was. SPEAKERID showed it to be both brothers. It occurred to him that through the link to his own headset the two brothers could watch the Stormtrooper approaching their position. Thanks to Kaleb, they were watching the approach of Death.

Perfectly suspended by the stress points in his armor, specifically built for ascension and repelling, Secundus took the time to fix vibrobayonet. His belt-winch whirred happily. In case of rescue, it was built to take twice the weight. He was at the boys' position in less time than it takes to wash a dish.

Thanks to the top of the line technician headset, Kaleb got a first person view of Secundus Delft's white armor filling RagtagX's screen, before the Stormtrooper snap-lunged with his fixed vibrobayonet, the cryptoshard cutting skullbone as easily as eggshell, a curtain of red cut across the vision and the screams. Thus the brothers' lives ended. In an ironic moment, as he fell dead, Sithdeath's camera titled towards Kaleb himself. Kaleb saw himself as other saw him, on his knees, slack jawed, limp, impotent, through dappled in garnets of Jaq's blood, pathetic. It would haunt his dreams.

The sudden gap in his line caused Sgt. Major Gaius to seek out Trooper Two and Five. Trooper 5's line of fire tipped him off. Going telescopic, he saw Secundus, Trooper 2, high above, on a gangway, taking a civvie E-11 from a foe. He could tell the foe was a fresh kill by the blood still pumping through the grating.

Now that he had a chance to look up, he appreciated the area better. His squad had made remarkable distance and time. They controlled the main landing bay/plaza but now that they had progressed to the main refit bay, they would be exposed to enfilade fire from dozens of flanking gantry's, walkways and ports lining the bulkheads. It was worse, far worse a little ways in. "Forgot. It was designed around defense. Lucky we were attacked when they did.

Good job, Secundus. Squad. Fall back to the shuttle bay. Now that I look at it, this place has ambush written all over it. We're lucky all we found were these brats. Fall back. That's an order. But keep tight, watch your six, high and low. Copy!"

"Copy."

Emboldened by his acquisition of a whole bandolier of fresh blaster gas clips, Secundus picked off freakish aliens and scum sucking smugglers at whim. He saw a human youngling running down from the top gantry. The crying target was the human boy still carrying the hacked headset so he spared the ammo. "let's see where you go." He took a Thing off at the hips, then it occurred to him, "I wonder why my cheeks are sore? Oh. It's because I'm smiling!"

"Can the hilarity, Trooper Two. Gantries look clear. Repel down here before they fill up again. We'll cover you."

"Yes, sergeant!" Secundus ejected the gas and power clip from the captured unfamiliar and untested weapon, pouched the clip for later and then repelled down.

Trooper 5 covered his teammates retreat then followed orders and backed out of the bay. Feeling elated, spoke carelessly into the hacked headset. "Looks like this was your lucky day, boy."

Kaleb tossed the headset away.

Dotter 4

Leaving the escape lift, Whelm dropped the wristlock and daughter used her newly free hand to slap him. Whelm took it like a man who been hit far, worse. "Call your Da."

"No. I can still handle this. He's got his own problems." The escape lift opened to the auxiliary bridge. It was dark except for the glow of one tech at his lone station. The tech looked young. He looked up from his soda, greasy legume and queso wrap on his panel. Coruscant Techno music blared on the speakers and posters of champion pod racers plastered the bulkheads. A mix of droids bobbed up and down on panels.

"You sure?"

In the cargo bay, the battle had reached a lull as it sometimes does when both sides, after assessing the situation regroup and plan. The Stormtroopers had retreated back to the Sequoia and prepared to be assaulted. Terrik gathered his forces for assault. The civilians had fled or carpeted the deck, looking like piles of laundry stuffed with meat that moaned. Occasionally, a civvie would stagger to his feet and limp off. The Troopers did not spend the gas to traumatize him/her further. The particle energy that flattened the civilians had also flattened the partitions of the shops, knocking over bistro tables, folding chairs, shelves and merchandise racks like a Tatooine Sirocco. The automatic inert gas jet system had extinguished the spot fires left by tipped cooking units but wisps of grey and black smoke lingered. One or two cheap service droids spun their treads and flailed their armatures, trying to set themselves aright, like cooters some youngling flipped on their backs.

The Troopers spent their time using common dollies and load lifters to stack crates and dragging loose deck panels into a circle barricade just in front of the Lambda's landing ramp.

In the past few years, a few things, like the fact that he had stripped out the articulated sentry guns, had hindered Terrik's contingency plans for such an occasion. His current "consultant" had advised that two banks of quad blaster cannons could be put to better use on the hull for anti-fighter defense and the boom cranes (once the armor was removed) would better used for moving cargo. At the time, he thought it made sense. Besides, the gun's armatures were able to reach any part of the main landing bay. The control room made a great exclusive no-limit Sabbac room for merchants who wanted to keep an eye their cargo and relax (a.k.a. gamble) at the same time. Now he wished he had listened to the Coruscant interior decorator and just opted for curtains. "Last time I take fashion tips from an arch-engineer."

Four of his E-web qualified guards were freshly dead, two more had shipped out last week for better and more regular pay on New Alderaan and he hadn't drilled for such an occasion in over a year. He meant to, but shipments kept getting in the way.

On top of that, shoving his way through the crowd and not been good for his back, his breathing was labored and his knees were screaming at him. "If I just get through this one day, I swear by the Force, I'll get those knees looked at. " The picture of his daughter's loving, nagging face flashed before him. "Aw who's kidding who?

Okay, what do we got?"

"Sir!" a hand shot up. Mack "BackwhenwewereonHoth" Cass spoke first. "Looks like we've got over 500 guards and a hundred more armed volunteers awaiting orders for how best to paint the deck with Imperial blood.

Against us, we got one dozen Troopers, two officers and unknown amount of command crew in the Lambda. A crew of 4 to 6 is typical."

"Good." The numbers gave Terrik comfort. He had at least 600 angry beings eager to score a piece of only a score of Imps. "With the gas and vibro scalpels this can still be my lucky day." He inhaled and used his "big" voice. "Who here knows how to operate an E-Web?" After a moment's pause an even sixteen hands shot up. The Vong War had left a lot of beings knowing how to fight. "Good. Now's here what we do."

"Sir!" a hand shot up again. Terrik sighed, Mack "BackwhenwewereonHoth" Cass was a fine guard but he had a problem with topics of conversations that had a lot to do with his nickname. But Terrik and most men felt sorry for him and admired how he lived like a hermit and finally had saved enough for the Bacta treatments to heal his burn scars. In smuggler-lingo, he ranked as "basically good guy." So Terrik took a deep breath and didn't bite his head off.

"BackwhenwewereonHoth the Lambda's were real bad. It's are not just a shuttle. We made that mistake too. They used to…"

"Right." Terrik cut Mack off as saw his men roll their eyes. "I'll be careful. That's why we need the E-webs up and running now. E-webs need at least teams of two. Aces, Doublespeak; cover the port side wing. Greenie and Headshot, on the starboard wing." He pointed wide to the port and starboard bulkheads. "You four, Loadfoot, Allepto, Sugarhead and Kesselstick, cover the center. Don't forget to overlap your fields of fire and mind the power surges. Go." Twelve crew dashed for the heavy weapons compartment. You four, the ones that say they know e-webs, pick one of those crews and stick with them. Anyone who wants to help them just lift and lug is welcome to join them.

The rest of you go up to the edge of the observation deck, up all at once. Don't worry. These guys are low, very low, on blaster gas. There is no way they can survive a sustained firefight."

"They got the Bespinian gas on board." Mack interrupted.

"They did, huh?" Terrik looked at the empty deck. Two large orange smears led to the Lambda. Captain Terrik took a deep breath. "Well it still goes. Not like a they brought a blaster compressor with them." Mack raised his hand and opened his mouth. Terrik shot him the hairy eyeball and shut him up.

"In any case, I'm going with you. You know me. I'm the soul of caution." Terrik flashed a winning smile. The men chuckled. Terrik withdrew a white, chrysalis hanky. "For now, we stall, give the e-webs time to get into action, then we let them have it.

But wait until I shoot first, got it? I'm going to offer them a deal. Scalpels and gas and we let them go. "

"We can't just let them go boss! Not after wot they did! I gotta score to settle." A Bothan with a cheek missing slurred.

Terrik hand up both palms flat. " Don't get your tail in a bunch, Half-Face. If we don't fry those Imps every two-bit pirate from here to the Outer Rim will think they can take us on. Kapeesh?

I just haven't decided whether I want to carbon score my recently refurbished landing bay or let them go, use the cannons and flash the cargo."

Every smuggler nodded. They all understood the Unwritten Laws. In their business, reputation, personal or their shadowport's, was everything.

"But there's no reason we can't turn a profit." The team laughed. Their boss was a clever as always. No one would say boo to breaking a word to a Remnant who drew blood on the Errant Venture.

Mack Cass worked his way to the back. If Terrik didn't want to know that they Lambda landers come with a built in weapon compressor and power ports, so Troopers can refill their gas and juice from the Lambda on extended missions, he wasn't going to tell him.

Telling him to shut up really hurt Mack's feelings. He'd been told to shut up a lot over the years. But telling him to shut up, this one time, a time when he knew, in painful detail, just what the Lambda's were capable of, wounded him deeply. He was angrier at the Boss than he had been towards anyone in a long, long, time.

"Boss doesn't want my advice, fine. BackwhenwereonHoth, we found out the Lambda's were armed fore AND aft. No flat panel that. You'll learn. You'll learn old BackwhenwereonHorth Cass was right after all." Cass slipped to the back of the crew. Allowing everyone to think he was afraid of Terrik he moved away from the aft of the Lambda. "Let someone else go through two years of bacta."

Terrik pointed to his two personal bodyguards, the huge, wolfish, Slacks hefting light repeating blasters. "You two with me.

And somebody shut off that goldstang klaxon! It's driving me crazy!"

Back at the Lambda, the Troopers guarded the ramp and checked their ammo. Even after Secundes pulled out a practically magical bandolier of E-11 clips, it wasn't good enough, not for the sustained operation that Gamma Plan called for, but it was a blessing. Troopers snapped up and grappled even the meanest hold out blasters near their hasty barricade. Their helmet mikes picked up the clicking and clanking of a very large, angry mob weapons heading their way.

The loadmaster spoke out of the Commodore's implanted earpiece. "Cargo secured. We're square, sir."

Good. Station's ensign."

It was with some sense of relief that the Loadmaster, Ensign Beth, took her position to the rear of the shuttle. She realized the cargo was the mission but she was genuinely worried about the Old Man and she could protect him better from the stern blaster station. She strapped into her seat and fitted on her headset. Then she hit the switch and watched the gas pressure indicator spin left. As she loaded her weapon's chamber with sparkling, fresh, naturally spun tibanna gas, her pretty, young, face took on a fierce and ancient aspect.

Bridge, Lt. Ai

Jon Ya used his handkerchief to blot his nose. Lt. Ai had finally gotten fed up with his nonsense and disciplined him in Imperial fashion. Jon Ya slipped his Agonaine cheese into his mouth. The microbes that made the cheese numbed pain. Agonaine was usually reserved for Kuati women to ease the pain of childbirth. But Jon Ya found it relieved the tedium of dealing with inferior intellects on a daily basis. Of course, he had to tell his cheese monger but what Kuati didn't lie to his or her cheese monger? "Yoyo, dot the bidge. O'tay. But command diffuse. You no get ship. Turbolazers blast you outta de sky."

Lt. Ai did not seem worried. She spoke to the she punched buttons as decisively as she punched noses. Dragging her numb leg from station to station, she bit back the pain in her thigh and tried to speak in an even voice. "Normally you'd be right. I'm locked out of every major. But here? In this understaffed bridge? A lot of systems were left open or the crew died before closing them."

"On't 'atter. Only 'inor istems."

"Ah! But I know how an Impstar Two works. Every vital system depends on some smaller system. For example, in the earlier models, the turbolaser crews used to scramble for the escape pods at the first sign of damage. So we built in escape pods to the station to make them linger longer. Never mind the bridge controlled whether they ejected or not. Here! All linked. Watch this." She punched a stud and the turbolaser panel lights turned red one after the other.

Dotter was feeling better. Command and control of all major systems had been switched to the aux bridge. Off duty bridge personelle had answered her call and were running to the auxiliary bridge. At the moment, she had twelve crew in a bridge that required a minimum of thirty two. But more were on the way.

"We just launched some escape pods!" Wing commander Wright announced.

Dotter rushed to the life station and saw dozens of escape pods blast past the viewing screens and felt her stomach turn.

"What do we do?"

"Who was in the pods?"

"Not our guys, it was the bridge!"

"Why would they do that?"

"Dotter! The Turbo laser crews are calling in. They want to know why we launched their escape pods."

"We didn't. It's that maniac on the bridge." She felt that sinking feeling in her gut. "Wait. There goes the turbolasers. The guns are automatically spiked when the pods are launched to prevent them being turned against allied ships.

Some low priority systems must have been left open and she's using them against us. Damn smart."

"You want me to call the Captain?"

Again she felt the urge to reach for her personal communicator and reach out for her Da. "He'd know what to do." But as a dozen pairs of eyes look towards her for leadership, she fought the urge back. "I need to be in command here. Me. Relax. We are in main control here. The turbolasers are out for now.

Tell the turbolaser crews we've had a slight malfunction. Force knows we have enough of those. Get the crew bosses working on overriding the spike.

The rest of you, make sure that the imperials don't seize anything else. Yes, I know this ship has literally hundreds of low priority systems so you better start now."

"Maybe we should instigate a general lock out, Dotter? You know, go local and manual." Pint Glass Jest, the oldest salt on the ship, suggested.

"Maybe you should shut your word-hole."

"Maybe we should check with the Captain."

"Nobody is bothering the Captain!" daughter took a deep breath. "Listen everybody. We still have more than enough ion cannons and secondary weapons to repel anything this middle-of-nowhere Remnant can throw at us. And despite some sort of Sith on the bridge we outnumber them thousands to one. The EV's been in worse scrapes and come out fine.

Send out a precaution to all civilians recommending they go to their cabin until the unrest is resolved. Reservists go to their mustering area. They know the drill."

"It's been over a year since the last drill."

"Not to mention the turnover."

"Sure you don't want to call the Captain?"

Despite his fear and rising numbness, the Arch Engineer, JonYa of Kuat found himself fascinated by the Imperial officer's manipulation of the systems. "Why aunch?"

"With the pods gone, the guns are automatically spiked, to prevent boarders from taking them over." The panel sounded an alert. "Your aux bridge crew has finally earned its pay. Looks like we won't be getting the shields down. But that just means they left me to work on the ion cannon generators. Time to flush the coolant, don't you think?"

"De meters will show it."

"And if I run a routine re-calibration diagnostic program of the meters at the same time?"

Jon Ya's eyes grew wide. He took another big bit of Agonaine.

Gamma Assault Squadron on the way to target, the Errant Venture

On board the Gamma's the pilots gave the final go ahead. "All right Troops we're going in. All leaders to final run through. Contact imminent. I repeat. Imminent!"

Squad leaders, badged by their boiled shellfish orange epaulette, patrolled up and down their platoon, tugging armor, counting how many blasts each beaten E-11t held. They checked the power packs. Those were plentiful. But with most of the guns holding only enough gas for six shots, they'd be relying on the vibrospatha and shields in the main. But most of all, the leaders checked mental toughness.

The same scenario played out on all the Gammas.

Sergeant, Trooper Medwick is meditating."

"Just make sure he's ready to go when the hatch blows."

"Sonic hammer? When did you become a combat engineer?"

"Pater gave me his for good luck."

"What's he using?"

"You know? I don't know! I never thought…"

"Heh. Don't worry, kid. The Old Dog probably has a backup. If you want to carry the extra weight, fine. But stick to the vibro-spatha in formation just like we drilled."

"You can't be serious, sarge. They're forty thousand guys in there."

"You afraid, Trooper?"

"Strait I am, Sarge. I've been with smugglers. They're heavily armed and as mean and ruthless as they come. And they have all these freaky alien thingees." He flailed his arms, mimicking tentacles.

"Good. You're showing sense. Never be afraid of showing sense."

"I-I don't want to go, Sarge."

"What will you think about yourself tomorrow, Trooper?"

"Pretty much what I've been think about myself for the past 11 years."

"Do you want it to end? Would you like to silence the voices in your head?"

"Yes, Sarge. More than anything."

"Good. Cuz' I have em' voices too. And taking this ship back…well…either we settle old scores or..."

And there it would usually end, trailing away, like if they denied speaking of the next logical event, it would not happen.

Bridge

Lt. Ai was jubilant. Her fingers danced over the familiar panels like a virtuoso on a piano. "I wish I had roller skates! Time to do some real slicing!"

JonYa dispensed ice from the beverage panel and held it up to his broken nose. He had never broken anything before. But then, his parents were very careful. "If you dink bout licing de computer you dot anudder ding umming."

The Lieutenant spared a moment to gloat. "Oh, we aren't just slicing. You see, we're betting that when you allowed the oh-so-noble Republic to repair and refit your ship a few years ago, they put in a backdoor. Who in their right mind would just hand over enough power to dominate a planet to a band of smuggler scum? Right? If we were them, we'd lace your systems with secret access terminals."

The Kuati's coughed up and spat blood, disappointed in his own mess. "Imagine our surprise when a data broker contacted us and proved our guess right."

"'oker! 'arrde?"

"That's the one. Talon Karrde himself. I guess someone on this ship did something that really tee'd him off. Who would be that stupid?"

JonYa shrugged and reached for his cheese, the one mom used to make.

Through the conduits the droid flew, following GO01's tracer signal, guiding it to the traitor port, it brass casing shunning friction and sparks. It was a near straight shot, down the lift access tubes to a prime hanger-view residence. There, between bulkheads, in the darkness, free from human eyes, it disgorged its flight cylinder, revealing a micro-probe droid, a bulbous cylindrical head supported by a carousel of instruments that doubled as articulated legs.

It landed beside a circular access flange implanted right into a main communication conduit. There was nothing remarkable about the flange. Any one opening the bulkhead would assume it was like millions of other flanges across the ship. In fact, there were many more flanges on just the one the panel, all much easier to reach than this one. If they asked a comp for assistance, they would be directed to another flange, for this flange was not listed anywhere, except in the banks of Galactic Alliance Intelligence and on the asset list of certain data broker named Talon Karrde.

Using pincers, the micro-probe droid grabbed the flange's duraplast lid and, securing itself with its other legs, heaved with a power that belied its size and popped the lid off the flange, revealing that the flange wasn't a flange at all but a Class 6 Whitewater-Torrent grade data port. It skittered over the port like a crab and squatted on it, jacking in. It sung for the joy of job well done in the service of the Empire and twisted, socketing itself into the data port and up-linked to its beloved master, GO01.

GO01 chirped the "go ahead".

"Perfect timing. " Ai balanced on a corpse and examined her control panel, reading the probes' data stream, winching as acidic pain shot through her leg with every wobble. "Only damage control, eh? Not a total slave circuit but still, plenty of command code free access. Initiating emergency engine shut down!"

"Lieutenant." The bounty hunter pointed to a window and slipped a red, visored helmet over his head.

"Oh. Here come our assault shuttles. GO01, bypass the secondary weapon's targeting computers to the same circuits as the fire alarms. By secondary weapons I mean Triple A, quad lasers, balustrade lasers; all weapons power reroute through the fire alarm circuits." GO01 projected a holo text message in front of her. "No. Not the fire sensors or fire control droid brains, the audio fire alarms themselves. Careful with the power level. You will find that the audio alarm circuits are exceptionally ephemeral." She winced as she reached into her right side thigh pocket to fetch on her blast goggles. "You might want to close your eyes, Kuati." She pitched a Nox grenade towards the windows at the bow.

Blink. "The bridge is secure. Redirecting shuttle Argentum to secondary landing zone. Can we still get a message in?"

"Confirmed. Tacitus reads us, will relay."

"Lt. Ai is holding the bridge all by herself? Gotta hand it to her." The co-pilot double checked her own pistol and shield bar. "You think we'll see fighting, ma'am? I mean, back here?"

"Why not? We're outnumbered ten thousand to one."

"Sweet."

"Was I ever as young as you, ensign?"

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Never mind."

"Losing systems! They have unrestricted access! We've been set up!"

"How?"

"They've got a backdoor! A slave circuit!"

Dotter dashed to the computer command screen. "A backdoor? Where?"

"Tracking. One thing is for sure. The back door they are using has Gee Ay Intel written all over it."

"I told Da not to trust them! Close it."

"Sith! The slave circuit runs through damage control and damage control…"

"Connects to everything!" Finished Dotter. "Use the override! The Override!"

The tech pounded his panel with both fists in frustration. "I can't! Those Alliance bastards hardwired the data port. Unless we physically destroy the dataport they have direct, uninterruptable, data flow to our systems plain and simple. Wait! I can lock down vital systems one by one. It will make sure she can't spread her influence any more and narrow down which system has been sliced."

"Thought you said she has access."

"Right now, she can knock anywhere she wants but if I can beat her to a system, I can fix it so the doors don't open."

"Do it."

Dotter looked to the comm desk, but it was empty. The Being who was supposed to occupy the chair lay dead, 20 meters above. She scanned the room. Only two security officers and Nickels, the Assistant Droid Coordinator, were standing, not daring to take a seat.

The Errant Venture had so many droids involved in vital functions that they had to be coordinated at a high degree. All the bridge stations were manned, so DroidCo-ord was usually run out of auxiliary command. Nickels had always hated his long hours in the dark, windowless chamber. But this time it had saved his life. He had been on duty when the survivors of the massacre on the bridge burst in. Other bridge crew trickled in after GQ was sounded and they were called the Aux Bridge on comm links. But no one else had come in a while.

Dotter grabbed Nickels, the only available tech, by the scruff of his neck, drew him up to his face and barked. "I want every slicer, dicer, and freelance coder on this ship at their station, tapping keys and counter slicing in the next two minutes or I'll space them myself!" Then she shoved him back towards his intended seat, jammed in her command rod into the panel in front of his and re set the panel from Droid Co-ord to Overall Communication. "You've been promoted."

"Yes'm!"

Errant Venture, Landing Bay, Sorran

"The smugglers are setting up e-webs, Commodore."

"Yes, Gaius. And looks like this bunch know what they are doing.

Don't bother with the random blasters. No need to scavenge. Send the men in twos to the compressor. Lt. Beth has refreshed it with new Tibanna gas."

"Yes, sir. And the e-webs?"

Sil Sorran examined the artillery's positions. "They are setting up for an infantry battle. The Lambda should deal with them."

Aux Bridge, Dotter

"I found it. I found the data port!" Shouted Nickels. Dotter ran to the panel. "See! Its right there!" A blinking light showed exactly where the data port was hiding, behind the wall panel of a certain pit boss.

"I should have known." Dotter seethed. "Get Josie."

"But…" the new comm officer was silence with a glare.

"There's a 'former' Galactic Alliance Agent I want to have word with. Send Josie. I want her take care of it personally."

"Whatever you say, ma'am."

Far side of the old At-At Repair Bay: Josie

From her position at the far end of the bay, Josie cussed and not under her breath as refugees pushed by her. "Damn Civilians. They ruined everything."

"Troopers falling back, boss. What do we do now?" asked the Devonian, relief at having avoided combat obvious in his voice.

"Argh! No cutting them off now. Bridge! The Troopers are falling back to their ship. I'm at the old re-fit bay with three squads. Everyone else has reported in. We can join the fight."

"Negative Josie. Hand that job and the squads over to Chief Tyflynn. He's experienced in shipboard combat. I have something special for you. Something that requires your special talents."

"What?"

"The Imps weren't working alone. We have a traitor on board working with the Remnants." There was a long pause.

"Who?"

"Mira Antilles."

"Figures. Alive?"

"Optional. VERY optional."

"A pleasure."

Main Bridge, Ai

The Bounty Hunter resumed his place by Ai's side.

She talked to GO01. "Oh. They're beating me to vital systems and locking me out. Damn." She limped from panel to panel. "There's too many of them. I'll keep feinting. GO01, see if you can get me just one more vital system, besides damage control, that's already all ours." It beeped and projected another query. "Which one? Communications. Definitely communications. I'll be happy with that."

Ai tried to shove a corpse aside, off a panel of her choice but it was over two hundred pounds of dead, limp, weight and her thigh flared. "You, Bounty Hunter. Could you give a hand with the body of this Thing? The nerve toxin's turned green. It's perfectly safe."

From his perch on the main deck, the Hunter stuck his blade into the skull of an Assadian tech and poled the body aside.

"Thanks." She tossed him the remote control to the hallway grenades. "Now stand guard. Unless I miss my guess, we've got company coming."

The droid beeped inquisitively. "You just focus on keeping damage control and intraship communications OURS GO01. I'm betting they are still wasting their time working down the tier of systems right now and I'm happy to let them waste their time with that. I think anyone who could compete with my Imperial training must be dead."

Mira was alone in the card room, except for two merchants; the Corusetti, who was taking an academic interest in it all and an old Corellian who put his rancor hide boots up on the table, put his plate on his lap, helped himself to another peppersteak and took in the show.

Mira watched the battle unfold.

"Real Stormtroopers is right." The Corellian offered his advice between chews. He pointed with his steak knife. "Look at that flow. Those guys are moving as a team without thinking about it. Old Academy too, is my guess. Hand's all too fussy for that maneuver."

Mira didn't reach for her hold out blaster. It was fine where it was and useless at that distance. "Maybe I could do something with the cranes." The controls were unmanned but she, as pit boss, she had the key-cylinder to it. Time crawled as she fingered the controls. "Hitting the shuttle with claws would barely scratch the paint on it. But maybe I can drop something on it."

Her eyes caught a pallet of metal ingots on the fourth storage level. "That pallet looks heavy enough. I'll need both cranes to handle it. I'll get one shot. After that, they'll spin those blaster cannons up and cook me. Terrik's Kauti engineer took this station's shield generators away for something. But the operator station is still wrapped in armor. It would have cost a fortune to cut it out. "

"The armored mini-bunker should still there, under the station's panels."

"Better leave that hatch open, miss. " Offered the Corellian.

Mira glanced at the Corellian, and noted the red piping down the side of his grey trousers. "Thank you, sir."

His tipped his broad brimmed hat.

Unbolting the pallet from its shelf took enough time that Mira considered just running to a confiscated T-14 Skyhopper she just happen to know about and cutting around the hanger bay with it.

Her instruments showed that the pallet was very heavy. She was trained but not experienced and she took it very, very, slowly. She pulled the pallet free of its rack and being very sure to keep it level, slowly rotated it starboard. Then she began to extend the arms.

The cameras on the cranes displayed the truth that she had just gotten the pallet right above the command section of the Lambda. She reached for the "emergency release" handle. In was under a small safety lid and stiff enough that it did not get pulled on accident.

Then Terrik appeared, waving a flag of parley and she held back. She saw the e-webs setting up and she waited. "We'll hit them at the same time."

"Step back from the controls, Antilles."

Landing Bay, Gantry 2, Terrik

Terrik was a little concerned. He hadn't heard from his daughter in while. "No news is good news. Probably making a list of the ways I screwed up. Oh well. Better get this over with. Commodore!" Terrik walked up to the gantry directly opposite the stern of the shuttle. Hundreds of his guards accompanied him.

"It's like being surrounded by jelly bears." Secundus joked about the mixed origins Errant Venture guards. The rest of squad laughed nervously.

"Heavily armed jelly bears." Sgt. Major Gaius brought them back to reality. The entire perimeter of the landing bay was filled with angry, armed, sentients of all shapes sizes and hues. They stood in a semi-circle, just out of what they thought of as accurate E-11 range. A few were professional guards. Some were rubberneckers and opportunists. Most were bent on revenge for past injuries and many just wanted in on the kill. But they were all armed.

Terrik waved his white hanky. "Par-lay! Par-lay!"

The Commodore stood up from a makeshift barricade of red deck plating. ""Par-lay!" He holstered his pistol and tucked his tunic down and tight. He tugged at his cuffs, noticed they were sopped with blood and shrugged. He took a few steps, trying not to let his melted right boot heel rob him of his military bearing.

At the sight of the Commodore's pistol, Terrik breathed easier, took a long puff off his stogie and folded his arms across his broad chest. "That's an old K-55. Something on the muzzle but that's a K-55 all right. He'd be lucky to hit the broadside of a bantha at this range.

Commodore, I'm offering you this one chance. I saw how the Bespinians insulted you and they stained my ship. But you got violent. You broke a deal I guaranteed. Your cargo is forfeit. Leave it all. Get in your shuttle and get off my ship."

"No. I'm offering you terms. Surrender or die!"

Terrik knew one of his vanities was his conceit that he was a guy who'd "seen it all." He liked it when someone proved him wrong. It kept life interesting. "Shame I 'm going to have to kill this guy." Terrik dropped his arms, slowly, bringing his right hand to the holster of his custom DL-44. His left held his command comm link. His lips rolled the smoldering stogie to one side. "What did you say?" He growled his response, a tone he borrowed from his fellow slaves, Wookies, back when he was a digger in the spice mines of Kessal.

"You heard me, pirate. Drop your weapons. Release your command codes and you be all treated to justice as per Imperial law."

Terrik took the cigar out of his mouth with two fat fingers of his left hand, making his left hand juggle both comm-link and stogie with the ease of a veteran chain smoker. He looked down at the imperial officer.

His men kept one eye on him, awaiting a signal. They knew their Boss of bosses' moods very well, otherwise they wouldn't be there. Terrik was deadliest when quiet. At times like this, nobody wanted to be the last to draw after the boss gave the word. It always went bad for him or her. The only thing worse was drawing before the boss gave the word.

At ease, arms behind his back, at respectful parade rest, the Commodore seemed content to allow Terrik as much time to respond as he wanted.

The hair on Terrik's forearms stood up on end. "A quiet Imperial is always a bad sign. They hide fear with bluster. Maybe Dotter was right.

Be reasonable. We out number you a thousand to one."

"A thousand… what?" The Commodore turned his best basilisk stare on the gantries and decks, packed with enemies. As he spoke his voice dripped venomous contempt. "A thousand smugglers? Kleyngakis? Flesh peddlers? Lickspittles? WE…." He used the voice he used when addressing the troops at morning muster, up from the diaphragm, as he was taught. It bounced and rolled on the durasteel like an ancient war drum. "…WE are Imperial. Any one of my Troopers is worth ten thousand of your undisciplined, unwashed, vermin." He kept himself straight and waited.

Terrik raised his left hand to silence the grumbling. "I don't get it. This ISN'T the usual Imp arrogance. This is a real officer talking like he has an ace up his sleeve. All I see is a Lambda pointed the wrong way, middle aged Troopers reduced to scavenging hold out blasters. And even if he had back up out there, somewhere, I'm the one in a goldstang Star Destroyer.

Guess it's this gaffer's way to end it all. Can't say I blame him. " His commlink beeped twice. "That's the signal. E-webs report charged. Time to wrap this up.

Gotta hand it to you, old man. You've got sand. Speak like real Navy too. But you must realize you ain't going anywhere. You are outnumbered and outgunned. "

"Captain Terrik, we are the Empire, we are never outgunned. Now!" Like twin fangs from a spitting viper, the Lambda's retractable twin aft lasers sprung forth and in one swift motion raised and fired two beams of green death.

It was when he addressed him as "Captain Terrik" that Terrik's flawless intuition told him he was in fatal danger. He had made the mistake of so many Star Destroyer captains ahead of him. He had grown arrogant in his massive ship's vast, pure, destructive might. He forgot he was just a sack of water and a couple of pounds of chemicals, just like the next being.

He didn't have time to reflect and repent. The fire-linked lasers were centered on him. Hotter than the surface of a yellow star, he was hydrogen-rich steam in an instant.

Sentry Card Room, Mira

"You hear me. Step back from the controls, Antilles." Josie, the security chief and two guards stood in the doorway. The guards had already spread left and right, too wide for a single blast to wound two. Their blasters were leveled.

Mira looked to the two remaining gamblers. "May I suggest you look to your ships?" The Corusetti gambler left slowly, at her own pace. The Cornelian did not move. "I don't like my meal being interrupted."

The security chief stepped back, just a hair. "Ship business, sir. "

The Cornelian looked at Mira, who nodded. He slowly took another bite of steak, chewed it, finished his shot of bourbon and slowly left the room, at his own pace.

Josie, was a steely eyed, leather skinned, woman from Tattoine. Story was she and her daughter had to get out of Mos Eisley quick. She arrived at the Errant Venture with nothing but a slugthrower, a gadhaffi stick and her kid in tow. Since that time she rose up the ranks to security chief. The gadhaffi stick hung up in her office when she wasn't walking her beat with it, now it was slung across her back. The slugthrower had been dumped for a Byerpistol (basically a laser rifle with a pistol butt) and was currently leveled at Mira.

Mira stared into the pit of the massive "Ronto's Leg" .85 Byerpistol. She remembered the jarring noise and way it shattered even the hardest durasteel.

"Josie." She swallowed and nodded to the Leg. "You are right. It IS intimidating."

"Don't do nothin' stupid, Antilles." Josie casually spat. "You're coming with us. 'Mate sez so."

"Why?"

Lobbing a set of stun cuffs at Mira's feet, Josie said. "Put these on. Then I'll answer."

Mira put the cuffs on.

"I need to hear 'em click." Mira frowned and clicked them tight. A light on Josie's left arm bracer lit green and beeped. Josie did not spare it a glance.

"Good." Josie tossed another set on the ground. "Now the feet."

"Is that really necessary?" she held up the stun cuffs." You can already knock me down with a touch of a stud on that bracer there."

"We know'd you'd been intelligence trained the whole time. And I wouldn't try hackin' that set. We got 'em from dem Mandos we wot been here last month. You'd know all about that."

"Fine." Mira didn't let the moisture farmer patois fool her. Josie was smart. If she took the time to pick two men to handle her, they could handle her. The guard to Josie's right she knew from the boxing ring. The blonde haired, blue eyed brick house of a man was the reigning ship's champ. The pale man to her left was short, lean and moved like a dancer. She knew nothing at all about him and that worried her. '"If Josie went to all the trouble to keep him from meeting me, he must be something special."

She locked the shackles on her ankles. Three feet of hobble cable linked the two. She could walk, slowly at best.

A second green light lit up on Josie's bracer.

"You'd said you'd tell me what this was about."

"Fair enough. Sumthin' about a dataport in your room that leads to a slave cicuit." She motioned to the slim guard. "Search her."

The slim man holstered and clipped his pistol down. He made a wide approach, out of kicking range and came up behind her.

He started with her hair.

"You know, I have pallet of metal ready to drop on that Lambda shuttle?"

"Stow it."

"'Dancer' frisked down her collar to her sleeves, down her sides and the hollow of her back.

"Seriously. All you have to do is hit the release trigger." Josie ignored her.

He worked up and down her pants and boots swiftly, without modest hesitation.

"Now can I hit release? Maybe you can. Somebody hit release, please."

Then the guard checked her closed hands. In her left hand, she held a very small, two shot, hold out blaster. Her right hand was empty. The guard removed the micro pistol and stepped backwards, curving his return, careful not to interfere with Josie's line of fire. "She had it in her sleeve and used sleight of hand when she cuffed herself. "

"Nice try, trying to distract us with that crane trick." Josie holstered the Breyrgun to her right thigh and unslung her gaderffii Stick. It could herd prisoners as well as banthas.

"It's not a trick."

"Let's go. You co-operate, you get the cell suite we save for wealthy drunks. You fight or drag, you get the hole."

"I thought we were friends."

"Cut it. You're just another prisoner now. Move or you get stunned and we carry you out. Your choice."

"Josie. I always appreciated your professionalism." Then the Sentry Guns Station polyhedral of tempered transparisteel exploded.

Errant Venture, Landing Bay, Sorran

The blast of the double lasers left behind, quite literally, a hole of leadership. The rookie guards paused if only to blink free of the spots in their eyes or regain their footing. The self-involved guards patted out their singed clothes, squeezing off incidental blasts in random, panicked directions. The seasoned guards ducked and rolled to cover. The mob panicked and ran from the cannon fire. Cass tried to hide his satisfied smile and ducked behind a beam way at the other end of the bay.

The Imperials suffered from no such breakdown in the chain of command.

"Clear this landing zone, pilot!" Sorran did not shout above the din. The throat mike well filtered our background noise.

"Yes, SIR! Turn and burn, Furies!" the Captain of the Lambda commanded. The Lambda levitated and slowly rotated. It's laser and blaster cannons, brimming with fresh tibanna gas, ejaculated red and green bolts of fire and lightening. At that close range, in that confined space, it was like a jackhammering the hanger with a solar flare.

It was immediately evident, that any cover, fine for flashfight, was woefully inadequate as shelter from the Lambda's wrath. Durasteel splashed into molten shrapnel and the unincinerated clots of civilians fell to the ground gasping for the oxygen that the cannons' blasts devoured oxygen. Or, if they were very unlucky, they inhaled superheated air and died as their airsacks blistered

"I told you! I told you!" Were the last words Cass "BackwhenwewereonHoth" spoke before the gantry supports melted, dropping him three meters to the deck below.

"Everyone forgets the retractable rear blasters." Sorran was exultant as he slipped on his blast glasses.

Errant Venture Main Bridge, Ai

To her own ear, Ai began to sound like school teacher as she limped over bodies to flip switch after switch. "You see, on board a Star Destroyer, systems rely on other systems. The farther you go down the line the more things can go wrong. I'm locked out of the lifts. But see what happens when I corrupt the lube programming or re-set the hydraulics specs for planet side operation?

These guys think they are ready to meet our boarding parties. But they aren't combat hardened. What happens when I turn off the lights? Or the thermostat? Or increase the water pressure in the freshers? I mean who cares about that, right? Weapon systems are where all the action is. Right? Wrong! On a Star Destroyer, everything is a weapon. You just need to know how to use it."

Aux Bridge, Dotter

"Good news, Dotter. All weapon systems are under our control."

"Engineering says it will take less than an hour to re-start the engines too, ma'am."

"Could take some asteroid pounding , but plenty of time to wipe out a few lousy unescorted Gammas. Then hook up a tow if we have to.

Look sharp gunners. If they get within range, their ion guns could disable our shields long enough to board and I don't want another repair."

Gamma Assault Squadron

Argentum's secondary target, the Star Destroyer's fire control center, was the riskiest mission. Fire control squatted in the most heavily guarded part of the ship, placed down at the nape of the bridge tower, right in the middle of the top surface. To reach it, the assault boat would have to sail through six fields of fire, two from above and two from either side.

Since the Argentum was the only boat attacking this section of the ship, her pilot and copilot got to see what it was like to have six heavy double barreled ion cannons slowly rotate then elevate their barrels in their direction. "I expect everyone to do her duty."

Each of the Furies knew that if just one capital ship grade ion cannon seven grazed the assault boat, every power system on board would cut out and the boats inertia would dash them against the armor plating of the Star Destroyer, cracking the boat open like an egg on the edge of skillet, or rattling the men inside around like glass beads in a paint can or both.

"Ion cannons targeted. 60 for 10." Wright looked up at Dotter grinning.

"Systems?"

"Ion cannons show green."

"It's all over." Dotter smirked, wondering how much denting the drifting Gammas would cause. "They didn't count on me recruiting the civilians." She mentally patted herself on her back.

Wright hit the buttons to charge the Ion cannons. "Ion cannons charging." Suddenly, the temperature gauges shot from green straight up to red. "Wait! WAIT!" Wright shouted then sparks spewed into his face.

Sixty white hot flowers bloomed inside the Errant Venture. The ion cannons' dedicated generators and capacitors, without coolant, superheated in a moment. Built for creating, storing and disgorging mono-poled lightening balls almost instantly, without coolant, the ion generators melted into puddles.

Containment fields failed. Flows of white-hot, melted durasteel turned flesh and bone to greasy black smoke. Blast doors slammed down, impassively cutting off the sections, sealing screaming, pleading crew in with atmosphere hot enough to instantly bake lungs and gills. Pitiless fire control droid brains deployed inert gas jets and voided chambers to space.

Gamma Assault Squadron

The rippling, glowing white-blue blossoms, visible from the assault shuttles elected cheers and laser semaphore blinks. "Troopers, I am pleased to report that the guns on the Errant Venture have been silenced." Each platoon of Stormtroopers raised their weapons in salute and their voices in cheers.

"Just like the Old Man said!"

Silently, all the Troopers thought the same thing. Superstitiously, none dared say it aloud. "Maybe we have a chance after all."

The non-coms brought it back to reality. Each, in his or her own way voiced a variation on a theme. "Suck it in Troopers, were still outnumbered thousands to one."

The lights flickered in the troop compartment when the boats used their medium ion cannons to poke through the Errant Ventures' shields, shields they knew would seal behind them.

"And even if you don't think you need to hit the head, you better do it now."

Sentry Card Room, Mira

The concussion knocked all three security personnel and Mira to the deck. Atmosphere rushed outwards and the rolling thunder of cannon fire in a hanger bay filled the formerly hushed chamber. Mira looked up. Only the armored window frame was left. The only thing that saved her from a several hundred foot drop was the gravity plating. As designed , the former laser cranes were still frozen where she had left them. They had failed safe and not dropped their cargo.

She stood up, walking on the ceiling like an insect. Then she felt the cold axe blade of gaderffii against her neck.

"Let's go!" Josie shouted over the roar of the roof air circulators.

"Don't you think we have bigger problems?" Mira watched as the two security men crawled to the hatches and sensibly escaped the wrath of the Lambda. "She looked up and saw the viperous head of the craft slowly rotating. Mira shouted over the blasting and the air cyclers, which had just hit into overdrive. "Imp SOP says that they should make at least two sweeps of the landing zone. That means they'll be coming back. Are you completely dim? Let me drop the damn pallet, you stupid hick!"

Josie shouted back. "They got their sheilds up now. Won't matter. Now. MOVE!" Mira moved. She didn't waste her breath trying to explain how standard Imperial shields are less effective against material assault, like four pallets of durasteel ingots. Like she was trained, Mira kept her head down, not for submissiveness but keeping her vision on the threat's footwork behind her, looking for an opening.

Luckily, an opening did come. Just before they entered the 180 degree hatch, Josie decided to risk a quick look up at the Lambda and the Troopers. That was a mistake. The instant the Tatooine farm girl looked down/up, vertigo swatted her like dewback's tail and she staggered and swayed.

The second her balance shifted, Mira twisted her waist and slammed her hands into the side of the dizzy guard's face, metal cuffs adding to the shock of the blow. Josie staggered backwards and Mira stepped between her legs swept her right elbow up into Josie's jaw, hooked her left foot behind Josie's right ankle and stepped forward with her right. The bunkai was designed to take and opponent down, hard. But she improvised, laying on top of the lighter woman, staying close, following her to the deck, using her weight to propel the guard's head just that much faster to the deck plate. Mira did not spare the pity.

The Tatooinian braced herself, slapping the deck with her forearms, absorbing enough energy to avoid unconsciousness but not stars in her eyes. Faced with the choice of guarding her stun cuff bracer or going for her dropped Ghadaffy stick, she went for the stick.

Mira seized the moment and hit the Mando stuncuff controls. Fortunately, they were made of ease of use, so there was no code, just a series of switches.

Two pairs of cuffs popped off. Mira cleared the hobble just in time to duck the awkward, initial, gaderffii swing then rolled, plucking the two double-diamond shaped, carbonfibre fighting daggers that served as the soles of her shoes from the heels. The she dodged again. "Funny, I always like these things better as moccasins."

She had no time to brace or assess, Josie had followed her roll and swung the stick down, sparking on empty deck plate. Mira slashed for her opponent's Achilles tendon but met only air.

The two women faced each other. The silence of the card room was gone. The massive air circulators of the hanger deck roared and whipped their hair in odd, circular motions, interfering with their sight. Neither fighter spared a hand to comb it away. Below their heads, blaster bolts shrieked and threw up flashes of green, crimson and flares of harsh, white light, ribbons of smoke and snow of ash.

Despite the inferior weaponry, Mira Antilles felt a welling of pride and power. She knew she held the advantage. She was an Antilles, bred for space. At such moments she could feel her father's bloodline surging in her. Deck and Stars. It was even in the family crest.

She knew should have been reasonable. But the woman had chained her and that had really popped her talons. "Josie, you might have held the advantage in some Outer Rim sand dunes but here, on durasteel, in deep space, it's MY element. Antilles take our first steps on grav plate and bleed hydraulic fluid!"

"Oh you are gonna bleed all right, spacey-girl." Josie swung.

Aux Bridge, Dotter

The bad news from the hanger deck came right after the ion meltdown. The catastrophes hitting daughter like a one-two punch.

"Da!" The scanners in the hanger went white, then were obscured by smoke.

"He could be alive." Nickels offered. He felt bad for showing her the vid feed of her adopted father dying.

"He's not." She felt her heart drop to her feet.

The Aux Bridge crew paused for long moment. The acting engineering officer brought her back, "Awaiting orders, captain."

"The show goes on, boys and girls." She took a deep breath and choked down her tears. "Status! Section chiefs report in."

"Sorry, Captain. Damage board is lit up like a Coruscant discotech. Half the lifts throughout the ship are overheating or jammed. Passengers and crew between Plaza and Lido Decks report they can't get their cabin doors to open. The only good news is that, except for fire suppression purposes, we are NOT venting."

"Weapons?" Rehn, a security guard, was manning the post while Wright washed water on the burns to his face.

"Turbolasers spiked, Ion capacitors melted, secondary weapons targeting disabled."

"Disabled? How?"

"They bypassed the targeting computers to a much lighter non-essential systems circuit. After the Ions generators melted down, Wright activated the secondary weapons. As soon as power flowed, the wiring burned out."

"I thought you said you had control of the weapons."

Wright spoke though a soaked rag. "I do. I mean I did. All the circuits they put the sec's on were fine for monitoring, but they were so ephemeral that once I put real juice to them, they overloaded."

"Tell the crew to manually aim them."

"No Crew. Reductions, remember?" Tech Rehn was forlorn, more than usual for an Eyuorean.

"Not even the quad lasers?"

Rhen shrugged. "We could try to find a civve."

"Like we have time!

Find me a free circuit."

"Working on it. " Rehn's trotters flew. Dotter felt the urge to yell, but reminded herself that Wright was a good being. He had seen the Errant Venture through thick and thin and knew the systems very well. He was assigned to the Bridge for a reason. "The ion meltdown ruined a lot. It won't be in time. Judging by the way they are attacking the systems, boarders are on the way."

"The fighters?"

Razornose Kleese, a junior flight deck officer replied, "Already thought of that. We are locked out of intra ship communications.

"Nickels?"

The acting Comm Officer answered without looking up from his flashing lights or sparing a gesture, the way someone would talk to a droid. "We still have personal comm links and…"

"…that takes more time." The sinking feeling that she had been through this before flowed through daughter and then it occurred to her. "This was almost the exact way my Old Man took the Errant Venture away from the Imperial Fleet. Now if I can just remember what he said he would have done.

Right. We need to decentralize command. Use the comm-links. Form a comm-tree. Get the section bosses! Their assistants are now their comm liaisons, nothing else. Just keep us connected. Forward the likely landing areas of the Gammas to the section bosses.

Send out a general broadcast, all frequencies. All guards and volunteers are to report to their muster areas and take orders from the boss on duty, there, at the time."

"And if they forgot their muster area or can't get there or hadn't been assigned one yet?"

Dotter was about to yell, but then could not remember the last time they had a GQ drill. "Tell them to run to the sound of blaster fire. They can't go very much wrong that way."

"Yes, captain."

"Send the word out! Sections bosses are to fight their part of the ship as they see best. Don't wait for orders from the bridge.

Speaking of the bridge, I want two security detachments up there on the double."

"Yes, captain."

"And may the Force be with us." Dotter did not feel confident in the last bit. For some reason it sounded hollow.

"Captain! The remaining fighter pilots have made it to their ships on their own. Looks like the squadron in the forward hanger can launch!" Nickels felt good contributing some positive news for once.

"'Bout time! Tell them to take out the boat's." Then the lights flickered with the cascading ripple effect, unique to ion cannon fire. "Launch them! Hurry, while we still can!"

Main Landing Bay, Sorran

Protected by the Lambda's landing shield curtain, and blast reducing visors and ear plugs, the Commodore was treated to the sight of a Lambda clearing a landing zone "danger close". "The rebels never fully appreciated how well suited a Lambda is to its task." The Commodore reflected. "Humph. Their 'hot' pilots should read the technical manuals more. Using the same landing shield trick, I've seen competent freighter pilots walk on asteroids.

Now. What's next?"

As the shuttle slowly, rotated, careful not to neither use too much power nor miss a kill zone, it projected its shields downwards. It's shields were designed to be able to drape over the landing area in order to protect her disembarking troops. Commodore Sorran and his Troopers were able to get a front row seat at the havoc a pair of twin heavy blasters and four fire-linked heavy lasers could produce in confined space. It was even a little chilly for the Commodore's taste.

The Lambda slowly turned, overlapping blast radiuses perfectly. What one blast missed the next got. But then it stopped. The front. blasters rotated upwards, they got the Sentry Gun station but now they shattered two pallets that were about to drop something on the Lambda.

Looking ahead, the Commodore spotted, at the end of the Lambda's arc, two e-web teams coming out of concealment. Both were set high on the fourth floor walkway, one to his seven, the other to his ten o'clock. The guards had deliberately waited for this sort of break before lugging out the guns. They would be able, if Sorran's memory of the e-webs were correct, to damage and possibly disable the Lambda.

Sentry Card Room, Mira

"Oh, you'll bleed all right, spacey-girl." Josie swung. The security guard, for fear of vertigo, did not dare look up. But she did throw up both arms, holding her gaderffii stick high above her head in a classic battle stance, ready for powerful down stroke attacks from either side or block.

Mira distained her usual, inverted grip. The inverted grip's advantage was that with the blade on the wrist, the opponent dared not attempt a wrist lock. But Josie had a two handed weapon, a good one, and was unlikely to go for grapple. She crouched into a forward stance, blades out, snaking her blades, like her master, Winter, always preferred. She crouched. A spring was easier to control than a fall.

And so, on the ceiling of the hanger deck, high above a barking, sizzling, firefight, two women circled each other. Josie swooping. Mira swiping. Raptor swoop vs. viper strike.

"I'm the aggressor. Josie is the guard. She thinks time is on her side. Keep her away from her blaster. Make her worry about me throwing a knife. Could do it too, they're balanced for it. Should have done it when she did that Sandperson thing." Suddenly, Mira's deck shook with the roar of battle and Mira stumbled backwards, her weight went to the right foot.

Josie used the surprise to make a move towards her blaster with her right hand. Mira collapsed her left leg and bent at her waist, countering the backward momentum by clenching her abs. She tumbled to Josie's right, right hand out, blade forward. Josie was forced to spin away, pivoting on her left heel or risk having her calf opened. She used the spin whirl the gadhaffi stick low at the tumbling Mira. Unfortunately, that meant sticking her gun hand out as counterbalance.

It was not meant to be a serious attack. Almost as soon as the tumble began, Mira unfolded to her left, dodging the mace head so nearly as to feel a breeze as it passed.

The two circled again. This time, the two had a chance to think. Josie moved back and, keeping an eye on Mira, slowly reached for her gun. Mira flipped her left dagger into throwing position. Josie backed off. The knife went back to fighting guard. And so it went. Whenever Josie showed a sign of dropping her guard to reach for her gun, Mira showed she was willing to toss a knife into Josie's undefended side.

"Josie, the Lambda is going to blast this station again, any second. Only the armored glass stopped us from getting cooked last time."

"If you leave here with me, we won't have that problem, spy."

"Sometimes it's not so good to be stubborn."

Josie lost patience. In her stick whirled.

Mira wasn't sure how to respond. "If it were a spear, axe, knife, club or even sword, I'd know how to respond. But the Gadhaffi is a bit of each. Josie is trying the attacks one at a time and if it wasn't for the lag time between her styles, if she were a real Sandperson, that would be that. She's fought knives plenty of times before. Only GA training has kept me alive this long."

Daggers weaved, lancing in and out, dancing and dodging the stick like twin x-wings dodging a turbolaser. Mira kept her attacks low. Still, an axe blade cut her shoulder on a return trust. "Switch off the sparring mode, Mira. This girl means business." The throat and knees was no longer out of bounds.

The gaderffii stick gave the security guard range and power but she did not dare lunge too strongly, dropping her guard for a flicked dagger. She stabbed and made short swings with the pick-head. But even the restrained blows carried mortal force.

Then Mira looked behind Josie and spied the exit. "This is rancor scat! Josie is the least of my worries. That Lambda's blasts are getting closer. I need cover. Move to the crane control station? They never removed the station's armor. Cutting that much would have been expensive.

That should make Josie, happy, restraining my movements like that. She should let me do it. Let's hope I survive the few steps it takes." Mira kept falling back, towards the center of the room, towards the crane control station, staying ahead of the stabbing, desert weapon.

And so, when the Lambda made its second pass, as Mira warned it would, she had allowed Josie to maneuver her near the protection of the circle of armored operator's station in the axis of the control room.

She dived through the gap in the control station's 350 degree panel and ducked down inside control station's the armored bunker and curled into a ball. Josie, the experienced fighter was shocked to see her opponent blindly drop her only weapons, jump backwards, scramble under the lip of a mini-bunker and curl into a prone, defensive ball.

"Get up!" Josie walked into the center station and front kicked Mira's body. "Get up!" To Josie's delight, Mira didn't move and Josie, took it as license to put the boot to the pain-in-the-glute prisoner. Now that she had no knives, the gaderffii was out but the boot was more satisfying. Josie's steel tipped boots sent fiery shocks up on Mira's arms and legs. "Get up!" She kicked. Then Josie stopped asking, she spun on her toes, switched to mace mode and two handed, jabbed and jabbed and jabbed.

Josie did not get to be Head of Security in a floating casino/tramp cargo ship by using polite language on troublemakers and spies. In her experience, beating a prisoner to within an inch of his/her/ its life was a proven way to prevent further trouble.

Terrik always insisted on provocation and Mira's two daggers had certainly qualified her as "armed and dangerous" almost. Now, feeling a bit winded, she lifted the gadhaffi. "Screw it." Josie picked up a discarded dagger and tossed it atop Mari's limp torso

Josie raised it its above her head, turning it from mace to ax head. "See if you bleed now! You sanctimonious…"Some movement made her look up just in time to look up into the barrels of the Lambda's main forward blaster cannons. Before she could move, the vertigo took her and she wavered. She felt Death's hand upon her, like she never had, back at the Sandperson's pit house "So, this is it." She felt a tug on her belt and then the concussion slammed her against a panel. The platform shook like a cheap card table in an earthquake, yawing Josie into blackness.

Main Landing Bay, Sorran

Sil Sorran ran straight ahead and waited at the edge of the Lambda' landing shield. The e-web's fired, shearing scoops of plating off the shuttle's cockpit flank. The shields flickered and he was through, grateful for them being tune to resist particles, not matter. He ran five steps, took a 3-point stance, braced his blaster with both hands and squeezed off the best shot of his career.

The blast from his fine-tuned KK-55t hit the seven o'clock team's e-web cable dead center.

DA 42

The E-web Heavy Blaster

The E-web heavy blaster consists of two main parts, the hassock-sized power cube and the heavy blaster. A cable connects the two. The cable needs to be flexible so it has little armor. The e-web is great at producing massive amounts of volatile energy, enough to knock down a freighter, but as a necessity, it is prone to power surges (a blaster bolt IS a power surge after all). E-web teams always have to be aware of the power balance. Tip: A blaster shot through the power cable is lousy for the power balance.

The cable fizzled, the generator surged, sparked and exploded, shrapnelling its team and rocking the gantry loose from its anchors, spilling beings and crates.

The Commodore, turned forty degrees to his right and kept on firing, chipping away at the second generator. A few level headed guards who had been happy to keep under deep cover until the big guns were done, snapped off quick shots, defending their only remaining heavy gun. But without sacrificing one iota of defensive cover for themselves, they could not get a good angle.

Under fire, the Commodore, put three more holes in last the e-web cube, until a head-sized chunk cracked off and the machine went dark. It's crew ran. A moment later, the Lambda's mains were trained on the area and reduced it to slag.

The Commodore returned to cover, the Lambda's co-pilot now free to wink its draping shields and permit him free ingress.

The minimum two full rotations demanded by SOP ended much later than he expected. The Lambda floated down to landing position and lowered its ramp. This time, it's head faced towards the enemy, towards the interior bays and the bazaar. "Landing area scorched."

"Roger that, Sequoia.

Sgt. Major, clear the area."

"Wait! Wait!" Ensign Beth came running down and around the ramp with a haversack, waving ammo clips. "Ammo! Ammo!"

The Stormtroopers walked to Beth without hurry. Inside their armor, protected by the shield, the Imperials were quite comfortable. They did not need to rush for the inert gas jets and the air cyclers to clear the hanger of smoke and toxic fume that left the smugglers gasping and teary eyed. The Troopers crowded around, unbelieving of the wealth that was being handed to them. Two whole clips of tibanna gas a piece.

The men were jubilant. Then the Commodore brought them up quick. "If you are quite done celebrating Sergeant Major?"

"Yes, sir! Move out Troopers. Standard 2-4-4-2."

They fanned out to check for anything the Lambda missed. Under their helmets, they breathed in clean, cool air. Their IR lenses allowed them to see through smoke. But they did step carefully. Glowing durasteel dripped like wax and carbonite was shocked into tiny, slippery balls. Odds were that anything of any less durable substance, such as flesh and bone, had been seared into sizzling fat or greasy char. In the distance, anything that breathed was coughing up bits of lung or gill.

"Hanger bay, secure."

"Bridge, secure."

The Commodore's eyebrows shot up, surprised to hear the Lt. Ai's voice. " Sgt. Major. Proceed with caution. Return when tractable.

Well done, Lieutenant Ai! Bridge, Report."

"Turbolasers spiked. Ion cannons disabled. Secondary weapons targeting inoperable for now. Engines on slow restart. Sheilds up."

"The Gammas?"

"Assault boats 10 for 10 sir. You may have missed it in all the excitement but that flickering was our boats using their ion cannons to punch through the shields."

"Do we have complete control over anything?"

"Damage Control, Intraship Communications and some lower tier systems."

"Excellent. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, sir. I've been able to jam all the lifts you wanted. I've even confined one third of the crew and passengers to quarters by overclocking their cabin's hydraulics. And because I know where our troops will be boarding, all the repulsing parties will experience debilitating failures of life support and environmental controls."

"Outstanding!"

Ai blushed. "Uh oh. Sir. They're launching fighters from the forward hanger. GO01's picking up signals. They are sending an armed damage control team and counter-assault team our way. They're using comm links to decentralized command. I can't jam them without jamming us too. Guess we don't have complete control of communications after all. I'm sorry, sir."

"They are launching fighters from the forward hanger?"

"Yes, Commodore."

The Lambda's pilot, monitoring communications, piped in. "Should I venture out and engage, sir?"

"No, pilot. One SkiprayTR should be sufficient, let alone two. No need to put our prize cargo in harm's way."

"Yes, sir." Pilot concurred.

"A sentry grenade just detonated, sir. Company's coming. What should I do?" Ai said.

"Do? Why, fight your ship, Captain. That's what you do. You are CIC. I'll command this boarding party."

"Yes, sir." As she switched off, it hit Lt. Ai.

Wait. Did he just call me, Captain?"

Sentry Card Room, Mira

The concussion knocked Mira for a loop. But Josie was out cold. Mira unwound her bruised hand from Josie's belt and shook the feeling back into it.

Mira emerged with a groan the from the mini bunker. Josie had hurt her far worse than the blast. She imagined a black and blue shower. In the blast, the bunker's old weapons rack had stabbed her in several places. She was pretty sure the wounds were shallow but she wanted to avoid more tearing.

She looked around. The buffet burned, mixing the stink of charred nerf with the reek of plastic. The ventilators pulled off the smoke in rivers. Through her arms and eyelids, the blast had been dazzling. She could only hear her pulse in her ears. She blinked her eyes. Through the spots that danced on her retina, she realized her chance to crush the Lambda had passed. The pallet was gone, the boom arms had been blown off. Only stumps dangled, wires sparking, looking ridiculous. "On the bright side, they seemed to have targeted the pallets, not the control panel. I doubt we would have survived the flash otherwise."

With a groan, she bent over, and slipped her carbonite daggers back into the soles of her shoes. Then she stripped Josie of her weapons' belt , saving only her keys, and hefted her on to her back, in the manner of rescue teams.

Her back protested. Her hand swelled, soon her fingers would be too fat to bend. Her beaten limbs groaned in protest. Her left ankle felt tender under the weight of Josie. The gaderffii stick lay in front of her. "Guess I can use that damn thing after all." Using it as a cane, she limped out of the smoldering card room before something else happened.

Aux Bridge, Dotter

"Captain Dotter, the fighter pilots say every time a fighter launches they are destroyed."

"We still have a wireless optic channel open on a maintenance droid! It's right outside!" Nickel contributed. The excitement was really focusing his attention.

"Visual!"

There, in black and white, two Skipray Blastboats, upside down, attached to the ventral surface like mynocks. Dotter noticed a new weapons array on top. Where the Blastboat would normally dual lasers, it had a bulbous, wide-lensed "searchlight." But the light emitted strobes of black and white energy. "Get me a close up of that weapon." The camera panned the blastboats. "Those aren't lasers. What are they?"

Suddenly, a pair of EV's after-market tie fighters, flew out of the bay, tumbling like a pair of dice leaving a cup. The instant the portside fighter, hit an "oscillating spotlight" it was crushed like an egg. Fortunately the Bleach's monochromatic effect gave Dotter's imagination the leeway to speculate the spurting fluid was coolant green and not blood red.

The second TIE tried bobbing out of the way but second spotlight spun like a racquet and swatted the starboard fighter so hard, it slewed hard over and skipped across the star destroyers hull like it was playing ducks and drakes, splattering bits of metal and glass everywhere.

"Transmit this to the fighters: Tell them we have two Skipray Blastboats just hovering out there waiting to ambush them. Launch the A-wings next. Full throttle. Double shields. That'll keep them out of the crosshairs. Then blast them off our backside."

"Yes, sir."

The next scene was extraordinary. The pair of surplus A-wings blew out the landing bay full throttle. They simply crossed the Skiprays' beams of light. As quick as that, the fighters came apart like the snapblock ships she made as a kid. In replay, Dotter could see the bolts, pins, screws and seals pop. Forward inertia kept the bits'-o-mass going.

Suddenly, two of the EV's best starfighters were reduced to an "exploding diagram" with a hurtling, flailing, being as the center. One more pair of fast fighters launched with the same result. The pilots even ended up hurtling away on the same trajectories.

Dotter could see it wasn't a matter of speed. The "lights" covered enough of forward dock that it was impossible to dodge them. And just a nanosecond's contact with the new beam weapon was enough to shatter a fighter. Her mind tried to figure a way around it.

"The pilots are refusing to launch, sir."

"Refusing! Offer them a bonus."

Nickels shook his head.

"Tell them I'll fry them myself."

Nickels repeated the threat and then averted his eyes.

"They wouldn't have done this to my Da. DAMN! How's the secondary weapons targeting?"

The man station shouted, "It's worse! The ion cannons are setting off electrical fires all over the ship. Turbolasers would be a better bet. Ironically, the spiking protected their circuits. The fire control chief says he can show the gun crews how to unspike them manually."

"Get that chief to the forward, ventral turbolaser NOW! And CLEAR THAT HANGER BAY!"

"Sir, the enemy has made contact. We are being boarded."

Errant Venture, crew

At ten, carefully selected points across the Errant Venture guards took their stations behind beams and pillars, one high one low awaiting the Stormtroopers. Ship boardings for them were no longer the stuff of holos. Ex-gunslingers, CoreSec, smugglers and bouncers, they were far more used to the run and gun, of the "private sector." Walking into fire, like now, just seemed stupid. But they didn't see any choice. They all knew the best chance to repel boarders was at the point of contact, when the breach channeled them into the guns of the defenders. Nevertheless, they were NOT used to stand up, military style fights.

They wiped their sweaty hands. They took deep breaths. Some instinctively voided bowels.

The deadly dance began. First came the groans of stressed metal as the tractors latched on. Then the unmistakable CLANG of magnetic clamps finally the high pitched whine of stressing armor, like a Krayt Dragon's roar.

The guards steeled their nerves. THIS would be the place to kill the Imps and save their ship, when the Stormtroopers were bottlenecked.

The fuse sparks of forcepikes cutting the seals… the flying fireworks as the ordinary hatch gave way, lightning, a blast of thunder…and then the lights went out.

Or the gravity switched off.

Or the temperature plummeted.

Or scalding steam vented.

Or atmospheric pressure melted to soft vacuum.

In the lucky corridors where guards were not met with a sudden, disadvantageous shift in environment, the defenders poured the best blasters coin could buy into the smoking breach only to see their bolts deflected or bounced right back into their faces.

On deck 10, the defenders wanted to let the smoke clear to see what they were dealing with. But then they felt it very hard to get a full breath for some reason. They didn't want to run but they had no real choice. It was either that or fight over the handful of emergency breathers.

A Trooper, hunching behind a bronze trimmed elongated hexagon of a shield, stepped out. He was marching rhythmically, but not like at parade, crouching cat-stance, deflector shield covering head to toe. As soon as he was one body width beyond the breach, two more shielded, stormtroopers, spatha's clutched in their right fists, flanked him. The three behind them created a roof. The three behind them shielded the flanks.

The privateers fired and fired but only inflicted wounds on themselves from ricochets. Three by three, shoulder to shoulder, eyes straight ahead, the Stormtroopers advanced, keeping a tight, blasterproof box. They had no need to check their comrades, each knew his shieldbrother would be there, a scale in an unbreakable phalanx.

On Lido deck, a freezing cold Shu Wetware, a gunslinger who traded in the wildlife for a wife, kids and bacta-plan saw no percentage in shooting at guys he couldn't touch. The freezing temperature had already sent the cold blooded companions scurrying.

The vibroblade swords came closer and closer.

In his "career" Shu had seen first-hand what an ordinary vibro knife could do. Now he imagined about just what a cubit-long blade of excited crypto-shard would do to his guts. He could see his breath. He imagined his hot guts steaming on the frosty deck. "I'm not getting paid for this!" He turned and ran.

Meanwhile, on deck 5, Boss Gallowsbay, stopped shooting at the access point, and admired the Trooper's vibro short swords. A station borne Corellian, he felt at home floating in the zero g and took cover behind a cross beam. From his vantage, he appreciated how the swords were actually a pair of forearm length shards bracketing a copper colored pipette spine. "I wonder what that pipette is? It projects beyond the tip of the blades. You'd think they'd want a vibrotip. Fall back! We're no good in these confined quarters. Jujueye, prepare to shut the blast doors. Blisterneck! Lead them to the galley!" he spun and kicked off his beam, ready for the gravity to return eventually.

On deck 9, amidships-aft of the forward hanger deck, the Troopers met no resistance at all. With the more obvious lifts suddenly shut down, the defenders were busy arguing about the best way to reach the area. The Troopers on the other hand, knew just where to go. Those who were too young to be stationed on a Star Destroyer followed the sarge. Those with no sarge simply called up a SDII's plans on their headsets and let the heads up displays (HUD) on their lenses guide them.

In the Main Reactor Room, one of the two units of elite Imperial Combat Engineers smashed down the hatch, sheilds up, hammers at the ready, expecting the heaviest resistance. But what they found was one human tech and a host of maintenance droids. In a moment, the main reactor was theirs.

Engine Room

In engineering, the chief engineer, Spannerhead Jenks, was finally satisfied that the re-start was proceeding apace. He decided to see how the attempted boarding was progressing. He wasn't really scared. As he told his living crewmen earlier. "Boys, it's no big deal. We're facing 400 Remnants, tops. And we know those boys could not pour leak out of a boot if instructions were written on the heel.

Captain Terrik and me faced way bigger dangers than this. We are in a goldstang Star Destroyer for Force's sake!

The asteroid field is a bigger danger than they are. The Known Universes' largest asteroid field or 400 cockeyed Remmies. You do the math. Just focus on getting these engines re-started. Dismissed."

His new comm. guy, some young hotshot slicer working off his steerage, going by the moniker of Alec2.0 had not called him, so he figured everything was okay. He figured to check in with bridge anyway. He walked the gantry leading to his control room, turned the corner and suddenly stood eye to eye with a soulless white helmet.

"Freeze!"

Jenks' hands went up and his belly got the same sinking feeling he got when one of his wives left him. As the Trooper took his blaster, Spannerhead scanned his control room. All his men looked as whipped as he felt. Two bodies lay near the door, heads exploded, deadly testimony to the effectiveness of the Combat Engineers' sonic hammers.

"Bantha sacks!" As he was shoved into a corner, he scanned the room looking for his comm officer, the being who should have warned him, Alec2.0.

Alec's chair was empty but behind it, the latest Nubian hologame was still running on Alec's view table. "Alec!" Spannerhead scanned the clot of hostages until he found him. "A hologame? What were you thinking?"

The obese young man simply shrugged. "You said this boarding was no big deal.

"It's always somebody else's fault, eh? Well, when this is over, I'm going to Void you myself."

"Cut it. Get over there with the rest of them." The Trooper waved his hammer at the chief menacingly.

The chief had just joined the rest of the shift, when a Trooper with an orange epaulette tromped up the stairs that led up from fuel control with three prisoners, hands above their head.

"What in the name of the Vader are you doing?" yelled the sarge.

"Taking prisoners, sergeant."

"Awww…" Casually, the sergeant unholstered his E-11t, and in two quick conical bolts stunned the lot of engineers. "Trust me boys, just stun 'em. All they do otherwise is cause trouble.

Cost me two shots, but it's worth it.

You hear me out there? Stun then cord the lot of 'em. Don't be gentle."

Squawks, screams and grunts answered him. One by one, each squad reported all prisoners properly 'bounced and looped.'

"Good. Looks like the Ai blocked all the lifts and blast doors so we have our privacy, for now.

Pair Rotation. Nobody alone. Mikes and namespikes. One and Two ONLY siphon the gas from the prisoners' blasters. Three and Four stay on guard and the rest work. After a pair gets their blaster's gas green-lined, replace the two on guard, then three and four load up and five and six guard, etc. etc. Got it?"

"Yes, sergeant!"

"The droids seem happy enough. Leave them for now.

Until you get the message it's your turn for a fill up, scan this engineering deck for hold outs. Smugglers can lurk anywhere, like Ewoks.

Squad leads confirm."

"Copy!"

Aux bridge, Dotter

"We've lost contact with engineering."

'Damn. What was the last thing they said?"

Nickels tried to make himself smaller. "Don't bug me."

Dotter shot him a look like firelinked blasters. All Nickels could do is open his hands in apology.

"Engineering lights look better than usual, Captain. Engines are warming up nicely." The engineering station tech tried to sound upbeat. "Let's hope everything's okay down there."

"Hope's not good enough. Humph. Could be faster. Send the reserve damage control squad down there.

"Yes, captain." Nickels found an inactive squad of guards and civvies that had not reported contact and took it upon himself send it on the way as well. Then another message came in.

"Squad one's back from the bridge."

"Already?"

"They are still in the lift, totally encased in glop. Imps put a glop grenade in the lift. But the second squad is on the way in lift two."

"Warn them about grenades."

"Already did."

Dotter reappraised the tech. "You're pretty good in a pinch. What's your name, tech?"

"Nickels. Red Nickels."

"Well, Nickels Red Nickels, we get out of this and maybe I can find you a post with a window."

Red sighed unhappily.

Lift two entered into the same hallway as lift one. It wasn't an express but with the only other bridge lift clogged with glop, it was the best choice.

Guns blazing, the Errant Venture's cadre of guards charged into the hallway leading to the bridge. They had just enough time to realize that they were alone when the first chem grenade sprayed them all with Fem-X3 universal venom epoxy ™.

They could hear the screams in the bridge. Ai tapped the commlink on her bracer. Monochrome images of convulsing beings made her smile. "That's one down."

The Crimson Guard shrugged. "They'll keep on coming. This is the bridge, after all."

A hairy Xixan had enough life left in him to crawl to the lift to hit the "recall" stud before the nerves in his cerebrum fired all at once and for the last time.

The first thing that hit the damage control team was the smell. Bodies, frozen in rictus lay on the lift's carpeted floor. "

"Close it! Close it!"

"Wait!" Boss Twotooth Wisk entered the lift, and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his overalls. He was fighting a rhinovirus. "Dis is Fem-X. It turns green when it's safe. Look. Trust me." He tapped a green stripe on a corpse with his bare hand and showed his palm to his crew. "'De Imps used it on my people lots of times."

He examined the painting on the doors and inside the lift. "Judging from the pattern, the spray came from a grenade just to the left of de door. Probably remotely detonated." He paused for a thought. "Come on. You too, R-6."

Only the droid obediently rolled in, the damage control team and armed civilian escort hesitated to enter the lift.

"Come on you big babies. We're up against Remnant scum here! What do dink would happen? Dink dey'd play nice? Now find your fight-reflex and get on board." Still, they hesitated. "or would you rather dey get da bridge and vent all our atmosphere?" That got them moving. One of the civilians bent down and reached for a corpse, intending to drag him out. "No time for dat. Just cram on in. Stand on 'em. Dey won't mind. Besides we need a warm one."

On deck five, the lights were out and all the diurnal species knew fear. The Troopers, however, were more than fine. Their visors provided excellent no-light perception and the heads up displays were even clearer.

The diurnals of the Errant Venture knew basically where the Stormtroopers were so after the first shock wore off, they blasted away into the darkness. The bolts richoeted back and they weren't sure why. The impacts created a red-green-white-blue strobe effect, blinding the nocturnals who had reflexively dilated.

The Troopers' armor glittered. In the strobing light, they seemed to advancing in jerks, not marching forward in perfect synchronization. Many of the Privateers ran, bumping into each other, tripping and those who wanted to retreat in good order.

The Stormtroopers used the dark and their light enhanced lenses in their helmets to close quickly and slashed their vibroswords to deadly effect, zig-zagging milky-white mirrors in the dashes of excited gas.

Sharon Len was very happy. She had been issued a lovely LRB. Back in the Galactic Army no one had let her carry the large gun. She was considered too short of stature. She was strong, stronger than most of the men in her platoon, but the quartermaster would always argue "It is the leverage, not weight corporal." How she got sick of that. The officers would say she deserted. Her nestmate, Vasquez, said the same. Sharon would say the army deserted her first.

Now here she was, with a shiny new Light Repeating Blaster. The serial numbers even corresponded to the Yuzzong Vong War. She was the only one of the Boss Conwell's crew that was rated on it. Boss hadn't always made her feel appreciated but this made up for a lot.

She didn't have a generator, but she did have a bandolier of fresh clips. She set up the bi-pod, lay flat and bent her body around the corner. Boss Conwell, per her request, assigned two civvies to provide covering fire. "When that hatch blows I want you to pour it on."

Sharon didn't mention the overheating issue with clips re: "pouring it on." In the Army, she would have be assigned a teammate with a welding glove to swap out hot barrels. But she knew the EV reserves was not that organized. "You got it boss."

Her heart pumped. The metallic clamp clanked like the cleats of a giant walking on the hull. Boss Conwell removed the mystery for the crew. "Don't worry. It's a Gamma Assault Boat. It holds forty-two tops. We have twice as many here already.

The cutting effect of force pikes sizzled an opening. Boss shouted. "Now's they'll be a force blast and sparks! Don't wait for the smoke to clear or aim. Just pour in into the opening! Andrew! Put away that stang thermal detonator! You'll chimney us all!

Where you kids get that?"

The hatch blew out, there was a momentary drop in pressure then the gravity cut out. "Get a hold everybody!"

Sharon's bipod was useless in zero-g. The good news, she thought, was that the big, durasteel weapon was now weightless. She quickly stood up to better wrap her arms around the "floating" weapon and flipped, head over heels. Though weight didn't matter, the long steel barrel did. Sharon was a ground pounder, not a Marine or Navy. The need for ground troops in the Vong War was so desperate, her training in gravity-zero combat, or g0combat, was minimal at best. In zero-G, weight was meaningless but leverage and centers of gravity were vital.

Troopers flew out of the smoky opening like the old gods descending from the clouds, swords flashing like lightning, they knew how to swing swords without tipping.

One by one, the section bosses reported in. They reported that after the initial defeats and though they gained a foothold, the Trooper advance was losing momentum.

Main Landing Bay, Sorran

"The Troops are having a great time slaughtering smugglers, Commodore, sir. But it's getting tedious."

"You mean your men are getting tired."

"Uh. Yes, sir. Sorry sir."

"Not surprising. The smugglers could stop our advance with piles of their dead if nothing else.

The Commodore changed encrypted channels to the one designated for Stormtroopers.

"This your Polemarch. We, all of us, still have a long fight ahead. Pace yourselves. Just concentrate on capturing the target areas. If we just get eight of those ten points, we can turn this ship against them, and then it won't matter how many enemies we have.

Polemarch out."

What I can do to even the odds? Time to be clever." He paused to think.

"Ah!

GO01? Are you monitoring this frequency?" The droid chirped readiness. "Patch me in to the ship's PA system. Sorran cleared his throat. "Attention! This is Commodore Sorran of the Imperial Navy. We now have control of this ship and its vital systems, including life support. You will lay down your weapons and surrender or suffocate where you stand. Do not attempt to flee! Repeat. Do not attempt to flee! Sorran out.

Loop that to all opponent held sections would you, GO01? Maximum volume. There's a good droid."

"Think that will work, sir?"

"Only to a degree. I have yet to meet a criminal who wasn't a cynic. People who live by questioning authority are always ready to believe the worst. But it is just a gimmick. It's a challenge to the smugglers' chain of command, really."

Aux Bridge, Dotter

Suddenly everyone on the aux bridges comm. links started ringing.

"Captain, everyone is…"

She cut her off, shouting to drown out the loudspeakers. "I bet. Reassure…

"What? React? React to what?"

"I said…" She drew her pistol and blasted the four speakers mounted in the ceiling. "There. That's better. " She pulled her comm. officer out from under his station. "No, I said 'Reassure them and then tell them to clear the channels!'"

Boss Twotooth Wisk jacked in his repair pad and set lift 2 so that it arrived the bridge level but the door did not automatically open. Savvy Chuff finished wrapping the station cable around a corpses' armpits and gave the thumbs up.

"Ready R6?"

"Chirp."

"Remember, get out there fast.

Okay boys and girls, everyone to the back of the lift. 'Dese things usually trigger on heat and motion and I don't want dat motion to be you." Wisk tapped his pad. The lift door opened just enough for R6 to zip out, dragging the warm corpse. Wisk slammed the hatch shut once the heels of the corpse crossed the lift line. It wasn't a minute before R6 sent a happy chirp though Wisk's comm. link. "Great. R6.

It should oxidize in about another minute one more to make sure then. Guns ready."

Main Bridge, Ai

Ai sighed. The cameras on her sentry grenades showed a droid dragging a warm corpse around, triggering her last chem grenade. "Commodore. Company's at the door."

"Copy that. Were you able to seal the bridge's blast doors?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have leave to retreat to a safer area."

"Where would that be, sir? We never got that far in Plan Gamma."

"Hm. No we didn't. Never thought it would come to this." The Commodore closed his eyes, visualizing the bridge, tapping into his gift. "Is the escape lift still at the auxiliary bridge?"

Ai looked up at the Bounty Hunter, the last person to see the shaft. He nodded. "Yes, sir."

"May I suggest you use the shaft's maintenance ladder to go up? You will find a tertiary maintenance passage two meters up. It should carry you along the power main. See if you cannot ride the cleaning sled to escape. Oh, and don't forget to take the bridge main fuse with you."

"Yes, sir. Bridge out." She waved the Bounty Hunter away.

Ai glanced at the Scarlet Clad man and spat. "You heard him. Climb up and escape."

"My contract clearly states that I serve as bodyguard."

"Do it."

The tall, scarlet man shrugged. "No."

"You don't get it. This is my bridge now and I'm not leaving it."

"Fine."

"You don't care if you live or die, do you?"

"It's the ultimate freedom." The thump of four shaped charges reverberated through the hull, strong enough that Ai had to get a grip on a panel. Pain shot up her leg. She wondered how long she had been holding herself up.

She looked into her data bracer. A whole damage control crew in masks and suits were moving heavy rescue equipment into position. They hadn't figured the spent grenades held cameras, or they were reluctant to approach them.

Hallway Outside Main Bridge, Damage Control Team 1

The foreman stood on the hydraulic scissors lift, pulling off the last loudspeaker and addressed the team. "Those shaped charges punctured the four pneumatic cylinders that open and close the blast doors. The doors are closed but nothing's holding them closed except their own weight.

We slide in the jaws to the join, hit the hydraulics and the blast doors will slowly slide open about the width of one human body. We won't be shot at then.

Unless the Remnants are complete morons, da standard hatch beyond the blast door is shut and locked too. Dat works for us.

Dat gives us de time to keep pumping the rescue jaws until the blast doors are wide enough for all youse guys to enter.

Then we hack the standard hatch. Up she goes. Whoosh! And then the fun starts. Okay? So youse civilians, thanks for de help but leave this to the professionals. Go watch the lifts. And the rests youse mugs get ready when we say the word because when that bridge hatch goes up I want nuttin', and I mean NO-THING to survive. Got it?" The mob grunted, squeaked and vibrated its lips, all a variation on the word, "Yes."

"I swear. The universe should be run by damage control crews.

Maybe Dotter and me outta have a little talk when dis all over. No?"

On deck 23, the Argentum's stormtroopers entered the fire control station unopposed.

Hell had broken loose when the turbos were spiked. Then the ion cannon generators and capacitors melted, threatening overloads all over the ship. Then the targeting computers had their power re-routed. The commander sent a half of his command to get a ventral turbolaser in action and trained on the Skiprays and the Gamma gunboats. Then the blaring PA made every sentence a shout.

The remaining crew was busy running around or had their head stuck into bypass panel. The first anyone knew the Troopers had broken in was when they were stun-blasted.

"Bridge! Fire control secure." The PA system went silent.

"We're outta ammo, sarge." Whined a rookie.

"This is fire control. There has to be some tibanna gas around here somewhere. You four guard the hatches. The rest of you, begin searching."

"Look sir!" A private held up a fistful of shiny control cylinders. "I found the officer."

"Perfect! Keep that one alive. The rest of you, we'll have to be here a while so keep it neat."

"Neat sir?" the rookie asked.

The sarge sighed, walked over to a pony tailed tech, lying face down on the deck and with a neat kick he shattered her vertebrae right below the skull. "See? Neat. Now get to it private."

"Yes, sarge."

"Corporal, if we live though this bout of officer insanity, remind me to drill these greenhorns on unarmed combat."

"Look Sarge!" Private Jenks stood by an open locker.

"Sugar in my kaffe! Somebody must be living right."

Inside the lockers stood two boxy, red Spacetrooper suits.

Aux Bridge, Dotter

"We've lost fire control."

"So much for getting the Turbolasers back in action." The fire control tech frowned ruefully.

"Cut it." Dotter kept upbeat and focused. "Doesn't matter. We're trying to operate the Turbo's locally remember?

Relay that to the guys working on the ventral TL.

All the action is inside the ship. Redirect the idiots who were supposed to engage on Deck 23 and tell them to retake fire control. It's a big group. Ugh. But the blast doors will be shut. Could send damage control but I need them on the bridge and a really need the other in the engine room. They are close but the lifts are dicey at best." Something JonYa once told her popped into her head. "Tell the idiots on deck 23 to forget the lifts. They should be by the spacesuit lockers. Tell them to go EVA. Fire control has two sally ports. Transmit the port's access codes to them."

"They Roger that." The fire control tech had a reason to smile. "That'll be a nasty surprise."

"Right. Who expects an attack from outside?"

"When will we get in the bridge again?"

"Boss Wisk says five minutes tops."

"Good. We can use the bridge computers."

"Yes, Captain."

"We need to go on the offensive. They've been having it all their way. Send a message to all section bosses. Tell them to break out the disruptors." The aux bridge was silent.

"What? You think we are fighting some Republic goody-two-shoes? It's death or slavery if we fail."

DA-42

The Disruptor

The disruptor is a terror weapon. Watching a comrade's arm, shoulder and half his face just turn to, basically, granules has an effect like nothing else. Sandpeople have been known burrow holes at the sight of it. For sheer awe and terror, only flamespewers come close.

The disruptor sounds just like a much louder version of its cousin, the blaster. It's the instantaneous, wholesale screaming of the wounded and survivors that sets it apart.

The disruptor is usually shunned by respectable races. The official reason is that a disruptor has a slow, five second, recharge rate. But that is a fallacy. I mean who really wants to sit around and count "one transparasteel, two transparasteel,…" when one just saw swaths of comrades disintegrated? The real reason the disrupter is shunned is that blowing holes in bulkheads is generally thought to be bad idea. Respectable races will retaliate with disruptors of their own and then where will they be? Without atmosphere, drifting in space, that's where.

Disruptors are popular with irresponsible types, Bounty Hunters, scum who have nothing to lose, etc. That is why most respectable Beings shoot Bounty Hunters. Preferably first, preferably by surprise, with a very large blaster (not a disruptor) at point blank range. It's safer that way. I mean, when a Bounty Hunter sits at your table, it's not to share a plate of tapas, is it?

Rumor is that since "wounded by a disruptor" is a bit of an oxymoron, the Bacta Consortium pays to suppress disruptor manufacture. What is known is that various clerical orders and Mortuary Guilds discourage the use since it cuts down on burial gratuities.

Aux Bridge, Dotter

Suddenly, alarms chirped, lights blinked as escape pods fired and "launch" panels lit up.

"Captain! We have reports of civilians taking the remaining escape pods!"

"Good. Let them run. Cowards. Jettisoning into an asteroid field? You'll get yours." Dotter flicked her eyes to the painter droid camera. A rust bucket T-100 light freighter blasted out of the forward hanger bay. It too was hit by the mysterious "spotlights" of the Blastboats. The ship shook intensely, like it was vibrating on a massage cot of a cheap motel but it stayed together. For a second Dotter thought it had escaped. She flashed on paying the pilot a huge bounty to use his ship's weapons on the Skiprays. But then, it too came apart like it was made of snapblocks, her thin hope coming apart at the same time.

Dotter looked at the plan of the ship. Twelve red dots were where they were a few minutes ago. "They're getting tired. The disruptors are turning the tide. We' re winning! Send the word out. Any civilian who wants a piece of the Imperials should report to here… here…" She pointed off a handful of intersections. "All they have to do is keep them pinned down with massed fire. That shouldn't be hard, these guys are using swords and shields.

I wonder if we could capture one of the Gamma assault boats? Divert that squad there."

Deck 9

The fighting had been pushed back out of the halls with no lights. Boss Feldspar Reek pulled his men back to a six way intersection, someplace where his superior numbers held sway. He liked the intersection. If the Troopers blew a new passage, he could use one or two of the hallways to expose the Troopers to flanking fire and/or cut them off. But he didn't like a holding action. "This no get Troopers off ship."

Then the disruptor arrived. It was carried by the biggest human he had ever seen. As a Gungan, Boss Reek was very familiar with personal shields. They were standard issue in the Naboo militia. And he knew that the disruptor would cut through the shields the way an atlatl cuts the air. The Troopers would be cut down in swaths. He grinned widely. "Maybe we-sa move up now."

"They're coming." Specialist Venti fed his mini-probe droid's visuals to the Centurion. "Something's happening. They're reorganizing. They've got a disruptor."

"Stang."

"What now, sir?"

"Fall back?"

Centurion Sanguine Sorran grabbed the trooper by his gorget. "Fall back? Why because they have a big gun? Somebody here want to be sent home with a wound in the back? You? You? Fine. Like my old man says, time to get clever."

Sanguine looked in the hallway for some weapon among the fallen civilians to alleviate the situation but all he saw were hold out blasters and clothes. "Wait. Hand me that."

Boss Reek and his mob were almost into the hallway with the Troopers when a hail of blaster fire erupted and a human with red curls, dressed in the red and blue flowing, oversized robes of a spice merchant came running out. "They're everywhere!" he yelled.

"Yousa! Get behind us!"

The panting human replied. He took the spot right behind and between Boss Reek and his disruptor, at the far right of the advancing mob. The weapons fire stopped. Boss Reek's line continued.

"Suppose they cut a new passage?"

"Then yousa disintegrate! Disa bulkhead not stop disruptor. Issa BAD bomba. Yousa stay close."

"Got it, boss." He felt himself step on the civilian's cloak so he looked down and saw a white boot sticking out from underneath the loose red and blue clothing. "Hey!" The gunner snapped his head up. The last thing he saw the barrel of a holdout blaster. "Bam!"

"Wassa?!" The same went for his boss, right between the eyes.

The disruptor never hit the deck. In was in Sanguine's hands before the mob of civilians could register what had happened. When the disguised Centurion cut loose, a massive pulse of energy broke down the bonds that held their chains of atoms together and reduced the whole, or parts of, forty beings to dust.

Responding to the all-clear signal, the rest of the Troopers charged to their Centurion's position. Those with the scavenged handguns blasted the backs of the retreating beings, then turned to swords. They did not pursue the mob into the various hallways. Instead they regrouped.

The corporal handed the Centurion back his helmet. "Great move, sir."

The Centurion took it only after he shed his borrowed robes. "Smelly things." Then he picked up his new weapon. "Form a turko. These animals are going to regret ever even thinking about using disruptors.

Specialist! Alert all units to expect disruptors." He picked up the disruptor. "Corporal. Here. Distribute the gas. This thing should have enough for almost everyone." He turned to a two man team. Both Troopers were built like duracrete blockhouses. One had a power pack strapped to his back, the other slung a short cylinder of milky white crystal at his hip, about the size and width of a marching drum but rimmed with slug-gray metal. Prepare beam weapons."

The power pack man slapped a cord into the metal stud at the top of the "drum." The tube man spun the drum in its socket, folded out two grips and held it tight. The base now pointed forward. It built to a hum and glowed a cool blue."

They only had a minute before the sounds of mob came screaming towards them. "Form Turko!" The unit formed a tight three by four row, shields to the outside. Only the crystal "drum" of the beam weapon poked out of the fort, like a nose of quartz. The security unit had barely come into view when the tractor-repulsar cannon cut loose.

For the security unit, it was like they were caught in a firehose. A hurricane force of gravitons poured in and around them, tossing them like dice down the hall, past a Wookie. Men and equipment blew by the tall Wookie. The Wookie braced himself against a station. He had trouble breathing, it felt like he had a Bantha sitting on his chest. Still, he lowered his disruptor and fired.

When the huge blast of excited particles hit the sapphire repulsar beam, it did something the Wookie would have sworn was impossible. The blast turned! It was like pissing into the wind, the disruptor blast turned seventy degrees to follow the squad down the hallway.

The Wookie roared in disbelief but was grateful he fired at an angle. His disruptor whined. He shook the mightily impotent weapon in frustration.

Suddenly, he felt himself being pulled forward like a fish on a line. Surprised, he lost his footing and tumbled forward, followed by the rest of the unit. Then he was falling back again, then forward, the back until he was a mass of broken bones, bruises and abrasions.

Kyssack of Wookie, alone stood up from the pile of his smashed comrades. He wiped the blood from the hair in front of his eyes. Through blood soaked brow-hair saw the Troopers had linked shields like a snappingtort and were moving slowly forward. The muzzle of the weapon that had tossed he and his men around like leaves in the wind, pointed toward him. He painfully reached for his slung crossbow. Then the graviton wind was back. He could not move his arms. He felt like he was on a Heavy G planet. Suddenly, he was floating. Then, he was flipped form deck to deck to bulkhead smashed up and down like a Kyshhk nut between rocks. His building rage ended in blackness, then death.

"Unit neutralized , sir."

"Right. Move out. Don't stop. Keep moving."

On deck seven, the Troopers were in full retreat. After half the squad, tried the flanking maneuver of blasting new passages, they were suddenly confronted by a disruptor. Only the fact that their assailant was shooting blind, straight through the bulkheads, saved their lives at all. They decided to fall back.

They were back to a T intersection they had fought for minutes ago when they ran unto the other half of their platoon, left behind to secure the key junction box.

The centurion cut them off, stopping the lead Trooper with the flat of his hand. "Where do you think you are going, Trooper 020?"

"Centurion, they have a disruptor!"

"We need Beamers!"

"Cowards! "Using his superior weight and strength, the Centurion spun him to the rear. "Get behind me! You! Get over there, and stay out of sight!" He waved the rest of the troops to the other arm of the T-intersection. "Everybody! Back off! Farther! " He yanked off his helmet. "Fragging disruptor? So what?" He fumed and tapped his temple. "Think! You don't need the Beamer just brains and a big pair of bullocks.

Specialist!" He checked the charge on his E-11t.

A diminutive Trooper sprinted forward, reading a motion sensor pad. The pad read the pulses of air waves made by moving bodies. It could estimate speed and distance of approaching foes. His response was crisp and aware. "They are entering the hallway, sir! 25 meters."

"The disruptor will be up front. No one is going to be standing close to it."

"Copy. Slow. 20 meters. Ten. Creeping now."

"Here we go boys!" Keeping the visor facing front, the officer lobbed his helmet into view and ducked away. The jittery disruptor operator squeezed off a round, taking "bite" out of each corner, blasting a man a sized whole into a void space and turning the helmet to grains.

Without a blast shield, without the warning to cover their eyes, the disruptor operator and his unit blinked away the dots disruptor's blinding light left behind.

And in that moment, when he knew they'd be blinded, the Centurion wheeled around the carbon scored "bite," blaster to his shoulder, lined up the iron sights and squeezed. He left a smoking hole in the disruptor operator's forehead.

He did not stop. Keeping his blaster shouldered, he sighted and shot the Venture's radio operator straight though his head. One gal actually was quick enough to pick up the disruptor but it was two full seconds away from a charge. He shot her in the top of her head. The blast's heat expanded the brain to steam and her head exploded. By then the civilians had blinked the spots from their eyes and shot back, but the Centurion was shielded by Troopers by then and he just kept shooting and shooting. In the grip of some desperate madness the civilians dashed, jumped and slunk toward the disruptor. And the next. And the next. And the next. When his blaster almost ran out of gas, the centurion held out his hands. "Grenade!"

The Grenadier, marked by his "scout" helmet and checkerboard epaulet reached behind himself and removed grenade from his suit's built in grenade backrack. Eyes never leaving the enemy, he set his selector switch on his blaster, slid the stem of the fragger into the barrel and shot from the hip.

Only when Grenadier fired a frag grenade after them, did the dozen or so remaining in the mob get the hint and ran. Then let them go, mainly because the Troopers blasters were still running on vapor.

The Centurion pointed to the bloodied disruptor, "Drain this piece of scrap. There should be enough gas in it for everybody. Check the corpses for gas.

Specialist."

The Trooper with the Scout Trooper variation helmet turned. "Hand me your spare coif."

The Specialist reached into his pack and withdrew a coif. Used when a helmet was lost or damaged, the micro-mesh hood contained commutations gear and came with a set of goggles that worked just like the Stormtroopers lenses. While his men scavenged and he fitted the coif's electronics to his head, the Centurion spoke. "Look. We can't go running for the Beamers," he nodded to the two bruisers in the back, "every time we see a disruptor. These civvies are jittery. Tease them. Then when they are waiting for the recharge, blast 'em. Or better yet, chuck a grenade. You'll know when it's charging because it lets out a whine. When the whine stops, it's ready to go, got it?"

The specialist handed the Centurion back his recharged E-11t. He checked the gas reading. It was full. "This much?"

"We found another disruptor among the dead. "

"They had two disruptors and nobody told me?"

"They were bringing the second gun forward, I guess."

"Yeah. The other guy we got with the grenade."

"Looks like you charged straight into a loaded disruptor, centurion."

The unit laughed, big, open rolling, laughter.

"Guess the Force was with you."

"Damn the Force and the Dewback it rode in on.

Now, no more excuses. Secure the perimeter. Eight more junction boxes like the one we've got down this passage and this ship is ours. Move it!"

"Sir!" The Lambda shuttle's loadmaster, Beth, appeared on left hand the Commodore and held up two shiny gasclips. "Fresh, natural spun Tibanna gas, sir. I took the liberty."

The Commodore took a break from scanning the wrecked, smoking hanger and spared a glance at the troops behind him. All of them were belting on fresh clips. "That was very thoughtful of you, Loadmaster." In a practiced move, he ejected the old clip and slipped in the new one. The K-55t made a healthy clicking sound as he rammed it home.

The officer politely handed the Loadmaster the drained unit and then belted the other two fresh clips she offered. The little boxes were scratched and dented but the gas was good. He just hoped they did not leak. "Who is manning the aft gun? We never leave a post unmanned."

"Co-pilot relieved me, sir. Your vacuum bottle sir." She held out the beaten olive green ceramic and steel cylinder

"Very good."

"Will that be all, sir?"

The Commodore sipped his tea straight from his bottle's spigot. "Please ask pilot to be sure to monitor my signal with the bridge and GOO1. Oh. And now that we are rearmed, thanks to you, I think it's time to give acting Captain Ai some relief."

"And the Sequoia, sir?

"Return her to Terminus 1." He waved off her protests. "The gas takes priority. It's a good time to recall the Gammas too. I'd be surprised if whomever is in command isn't thinking of capturing one to use against the Skiprays."

"A Gamma is no match for a Skipray, sir."

"They could get lucky, or clever. Losing the Skiprays, even one, could ruin us."

Be sure the Sequoia's return course brings you in line-of-laser to the assault boats please relay the 'recall' code.

If we succeed, they can come back for us. If we fail, at least we'll have the tibanna and the boats will be safe." He took another quick sip of tea to wash out the tang of plastic's smoke. It gave him time to think; to reallocate resources, mentally. "Good tea. Thank you."

"Yes, sir. You are welcome, sir."

"Another Fleet officer will be needed where we are going next. We don't need a Loadmaster anymore. Please inform your captain, you are coming with me, ensign.

You could swallow a fly like that."

"Sir, reports coming in. They are using disruptors."

"Disruptors? Aboard ship? So much for being civilized."

A few crisp orders later and the first cohort of Terminus and two Fleet Officers were being lowered down one deck on a lift as the Lambda shuttle, Sequoia, took off. As she departed the dock, she fired a flare ahead of her, then blinked to aftmost Skipray who had her in its sights. The Sequoia soared on, the Skipray's turret beam rotated away.

And just like that, the hanger bay was quiet, a contrast to the rest of the ship, an eye in a storm.

"Backwhenwewereonhoth" knew he wasn't dead. He was in too much pain to be dead. He stood up, cradling his right side. After the fall, he should have been splashed with liquid metal. The battle-hardened gantry beam had saved his life. But knew he was burned, again.

With a trembling left hand. He reached into his shoulder epaulette and withdrew a ribbon of PainPharms. Since the evacuation of Hoth, he had never been without pharms. The red lancette was his constant companion. His right arm was useless. He was used to that. He stuck the needle into his juggler and let the tiny AgonParasites do their thing.

His mind cleared. He was able to think of something other than the pain. A pipe was pouring water onto the deck. The memory of Hoth came back. Water was good for burns. The medics had no bacta so they packed him in snow. Water was good for burns, especially right away. He was walking remarkable well, he thought for such a long fall. He felt bad about using the bodies of the shopkeepers to break his fall. He stood under the pipe.

Water, spilled onto him, his eyes, his body. He watched it spill across the deck like a stream, falling into the docking port. He wondered what the shield droid brains would make of it.

Then the water stopped. Backwhenwereonhoth looked up. He couldn't recall when he had fallen to his knees. A Stormtrooper had found the cut off valve and turned it. "Sorry pal. Can't spare the water." Was all he said before he turned away.

Backwhenwewereonhoth nodded in understanding. More precious than gold, only just less precious than air, water was the one cargo you could not compress or miniaturize. He sank into the puddle, spreading himself on it like a lover. The pressure was painful but he took the pain. He could still think. Agonparisites were the best. He knew the heat was still inside his fat cells, cooking him and burns were the thing. Many ships carried comet harvesting equipment. "Comets. Snow. Ice." The Pike merchant's trough was a few feet away. He stumbled there. The fish was packed in ice. Only one fish was still in ice, the monkfish. He pulled the fish out and crawled inside the display and he let the Agonpainsites take him away. The deck was completely quiet, like some kind of odd forest, a mixture of soft animal sounds and machine noise.

Lift #1 to the bridge opened. Inside, a group of gooed up smugglers shouted for help. When they saw who it at the lift doors, a few tried to reach for their guns, one actually managed to squeeze off a round, removing it's leg just above the second joint.

Troopers splashed out broad stun blasts.

Commodore Sorran removed from his beltpouch a stylus-sized spray stick and dissolved the glop.

As the squad entered the lift, and casually stood on bodies like deckplate, Gaius took the moment, triggered his radio, and spoke to his officer who was frugally retrieving the spent, but rechargeable, spray grenade .

"With respect, sir. You should have ordered one of us to take out the e-webs. We can't afford to lose you."

"There is a chain of command. Perhaps you have forgotten?"

"No, sir."

"No one of us is irreplaceable."

As the rest of the cohort entered the lift, the Commodore found himself jostled to the rear. "Make way. I need to see what's going on when we arrive."

No Trooper moved.

"I said, make way!"

No one moved. "You don't have a shield, sir."

The Commodore stopped his shoving. "Good point. Very well. Carry on."

The lift moved upwards. The silence, after so much noise was calming. One Trooper broke the silence.

"Hellava shot back there, sir. Worthy of a Trooper."

No one else spoke.

"Thank you, Trooper."

Under the helmet, the men of the First Cohort smiled.

Aux Bridge, Dotter

"The red dots were on the move again. "How are they moving?"

"Reports are coming in. They're using force pikes and blasting through the bulkheads, making their own passages and outflanking our defenses."

"Looks like they know where to go, too, which panels to cut and not cut."

"Analysis?"

The tactical officer knew when to speak. "Their plan is clear now. If they achieve all their goals, they'll hack all the main junction boxes and shut down life support."

"Can we stop it from here?"

"No. Not with them having a hardwired data port slave circuited straight into our damage control systems. All they need is on-point control. "

And it all became clear. The Imperials were just following a plan made possible by Republic perfidy. "When I get my hands on Mira…." She made choking motion with her hands. "Then all this is pointless. Come on. We're going to the bridge. If whoever on the bridge is controlling the dataport, we need to stop whoever is up there and take control."

"The lift's damaged."

"I bet the maintenance ladder isn't."

"The big red guy?"

"Hand me that disintegrator. Let's see him swat this away."

Main Bridge, Ai

On the bridge, someone had finally thought to blast the Ai's spent grenades. She and the Bounty Hunter had no eyes on the outside now.

Ai picked up spare blasters and stacked them on the lip of the tech pit. The Hunter shot a line into the girders just above the main hatch and winched himself up, out of sight. There he hung, out of view of the door, ready to swoop down like a bloodbat. "Good idea. Hope I live to see how it works. But I doubt it. I know just how this will play out. The hatch will whoosh up and a spray of basterbolts will come. Those will be meant just to keep my head down while the real killers come in and go to the sides, flanking me. I may get off two shots but I'll be blinded. My shots will actually give away my position. They'll center on me. Maybe they'll have grenades too, and I'll die. But at least I'll die on my own bridge, like I should…like I should have…all those years ago."

The hatch opened. It was quiet. Four Troopers, shields up, blasters at the ready marched into view. "Lieutenant?"

"Password!"

"Legion Zero! Countersign?"

"Legion Zero-naught."

The Troopers holstered their guns. She stood up. There the Commodore stood, ramrod straight, pistol at rest, he could have been a picture out of manual: grey, greasy smoke snaked behind him, diffusing the backlight like an aura, Stormtroopers at the ready on either side.

Amidst the still smoldering bodies of the late damage control crew, bone white Stormtroopers milled among the dead like maggots, tossing weapons aside, ensuring no one lived.

Ai clambered out of the tech pit. The draft from the door blew the stench of singed protein into her nostrils.

"Stations!" As a squad, Troopers left the hallway andy hustled to take up positions, bobbing and weaving among the panels, removing their helmets for better vision, trying to figure out what to do.

"You'll need these." She held up the command code cylinders.

Yes, sir.' The Loadmaster from the Lambda shuttle, Ensign Beth, a young Fury with short black hair that curled under the jawline, snatched them up and professionally examined each one. Ai remembered her as young but very able up and comer.

Then the Commodore strode up to the Ai and said off handedly. "You can come down now, Kanos."

The Crimson Guard let his winch unwind at a leisurely pace, his crimson cape barely billowing. His unexpected direction of entrance surprised the Troopers who made a move for their weapons. But not the Commodore. The Commodore held on to his pistol but he was unmoved.

He visually examined the bodies as he addressed her professionally. "You disobeyed my order to evacuate this bridge, Lieutenant"

"Beg pardon sir, but as you pointed out, I was senior officer on the bridge in battle. I was the acting Captain. Captains always have discretion in such cases."

The Commodore stood a foot from her face and looked straight into her hazel eyes. Leg throbbing, she looked straight back. He hid his pride, badly, and gave way. "Humph. Quite correct…Captain. Assessment."

"Over here sir." Hiding her limp, poorly, she guided him to the tactical panel just to starboard of the hatch. GO01 followed its mistress. "We should be seeing the same readout the enemy is seeing, sir, the same one the auxiliary bridge is using."

Ai expected an upbraiding for allowing the smugglers to get to the auxbridge. She braced herself.

"Analysis?

When an unbraiding was apparently not forthcoming, she continued. "The smugglers' mass of fire is weighing us down. Our troops have performed brilliantly, however, they are moving slower and slower."

"And tired soldiers make exponentially more mistakes."

Ai nodded. "It's a toss-up, sir. Frankly, I give us a no better than a fifty percent chance of collapsing from exhaustion before achieving the necessary junction boxes.

The good news is that it could be worse. There were many times more droids serving as crew than we anticipated. We can assume the droids are non-combatants.

And your 'capture the ship ruse' send a lot of them scurrying for the life pods."

"The question is how can we convince more civilians that the Errant Venture's cause is not their own?"

Ai waited and watched with an expression of pure admiration.

"The problem is that they are afraid. But not terrified. We were very good about instilling fear in the civilians in the old days. The Emperor was right, 'Fear is the greatest weapon of mass destruction.' Judging from the escape pod read-out, the shirkers and cowards are gone. The rest them fight us out of fear."

"Fear? Hate more like."

"Hate is Fear's mask." The Commodore used a tone like he was quoting someone. "If they are handing us fear, they have giving us power over them. How to get that power working for us?"

"I'm more worried about fatigue. The troops could really use a morale boost." Ensign Beth, now working the life support panel, seeking advantage, spoke out of the side of her mouth.

"Ah. That's gives me an idea." Off in the distance the Commodore could hear his recorded voice demanding compliance. "GO01? Cut off the PA system on this entire level.

GO01, you still have your standard Imperial data intact, don't you?"

Throughout the ship, the sergeants were not happy. The squads were not lifting their legs as high so they were stumbling over bodies more. Nor were they keeping thrusts crisp. There were confusions as they regrouped after flanking maneuvers. The smugglers' unthinkable use of the wantonly destructive disruptors in their on their own vessel, the Errant Venture, had come as shock. Usually disruptors were used on enemy vessels or in foreign urban pacification. But on board one's own ship? One could easily cut a circuit, atmosphere channel or worse.

The Troopers were requesting more frequent respites. The water spigots in the armor strained to keep up with demand. Electrolyte counts were low. The Sergeants worried about when morale would break.

Then it happened. Over the loudspeaker at maximum volume IT came. First the antiphonal strings, then the imperial brass. Throughout, the war drums as old as time. Then and then the subtle flutes but most of all it was the brass, the horns they heard when they marched in the Triumphs of Coruscant.

"The March! They're playing The March!"

The Stormtroopers were protected from the deafening racket by a sound equalizers in their helmets. But when the March came on, the Troops shut the sound dampers off and rolled in the Imperial March like nerfs in mud. Adrenaline filled their hearts to the brim.

The sergeants seized the moment. "Come on you grubs! You wanna live forever?" Throughout the ships, the veterans raised their spathas and cued the battle cry.

Guns of the Empire!"

"The Empire is upon you!" the Stormtroopers shouted as one and charged.

The Stormtroopers attacked anew and saw new fear blossom in the enemies' eyes. In the smuggler's minds there was now no doubt to the rumor that the ship was captured by a super star destroyer. They broke and ran.

Outside Fire Control Steph Glick was feeling very positive. Her reserves had been boosted by a mob, a score of angry parents and even the external repair crew. She passed on the disruptors. EV was tricky enough. She and her First had the command codes to the sally port all ready. "All right you guys. Remember, there are some of our people in there so aim on the high side. On the count of three, one, two…

The sally port swung open. What looked like two ten foot tall robots, painted Errant Venture cinnabar red and waving glaives hurled themselves into the Steph's mob, knocking them over, off and up like bowling balls. Then began whirling their glaives and anyone who had not be knocked, stumbling into space. Hand blasters just bounced off of them

On deck nine, the cohort linked shields, into the Turko formation, a moving fort of shield walls. Under the Turko, the grenadier, usually a young and small specialist, dashed with his E-11t in launch mode. As occasion demanded, he would reach behind him, tap a stud and dispense a grenade from his backpack. He would load, stick out his "tongue" and "spit" a fragmentation, sonic, smoke, lux or nox grenade right amid the enemy.

The Turko marched in cadence with the music.

On deck three, things were bad for the Imperials. They had shot the last of their gas a deck ago, grenades, exhausted, beamer damaged and disposed of. Behind them, a pair of disruptors were biting more and more chunks out of the bulkhead they were hiding behind. They scooted back and back, toward the blastdoor that had slammed shut behind them. Doubling back was not an option, the branching corridor was not an option either. The smugglers had lined the only other escape route with mining charges. The charges blinked red. They were designed to be seen.

"They're getting closer, Centurion!"

"What do we do?!"

"Oh, they're devils, these ones, driving us into these charges. They're alternating their fire so they halve the charge time. Charge down a dentonite charge gauntlet or into the teeth of two disruptors?" It was a desperate choice. It had to made right that second.

And then the March blared over the speakers. The disruptors paused. The cohort looked to each other, questioning meaning. Centurion Leo found himself with odd determination not to die by a trap. Wrapped in a dream, he could picture the enemy, one distruptor in front the other right behind him , powering up, ready to swap positions and the others huddling in back hoping the disruptor team did the dirt work for them. "Mistake. One in front of the other."

Activating the telescoping shaft of his pommel, turning his vibrospatha into a vibroglaive. He listened. The enemy were no longer walking, they were shuffling. He rounded the corner.

Time dilated. Smoke moved like curtains under a ceiling fan. The mouths and eyes of the disruptor wielders warped like clay on a wheel, curse words if he was to guess. Leo was a good athlete, a champion pentathlete, and there he was, in the groove. He used his hips and put his shoulder into the throw; no second guessing, intuitive. When he let go of his glaive, he knew the toss was perfect. The cryptoshard slied through breastbone, spine and breast brone and spine again, skewering both disruptor weilders. The forward one, fell forward dead and put a whole in the deck.

One disruptor, two, moths on a pin, even wounded the officer behind them. Leo cohort flowed on either side of him, and the hole in the deck, shouting, glaives shining, diamond cryptoshards, like oars, splashing emerald and ruby liquid.

The lights flickered again. The Commodore looked to the Eltee. "That's not me." Ai commented.

"That's ion cannon fire." The Commodore looked up. The Sequoia was parked right outside the bridge, a blinking Gamma Boat to its aft. "Ai! Quickly feed them coordinates for ten more boarding parties."

Back on the bridge, the Commodore saw his red dots advancing on fleeing blue dots and reveled in the sensation. "You know, Ai. It might just be like the old days." He didn't look at her, embarrassed by what he might see there.

"Enjoy the sensation while you can, bub."

The Commodore calmly held up one flat palm. The music ended. "You're the First Mate, Terriksdotter, I presume?"

"Right first time." Bracketed by two security personelle, she walked towards him. Her distuptor did not move a centimeter from the center of his chest. It charge light was a steady green. "Now order your troops to stand down. You will be treated fairly."

"Like the last Imperial Troops you imprisoned here?"

"Easy, Lieutenant." Sorran emphasized the last word.

"Yeah. Easy lieutenant."

" You have children here, I believe, young lady." Continued Sorran. " No doubt you've been sick with worry as we moved towards the officer residences, but you deported yourself admirably. You have done all that is necessary for honor.

Your ship has been betrayed by the Galactic Alliance. In my professional assessment, we will soon be able to vent this ship in minutes. In their suits, my Troopers can survive, your civilians will not.

I beg you, think of the other families.

If you surrender now, I promise safe passage for all families. Including yours."

"My personal ship?"

"Take it, with all honor and personal assets."

"You're an Imp. Why should I ever believe you?"

"Did you know I personally gave the order that killed your father?"

Ai's face lost all color. The Troopers' hands tightened around their weapons. Kir Kanos was nowhere to be seen.

"What?" almost everyone looked at the Dottter's finger tense on the disruptor. But not Sorran, he looked her in the eyes and took a deep breath.

"I looked into his eyes and he into mine. We met, captain to captain, soldier to soldier. We knew each other then.

He died, standing proudly on the deck of his ship, neatly, cleanly from a single laser blast, the way a Captain should. It was very quick. One moment he was there. The next he was gone. Returned to the star-stuff from which we are all made."

Tears welled in Dotter's eyes. She couldn't help herself. "You expect me to feel what, proud?"

"You deserve to know how well he died. His grandchildren deserve to know too. It's hard for you to understand, I know. It's my way to show respect for a man I met in combat.

We, of Terminus, we died a long time ago. We will take this ship regardless of the end of this old officer or even you. You know what will happen then.

The question is will your father's grandchildren know how brave he was?

Your choice. But I hope you choose life."

"Do I have your word?"

"You have my word as an officer."

"I always knew this dmaned ship would be the death of us. Give me access to the PA.

"GO01?"

The droid chirped the go ahead.

"This is Captain Terricksdotter. Stand down. Code Rancor Omega." Dotter stood straight, holding back tears and flipped her customized DL-44, one of a matched pair, its mate gone into star-stuff, likes its owner, and offered it to Sorran, butt first. "Your ship, Commodore."

"Thank you, captain." He took the weapon and handed to the Ai.

"These cylinders contain all the command codes. "

"Thank you, captain. I will see to it everyone it treated well as possible."

Dotter used he Sabbac face. "You know, if you hadn't admitted to killing my Da, I would not have believed you."

"My mother taught me people of quality know Truth when they deserve it not when they want it."

"My Da taught me my best friend is a good pair of shoes. Guess I'll be using them now."

"I think I'll borrow that.

Meanwhile, I expect you'll want to see to your family. Sergeant Major! Escort Ms. Terrik to her quarters. See that her family has all they require." Dotter and four Troopers left the area.

"Sir, reports are all coming in. The enemy is laying down their arms and surrendering."

"Cease the March. Inform all units the Captain of the Errant Venture has surrendered her flag.

Caution the troops to remain vigilant. These are pirate scum, after all. Shunt all belligerents to the old prison level. Order all civilians to report to their quarters, then override and lock them in.

I can only imagine these scum have all sorts of ways to vandalize ship's equipment, so double patrols, post guards on vital areas.

"And if people attempt to escape, sir?" that was Ai.

"Ask them, politely, but firmly to wait. Assure them no one is going to be sold into slavery. "

That got the Troopers shuffling. Sorran chided them. "We can barely afford to feed ourselves.

Oh and round up any surviving life pods. We may need them."

GO01 beeped.

"Oh, yes, all droids, even privately owned ones must report to the hanger bay for restraining bolts."

GO01's red eye blinked brightly and he whistled.

"Be silent. Of course most of their memories will be wiped by then. This is a pirate ship after all. Just think of it as saving you time. Prepare to receive." He held out the command rods. One by one, GO01 extended a pincer and sucked in the keys into an open hatch of equivalent size. Now quit your bellyaching and sift out the banks for intelligence on the passengers before some slicer has the wit to wipe it."

"I must say, sir that was amazing the way you handled the pirate captain." Ai commented.

"What? By bringing up her children? Humph. What did she expect would happen, raising them in a floating casino and brothel? I'm doing her a favor."

"Aren't you afraid of revenge?"

"Decisions based on fear are inherently flawed. I usually find that treating an enemy honorably, takes the fire out of their belly."

Errant Venture, main hanger deck, Terminus Field HQ

Ai watched the shiny, new, Nemodian shuttle sail off into space and moaned.

"Something distressing you, Captain?"

"Yes, sir. Letting all these good ships go. The hunk of junks I can understand but Terminus could use new ships."

"Though the Gammas are shuttling day and night, we have less than one thousand Imperials on board at the moment. By showing live broadcasts of civilians safely being evacuated, as well as live feeds to the medical bay and escape pod recoveries, we keep those civilians waiting, peaceably, in cue, like the sheep they are.

With every flight out, the list of our potential enemies shortens. And the cargo we unload from the freighters to 'make room' for the transportless refugees doesn't hurt." He touched his finger to his nose. "Always give your enemy a retreat. Nothing is more dangerous than a cornered, desperate being. Understood?"

"Don't we know that, sir!"

"Now. On to why I requested you.

Attention!"

Reflexively, Ai snapped to and instantly regretted it. The med droid had informed that the Ugnaught had graced her with a hairline fracture of her femur, along with the commensurate contusion. Rather than take time out for the EV's Bacta tanks (a marvelous luxury to the people of Terminus) she had opted for the cast, cane and anti-inflammatories over mind affecting painkillers.

He handed her a small hinged box. She flicked it open it with her free hand and gasped. "CIC approved it this morning. You are no longer a acting captain but a full Captain.

My adjutant had it flown over. These were mine when I earned my rank. I hope they bring you better luck. Congratulations. May I pin it on? These are long overdue.

Maybe you can pin this on my son or granddaughter someday, neh? And now…

Orders…! Arms!" The sound of booths and weapons filled the hanger.

Ai looked around and noticed she was suddenly surrounded by a host of comrades and blushed. "This why you made me walk all the way down here?"

"Blame them. They all wanted to be here and not enough room for all." The old salt leaned in. "The wound will heal, the memory will be worth it." Then Sorran went back to his big voice.

"You are hereby, by order of the Presidium awarded the rank of Captain of the Imperial Fleet Zero. May I be the first to salute?" He took a step back and attempted to click heels on his damaged boots. As captain, on her ship, protocol demanded it. The crew applauded.

Ai shifted her cane and returned the salute, as boarder, he saluted first, but as Commodore, he still out ranked her so her head dipped a notch lower than his at the clumsy heel snap.

"And now that's formally my ship.

Back to work! Company dismissed. Report to duty stations!"

Sorran offered her a seat on the two person power cart behind him. "I'm an old man."

"Like hell. You just want me off my feet." Sorran shrugged.

Ai got in. Sorran drove.

I'm surprised no one else wanted the command."

"That is the other thing I came to tell you about. It is going to be hard. Very hard. "

"Self-destruct?"

"What makes you say that?"

"We are small outpost. We can't crew her, fight her or fix her. Right now, she's a trouble magnet. I've had time to think. The sensible thing would be to strip her bare, then fly into her a star or black hole before she attracts the wrong kind of attention."

"Interesting. Who is the wrong kind of attention?"

"First and foremost: The Cult of the Emperor. Then there's The Mandalorians, The Hand's council of Moffs. the list of our potential enemies is long."

"Some people would think giving it to a Moff of the Hand is a good thing."

The cart drove into the command lift. There was no sign of the victims or strands of tangle. "Bridge"

"It would be, if the Moffs actually had the interests of the citizens of Terminus at heart. They'd eliminate the Althing and set up a satrapy, plunder our natural resources and force us to buy their goods. I like the Althing and despise mercantilism."

"What about selling to the Admiral Fel? He claims to be keeping the Imperial torch lit."

"Fel is a fool. " Her lip curled in disgust. "He sleeps with Jedi."

"Humph. Very well thought out. But you seem to be taking this rather well. This was, and is again, your ship."

"I've had time to walk the decks. " she shuddered. "This ship is a stranger to me.

Why do you seem relieved? This isn't the way to the bridge? What are you up to?"

Sorran hit the return button and the two, slowly walked to the bridge. The bodies and paint were still being removed. Tech had some panels taken apaprt. The two officer walked to the front, casting an eye there, offering a guidance there.

Sorran guided Ai took her over to the bow-most viewing window. "Hear me out. Yes. Scuttling her would be the most sensible step.

However, I've got a better idea. One where this ship, even gutted, could more greatly benefit Terminus." His tone was one uses with a confidant, not a junior officer. And then he whispered a plan to her. Even she was shocked at its boldness. She could not believe he was speaking the words.

"We'll need a herald. Someone who can provide assurances." The cart had taken them far away from eyes and ears, but still Ai whispered.

"I've been in contact with Karrde. He has a recommendation."

"If his recommendation is as good as his intel on the data port, we are set."

"Humph. You should sit down now." He plopped himself in the engineering station.

"Please, sir. Take the captain's chair. You've earned it."

"That's your chair.

Engineering has always been fine for me." He put his feet up on the corpse of the Wookie, the former first engineer, now dead and lying in a pool of dried blood. Her huge corpse had been saved for last. "Besides, I have this fine footstool."

A day passed and the tedious job of securing the ship finally began to gel. The Commodore returned to the main hanger bay. Despite the slagging by the Lambda, 90% of the interior landing bays were functional if a bit obstructed. Getting the Star Destroyer's main point of ingress and egress up and running was a priority for the boarders.

The Commodore set up three unmelted foodcarts in a "U" and used them as desks and set up his base of operations there. Officers and chiefs came and when like shuttles on a docking wheel.

The Commodore pointed at several unbroken lines on the display sized holoprints in front of him. "Almost all interior hanger bays are operational, just obstructed. Chief, cut away and jettison the damaged plating. "

"Hate to see all that fine durasteel go to jetsam, sir."

"Can't be helped. We need this bay up and running. The remaining facilities should be sufficient for a fleet of our size, but only if we get them up and running. Speed is of the essence."

"What's the rush, sir?"

"Intelligence estimates we have ten to fourteen days before word our bounty leaks out and the Moffs of the Hand, Mandos or worse and they decide they want this ship. "

"I knew there'd be a catch."

The Commodore raised an eyebrow. "Make sure all the droids are rounded up. Things will go easier when GO01 has converted the droids to the cause of Terminus.

No if you excuse me."

He clicked heels and wobbled.

"And I need a new pair of boots."

Errant Venture, Main landing Bay, Field HQ

On day two, with civilians evacuation run out for the smaller forward bay, Gammas and mining "mules" (Terminus slang for the eclectic mix of light freighters, landers and transports that kept the life blood of the mining colony flowing) were free to unload Troopers and and techs and load up looted cargo for a trip back to Terminus.

The Commodore was on his third vacuum bottle of tea when the Loadmaster, Ensign Beth, arrived with a datapad for his inspection. "Ships manifest , sir! All property, ship's and otherwise. I've taken the liberty of prioritizing the items against Terminus' needed supplies lists."

As the Commodore toggled through the manifest his eyes grew wider and wider. Only after he recovered his composure did he looked up at Loadmaster who was wearing the grin she'd been hiding. "We're rich, sir!"

"I knew a Star Destroyer would have a wealth of supplies, and to see it here, all listed. Well done!"

"It's enough to keep all of Terminus supplied for two years and then some!"

"Humph. Casualties?" The Commodore's face was grim as he held out his hand.

"Here, sir. The Loadmaster sobered herself and handed him another data pad.

The Commodore took the pad, expecting to see names he knew on it. "Humph. This is only the wounded. Where are the names of the fallen?"

"There are none." The Loadmaster smiled openly.

"What?"

"No dead, sir. Only five and twenty wounded and two seriously. Neither are mortal. "

"None dead or dying?"

"Not a one, sir."

"Are you sure?"

"Confirmed it myself, three times!"

"Well, huurmph. Let's keep it that way. "Would you excuse me?" The Commodore walked to the lip of the landing bay and breathed deeply. For long moments he stared down into the docking port, at the Neutron star, the exiled engineer's only beacon for the past twenty odd years. He took one long, relaxing breath. "Well, this is excellent news! Anything else?"

"Yes. Message from CIC. You are to return the Terminus immediately and there to bring your proposal before the Althing."

"Very well. But who will be supervising the salvage?"

"The Quartermaster Corps will overlook salvage operations. Acting Captain, I mean Captain Ai will have command of the ship. You still have command of fleet operations. Laser telegraph relaybouys and droid couriers are being set up as we speak. "

Their conversation was cut short by the sound of marching. A squad of Troopers interrupted them.

"Sir. There is a matter of a Trooper." The squad leader spoke. "Villus Tarn. I believe you know him."

"Yes. We escaped the camps together. I knew him on Kuat before then."

The Trooper, used to relaying visual commands leaned back and waved someone in with his arm.

Four Troopers marched across the hanger. All loading and unloading stopped. Two held Villus from the arms. One guarded his back. The other held Villus' helmet and weapons and belt. They forced him to his knees in front of the Commodore.

Villus' helmet had been removed, his nose had been broken in and was still losing blood in two rivulets. But it was Villus' lack of the lilium piece of armor that caused the Commodore the most disgust. "Troopers wear their sins on their armor, Villus. But let's hear it anyway. Sergeant, what are the charges?"

"Got a report of a Trooper looting LRBs. When we investigated, we caught him robbing a medical aid station and attempted to ravish a nurse. We think she caught him looting."

"Was this after action?"

Villus smiled hopefully.

"No." Then the sergeant hesitated, realizing where this was going. "The battle was winding down. We had the reb…I mean the smugglers on the run. We had secured the area."

"What was this Trooper's duty?"

"He was supposed to be guarding our rear."

"It was all quiet, I swear."

Sorran ingored him. "He resisted arrest?"

"Yes. Tried to slip on his helmet on then run away. Harder to identify him that way."

"Speak your peace, Villus."

"Aw, come on, Commodore. The fighting was over and she was as sweet a piece of meat you'd ever seen. I'm the only one who got hurt." Villus smiled like a naughty child.

"Poor Villus. In the old days you may have been indulged." The Commodore nodded to the Trooper holding the equipment. He dropped all but the belt and pulled out the grapnel and cable and loaded it into the barrel of his E-11t. Not trusting to his ancient barrel sensor, he manually toggled his blaster's select-fire switch to the correct setting.

"What? But we were cellmates! Blood brothers to the end, you said." The sound of a grapnel launching interrupted his train of thought. "What's going on back there?" He tried to turn but he was held fast and he did not have his feet under him. The collar of his breastplate chafed. "I played with your kids! Uncle Villus they called me"

The two Troopers behind him watched the launched cable thread a gap in a girder then retrieved the hook.

The Commodore used his "parade" voice. A crowd had gathered. "Villus Tarn, here, in the Field, I find you guilty of the crime of dereliction of duty in combat.

As per the code of military justice, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead."

A Trooper attempted to slip the cable around Villus' neck but the burly man struggled and delayed the looping. The hangman took two steps back and nodded to the Trooper to the left. The Trooper professionally cracked the prisoner on the back of his skull with the butt of his E-11t, enough to daze the man but not enough that Villus would be spared the knowledge of what was happening to him. Then the Trooper slung his weapon and helped the cable man.

Villus had the cable looped around his neck, the grapnel hook was swapped with a d-shaped carabiner. The carabiner was snapped over the lines, completing the loop and the cable was pulled snugly around Villus' throat, pinching at his unshaved neck.

The cable Trooper placed himself in direct line to a bank of fold-down floor anchors, severed the line at his belt, wound the loose end around his armored right palm, took the line in his left and leaned his weight back, pulling the line taut. Another Trooper, from Villus' own squad, joined the cable man. He looped his hands around the cable and readied himself to pull.

The Commodore did not take his eyes from the preparations as he spoke the customary preface, a review of the crime. "Spare your pity, shipmates." Then he named the charges. "This man would have stolen bacta from his brothers and exposed them to attack to satisfy his own lusts." Then he turned his back on Villus. "We owe him nothing."

With a backhanded wave from the Commodore, the two Troopers heaved, stepping backwards, heaving stepping backwards and so on. Villus up, and up and up and up until his kicking feet could not strike anyone below. Villus' hands pulled at the cable, then his arms went limp. After a long minute, Sorran finally looked away.

The Trooper with the cable pivoted until he found an undamaged station loop in the floor and tied the corpse's garrote off. Then he stood and looked, finally able to appreciate just what he had done.

"Pass the word. Looting shall be considered theft. If one needs release, there are more than enough courtesans on this floating disgrace. But no breach of discipline will be tolerated.

No rape. No disorderly conduct. No pharmas. No looting. If your helmets are too thick to figure out the reason for these orders, consult your non-com. No doubt they can enlighten you.

Dismissed!

Sergeant, a word."

Villus's squad leader approached the Commodore and snapped to attention. "Sergeant. Leave the body stocking on but strip him of his armor. I do NOT want this ship of thieves getting a close look at it."

"Yes, sir! Take him down then?"

"No. I want this corpse on display right here where all our boats arrive and depart, just without armor. I want everyone to see. Everyone who disembarks here will now see that regulations will be enforced.

You made the right decision, bringing him to me. We are in enemy territory here. Inciting a riot would be a waste of time and resources. Carry on."

"Yes, sir." He immediately set about fulfilling the orders.

"Lieutenant Piatt!"

"Yes, sir."

"Looks like we have no other choice but to arrange shore leave. Keep the groups small. Send a message to the owners of the shops and taverns. Ask them to open their doors to service our troops."

"Suppose they won't cooperate?" The lean, whip of a young man looked into the Commodore's eyes with no hint of wrath or personal ambition.

"Tell them to name their price. They can overcharge us and thus feel they struck a blow for freedom. "

"They won't, trust us, sir."

"Now I see why other officers don't like him. Doesn't see why the facts should bother anyone. Much like his grand uncle and father for that matter.

These scum are amoral merchants. Offer them a lump sum, up front, to open their doors. Take any funds you need from the accounts of the shops and cantina's who refuse us.

Let penury be the price for refusing the brave men and women of the Terminus. "

"Yes, sir!" as he picked up his comm link and data pad, he peeled off.

Errant Venture, Bar 1138

"So here we are, all Praxis breaking loose, molten metal and blaster bolts all over the place. Here we are thinking 'Hey it's great to be under the Lambda's shields when suddenly 'BOOM!' The shields start fizzing and these E-Webs, way off our flank at point 11, come out of nowhere and knocks holes in the shuttle big enough to shove my fist through.

And before any of us do anything, we see the Commodore, melted boot and all charging out from behind cover'….no wait…" Secundus used his big arms to wave down his squadmate, Brutine, who knew the story as well.

"So there he is all this red bolts, smoking all around him and we're stuck behind the shields, we're yelling, we've waving for him to come back and let the Lambda take care of it. But he doesn't hear us.

So, there he is, cool as a virgin turbolaser, and he squeezes off this beeeeatiful shot. Hits the Eweb cable dead on… BOOOM! The smugglers notice him now and they go snapping off shots left and right. He doesn't flinch

POP! POP! POP! Down goes another Eweb. Then Bwadooom! Total Lambda Death Blossoms. " Secundus beefy arms turned like a twin turret, fingers opening and closing." Green. Red. Green Red.

He walks back to cover. WALKS! Like he's out for groceries."

"No poodoo?" The Troopers looked to Brutine, never one to pardon Secundus' legendary hyperbole'.

"None. The old man's one bad sithdog."

Secundus finished wetting his whistle. "Then… then old Fabius says, in the lift, you'know what?"

"What? To the Commodore? To his face?"

"Justabout. Anyway 'ee says, 'Hellava shot sir, Worthy of a Trooper.' Just like that. Anyaknow what he says?"

"No. What?"

"Thank you, Trooper."

"That's all?"

"That's all. No pompus howdadoos, no talk of duty. Just an honest soldier's thank you.'

"De old man's all right."

"S'trooth!"

"Pour me another."

"'Ere's to the Old Man! The finest officer in the Imperial navy and damn be 'im to says otherwise!"

"TO THE OLD MAN!" Half the tavern lifted their tankards then chugged, Pilsgar spilling down either side of their cheeks.

"Thrawn was better!"

Secundus stopped mid tankard and slowly turned. "What did you say?"

"Hand." Someone growled in a low tone. "Who let them in here?"

"Shut up. They're here because we're here." Secundus guessed. Despite his expansive manner, the old soldier was in his own way very clever. Anyone who knew the Sergeant Major would have known that he would not have kept a fool in First Cohort. "They're here because the barkeep knew they were Troopers and they were hoping to overhear something. We're just lucky they took advantage of the free Pilsgar."

"You heard me." The other half of the bar was seated and silent. One could cut the tension with a vibroblade. The leader of the seated civilians, a tall whip of man nodded to the boaster.

Men stood. Chairs tipped over. Twenty Terminus. A full platoon, forty, of Hand Troopers.

The boaster continued. "Sil Sorran's a coward who only survived because he licked the Krull's boots."

"Brave thing to say, considering you outnumber us two to one."

"You've got belts."

"Don't let that stop you, Handyman." Gaius unclipped his belt his twenty men followed suit. "Furio. You and Max watch our stuff."

"Secundus, let me kill him." But Furio and Max held on to their belts. "You know I've got a score to settle."

Maruis Jup, sergeant of 10th cohort backed Secundus up. "That attitude is just why you are guarding the stuff, private. Looks like we're going to have the unarmed combat practice anyway. We settle it the old fashioned way."

Secundus nodded. He was technically junior to Marius but his rate into first Cohort earned him the lead in any engagement. "Trooper to Trooper?"

The customary insults began as the opponents closed and sized each other up. "You're not a Trooper. I was a lifetaker when you were still in diapers." Marius Jup spat.

"Real Troopers win, Bleach Bum." Now all the Hand Troopers, except the lean one, stood and moved to the central dance floor.

"And which Moff has your legion sold its loyalty to, mercenary?"

"At least mine's a real Moff. You commander's not a real Imperial, yours is a just a yellow streaked dog who didn't have the decency to bite a blast when he lost his ship."

Suddenly, from the door, a Fury screamed. It was new chief engineer, who leading her fellow pilots into the cantina to celebrate her promotion. "No one talks about the Commodore like that!" She sprinted, stopped just short of a tackle and sidekicked the boaster in the groin. The Hand didn't allow women in their fleet, so the attack took the boaster by surprise. He bent double, she spun into a forward stance, grabbed him by the ears and smashed his nose into her rocketing kneecap.

Regaining her stance, she jammed her hip into his, re-bent his head to her belly, torsioned his head to its side and pile-drove her elbow into the crook of his jaw. In under a minute, the boaster lost the ability to speak without surgery.

Gaius watched the Handyman's face go slack after the knee-smash. The rest was pure gravy. He smiled. With the Furies on his side the odds were even. "You heard the lady!"

His men poured past Secundus. The Furies, dressed in their emblematic black flight suits virtually flew in from the doors.

Twenty minutes and several thousand of credits of damage later, the Handsmen lay strewn about the floor. Captain Coral, hands on her knees, panted, eminently satisfied, looked upon her good work.

"Scuse me m'am?" She bent up and looked into the face of Secundus Deft, holding a long, lean, bald man by the scruff of the neck. "I caught this one sneaking out. He seemed to be giving the Handymen orders, ma'am."

"You didn't fight?"

"Sorry ma'am. But catching this bloke seemed more important. Besides you and the Furies seemed to have the matter well in hand."

"Huh. Quite right. Search?" she stuck out a sore hand.

He handed her a data pad, a top of the line holo-transceiver, a belt whip and one of the new kinds of flexible control rods. The rod was one wadded up in hairy thing, she recognized, after a bit of investigation as toupee'. "Well done."

Secundus shrugged. "It's an old trick."

"Strip him, scan him, secure him. Brig."

"The rest of these guys?"

"Sad to say but they wear the white. Offer them a berth, Otherwise, they get decimated. The Gauntlet. Right?"

"Yes. Ma'am."

Errant Venture: Captain Terrick's Quarters

"Have a seat, JonYa." The Commodore directed in perfect Kuati.

"Do I know you?" JonYa responded in Middle Class, hiding his Nobleman Lisp.

"We met several times, professionally, many years ago. I was part of the Nebulon-A frigate design team ,then Imperial hyperdrive consultant on the B-model upgrade and refits."

"Ah. Yes."

"You were an up and comer then, part of the coalition that was jealous of my design. You hobbled me whenever you could. And when the Rebels stole my ships, with your collusion I might add, you perjured yourself against my section chief. A fine officer and his family exiled to Terminus, though he chose the easy way out to spare his family." The Commodore held a linen handkerchief to his nose. "Oh. I forgot the stench you grazers put out when you are in fear of your life.

Stop it. I am not going to harm you."

"No?"

"No. However, I have had an inquiry from Talon Karrde….Augh! Calm down will you? If you cooperate, I will not hand you over to him." Opening a larger drawer on Terrik's mahogany desk he removed a jar of liniment and dabbed his handkerchief in it, then put it to his nose. "That's better. I thought you people had the decency to stop eating Kuatisian cheeses onboard a ship."

"On…on..only warriors."

"That's right and you are an arch-engineer now. You've earned the right to methane up a cabin and no one complains. A crude dominance display." The Commodore tapped a button on the desk's panel. A holo of the Errant Venture beamed into view between them. The image zoomed in and looped ship's "collar," where the command pagoda and the main hull join.

"I'm interested in the new redundant shield generators you installed…" It was here, in discussing shipbuilding that Kuati came into its own. No other language contained the nuances and minute detail that Kuati did. It had 74 different terms just for the word "brittle" each with a subtle significance that could make or break a hyperdrive.

The image rotated. Large ruby "S" appeared at intervals above "blisters" in the hull. "These secondary shield projectors make sense. But it's the docking shields in the collar that interest most."

On the holo, ruby "DS" icons appeared at even intervals around the collar, both above and below the joint. "…re-orientated docking tractor beams "…sapphire "DT" icons joined the rubies until the Errant Venture appeared to have a necklace. "Add to that the fact that the Captain has noted a new deck had been added between the two parts of the ship and that leads me to one conclusion."

"Yes. You are right. The late Captain Terrik was concerned for the safety of the families on board. He thought it wise to incorporate one of your original ideas. In an emergency, the entire command pagoda can be separated."

The Commodore cut him off. "Thank you for not insulting my intelligence.

Now. I want you to hand over your master codes and backdoor commands."

"I have no such things!"

"No?" The Commodore snapped his fingers. An Imperial security guard all dressed in black with the iconic oversized helmet that covered the back of the head and his headset approached the table and spilled a drawer of command cylinders on top of it. "We are very good at finding things."

"You planted dose."

"We will find what codes these cylinders contain. The question is, will you cooperate? It will save us time and you trouble. I will even free up the funds Terrik was holding for you in escrow."

"You lie."

"Money means nothing to men who have nothing yo spend it on."

JonYa put on his best expression of noble outrage. "Backdoors? I would never dream…why my reputation…" The Commodore glanced at the dark corner of the room and nodded. JonYa was so nervous never heard GO01 approach. The syringe was in Kuati's brain stem before he knew what was happening.

To the victim, the Commodore's voice took on a fuzzy quality. It was like he was in a theater, watching a film of himself watching the Commodore, the apostate, detached.

The apostate spoke. "Yes. You would dream. You did it once, that's how I know you'd do it again. You did it when your people aided and abetted the theft of my frigates.

I used to dream of designing the ultimate convoy defender. My name would go down in engineering history. Students would extend my designs.

Then Kuat upper class betrayed me. I harbor no illusions, it wasn't liberation politics that motivated you but your class' tunnel vision. The Empire had put me, a middle class apostate, in charge of the children of oligarchs and it stuck in your craw.

After the betrayal, I no longer dreamed of building. I dreamed of leading my ships back, killing the seigniors and making the dockyards the meritocracy it should be.

But then I had a son, lucky for you, and my dreams changed again."

Another voice spoke. "GO01 reports the initial scans look promising. His resistance to the mind probe is minimal. Ask a question."

"Why are you doing here? And why does Karrde want your skin?"

Terminus 2: The Hall of the Althing

The Althing Hall was formed by the test of a new nucleonic explosive. The Hall was spherical and dark. Only the old gallows stood at the base, reminding everyone of the room's first re-purpose. There, the speaker stood, illuminated by a spotlight and surrounded by forty thousand-odd imperial citizens.

In the Althing, rank and name were lost in the dark. The microphones disguised voices. The droid moderator impartially put each pressed "request to speak" button in cue. The button lay on springs, so they had to be held down. If a question was answered or they didn't want to speak any more, they could simply let go.

Miner or general, here everyone was a citizen. One voice. One vote. Anonymous in the dark.

"So we hand over a complete copy of Terrik's data core and the arch engineer? That's all Karrde wants?"

"I thought Talon hated that Kuati, Terrik too."

"He does and doesn't. Such is the world we live in." Sorran stood straight.

"I hate Karrde. He has been gouging us for our Wild Space paths for too long."

"And all the time sniffing around for the stygian crystals."

"But we need him. Supplying Wild Space paths is a good source of income."

"Non sequitur." It was the computer.

"Now comes the matter of the sale of the Errant Venture. The Presidium has approved the idea, but since we will all benefit or suffer from its sale, they wanted me to bring it before Althing.

"What price do we get?"

Sorran was ready. "In current condition, with chattel, she's worth 35 million credits."

"I had no idea Karrde has that kind of liquidity."

"He doesn't. But the Galactic Alliance does."

That cause a stir. Many buttons went off cue.

"How does the GA pay?"

"Exactly." Sorran was calm. "Althing of Terminus. I know our plan has been to beetle strip the Errant Venture, down to its bones, then tow what's left into a star. But I have an idea, an idea where we gain much more." Sorran waited for someone to take the bait.

"Ha! You are talking of prize money!"

A roar went up. The BRK-700 computer waited until the proper amount of sound decreased, then activated the next speaker.

"We would need a letter of Marque and Reprisal."

"The senate would never approve a Letter for a Rem…us."

"You'd have to get to Coruscant! How would you get the ship there? You would be blasted to atoms as soon as you dropped out of hyperspace!"

"Karrde says he has just the being in mind. He's as ruthless a Solicitor and Advocate as there is on Coruscant. He will negotiate safe passage.

Just think, Salvage and gain 35,000,000 credits, liquidity we desperately need." Sorran let the reason fall where it may.

"I would not mind draining the Alliance's coffers."

"Too risky!"

"The ship is captured at any rate. The loss of even one hyperdrive enabled vessel…."

"But this time it will arrive at the center of our enemy's power crewed by our best people! A perfect opportunity to kill us all in one fell swoop!"

"It will not be destroyed IF we keep the civilians alive and on board! We simply explain there weren't enough ships to evacuate all the civilians."

"Hostages? That will just anger them, Jedi too."

"Bah. Everyone knows Sorran is soft on the Rebels. We should hand it over to the Moffs."

"Which Moff?" Sorran used his prerogative to interject.

"And how much would they pay?"

Silence.

He didn't give any hint he was leading them down a primrose path. "Right. They'd just take it and tell us we should be glad. Or attack us, just like before. All the Moffs we do not give a Star Destroyer II to will consider us enemies." Sorran used the old term, one that would summon up deep seated prejudices. "The Rebels, however, are sloppy. They will be happy to leave us alone, as before. If anything, they'll see us as less hostile."

"35 million would go a long way."

"Worth the risk!"

"Not so fast. Who is to say that the Errant Venture itself could not be used against us?"

"After we had an opportunity to hack its mainframe?

Who would be stupid enough to do that?"

"We asked the same thing before Yavin IV."

"Humph. Quite correct. We will take measures."

"So its settled?"

"Wait. It gets worse. 35 million is not enough. The Presidium estimates it will extend our viability by only six point five years at maximum before our colony fails. The Galactic Alliance embargo is starving us.

The second proposal before the Althing is an opening of trade relations with the Alliance with an eye to normalizing relations.

I am sad to admit it. It's either that or die."

"If anyone else said it Sorran, I'd call them a defeatist and a traitor."

"It's nothing every parent does not know."

"So we have two motions before the Althing." It was the bailiff. "Motion One: approach the Alliance for prize money on the Errant Venture. Motion Two: Open trade relations with the Alliance.

Objections? Amendments? Then let's vote."

"Motions carried. We go for the prize money and open trade relations with the Galactic Alliance. Why are you still on the dais, Sorran?"

"There is more. A crew member of the Errant Venture is the daughter of Admiral Wedge Antilles. Aside from his, frankly, formidable military record he is known associate of the Jedi. No doubt he has heard of his daughter's distress and will be here any day now, with Jedi in tow."

"She'll make a good hostage."

"Guarantee of good behavior."

"May I respectfully remind the Althing of what invariably happens when people take friends of Jedi hostage?"

The overwhelming silence was bad. It meant the audience has broken into such a clamor, the droid slammed a universal hush field down. The "silence" lamp blinked red for ten minutes before it lit green.

"What do we do now?"

"WE ALL know what they'll do! Despite our best efforts, the Jedi will singlehandedly board the ship and successfully lead a rag tag mob of civilians against us!"

"Then he'll like as not crash the Star Destroyer into Terminus and kill us all!"

"My Auntie was on Byss!"

"Shut up!"

"Maybe Kir Kanos can deal with him."

"Maybe we could pay the Mandalorians to kill him."

"No bounty hunter is a match for a fully trained Jedi."

And so it went the Commodore calmly waited until people noticed he was calm. Someone out there in the dark did. "Commodore, what are you so calm about?"

"Yes, what do YOU suggest we do?"

"Yes, YOU got us into this."

The Commodore whispered, like he was sharing a secret, it was a trick he learned from his wife when she wanted to get her students' attention. "If the admiral brings a Jedi, I say we talk to him."

"Talk?"

"Our Presidium has studied the Jedi at length. Their conclusion has been, they are only decisive in reaction. They dither, hem and haw to no end otherwise.

So I say we welcome the Jedi, present him, her or it with the facts of the matter and by the time he, her or it has come to any conclusion, we will have our solicitor-advocate on Coruscant pursuing a course of admiralty law. The matter will be out of his hands. "

"So. That's it? We forestall him by inviting him to tea? Then throw paperwork at him?"

"Yes, paperwork! Forget the Madnalorians, let's the sic the Quartermaster Corps on them.."

Laughter.

Sorran smiled. It was a kind joke. Quartermasters were highly regarded and good ones highly sought after. They were even citizens.

We also have a peace offering for the Jedi. Something more precious than a Star Destroyer. Jedi always put the Jedi Order above anything, or anyone else. Maybe you forgot?" The Commodore held a holoprojector in the palm of his left hand and activated it. The polychrome image of a three rectangles of carbonite, three meters high, two meters wide and one meter deep with a humanoid trapped within rotated for all to see.

"But they are mad, aren't they? The scans say they are all mad."

"All the more reason to dispense with them."

"And when they come seeking revenge?"

"It will be as bad as before. Worse. We stored them where we store the cloaking devices. Karrde will undoubtably hack the location and movement memory cores and attempt to steal the devices."

"Good riddance. I've always held those damn crystals are half the reason the Hand keeps intruding."

"Are you all stupid? Listen to him! We are dying and we argue about the capture of one Rebel brat? It's like worrying about your haircut when your head is about to be cut off."

More silence. Sorran's data pad revealed no talk buttons in que.

"As I have been saying. We need to think long term. That means we need a planet, real blue sky. The Alliance won't give us a good one but we have the means to make one."

"Old news Sorran. The device you speak of is locked down by the Emperor's own Pale Writers and elite Artificers. The code is unbreakable."

"But the code is not lost. I have discerned where a copy still exists."

"You lie."

Silence. All the cue buttons went dark.

"A duel would only waste time.

I have a plan. A plan where we relieve ourselves of three Mad Jedi, use Karrde to our advantage for a change, shed the old stygian crystal cloaking devices, and most importantly, allow our children to grow up under a blue sky of their own.

It will cost blood and treasure but as of right now, there are only two kinds of people on Terminus, the dead and those who are going to be."

"Let's hear the plan, Commodore."

At the end of the plan, the Althing was silent, not hushes, speechless.

The bailiff spoke. "Silence implies consent. Motion carried. Prizes 1138, 1139 and 1140 are hereby ordered removed from the high-max treasury and moved to vessel designate Errant Venture to serve as peace offering."

"One more thing, Bailiff. Let the record show the Errant Venture is to be renamed."

"Back to the Virulence?"

"No. We don't want to put that noble ship's name on that scow. After consulting with the captain and prize crew, we were thinking, "The Sixth Finger."

The droid chose not to mute the raucous laughter.

"Commodore, sometimes you have great notions. Motion carried."

Coruscant, Admiralty Law Court

Admiral Phineas Caw was lost both his legs fighting the Empire. Eighty years old and he looked forward to work every day. Before he joined the Alliance, he was a apprentice Solictor. He lost one leg and one arm and then relisted. He love the Navy. He loved law. And after the war, he found himself in his dream job, Chief of Operations at the Court of Admiralty Law. Retirement for him meant not waking up in the morning. "Pffhft. Some wreck leftover?"

"It is in relatively good order." The neat kid opened up her palm to display as holo." Formerly the Virulence, formerly the 'Errant Venture" of the late Captain Terrik. Currently in possession of the old Imperial Prefecture of Terminus."

"Terminus? There's a name I have not heard in long time. So, Terrik's reach finally outmanned his grasp, eh? And they want to sell it to us?"

"Prize money, sir."

"Is the Senate still offering it?"

"Yes. Sadly all the wars have…"

"Don't remind me. What prize does the accessor 's offce recommend? It would have to be big for them to come here."

"Forty million. It includes a great deal of cargo."

"Reasonable, considering Corellia charges us seventy million for just the ship. Offer them twenty five."

"Yes, admiral."

"I mean, who else are they going to sell it to?"

"Admiral." His table comm chirped. "You have been subpoenaed."

"Subpoenaed? Who would have the nerve?"

"The message is signed, Rotta offspring of Jabba Desilijic Tiure, of Hutt.

Marching out from bleaching hell.

One platoon forty personnel.

36 shields locked, six by six.

A Grenadier to end things quick.

A Specialist is your eyes and ears.

And a pair 'a Beamers to save your rears.

Marching out from Bleaching hell

You'll get yours and get it well.

Charging out of the Gamma's plank

Got my spatha in my hand

Shield brother on my flank

Gonna slice and dice wher'ever we land

And if you are out of reach

My spatha becomes my glaive

Run far, run fast but in the Bleach

You'll never out run your grave

Marching out from bleaching hell.

One platoon forty personnel.

36 shields locked, six by six.

A Grenadier to end things quick.

A Specialist is your eyes and ears.

And a pair 'a Beamers to save your rears.

Marching out from Bleaching hell

You'll get yours and get it well.

-Ballad of Legion Zero

Continue in Part Two

Terminus wants blue sky. Karrde wants crystals. Lando wants peace and prosperity. But will he get it?

What WILL Wedge do when he finds out his daughter is being held prisoner?

What three grifts could Terminus possible offer the Jedi?

And what is this mysterious code Terminus is after?

What are the Vong up to?

Turn in next time for some answer and witness Princess Leia battle for the soul of New Alderaan.

Next time on "Remnants."

Part 2: Wants, Needs and Liberties or "What do you mean their lawyer is a Hutt?"

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