Part One: Whetstone
Chapter One: A Chip in the Armor
"I have a bad feeling about this." A young, thin man with scraggly dark brown hair was walking blindfolded toward the center of a small military hangar. A larger man next to him was guiding him, pushing him toward the mysterious tarp-covered shape in the middle of the room.
"I swear, if you ever utter those words again I'm going to drive a stick through your skull. Now come on, we don't have all day." The guide was a tall, thickly-built man with a staff strapped across the back of his dark green jumpsuit. He had stoic face and a bit of gruffness to his voice, attributed perhaps to its under-use. The two men stopped just before reaching the veiled object that dominated the otherwise empty hangar. A woman wearing a dark grey Imperial uniform and sporting unkempt blonde hair was waiting with her hands on the tarp. At a motion from the larger man, she swept it off just as the blindfold was pulled from the young man's face.
"Happy birthday, Joseph!" The two shouted in unison. Before the young man was an old T-65 X-Wing Starfighter, but one that showed very few signs of its original manufacturing. It had strange, elongated engines in place of the stock propulsion, and was painted a burnt orange with a deep red trim. Extra blasters had been placed on the wing tips, giving the fighter a sharp, toothed appearance. Where an astromech droid normally would've been seated, there was a small rectangular sensor dish, rotating slowly with the minimal power the ship was providing. Joseph stood, speechless, admiring the utilitarian design of the ship.
"Wow… Where did you find the money for all of this, Emyrla?" The woman chuckled.
"Let's just say that our mutual friend San Raoul should not be made aware of the origin of these parts, or what really happened to his warehouse on Ouijan IV. I take it you're satisfied with your gift?" Joseph nodded, still having trouble pushing the gratitude out of his throat. Suddenly, the realization of what Emyrla had said hit him.
"Wasn't Raoul's warehouse raided by Imperials?" Emyrla laughed.
"Yeah, there are advantages to being in charge of a lot of the anti-pirate operations in this sector. I tipped off my higher-ups about the warehouse and offered to raid it. Once we had, I made a few things I wanted disappear, and voila, I get things we can use and brownie points with the bosses in one swoop." Emyrla had the insignia of an Imperial Major on her uniform, one she had earned through almost a decade of advancement in the Sith Imperial Navy. In fact, all three of them had at one point served in the Empire's military, though Joseph and his larger friend, Elijah, had been marines. Unlike Emyrla, they had left the Empire several years ago, on decidedly unfriendly terms.
"Are you going to stand there with a stupid grin on your face, or are you going to give it a test run?" Emyrla pushed him to the cockpit ladder. As Joseph strapped himself in, he saw a note stuck to the tactical display.
Button on bottom of stick releases one of four seismic charges. Please don't do this within my earshot.
He smiled and kicked the machine to high throttle. It rocketed out of the hangar, spitting a trail of flame three meters long behind it. He squeezed the dangerously light trigger, unleashing a salvo of sizzling plasma into a tree grove ahead of him. The loose controls gave the craft a weightless feel, and now more than ever, Joseph felt the euphoria of flying.
The craft was losing altitude. Joseph had stalled within moments of taking off. As Emyrla liked to remind him, he wasn't a very good pilot. He did, however, managed to stabilize the spiraling X-Wing before a potentially deadly crash could occur.
The orange machine drifted back into the hangar. The sun was setting, casting a violet and orange glow over the forests. The sun had risen shortly before Joseph had taken off, which meant around four hours had passed.
Elijah and Emyrla were nowhere to be seen as he exited the ship, but what Joseph did see sent a spike of panic through his mind. A small metal box was seated on a workbench near the east wall, humming peacefully. He recognized it immediately—it was a Sith communications jammer. He darted across the room to the bench, flipping the small switch on the side of the device. It ceased its hum, and the few lights on the top flickered out. Joseph fumbled for the com-link in his pocket and clicked it on.
"Elijah, Emyrla, can you hear me? Repeat—Elijah, Emyrla-" Emyrla cut him off.
"Yeah, we can hear you. Joseph, you have to get out of there, now. The Sith showed up about an hour ago. Elijah and I managed to get out along with any especially incriminating evidence, but they won't take too kindly to you leaving." Joseph's shoulders fell from their nervous tension. Now that he knew they were alright, he could focus on getting himself out of here alive.
"Emyrla, where are you?"
"We're in orbit aboard the Back Burner. Get up here ASAP, we need to clear out before their Strike Cruiser notices us. Emyrla out." The thumping of boots on a metal floor was very distinctive. The door a few yards from where Joseph stood slid open, and a pair of stormtroopers strolled in. They hadn't seen him yet, probably due to their horrible peripheral vision. Their armor was unmistakably Sith: red stripes adorned their charcoal grey armor, and long shoulder pads stretched almost a half-foot off their figures. As one turned, his pad smacked the other trooper's chest.
"Hey, hey! Watch it, will ya?"
"Sorry. New armor. My old gear got the shoulder spike knocked off by mortar fire, I'd gotten used to maneuvering without them." As the soldiers conversed, Joseph positioned himself behind a large barrel, checking to ensure that it contained nothing explosive. He pulled his blaster from its holster, taking only brief aim before spitting two bolts of plasma that neatly dropped the soldiers where they stood. Not the best pilot… But one hell of a marksman. Joseph sprang from his cover and sprinted to his X-Wing, skipping the start-up procedures and rocketing out of the hangar.
The Back Burner was a fairly large picket ship, on par with most corvettes in terms of size. It had plenty of room for Joseph's new X-Wing, which was nestled cozily inside. Joseph, along with his two companions, were sitting in the spacious cockpit, with a touch of sour mood in the air. Emyrla had just gotten off the long-range communicator.
"I called Tyver and told him where we were rendezvousing. Still can't believe the Sith snuck up on us like that." She leaned back in her chair.
"Yeah, well, they've gotten good at that lately. I think… I think it's time to start making calls." At Joseph's words, Emyrla and Elijah sat up straight. Joseph continued.
"It's clear that the Sith aren't going to get weaker any time soon. If we wait much longer they might beat the True back and finish off the Alliance, and then our window is gone. If we assemble now and strike, we might be able to knock them off balance."
"Are any of our contacts still intact?" Emyrla asked.
"I've talked to Korbyn fairly recently, and I know Pytor is still safe. Even if none of the others could get their guys together, that gives us around six thousand heads, and that's plenty to start off. If the other three get in we could break twelve thousand, and we'd be off to a hell of a start. What do you say?" Elijah nodded in agreement, and Emyrla smirked.
"I'd say it's about time we take my higher-ups down a notch."