960,000 km behind Hale-Bopp trailing sector. Sol System Oort Cloud on approach to CEN Space
))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
"Domino!" Priscilla slammed the tile down on the table hard enough to scatter several of the other tiles towards her opponent across from her.
"You cheated." The Hobor whined. At least Priscilla thought it was a Hobor. The Fueling Specialist could have been a Troob for all she knew. Back on Kazoook she had to know all of two species of sentients. But here, in the Empire, she was suddenly required to know a thousand new variants, and each of them got equally upset whenever she mixed them up with another species. "This is an Earth game, and you're a Solar, so you must know tricks."
"Let's get one thing straight. I ain't ever set eyes on Earth. I'm a Kazoookian." Priscilla warned the Hobor, or was it a Troob, crewman? "Now pay up."
"No. Solar scum. You probably snuck a tile up your sleeve. That's what your kind did at Nal Kuat after all." Several other members of the Imperial deck crew nodded in agreement, though Priscilla judged that many more in the crowded hangar thought she had won fair and square.
"If you have a problem with how I played, then perhaps you ought to discuss your concerns with my friend here." Priscilla jerked a thumb over her shoulder. At two and a half meters Hapsleeca the Wookiee leaned over Priscilla's shoulder and bared her fangs at the short Hobor or Troob. The sight of an angry Wookiee staring down at him caused the color to slowly drain from the Fueling Specialist's blue skin.
He reached into the pocket of his Navy coveralls and pulled out several credit chips that he tossed onto the flimsy folding table. "Here you go, Kazoookian. I hope you choke on them."
Priscilla scooped up the credits and stuffed them into her own pockets. She gave her opponent a wink as he stood up and left the table. "Don't mind if I do."
Hapsleeca growled as Priscilla handed her friend half the winnings. "Yeah, Happy. I could go for some grub as well. We've still got fourteen hours before mission launch."
There were already more Imps clamoring for a seat at the table and a chance to win some credits with the new Kazoookian game. Priscilla carefully stood up and shoved her way through the small crowd of alien gamblers. She wasn't as tall as Hapsleeca but she was still careful about knocking her head against one of the objects suspended over all of them.
Massive B/SF-17 Heavy Bombers, known as MG-100 Starfortresses when Slayn & Korpil sold them on the civilian market, hung end to end on the ready racks on the hangar's ceiling. The bombers had five times the sublight range of a TIE/sa bomber but were too large to fit inside any Star Destroyer in the Imperial Navy. Even the vaunted Super Star Destroyer Ares didn't have a hangar tall enough to fit the oddly shaped starcraft.
It had taken the two Lucrehulks, the Thalmussen and the Kennedy, two months of retrofitting at Nal Kuat to have the flight deck space to house fifteen Starfortresses in each of their toroidal arms, making a strike package of sixty B/SF-17s in the small task force currently attempting to sneak closer to the Sol System.
Those two months, from when Priscilla and Hapsleeca enlisted in the Imperial Navy at Jastawui to their reassignment back to the Thalmussen, had not been lost on the young Kazoookian. She had immediately volunteered for Flight Academy and had immediately been rejected. The Empire took a year to train its front-line pilots and the Confederacy was at their doorstep now. And while Kazoookian Wookiees were welcomed with open arms for their incredible work in the KDY drive yards, Kazoookian humans were eyed with an air of suspicion due to their Earth origins.
Instead of naturally allowing Hapslecca and Priscilla behind the stick of a TIE Interceptor, where they would have quickly risen to the top of the hotshot aces' lists, the idiots that ran the Imperial Navy had decided to throw the two of them into the roles of bomber crew. At least they had miraculously stayed together. Thank God, or this hokey Force thing the Imps believed in, for small favors.
Priscilla stretched in her bulky flight suit. Bomber crews were issued unflattering grey coveralls with a black cushy crash helmet. By Kazoookian standards the outfit looked utterly ridiculous on Hapsleeca and the other few Wookiees assigned to the mission.
Not that anyone knew what the mission was. They had all been roused out of their barracks on the Nal Kuat Ring. Slipped aboard the Lucrehulks under guard and in the dead of night, the Kazoookian vessels set sail with a trio of Arquiten light cruisers for an escort. The tiny flotilla had traveled for a week by light speed before dropping out in an area well away from any inhabited system or traveled hyperlane. From there they had started a ten-day journey by sublight speed. All anyone outside of High Command could figure was that they appeared to be getting closer to a system with a yellow star. Rumors crossed the length of the ship nearly every hour. The only information command ever gave them was a countdown to the launch of their missions.
The two Kazoookians ducked and weaved through the maze of parked bombers towards the enlisted mess. The hangars had been crowded months ago with shelters for refugees but now nearly every square centimeter was taken up with StarFortresses. The only things that remained was the artwork the Kazoookian colonists had painted on nearly every surface during their long journey from the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way. Large paintings of trees and Kazoookian natural treasures painfully reminded her of home. Not that it showed on her face.
Priscilla tried not to appear worried about what was happening back on Kazoook or about the upcoming mission. It wouldn't be easy that was for sure. The Imps really wanted to strike back at the Confederate Earthlings for what they did to Nal Kuat. So much so that their desperation might just jeopardize everyone aboard.
Her Woookiee friend barked and pointed towards the roof. Priscilla nodded. "Yeah, pal. I noticed that too. The Imps didn't bring a single fighter to escort us into wherever they're sending us. Looks like it will be up to me and you to watch each other's backs out there. As always."
Priscilla and Hapsleeca strutted their way through the Thalmussen as if they owned it. Only a tenth of her original crew were still stationed aboard, nearly all of them Wookiees, the rest had been replaced by Imperial sailors. The new arrivals had been displaced when their Star Destroyers had been wrecked in port at Nal Kuat by the First Order. Most of the old Kazoookian crews had taken up positions in the KDY Drive Yards where they were busy repairing and refitting those damaged warships into new designs to push back the Confederate Space Force.
The First Order. Priscilla scowled whenever she thought of them. She had seen a lot of Imperial propaganda showing what they were capable of. It had taken many weeks for most of the Kazoookians to be fully convinced that the attack had truly been the work of this mysterious other faction, and not the work of the Empire. Whatever they were, whoever they were, the First Order bore the brunt of Priscilla's ire. They had struck at Kazoook over a year and a half ago. They had burned her home and driven her and her compatriots to flee for their lives. It was past time she got some payback.
Priscilla side-eyed a KX series droid that passed them in the hallway. The new droids were being rushed off the assembly lines at a factory at Nal Kuat to free up Imperial sailors for other duties. Priscilla wasn't sure what she thought of droids. Walking and talking robots were not something one ever ran into on Kazoook. Neither the Wookiees nor the Earth colonists there ever had a use for them. On the Thalmussen and Kennedy they made up about a tenth of the crew and rumors were that another quarter of the crew would be reassigned and replaced by the droids when the mission was complete and the drafted Lucrehulks returned to Imperial space.
Halfway to the enlisted galley the two could hear shouting coming from a nearby hallway. When Priscilla figured out which direction the disturbance was coming from, she noted it was originating from several offices temporarily assigned to officers attached to the bomber crews. "C'mon, Happy. Maybe we will overhear some scuttlebutt about where they're sending us."
The hall was empty, which made for easy creeping. If any one came across them, Priscilla could lie with the best of them. She already had a dozen excuses lined up for anyone who got too nosy.
Priscilla reached the small office where the shouting had come from. Hapsleeca grabbed her by the arm to prevent herself from revealing them in front of the open door. Priscilla peeked in and spotted an Imperial officer. He was dressed in a black Imperial Paladin flight suit with strange red lines down his outer legs. She didn't recognize him, but the uniform was enough to designate him as someone from High Command, especially the red and black Zealot Helmet he had sitting atop his desk, indicating he was among the most trusted of Imperial loyalists.
He stood with his hands pressed down on his desk and leaned towards a holographic display of another Imperial officer. When it spoke, Priscilla could tell it was a female but she couldn't get a very good look at it from her position.
The officer snapped at the image. "I must be at the forefront of this mission, Sweetheart. They'll never respect us again if the family hides out on Palpatine Prime while the Empire is overrun."
The holographic figure on the desk spoke again but Priscilla was too far away to discern the words before the pilot replied. "Don't pull rank on me, your worshipfulness. Your goons can just arrest me when I get back to Nal Kuat. That will sell great on the HoloNews."
Again, the other party argued something the Kazoookian couldn't quite make out. "Well, I'm the one out here. Look, babe. I've been through this before. I'll be fine. You've got nothing to worry about."
More garbled conversation came from the other party. "I know."
Hapsleeca pulled Priscilla away from the doorway and gave her an inquisitive grunt. Priscilla shrugged. "Hell, if I know. I don't even know who that character was. His flight suit looked pretty bad ass though."
Hapsleeca grunted a warning as they exited officer territory and turned back to the galley. "Nah, Happy. Whoever he was talking to must be here on the Thalmussen or the Kennedy. From what I've heard we are on strict hyperwave silence. You got to have some serious pull if you're going to break those rules."
They could smell the galley before they reached it. The two of them were still getting used to Imperial cuisine despite their two-month immersion in the Empire. Wookiees tended to eat a lot of meat and Earth cuisine had blended well with the existing Wookiee menu to create a unique Kazoookian diet. The Empire liked a variety of dishes from its thousands of variant species but aboard their ships they had one thing and one thing only; foodstuffs. Bland, unimaginative poodoo with just enough nutrients to keep you going. It was enough to stunt a Wookiee's growth. Another KX droid dished out large helpings of boring flangth and jorba fruit upon their plates along with several small cartons of blue milk.
"Don't worry. We have a special dinner lined up tomorrow of steamed Berbersian crab legs before your mission." The serving droid assured them.
"Great. Can't wait." Priscilla lied. She'd yet to have a meal in the Empire to write home about. Hapsleeca whined that it was a meal for the condemned.
That didn't stop the two Kazoookians from tearing into their meals the moment they sat down. The galley was full of alien sailors doing the same thing all around them. Priscilla had taken two bites of her flangth and was about to wash it down with some of her blue milk when a loud klaxon interrupted the reverie of the galley crowd.
"NOW HEAR THIS. NOW HEAR THIS. ALL BOMBER CREWS TO THE READY ROOMS. GROUNDS CREWS TO PREP BOMBER ELEMENTS FOR IMMEDIATE LAUNCH. ARMORERS AND FUEL TEAMS HAVE PRIORITY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." A voice cut across the ship's PA system.
"This is it, Happy." Priscilla jumped to her feet as the galley exploded into a fury of activity as dozens of crewmen all rushed to the exits at once. Hapsleeca just growled in agreement as she hurriedly shoveled several last handfuls of food into her gullet before rushing after her human friend.
As they ran for their assigned ready room the decks vibrated underneath their boots. Above their heads in the turbolaser turrets beetle-helmeted Imperial gunners were hard at work feeding the blasting chambers of their point-defense cannons. Empty tibanna energy casings clanged down on the metal decks.
"Something is out there." Priscilla deduced that whatever it was had sneaked in rather close to the small flotilla. Hapsleeca snarled that they should take a look.
They found a viewport on the port side underneath the most active turbolaser turrets. Theoretically they'd be facing whatever had raised the alarm. Outside the ship a pair of Arquitens were charging forward ahead of the Thalmussen. Priscilla followed the line of their blaster fire until she spotted a small probe device traveling just ahead of the convoy. Dozens of rounds flashed past the unknown probe until, after several frustrating minutes, a bolt finally connected with the probe, dispatching it in a small explosion of fire and sparks that quickly faded back into the blackness of space. That didn't stop the gunners in the blaster bays who continued to blast upon the wreckage for a few more minutes before being ordered to cease fire.
"Let's go. We don't want to miss the show." Priscilla slapped Hapsleeca on her furry arm.
By the time they reached the ready room it was already packed with bomber crews. Their grey coveralls mixed in with their Imperial Army pilot counterparts in light grey and white. The Empire was truly scraping the bottom of the barrel for this mission. Not only had they transformed civilian transports into StarFortresses but they were using pilots more accustomed to walkers than aircraft to fly the things.
Hapsleeca cleared some space along one of the benches in the room for her. She was far from the only non-human in the squadron but she certainly was the biggest crewman in the room.
"Attention." Someone snapped near the entrance to the room and everyone jumped to their feet. Priscilla thought the military tradition was annoying but she had grown used to it during their brief stint in the Kazoookian Navy.
The man that entered was familiar to her. Priscilla had been envying his elite flight suit less than a half hour before the briefing. He set his Flight Helmet under his arm and looked out at the gathered troopers. "My name is Air Marshal Roblin. Some of you may have heard of my wife."
There was a great amount of chuckling that rippled through the crowd. Priscilla didn't get the joke until Hapsleeca, noticing her confusion, yipped quietly in her ear. Priscilla's eyes went wide. "That's the Empress's husband? What the hell is he doing all the way out here?"
"I'm going to be brief because our time has suddenly been cut a lot shorter than anticipated." The Air Marshal jerked his thumb at a nearby Imperial officer wearing the red uniform of Naval Intelligence. The officer activated camera footage of the probe Priscilla and Hapsleeca had witnessed outside the ship.
"This is a deep Void probe, tentatively identified as Voyager 1. Primitive by every discernable measure we use, it nonetheless was thought to be debris until it came in close range with the Kennedy. It must have been tripped by our proximity because we believe it powered up, took a quick sensor burst reading and then dispatched a message back to Earth via archaic radio signals." The Intelligence officer explained. "Gunners on the Batonn destroyed the probe only moments ago."
"How long before that signal reaches Earth?" Air Marshal Roblin asked the officer.
"Thirty-six standard hours."
"Kriffing hell." Roblin swore.
"Sir, why does Earth matter?" A bombardier in the front row inquired.
"I guess it can be said now. This ship is bound for Earth. You men and women will be the first blow the Empire gives back for what the Confederacy has done to us." Roblin declared. The room nearly exploded in cheers and applause. The Imperials couldn't wait to avenge Nal Kuat while the few Kazoookians in the room had their minds on their lost home world.
"You pilots will be receiving your targets as soon as you launch. They're being downloaded into your navicomps as we speak. I will be piloting the lead bomber myself." Roblin announced.
"We need to leave quickly, sir, before that signal alerts the enemy. At the bomber's top sublight speed it will put you there within minutes of that warning." The Intelligence officer reminded the Air Marshal.
"Can we not just hyperjump ahead of it." Someone in the back of the room called out.
"The enemy and their allies the First Order are on the lookout for intrusions into their most secured system. Especially since they haven't fully conquered all of Mars at last check. They will be on your bombers like lava fleas the moment any of you emit even the faintest wisp of Cronau radiation from lightspeed travel."
"That will more than double your flight times. We've got to do this on a shoestring. I'm not going to wait for any of you. As soon as you launch do not waste time forming up. Just head for Earth. This task force will be turning about and returning to Imperial space as soon as we are all cleared." Roblin explained.
"Wait! If they're skedaddling how the kriff are we getting home again?" A Navigator asked.
Roblin just smiled. "I want you to all memorize this phrase. 'Kia ora'. It means hello in New Mandalore."
There were quite a few gasps at that announcement. It made sense as the besieged island nation was the one ally the Empire still had rimward of Kafrene Outpost. Getting back out of there wouldn't be an easy trick. But by the way the Air Marshal carried himself it sure did seem like he had a plan for their extraction.
"Now there is not another moment to lose. Crews man your bombers." The Air Marshal ordered as he donned his helmet. There was another rush to the exits as crews elbowed their way ahead of the others. Once again, Priscilla found it was a good thing to have a Wookiee as a best friend in situations such as these. Everyone wanted to be the first person in the Empire to strike back.
They reached their bomber within a minute of leaving the briefing room. To fit as many StarFortresses as they could, the bombers had to be staggered in their parking arrangement. While the even numbered bombers faced the exit the odd numbered ones faced backwards and would need to be backed out into the Void. Theirs was one that needed to go sheb-first as the Imperials called it.
Lieutenant Faraly climbed up into the bomber's fuselage right after Priscilla and Hapsleeca. The friendly Mrissi greeted his crew. "Happy. Pris. What do you know? Earth. I'll buy us all a round of eblas when we touch down in New Wellington."
"You're on, sir. But you know if you're not up for it I'm always game to spend a few hours behind the stick on our way in." Priscilla greeted their bomber's young commander. They had pulled him out of an AT-AT on New Thyfeeria and given him a month of flight training for this mission. A month more than Priscilla or Hapsleeca currently possessed.
"I might take you up on that when I need some shut eye. But we will all need to be on our toes for our run. We've drawn someplace called New York City for our target and I don't expect a blue milk run out of the place." Faraly said.
The pilot dismissed his two crewmen to rush to the cockpit for his pre-flight checks. Hapsleeca climbed down into the bomb bay and started inventorying the payload, while Priscilla sat down at her station. She didn't want to pout but comms officer was the dullest duty for anyone on a StarFortress. Especially when they'd be cruising to Earth under radio silence. She made sure all the sensors and comm equipment were in passive mode and then climbed back down to the hangar deck to watch the first bombers take off.
Flight deck crew were crawling all over their bomber. Armorers hurriedly, and a tad haphazardly, loaded rack after rack of magnetic proton bombs into the bomb bays of each craft. Each craft carried a bomb with a copy of the Mercury Accords pasted to it as a final thumbing of the nose to the Confederacy. One armorer had chalked several slogans on some of the bombs being lifted up into their craft. Priscilla got a kick out of ones that said. "I don't want to set the Galaxy on fire, just the Earth', 'From Kazoook with love' and 'You'll get a blast out of this'.
Meanwhile fuelers rushed about with hoses topping off tanks which had previously been filled. But now they were being topped off to restore the last few liters that had evaporated during the trip from Nal Kuat. Loadlifters rocked the bombers back and forth to break apart any fuel bubbles that may have formed in the lines.
Air Marshal Roblin came out on the deck and approached the first bomber in the line. His crew was at the ready setting the idling engines to a soft purr. Roblin shook hands with the Imperial Captain and Chieftain Feyyr who had come along to represent Kazoook. They all smiled for several HoloNews' photographers before Roblin cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted down the busy flight line. "Come on, fellas. Let's go!"
The Air Marshal climbed aboard his bomber and a moment later Priscilla could see him strapping himself into his crash webbing in the lead bomber's cockpit. The rest of the dignitaries left the hangar and must have headed back to the bridge, she figured.
"Hey. Hey you, Kazoookian." Somebody whispered to her from behind a nearby bomb rack. Priscilla turned to see who was addressing her and spotted a human flight deck crewman waving for her to join her.
"What do you want?" She asked as she approached the stranger.
"Is it true? That they're sending you guys to hit Earth?" The Imperial inquired.
"That's our orders. Payback for Nal Kuat and all those other planets the Empire lost."
"That's wizard. But you're an Earthling too, right?"
"Kind of. I was born in deep space and bleed Kazoookian." She held up a fist in the man's face. "And anyone who doubts that can discuss it with my friend here."
"No need for that, friend. I'm an Earthling too. My name is Everett Lucas, Hyperdrive Specialist." Priscilla's eyes went wide. She knew almost every Earthling that had escaped Kazoook aboard the Thalmussen and Kennedy by sight if not by name. This guy certainly wasn't anybody she knew. Sensing her surprise he grinned, "What? Did you think you were the only ones?"
"I did actually. How?"
"Martian Christian Church. We've lived in the shadows of the Empire ever since the last war."
"But I had heard all of General Boston's army had been returned to Earth when peace broke out." Priscilla said.
"They were. But we were never part of an army. My parents were missionaries devoted to spreading the scripture of Jesus Christ."
"We've got some of his believers back on Kazoook as well. Even some Wooks are followers."
"Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed. I haven't always had the strongest faith myself." Everett said.
"What does this all have to do with me?" Priscilla asked.
"Earth isn't what you might have heard from your parents. They've undergone some major changes since the last fight. Not for the better either."
"Yeah, I've seen the Imperial propaganda." Priscilla said dismissively. She wasn't big on taking others at face value if they didn't have anything tangible to back it up with.
Everett frowned, his eyes narrowing as he spoke in an insistent, urgent tone. "I know it's hard to believe, but the Confederacy is much worse than the Imps paint them. They're ruled by a despot and a fanatical upper class. They've enslaved half the world in a suppressive class system. Millions have died at the hands of their damned Legions. Their own people. All in the name of getting ready to fight the Empire. But in reality, it's all been to place an elite cabal at the top of their society. It's a racist, hateful system that fears and loathes aliens at the same time. They will destroy anything that threatens their way of life and the worst thing they could imagine is an Earthling that fights for the Empire."
Everett held out an object. Priscilla looked down and identified it as a Blastech DL-44 Heavy blaster pistol. "Take this. You'll need it if you find yourself behind enemy lines. I'm doing you a huge favor, friend."
"This won't be enough to stop them from capturing us." Priscilla took the blaster and held it up to examine.
"It's not for them. Trust me you've never heard of Area 51 and the horrific things that happen there. You don't want to let yourself or your crewmates get captured. Especially that Wookiee friend of yours."
Priscilla's eyes widened. "She's sworn a life debt to me. I couldn't."
Everett leaned closer, his voice low. "If she is truly your friend, you will."
Priscilla frowned as she turned the blaster over in her hands. "I thought you Christians were against that sort of thing."
Everett sighed. His expression made it clear to Priscilla that this was something that had weighed heavily on the young man for a long time. "Christians believe that we are all God's children. Life is a gift from God. To take our own lives is to spit in God's eye. But there are worse things than death. The Confederates are vindictive in their spite, creative in their lust for revenge. They will shatter your body, cripple your mind, taint your very soul. And they will enjoy every last minute of it."
The man tapped his finger on the barrel of the pistol as he locked eyes with Priscilla. "In the face of all that, this is the least terrible choice. God is forgiving. President Harris is not. I pray though that you will come through this mission alright." Everett turned and started walking away.
"Thank you." Priscilla called to him.
Everett called back over his shoulder. "May God be with you."
Priscilla was in the midst of losing herself in her thoughts. How different could Earth be from what her parents had told her? A howl came from the inside of her bomber. Hapsleeca was yelling at her to get her shebs in gear as they were set to launch. Forgetting the conversation with the strange new Earthling she tucked the pistol into her belt and ran for the boarding ladder at the bottom of the bomb bay. She scrambled back up to her station in less than a minute and then peered out the tail blaster position on the rear of the bomber.
The sublight engines flared to life and Lieutenant Faraly warmed them up at low rpms. The deck crews, including Everett, circled each bomber and began removing the tie downs from the ceiling, one by one. Other Navy sailors walked across the hangar with large dry erase boards held over their heads, so that they could be read in the cockpits- they were marked with planetary alignments and the latest CEN alert status for the Sol System. Fuel hoses continued to feed the tanks, topping off the small quantity of rhydonium consumed as the engines warmed. At the last minute before the bomb bay exit hatch was sealed, several fuel pellets of coaxium were handed up to Hapsleeca, who stowed them next to the engine access panel. "In case of emergency." The deck crew shouted up as the Wookiee battened the hatch shut.
Air Marshal Roblin's voice cut across the bomber's comm channel. "Prepare to launch bombers." The Thalmussen turned to face the Sol System. Sol was just a tiny yellow star ahead of them against a blanket of billions of other stars.
The former walker pilots had trained for takeoff from the rings of Nal Kuat, and they had been briefed exhaustively in the theory and practice of starship takeoffs, but none had ever attempted such a thing even in calm conditions, and these were not calm conditions.
Every catwalk, every turbolaser gallery, every bridge viewport on the Thalmussen and Kennedy was crowded with Kazoookian and Imperial sailors and officers who stood watching with white knuckles and clenched jaws. A HoloNews crew recorded the scene from the rear of the hangar. Many of the ground crew remained skeptical the bombers with their novice pilots would even make it out of the narrow hangar without getting their StarFortresses jammed. A few insisted the planned takeoff would be cancelled at the last minute, or end in disaster.
Everett Lucas was near several other sailors running a betting pool on the outcome and soon there was heavy money being laid down: would they make it, would they not? Finding himself among the pessimists, Everett wagered ten credits that fewer than half the bombers would make it off the ship before one of them got stuck and prevented the rest from departing.
The Navy control officer stood near the edge of the hangar and pointed up at the Air Marshal's lead bomber. He leaned back until his shebs nearly touched the ray shielding, and waved a checkered pylon in a circular motion. That signaled the first B/SF-17 to pour on the throttle. The sublight ion thrusters screamed so loudly that Priscilla feared they might burn themselves out. The entire body of Roblin's bomber was visibly shaking against the pull of the Thalmussen's gravity locks. The checkered pylon came down and the gravity locks released just as Roblin released his breaks. The bomber lurched forward, missing both the top and bottom edges of the hangar door as the Air Marshal's StarFortress shot out into the Void. Pouring max thrust into the sublights his bomber shrunk quickly out of sight as it raced away from the Lucrehulk.
Roblin's successful takeoff fortified the morale of the Army pilots, as it had been intended to do. Now they prepared to follow him, one by one, with renewed confidence. But the third B/SF-17 careened off the port door and fishtailed into the Void before its pilot regained control of the craft.
When it was Faraly's turn, the ground control officer waved the checkered pylon up at Priscilla in the tail-blaster position. The Lieutenant poured on the reverse thrusters and he glided away from the next bomber in line and moved into the reverse launch position. He must have overcompensated as he dipped the bomber slightly towards the deck. The bomb bay hatch on the bottom of the craft scraped across the hangar floor with an ear-splitting screech. Every head in the hangar turned in their direction as the deck officer glared up at Priscilla. The young Kazoookian merely shrugged. There was nothing she could do about it.
The Deck officer noted they were in the correct spot and dropped the pylon. Priscilla turned her head and shouted down the length of the fuselage. "Hit it, Loot!"
The B/SF-17 hurled itself out of the Lucrehulk. A shower of sparks followed them down the length of the deck as the bomb bay hatch slid across it. They missed the roof and were soon free. Faraly hit the forward starboard thrusters spinning the bomber around which pinned Priscilla and Hapsleeca against the hull for several seconds. When she recovered Priscilla monitored the short wave hyperwave. The Lucrehulks had actually launched every single oversized bomber, not a one had gotten itself crammed in the hangar doors as everyone had feared.
By hook or by crook, all sixty StarFortresses, the entirety of heavy bombers possessed by the Empire, got spaceborne and fell in behind Roblin. Without time to spare for a rendezvous, they flew away one by one, in a long, irregular procession stretching away in the Sol System's Oort cloud. Priscilla, Hapsleeca and Lieutenant Faraly settled in for a long trip to Earth. Most likely, they'd all be dead in thirty-six hours.
Faraly let her handle the controls while they traveled through the Oort cloud. Priscilla was slightly envious when Hapsleeca proved to have more aptitude for it. They took turns resting and monitoring the passive sensors as they neared the target. The feathered Mrissi pilot was actually sleeping when the bomber hit the Sol System's termination shock at the outer edge of its heliosphere.
Priscilla shook him awake. "Loot, that's Neptune on our port side, according to our sensors. You wanted me to wake you up when we got this close to target."
Faraly stretched his arms and wings. Wiping the sand from his eyes. "Is Earth where we wanted it?"
"Aye, sir. Other side of Sol. Same with Titan and Mars. Mercury and Venus are both on the eastern side of the solar disk, so it looks like the Air Marshal is directing us to the western half. No reason any Confederate sensor will be looking in our direction." Priscilla updated their commander.
"I should hope not. We will be attacking straight out of the sun when we make our run. How long until target?" Faraly asked.
"Four hours standard, sir. We'll bring shields up to full when we pass by Sol."
"Sounds good. I don't want to be a fried tip-yip."
"We call them chickens on Kazoook." Priscilla informed the officer.
"I don't want to be one of them either." He looked at Priscilla and Hapsleeca. "You two ready to make some history?"
Hapsleeca barked eagerly. Priscilla smiled. "As we will ever be."
"Earth here we come." Faraly climbed back into the pilot seat. "You might want to buckle up."
The crew settled into their stations. The Empire had selected a route to Earth that kept them far from any Confederate observation stations. Their colony on Mercury might have spotted them but they appeared as unlit comets and they were traveling at just under lightspeed. When the light of their passing hit the inner planet, they'd already be on the other side of Sol.
New shimmering stars appeared ahead of them as they neared Sol. Distant B/SF-17s in the lead of the attack reflected the light of the yellow dwarf star. Faraly called back to the two Kazoookian crewmen. "Put on your sun shields, we're going to shave that thing's corona pretty close."
Priscilla snapped the silver sun shield onto the front of her crash helmet as white light bathed the inside of the StarFortress's fuselage. She powered down the sensors and transferred all power to the shields and environmental controls to prevent the whole crew from being baked to death. Faraly poured the engines on for all they were worth to escape the star's gravity well.
Priscilla was distracted by an alert message on her comm system. "Loot, we've got an open-air message coming across all local Imperial channels."
"Is it directed at us?" Has anyone spotted us coming in, was what Faraly really meant.
"It's an open channel. No encoding. Looks like several Confederate signal stations are responding to it, sir." Prscilla answered. "It's coming from Fortress Mars."
"Dank farrick! Put on the audicastor." Faraly answered.
"This is the 212th Legion on Olympus Mons. We are accepting the terms of surrender offered by General Onassi of the Confederate Army. All troopers on Mars are standing down by order of Moff Hinter." A young trooper's voice carried across the solar system from atop a giant volcano on Mars. There were the sounds of explosions and slugfire in the background of the broadcast and Priscilla assumed the last Imperial position was being overrun by CEN forces near the trooper's location. "Long live Empress Yos and long live the Empire. I am Trooper HJ-7702, my mother lives on Vaedor III. Tell her I love . . ."
The signal cut out followed by several moments of crackling static. Faraly turned his aviary head back to Priscilla. Tears were forming in the pilot's eyes that he quickly wiped away. Ahead of him a blue speck of light was growing slightly bigger and bigger. "Shut it down, trooper. We are making our run towards Earth.
Hapsleeca climbed down into the bomb bay to arm the bombs as Faraly turned towards Earth. The pilot orientated himself by the poles and a rough map in his head of what he thought the continents looked like on the enemy planet. Priscilla couldn't activate her sensors at this distance for fear of revealing themselves so instead she climbed forward in the fuselage and crept behind Faraly's jump seat. Luna loomed large to the port side as they approached Earth, as did something else around the satellite moon.
"Kriff me dead." Priscilla exclaimed.
A massive Star Destroyer escorted by a pair of Naruto light cruisers orbited above Eagle Colony on Luna's surface.
"She's not one of ours." Faraly declared after noticing what Priscilla was looking at.
Priscilla knew it wasn't an Imperial ship. She'd seen plenty of them at Jastuwai and Nal Kuat. The latter ones smashed to bits by a nefarious sneak attack. The ship before her was one that had forced her to evacuate her home world. The details of that day still burned bright in her memories. All of which came rushing back as she stared at the passing Star Destroyer. It was much larger than its Imperial counterparts and the lines and angles much different, but they certainly matched the memories of what she had seen on the bridge of the fleeing Thalmussen.
"They are working together." She growled. It was one thing to be told it. It was another to see it with her own eyes.
"Aye. Intel thinks these scum are the reason the Confederacy was able to jump start their tech after the last war. Schuttas have nearly caught up to us. So, get on the tail blaster and keep an eye out for X-wings." Faraly ordered.
"Aya, aye, sir." Priscilla responded. She was in shock as she crawled back to her assigned battle station. They had just received a one-two punch from the fall of Mars to the confirmation of the First Order at Earth. It was a lot to take in. She wanted to take a quick scan of the Star Destroyer as they slipped past but that would have alerted the enemy in a heartbeat and she could jeopardize hers and Hapsleeca's lives so carelessly.
Their B/SF-17 was actually the closest to approach Luna in the attack force and they remained undetected as Confederate sensor stations were all pointed coreward towards the Bloodstripe Run. They never expected an attack from Lucrehulks that had steadily creeped rimward of the Sol System. The distraction of Mars's collapse at that very moment further concealed their approach.
The bomber shuddered as it entered the upper atmosphere of Earth. Most ground-based radars on Earth could pick them up now. Priscilla flipped the switch on their IFF emitter which started broadcasting stolen, pre-war identification codes. They were old codes and Priscilla hoped they checked out, but they were technically against the rules of war that nobody seemed to want to play by anymore. In the end they would guarantee their execution if they were captured, something Priscilla vowed would never happen to her or Hapsleeca. The words of Everett Lucas flashed through her mind as her fingers brushed the handle of the pistol.
Faraly had entered the Earth's atmosphere near their orientation zone, a city north-east of New York called Boston. For some reason Priscilla had never learned, the Imps really hated that name. She tried to spot the coastal Beantown but the city was completely socked in with low hanging clouds. At least Priscilla thought they were clouds. She had seen many clouds in her lifetime, as well as smoke from hundreds of fires, but these clouds seemed to be a mix of both. They were almost universally brown or acidly green and yellow. Dark black spots were evidence of raw pollution being pumped directly into the air. Priscilla couldn't make out much of her parent's home world until the bomber descended even lower. The filthy clouds stretched for hundreds of kilometers inland as well as out to sea.
As Faraly pierced the lower cloud cover they found themselves traversing a hook shaped peninsula south of Boston. Sulphuric odors filled the inside of the fuselage, they were strong enough to somehow seep through the bomber's shielding and pressurized hull. Priscilla worried about the faint metallic taste she felt around her back teeth as they breathed in Earth's putrefied air.
The sea below looked black and cold with crisp white caps that seemed to reach up for the bomber. Priscilla noticed that there were few boats on the water. Strange she thought, her father had once told her of her ancestors who plied fleets of fishing boats across Earth's oceans when he had taken her fishing on the plentiful waters of Claw Lake back home. Had the Earthlings scoured their waters free of fish?
Shaking such thoughts from her wondering mind she focused back on the skies behind the bomber. Her instructors had said time and time again a momentary distraction could get a flyer killed. She trained her blasters to the left on the long island running along the coast. It was filled with town after town of similar homes and she could spot several trains running in the afternoon light. Her parents had often complained of the traffic back home but she saw very few signs of landspeeders on the nearly empty roads below.
The bomber made land fall over Amityville. Faraly had approached the coast at very low altitude, a measure to avoid detection from the air or ground, and to avoid the effective cone of flak batteries. Earthlings on boats and on the ground assumed the intruders were friendly and waved merrily at them. The B/SF-17 passed very near several small winged fluttercraft as well as a larger passenger airspeeder on approach to one of the local airfields. Priscilla's followed its logical path of travel and spotted the airfield it was heading for. She swallowed hard when she noticed rows of military airspeeders parked neatly along the edges of its runway.
The sensor panel began angrily chiming away. Priscilla looked over her shoulder at the screen as she read the incoming data. Her eyes went wide but she couldn't leave her battle station as Faraly lined up to make his attack run.
"What's happening?" The pilot called back to her.
"Defense networks are activating all over the world. We just got painted by seven separate radar stations." Priscilla reported.
"It's the Air Marshal. The other bombers must be hitting their targets."
"Sounds about right." Priscilla agreed. The comm station was already being hailed by two stations asking them to identify themselves. She looked down and watched Queens flash past as they orientated themselves over Brooklyn. The city below was nothing more than post-war tenement housing filled with the lowest class of Earthlings who worked the nearby war factories. Even now the 4th classers were pouring out of their unheated homes and pointing at the strange craft that raced past overhead.
"It's too late. Happy, arm the weapons." Faraly ordered. Hapsleeca howled back a second later when the task was complete.
"They've got a drive yard ahead. I can see it through the smog." Faraly announced finally giving an unfamiliar name to the heavy pollution that covered this part of Earth.
The bomb bay doors snapped open as they passed over the East River. The water shimmered in the dim light of Sol. Priscilla correctly deduced the effect was from a thick layer of oil and industrial pollutants that covered the waterway.
"Bombs away!" Faraly shouted.
Happy punched the release button on the bomb rack control. The bomber pitched upwards as one thousand and forty-eight proton bombs dropped from the craft. They descended from the racks like cans in a soft drink dispensing droid. As they hit the slipstream, they spread out into a pattern designed to inflict the maximum damage upon the target.
New York City had been razed to the ground, pounded into dust, set aflame and then practically atomized from orbit during the last war. It had suffered everything the Empire could throw at a single city short of a Base Delta Zero. The final insult to the fabled 'City that Never Sleeps' had been the deployment of the Actinium bombs over Greenland and the Poles. The rising tides from the melting ice had swept away the debris and plunged the land beneath the waves. Eventually the waters had been made to recede, but New York would not be restored to its former glory. Its few surviving inhabitants had been barred from taking up residence back in what had once been the Big Apple. The Trade Federation had taken over the former metropolis and set up their massive factories amongst the half-destroyed skyscrapers.
During the past year several large ship yards built atop the ruins of old New York had constructed some of the largest ships in Space Force. Four of the mighty Eiffel-class Heavy Cruisers had sailed from there before conquering half the Bloodstripe Run for their President. Now those same ship yards sat idling away as they hungered for more raw material to build more ships. But there wasn't much left to be had as the Earth had raped its landscape and stripped natural resources away to build its Space Navy in time. Now the drive yards were full of half-built keels and hulls while a few Revenges, Spielbergs and Narutos, damaged from the Confederacy's initial reign of terror, awaited slowly arriving parts and repairs.
Two Revenge corvettes sat waiting repairs at the ship yard built atop the old One World Trade Center when the bomber raced past overhead. Its stick of bombs fell directly atop the nearest corvette igniting a small hypermatter refueling station next to the waiting corvette. The resulting explosion eviscerated the aft half of the corvette and killed over two dozen dock workers while severely damaging the other corvette parked next to it.
At their altitude the B/SF-17 was violently buffeted by the concussions of the rupturing proton bombs. Lieutenant Faraly fought with the controls to keep the bomber flying straight as shield power alarms chimed throughout the ship. Hapsleeca growled at Priscilla to shut down the annoying alarms as she climbed back up from the bomb bay.
They stabilized as they crossed the Hudson, but the enemy in New Jersey were starting to wake up to the fact that the Earth was under attack. Bursts of poorly aimed flak exploded in the sky ahead of the bomber. The bomber pitched upwards from a direct hit that knocked out a quarter of their remaining shield power and further shook the crew's teeth loose.
"We've got ground-to-air missile sites tracking us, Loot." Priscilla warned, wishing it was her behind the controls and not the walker pilot.
"Jam what you can. I'm taking us out to sea." The Mrissi shouted back, banking the bomber east towards the Atlantic. Within seconds they cruised over the coast.
It didn't take long for the Confederates to track them as they turned south. Faraly knew a zig zag pattern would be futile in fooling their pursuers and instead poured everything he had into their engines.
"We'd go a hundred times faster if we were out of the goo." Priscilla suggested taking the bomber back up into orbit. Hapsleeca laughingly growled at her causing Priscilla to slap her forehead. "No Happy, I haven't forgotten there's a Star Destroyer up there. I know a few maneuvers though."
"You can try them out when you get your own ship." Faraly suggested. "Happy, get that coaxium ready. We're going over Antarctica to reach New Mandalore. Pris call out those fighters."
Priscilla powered up the subspace radar system. The CEN already knew they were here so there was no point in hiding it now. She dutifully reported its sightings. "Loot, we have fifteen bogeys coming in from Georgia. Look like F-55s trying to cut us off. Six more bogeys coming in from the east, probably from out of Bermuda."
"Alright, I've never heard of either of those places but I will take your word for it." Faraly replied as he dove low to keep the bomber a few meters off the water. Sea spray whipped away from the peaks of waves as they roared past.
"Happy, take over on this blaster." Priscilla told her friend as she leapt from the tail blaster position and sat back down at the comm station. Her primary concern was spotting more trouble ahead before it spotted them. What she saw instead opened her mind to a literal world of new possibilities. "There's got to be millions of microwave UHF signals out there."
"That's impossible. No world has that many signals except maybe old Coruscant." Faraly argued.
"Check that. Did I say millions, I meant billions." Priscilla remembered her mother talking about personal comlinks she had as a youngling. She said people had been obsessed with them back on Earth. Did everyone on her home world carry a cell phone, she wondered?
Hapsleeca sent her an inquisitive purr. "Yeah, I think I can slice into it. It looks just like the computer programming they had on the Enterprise II. Same as we learned at the academy back on Kazoook. At least their civilian network. There's something on here called the Confederate Emergency Broadcast Signal. It's got a pretty weak pyrowall."
"Stay on mission, Pris." Faraly told her.
"We came here to hurt them, Loot. I say let's finish the mission." Priscilla's eyes narrowed on the access web portal and ran a quick decryption program on its EBS page. "Thank God Mom was such an expert with computers. All those lessons are about to come in handy." Priscilla murmured to herself as she went to work. Immediately, the slice went to work on the Earth's satellite system, currently broadcasting a warning to everyone on the planet that the Earth was under attack by unidentified enemy bombers. Nearly every being on the planet was currently tuned into that signal.
Priscilla cleared her throat and cut into the signal. As she spoke, she stared out the nearest viewport at the passing waves of the home world she never knew. "Do you know who this is? Do you know your enemy? I thought I did. When I was just a kid on Kazoook, my mom and dad used to talk about how evil the Empire was and how lucky the crew of the Enterprise II was to have escaped from them. That's right. I'm a descendant of the colonists that left Earth over twenty years ago. We believed it was our duty to ensure that something of Earth-born humanity would survive if the home world was destroyed. To be honest I never really cared that much. Mom and Dad were from Earth, but what did that matter to me? Kazoook was my home, the Wookiees who lived there were as much my family as the human colonists. Earth was so far away, I thought it didn't matter.
"And then the First Order came. They burned everything our two peoples built together, and sent us on the run. Does that surprise you? That doesn't surprise me. What surprised me was finding out the Earth and the First Order were best friends. I started paying the Earth a lot more attention when their allies gutted my home. And I don't like what I see. You all live in fear. Fear of the alien. Fear of your government. You've given the Confederacy absolute control in the hope that they'd provide you with security. But there can be no security for you when they can do whatever they want on a whim.
"We've all suffered terrible loss, in the last war and in this one. I know you're afraid to lose what little you have left. But this is all wrong! In your quest to beat your enemy you've become just like them, if not worse. You are being lied to. I am Priscilla Mayhew, Kazoookian Earthling. I am not your enemy. I am a lost daughter of Earth, returned to the place of her parent's birth. And I know that they'd be ashamed of what has become of their home. The true enemy is not without, but within! Stand up together! Don't let the people in power sacrifice you to satisfy their own ambition! No matter what they say, you still have the power to make a difference, to stop them before it's too late!"
Priscilla swept her hands up to her ear pieces as Confederate electronic warfare units found her signal and jammed it out of existence. Priscilla could only hear Hapsleeca's familiar growl over the static as she ripped off her headphones. "Yeah, I know they're onto us."
An urgent pinging rang from the targeting computer. "Loot, they've got missile lock."
"How far away are they?" Faraly asked.
"Just over a hundred klicks. Missiles will be here in a minute." Priscilla said as she eyed the emergency escape pod and made sure her repulsar webbing was secure. She wasn't looking forward to taking a dip in the Atlantic. One thing her father's stories had told her was that it was colder than an ice box down there. She looked forward to being picked up by the Confederate Coast Guard even less. Everett Lucas's blaster pistol hung heavy on her belt.
"Happy, toss in the coaxium! Do it now." Faraly shouted.
Hapsleeca growled the affirmative and then swung nimbly across the fuselage to the engine access panel. She bypassed the fueling circuit and poured the exotic fuel mixture out of its containment package and directly into the sublight's fuel injection system.
The kick that Priscilla felt nearly ripped her out of her chair. Only her crash webbing held her in place. The B/SF-17 lurched forward, nearly doubling, then tripling its speed in a matter of microseconds. Hapsleeca narrowly grabbed onto a handhold on the side of the fuselage as her legs flayed back and forth behind her. Faraly came close to breaking his feathered arms as he fought to keep the bomber on course and not spiral out of control.
The missiles fell well behind the bomber before running out of fuel and falling into the ocean. The Caribbean cruised by in a matter of minutes and less than ten minutes after firing the coaxium they saw the lights on the coast of Brazil wink into life. They continued to fly south over the Atlantic as the coaxium burned out. Priscilla's jamming equipment was enough to keep South American and African based pursuers off their tail long enough to slip by.
When they reached Antarctica, the bomber had to climb for altitude. Heat waves from the southern continent rose and battered the big bomber. Two Actinium bombs had been dropped here over twenty years ago, and though the Earth's terraformers had been able to extinguish them, the residual heat continued to bleed from the roasted soil below. The area was a complete dead zone without even bacteria surviving the holocaust that had been delivered upon it in the last war. Compared to those attacks their attack on New York had been nothing more than a harassment attack. Hell, Pricilla thought, compared to what the Confederacy and the First Order have dished out in this war everything the Empire and Kazoook have done had been mere pin pricks.
The waters of the Southern Ocean turned a cleaner blue-gray as they left the shore of Antarctica and headed north again. They were probably over the furthest spots from human influence over the planet and while the Confederacy seemed more concerned with waging war than keeping their home world clean it was up to New Mandalore to pick up the slack. They spotted a large aquatic ship with decks covered in Devourer Tanks and Mass Recyclers and a hull full of recycled ocean garbage heading back to New Mandalore. The Empire's ally used ships like these to keep its maritime exclusion zone free of refuse that floated in from Confederate waters.
Priscilla didn't have long to study the strange ship as the subspace chimed once more. "Four more bogeys coming in from the north. They're flashing friendly ID codes, Loot."
"Those would be the Mandos." Faraly answered and sure enough four blue and silver Kom'rk raced toward them from the northern horizon. The quick fighters circled around and quickly took up escort positions on both sides of the bombers.
"This is Oppressor Lead. Welcome to New Mandalore." An accented Kiwi voice came across the hyperwave.
"How are you doing, Oppressor Lead? This is Bomber 27. We sure are glad to see you." Priscilla spoke to the lead pilot of their new escorts.
"Follow us, Bomber 27. We'll take you in."
"Roger, roger. Are we the first one back?" Priscilla asked.
"I wish. Some Air Marshal of yours landed in downtown New Auckland twenty minutes ago. The media can't shove enough cameras in the guy's face." Oppressor Lead. "Is he really who we think he is?"
Priscilla chuckled. She had been just as surprised to learn the Prince Consort was leading this attack. She rolled her eyes when she realized the HoloNews back in the Empire was probably already dubbing this Roblin's Raid. "He is, Oppressor."
"Typical Imp buckethead. Sure is sure of himself." Oppressor Lead pointed out without a hint of irony at the fact that he was a pilot as well.
New Mandalore's South Island soon filled Faraly's forward horizon as the NMDF Kom'rks led them through New Mandalore's air defenses. Hapsleeca pointed to a pair of B/SF-17s with their own escorts to the east heading in the same direction. Priscilla sighed in relief. Other bomber crews had made it safely through.
The landing field outside of Christchurch was devoid of media crews and civilians. Several large trucks and vehicles were surrounded by dozens of armored troopers. Faraly followed a ground crewman's directions he set the bomber down one last time. After this mission the StarFortresses would be handed over to the New Mandalorian Air Force.
The Mrissi pilot turned off the engines and let the sublights wind down. The three of them armed themselves with their side arms. Priscilla had replaced her original one with her new DL-44. They straightened their flight suits to look presentable. Hapsleeca snarled which caused Priscilla to smile. "You and me both. I need a shower so bad I wouldn't even care if you got in with me."
Faraly climbed down the crew ladder first followed by Priscilla and Hapsleeca. The New Mandalorians were so fixated on the sight of the giant Wookiee that emerged from the bomber that they didn't pay any attention to Priscilla for several seconds. She pressed her boots into the soft soil of New Mandalore. The first time she had ever stepped on her home world. She shook her head in disbelief. The first time I get to Earth and I bomb the place, she mused. Her fingers lightly brushed the DL-44 as she glanced over to Hapsleeca, who was looking around curiously at her surroundings. Priscilla felt a wave of relief flood her. She was so glad she hadn't had to follow through on Everett Lucas's advice.
A woman in black armor with silver edging approached them and exchanged salutes with Lieutenant Faraly. "I am Agent Jade from Clan Bly. Welcome to New Mandalore."
"Thank you." Faraly answered for his crew. "Clan Bly? I'm afraid I'm not familiar."
"Mandalorian Intelligence. Each Clan has their own specialty." She looked up at Hapsleeca for several seconds before moving onto the human Kazoookian crew member. "You are Priscilla Mayhew?"
The Mandalorian sounded shocked. Priscilla didn't think anyone on Earth knew who she was. "You know me?"
"Everyone on Earth knows who you are. You accessed the Confederacy's Global Broadcasting Satellite network. Even we haven't managed to do that. You have some kind of luck, kid. And that message . . . well I'm sure you touched a lot of people out there." Jade informed them. Faraly looked over at Priscilla in surprise. He had been too busy flying the bomber to have paid any attention to her impromptu broadcast.
"I just said what was on my mind." Priscilla admitted.
"You said more than you'll ever know." Jade must have been smiling behind her helmet. Priscilla couldn't be sure but she didn't sound like an Imp. She had heard some of them went with the clones to form their rogue nation. Was Jade another Earthling just like her? "We don't have time to talk. We need to evacuate as many members of your strike force before the Confederacy can completely bar your escape from Earth."
"You're moving us off world? But how?" Faraly asked. Priscilla had wondered that as well, fearing they'd be stuck here for the duration.
"You can thank Fleet Admiral Gentis. Where there is a will there is always a way. Now if you'd follow me." Jade turned and led them to a waiting truck. The transport was oddly manned by a tiny Talpini driver. Six other figures sat in the back of the truck. Priscilla saw that they were all Imperial bomber crewmen. They shook hands and slapped Faraly's crew on the back in congratulations as they boarded the back of the vehicle. A Mandalorian trooper slammed the tail gate shut as the truck lurched down the road.
The passengers spent the next thirty minutes regaling each other with stories of their own raids. Apparently the two new crews had hit a fuel storage facility in Hong Kong and a durasteel plant in Barcelona.
The truck stopped in a small town along Pegasus Bay. A nearby sign in a caf shop identified the place as Waipara. As Priscilla jumped from the back of the truck, she spotted a large domed building across the bay. Christchurch's massive onion-shaped city on stilts protected a million inhabitants as its high-tech shield shimmered in the southern light of Sol.
Military police kept the inhabitants in their homes as more and more trucks rolled into town. Several helicopters unloaded in a field north of town. Faraly waved to newly arriving Imperial bomber crews who had been collected all up and down the New Mandalore coast before their hosts concentrated them here.
"This way." Jade instructed the Imperial guests of her nation.
They were escorted to a rail yard by nearly a hundred heavily armored Mandalorian troopers. Hapsleeca whined that they all looked like a firing squad. Priscilla almost laughed and cut a joke before she realized that her friend was absolutely right. She kept close to Hapsleeca. If this all went to shit it was always best to keep a Wookiee at your side.
One side of the rail yard shimmered strangely in the morning light. Trying to keep an eye out for surprises, Priscilla was flabbergasted to find a score of Imperial Navy sailors standing in the rail yard casually talking with several Mandalorian officers.
"Form up." A familiar voice called to the arriving bomber crews. Priscilla turned to see Air Marshal Roblin striding into the compound. The bomber crews rushed forward into a loose formation as their commander had ordered. Priscilla did a quick count. There were many missing slots in the formation. She wondered what had happened to them. Maybe they were late. Maybe something much worse.
Roblin took off his helmet and smiled at the gathered troopers. "I'm kriffing proud of each and every one of you. We paid them back for Nal Kuat and this is just the start. I'm pinning medals on each and every one of you when we get back to the Empire."
The bomber crews raised their fists in triumph and cheered. As they did so one of the naval officers approached the Air Marshal and exchanged salutes. Behind him two large Heavy Artillery Mandalorians escorted a single man in an orange jumpsuit and shackles. Roblin spoke to the Navy officer. "You must be Commander Strobestack, I presume. Did you bring our ride?"
"I did indeed." Strobestack waved his finger above his head in a circular motion. Behind him the shimmering dissolved to reveal the shape of a long, sleek corvette. The ship looked fast and deadly with twin heavy proton launchers in its bow. Priscilla's mouth fell open. She had never heard of an invisible ship.
"I had to see it to believe it." Roblin whistled in admiration. "Gentis really went and cloaked a ship that small."
"She's not the only one. Just the first." Strobestack informed the Air Marshal. "We need to move quickly before the First Order arrives and blocks us in. They've got much better sensors than the Confederacy does."
The Mandalorian, Jade, approached both of the Imperial officers. She handed Roblin a large datapad and nodded at the prisoner in orange. The captive man was being handed over to several sailors and escorted aboard the cloaked corvette. "This is everything we've gotten out of Confederate Center in the past five months. Prisoner One-One-Three-Eight is a TIE crewman with the First Order. Transcripts of his interrogation are included. We've already drained him dry."
"Thank you, ma'am." Roblin told her as he accepted the datapad. Priscilla bet the boys in Imperial Intelligence couldn't wait to sink their teeth into that, as well as their claws into Prisoner One-One-Three-Eight. She felt no sympathy for the guy. Not after what happened to Kazoook.
"The Pierceskimmer is all set. It's time to go, your Highness." Strobestack encouraged the Air Marshal.
"So it is." Roblin agreed. He pointed at the Pierceskimmer and then back at the waiting bomber crews. "What are you waiting for? Let's go home."
The crewmen broke ranks and rushed up the loading ramps. It was tight quarters aboard the cloaked ship but they all squeezed aboard. Priscilla hoped they weren't in for a long trip back to Imperial space.
Hapleeca nudged her and snarled. The big Wookiee wasn't happy being confined in such a small space with so many other beings. Priscilla nodded. "Stang straight, Happy. It's time we strike out on our own."
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Up Next- This must never happen again
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
A chapter I think many of you suspected was coming. Please drop me a review and let me know what you thought