The intelligence department hummed with activity after finally receiving data from the probe droids. Despite the commodore's composed demeanor, the crew knew that he was in deep trouble after the loss of a star destroyer. The fact that he had come back at all was a miracle. Pulastra did not wish to see the Commander go, and he did not believe he was alone in this sentiment. Many of those with experience had grown weary of the culture of backstabbing that pervaded the fleets closer to the Core Worlds despite the near guaranteed promise of career advancement, so having a leader that consistently rewarded competence was a breath of fresh air.
Pulastra, Senior Intelligence Chief Ulrand, and Lieutenant Commander Olesa stood around a standard briefing holotable deep in the bowels of the intel spaces, the most concentrated source of information aboard any star destroyer. Unlike most other spaces known for hoarding highly sensitive information, it was brightly lit and maintained at a temperature far more comfortable than the freezing cold that irritated the operators to no end. Though the spaces were painted with the dull, austere gray of the rest of the crew spaces, it had a certain homely warmth to it. Multiple briefing holotables were scattered throughout the uncharacteristically large room surrounded by operators who casually conversed there or at the terminals lined up against the walls. The ever-present carafe of caf was tucked into a nook in the wall alongside a snack bar that the operators had carried in from the galley.
Ulrand was a short, bald man with deep lines etched into his face and sported permanent bags under his eyes. He was a bit portly, but had large, broad shoulders which lined up with his penchant for abhorrence of cardio training. A small, well maintained bushy mustache cropped to the corners of his lips adorned his face.
Olesa was tall and of medium build. His hair was trimmed to regulation, but combed and slicked to a lacquered finish. However, unlike Gaunt's hair which was gelled to keep any strands from moving out of place, his bore a quality that his peers referred to as "unnecessarily vain". His reasoning was, in reality, much less innocuous than that appraisal would suggest. He simply enjoyed taking care of his appearance.
It was in these spaces that intel reports were assembled and briefs were made that could make or break the course of a squadron's fate. This was part of the reason Pulastra never allowed himself to be complacent despite the mundane nature of the work; one missed piece of critical information could lead to a catastrophic disaster like the destruction of the Bludgeoner.
"Sir, finally got some good news," Ulrand briefed Olesa, his tone gruff but personable.
"Shoot," Olesa said with a quick head nod. Despite the similarity in their titles, LCDR Olesa was not directly below Commander Gaunt. Gaunt had insisted that he be addressed as "Commander" because, in his words, "all I do is lead, so Commander is all I am due." It was historically problematic for the junior personnel because the rank charts they had learned mere months before they onboarded to Repudiator squadron were called into question. Though not likely Gaunt's intention, it gave many who had "Commander" anywhere in their title endless headaches as the new accessions became more concerned with formality than their jobs. Really, all Olesa did was lead the intel corps aboard the Violator; he still reported to someone with a rank of Commander and a Line Captain directly below Commander Gaunt.
"Probes got a positive return in the Eridanus system, Sector Z. Signals corps just finished processing the data. Bringing it up now," Ulrand said, reaching down to flip the power switch below the tabletop and configuring the floating control pad that had appeared above the holotable.
"LOADING…" the projection flickered. They had been in the Unknown Regions for about two weeks now, but progress was slow due to the painstaking care that they had to take with mapping and negotiating the tricky stellar obstacles the regions were known for.
"That's great to hear. I could tell leadership was starting to get antsy," Olesa said, breathing a sigh of relief.
A display of a planet and a small fleet of ships appeared in front of them.
"They've got a small contingent above the planet Eridanus II. Capital ships are types we haven't seen before."
Ulrand pointed at two large teardrop shaped projections. Their hulls were smooth and rounded with one end jutting out like the last thread of a hanging drop on the thinner end of the main body and the other a slightly less bulbous drop from the wider end. "The big ones are on the smaller end of a heavy cruiser class."
He pointed to a single, smaller projection. "The little one looks like a Mere cruiser the Lok Revenants were known for, but has sections added on. We probably shouldn't assume that they're pirates but…" he trailed off with a wry smirk.
"The shoe certainly fits," Olesa said, returning the smirk. "What about the starfighters?"
"They never deployed them, so we're in the dark there. Maybe it's a good thing, could indicate that they don't know we're tracking them."
"One can only hope. Anything useful on the planet?" Pulastra asked.
Ulrand folded his arms over his chest. "Barren, but capable of supporting life if the scanners are to be believed. Lots of mountains, so my thought is that they're on a hiking trip," Ulrand said with a smug shrug, earning a hearty chuckle from both officers. "Realistically though, it's a very large, rocky planet. We can turn it upside down after we're done."
"Good work. Go ahead and draft up the intel report, then route it to me," Olesa said.
"Thanks, sir." Ulrand nodded and turned heel to speak casually with some other intel personnel seated at a larger holotable.
"The skipper is going to be very happy about this," Olesa said as he turned to Pulastra, who gave him a small nod and a smile.
"They're much smaller than we're equipped to handle, so boarding them is not out of the question. It would be a huge help in getting leads," Pulastra replied.
"If they don't destroy their data properly, it'll be a huge win for us as well. I'll go out on a limb and say pirates and proper security are not very compatible," Olesa quipped, his eyebrows raised in amusement.
Pulastra gave a quick laugh. "That's true."
Olesa postured attentively, surveying his surroundings. "Anyway, I'm going to prep to receive that report. You should do the same and then start putting together that brief." Higher level intel officers handled higher level functions and typically left briefing to their more junior counterparts, though it helped that Pulastra did actually enjoy writing briefs.
"Will do, sir. I'll get that to you ASAP." Pulastra saluted and made toward his terminal to enter what he had just learned into his brief template.
Rosh sat in the cockpit of his TIE interceptor awaiting his next orders. He had about a minute to launch. He'd be able to finish his pre-flight procedure in about 30 seconds so he'd have plenty of time to wait before they pushed off. The TIE Interceptor docking bays by comparison to the rank and file TIE spaces were kept dim and silent. All of the pilots were deadly and efficient as were there maintenance crews as that supported them and honed their fighters' vorpal edges. Though he was more than proficient in all types of fighters, he found himself gravitating toward the interceptor due to the lack of brouhaha in the culture.
He quickly finished his procedure and allowed himself to reflect on the events of the past few weeks. Due to his involvement in the initial contact with the unidentified craft, leadership had deemed him useful and thus allowed him in on highly sensitive mission information. Repudiator had received a new ship, the Arbiter. It came equipped with a much more robust complement of ground troops, most notably advanced special operations marines for data retrieval. Where they came from is uncertain; he was not aware of any such units. Regardless, his mission was to aid them in theirs; so he needn't waste any more time thinking about it.
"10 seconds to launch," the main announcing circuit reported. The subdued, professional nature of the interceptor staging area extended even to the general notifications: quick, efficient, and useful. That was his cue to warm the engine. He pushed his sticks to an idling rumble and hovered his finger over the release button for the arresting gear. Commander Gaunt appeared on his screen no sooner had he put his finger over the button.
Gaunt brought his right arm that had been clasped behind his back across his chest and extended his pointer finger when his finger approached his left trouser seam.
"All fighters, launch!" he thundered, swinging his arm back across his chest and extending it forward until it pulled taut. Despite the pressure Rosh knew he was feeling, Gaunt retained his confident smile.
Rosh pushed the button, his fighter shaking as the arresting gear released. He let his fighter fall to give his fellow pilots enough berth and gunned his engines, aileron rolling and pitching up to the interceptor launch lanes.
"Omega, Boss. Comms check."
"Boss, Omega 2. Read you loud and clear."
"Boss, Omega 3. Loud and clear."
"Omega, Boss. Good copy."
The 3 sped toward the Mere cruiser. They already knew their mission and thus wasted no time coordinating a location. They closed on the cruiser so fast that the pirate squadron had hardly scrambled their fighters by the time they noticed an anomaly with the Mere cruiser: a lurch.
It had not gunned its engines nor fired weapons. In addition, the Mere cruiser was too small to carry fighters and cargo at the same time. Something that had docked with the Mere cruiser that had separated from it. Rosh dialed his scanner to max power and found what he was looking for: a station scarcely smaller than the Mere cruiser it had been attached to. On a quick investigation of its features, he spied what had to have been a dock for a small, personal craft. Lucky break. Rosh immediately closed and shot a tracker on it as a large red wave of contacts appeared to his left. Not much time now.
"Bridge, Wing Commander 5. Got an unusual contact on my scope. Sending data now," Rosh radioed over.
"Wing Commander 5, Bridge. Copy."
Rosh steered his fighter low, just barely dodging laser fire, and pitched up to run a quick scan on the fighters. He quiriked his eyebrow at the projection on his HUD; had never seen fighters quite like this before. They were teardrop shaped and recessed in the back where the tail of the teardrop would have been to make way for a powerful engine. He rolled out of the way of blue repeating laser fire just in time. Too close a call even for him. He fired a burst of lasers into one of the fighters that flickered off of a bright, oval shaped sphere of light that engulfed them. Energy shields.
"Deadly, Boss. Omega 2 radioed for support! Head over there now!" Bodalla barked over Neel's radio.
These new fighters had been giving them a lot of trouble. They were much larger than your average starfighter, but boasted above average speed and shield strength. Their weapons posed a huge problem for TIE fighters as well. All of them had repeating cannons similar to interceptors and powerful proton torpedoes that tracked their targets much better than the average x-wing's. Luckily the distribution of red contacts on Neel's scope seemed less dense than the average rebel force.
Neel gunned his engines, relieved to get at least some heat off of his back. The battle had hardly started and one of his squadmates had already been shot down. Things were probably going to get ugly. No, they were already very ugly if the Wing Commander was in trouble. Neel sucked in a deep breath as he saw the dense patch of red lights appear on his scope, a blob so thick he could barely make out Omega's signatures weaving through the middle of it. He and his 2 squadmates opened fire, striking the broadside of the fighters swarming Omega. The concentrated power managed to knock down a few of them, immediately prompting a group of them to veer toward his squad.
Neel pitched out of the way of blue laser fire and screamed past them to clear the lock-on alarm blaring in the cockpit. Just as Omega's blue lights appeared on his scope, Omega 2's dimmed. Zounds. However, a sight that seemed to make time slow to a crawl unfolded before him. Omega 1 zoomed past his cockpit closely followed by repeating laser fire. The two ships were too fast, and Rosh was too good at piloting for him to catch up normally, so he only had one option: the power limiter override.
It was only to be used in the most dire of situations as using it often resulted in death. It allowed greatly increased performance at the cost of heat generation well in excess of what a TIE was capable of dissipating, causing temperature to skyrocket so quickly that it often resulted in system failure, unconscious pilot, or both. Even though the system would automatically revert after it detected pilot distress (assuming the life support was even functional); it would often be too late as the fighter either tumbled out of control or was shot down. Annoyingly, leadership still chewed out whoever used it even with their lack of regard for TIE fighter pilots' lives. It was a risk he was willing to accept.
His hands moved on their own; he quickly uncovered the power limiter removal button and pushed it. The TIE lurched forward as his thrusters pushed well past their limit.
"Power limit removed. Temperature rising at 3 degrees Celsius per minute," the cockpit complained. This was the part where it got REALLY ugly. He slammed the sticks forward as far as they could go.
"5 degrees Celsius per minute."
The world stood still as he veered toward the fighter pursuing Rosh. He was lucky that they had crossed him in nearly the perfect position to intercept; even with the increased power he still would not have made it. He hit the broadside of the pursuing fighter with a barrage of lasers, but it was not enough to break the shield.
"7 degrees Celsius per minute."
He fell in line behind them and pelted the pursuer with more laser fire, but it was not enough to break the shield. He was also falling behind them quickly.
"9 degrees Celsius per minute." He had finally started sweating as his body caught up with the heat. The lightheadedness of heat exhaustion started to manifest. He needed to make his move now, otherwise both he and the wing commander would be dead. He needed to lead his shots perfectly, he would not get another chance before they were out of his range.
He held down the trigger, wanting to put as much fire down range as possible before they got away.
He missed part of the volley, but lead the target enough to catch it. The shield popped and an explosion followed shortly therafter.
"13 degrees Celsius per minute." He felt his breath start to become shallower and his consciousness fade in and out. But he had just barely enough presence of mind to toggle the limit removal off.
"Power limit removal off. Cabin temperature 55 degrees Celsius. Cooling at 3 degrees Celsius per minute." Too slow. He needed to cool down as quickly as possible before he went unconscious. The only way that was going to happen is if he shut off all unecessary systems, leaving him just as vulnerable as system overheat. Now he got to be awake before he was inevitably destroyed. What cruel irony.
"43, going dark." Neel broadcasted to all fighters in the local area before rapidly flipping off almost all of the systems on his fighter. The cabin grew dark and his engines spun down to nothing.
"Cooling at 10 degrees per minute."
He heard his heart in his ears as he did his best to take low and slow breaths, his consciousness fading in and out on tempo with the thudding in his head. Sweat dropped from his brow and pooled in the helmet of his pressure suit. He had nothing to rely on now but his wingmen. His eyes jerked toward a red contact headed right toward him. He was too hot to escape notice. This seemed to be his end.
A blue flash sped onto his scope onto the red's broadside, who swerved off with the blue in hot pursuit. The blue contact's identifier was unreadable due to his fading consciousness, but he hoped he'd be around to thank them later. Time had no meaning to him inside of this dark prison. What was the meaning of life…
"Internal temperature 40 degrees Celsius. Will reach nominal cabin temperature in 2-3 minutes."
Neel jerked awake and immediately gunned his thrusters.
"Rancor, Boss. Evasive maneuvers," Ada said somberly.
The unidentified fighters had sliced through them like a lightsaber; 2 of her wingmen had already been shot down and extra escorts had been called to cover them. She had lost plenty of squadmates before, but it still stung a little every time. Leaders must shoulder the burden of responsibilty, to include sending their people to certain death. All of her people were prepared to do so to accomplish the mission, so babying them would be an insult to their resolve.
The 3 capital ships were noted as Target Alpha, Bravo, and Delta: Alpha and Bravo were the large, teardrop shaped warships and Delta was the Mere cruiser. Rancor squad had just slipped under Alpha's shield near the main thrusters to avoid fire from the capital turrets on the ship's broadside.
"Rancor, we've got more company!" One of her wingmen broadcasted. 2 orange lights on her port side winked out. Ada performed an excessively flashy maneuver where she rolled upside down, pitched up and toward the enemy fighters, and then rolled right side up. A lock crosshairs appeared on the singular fighter in her view. 3 missiles was more than enough to destroy any fighter that she knew of assuming all of them hit. The moment the lock-on confirmation blinked, she pitched, rolled, and released her weapons.
Blue laser fire streaked past her. Didn't all 3 of them hit? She swore when she saw a distress signal followed by the green light behind her winking out.
"Rancor, Boss, ignore them. Make maximum speed toward the target. No point in evading if we can't accomplish our mission."
"Copy, Boss," her squad repeated back.
Man, this sucked.
"Escort, Rancor, beelining the objective," she radioed to her escort squads.
"Copy, Rancor," she heard back from the 4 escort squad leaders.
Rancor made all haste toward the target, performing just enough aerobatics to avoid any more casualties. Looks like her gamble had paid off for her people. The same could certainly not be said for the escorts, who lost about half of their remaining force.
The first swell of pride she had felt during this sortie finally came as Rancor released their payload onto the engines. There could be no greater bliss than putting a juicy target into your crosshairs, firing off a salvo of bombs, and watching the failure of a critical function cripple a capital ship. It made her feel alive to do so much damage to a ship tens of thousands of times the size of her bomber.
"Boss, port main thrusters compromised!"
"Boss, starboard main thrusters compromised!"
That could not have gone any better despite the 3 casualties. Both thrusters had went down, which was more than enough damage to support the boarding party that leadership intended to insert on at least one of those vessels.
"Rancor, Boss, both main thrusters compromised. Great work out there, those grunts should be able to leisurely stroll onto Alpha now. How about we take a victory lap and give Beta the same treatment?" Ada drawled enthusiastically.
The remaining 4 members of Rancor whooped and laughed in response as they made all haste toward the other threatening capital ship.
The bitter struggle was starting to wind down at this point: Beta's engines were compromised and the enemy interceptors had thinned out enough to keep their attention laser focused on saving their capital ships. Something about this situation didn't sit well with Rosh, though. What exactly was that station? Why would they send a fleet all the way out to a planet with no infrastructure? Normally he followed protocol to the letter, which in this case was to let the retrieval team to handle it but he couldn't allow a chance like this to slip. In the plausible event that the station held a terminal with deleted data, he needed every second he could get before the system made recovery close to impossible for the retrieval teams.
Following the coordinates from the scanner, he carefully veered his interceptor to the station's docking bay, which opened up to greet him. Ship authentication enforcement was a common practice that would have made his trip worthless. The owners had made a costly mistake. He snapped off the helmet of his pressure suit as a hiss indicative of pressurization filled the bay and reached for the sidearm stowed near his seat; but retrieved something far different from the bulky, matte black standard issue pistol. He stared back at his reflection in the cool silver body of a keepsake from his life before the Imperial Navy. Though he had attempted to distance himself from it, he still held onto the weapon for reasons he could not entirely place. Putting it out of his mind was the right answer, he had better things to do than dwell on the past.
He climbed out of the top hatch of his interceptor and down to the cold, black deck. Despite the fact that there were very few rooms on the station, he quickly and efficiently cleared every corner and door as if it were bristling with hostiles. The last room was exactly what he suspected might be on here: a small room with a singular data terminal. The terminal's screen was large enough for two to comfortably work at, but the lack of wear on the seats and console indicated that no one spent more time here than necessary.
He quickly flourished and holstered his weapon, considering the console briefly. Surprisingly, he had worked with very similar ones in the past. Looks like these pirates were just as cheap as the Imperial Navy. It turned out the exercise in futility that was working with outdated Imperial computer systems ended up being useful after all. The screen turned a deep red after he found the power button.
Deletion progress: 90%
He needed to act fast. These old systems had a way to override all processes with a few console commands and an administrator password. After quickly entering the commands from the muscle memory he gained from troubleshooting the systems, he scanned the room for any material that the operators could have scrawled the password on. No dice.
Deletion progress: 91%
There were some scribbles on the console that he did his best to parse into the console with no luck.
Almost out of options. He had one last idea, but there was no way it was going to work. Sucking in a breath, he entered the default password that came standard with these computer systems.
Override deletion? Y/N:
He shot the console a disappointed frown. Even as a field grade officer, a frightening number of problems could be solved with simple tech support processes. At least this time he wouldn't have to wait 2 weeks for a ticket to come back for a problem he could fix in 10 minutes.
He entered the Basic equivalent of "Y" and navigated back to the main console to pull together what data was still there. After navigating a few directories, he found a few commonalities among the assets that were not deleted.
Project Rahu
He was also able to uncover a small, barely readable diagram of the ship he had scanned weeks back in his cursory search. Finally, a lead. But there was one other keyword that came up quite often that he couldn't make sense of.
Scurrg
His brow furrowed deeply. Where had he heard that word before? After a fruitless jog through his memory, he sighed. Knowing when to get out before trouble arrived was a valuable tool he had used and honed at all stages of his career, and right now he had no reason to be here. Stopping the deletion was more than he thought he was going to be able to do anyway. The data retrieval team could do the rest.
After a quick flourish and readying of his weapon, he hustled back out to his interceptor and quickly got it ready for launch.
I guess I'm a hypocrite now, aren't I? he thought as his engines idled and the docking bay doors slid open.
"Wing Commanders, Bridge, return to base. Mission accomplished."
His interceptor separated from the station and headed back toward the hangar.