Well here we go, another chapter, this is probably my first attempt at writing a battle scene of any sort. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy Displaced: Chapter 3.
The muted sound of Klaxons bayed outside the bridge as Ezra watched as the Vagaari pelted the planet below, smaller transport shuttles repeatedly flying to and from, presumably carrying slaves and troops back and forth. The larger cruiser focused their fire on very specific points, most likely the planet's defences.
"An unfortunate situation, but it is nothing to do with us." Thrawn said, "Commodore Faro, bring us about, run engines to full power, order a hyperspace jump immediately."
"Wait, you're just going to leave them?" Ezra said in shock. "You've got a full Star Destroyer and you're just going to let these 'Vagaari' drag them off?"
"A badly damaged Star Destroyer, low on fuel and without any source of resupply or refueling." Thrawn corrected him. "If we were to intervene now the Vagaari would simply surround and destroy us."
"I've seen what Star Destroyers can do!" Ezra yelled, he was all to familiar with the power of the Empire's fleet, "This ship are way better than whatever junk the Vagaari are using!"
"Nevertheless, we are vastly outnumbered." Thrawn explained, "Think about this logically, Ezra. The Vagaari are slavers, and they are nomads, meaning they have no permanent base of operations. They abandoned their homeworld centuries ago. So where do you think they are keeping all of their captured slaves?"
Ezra grimaced as the realisation dawned on him. "Those ships are full of slaves..." He took a deep breath.
"Sir we have a problem," Faro said, cutting off Ezra's grim thoughts, "there's a gravity well preventing us from jumping."
"No doubt the Vagaari are utilising artificial gravity well generators, a tactic I have seen them use before." Thrawn explained as he turned to her. "They are most useful for capturing fleeing ships."
"Like our own Interdictors?" Faro asked.
"Far more primitive, but the same function yes." Thrawn replied.
"Sir, some of the ships are breaking off." Lieutenant Lomar said worryingly, "They're headed right for us."
"So the Vagaari have taken notice of our sudden arrival." Thrawn pondered, observing the Vagaari fleet. Lomar was right, multiple ships had broken off and were now headed right for the Imperials, Thrawn watched the fleet, taking note of their formation, picking out which ships were more important than others, which ships were a priority, which ships were more protected than others. Faro simply stood there, waiting for the Grand Admiral to say something, her patience growing thin, but her better judgement telling her that Thrawn knew what he was doing.
"There," Thrawn finally said, pointing to a smaller ship, floating in the shadow of a larger cruiser and surrounded by a cluster of what appeared to be corvettes. "That ship there is the Gravity Well Generator, the Vagaari are prioritising it's safety, and from that position it will be unable to fire on us, meaning it's primary task is to keep us here while the rest of the fleet fights us directly."
"Sir, our turbolasers will have to shoot their way through all it's screening ships. By the time that's done the other ships will have already surrounded us."
"We will not be using our turbolasers." Thrawn corrected her. "The Vagaari prefer to fight using their cruisers, they will be ill-equipped to deal with a mass fighter and bomber assault."
"You just said there were masses of slaves on board those ships!" Ezra yelled, voicing his objections, "you'll be killing hundreds of innocent people!"
"Unfortunate, but we are left with no other option." Thrawn told him, "Commodore, order all bombers to target the Gravity Well Generator, and launch all fighters as escort." Thrawn ordered to Faro, "Sir we still have the Defenders," Faro told the Admiral, "We could use them!"
"Correct, Commodore, order Fighter Captain Fel and his squadron to the Defenders."
The alert came in over the comm "All squadrons on alert!" The Chief flight officers voice boomed through the pilots quarters. "Defender squadron to launch with the first wave!" Hearing the call to battle Fighter Captain Soontir Fel rushed to the launch bay as he fastened his helmet on, hooking it into the rest of his flightsuit. Numerous other pilots rushed to their respective fighters and bombers fastening flight suits and helmets together and dropping down into the spherical cockpits. Dozens of pilots began the numerous pre-flight checks as Fel and his pilots dropped down into the TIE Defenders. It felt good to be flying a fighter of actual quality, and the death traps TIE Fighters could often be.
Soontir Fel was a recent addition to the Chimaera, having been chosen to act as TIE Fighter Captain following the demise of Vult Skerris. Nonetheless, his short career had already seen him score a number of key victories elsewhere, and now was his chance to prove his worth to the Seventh Fleet. While he hadn't had a chance to prove himself in combat since he joined the Chimaera, he did have a full month to acquaint himself with the squadron and whip them into shape.
"Defender Squadron, this is Captain Fel," he ordered over comms, "launch on my command and assume escort formation. Our objective is to escort our bombers through the battlezone to the ship the Grand Admiral has outlined. Use evasive manoeuvres for the enemy escort ships, we can't afford to waste munitions." The other pilots acknowledged and Fel watched as the TIEs designated to screen the Chimera launched first, then the TIE Interceptors following behind, and now the Bombers were lifting off just as Fel finished looking over the nav data of the battlefield as he received the go ahead from flight control. "Defender Squadron! Launch!"
Thrawn, Faro and Ezra observed from the bridge as swarms and swarms of TIE Fighters, Bombers, Interceptors and Defenders poured forth from the underside of the Chimera. Fel and his fighters took charge, acting as a spearhead. The Interceptors lined up behind them and the TIE Fighters behind them in a v-shape, the bombers formed up into a wedge, surrounded by the fighters. The TIEs closed in on the Vagaari, and when the point defence cannons opened fire, they scrambled. The Vagaari cannons struggled to hit their swift, agile opponents.
"Defenders Three and Four! Take out those point defence cannons! Bombers! Move forward to the primary target!" Fel ordered as his Defender weaved it's way through the maze of fire, gliding elegantly through the criss-cross of Vagaari weapons. For a capable pilot such as himself, this was almost insultingly easy for Fel, who had adjusted to the state of the art TIE Defender perfectly.
"As expected, the Vagaari were prepared for a direct battle with the Chimaera, the fighter assault has caught them off guard." Thrawn commented, "Forward Ion cannon batteries! Focus fire on the ship at point twenty mark ten! Its moving into position to attempt to intercept our fighters and I want it disabled."
"Copy Admiral!" Weapons officer Pyrondy directed the orders to her console. Several of the Vagaari warships were taking heavy fire now as the assault force moved deep into the enemy formations to strike the Vagaari Interdictor. Fel's defenders launched a barrage of missiles into one of the warships moving to protect it and their Ion torpedos along with fire from the Chimaera made short work of it. Thrawn observed the status boards and watched as some of the Defenders moved across the display to clear a path for the bombers and returned to formation.
"Order Defender Squadron to focus on hitting the enemy ships only in their way. Forward turbolasers deliver more supporting fire ahead of them but be sure not to interfere with the strike force squadrons, we are simply drawing their attention toward us and clearing a path."
The Vagaari were losing, and they knew it, and it was at this point they deployed their last, most desperate, most horrific defence.
"Wh...what the?" Ezra said in confusion.
It was at this moment something unexpected happened, unexpected to all but Thrawn of course. The Vagaari ships opened their hulls, numerous hatches giving way to... transparent bubbles of transparisteel?
"Sir, what is that?" Faro asked, "Some kind of observation deck?"
"No..." Thrawn answered grimly, "I have seen this tactic before, and I was worried they would use it here, the Vagaari have no regard for the safety of their slaves. They see them as little more than cattle."
"Squadron Command! This is Fel! We have a problem!" Fel said, his voice being received by the Chimeras fighter control officer, "Those bubbles on the Gravity Well ship, they're filled with... people, all sorts of different species, they look scared... they look like their screaming..."
"They're using their slaves as shields..." Faro muttered, her face contorting into an expression of shock and disgust at the realisation.
Fel's stomach turned, up close he could see inside the bubbles, the frightened slaves screaming and banging on the surface. All sorts of appendages hit the glass as they silently begged the Imperials not to open fire.
"Requesting orders from the Grand Admiral... what do we do?" Fel asked.
Thrawn sighed, he'd encountered the Vagaari before, he knew he was going to have to do this sooner or later,
"Inform Defender Squadron, You have your orders, Captain Fel."
"I... yes Sir." Fel said in defeated resignation.
"You're just going to open fire!?" Ezra yelled, "You'll be killing hundreds of innocents! It'll be a massacre!"
"We have no other choice, Bridger. We either attack the ships or we die here." Thrawn asserted his position in a stern voice. "If we do not destroy those ships, the slaves will die regardless after a lifetime of suffering under their Vagaari overlords, and we will either be dead or enslaved too." His tone quieted, expressing genuine remorse. "This way, we can at least alleviate their suffering and escape ourselves."
"I... I..." Ezra stuttered, he genuinely didn't know what to do, he couldn't do anything. He simply froze as the powerlessness of his situation hit him like a Wampa's claw.
Thrawn and Faro barely paid any heed as he did the only thing he could do: he simply turned away, he knew what was about to happen, unable to watch the incoming slaughter.
"All bombers! Drop payload on my mark!" Fel ordered his squadron.
Thrawn and Faro simply stood there, stone-faced, as they watched the Vagaari Gravity Well Generator explode, slaves and Vagaari alike engulfed in flames as the whole ship was torn apart by the bombers.
"Captain Fel, return to the Chimaera" Thrawn ordered, once again seemingly displaying no reaction to the massacre. "Flank speed, bring us about one eighty degrees and begin making jump calculations, once our fighters are on board prepare to rendezvous with the fleet."
Ezra simply stood there, angry at the Imperials for killing innocents, angry at these Vagaari for being so heartless, and angry at himself for not being able to do something about it.
But what would he have done? Was there even anything he could've done?
"If it's any consolation, Bridger, by destroying the Vagaari here, we have spared others the same fate." Thrawn said, darkly.
"You still killed all of those people." Ezra sneered, "Jedi don't do that, Jedi don't trade in lives, ever. I would've rather just let those 'Vagaari' kill me."
"Such is the weakness of the Jedi, self-sacrificial to a fault." Thrawn commented, "Self sacrifice can be noble if the reward is worth the sacrifice, but dying here would have accomplished nothing. The Vagaari would have simply killed or enslaved you, and then continued on unopposed, enslaving more and subjecting them to the same fate. Perhaps if the Jedi had've been more practical, they would still be alive." Ezra didn't respond, his back was still turned to the Admiral.
"You have learned a valuable lesson today Ezra, one all warriors must learn sooner or later."
"Jedi aren't warriors." Ezra growled.
"Sir, the Vagaari warships are in complete disarray..." Faro said, observing as the entire fleet scatter and start moving away from the planet.
"Sir!, Sensor contact! It's the bioships again!" Hammerly reported as that monstrous force dropped in right on top of the smouldering Vagaari fleet.
"Interesting, the Far Outsiders are still on our tail..." Thrawn commented. It didn't take long for them to retrieve all of the fighters and jump into hyperspace once again.
"The Far Outsiders are going to destroy that planet now, aren't they?" Ezra asked grimly, a low growl expressing his frustration. There was nothing he could do, and his powerless state got under his skin.
"They will no doubt annihilate the population and move on, yes." Thrawn said, his tone sounded sympathetic, but Ezra couldn't tell if it was genuine or mocking. "Still, if we are able to survive this, many other planets may avoid the same fate."
Ezra simply sighed, too tired to argue, Thrawn didn't understand, he could never understand. He'd had to make tough decisions before, the situation in the World Between Worlds came to mind, where he'd had to watch Kanan die, again.
This wasn't a tough decision, it was simply murder, there's no way he could've lived with himself after doing such a thing.
Ezra simply sighed, sat down, and stared into the bright blue vortex of hyperspace as he began to really wonder what was chasing them, what could be so powerful that eight Star Destroyers couldn't handle it?
"Your Eminence, the unknown warship is moving back to the edge and looks to be leaving the system."
The Vagaari Miskara mulled over the events that had just happened, staring blankly into space where the strange grey ship had just been. What was supposed to be a routine slave-raid had turned into an unexpected encounter with a mysterious new ship. The vessel they had just encountered was massive, bigger than anything the Vagaari possessed. It was large and triangular, with a massive bridge towering above the rest of the ship, and an engraving of a strange two-headed creature on the bottom. The entire surface was littered with weaponry, and the ship carried a sizeable complement of fighters and bombers.
The Miskara, like the rest of the Vagaari, was a short, stout creature. With stubby legs, large feet with four toes, large hands, and pair of twin mouths, one stacked on top of the other, on his pale, flat face. He wore elaborate silk robes, befitting someone of his rank, and like all of his kind, a large mask, far too big for his face, was attached to the back of his robes to make up for his lack of height.
"Your Eminence... we have detected more ships entering the system..."
"More of the strange warships?"
"No, Miskara…" The Vagaari uttered with dread, "Bioships..."
The Miskara grimaced with fear. Oh no, he thought, there was only species that utilised those...
His train of thought was cut-off, as the empty space where the unidentified vessel once was was became filled with a fleet of a dozen bioships. Large, grey warships that took the appearance of large shells. They were almost 2km in length, with black stripes rolling across the top. But the Miskara's attention was focused on the flagship. It was a flagship he recognised instantly. He had never seen it, but he had heard the stories from others in this region and their own history...
It was big, easily at least twice the size of the other ships, and took the appearance of a massive squid, with chitin and coral covered appendages curled together at the front, smaller tendrils hung off the side moving back and forth gently in the vacuum of space.
"My lord... they're hailing us..." one of the Vagaari told him grimly with a gulp.
"Patch it through, he will no doubt want to speak to the Miskara personally."
The Vagaari pressed some buttons, tuning the signal, and all of a sudden a voice echoed through the Miskara's throne room.
"Great Miskara of the Vagaari, I bring thee greetings." The voice hailed in Minnisiat, one of the many trade languages used in these regions of space. It was deep, distorted by a subtle gurgling noise, interspersed with the occasional click. It spoke slowly, softly, like a scalpel cutting through the air, and it carried an elegance and grace especially rare among his kind. He hung on every word, as if he was carefully considering what he said, and his tone carried a mocking, irreverent element to it.
There were many names for the creature now staring down the Vagaari fleet, the Miskara's own subordinates often whispered of the dread force known as the Hollow Lord, but this was a mere corruption of his true title.
"Spare the introductions" The Miskara said with trepidation, "I already know who you are, your reputation precedes you... Voidlord."
The voice gave a small chuckle at the utterance of the name. "Your Eminence..." It said mockingly, "I am honoured that my reputation is so great that even a creature as utterly pathetic as you has heard of me..." he uttered as his mocking tone melted away into a clear and undisguised loathing.
"You will not speak to the Miskara of the Vagaari that way!" He said angrily, desperately trying to regain control over the situation in a futile attempt to re-assert his authority.
"Oh, don't fool yourself, Your Eminence, you have no power over me," the Voidlord said, "under normal circumstances I would kill you, slowly, for saying that. But fortunately, these aren't normal circumstances. You and your people get to live... for now." It said in a menacing tone. "I require your assistance, Your Eminence."
"And why should we help you? What do we get out of it? What is in it for us?" The Miskara asked.
The voice chuckled again, a sickening chuckle with a sputtering and gurgling undertone, "It's simple, Your Eminence. If you help me... I will let you live." A shiver ran down the Miskara's spine as the Voidlord uttered his threats.
"I know your people, you are nomads, and judging from the size of this fleet, this would appear to be all there is, or at least most of it. And I am also aware of your cowardly tactics. I can assure you, hiding behind your slaves will not save you, should you cross me I will kill both you and your slaves in an equally horrific manner."
The Miskara sighed, defeated, the Voidlord never made promises he couldn't keep. "What do you want from us?"
"That ship you just encountered," the Voidlord said, "do you know of it?"
"No, I am afraid my people have never encountered such a warship."
"A fascinating vessel, isn't it? I'm afraid I am not aware of it's origins myself." The Voidlord said with a gleeful curiosity, "they've been evading my fleet for a while now, the ship you just encountered, and the rest of them too. I have been following them.. Steadily poking and prodding... and studying them... extensively."
"The rest?" the Miskara asked, "There's more?"
"Oh yes, there are seven more, eight in total I believe." The Voidlord explained, "and that is where I need your assistance. Your people are positively useless in a battle, but you are very, very good at tracking and surveying, and finding ships and planets to pilfer. What your people lack in height you more than make up for in cowardice and ingenuity."
"Get to the point, pirate." The Miskara said, angry at his insults. The Vagaari were conquerors, warriors, how dare he call them useless in a battle.
"I want you to track those ships, tell me where they are headed, find out more about them. Tell me everything you can about them. Who built them? Where did they come from? Just how powerful are they? I want to see their hull in pieces and for that I would have your assistance."
"I've had enough of this, open fire on the Voidlord's flagship!" The Miskara ordered. His ship began to move into attack position, cannons targeting the Voidlord's flagship. "Big mistake, Your Eminence"The Voidlord said in a menacing tone spitting the last word.
As he said that, the appendages on the front of his flagship opened up, and the Miskara's ship was suddenly dragged towards the Voidlord's ship by a great gravitational pull, it's shields were ripped apart, and any and all weapon emplacements were violently torn from the ship's hull. The Miskara simply stood there, paralysed with fear, as the ship opened fire, and great chunks of superheated magma began to hit the transparisteel bubbles with the precision of a scalpel.
"What are you doing!?" The Miskara asked,
"Killing your living shields, of course, to show that your cowardly tactics won't work on me." The Voidlord said,
"Alright! Fine! We'll help you!" The Miskara said and after another minute the bombardment stopped.
"Very good, Your Eminence! I knew you would see reason!" The Voidlord said giving a menacing laugh.
"Oh, and just to make sure we don't have any problems..." The Voidlord said in a condescending and straightforward manner, "I shall be taking your treasure ships."
"What!? No!" The Miskara yelled, as he saw the large shell-shaped bioships move towards his treasure fleet and their years of riches, "That wasn't part of the deal!"
"Calm yourself, Miskara" The Voidlord said in a soothing tone, "you will have your riches back... when I get what I want. I know the Vagaari, and I know that if they want to find something in this region of space, they will find it." He uttered smugly. "And with your precious treasure in my pockets, you will want to find these ships. Now get to work... and leave this planet, it's mine now..." He said with a sadistic glee.
"What!? Now!? But we were raiding for slaves!" The Miskara said. "We found this planet! It belongs to the Vagaari! They are ours to take!"
"Oh? You disappoint me, Your Eminence, I was sure you were more understanding than that.." The Voidlord sighed, "Oh well... I guess I'll just have some fun with your treasure fleet instead, and set it ablaze... "
"No, no... we're going..." The Miskara sighed in defeat. He turned to one of his attendants, "Order the fleet to withdraw, tell them to split up, examine every possible hyperspace vector that ship could've taken."
The Vagaari broke off their attack and scattered, the last sight they saw was the Voidlord's fleet turning towards the planet, as the appendages at the front unfurled like a great claw.
The denizens of the planet below cheered when the Vagaari left, but there relief soon turned to horror, as a living nightmare descended on them. With the Vagaari searching for the Imperials, the Voidlord was free to turn his attention fully to this unlucky world.
It didn't take long for the planet to burn...
I had a lot of fun with this chapter, even if Ezra didn't. Mostly because this is where the binary morality of Rebels really starts to collapse. The Vagaari are of course a species from Outbound Flight, and the slave-shields were also a tactic employed by them in that book, a nasty bunch, the Vagaari.
While it wasn't much, this was also my first attempt at writing a battle scene of any sort, so please do give feedback, the whole purpose of writing this story was basically as an exercise to improve my skills as a writer after all.
I also hope you enjoyed the return of Soontir Fel, he was definitely one of the more interesting characters in Legends. Basically, he was an Imperial who was genuinely kind of a good guy, and he even defected to the New Republic for a while before joining Thrawn's Empire of the Hand, he was essentially the Empire's answer to Wedge, and probably one of the best pilots in the galaxy, in fact he was married to Wedge's sister, and their son Jagged was a prominent character in his own right (you know, marrying Han and Leia's daughter and all that, and founding the Fel Empire that was around during the Legacy era). I wanted to bring him back because he reinforces the whole morally gray tone that I wanted Ascendancy to have, an Imperial who's actually kind of a good guy, that's interesting and adds a sense of depth I feel. Basically when I found out about Fel, I knew I wanted to include him because he was exactly the type of character I was looking for. He'll probably be a fairly minor character but here he is anyway.
And the Voidlord, oh man, I don't want to say too much right now, but I have been waiting to introduce this character. I have a few concepts for new characters I want to add in, and the Voidlord is the first. I don't want to give away details, as that would ruin the mystique, but I will say the following:
I liked Rebels, I really did, but the show had a lot of problems, and one of them was that the Ghost Crew felt a lot like the "B-Team" to the OT's "A-Team", and I think that was unavoidable, because the alternative is taking the spotlight away from the OT crew and that would've been even worse. But I felt Ezra was kind of doomed from the beginning to play second fiddle to Luke, and I began asking myself, how do I really fix this? How do I take Ezra out from under Luke's shadow and make him stand out in his own right?
While all this was happening, another issue plagued me. Disney Star Wars has a chronic lack of good villains, the villains of Disney era Star Wars... aren't very good, they're either saturday morning cartoon villains who run off yelling "I'll get you next time!" (like most of the imperials in Rebels) or they are complete and utter inept morons incapable of getting anything (this is partially why I hate the Sequel Trilogy so much, the First Order are absolutely dreadful villains, they can't get anything done and they command no authority. Hux is an idiot, Kylo is an idiot, Phasma gets beaten by a janitor and Snoke got killed in a hilariously anti-climatic scene). The only good villains of the Disney SW era so far have been pre-existing villains, Vader, Palpatine, Tarkin, Thrawn, Darth Maul and so-on (I found Krennic entertaining, but he was not threatening), it's been far too long since we got a villain who actually posed a serious threat.
The Voidlord was my answer to both of these problems.
In order to make Ezra stand out as a character, I decided he needed to go up against a truly terrifying opponent, somebody easily on the level of Darth Vader or General Grievous (and I mean 2003 CW Grievous, not the nerfed version in TCW), an opponent who could actually seriously test Ezra and push him to his limits, and with the first problem solved the second problem just sort of solves itself, in the process I found I had that really terrifyingly threatening villain I so wanted.
You'll find out a lot more about the dreaded Voidlord later on, I put a lot of effort into creating this character and I hope you all enjoy him later down the road. He's definitely one of my favorite creations.
And yes, his flagship was inspired by the Reapers from Mass Effect, because I love me some space death squids.
Next chapter might take a bit longer than usual, I don't know, I'm at a bit of a crossroads as to where I want to take the story right now, and I don't want to rush it, each of these chapters goes through quite a lot of work and rewrites, and I'd rather it be good than fast.
Until then, thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.