Halfway to Martyrdom
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hammerly's heart sank as Grysk ships emerged from hyperspace. The enemy consisted of three ships: one large and two smaller. The larger ship was comparable to the one the Chimaera had found nearly a month ago on their derailed mynock chase. The smaller ships reminded Hammerly of Imperial heavy cruisers. Though well-armed, the three ships together would have struggled to defend themselves against a fully operational Star Destroyer.
Alas, the Chimaera was nowhere close to being fully operational. Without their normal levels of firepower, their victory… no, their very survival depended on Thrawn's tricks. It was their enduring fortune that he always had a few left up his sleeve, even in their most desperate of times.
Hammerly glanced in Thrawn's direction. As the only one capable of commanding in both human and Paccosh languages, Thrawn had taken over the comm station and left Hammerly in what now passed for their command chair on the alien frigate. It was her first time occupying such a position in battle.
A Paccian guard patrol flew towards the Grysk ships. The patrol consisted of eight fighter ships. More than had approached the Chimaera a few days ago, but not enough to look like a threat. If the Grysk were serious about attacking the Paccosh, she estimated they could eliminate the patrol ships in minutes. No, the patrol was only there to communicate with the enemy. Communicate… and stall for time.
In coordination with Uingali's men and (the tacit permission of) the Paccian Governance, the bulk of their forces remained hidden in reserve for the initial encounter. The Rapacc system was full of hiding places, especially among the asteroid field and in the shadow of moons. As Thrawn had predicted, the Grysk had emerged close to a particularly thick cluster of the space rocks, just as the Chimaera initially had. That area was one of the few places permitting easy entry into the box system. The mix of asteroids and ship debris made the maneuvering large crafts difficult. They wouldn't scape as easily as they had entered.
The patrol stopped just outside of easy firing range from the Grysk ships. When they hailed the new arrivals, Thrawn joined their comm frequency on mute. While he intended to translate the exchange for his crew's benefit, Thrawn would only reveal himself to the Grysk if no other option remained viable.
The conversation began simply enough. By now, Hammerly could pick out a few Taarja words before Thrawn translated them. "'Greetings, representatives of the Grysk Hegemony. This is the Paccian Defense Fleet speaking. Identify your purpose for entering our sovereign space.'"
A crooning, eerily melodious voice answered from the Grysk's main ship. "'We received word of an enemy hiding out in your system. As you know, the terms of our peace treaty dictate we may investigate your system for signs the Paccosh have forsaken their promises of neutrality.'"
What sort of peace treaty let the enemy trample through the Paccian system at will? Hammerly shook her head. She was no diplomat, but she remembered the treaty that ended the Clone Wars. Separatist worlds had lost rights to their own defensive forces, their planetary resources, and even their citizens' freedoms. They hadn't just been beaten. They'd been humiliated.
If signing an unequal treaty and faking a civil war had looked like a viable alternative to these people, she could only wonder how the wider Grysk conflict had been progressing. Were the Paccosh convinced the Chiss would lose? Was that why they had abandoned their alliance? Why, then, did Uingali want to return to the fold? A fair weather ally was hardly an ally at all.
The Paccosh patrol craft's answer was a lengthy one. As they spoke, some of the smaller asteroids floated closer to the aft side of the Grysk ships. Thrawn waited for the Paccosh to finish before offering his summarized translation. "'How odd. The reputation of Grysk intelligence is one of near-omniscience, yet it seems even you can fall prey to a misunderstanding. The Paccian Governance honors our word. We have offered neither comfort nor aid to your enemies. All we have done is offered a stranded ship from Lesser Space the tools they need to leave our system safely. Tell us, great warrior: since when does the Grysk Hegemony trouble itself with affairs beyond the Chaos?'"
As Thrawn finished, the Grysk was halfway through their response. The captain of the main ship seemed to be an impatient fellow; the pace of their speech had accelerated, and even Hammerly could hear the frustration creeping in. "'The affairs of the Grysk are of no concern to your puny people. If you must know, a Lesser Space fleet commanded by a hated blueskin invaded our territory and destroyed our property not one month ago. And what did our sources hear? Your stranded ship has a blueskin in its crew. You know as well as we do that this blueskin must be one and the same: Mitth'raw'nuruodo.'"
A chill ran down Hammerly's spine as the Grysk spoke Thrawn's full name. She watched Thrawn for a reaction. He had none. All he did was convert the (unruffled) Paccosh's response into Basic. "'Once again, great warrior of the Grysk, I fear you are mistaken. It is true the Lesser Space crew employ a Chiss as their translator, but he is not their commander. His name is not Mitth'raw'nuruodo, but Vuando. Trust that we would recognize such a striking warrior if he deigned to visit us again.
"'Had you informed us of your troubles with Lesser Space forces, we could have asked the stranded fellows about the incident of which you speak. As it stands, they appear to know nothing about it, let alone anything about your great hegemony. We apologize you made such a difficult journey for naught, but the Paccian Governance is prepared to offer you fuel for your exit journey from our system.'"
The message was clear: we have no interest in hosting the Grysk. Leave us in peace. Hammerly wasn't stupid enough to believe the Grysk would accept the offer, but it would save everyone a lot of headache if they did.
As Hammerly expected, the Grysk answer could be best characterized as spitting with fury . All the previous musicality in their voice was gone. "'If your birdbrained people are stupid enough to believe such lies, then clearly you aren't smart enough to defend your own system. Mitth'raw'nurodo is the only blueskin to walk among Lesser Space people. His ship bears the crest of one of your own families. Am I to believe you didn't question a Lesser Space ship bearing the image of the Marocsaa subclan on its hull?!'"
Just then, one of the smaller ships broke formation. Hammerly watched with dread as the ship flew closer to the repair station on which the Chimaera had been stationed. A Paccosh patrol ship broke off as well to follow it. A secondary comm channel likely opened between the breakaways, but Thrawn didn't have the frequency for it.
He probably didn't need it, either. They could all guess what the ship wanted to investigate.
As soon as Thrawn had gotten word the Grysk might be coming, he had instructed the Paccosh to redirect their repairs of his ship. Instead of fixing the most critical internal systems, they had rapidly patched over the broken pieces of the hull with a temporary paste. While the paste would have to be replaced with doonium or a comparable material before the ship could withstand extended trips in hyperspace, the paste made it safe to work in all parts of the ship while it remained stationary in space. Said paste had the added benefit of obscuring the custom hull painting from view.
The Paccian leader demanded an explanation from the main Grysk ship. As they waited for the response to be translated out of Taarja, Hammerly watched the asteroids spinning around them. They were on all sides of the Grysk now, some even close enough to bump into the hull.
She wondered if Grysk sensors made any acknowledgement of them. Imperial systems were designed to distinguish between space junk and enemy ships by scanning for electronic signatures or life forms. Normal steroids would only appear on the navigation sensors to aid the helmsman in avoiding a collision.
When the Grysk answer finally came, it made Hammerly's shoulders tense up. "'If your birdbrained people think we are foolish enough to fall for your lies, then we will teach you the consequences of violating a treaty with the Hegemony. My vassal is on its way to search the Lesser Space ship for signs of its violence against our people. If we find evidence that this ship belongs to Mitth'raw'nuruodo and his vile human lackeys, we will exact vengeance on the Paccosh. We will invade your planet and turn over every last straw of your nests until we find where you harbor our foe. As your people lay dying around you, you will realize your stupidity in trying to fool us."
Just as Thrawn finished translating the threat, a secondary comm frequency hailed their crew. Ensign Vridina answered it with shaky fingers. Through the speakers came Uingali's distinct bray uttering a single Basic word. "Clear."
There were no other Grysk ships hidden in the system. Good. Hammerly exhaled, but it was no sigh of relief. She knew the Grysk could be hiding reinforcements in a nearby system. She didn't believe the Grysk would be making such cruel threats without the forces to implement them. All it would take was one hail of the comm to bring a full fleet into Paccian space. If they were to attack the Grysk ships, they would have to strike true and flee fast.
The Paccian patrol craft continued its efforts to reassure the Grysk, but Thrawn no longer translated their words. He listened carefully to the Grysk response to determine if it was worthy of sharing with the rest of the crew. Meanwhile, everyone watched with bated breath as the cruiser flew closer to the Chimaera. Their broken home. First Bridger had tried to destroy it, and now the Grysk sought to do the same. Even after removing all the supplies, weapons, and smaller vessels they could, the Imperials had still left so much inside.
It hurt to watch enemies fly over its carcass. Like a buzzard eying roadkill, the Grysk cruiser searched the vessel for any meat to gnaw on. Finding nothing of note from a scan, the cruiser moved to land on the repair station next to the ship.
Hammerly didn't wait for the ship to land. She used her scope to verify all enemy ships were in range, then issued her command. "Now."
Thorpe slammed the button. A chorus of gasps took over the bridge as the entire repair station exploded, taking both the Grysk cruiser and the Chimaera's husk with it. Synchronized with the repair station's bombs were the explosives attached to the Paccosh's remote sensor arrays on the asteroids. The asteroids now close enough to the Grysk ships to breach their hull from all sides. Hammerly watched in silence as tiny shaking specks vented out into space. Grysk soldiers, perhaps?
Thrawn issued the next command. "Fighters, attack. Ensure no survivors."
Both Paccian fighter patrols and TIE fighters sprung into action. The Paccosh ships had the capacity to drop additional magnetized bombs onto the two Grysk ships while the TIE fighters focused blaster fire on the ships' weapons and communications triad. It wasn't enough to render the ship defenseless if they left them time to call for help.
Hammerly eyed the scene with clinical detachment as their combined forces tore the enemies to ribbons. The whole thing was over in seconds.
A surprise massacre was brutal by Thrawn's standards, but the Grysk had made it clear they would have done the same thing had their positions been reversed. And not just to them, but to an alien race whose only crime had been to grant aid to the stranded. Thrawn had said the idea to plant bombs in asteroids and repair stations was an old Grysk trick anyway. This was but a taste of their own medicine.
After the second bombing and laser run over the Grysk ships, Thrawn ordered them to pull back. His reasons weren't clear until the ships themselves self-destructed, leaving nothing but dust in their wake. How nice of the Grysk to do part of their job for them.
With nothing to look at where the Grysk ships had been, Hammerly turned her attention back to the destroyed repair station. She inhaled sharply, trying to stop her tears as her eyes made out the charred outline of where the Chimaera had been. Any fire that may have started was snuffed out by a lack of oxygen to sustain it. Nothing was left but doonium scrap.
Muffled sobs from nearby stations told Hammerly she wasn't alone in mourning. No one had been aboard when the Chimaera exploded, but she knew the repair techs had wept when they installed the bombs. Wept, but gone along with it as agreed.
Thrawn had been right. The Imperial design of their ship was too distinctive in the Unknown Regions. Combine that with the hull design and his Chiss presence, and every enemy would instantly know who they were. When the Chimaera had been battle-ready, that was a good thing. Their fearsome reputation struck fear into the hearts of their opponents. But with their ship too broken to maintain its reputation, their infamy became a liability. A liability their crew could no longer afford now that the Grysk knew of their presence in the Unknown Regions.
The Paccian patrol craft spoke into their comm channel one final time. "'You need to leave. Once you exit our system, we will fortify our defenses at all entrances to the box system. The Paccosh were once self-sufficient for millenia. We will survive temporary disruption in trade.
"'If the Grysk or their vassals contact us, we will tell them their envoy accidentally caught some rebel traps in the asteroid field. We wished to return their bodies to them, but their ships exploded on their own. We do not know what fate awaits us beyond that. You must tell the Chiss Ascendancy and the Lesser Space Empire what we have sacrificed for you, Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo. We expect to be repaid with our own survival.'"
Thrawn acknowledged their terms, then cut the comm channel. He took Hammerly's seat in the command chair while she stepped aside to her own station. In the frigate's hangar, Uingali's men and their TIEs docked. Every Imperial had come aboard the frigate except the most grievously injured and a few of their caretakers. Those few dozen humans remained on Rapacc as refugees with the means to contact the other Imperials whenever necessary.
Once they were sure everyone had docked, Uingali himself stepped onto the bridge. His yellow plumage complimented his battle armor nicely; it was clear even to Hammerly that Uingali was the commanding officer of the three hundred Paccosh making their journey with them.
"Where should I set our course, sir?" The helmsman asked, struggling to operate the alien navicomputer. Uingali took a seat beside him to assist with the controls.
Thrawn turned to the helmsman. Perhaps he too mourned his flagship's passing, but no one would know it from his stony expression. "With many navigators working for the Grysk, we will need the help of a navigator we know we can trust. I can only think of one individual capable of the feats we require. Most importantly, this person owes the survival of her people and planet to Uingali and I."
He nodded towards the Paccian commander. "Set our course for the planet my people call Sunrise. We could use some light on this gloomy day."
A/N's: Well, you got it. The battle I've been building up to. The end of arc 2. This part of the story goes out with a bang.
I had no beta for this. I was too excited to post. We'll see in the morning if that was a mistake or not. The friends I told about this plan for the battle cried when I said I was blowing up the Chimaera. Trust that I shed a few tears myself. That said, you're free to yell at me (up to a point) in the review section if you need to express your emotions. I know she's one of y'all's favorite ships ;-).
The battle itself is over extremely quickly, and it was inspired by the fake asteroids containing missiles that the Grysk use in GG and LE. I went back and read the scene where Roscu narrowly avoids dying from one such missile in LE as preparation for this scene. While Thrawn doesn't replicate it exactly, I'm confident he would have heard about the trick sometime before his exile from the Ascendancy. It's a useful way to take out enemies without revealing one's position.
Next chapter will be either Faro or Ezra. Probably Faro. Her last chapter ended on a cliffhanger, and all of these recent chapters take place in a rather narrow time window. I've been trying to have the story progress in purely chronological order (because other time orders mess with my brain), but it's hard to maintain that across numerous POVs and with different cycle lengths on Rapacc. I'll probably update a lighter fic in the meantime, though...
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you think down below.