Chapter 6

Kellux

Located on the edge of the Kellux System like a barrier, the Haradous Asteroid Belt had the wreckage of an unfortunate Trade Federation Super Freighter floating amongst the rocks. The Liberated Moon hovered beside the wreckage, several long mechanical arms reached back and forth, tools drilling into the asteroids and checking for mineral compositions. It was a large Dorlatrian mining freighter, about the same size as a Mon Calamari luxury cruiser. Smaller ships, a Talithi scrap hauler and a bulky, ugly G-58 toxic waste transport, were busy scuttling the remains of Super Freighter, finding metals, fuel and other chemicals they could resell on the Black Market.

Tarrok stared out the viewport of the bridge, studying the Liberated Moon's bulk. Currently, the mining freighter was stealthed, their signature masked by static generators that would scramble any cursory scans from passing vessels. His own ship, the modified YX-950 industrial freighter Locanas, had been completely retrofitted to become an elite surveillance vessel. Their upgraded scans could easily locate the ship hidden amongst the field, despite the constant static that flooded most wavelengths.

Built by the Correllian Engineering Corporation, the YX-950 was the largest industrial freighter of the YX-series. Unlike it's cousins, it was shaped like a thin box, with the hold in the centre of the frame. Tarrok had been retrofitted the Locanas for his personal needs and those of the Nomad's needs. The cargo hold had been gutted, turned into a small, centralised hanger. Fabrication bays lined the rear of the ship, as well as the engines and the ship's exceptionally reliable reactor. The YX-950 was manoeuvred by six large engines and had two large turbolaser turrets forward of the hanger bay, as well as a spattering on smaller, personnel-manned light turrets long the hull and the sides of the ship. The bridge was a pod-shaped cylinder secured to the end of an angular spine extending in front of the hanger's open entrance.

Tarrok paced the small space of the bridge. The Liberated Moon's sensors may have not spotted them yet, but he was on a schedule. The Locanas' hull had been modified with a spattering of minor stealth systems that blurred the distinctive silhouette. Anyone who saw the Locanas would see was an indistinct blob, and began to question their health. It wasn't as good as a cloaking system, but those were still decades away from covering a ship this size.

Until his crew, mostly the older Weequay at the console controlling the stealth systems, dropped the scatter shield, their enemy would be in the dark. His fighters, however, were not shielded. The instant they left the hanger, they would blink onto the Moon's sensors faster than a frightwart snapped up a seani gnat. Which meant the timing here needed to be perfect.

Rix grunted loudly as he twitched the piloting levers, "These currents are really rough."

"Currents?", Tarrok asked, confused. "What do you mean, currents?"

Rix spared a moment of concentration to point towards Kellux, the large and rocky dead world that orbited the single yellow sun. "The gravitational and magnetic tides from that. The closer that we get to the planet, the stronger they get. Piloting is a lot harder this close. If we cut the engines, it might get… easier."

"We cannot drift through an asteroid field.", Nimra retorted, "We would join that bulkfreighter's skeleton. I'm getting the fighters out there."

"Don't!", Tarrok stood up from his seat, "We only have three fighters, and I left Rel back at Shili to keep surveying."

He turned and stared at the holographic map across from him. It was currently displaying the Dorlatrian's framework, including an interior diagram he had found on the holonet. The ship had two airlocks, one on either side of the main cargo hold. Honestly, Tarok wouldn't be completely against boarding the ship solo. Unfortunately, he couldn't survive in the vacuum of space for that long to get there, and the Locanas didn't have any oxygen tanks or spacesuits aboard.

He turned to stare at Rix. "Pull us in beside the large asteroid over there. We launch the ships once we pass it."

"Making it look like they dropped from hyperspace.", Nimra nodded. "Good thinking boss. I'll tell the pilots.

The ship banked to the left, the engines groaning in protest as they pushed and pulled against the tidal flow. Tarrok watched the asteroids bounce between themselves, crunching and crashing against the pieces of Trade Federation Bulk Freighter's wreckage. One such rock bounced against their shields, and a shudder ran through the metal.

He growled out a curse, something he had learned from one of his old acolytes. They wouldn't survive at this rate. Turning to Nimra, he nodded an order. The pilots would need to launch early. Nimra pulled the intercom from its hook and spoke softly into it. Tarrok knew that the sound was being amplified to the rest of the crew behind them in the bulk of the ship. Rix tried his best to keep the ship steady while Tarrok reached forward and flicked open the switch that would raise the hanger doors.

The two TKR-77 heavy starfighters flew from the hanger, spinning in tight loops as they used the asteroids for cover. The pilots, two Tognath eggmates trained by some of the best dogfighters in the galaxy, kept their hands tightly on the yokes. With a practised ease, they dodged each of the hovering rocks before them, turning to swing towards the three large ships.

The reaction was instantaneous. Without the addition of stealth technology, the starfighters appeared on the enemy's sensors as soon as they exited the hanger. The Liberated Moon's retrieval arms retracted. It's engines, which had been idling comfortably, roared to life as the captain ordered the ship to turn towards the smaller starfighters. Heavy turbocannons protruded from its bulkhead, spinning to track the heavy starfighters, and red lasers streaked out towards their targets.

To those on board the Dorlatrian, it would appear that the starfighters had dropped in from hyperspace and began their attack. No one questioned how the pilots had managed a perfect hyperspace jump into the asteroid field. They never realised that the starfighters were a simple distraction. They were being stalked by a bigger prey. The heavy starfighters activated their cannons, firing at the enemy's gun emplacements. Unfortunately, the shots were absorbed by the energy shields. But they followed protocol, continuing the useless barrages of fire for another two runs, before the suddenly circled back towards the rear of the ship. Reaching the engines, they dove through the shield.

With a flick of a switch, the pilots activated their ion torpedos and pressed the firing trigger. The torpedos rocketed away and hit the centremost engine's outer shell. The electrical pulses ran through the circuits, the eleven engines flickered, their red light dimming. The Dorlatrian began to drift aimlessly. Even the cannons lowered and shut down. Tarrok felt a sickening glee as he grinned and ordered the Locanas forward.

Unsurprisingly, that wasn't the end of it. The old Talithi scrap hauler turned towards the YX-950, it's own defences firing round after round of weak lasers. The twin emplacements on the Locanas' hull responded quickly. His gunners had trained with the emplacements for years, and it took them all of six minutes to methodically target and destroy the scrap hauler's weapons. Now defenceless, it turned to flee. Tarrok watched as it and the ugly G-58 transport ship jumped to hyperspace.

Now uncontended, the assassin's brought the Locanas beside the Dorlatrian and docked on one of the Liberated Moon's airlocks. As the oxygen seal clicked into place, Tarrok breathed a sigh of relief. The rest of the mission would be simple in comparison. He turned to his bridge crew. "Nimra, you have the comm. Rix, keep us steady. I doubt they came here without some reinforcements nearby. But I need to have a talk with their captain."

"The boarding party are waiting for you at the airlock, sir.", Nimra replied, before pointing towards the weapons rack. "I already prepped your tools for use as well."

He grinned as he picked up the modified flamethrower, checking the gas and fuel canisters carefully. Reaching up over his head, he pulled the respirator from where it sat between his shoulders and fit it over his mouth. The eyepieces were a little grubby. He ran a finger over them to clear the grime, and was rewarded with a glob of grease. Smiling, he flicked it to the ground, and turned to leave the bridge.

Tarrok worked quickly at the airlock controls. He had already wasted time getting from the bridge to the airlock. Although the young Mathias had attempted to crack through the security, that had always been Tarrok's job. He made a mental note to train the kid more before their next job.

As soon as the door slid open, a blaster shot thudded into Tarrok's shoulder armour, scorching the metal with black soot. Another of his soldiers threw a small sphere through the airlock, and a second later was rewarded with a blast of blue, sonic energy. When Tarrok led his men forward, he found two of the Moon's crewmembers, laying at unnatural angles on the airlock's floor.

They met minimum resistance as they hurried across the decks, taking out a crewmember or two who were foolish enough to be in their way. Tarrok sent a team to the engine room, and another to check on the crew's bunks, and continued towards the bridge. His two technicians – soldiers gifted with both explosives and heavy weapons – had the door open in seconds. The rest of the security force was unwilling to surrender. Thankfully, the twenty acolytes who had remained with him changed their minds with only sixteen shots.

The Captain sat in the bridge command chair, facing the forward canopy and forcing Tarrok to come around the chair to look at him. The man was a Nautlolaun, thin and reedy, with a collection of ornate golden rings secured to the ends of his tentacles. He sipped delicately from a thick metal chalice, making a show of savouring the pink liquid. Tarrok looked at him in disgust. He hated pretentious people. They reminded him of Rellus. He went to speak, but before he could the Naultolaun asked, "Do you know anything about the planet Kalee?"

"Yeah.", Tarrok rolled his eyes beneath his protective glasses, "I've got friends from the planet."

"They make an incredible wine there.", the Nautolaun's gills sucked in and out as he studied the Tholothian. Then his face soured, "Well, made a good wine, I suppose. Honestly, this bottle was one of the best things I've ever stolen. Came at a pretty cost though. Lost my old ship. She was a beauty too. Now I'm stuck with this… thing. The Liberated Moon. A literal scrapheap. And I am stuck mining another scrapheap to pay it off."

"Was it worth it then?", Tarrok asked. The black eyes looked up, not understanding the question, and he elaborated. "The wine. Was it worth losing your ship?"

The Nautolaun smiled wickedly. "Of course. The most priceless treasures are those that can no longer be made. And with Kalee desolated…"

He left the sentence unfinished.

Tarrok felt bile in his throat. He gestured to the bridge's consoles. "Certainly was easy for us to get in here. You might need better security."

A Nautolaun nodded drunkenly in agreement, "But I bet you think you have me cornered."

Tarrok looked around the bridge. "You have one exit, and we have it covered. No escape pods in the immediate vicinity, and the remaining crew is being delt with in the hall. According the the schematic's I've studies, you are trapped. So tell me, why shouldn't I think I have you cornered."

"Because I am like a Sabacc player, my friend. You never know when I might raise, or when I might fold."

With that, the captain's green forefinger pressed a button embedded in the command chair's upholstery and his chair dropped into the floor. And of course, Tarrok instinctively leapt after it as it disappeared into the escape chute. Unfortunately, the chair was moving faster, and had actual controls to direct it's fall. It zipped to the right, and disappeared. Tarrok continued to fall for another few seconds until the chute ran out.

When he landed, it was onto hard metal. If not for his helmet and respirator covering his tendrils, headdress and face, he probably would have cracked his skull open. Slowly, Tarrok climbed to his feet. The chute had taken him to one of the maintenance tunnels along the hull of the ship. It was deserted, but had viewports lining the wall, facing towards the system's sun. He glanced out, spotting the shadows of his fighters fly past. And then he saw a flicker of movement, and watched as the toxic waste transport and the Talithi dropped back into the system, followed by a SoroSuub Gintex-class Cruiser Carrier.

The Gintex was a stubby, rectangular craft, with a single, long hanger slung beneath the body of the ship. Twelve gunnery bubbles dotted the top hull. Tarrok strained his eyes to peer into the distance, into the hanger of the carrier. Were those Hammerfish interceptors? At least thirty of them, all stuffed into the hanger on racks.

As he watched, the interceptor's dropped from their racks and rocketed into open space, zeroing in on his two heavy starfighters. Tarrok felt his mouth go dry. The Hammerfish were fast. From a distance, they appeared to be tiny needles, with globs of glass for cockpits. Closer, one could see that they had a slim nose that branched out into narrow wings, with a single engine right below the cockpit. Having a single engine craft damaged the interceptor's manoeuvrability, but their speed made up for it in spades. Within minutes, they had swarmed the two TKR-77's.

Pressing the button on the side of his mask, he contacted the Locanas and ordered it to detach and assist the two fighters. Predictably, the Hamerhead's pilots turned towards the larger target, which promptly began to fire on them. Pressing the mask's button again, he contacted the crew above on the bridge. "Danket, get the firing controls up. I want you to shoot those interceptors out of the sky. Use as many ion blasts as the ship can manage."

He had been hoping to roast the Nautolaun alive, but it would seem that he would be needing a far less personal tactic to kill this man.

"Um, sir.", Danket's voice was tentative. "We can't control the lasers. That ion blast on the engines knocked them out. Not even manual control can get them to fire."

Tarrok grit his teeth and looked around, hoping for some kind of inspiration. His eyes fell to a small console embedded in the wall. It looked like a blaster control box. He was in the maintenance tunnel. Perhaps the console could fire even when the bridge couldn't. There was little else he could do here, so he ran to the controls and began to tap away at buttons.

A whine filled the corridor, and he looked around. Out the viewport, he saw that one of the retrieval arms had extended, stretching out it's three hundred-metre length. Most of the interceptors managed to swerve out of the way, but one of the Hammerhead's slammed into the arm, exploding into shrapnel. Tarrok blinked in surprise, then glanced down at the console before him. It didn't control the blasters. It controlled the arms!

"Danket! Get the men on those arms try and use the mining equipment to catch or kill those fighters. They are your primary target."

"Copy.", came the reply.

He began running towards the nearest door that would lean him into the bulk of the ship, and then up the ladders and corridors until he once again reached the bridge. He entered to the click on a blaster, then the hurriedly muttered apology by the acolyte who had done it. One glance at the tactical told him the story. The Locanas was chasing the Gintex and it's supporting ships away. Around the ship, the shrapnel remains of at least ten Hammerheads.

"Give me the footage.", he ordered. Argeant hurried to pull up the recording of the battle that the ships sensors had taken, and Tarrok watched it through narrowed eyes. Right there, in the bottom corner of the screen, a tiny orb detached itself from the Liberated Moon and jettisoned into the asteroid field. He nearly swore right there and then, but stopped himself. This was an opportunity. The Nautolaun Captain had abandoned his ship. Tarrok knew of no escape pod that had a hyperdrive. Running a hand through his tendrils to rub his neck, he ordered for the Locanas to begin sweeping the asteroid belt. Maybe they would find something here after all.

The YX-950 design is EC Henry's. Check it out on his youtube channel