[SW Fic] Oneimas

[weemadando]

This is a new (old) fic that I've been working on for a years very on and off. I posted a bit of it once before way back when, but that was a much earlier version. It's a bit all over the place, but let me know what you think of the overall tone/ideas.


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Near Customs Station BI-21, Busbuap System, Sector 43.

"Tac we've got a search band scanner at 342.42/54.90 relative. Range undetermined. Weak signal."
"Copy that White 4. Be advised, we are intercepting encoded short-range transmissions from that location. Analysis is underway." The heavily modified Nebulon-B Frigate sat with no emissions other than its line of sight laser communications active. Its black hull speckled with light to fool those seeking its form visually against the starscape. Antennas bristled along its length, lending the ship a hirsuite appearance. It's name was Oneimos, after a trickster god from the old mythologies of the peoples of Anaip. The Rebellion had spent more credits on this ship than on a much larger MonCal cruiser. It was filled with the finest in stolen, blackmarket and homebrewed electronics.

"Tac - new search band scanner at 242.11/62.45 relative. Appears to be Epsilon-type scanner. Range 252 klicks."
"Copy that White 4. Visual checks confirm target as System Patrol Craft. White 1, Targetting solutions are plotted, standing by for initiation on your signal."
"Roger Tac." White 1 was a converted Y-wing, bulkier in its flattened "head" than most. It contained four crew in its cramped cockpit space, along with masses of screens, switches, buttons and wires. On its exterior, like its mothership, antennae bristled over the available space. Despite it's haphazard appearance, this craft was one of the most dangerous in the Rebellion, it certainly wouldn't be able to do much more than survive a dog-fight, but that wasn't what made it dangerous. Flying close to it was its "standover man", a modified X-wing trainer. The second seat in this one rather than being for an instructor, contained a systems operator and their equipment. The X-wing's usually sleek nose was bulging along its sides with domes containing all manner of sensors and jamming equipment. Floating in space several kilometers away was another two ship flight, feeding triangulation data to the Oneimos.

It took a special kind of pilot to want to fly a Y-wing straight down the throat of an Imperial space-superiority network and White Squadron was their home. The missions of the Oneimos based squadron weren't glamourous or usually even high profile. While Rogue Squadron took the pretty boys who could dance with a TIE squadron all day long and then pose for a glamour shot in their flight suit immediately afterwards, White Squadron were the ones who had to plunge headlong into a fierce barrage of missiles, torpedos, turbolaser, ion cannon and blaster fire to allow boarding teams to raid outposts, free prisoners or let strike craft hit protected ships or installations.

White leader, Dala Oran had been one of those pilots who loved the challenge. She'd joined the Rebellion early - flying as an escort for dissenting Senators while the Clone Wars were still raging. She was one of the only people in her squadron old enough to remember a time before Palpatine. And she was the one who had pressured and lobbied the politicians of the Rebellion hard enough in those early days to secure funds to start her project. She'd found eleven others crazy enough to do the missions she was describing. They'd taken over four of the ARC-170 strike fighters that the Rebellion had secured and spent the next few months with an array of technicians, scientists and droids - customising these craft to exacting specifications. What had come out the other side was the most powerful fighter craft in the Rebellion arsenal at the time. A superb mix of firepower and subterfuge, perfectly fitting the role required at the time - and pioneering the White Squadron role within the Rebellion.

Dala and her original White squadron had spearheaded some daring raids. Sweeping into Imperial defended positions and destroying the key nodes of their defense networks. Making the space safer for the more vulnerable fighters who followed. They had paid a heavy price however. Only her and two others remained from that original group. Those two others had been her systems operators. Every other craft had been destroyed, lost with all hands, on the receiving end of fire from stations, capital ships and fighters. A heavy price to pay, but worth it - White squadron had saved the lives of far more than they'd ever lost. Even with the head-spinning cost (to the Rebellion financiers at least) of each of their craft, they paid strong dividends in allowing many, many more craft to complete their missions in a much safer environment. The original White 1 still sat in the hangar deck of the Oneimos, brought out to bolster their ranks when they needed that little extra in their hand.

Today though, was going to be one of the proverbial cakewalks. An Imperial resupply convoy was scheduled to be arriving in a few minutes to restock the frontier post they had under surveillance. So far they had identified through passive sensors the main station, a pair of TIE elements patrolling and a System Patrol Craft loitering on the fringes. Easy pickings for the taskforce. Intelligence had reported that the convoy would be four modular conveyors with a pair of Escort Shuttles riding shotgun. The plan was simple, wait until the last moment, hit the stations defenses as hard as they could and as soon as the convoy arrived call in the reinforcements sitting a micro-jump away to box in the freighters. A quick boarding action and it should be all over bar the shouting.

Dala looked down at the battlespace display in the CIC. It was all in place. Drones had been silently creeping around to the deep flanks of the SPC, ready to illuminate it with a fair approximation of every fire control band in the Rebellion arsenal. She was confident that the commander would hightail it to hyperspace at that point. But if not, the Oneimos had a very strong solution with a pair of turbolaser turrets tracking it. "Tac - time to convoy arrival?"
"90 seconds."
"Tac, activate drones."

Onboard the SPC their threatboards came alive with a horrible screech. "We have X-wing and Y-wing type scanners in torpedo acquisition! Multiple fighter search bands in our rear sector!" The young naval ensign looked terrified. Not even in his training had he ever seen this much activity. "Heavy strobe jamming from rear sector." The officer of the watch felt the eyes of all present snap to him. He remembered his training well - don't freeze, any action is good action at this point.
"Y-wing scanners are locked! Entering guidance phase!"
"Can we see anything back there?" Can we fight? Thinks the officer. Or are there too many of them?
"Negative! Jamming is too heavy!"
"X-wing scanners are in guidance phase!"
"Jump to emergency coordinates! Now!" The officer commits to his decision. Too little known - but too much imminent threat.

On the battlespace display the SPC disappears. "They're running. This is White Leader. All White squadron elements, engage now. Tac - unmask and hit that comms array now!" The moment the order is given the Oneimos' fire control scanners illuminate the station and turbolasers slew to their new firing position. The station would probably still not have had a chance to fully energise it's defensive deflector and energy shields and would only have it's lower-powered hazard shields in place. A barrage of fire is focused on the array and streaks across the pilots vision before impacting the shields and then, milliseconds later, the array itself as the shields collapse before the intense barrage. The array explodes into globules of white hot metal and plasma which rapidly cool into hardened micrometeorites and pepper the hull of the unshielded station.

"No transmissions sent."
"Confirm that. 65 seconds to transport arrival."
"White group, Tac; maintain clearance of fire lanes we will be engaging TIES."
"Roger - White group is holding clear of fire lanes."

"Assault transports are clear to move into position."
"Purple 1 and 2 are under way."
"White groups, begin point defence supression."
"Roger that, White 3 and 4 take the ventral emplacements, White 2, with me and we'll take the dorsal emplacements."
"Helm, this is Tac, bring us into blocking position for the convoy."
"Two TIEs killed, one crippled, still engaging final target."
"Drone control, set up for ventral ambush simulation." The holographic display of the battlespace shows the carefully planned ambush as it is being executed. The fighter pairs launching missiles and firing blasters at the station to disable it's defence systems while a formation of drones moves beneath the station's main shipping
lane. The final TIEs icon disappears and the elongated conical fire vectors from the ship clear from the display.
"Weak signal on a holonet transmitter from the station - power is below thresholds to reach the repeater network over the jamming. Not a recognised code or message. It could be a new distress or alarm signal."
"Tag it and store it. We'll follow up later."
"Transport arrival imminent."
"White 1, Tac; what is station's status?"
"Tac, White 1; defences are down. No launches or signs of external activity."
"Tac, Comms; ceasefire request and surrender message from station being received."
"Acknowledge it. White group, Tac; station has surrendered - cease fire immediately."

White 2 waggles it's wings as it streaks past the station's control booth in a sign of victory before rolling away and disappearing into the star field as it moves to the ambush position for the convoy. The station spews sparks and smokey atmosphere from many smashed hardpoints across it's surface. The few short-lived fires are dying out as the station powers up all of it's external lights in full white in confirmation of it's surrender.

"Hyperdrive decelleration detected! Six masses confirmed."
"Activate fire control emulation on the drones. Illuminate the approach corridor for ion cannon fire control. And order White Group to bully those shuttles ASAP."

The convoy drops from it's supra-lightspeed travel and directly into the well laid trap. Aboard the escort shuttles there is immediate panic as they struggle to identify targets and threats.

Commander Renua, a Mon Calamari with an exquisite sense of spatial awareness and an intuition for small unit space combat tactics was the current captain of the Oneimos. He had been elevated to this position only in the past year as her previous captain had moved on to one of the newer ships-of-the-line. He rarely intervened in the operations of White Squadron and knew his crew well enough to trust them with his ship, but was always nearby and watching - ready to offer advice or intervene at critical moments. He had a weakness though - he enjoyed making Imperials feel deeply uncomfortable and relished this part of their missions. "Attention Convoy. This is the Alliance frigate at your 12 o'clock. Surrender immediately and submit to boarding and inspection or you will be taken by force."

As if to punctuate his request, a Corellian Corvette converted for military use and a pair of Y-Wings emerge from their hyperspace microjump, boxing in the convoy.

"Rebel Frigate," Renua smirks as he hears the Imperial spit the words, "We are standing down, but will not be boarded. We demand free and unfettered passage from this system."
"Imperial convoy. You are hardly in a position to make demands. Power down your engines and weapons and stand by to be boarded. Any failure to comply from this point will be met with deadly force."
"Tac, Comms; lots of encrypted traffic between the ships. We can break it if you give us some time."
"That's OK. We can guess what they're saying. Can we ID the lead freighter yet?"

Onboard each of the assault transports waited 16 specialist troops. They wore the bright orange space survival suits typical of Rebellion pilots, but over these was worn various body armours. Each also wore a specialised helmet, designed to offer some degree of trauma protection, as well as with a simple HUD to track teammates and to seal with the suit to protect them from chemical agents, poisonous atmospheres or lack thereof. This was their job - taking enemy ships by force. They drilled relentlessly on friendly or captured ships, learning their layouts, critical system locations and identifying potential strongholds and chokepoints. "Team 1, our target is a Modular Conveyor, appears to be a mkIV from Noribuago Yards carrying two passenger modules on the forward points and two no-atmosphere cargo modules on the rear points. Ship is currently compliant, but crew have not surrendered. This will be a soft breach entry and we are under Tier 2 Rules of Engagement. Does everyone understand?"

The lead assault transport pivots and rotates to pefectly align itself with it's intended breach point as it's various directional boosters flare to settle it into place. As the docking collar seats over the dorsal access hatch a rapid checklist is run through.
"Zero relative velocity." "Check."
"Collar seal showing green." "Check."
"Target gravity is 90 degrees relative." "Check."
"Blast shield in place." "Check."
"Commence breach." "Commencing."
In the space of a second the breach was completed - the locking mechanism on the hatch is obliterated by a precise jet of plasma, a specially designed arm rips the door open at a fantastic speed as soon as the plasma jet has fired, sensors check the atmosphere inside the target for pressure and any hazards and automatically equalises the pressure. The blast shield shoots back into it's recess as the breach comes to an end. A pair of stun grenades launch through the breach point and detonate as the first trooper jumps through the space, lifting his knees to his chest to fit through the hatch and rotating so that he will land on his feet in the corridor below. Behind him follow seven more in rapid succession.

The grenades detonate sending a blinding light and deafening pulse of noise through the corridor. His helmet compensates for both of these effects - had they expected Stormtroopers or any real security they wouldn't have bothered with such an item as the countermeasures to the stun grenade are endemic to such units. He lands, his well padded boots and bent knees absorbing the force of his landing. Immediately he steps forward, out of the way of the man landing behind him. A crewman is standing towards the end of the corridor, a blaster dangling from a lanyard by his side as he holds his hands to his face. Without hesitation the boarder storms forward - there is no point shouting a warning or order, the crewman wouldn't be able to hear it - and throws the crewman to the floor, half kneeling on him to keep him under control while the three other men in his element of the boarding party move past. Quickly binding the prisoner's hands together behind and to his back with a spray of rapidly expanding and setting foam from a unit on his wrist, he stands and rejoins his team as they move on through the ship.

"Main corridor clear. One secured."
"Crew quarters clear. Two secured."
"Engine room clear. Remote access cut."
"Cargo access clear. One secured."
"Bridge clear. Two secured, one down."
"Cargo modules clear. Seven secured, one down."
"Vessel is under our control."
"Confirm that Team 1. Breach point being sealed." The Assault Transport disengages it's docking collar and moves towards the next target. "Purple 1 is clear. Moving to secondary target."

The breaches on the other freighters are as efficient and quick, the ships, along with their crews and passengers secured. The boarding teams then turn their attention to inventory and intelligence. They begin uploading data to the Oneimos from the freighter's logs, then begin manually scanning all crates and containers, while others take images of all the crew for security checks.

Onboard the Oneimos a pair of ensigns pore over the inventories from the captured vessels as the ships logs, customs and quarantine data and physical checks of the storage bays continue to supply new information. Each item is marked for recovery, inspection, release or destruction according to it's contents, ownership and intent. Two hundred E-11 blasters, maintenance kits and two thousand power cells crated up for delivery to an Imperial garrison? Recover. Electronic maintenance equipment for the local Holonet relay repair crew? Recover. Personal effects for a minor Imperial official being shipped to his new post? Inspect and release. This task completed they turn themselves to the crew and passenger manifests, comparing the names and images being uploaded by the boarding team with the Alliance's archives. An alert flashes onscreen as one of the images taken by the Team 1 is flagged. Then another alert. And another.

"Tac, Boarding Ops. We've got a red list hit and two black list hits on the number 1 transport." A wave of recognition rolls around the CIC - along with a moment of panic. This wasn't normal. It certainly wasn't what had been expected. The boarding ops coordinator recovers his composure, "All Teams, red list. I say again. Red list. Stand by." The code phrase prompts an immediate response. Two of the boarding party rush to the bridge and engine room, so that the ship can be piloted immediately should the need arise. The remainder sprint back to the crew's mess where the prisoners are being held. The pair already on guard there are no longer relaxed and merely watching their prisoners to ensure compliance, their weapons are aimed directly at the crew and passengers, sweeping back and forth over them, ready to fire at the slightest provocation.
"All ships, all ships, this is Tac. Red List. Say again. Red List. Stand by for immediate action. Emergency RV point 3. RoE is Tier 1. I say again. RoE is Tier 1."

The Rebellion maintained several "lists", they were composed of the names of Imperial or affiliated personnel who were of interest to the Alliance. Green List was those who had been identified as potential recruitment targets. Blue List was the most secretive and secure list, as it contained the details of Alliance agents-in-place. White List was comprised of Imperial personnel who could prove valuable to Alliance intelligence and who's "liberation" would often be against their own will. The Black List was the longest of all - Imperials who were wanted by the Alliance or it's members to stand trial for their crimes. And unlike the other lists, this one grew at an exceptional rate.

The Red List was different though, it was almost a secret - not an official secret, but something of which people were reluctant to talk. For all the talk of "hope" and "freedom", the Rebels were still just Rebels. And the Red List represented the other side of the Rebellion: the partisan, the insurgent and the angry mob. The Red List was a hit list. Anyone who was on that list who found themselves in Rebel custody could at best hope for a quick blaster shot to the head before the raiding party melted back into the darkness. At worst, they would be imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, then killed if they were lucky, or worse left for dead on one of the Rebellion's prison worlds. That the top 2 slots on the Red List were taken up by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader said a lot about the company that one had to keep to make this list. And also why the reaction to hearing that a member of it was in their grasp was so violent.

Those who graced the Red List rarely travelled alone. Most were Moffs or Governors, some Admirals and Generals and a rare few lower ranks who had perpetrated some of the worst of the crimes against civilians, Rebel affiliated or not. So by sheer virtue of their position, they usually had heavy escort - usually because they were the flag officer of said heavy escort. Four modular conveyors and two escort shuttles - the Empire was either trying to move him incognito or he'd slipped through some administrative cracks and his travel plans hadn't been properly scrutinised and security provisions arranged.


Alliance Cruiser "Voracious", Interstellar Space, Sector 43

The Voracious was verging on being termed a relic - based on a Clone War era design, she had been in service for some 50 years, first with a neutral faction in the war who had used her as a flag ship, then as an Alliance warship once the Empire came to power. At nearly a kilometre long she was an enormous ship for the Alliance, but her original design was underpowered for its size. A year long refit had fixed many of these problems - her guns had been replaced, engines overhauled, shields updated and sensors reworked. But she was nearing the end of her service life - a ship could only jump to hyperspace and get hit by torpedo and turbolaser fire so many times before her frame could no longer handle it. And the life of a ship in the Alliance was certainly never easy, as jumping away from Imperial forces and sustaining damage was par for the course. For all this however, she could still fly and fight - and as long as she could do one or the other the Alliance would still have some use for her.

"Oneimos is reporting Red and Black list hits Sir. They are requesting immediate support."
"What's their location?"
"They're in Busbuap conducting a raid on Imperial shipping."
"Nav, get us a jump plot to bring us into sensor range. Comm, get me a channel to Renua. Tac, set condition 1 and announce battlestations. Flight ops, alert pair to launch now and jump ahead of us, get the rest of Grey pre-flighting and briefed." Captain Lora Virri had been in the Alliance for nearly twenty years, having joined following the nationalisation of her family's freighter business. She'd brought with her a pair of heavy transports which she'd snuck out of the yards and past an Imperial picket. Both the ships had served the Rebellion well until their decommissioning. She'd spent a long time serving as a Captain on logistics ships and then smaller warships before being given the Voracious to take on it's twilight cruise. She had developed a not unwarranted reputation for caution, but her crews had rarely found fault with her operational decisions.
"Captain Virri, I have Commander Renua for you."
"Thank you." She routes the channel to her own headset, "Commander, this is Captain Virri of the Voracious, go ahead."
"Captain Virri, we have multiple high priority targets in the bag and request immediate support. We suspect that this may be a trap. We have four transport under our control and two Escort Shuttles under our guns. We are transmitting our emergency RV coordinates now."
"Commander, we are two minutes out. Expect two ships from Grey Squadron imminently."
"Thank you Captain."



Oneimas, Bisbuap system, Sector 43

"Commander, the boarding teams are confirming hyperdrive engines are functional. Flight controls have been slaved to nav-droids." The use of nav-droids in this role was critical, as the Imperials had been known to plant various pieces of malicious programming into their ships computers designed to enter a Rebellion network and spread chaos - shutting down systems, scrambling information and leaving the ship vulnerable to attack. Or worse - sit dormant and record information until an opportunity to broadcast came along, turning the whole ship and all of it's connected systems into a mole for Imperial intelligence. Hence the nav-droids, older R series units that could be spared to act as cut-outs when dealing with Imperial systems. The risk of intrustion by a malignant program was also the reason why it was standard procedure to completely wipe nav-droid units at regular intervals.

"Drone control, what is the status on recovery?"
"We've got two of the nine recovered Commander. It'll be at least four minutes until we've got them all in."
"Too long. Destruction is authorised. Confirm when they are gone." Renua hates the waste, but the risk to his ship and crew pre-empts any arguments of a drone's monetary value. "Tac, hit the Escort shuttles with the ion cannons. I don't want them able to record our jump vectors or pursue."
"Boarding teams confirm that systems are linked correctly, jump coordinates are confirmed - they're ready to jump Commander."
"White Leader, give your people clearance to jump. We'll see them at RV3."



Emergency Rendevous Point 3, Interstellar space, Sector 43

The cluster of ships float together in the void, it was some twenty minutes since they had jumped to the emergency rendevous and there was still no sign of pursuit. "I think we're clear Commander," ventures Dala "But we should get back to the fleet ASAP to deliver our guests."
"Agreed." Renua enters a password into his console and allows it to perform a biometric scan before proceeding to decrypt the return journey details which specify where he can meet a pilot vessel to be led to the current location of the fleet, "Nav, start jump plot for the coordinates which I've supplied. Flight Ops, start recovering fighters. Boarding Ops, keep your drives slaved. Voracious, if you will continue to escort us that would be greatly appreciated."



Pilot Vessel ISP-774C, Interstellar Space, Sector 271

The pilot vessel was like most of it's kind - a shuttle sized craft designed to provide guidance through difficult locations, be they naturally occurring or man-made. They'd left the fleet four hours ago and spent the time making random jumps to try and throw off anyone attempting to backtrack their route.
"Coming out of hyperspace now."
"I've got contacts!" the announcement brings the crew to high readiness starting to run through the immediate action checklists, "Multiple capital ships. IFF is," he pauses while the automated systems check each other, "friendly, current codes. We've got Voracious, Oneimas and Tratok. Comms are up."
"Pilot Vessel, this is Commander Renua of Oneimas we have four freighters tailing us in, they'll be here in thirty seconds. We have Red and Black Listers in custody and require immediate escort to the fleet."
"Roger that Oneimas, stand by for coordinate transmission." The Pilot turns to the rest of the flight deck, "Red AND Black in the bag? Stay on your toes people."

[Spice Runner]

Very nice. I always enjoy reading about the rebellion era. I like your use of rapid dialogue in the action sequence. Makes this almost feel like I'm watching this on TV. Speaking of which if there ever is a live action Star Wars series, your fic would be a perfect episode for said series.