Thanks to Stravo for deleting that thread.'Path of Steel' is a Star Wars \ Star Trek crossover I’ve wanted to write for a while now. It takes place after the Imperial Remnant signed the peace treaty with the Republic for Star Wars, and a couple months after Nemesis for Star Trek.
This is my first attempt at a fanfic, so I could have asked you to be nice ... but since this is SD.net I don't think it would have been of much use.
Anyway, here goes:
Path of Steel
Prologue: Shadows Rising
"'Alea yacta est', but who saw it roll?"
- JC
Of the more than six hundred curses Captain Vell had in his vocabulary, not one was strong enough to describe the situation. Staring at his sensor screen he blinked a few times just to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating or having a nightmare. No such luck.
"Well, don't just sit there, Maxie! Get going!" he suddenly yelled.
Maxie, his co-pilot, started as if he had been in a trance and threw himself over the controls. "Didn't I tell you we shouldn't have trusted that kriffing bantha-son Derian? He probably sold us out! Didn't I tell you that?"
"Shut your hole, Maxie," Vell growled and fired up the sublight engines. The Raider's Delight shot through space at a more than satisfying speed for a tramp freighter, but it could not outrun the TIE fighters that were on an intercept course.
"Shields are up," Maxie announced. "Navicomputer is working."
"Good, now where in the stars is Tew? He's supposed to be manning the Quad Lasers!"
"If I know the coward right he's hiding under his bed and pissing liquid nitrogen right now."
It had started as a quite ordinary spice deal. Derian were to bring the spice in from Kessel, and then they would rendezvous in an uninhabited system where they'd transfer the cargo to the Raider. Vell would then take the spice to their contacts inside the Imperial Remnant. A very profitable run with the minor drawback that Vell would be taking most of the risk. Still, he had been in dire need for money and could not afford to say no.
"Time to interception?" Vell asked.
"One minute. We'll have a hyperspace path calculated in ... forty-five seconds." Maxie turned to Vell and managed a shaky smile. "We're gonna make it, cap."
Vell didn't answer; he had very bad feelings about all this. When the Raider had moved out of lightspeed at the appointed place, they had not found an uninhabited system as they had expected.
They had found an Imperial fleet mass.
At least forty Star Destroyers and over two hundred lesser ships like Carracks, Strike-cruisers, Nebulon-B frigates, corvettes and so on. It was the largest gathering of military might ever since the Imperials signed the peace treaty with the Republic, one worthy of awe even at the height of the Empire.
"Just a few more seconds," Maxie said, staring intently on the navicomputer as if willing it to calculate faster.
Vell fingered the switch that would push the Raider's Delight past lightspeed, while keeping an eye on the sensor screen. "If those fighters come closer than two klicks I'll jump blind," he silently promised himself. "Rather hit a comet or asteroid than caught by the imps."
"That's it!" Maxie suddenly cheered. "We got it, we got the-" He was cut off as an alarm suddenly sounded in the cockpit - one that warned about dangerous nearby gravity wells.
Vell groaned in dismay as he saw a ghostly white cone materializing on the sensor screen, with the Raider smack in the middle. "An Interdictor Cruiser! The sithspawn thing must have microjumped! Quick, give me as much energy to the sublight engines as you can."
Vell worked the controls, but knew it was futile. They were far to deep inside the interdictor field to escape before the TIE fighters caught up with them.
On the bridge of the Imperial Super Star Destroyer Dark Angel, Captain Ghard looked impassively as his fighters tore into the freighter like starving Mynocs on a power cable. A youngish man of average height, he was nevertheless a competent military commander and well respected by his crew.
Ghard looked down into the starboard crew pit and caught the eye of his communications officer. The man looked right back with unreadable red-glowing eyes, blue skin standing in contrast to that of his human crewmates. "Remind the fighter pilots that I want that ship disabled, not destroyed," he spoke to the Chiss. "I want to know who they are and if more ships are coming."
"Yes sir," the alien replied.
"Probably just smugglers," Ghard thought. "Still, it doesn't hurt to be careful."
Ghard turned his gaze back to the viewport, looking at the immense ring-shaped structure floating in space to the port side of his ship, the structure ... and the wormhole in the center of it.
Time: Thirty thousand years ago.
After four centuries of work, the last of the huge hypermatter reactors finally came online. A rough sphere fifty kilometers across, it would astonish Imperial engineers examining the ruins thirty thousand years later. Especially since there were nearly a thousand such reactors in the system, arranged in a circle and connected via enormous superconductors to a huge facility in the center. The facility itself dwarfed even the reactors, housing a technology so advanced even its designers barely understood the inner workings. It was the ultimate achievement for the race that had built it, not just because of the science behind it, but also due to the vast energies it would handle.
After the necessary checks had been completed, the builders of the fantastic construction gave the final go-ahead. The reactors unleashed a tidal wave of energy equal to an exploding star at the central facility, which in turn used it to create a sequence of converging ultra-high energy particle beams. In a picosecond the beams impacted with each other in an area that was far smaller than an individual electron. At that specific point in space and time the energy density was so mind-bogglingly huge that reality itself began to collapse. The effect was not unlike that of a black hole, with the noticeable difference that it bent two points in space and merged them into one.
The facility had created an atom-sized wormhole.
Normally it would have immediately collapsed again, but hyperfast computers and expert systems detected the nearly immeasurable change in spacetime. Exotic stabilization frames captured it and kept it from collapsing, dampening its instabilities.
The constructors cheered. Finally they had achieved the first major step to their goal. Ever so carefully the module that contained one of the wormhole's two throats were loaded into an unmanned ship. Guided by the most advanced AI the intelligent species had ever created, the ship jumped to lightspeed and beyond. For thousands of years the ship cruised through hyperspace, the AI never growing tired or lonely. It didn't slow down before it entered the rim of a spiral galaxy not unlike the one it had left. Without accurate maps of the galaxy it had to spend the next few centuries making small hyperspace jumps further in, but finally it came to a rest in the middle of one of the spiral arms.
It moved out of lightspeed inside a system with eight mineral-rich planets and a hot, blue star. The cargo bay doors opened, unleashing dozens of smaller vehicles that immediately fired their thrusters and set course for the nearest planet. Those vehicles were self-replicating droids. They would rip ore out of a planet or asteroid, refine it and build components from it, which in turn would be used to construct more droids. Thus their numbers would rise exponentially.
After a century of replicating, the droids reached a preprogrammed number and entered a new phase of their programming. The billions of construction droids began converting any and all mass in the system into a far bigger stabilization frame than the one that already existed onboard the ship. Whole planets were simply dismantled and turned into millions of tons of building materials. As the construction of the donut-shaped structure slowly crept forward with the original frame as starting point, the wormhole began to stretch.
Their work took nearly a thousand years, but when it was completed the structure massed billions of tons, and the wormhole itself had expanded to a diameter of two hundred kilometers. The exact same thing had long since been done in the galaxy the AI had left, and the result was a fully traversable artificial wormhole binding two galaxies together.
Ironically, for the next twenty-five thousand years no one would utilize this ultimate engineering achievement. The race that had constructed it had been caught in the crossfire in one of the endless wars of Xim the Despot. Although they fought bravely, they had been unable to avoid the extermination of their kind. But that didn't matter to the AI. It didn't require a reason for its existence and could maintain the wormhole and the necessary infrastructure indefinitely.
Thus the wormhole remained forgotten by the universe for twenty-five millennia.
Time: Three years ago.
"This is Captain Ghard of the Imperial Star Destroyer Predator hailing unknown ship. You are trespassing in Imperial space and are required to identify yourself."
Ghard looked out the viewport on the alien ship hovering right in front of them. The sleek shuttle-sized craft had moved out of lightspeed virtually on top of them, causing alarm klaxons to go off all across the bridge. He frowned and examined the craft; it didn't match any configuration he knew off. Also, it didn't have much in the way of cargo space. "Not smugglers then. Operatives from Republic Intelligence, perhaps?" Ghard couldn't think of anyone else that would enter the Imperial Remnant via the backdoor, so to speak.
"Imperial Star Destroyer Predator," came the reply over the speakers. The voice spoke Basic, but with a slight accent Ghard couldn't place. "This is shuttle Thynor. Request permission to dock. Our passenger wishes to speak to Captain Ghard."
Ghard exchanged surprised glances with Kolm, his second in command. Out of all possible responses, he had not expected this. He motioned for the communications officer to mute the sound. "Scan that ship. Are there any explosive devices onboard?"
"Negative, sir. The shuttle doesn't even have any weapons."
"Very well, then. Allow them to dock. Assemble a couple stormtrooper squads in the hangar. Commander Kolm, you have the bridge."
As Ghard entered the shuttle hangar, the alien ship had slid past the atmosphere shields and was gently settling down at the deck. The stormtroopers had taken up positions and were training their weapons on what appeared to be the ship's exit hatch. With a slight hiss the hatch opened and three humanoids stepped out.
They were all wearing a type of uniform Ghard had never seen before, as well as a flight helmet complete with a breathing mask that hid their facial features. However, he was able to deduce that one of them were female because of her ... female attributes. If any of them were distressed of the number of blaster rifles aiming at them, no one showed it.
"Remove your flight gear," Ghard called, breaking the silence.
Obediently they reached up and unstrapped their flight helmets and breathing masks, taking them off. Ghard's jaw fell open as he saw three pairs of red eyes staring back at him.
"I am Syndic Mitth'allin'nuruodo, daughter of the one you call Grand Admiral Thrawn," the female Chiss spoke calmly. "I have a proposal to make."
Time: One year ago.
Captain Nell seemed to regard the two men standing in his office, but in reality he was considering the events of the past few hours. Tall and lean, and with jet-black hair, he was the type of man who commanded respect by his very presence. At only 31 years he was incredibly young for a Star Destroyer Captain, even in the present deteriorated state of the Empire. Normally he should have been a mere Lieutenant, or a Commander at most. What made his position even more impressive was that he had risen through the ranks due to sheer skill - not due to political maneuvering or by having friends in high places.
He nodded toward one of the men. "Report."
"Sir, we have successfully detained the crew of the captured ship, and are having them undergoing interrogation as we speak. They were speaking a language that was completely alien to our protocol droids; luckily, they were all carrying a so-called 'universal translator.' Once we had downloaded its files, we were able to decipher their language. Apparently they call themselves 'Ferengi', and seem to be a race of traders - much like the Neimoidians. In their society making a fortune is the ultimate goal." The man's grimace clearly showed what he thought of that. "There are several powers with star travel technology where they come from, all roughly at the same level of technology."
"And their ship?" Nell asked.
"Our preliminary report shows that it is rather primitive, but I must stress that we don't know if this is an actual warship or not. They use some kind of subspace distortion drive in order to travel faster than light, but we believe this drive is slower than our own hyperdrives. It does have energy shields but those are weaker than our own."
Nell nodded. "I see. What about weapons?"
"The ship is outfitted with three types of weapons; one is a electromagnetic disruption weapon that works much like our own Ion Cannons, but not nearly as powerful. Their primary beam weapon is something they call a 'phaser', which ignite an exotic chain reaction in matter. It is less effective against shields and dense armor, however. Finally, they have a torpedo launcher that fires torpedoes with an antimatter warhead. We have not tested these weapons, of course, but I don't think they pose a threat to this vessel."
Nell turned to the other man. "And what have your men uncovered?"
"The wormhole is fully stable as we suspected, sir. Probes have revealed that it leads to a galaxy so far away that it isn't even on our maps. The ring-shaped structure is maintaining the wormhole, but the technology behind it..." the man shook his head. "I can't even begin to describe it. It's far beyond anything we even have theories about."
"What about the ruins?"
"The ruins appear to be the remains of the apparatus that was used to create the wormhole in the first place. I am afraid I can't tell you anything more. It is so advanced it'll take decades and centuries before we even begin to understand how it worked."
"But the wormhole is safe to traverse?"
"Yes, sir. Of that we are certain. The structure has extensive autorepair systems, and the artificial intelligence controlling them seem to be only concerned about maintaining the wormhole. You can send a Super Star Destroyer through it without any danger. I wouldn't recommend you put up an interdictor field anywhere near it, though. There's no telling what a planet-sized gravity well would do to it."
Nell nodded again. "Thank you for your report, gentlemen. Have our crypto experts slice into the captured ship's flight computer and pull out whatever star maps and strategically valuable information they can find. Dismissed."
The Captain sat in deep thought for several minutes after the two men had left. Normally he would have contacted Bastion immediately and reported his find, but the times were far from normal. Knowing that Admiral Pellaeon would view his actions as treason, but also knowing that what he was doing was right, he tapped a button on his desk. "Put me in contact with Captain Ghard. On a secure comlink, mind you."
Time: Eight months ago.
Pellaeon walked into his private quarters with a satisfied smile on his face. With the peace treaty with the Republic, his efforts in rebuilding what remained of the Empire were coming along nicely. Although they had severe problems with pirates that thought they could profit from the Empire's weakened state, they should be able to weather it until more acute problems had been dealt with. Suddenly, Pellaeon's chain of thoughts was interrupted as he realized he wasn't alone in the room.
Ghard stepped out of one corner, staring hard at Pellaeon. "Hello, Admiral."
"Captain Ghard? What are you-" Pellaeon cut himself off as he saw Ghard holding a blaster pistol. "What's the meaning of this, Captain?" he demanded.
"The meaning, Admiral, is your death," Ghard sneered back. "You have caused the Empire more than enough damage."
Pellaeon frowned. "Damage? If this is about the treaty with the Republic-"
"No, the treaty was necessary," Ghard said contemptuously. "It is your subsequent actions that have caused this. You have scrapped fifty Star Destroyers!"
"Doing that was just as necessary as the treaty," Pellaeon shot back. "Now that we don't need to maintain those ships, we can spend our resources on rebuilding-"
"Rebuilding!" Ghard spat. "How can we rebuild when pirates and smugglers are operating as they please in Imperial space? We don't even have enough ships to keep Hutt pirates from raiding our worlds. Hutts!"
"It was necessary," Pellaeon repeated harshly. "We needed those resources to rebuild."
"And how much will that cost our citizens in the mean time?" Ghard asked in a voice like frozen iron. "How many loyal Imperials will be killed because of-" He suddenly cut himself off. "Why in the cloak of the sith am I standing here justifying myself? You wouldn't understand the truth if it danced naked in front of you. You have failed the Empire, Admiral. Goodbye."
Without further ceremony, Ghard pulled the trigger. Pellaeon's skull erupted in a shower of blood, gore and bone fragments, soiling the floor and a substantial part of the wall.
"It is done," Ghard muttered. Calmly he re-holstered his blaster and stepped out of the room. Walking down the corridor, he knew that those few guards who were in place would suddenly go blind as he passed them. The surveillance cameras on their hand would mysteriously short out.
Even so, he stopped short and nearly pulled out his blaster again when someone stepped out in front of him, but relaxed as he saw whom it was.
"Is it done?" the fat Moff asked.
"Yes, sir, it is. Pellaeon is dead."
The Moff rubbed his hands together with glee. "Good, good. The Moff's Council will be in command now." He nodded toward Ghard. "And I'll of course make sure you are properly rewarded, Captain."
Ghard nodded back, as if he actually believed that. "If everything go as planned, you and your sithspawn council will be disposed off within a week."
Time: Now!
"Sir, the ship has been disabled."
"Excellent," Ghard replied. "Send out an assault shuttle to board it. I want everyone caught alive."
"Yes, sir."
Ghard glanced down the starboard crew pit again. Only three of his bridge crew was Chiss, but that was a lot more than it had ever been during the glory days of the Empire. Personally, Ghard had never had anything in particular against non-humans, although the indoctrination he had received on the Academy had made him distrust them. This distrust had evaporated in short order, though. The Chiss made very good Imperials.
He understood completely the reason for granting non-humans permission to serve in the Navy and Army. The Verpine, for instance, made better starship mechanics than any human could ever hope to be, yet none of them had ever been inside an Imperial ship as anything else than prisoners. The Sullustans on their hand made superior navigators, but none had ever set foot upon an Imperial bridge. It was foolish not exploiting such talent.
Ghard sighed. However, he didn't expect any other aliens than the Chiss to join up anytime soon, due to the Empire's earlier racist policy. It would take decades to remove their distrust of the Empire.
"Sir."
Ghard turned to face a young Lieutenant snapping to attention. "At ease, Lieutenant. What is it?"
"The last few bulk freighters has moved out of lightspeed. The gathering is complete. Shall I inform the Admiral?"
Ghard considered. "No, I think I'll inform her myself. Order the fleet to form up."
"Yes, sir."
As Ghard strode across the bridge, heading toward the office of the supreme commander of the Imperial forces, he received more than one respectful glance from the crew. Unlike some Imperial officers he could mention, Ghard knew how to inspire his men in ways Darth Vader never would have thought of.
Ghard frowned to himself. He had to think back to realize exactly how it happened; each step in their conspiracy had seemed so minor and necessary. The Moff's Council had made the Chiss that had contacted him, Mitth'allin'nuruodo - or Thallin as she was known as in the Empire, into the supreme commander of imperial forces. Their plan had been to use her as a figurehead and exploit her family tie to Thrawn as propaganda. When the Moff's Council was killed by terrorists, terrorists who were hunted down by Thallin personally, she had been left alone on the top. Next she had exploited the mystique surrounding her father's name and consolidated her position, appointing young and eager officers as new Moffs. Then, five months after Ghard killed that idiot Pellaeon, he found himself reporting for duty to Admiral Thallin.
Making a mental shrug he figured it may be for the best. While she didn't have the genius of her father, she was a cunning tactician and strategist - something the Hutt pirates had learned the hard way. Ghard grinned at the memory. The Hutts had decided to raid one of the Empire's larger shipyards, thinking that they could get away with a shipload of valuable reactor components. Thallin's forces had been outnumbered by a factor of four, yet she had swiftly constructed the most well-crafted trap Ghard had ever seen. Each time the Hutts stroke, they found themselves countered and forced to fall back with heavy losses. Slowly, Thallin had begun an englobement maneuver, clearly trying to trap and eradicate them. The commander of the pirate fleet had realized this and decided to retreat while he still could - which had been exactly what Thallin had wanted them to. As the pirates reoriented their ships and prepared to jump to lightspeed, TIE bomber that had been hiding behind nearby asteroids had come roaring in and unloaded their proton torpedoes. Imperial casualties had been minimal and only one Hutt ship had survived - because Thallin wanted it to carry the tale.
No, what troubled Ghard was the why. Why had the Chiss decided to team up with the Empire? What would they gain doing so? Thallin had been rather close-mouthed about that when she first contacted him, only pointing out how the Empire would benefit. But back then he had not known that she would in effect become the new ruler of the Empire.
Ghard entered the Admiral's office and saluted as soon as the door closed behind him. That is, he started to salute, but froze halfway. Admiral Thallin sat in the middle of the dimly lit room, red eyes glowing in the half-dark. All around her holograms floated in the air, holograms of artworks from a dozen worlds. Ghard recognized one of them as a famous sculpture from Corellia. He tore his eyes away from the artworks and stared alarmed at the Chiss. She couldn't be...?!
Thallin had apparently already deduced what was going on in his mind. "I have said it time and again, Captain; I don't have the talent of my father." Her voice was smooth and controlled. Making a sweeping gesture toward the holograms, she continued. "This is purely for pleasure."
Ghard breathed relieved - and a little disappointed. "Yes, Admiral. I'm sorry. I was going to report that the last few ships have arrived. The fleet is ready to enter the wormhole at your command. Also, we encountered a small ship - a freighter - a few minutes ago. I believe they are smugglers, but I took the liberty of capturing it intact anyway."
"Very good. Have the wormhole guards be on be on alert in case they were to rendezvous with fellow smugglers here." She tapped the armrest thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, it seems like we won't get any reinforcements from the Chiss Defense Fleet. The Ssi-ruuk are making a nuisance of themselves again."
Ghard frowned irritatingly. This fleet was composed of ship the Empire really couldn't spare - which meant that they wouldn't get any reinforcements without weakening it catastrophically. The Chiss had ships - not as capable as a Star Destroyer, of course, but still more powerful than anything else out there in the Unknown Regions - but the prospect of reinforcements in case things turned bad had now vanished. And worse; with the alliance with the Chiss had come nearly two hundred and fifty extra sectors of space to police. Granted each of those sectors were very sparsely populated, but combined they added up to 5-6 normal sectors. Only a few of the worlds in that area was directly controlled by the Empire, most were self-governed dominions allowed to do whatever they pleased as long as they acknowledged the Empire's supremacy. A few were even independent allies like the Chiss.
The thought of the Chiss reminded him. "May I ask one question, Admiral?"
"Why, of course," she said with a smile. "Unquestioningly subordinates are generally a bad thing."
"I'm not denying that the Chiss is the best that has ever happened to the Empire for a very long time, but what do you get out of it? Why ally with us?"
Thallin seemed to conceder the question. "My people has been plagued with invaders for much of their history, but although the price often was high we always won in the end. Many of us fear that this trend may not continue." She paused for a moment. "The Ssi-ruuk is on the border of what we can handle unaided; we fear that one day we may meet something that can and will destroy us. Already we know about many powers that could do so, but luckily they either aren't hostile or they don't know we exist. It was this fear that allowed the more liberal elements of my kind to stage a coup and seize power. Protection and aid; that is what we get out of it. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Captain?"
"Yes Admiral, it does."
Thallin taped a button and the holograms winked out of existence. "Then there is no sense in delaying any more. Accompany me to the bridge, Captain. It is time to travel to a galaxy far, far away."
