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INTRODUCTION. The gates of Heaven.

For almost two centuries, the peasants of Alestria had seen it in the sky. The Glittering Gateway they called it and they believed that the spirits traveled with the light to the distant Heaven beyond the stars. It was the poetical distortion of a truth that the commoners had forgotten since the Lords declared the use of the written language as their exclusive prerogative, five human generations ago.

Even among the Lords themselves, few remembered the old days of glory, the days of the Sun and the Spaceship that had ruled for thousands of years over millions of worlds. They knew that there were other worlds, the most powerful of which was Bricos, from were once every month the Blessed came in their mighty ships to demand the tax that Alestria paid for being protected from the dangers lurking in the Darkness of the Void. However, the Alestrian high-borns lived in the present, enjoying their luxurious lifestyle and they neither cared about the past, nor wanted the peasants to hear about the "good old days".

Armel din Balik was one of the few Alestrians who knew the truth disguised in the peasant tales. The Glittering Gateway was the matter maelstron attracted by Mouth II, a wormhole that two long centuries ago had belonged to a network that had linked Alestria to the millions upon millions of worlds of the Galactic Empire.

Balik, as his father and grandfather before him, was a commoner that lived in the court of the powerful Lord of Betis. Their family had been allowed to use the writing after swearing that they would never teach a commoner the secret of the written word. This and other privileges had been granted to them because their skills were valuable. Armel, Balik's ancestor had been a Tech in the times of the Empire and after Alestria and its neighbouring planets sundered from it he had taught his sons all his knowledge of science and mechanics.

Balik had learned from his father a great deal of knowledge that allowed him to repair and mend the ancient devices that were the pride and main heirlooms of the noble families: flying cars, holoprojectors and neuronic whips. Nonetheless and in spite of his skill, Balik had recently failed his lord. He had tried his best, but he had been unable to repair the favourite car of his lord. He knew how to built a simple power cell for a neuronic whip almost from scratch, but it was completely impossible to replace a repulsion unit without materials and tools that had not been avalaible in Alestria since the death of Armel.

In the frustration of the moment, Balik wished to have a chance of leaving behind Alestria with its churls and superstitious fools. He would have given everything he had for that chance as he believed that it would be better to be a beggar in the legendary Trantor than a glorified slave of the Lord of Betis. However, he had no chance of visiting other worlds and he knew it. The thugs of Bricos were the only spacefaring culture that visited Alestria, landing monthly in the ancient spaceport of Betis with a battered freighter to collect the tribute in heavy metals, and they would rather kill him that let Balik travel with them to their planet. How would Balik have reacted had he been told that his chance
would appear soon?


For the Glittering Gateway had become much more that it was intended to be by its long dead builders. The wormhole had survived for far longer than any other of the old network in spite of the lack of maintenance, but while Mouth II had kept its position ten light minutes away from Alestria, the other end had wandered for a century through the emptiness of space until stumbling with a fracture. The existence of fractures in the continuum linking points in time and space had been once a well known fact, but the danger of somebody attempting to change the path of history was too great. Certain powers had decided to erase the dangerous knowledge and mankind had forgotten about the fractures. A loose surveillance had been placed around the known ones in order to prevent such a kind of historical revisionism.

And so, when the wormhole hit the fracture and linked Alestria with a place far, far away from the distant past, ancient alarms were triggered and old powers awakened. The atention of those powers was drawn to the Alestrian system and contingence plans were prepared for the worst.


Yet not even in their worst case scenarios had those contingence plans considered what was to come. For in that distant and ancient place, in a world coruscating under the lights of the stars, in a vast and dark hall, a hooded figure upon a throne suddenly raised his head. His yellow eyes seemed to illuminate an old face crossed by a miriad of deep wrinkes.
"This I had not foreseen", muttered with a hint of shock in his voice Palpatine as the vision that the Force had given him unfolded.

Mark S wrote:Sorry for the ignorance but what's Trantor?

Murazor wrote:

Mark S wrote:Sorry for the ignorance but what's Trantor?

The city-world capital of the Galactic Empire of Mankind in Asimov's Foundation series and in opinion of many people the model from which Lucas crafted Coruscant.

Shogoki wrote:

Murazor wrote:

Mark S wrote:Sorry for the ignorance but what's Trantor?

The city-world capital of the Galactic Empire of Mankind in Asimov's Foundation series and in opinion of many people the model from which Lucas crafted Coruscant.

Courscant was created by the EU, Lucas just made it canon.

Murazor wrote:

Mark S wrote:Sorry for the ignorance but what's Trantor?

The city-world capital of the Galactic Empire of Mankind in Asimov's Foundation series and in opinion of many people the model from which Lucas crafted Coruscant.

CHAPTER 1. And so it begins.

"The probot has reached the other side, Captain. Scan results match previous observations and the initial observations of the VSD Obedience. The wormhole ends in a system with a main sequence star and several planets of which the third seems to be inhabited. We can't detect a single trace of hyperspace activity, but there is some subspace activity in neighbouring star systems. Unfortunately, we have been completely unable to understand the transmissions. It is gibberish and there is nothing in our databanks even remotely similar. Two computers and several protocol droids are attempting to translate it, but it seems that it will take some time" reported Vervale to his Captain.

Fering nodded and dismissed his second in command, telling him to report inmediately any change. Fering and Vervale were a compenetrated team and they had been together in many battles against the Rebellion. They knew each other well and usually Fering wouldn't have given such an order, but he was nervous and the little details helped him to keep in focus. His starship would be the first to travel through the wormhole, followed by its twin escorting stardestroyers.

It had been his dream in his old days in the Academy, in the first years of the New Order, that he would carry the light of civilization to the poor savages who lived in the Outer Rim and the Unknown Regions. The Rebel Alliance had robbed him of his dream: with their refusal of the ideals of order and peace of the New Order and their terrorist attacks against civilians, the Imperial Starfleet had needed to increase its numbers and to devote more and more units to hunt them. The Empire could not explore beyond its borders when it couldn't protect even its own subjects from Rebel attacks.

He was sure that without the Rebels, the Emperor would have not allowed overambitious and power-hungry fools like Tarkin to climb so high. Even if the destruction of Alderaan had been inevitable, the Death Star had been a mistake. Such a weapon under the command of somebody as potentially unreliable as Tarkin was a danger worse than the Rebel Alliance.

Even worse, the stupid loss of such a mighty weapon at Yavin had resulted in a great loss of respect for the Empire and the rebel scum had grown bold in the meantime. Not even the glorious destruction of the Rebel headquarters at Hoth had been enough to return them to reality. They still believed that they would in time overthrow the Empire and the Captain feared that a long bloodshed would be needed to disprove them of such a notion.

Fering was well aware of what the wormhole could mean. A new chance for the Empire and the New Order. The data provided by the probots about the stars seen in the other end of the wormhole had no matches in the stellar charts of the Empire. They could not ascertain the relative location of the "other side". His dream was about to become true.

"Sir, the probe droid has completed the scan and the match is almost perfect. This is a good thing, as a transmission has just arrived from the very Imperial Center. Our orders are to cross the wormhole now and start creating a base for a protracted campaign. We will seize the star system in the other end of the wormhole, but we won't make further advances until the arrival of the SSD Executor and its Death Squadron."
"The Executor is coming. Then..."
"Yes, sir. It seems that Lord Vader will be overseeing this campaign."
"Well. We have our orders and we will make our best. We don't want to displease Lord Vader. Put me on speakers, Vervale."
"Aye, sir."
"As everybody on board this ship knows well, we are about to travel more than anybody before us and start the most incredible adventure that you might dream with. We carry the ideals of the New Order and the flag of the Empire to stars that hadn't heard of them before. I hope that you will do your best in order to honour the trust that the Empire and the Emperor himself have placed in us. Now we will cross the wormhole and the adventure will begin. Meanwhile, all hands to the battle stations and all stations in alert. We are going through. The Stone Fist and the Claiming will follow us at a safe distance."

Instants later, the Consul flanked by its escorts advanced, heading for the wormhole and a whole new galaxy. The five miles long battleship entered first and after a brief lapse during which space and time distorted around it, the mighty vessel emerged at the other side, followed by the two Imperator-class Star Destroyers.

"Some sections report minor problems in some auxiliar systems. No casualties, sir. It seems that the crossing is safe."
"Very well. The Stone Fist will start to deploy the mines around the wormhole in pattern Omicron Sigma Beta. The Claiming will start a complete search of the system, while we approach the third planet. I want us to stop in an orbit four planetary diameters away from the surface. If they have space travel, they will react to our approach. Dispose all fighters in an standard patrol perimeter and keep all communication channels open. Report anything you find, no matter how trivial. Remember that we are not in Corellia anymore."
"Aye, sir."


Sez Kiron, captain of the freighter Courage, was happy with his life. He had heard his granny telling tales that she had heard from her grandpa about the old days of the Galactic Empire, but the Empire was gone and for the time he lived in, his life was pretty good.

Bricos had grown to become a fairly powerful post-imperial kingdom over the last thirty years. With over a hundred systems in its grasp, the Oligarchy was strong enough to keep its space clean of pirates. His job as tax collector for the Trade Comitee was a lucrative and easy one. A monthly week of travel with his space ship to fill the store-rooms of the Courage with chromium, gold or iridium from three safe worlds parsecs away from the nearest border or pirate base, allowed him to enjoy most of his time in Bricos. This travel was being pretty dull so long. Perkia and Talos had paid their tax with punctuality and he had had no chance to make a warning out of any unfortunate native. Alestria was his last stop and never before had he suffered any kind of problem in that system.

As a result of this, he was quite surprised when the alarms blared throughout the freighter. He jumped out of the bed in his quarters and run for the bridge where the serious face of the night shift officer showed clearly that the alarm hadn't been any kind of joke.

"What happens, Tod? Have we ended in the middle of a debris field or something?"
"Nope, Sez. The Jump went well. But we have detected several ships in the system and none of them are from Bricos."
"Shit, shit, shit. How many, how big and how far away?"
"Three. At least and they are seriously big. Two are at least over one kilometer long and the other... The other is about eight kilometers long. We have detected what seem to be weaponry emplacements and there are lots of them."
"Eight klicks? What the fuck are you smoking? Have you said it wrong or are the sensors broken yet again?"
"No! I have made Zig check and recheck them. There are three fucking warships over a kilometer long in this system"
"Okey. Have you started to calculate a Jump out of here? I don't want something that big to see us."
"Too late, Sez. One of the small ones was only four million kilometers away from us when we arrived and it changed course within seconds. It is coming for us?"
"A fucking warship is coming for us and you had to tell me all the story? Why aren't we running like a bat out of hell? We can outrun them, but if we do not head for the outer system right now, they will catch us."
"Zig. Put everything in the main screen. It is the captain's decision and before making it, he must see it."

The grim faced sensors officer nodded and pressed a couple of buttons. Sez was about to reply when the main screen started to display the strange warships. With morbid fascination, the captain saw how the distant dagger like Star Destroyer started to move in a fashion that seemed imposible for something its size.

"The sensors are broken, because this is completely impossible. Are you telling me that something over a kilometer long just increased its speed in almost four thousand kilometers a second in less than a minute?"
"Yes, because that is exactly what has happened. Over six thousand standard gravities. About ten times our top acceleration and they don't seem to be forcing their ship. There is no way in hell to calculate a Jump in less than ten minutes and that is how long they will need to reach our current position, IF they don't increase their speed."
"You want to let them capture us?"
"We don't have any hopes of running away and if we try to do it we will end blasted to smithereens or worse. I don't even want to think about the kind of firepower that those ships might carry. I consider that the welfare of this ship and its crew will be better served if we let them capture us. With a bit of luck, we might survive this ordeal."

For a moment, Kiron's face showed the struggle in his heart. His mouth twitched, not knowing whether to order to run away, as his pride demanded, or to stand still, knowing as the cold facts settled that only this would save his ship, his crew and himself. However, before he had a chance to make a decision, the Courage was rocked when something hit the defensive screen.

"What in hell hit us?" yelled the captain from the wall he had hit after being unbalanced by the sudden movement.
"There are several... shuttles??? Several small craft around us. By the Oligarch, they are fast! And armed! One of them has just fired and..." said Zig before being silenced when another impact badly rocked the old freighter."
"I want every erg of power used in the screen and in the inertial compensators. If they hit us like this many times, this trash can will break to pieces. Can we outrun those shuttles?"
"Impossible, sir. They are doing things that... If we tried to do something even remotely similar, we would turn into a reddish paste."
"Tell them that we sorround, now! This is an old freighter. It can't take this pounding. Are they blind or they just want to kill us?"

Before anyone could answer his question, the freighter was hit simultaneously by three laser bolts that sent him flying against the wall. His head stroke the main screen, shattering the strong plastic. His eyes clouded by the blood flowing from the injuries in his head, Sez was still conscious when an ion bolt from the Claiming disrupted the whole power systems of his weathered ship and darkness engulfed the bridge.

Mark S wrote:Sorry for the ignorance but what's Trantor?