StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Balance of Terror

The Emperor sat cross legged on a mat, sweating heavily in spite of the antiseptic chill of the black-walled meditation room. His eyes were closed, utter concentration etched on his handsome, newly cloned face.


A servitor droid rolled silently forward to direct a jet of cool air across the Imperial Brow, but was seized by the ever-shifting force corona surrounding the monarch and instantly crumpled into a sparking blob of smoking metal.

Another servitor immediately rolled forward and used its own air jets to direct the smoke away from the Imperial presence. The room atmosphere was changed every ten seconds, so there was no time for the smoke to gather.

Greatly daring, a small janitorial droid took the initiative and extended a cautious gripper into the maelstrom, clamping onto the unlucky droid’s remains. Rocking its small drive wheels, the droid managed to inch the smoking blob away from the Emperor, backing silently across the polished floor until another servitor could get a grip.

Working together at the direction of the Chief Servitor, the two machines sliced up and stacked the scrap onto the smaller droid’s tiny cargo deck for removal, careful not to disturb the important meditations of the Master.

This small act of supreme courage went entirely unnoticed by the monarch, but the Chief Servitor, a title bestowed upon the control droid by the palace’s major-domo, noted it and logged a commendation for the small sentient.

Approaching His Majesty too closely could mean instant destruction for any being, mechanical or organic, no matter what its status. The terrible forces that surrounded the Emperor were not detectable by mere mechanicals or amenable to the formulations of logic. Droids could certainly detect the effects of the force, but only organic minds could manipulate the higher forces.

The control droid had high hopes for the newly christened ‘lobots,’ but they were still undergoing testing. Perhaps the organic slave brain could be induced to give warning when such forces threatened the unit’s existence. They weren’t as capable or as adaptable as a true mechanical, but their appearance amused the Emperor, and that was enough to excuse any deficiency.

An access panel opened, disgorging an identical servitor and allowing the exit of the janitor, with its bungling cargo. The new droid rolled silently forward, taking the place of the fallen droid.


Yellow eyes finally opened onto an unchanged scene.

The Emperor stood, his meditations complete, a malicious frown on his slightly older face.

“Get me Lord Vader.”


Vader knelt silently before the holographic image of his master, fear touching even the frozen vastness of his dark heart under the pitiless gaze of those yellow orbs.

“Rise, Lord Vader.” Palpantine sneered in a senile fashion, his holographic image one of age and incipient ruin. The deception was quite deliberate. Let his many enemies believe him weak. Weakness invited attack, and an open attacker could no longer plot treachery. Not that he truly feared treachery. The son of Skywalker was the only enemy left free that was strong enough to truly oppose him and Skywalker lacked the experience to be effective. Surely even the Chosen One could do him no harm, chained in spirit by the Dark Side and bodily imprisoned inside that torturous armor.

“What is thy bidding, My Master?” Hollow black eye sockets rose to meet the Emperor’s yellow eyes, carrying their own secret cargo of fear, unknown to Vader.

Palpantine narrowed his eyes, transmuting his fear into the pure, clean, thrilling strength of hatred. If Vader ever found out the truth about his armor, things could get ugly indeed. “You will not be going to Endor, Lord Vader. There is more important work ahead of us.”

Vader tensed, an internal struggle evident. He soon subsided, under the Imperial gaze. “I am yours to command, My Master. Have you had a foreseeing?”

“Yes.” Palpantine stroked his chin. “A vast threat approaches Our Empire. An extragalactic menace.”

Vader nodded. “I too have felt the regard of… something. It is indeed formidable to so blind the force.”

The Emperor frowned. Why had Vader not warned him? “They have failed in their pathetic attempts to hide from me. The creatures are called Yutzan Vong and you, Lord Vader, will lead the fleet that we shall send to exterminate them on their own ground.”

Vader’s keen mind was already calculating the force needed to probe this foreign galaxy and thus protect the Empire. “And what of the Rebellion, My Master? Fighting a war on two fronts while dealing with rebel sabotage and a disaffected populace could present a challenge.”

“The core population cares nothing for this ridiculous rebellion.” Palpantine glared with laser-like intensity. “The Rebels are truly insignificant without the aid of the force.” His glare intensified. “Your son is the only real danger.”

Vader inclined his helmet in agreement, not wishing to provoke his master by offering any defense of the young Skywalker.

Mollified by this show of submission, the Emperor’s gaze cooled. “I will not risk the destruction of my Death Star by your deluded terrorist son again, Lord Vader. The Endor plan is off.” The Emperor tapped his fingers on the polished table beside him.

“His power grows.” Vader could feel it, the light side stirring in its bonds of darkness. Certainty came to him. “Luke knew it was a trap.”

The Emperor showed his irritation by cutting into the stone with his long nails. “His precious crusade against Our Empire will bring nothing but disorder, leaving the civilization of the galaxy at the mercy of this Yutzan Vong filth. I will not allow that future, Lord Vader. Your son must be stopped.”

Vader straightened. “He will join us or die, my master.”

Palpantine regarded his servant thoughtfully. Vader was a being of almost pure chaotic light, trapped by his passions behind a thin surface layer of ordered, carefully maintained darkness. His son was the opposite extreme. Luke Skywalker was far more dangerous than his father. He was a being of solid gray, with only the barest surface patina of pure light. Shatter that surface and a dark Jedi of unbelievable power would emerge.

Anakin Skywalker had always been soft. The fool had actually grieved over the tribe of worthless alien vermin that he had mercifully executed after they had murdered his mother. Palpantine doubted if Luke Skywalker had ever given even a passing thought to the first hundred men that he had killed or even the first hundred thousand. They were the enemy and that was enough for Luke.

“No, your son will not die at our hands, Lord Vader. He will live to a ripe old age. I have foreseen it.” Palpantine sneered as Vader slumped in relief. “You will put Skywalker from your mind and consult with our planners. I want you to take this fight directly to the enemy galaxy, Lord Vader. I will not have these nature loving vermin infesting my Empire.”

“Yes, My Master.” Vader’s formidable intellect was already at work. The Emperor had just handed him an enormous responsibility, one that he was uniquely suited for.

Palpantine smiled to himself and then narrowed his eyes in thought. His cherished idea of a grand political gesture ending the rebellion was out, now that he had foreseen the near-certain destruction of his new death star. Skywalker was more powerful than a mere death star. The force would always triumph over mechanical devices.

Palpantine looked at Vader again, his eyes boring into the impassive fright mask. Destroying the rebellion the hard way would amount to a long slow rat hunt, but the results would be quite certain. “What are your thoughts on dealing with the rebellion in the absence of most of our heavy fleet units, Lord Vader?”

Vader bowed his head, breaking eye contact, knowing full well that he was on the thinnest ice imaginable. “The large units of our fleet have always been a militarily liability in dealing with the rebels, my Master. Our large capital ships are optimized to battle enemy capital ships. The rebels run rings around them with their Incom T65 starfighter. The X wings cannot harm the battleships, but then neither can the battleships stop the X wings. The rebels simply ignore our capital ships and attack our lightly armed stations and supply installations with near impunity.”

“And our own starfighters?” The Emperor was enraged. He had heard this summation before, usually immediately preceding the sudden ‘retirement’ of an overly brave Grand Admiral. The Empire had spent an enormous sum on the development of the TIE fighter, and Palpantine refused to acknowledge that the rebels had obtained a superior fighter with so little credit.

“Almost useless.” Vader, caught up in his calculations, failed to notice the Emperor’s rage. “Our pilots are brave, professional and doomed. They have a slight speed advantage, but in all other respects the TIE is markedly inferior to the rebel fighter. The Incom T65 is the military heart of the rebellion. Without those hyperdrive capable starfighters the rebellion would have long since collapsed.”

“I will not spend another tin credit on starfighters, Vader.” The Emperor’s voice was low, filled with warning. “Fighters are a secondary weapon and nothing more. If you want new fighters, find a way to make the rebels pay for them or else pay for the force-dammed things yourself.”

Vader bowed again, accepting the order. “We can destroy the rebels without new fighters, but at a much greater cost in Imperial pilots. Procurement of a large number of small, highly maneuverable warships that can deal with the X wings, coupled with the destruction of the factories that supply the rebels their starfighters would effectively choke the rebellion to death.”

“As I have been informed in the past.” Palpantine was now boiling with rage at his subordinate’s lack of vision, a crackling purple corona surrounding him, filtered out by the holographic pickup. His long, clawlike fingernails sliced through the stone table like a hot knife through butter.

This irritating plea for smaller ships was an old argument that he had overruled Vader and the Imperial General Staff on repeatedly. They simply didn’t understand the grand politics of scale. Size mattered. War was simply politics, and a cheap victory was even more worthless than defeat in the long run.

Symbols ruled the minds of all sentients. Drama was necessary to sway the hearts of the populace and the fact that an Imperial citizen on a core world or an alien slave by his hovel could look up and clearly see an awesome engine of destruction like Executor in orbit was drama incarnate. A lot of nondescript little starfrigates might be more useful militarily, but they lacked the political utility of a ship like Executor. The construction of the Executor’s sister ships would have to be delayed or even more alien worlds singled out and impoverished to buy these stupid little ships that Vader and his confederates proposed.

Palpantine truly hated it when he didn’t get his way. The force had warned him though and so Vader would get his ragtag midget fleet, but Palpantine would never surrender on the fighters. “Headstrong young men who wish to become Imperial pilots are both cheap and plentiful. Do not hesitate to use them up, Lord Vader.”

Vader closed his mouth and bit off his retort, not wanting to be punished. In his experience, disposable pilots were among the most expensive commodities in space warfare. “As you command, my Master.”

“See to it then, Vader. Crush the rebels and then destroy the aliens. We have adequate time. Assemble your staff, gather the necessary forces and I’ll find those dammed rebel starfighter factories for you.” The Emperor gave Vader one last icy glare before his image winked out.

Vader knelt in meditation for a long time before calling for Admiral Piett.

the story was ok,but there's no reason to bold your text. it make's harder to read in some themes.

I'm interested. Feel free to write more .

Excellent, when can we expect more?

Hell, just for the fact that you gave a droid a commendation, I want to see more of this. But unbolded please.

very good, Just a minor nitpick: it's the "T65, X-Wing" not the "T61 x wing"

Very Interesting. I like to see where the story goes.

Yep. The Empire's much more of a challenge for the Vong than the Rebe- New Republic.

“His precious crusade against Our Empire will bring nothing but disorder, leaving the civilization of the galaxy at the mercy of this Yutzan Vong filth. I will not allow that future,

Heh I didn't know the emporer cared so for all the people, really warms the heart.

On a side note, it's amazing that the emporer can see that far into the future.

Balance of Terror


Luke stared at the naked redhead in his shower, so completely overcome by lust that he had almost swallowed his tongue. “Mara.” he whispered.

Mara shot him a sloe-eyed look of pure naughty intent. “Hello, flyboy. Glad to see me?”

Luke giggled, inanely, flushing beet red. He was a Jedi, sort of, and they called him a hero, but his previous sexual encounters were… very limited. Mara was the first girl to ever really take a more than professional interest in him. She was strong in the force and she just felt… right. “Uh… Um… Mara. You don’t… ah… You don’t seem to have any clothes on.”

“Do tell.” Mara smirked at his panicked expression. “Oh my! The great and powerful Luke Skywalker is a virgin!”

Luke flushed. Everyone but Han acted like he was much older, decades older than they were, even really old people like Mon Momtha, but the truth was that he was barely nineteen, had virtually no education and usually didn’t have a clue what they were all talking about.

“Hey! I was just a kid on Tatooine, alright? Ever since I left home I’ve either been blowing up Death Stars, training in the force or running for my life! The only girls that I ever got a chance to get to know either turned out to be my sister or else weren’t really girls at all!” Silently, Luke vowed once more to stay out of alien bars and to never ever listen to Han Solo again.

Mara stared at him, eyes wide, then sank back, down onto the soft bathing pool floor, convulsing. The Mon Calamari had built Home One and being an aquatic race, they had made sure that the bathing facilities were large and luxurious.

Luke approached, concerned. “Mara?” he bent over her, avoiding the paralyzing sight of water running on her full breasts. “Are you alright?”

Shrieking with laughter, Mara grabbed his shirt and dragged him down on top of her. A few seconds later, his uniform and lightsaber were ejected from the steamy pool.


“Luke. Guess what?” Mara whispered in his ear, between licks and nibbles on his earlobe.

Luke, overcome with sheer gratitude, couldn’t speak. “Uh.”

“Technically speaking, I was a virgin too.” Mara laughed happily as he lost his last vestige of nervousness. The Emperor had seen to it that no man dared approach her during her training. The few insane ones that had tried to become more than professional acquaintances with her had ended up as moving targets on the blaster range.

Mara had bitterly resented the Master’s interference until he had informed her that she belonged to Luke Skywalker. Mara had resented that decree even more, until she had seen Luke fighting on Jabba’s sail barge.

Now Mara knew that her master was correct, as always. This man was hers. The force decreed it, and more to the point, so had Mara. She felt very good about her mission. She would end this whole stupid rebellion and bring Luke home to his true family. The Emperor had promised Luke to her and Palpantine never broke his word.


Leia quietly closed the door to Luke’s quarters and hurried down the corridor, fuming, her face flaming red. That smirking little cat Mara may well have saved the rebellion by telling them about the trap on Endor, but her relentless pursuit of Luke could still doom it.

Unlike the rest of the Alliance commanders, Leia wasn’t convinced that Mara’s defection from the Empire’s Signals Intelligence Service was a good thing in the long run. Not if she upset Luke’s faltering serenity. Passion was the Jedi’s worst enemy.

Leia scowled. Mara certainly had passion. Her pursuit of Luke had been absolutely relentless since the hour that she had boarded the flagship.

The girl spent most of her time stalking Luke, but when Luke was on patrol Mara could be found in Home One’s communications suite, teaching the rebel technicians how to better triangulate Imperial signals and how the ISI scanned their own.

The Imperial codes that she had brought with her had quickly been changed, but the rebellion had gained a snapshot of Imperial fleet dispositions that was accounted priceless by the planners. The rebel slicers were in awe of her skills.

Leia turned a corner and ran full-tilt into Han.

“Hey! Where’s the fire, Your Worship?” He grabbed her arms to steady her, his big hands giving her a subtle caress.

Leia flushed even redder, prompting Han to laugh.

“I- I was just going to see Luke about our plans for dealing with this new death star. He, um, had company.” Leia’s embarrassment turned to anger and she shook Han off. “That… Mara Jade was… with him. In the bath!”

Han smothered a grin. The kid had scored at last! Maybe Luke would finally forgive him for the incident with those transvestite Agamorphs back at that bar on Rilksa station. Han could never resist a good practical joke and the kid had been getting way too caught up in all that ‘mysterious Jedi’ crap. That black uniform and the cold expression that Luke habitually wore made him look more like an Imperial Moff than anything else. It tended to scare the girls off too. Hell, it scared everyone.

“Come on, Leia. Luke works hard at that force stuff. He deserves a little R and R now and then.” Han glanced swiftly around the corridor and his voice sank to a cajoling croon, hands seeking out certain points on her body known only to Han Solo. “It’s no crime to love someone, Princess.”

Leia took a long, deep shuddering breath. “Han… Oh… Stop it, Han! This is a public corridor! Not here.” She shrugged him off, an unwilling smile flickering briefly across her face. He was insatiable, but then she couldn’t really seem to get enough of Han Solo either.

“So, Princess, your place or mine?” Han was elated. It had taken him all morning to ditch his irritating subordinates.

Leia pushed him away. “This is serious, Han.”

“You’re damned right it’s serious.” Han eeled his way into her personal space again. “I’m seriously horny- Oof!” Han keeled over as she fisted him in the abdomen.

“I’m going to have to do something about that Mara Jade.” Leia gave him a glare to make him keep his distance. “I don’t trust her.”

Disappointed, Han straightened with a sigh. She was serious about this. “Look, Sweetheart, you can’t put yourself between Luke and Mara like that. How would you feel if he decided that he didn’t want his sister dating a guy with a price on his head?”

“We’ve all got prices on our heads.” A ghost of a smile crossed Leia’s face, quickly replaced by a frown. “Who I love is only important to us, Han. Luke is different.”

“Different?” Han frowned. “He’s one hell of a fighter jock and he’s got moxie to spare, but how does that make him different?”

“The force, Han. His strength in the force sets him apart from normal men.” She grasped his hand, her expression earnest. “Luke is a Jedi, Han. The only living Jedi. He is above such things. Everything depends on him. Everything! That trollop Mara could ruin it all!”

Han regarded her gravely. “I knew the kid when he was just starting out, Leia. He’s no monk. Everyone around here is trying to turn him into some kind of icon from that crazy old religion, but under it all he’s still just Luke with some fancy new tricks. He’s got a great big heart, Leia. He cares. That’s what makes him what he is, not the force.”

Han considered Luke to be family, like Chewey. Saving Luke’s life and having his own life saved in turn had become a habit between them. Finding out that Luke was Leia’s brother and not a rival for her affections had been a huge relief.

Leia frowned in irritation. “Of course he’s still ‘just Luke.’ You know as well as I do that Luke doesn’t have a pretentious bone in his body. Even if he did, the Jedi were never known for flaunting their arrogance.” Leia had an extensive education and knew all about the secretive Jedi order and its pivotal role in keeping the Old Republic stable for thousands of years.

Han shook his head. “I wish that he would just try and forget about all that Jedi stuff. Those Jedi were no saints, Leia. Old man Kenobi and that Yoda character lied to both of you from the beginning. They tried to set Luke up to kill his own father. If that’s not the ultimate in arrogance then I really need to ask Goldenrod for a better definition of the word.”

“Our father is Darth Vader, Han.” Leia whispered, blanching with pure fear and looking as if she had just been thoroughly whipped. “We should kill him.”

Han took her into his arms and held her tight. “Don’t say that, Leia.”

“It’s true though.” Leia hung on to him like he was her only anchor in a stormy sea.

“Especially if it’s true. Whatever he’s done, he’s still your father.” Han looked carefully down at her, worried. She tended to fall into periods of darkest depression ever since learning the not so happy news about the horrible blight on her family tree. It was up to him to distract her and bring her out of it. “Come on, Sweetheart, let’s go get some dinner.”


Vader stepped out of the shuttle onto Hunter’s deck, pleased for once not to be surrounded by terrified stormtroopers. Only a small party of naval personnel waited, at attention of course. Seeing that they were all low ranking watch officers, he surmised that the captain wasn’t on board.

When Vader’s various welcoming honors had been concluded, A pale lieutenant saluted and reported in the standard Imperial procedure. “Leutenant Ptyor, officer of the watch, Sir. I’m the senior officer aboard. Captain Rutje and the other officers are on the station, attending an intelligence briefing. Do you wish them recalled, sir?”

Vader looked at him, admiring his control. Most lieutenants would have been screaming for their captain, their commander and even their mother upon hearing that Darth Vader himself was coming aboard. The man showed little of the fear he felt.

“No, Lieutenant Ptyor. My proper title is ‘Lord Vader,’ or ‘My Lord. Not ‘sir.”

The lieutenant blanched. “Sorry S- My Lord.”

Vader almost smiled under the mask. He sort of liked the lieutenant. The boy looked very much like Luke.

“You are forgiven your deficiencies this time, Lieutenant. No, I have no need of the Captain’s presence. I am here to inspect this ship’s equipment, not the crew.” Vader could use the force to determine if the exercises had stressed any of the power couplers or ancillary equipment. Since Hunter was a new ship and largely a new design, Vader wanted to be sure of it before construction began on the rest.

Ptyor calmed himself. “My Lord, may we be of assistance?”

“I will conduct my inspection alone.” Catching a bit of the Lieutenant’s thoughts, namely the speculation that perhaps Vader could interface like a droid or was actually some sort of big scary war droid, Vader lost his good humor. “I will not require a guide. I personally designed most of this ship, Lieutenant, and I am confident that I can find my own way. You are dismissed NOW.”

The lieutenant saluted again, spun on his heel and with one frantic shout at his men took off at a dead run for the turbolifts. The men, with a single startled look at Vader, instantly pounded off after him.

Watching them with narrowed eyes, Vader nodded. At least they knew how to obey without argument. They might last for a while with that attitude. Retrieving a small briefcase from the shuttle, he set out for the aft power room.

The original Lancer design had been deficient in several ways, including a complete lack of any heavy anti-ship weapons, making it virtually defenseless in the face of an attack by any decently armed ship. Vader suspected that the originating committee at the Naval Design Bureau had taken note of Palpantine’s irrational prejudice against frigates and had deliberately designed the ship to fail.

Vader had been faced with a choice. To destroy the rebellion, it was necessary to destroy the ability of the rebels to prosecute their futile war against the Empire. To accomplish that task, Vader needed to destroy the rebel Tie fighters. Since the massive capital ships were useless in that endeavor without decent fighter wings of their own, and Palpantine refused to provide them, Vader needed a ship specifically designed to destroy starfighters.

After his staff had thoroughly researched every known class and design of the last millennia, Vader had been presented with a choice that was really no choice. He could go with the Nebulon B or resurrect the Empire’s failed Lancer class frigate. The Nebulon B, though well armed, was simply too slow, so the ISS Hunter, the second ship built of the original Lancer class had been decommissioned and rebuilt to Vader’s exacting specifications.

Every part of the basic design had been tweaked, lengthening it from 250 meters to 290 meters and reducing the crew from 850 to 270 through greater automation and simplification of maintenance procedures. He had removed the troop quarters, excess crew space and the elaborate decks of officer’s quarters provided in the original design. Vader saw no need for ground troops in the role he had in mind for the ships and his officers did not require much in the way of luxury.

By removing the unnecessary, he had been able to equip the Hunter with eight inboard missile tubes and a combat load of eighty heavy torpedoes. His minions had found the powerful quantum resonance torpedoes gathering dust in the Imperial arsenals. Slightly less powerful on impact than a heavy turbolaser bolt, they had a longer range and a far more powerful explosive than the standard proton torpedo. The disadvantages were that the quantum torpedoes were very expensive, considerably slower and less nimble than the standard proton torpedoes and easily intercepted by point defense blasters. Few had been issued. The idea of installing a cloak on the torpedo itself had come from some anonymous enlisted man at the arsenal. He had written ‘cloak me’ on the weapon in chalk. Vader had taken the advice and gone farther by having surplus droid brains removed from the obsolete droidfighters in the Imperial stockpile and specialized to fly the torpedoes to their targets.

The original custom-built KDY power plant had been removed from Hunter and four of the efficient, reliable, readily available CEC Model Twenty solar fusion reactors substituted. The high output power plants were mounted in tandem, two forward and two aft. This economy had created even more internal space in Hunter, so a pair of small assault shuttles and an aft maintenance hanger had been included for boarding operations and retrieval of wreckage for analysis.

Many other gunnery and targeting systems had been consolidated while maintaining redundancy, greatly reducing system complexity and increasing survivability in case of cataclysmic battle damage.

The Bureau of Ships had been unable to ignore this activity in their field without becoming involved. Two senior BuShip admirals had paid the price for their presumption, but the department had still seen fit to mandate changes in Vader’s design. The ship had been given a secondary fleet scouting role, with a full ECM suite, enhanced sensors, a stealth-coated hull and a full load of Imperial scanning buoys that could be launched from hyperspace.

Vader had been very unhappy with this unwarranted and extremely foolish interference in his personal project. The additional personnel necessary to operate the new systems brought the crew roster up to 300, but the Emperor hadn’t been interested in excuses, nearly killing him with his punishment for strangling two admirals in one day. The changes had stayed, even though the fighting arm of the Imperial fleet had largely endorsed Vader’s action.

While the force was indeed powerful, so was the entrenched Imperial bureaucracy.

Not that the bureau’s ideas had all been bad. Vader quite agreed with the super-stealthy hull, in spite of the added costs. And the gravity well projectors had been an inspired addition that Vader simply hadn't considered. Vader's objections had been mostly over the two useless TIE fighters and their racks wedged into the tiny aft maintanance bay.

Many synergies had been achieved, however. The greater power output of the quad CEC reactors had enabled several excellent innovations to increase Hunter’s combat efficiency. Independent, redundantly powered shield grids, faster sublight acceleration, a single ion cannon forward and best of all, four light turbolasers, each mounted in its own pop-up turret on the top and bottom of the outer hull fore and aft, so that they could cover all approach vectors with a minimum of maneuvering.

The newly christened Hunter class could now easily catch a fleeing rebel target in realspace. The ion cannon or Hunter’s three gravity projector enhanced tractor beams could keep an X wing or any other small ship from escaping into hyperspace. The bureau’s idea, and one that coincided with Vader’s aim for the class, was to take prisoners. Thus Hunter had all of the abilities of an Imperial intelligence ship. A few stormtroopers, their quarters and gallys, interrogation droids, a small interrogation area and a cellblock for rebels awaiting interrogation or termination had been included.

Hunter retained its 20 fast tracking anti-starfighter optimized quad laser mounts from the original Lancer class. If an X wing came within detection range, Hunter would almost certainly kill it.

Best of all, Vader’s substitution of off the shelf systems had cut construction costs from near parity with an Imperial class Star Destroyer to a mere twentieth of that amount. Of course, few Kuat Drive Yards executives could stomach haggling with the Dark Lord, so the Empire had gotten a very good deal on a mass purchase of three hundred remanufactured Hunter class frigates.


Hours later, Vader finally stalked onto the bridge, aware of the swirls of terror his presence invoked in the bridge crew. Vader’s force sensitivity had grown since confronting his son at Bespin and he was having some difficulty avoiding reading their tedious minds.

“Report, Captain Rutje.”

The young captain made an admirable show of calm. “All of Hunter’s systems are integrated and have undergone a full diagnostic. Our shakedown cruise was a qualified success, My Lord. We were able to approach to within close firing range of the Tamarid weapons platform under low impulse power without being detected by CGT, but our cloaking device was virtually useless at that range. Cybernetic optical systems and focus scans easily track the distortion around our drive emitters.”

Vader rewarded him with a nod. All cloaking devices had that weakness, but the Lancer hull design was stealthy in its own right. “As I suspected. It is of no importance. X Wings rarely bother with focus scans. How did the torpedoes perform?”

Rutje managed to insert some real enthusiasm into his voice. “Admirably, My Lord. The target ship had no inkling of their approach before the warheads struck.” The Lancer class frigate as originally conceived was nothing more than a deathtrap for its crew, but Rutje looked forward to engaging the rebels in this redesigned version. It was very, very fast, easily able to outrun anything large enough threaten it. Nearly as maneuverable as a fighter, Hunter could easily close with and destroy anything smaller than a Nebulon B.

“I am indeed satisfied with this ship.” Vader looked around the bridge, admiring the open design. It was spacious, but there was no wasted space. He liked it better than his own bridge aboard Executor. Of course he hadn’t designed so much of Executor. “Inform Executor and my pilot that I will be returning at once.”

The modified Lancer kicks ass. Nice, this is the kind of ship the empire really should have made better use of in the OT.

me likey

When can we expect the next installment?