Phoenix Company CH 2
Posted: 2002-11-17 11:29am
Phoenix Company Chapter 2
[2 days after the events of Chapter One]
The Victory-Class Star Destroyer _Hellbore_ hung motionless,
suspended between the Lap system's binary suns, which bathed the
white hull in both red and white light as dozens of smaller craft
came to and fro from it's hangar bays.
While not as big as the Imperator-class vessels, the Victories formed
the bulk of the Navy's mid-size fleet as the centuries-old Rendilii
StarDrive Dreadnoughts were slowly retired.
With a flash of cronau radiation, the bulky slab-sided prison transport
_Shattered Souls_ left hyperspace with her load of prisoners from
the recently crushed Rebel base on Hopta VII.
From the _Hellbore's_ hangar bays came six more TIE Interceptors, to
join the other six already on BARCAP. Rebel prisoners were in the area,
and where there were Reb prisoners, there was almost always inevitably
a rescue attempt.
Nearly on the dot, a squadron of Y-Wings dropped out of hyperspace
on an intercept vector with the _Shattered Souls_.
[Cell #144 - Cellblock A - ISS _Shattered Souls_]
Sheppard woke up to the piercing wail of klaxons, and
shook his head, trying to get the gunk out of his eyes,
as he watched guards run past his cell through the meal
slot in the door.
"What's going on, dammit!" shouted Dalton from his cell
next to Sheppard's.
"Shut up! The Rebs are inbound!" replied the guard as
he hit the emergency lockdown button on his panel.
All over the cellblock, emergency vacuum containment
doors slammed down with dull booms, and the meal slots
were closed off, leaving all of the prisoners to sit
nervously in their cramped cells, listening to the
sounds of battle.
[Badger Squadron - Lead Y-Wing]
"Form up on my wing. Section one goes for the prison ship,
section two keeps the TIEs off our backs." ordered the
leader of the squadron.
Intel had said that a shipload of prisoners from their fallen
base on Hopta VII were about to arrive on the _Hellbore_ for
interrogation. It was their duty to try and rescue as many
of them as possible.
A scratch force consisting of a single Y-Wing squadron and
an assault transport loaded with troops had been thrown
together hastily. The window of opportunity was that short.
They had arrived at the right moment. The prison ship was
at best, 10 minutes from docking with the _Hellbore_, and
the TIEs were 2 minutes out. It was time to go to work.
With that, the 12 Y-Wings split up smoothly into two sections
of six craft each, one headed towards the transport, and
the other for the TIEs.
[T/I Gamma One]
"Y-Wings. Execute attack pattern Delta." rasped the squadron
commander, as he pulled his Interceptor into a smooth
corkscrew towards the oncoming Y-Wings, preventing the
Y-Wings from getting an easy head-on shot in the
opening enagement.
[Badger 4]
"Shit, I can't get a lock on them! They're too damn slippery!"
shouted the rookie pilot, who was frantically trying to lock on
to the lead TIE with his warhead launcher, which was loaded
with concussion missiles.
[T/I Gamma One]
Keeping a steady foot on his etheric rudder in order to 'skid'
across the sky, the commander made it through the initial
closing enagement with the Y-Wings unscathed. Others in his
squadron weren't as lucky. One took a direct hit from the
Y-Wings full array of weapons and exploded, while another
collided head-on with a Y-Wing that completely destroyed
the Interceptor, but left the Y-Wing a floating hulk,
with the cockpit area completely shredded.
Putting his dead squadronmates out of his head, the commander
spotted a Y-Wing twisting through the sky, and smoothly
moved the stick, rolling in behind the Y-Wing like he was
on rails in an amusement park ride.
Taking his time, he loosed a full volley of supercharged bolts
from his quad lasers into the Y-Wing's starboard engine, blasting
through the area's weak shielding and completely shredding the
fusial turbine, which then blew apart violently, spraying the
rest of the Y-Wing with high-speed radioactive shrapnel.
A moment later, the Y-Wing's other engine began to spin out of control
due to shrapnel damage. The cockpit area was suddenly wreathed in an
explosion, and the rebel pilot shot out of his crippled fighter on
his command chair.
The commander let the drifting pilot go. There would be time enough
to pick him up at their leisure after the battle, where he would
become a 'guest' of the Empire.
Around him, he saw the remaining Y-Wings tangling with what was
left of his squadron. A minute later, it was all over. Six Y-Wings
destroyed for the loss of three TIE Interceptors.
Turning around, he saw the prison ship wreathed in shield glow
as the other six Y-Wings traded ion cannon fire with the ship,
taking pains to attack from the lower front, avoiding the quad
laser batteries in the command section, which was at the very end
of the ship to ensure inmates couldn't take over the ship's armament.
Seeing that their compatriots had been utterly wiped out, and that
they had 9 TIE Interceptors bearing down on them, with their target's
shields still at 60%, the remaining members of Badger Squadron
decided that discretion was the better part of valor and gave the
abort order, breaking off their enagement of the _Shattered Souls_,
and trucking it to their pre-calculated hyperjump point as fast
as they could.
At the edge of the system, the 40 Rebel commandoes on the Assault
Transport groaned as they heard the abort signal come from the
surviving ranking pilot of Badger Squadron.
They wouldn't be able to save their fellows this time. It was with
heavy hearts that they entered hyperspace.
[ISS _Shattered Souls_]
Slowly, the heavy containment doors raised from their closed positions,
and the guards began circulating through the four different cellblocks
of the prison ship and doing a new headcount, to ensure that the prisoners
hadn't been able to take advantage of the confusion to attempt an escape.
It took nearly three hours because a guard fucked up on the *first* count,
and then someone *else* had fucked up on the recount, neccisating a
third.
Only then was the _Shattered Soul_ allowed to complete docking with the
_Hellbore_, and the transfer of the Rebel prisoners to begin.
The _Hellbore_ was a new type of ship: the Victory I (G) type, which consisted
of old Victory Is upgraded with new engines and modern turbolasers, along
with trading off some big guns for quad laser batteries, and troop space
for an on-board prison.
It had come about due to the increasing successes of the Rebels in springing
their compatriots from Imperial prison ships en route to prison worlds.
Strong enough to fight off most of the capital ships in the Rebel inventory,
and capable of keeping it's shields up long enough against a Mon Cal to
run away, as well as packing enough quad laser batteries to defend respectably
well against the typical Rebel hit and run starfighter assault, the retrofitted
Victories had served quite well, and were routinely assigned to sectors where
heavy combat with the Rebels was occuring.
Several hours later, the _Shattered Soul_ undocked from the _Hellbore_, and
slowly moved away, three out of her four cellblocks now empty. Several minutes
later, the _Shattered Soul_ jumped.
A short time later, the _Hellbore_ also jumped to an unknown destination,
where the interrogation of the Rebels could continue uninterrupted
by their friends.
[3 Days later]
The blue tunnel of hyperspace faded away, to be replaced with blue streaks
of starlight, and then simple pinpricks of white as the prison ship
reverted to realspace over the Imperial military world of Carida.
Carida; where every Stormtrooper was trained, and where most of the
Imperial military's elite academies were also housed. It was also the
home of the Imperial JAG Corps.
[_ISS Shattered Souls_ - Cellblock Alpha - 0400 hours IST]
The guards walked down the corridors, banging their batons on the steel
walls as the cellblock came to life again, after five tedious days of
watching the men and women of Phoenix Company stew in their cells.
Sheppard woke up to the bright fluroscent overheads snapping on,
and the guards shouting over the cell's PA systems.
"GET UP! Stand away from the door!" snapped a harsh voice over
the overhead speaker. Slowly, trying to shake off his sleepiness,
Sheppard stood in the farthest corner from the door, and watched
as the door unlocked with a heavy 'thunk' of bolts retracting from
the frame.
A trio of guards was standing in the doorway, their uniforms masterfully
tailored, but failing to hide their bulging inseams. One was holding
a freshly pressed uniform.
"Out!" ordered the leader, as the guard with the uniform shoved it into
Sheppard's hands.
As Sheppard shuffled out of his cell, he looked around, and saw that
several other cells in this corridor were open like his, with three
guards around them as well.
The lead guard then pointed a baton towards a bank of cubicles down
the hall, which were open. Escorted down the hall by the guards, he
saw that they were shower cubicles.
As he stepped into the first cubicle, the guards closed and locked the
door behind him. Putting his clothes on the rack, he saw that the cubicle
consisted of two sections: a section with a bench and racks on the wall for
clothes, and another section separated by a shower curtain. Stripping naked
and stepping into the shower, he saw that there were no temperature panels,
or knobs, just a big red button.
It was with some trepidation that he pushed the button.
Gallons of icy-cold water poured over him, causing him to scream
involuntarily. A 'binging' noise attracted his attention, and through
the cold water, he saw a timer begin counting down from 5 minutes.
[7 Minutes later]
A visibly shivering Sheppard stepped out of the shower, fully dressed
and shaved.
A furtive glance down the corridor revealed Dalton, who was also shivering
too. Their escorts quickly fastened the Mark XXI Prisoner Transport System
around their necks, and in bored tones, began a speech they had done many,
many times before.
"Some of you may be thinking that you might overpower us, or that your
Rebel friends will save you. You are sadly mistaken. Guards! Get the
demonstrator!"
A pair of guards down the corridor nodded, and walked away, disappearing
behind one of the prison ships' corridors.
It was several minutes before they reappeared, this time dragging a babbling
wreck of a man, who had the same collar around his neck that was around theirs.
They chained him to the floor, and then slowly stepped away from him. He began
to babble in pleading tones.
"The name's Knight! I didn't do anything wrong! They had it coming! Honest!"
The lead guard scowled.
"Observe this piece of trash. Utterly worthless. THIS is what happens if
you attempt a jailbreak." With that, he pressed a button on a stylus he
was holding.
A small explosion battered their eardrums, and Knight's head disappeared
in a red mist, and the now-headless corpse clattered onto the deckplates,
staining them red.
"Take them away!"
With that, the guards jostled them down the corridor for several minutes,
before pushing them into one of four holding tanks. Sheppard found himself
competing for scarce seating space in Holding Tank #1 with Dalton and
Strowbridge.
For the next two hours, nobody said much of anything, as more and
more people were led into the holding tanks. Finally, when everyone
was now dressed and in one of the tanks, the guards performed a
head-count.
An hour later, the head count was finished, and the guards began to
bring people out of the holding cells one by one, handcuffing them
together with magcuffs after frisking them throughly for concealed
weapons.
The prisoners were then attached together to each other by threading
a chain through a hole in their magcuffs and in this manner, groups
of five were chained together, to prevent individual escapes.
"You got the food?" asked one of the guards, a heavy set man with
TROMP lettered out neatly on his nametag. "Yep, right here," replied
another, holding up a thick container with the symbol for food stencilled
onto it. "Thirty field rations which expired about a week ago."
"Only thirty?" asked Strowbridge, elicting a dirty look from one
of the guards, who gave him the look reserved for people who asked
glaringly obvious questions.
"We don't need to put you and that entire company on trial, 'General'",
chuckled the man known as Tromp. "The high ranking honchos are more
than sufficient."
"What about my men? Aren't they entitled to individual trials under
the Imperial Army General Orders of Courts Marshal?" asked Sheppard.
Tromp and the other guards laughed. "You haven't heard? The Emperor
himself suspended the General Orders six months ago. We don't need
to put everyone in your company on trial, Sheppard. Just you. We can
just cut and paste your sentence to the others in your company."
"What a nice mess you've gotten us all into, Sheppard." snarled Strowbridge,
who still hadn't come to terms with his sudden demotion from Major General
leading a division of 14,000 men to a prisoner leading just himself.
"SHUT UP!" yelled Tromp, who promptly pressed a blue button on the stylus
he had used to kill Hutchins. Instantly, every prisoner began to scream as
60,000 volts of electricity coursed through their bodies from the Prisoner
Collars they wore.
"From now on, no one talks unless they are told to!"
As the stench of ozone filled the room, the guards led the first group of
prisoners out to the loading ramp, after first leading them through
seven ceramo-carbide doors.
Sheppard and the other people were then forced to wait in the near-freezing
loading hangar while the guards searched the modified Lambda-class shuttle
they were using as a prisoner transport for bugs, bombs, and other non
standard material.
When the guards were satisfied, they lowered the rear prisoner loading ramp,
which allowed the prisoners to be kept in a totally separate compartment away
from the pilot compartment up front.
"In." snarled Tromp as he poked Sheppard's back with a stunrod. Slowly,
Sheppard began to shuffle forward, towards the shuttle, leading the
pack of four men who were chained to him.
Inside, the prisoner compartment was nothing but a solid featureless
gray, with benches rising out of the floor. The only ornamentation was
a lone light in the ceiling, and a sliding window between the pilot's
compartment and the prisoner compartment, so the guards could check
on the prisoners in complete safety.
Sheppard continued to shuffle towards the end of the compartment, and
then sat down on the bench. Looking down, he saw that Dalton and
Strowbridge were in his prisoner chain. For once, Dalton didn't have
any smartass comments, while Strowbridge was silently fuming.
The minutes went by, and six more prisoner chains were bought up
and seated in the compartment, all under the watchful eye of a
MandalMotors Prisoner Control Droid, which waved it's built in
E-11 over everyone menacingly, stopping every so often on someone
to make them sweat.
Finally, the shuttle was loaded with it's cargo of human flotsam,
and the Droid was withdrawn, it's glowing red eyes the last thing
everyone saw before the massive armored loading door clanged shut,
dropping the entire compartment into darkness, save for the thin
sickly light burning in the ceiling.
Beneath their feet, the ion drives thrummed into life, and clanging
noises were felt as the landing skids retracted into the belly of
the shuttle harshly.
It was obvious that this shuttle hadn't been well maintained. Deep
down, everyone was praying that they didn't have an 'accident'.
The horror stories had always been there, about prisoners who slowly
suffocated to death in orbit of a dead prison world, while their
jailers were rescued.
As the shuttle moved towards Carida, Sheppard looked at the others in
the shuttle.
They all had hardened looks on their faces. Many had the characteristic
cold-dead eyes of the LT, while others bore wicked scars.
These were the worst offenders in the Imperial military; they knew
the fate that awaited them, and they were ready to go to their deaths
with a sneer on their lips.
One of them fixed his eyes on Dalton, and licked his lips. "Hello my
pretty, if we survive this, want some action?"
With that, the prisoner began to inch closer to Dalton in the most
obscene manner possible, causing everyone in the prisoner compartment
to avert their eyes in disgust.
Dalton's only reply was to lunge out with his chained feet, dragging
everyone else chained to him along with him as he caught the offender
dead on the lips, causing a tooth to be knocked out with a crunching
noise and a splash of bloody saliva.
The pervert roared in pain, and snarled in a low voice, his blood dripping
from his ruined mouth as he spat out the tooth in a bloody gob of spit.
"No....one...fucks.....with Wes Hutchins like that!"
With that, Hutchins lunged towards Dalton, dragging the rest
of his chain along with him, but he hadn't counted on the still-strong
bonds of the men of Phoenix Company as Sheppard joined in on the battle,
wrapping his wrist chains around the man's neck and squeezing.
So involved in their fight were the prisoners that they didn't notice the
small window at the front of the prisoner compartment opening and closing.
Up front, Tromp turned to his friend. "Nothing to worry about. Just a minor
squabble. With any luck, they'll all kill each other and we can go home early."
"Can't we just blow the cargo doors and space the whole worthless lot?" asked
the co-pilot, causing Tromp to chuckle.
"Sithspit, who do you think you are? Lord Vader? Even if we spaced them,
we'd still have to do the paperwork concerning accidential deaths."
"Until they're convicted, they're still Imperial officers."
[Back in the Compartment]
"DIE, YOU........KRIFFING....SHITHEAD!" spat Dalton in between pained
gasps for breath as he slowly tightened the chains around Hutchins'
throat, with each breath, tightening the chain of steel around the
worthless kriffbucket's throat, causing his breaths to come out in
slow, ragged gasps.
Next to Dalton, Sheppard was pulling on the other end of the chain,
until Hutchins caught him in the happy sac with a brutal kick, causing
him to roll onto the floor gasping and moaning in pain, stars swimming
before his eyes.
"Oh, for Vader's sake," muttered Strowbridge as he watched Sheppard
go down. "Don't they teach you young upstarts anything about hand to
hand fighting in the academies today?"
"You never get involved with your own bare hands, morons."
With that, Strowbridge removed his rank insigna and worked it
with his hands, revealing a hidden blade.
"This farce has gone on long enough, and I'm tired of hearing your
pathetic squabbling with that cretin," he said in a detached voice
as he fingered the insigna knife and in a sudden motion, lept forward,
jabbing the blade into Hutchin's right eye, causing the man to convulse
in pain.
In a few short motions, it was all over, and Hutchins' body sagged to
the floor, and a horrible stench filled the tiny compartment as the dead
man's bowels released.
Strowbridge took note of his handiwork, and removed the knife, wiping
Hutchins' eyeball and brains off the blade with the dead man's uniform.
"Now, can we have some peace and quiet for once? I have a headache."
The stench from Hutchins' body quickly grew to unbearable levels, and
everyone began to cough and gag. "Sithspit, why did he have to eat
the fucking beans they gave us this morning for breakfast?" Sheppard
said as he tried unsuccessfully to hold his nose.
"Shut up, Sheppard. You're the reason we're in this kriffing mess, what
with you and that unauthorized nerve gas use." snapped Strowbridge.
That shut Sheppard up, and the rest of the flight to the Imperial
Military Justice Complex on Carida was made in stony silence, everyone
looking nervously at Hutchins' corpse, and trying to avoid the dead man's
piss from getting on their shoes
Several minutes after everyone had felt the shuttle land , the door
clanked open, and Tromp and the others appeared in the doorway, when
they suddenly rocked back in disgust as the fetid stench of shit rushed
out of the sealed prisoner compartment.
"Sith........Spit!" shouted Tromp.
[1 hour later]
The heavy door clanged shut behind Sheppard as he sat down in his
temporary holding cell deep in the basement of the Complex, along
with Dalton and Strowbridge, waiting for their turn in the courtroom.
"How much longer?" he asked one of the guards as they walked down
the corridor on their routine cellblock checks.
"Kriff yourself." came the sharp reply.
After what seemed like several hours, the guard re-appeared again, this
time holding the expired MREs that Tromp had packed for them. "Here's your
lunch. Eat hearty." said the guard as he shoved the MRE through the food
slot in the cell door.
Sheppard looked at the MRE warily, as the expiration date was stamped
prominently on the pouch, and it had expired a week ago. Sighing, he
began to open the pouch, when a foul stench hit him, and caused him
to collapse to the floor, retching. The spoiled food in the MRE reminded
him of Hutchins' corpse and he threw the MRE onto the cell door, splattering
spoiled meat and sauce everywhere.
[30 minutes later]
"SHEPPARD! DALTON! STROWBRIDGE! Up and at them! Your turn is up!"
shouted the guard as he prepared the chains for the three prisoners.
Within minutes, all three were chained together and led into a small
side elevator which took them up to the 100th floor of the Complex,
where they were then put into a smaller holding cell next to the
courtroom.
After fifteen more minutes of waiting, which seemed like an eternity
to the three prisoners, the door to the courtroom opened and several
guards came in.
"Court's in session. Get out here."
As they were led out, they saw on the judge's podium, the name
"Wesley Hutchins, Senior"
"Oh kriff me to hell." muttered Sheppard.
"Let's get this over with." snarled Hutchins, Sr.
"The Charges against you are Violating the Imperial
Surface Officers' Doctine, and the maximum penalty
allowable is death. Do you have anything to say
before sentence is passed?"
Before anyone could say anything, Strowbridge spoke up.
"Sithspit, I can't see any resemblance between you and your son,
except the fact that you're both worthless scumbuckets. You should
have heard him squeal when I scrambled his brains."
As Judge Hutchins' face turned beet-red, Strowbridge continued to talk.
"Kriff it, we all know this trial is a farce, designed for consumption to
cow officers into meekly submitting to the ISOD. Well, Kriff the ISOD.
The damn thing is a piece of shit. So, kriff you and kriff your son."
Before Strowbridge could say any more, he was interrupted by the banging
of the Judge's gavel.
"I pronounce the sentence; DEATH for you three, and twenty years' of hard
labor for your men!" shouted Hutchins, Sr.
"Take them away!" finished Hutchins, spittle flying from his lips
as he screamed.
As the guards grabbed the trio and manhandled them out of the courtroom,
Hutchins got up and quickly left for his judicial chambers. The entire trial
(all three minutes of it) had gotten him really worked up, and he needed
something to help him relax.
As he entered his chambers, he locked the doors behind him and activicated
the anti-bugging devices to ensure his privacy before he opened the hidden
compartment in his desk.
His heart skipped several beats as he saw that his secret supply of
Spice was missing. He began to look around his chambers frantically, and
stopped when he heard a dark voice behind him. "Looking for this?'
Whirling around like a man possessed, he saw a blue-skinned woman sitting
in his chair, holding the vial of precious spice in her hands.
"It would be horrible, a terrible SCANDAL if knowledge about your spice
addiction were to become public knowledge, along with how you used your
own son as a spice mule."
Hutchins licked his lips nervously. "What do you want?"
"What I want, my dear, is for you to commute the sentences on those three
to life imprisonment and place them onto the prisoner transport _FCG-2244_."
"But...But....I can't change the sentence!" protested Hutchins as his eyes
followed the vial of spice as the mysterious blue-skinned woman played
with it.
"Oh yes, you can. Paragraph 653a of the Imperial Judicial Doctrine,
specificially allows a judge to recant an earlier sentence if the
Emperor so desires it. Are you willing to go against the Emperor's
Will?"
"Er...Ah...no." sputtered Wes, thin beads of sweat forming on his
forehead.
"Good. Hopefully, I shan't have to see you again...if everything
goes well. The Emperor does not look kindly onto those subjects
who defy His Will."
The woman spun around in the chair, and when the chair spun back
around, it was empty, causing Hutchins to do a double take.
He immediately turned around and burst back into the courtroom,
his eyes locking onto the Clerk of the Court, who was typing
the final details on the trial into the Empire's criminal database.
"Clerk! CLERK! Change the sentence to life imprisonment, and have
them loaded onto transport _FCG-2244_!"
"But sir, I thought you..." stammered the clerk, annoyed at having
to redo all the work he had done.
"I THOUGHT WRONG! CHANGE THE SENTENCES NOW!" screamed Hutchins,
causing several guards to poke their heads in from outside the
court.
[5 minutes later - Death Row]
"I had to say it, men." muttered Strowbridge as he was strapped
into the distengrator chamber, in between Dalton and Sheppard.
"It's been nice knowing you all. See you on the other side,"
remarked Sheppard as the guards closed the door to the chamber.
"When I come back, I want to come back as a Hutt, all they do
is eat for half their natural life, and then spend the rest of
their lives screwing like crazy," said Dalton as the distengrator
coils came to life with the faint smell of ozone and a slow humming
noise.
As the coils began to build up in energy, so did the humming noise,
and it rose to a shriek...when all of a sudden it stopped.
"Are we dead yet?" asked Sheppard. Distengration was the fastest
method of execution known to humanity.
The door clanked open and the guards came in and began unstrapping
the trio. "Your sentence has been commuted to Life Imprisonment,"
said the guard with a look of definite disgust on his face. He
liked distengrations - seeing the offender scream in primal agony
as his body was distengrated one molecule at a time at an exponental
rate.
[1 Day Later - The Emperor's Palace - Imperial City]
"Halt!" shouted a young man wearing the stylish purple clothes
that identified him as one with money. Hit-Man simply smirked.
"Out of my way, fancy-pants."
"You dare speak that way to an Imperial Inquisitor?" snarled the
man as he snapped forth with force lightning from his fingertips.
Hit-Man simply grinned as the lightning crackled all over his
battle-scarred white armor, dissipating harmlessly. Then, with a
short brutal motion that happened so fast that if one had blinked,
they'd have missed it, he clove the Inquistitor's head from his body
in a blur of black light.
From within the Emperor's chambers, Hit-Man heard an evil cackle,
and slowly, the doors opened, and the Emperor shuffled forth. "Excellent
work, my young apprentice. Inquisitor Shymel was proving to be more
of a problem than he was worth."
Hit-Man knelt before his God, the Emperor and bowed his head. "My Master,
I live only to serve you and the Dark Side."
Palpatine courtesied with a wizened hand for Hit-Man to rise. "My Dear Hand,
I have a new mission for you. You will once again go undercover in my Stormtrooper
Corps, this time in a new galaxy."
Hit-Man nodded in interest, for the Emperor would explain everything to him.
"The details are trifling," continued Palpatine as he walked back towards his
throne, with Hit-Man at his side. "You will find a holo with everything you need
to know about your new mission in your quarters."
"What I have called you here for, is to act as my Will in this new Galaxy, as
conventional HoloNet transmissions will not be able to reach it. You are
to pay particular attention to the leaders of the expedition, Admiral Sonnenburg,
Surface Marshall Shimazaki, and Commander Thelea of the ISB."
Palpatine turned around to face Hit-Man, his yellowish eyes boring into the LT.
"You will not allow them to become...too independent. If they show signs of
independence, terminate them immediately."
Hit-Man nodded. "Thy will shall be done, Master. Is there anything else you wish
of me?"
Palpatine nodded. "Yes, there is. The Hutts have become too independent-minded.
Make an example of them before you leave for this new galaxy."
Hit-Man nodded again, the faintest traces of a grin breaking across his
his scarred face. Palpatine saw it, and cackled inwardly. Hit-Man was
proving to be one of his best tools, perhaps as good as the late, lamented
Darth Maul.
"Begone, I wish to meditate on the nature of the Dark Side." finished Palpatine,
motioning with his hands and the Force, causing a doorway on the side of
his chambers to swing open.
Hit-Man nodded and knelt once more before his liege lord before leaving. He
had a mission now, and everything, even sex, was now subordinate to fulfilling
his master's wishes.
After several minutes of mediation, Palpatine felt the essence of yet another
one of his Hands. "Welcome, my dear Hand." he croaked in his wizened voice
towards the blue-skinned woman in the background shadows of his throne room,
her twin eyes glowing like fire rubies in the darkened chamber.
"I have a new mission for you. You are to continue with your present duties
as an officer in my ISB, only this time, you will be enforcing my Will in
another galaxy."
Thelea nodded. "And would this duty involve keeping watch over certain Imperial
Army officers whose names end in 'Strowbridge, Dalton, and Sheppard'?"
"I sense you are disturbed at my sparing of these officers, my dear Hand."
"Certainly, my Lord. They have shown a willingness to ignore your Will,
and you are handing to them such a momentuous task?" replied Thelea, her
eyes narrowing into glowing slits.
"I spared them at the insistence of Grand-Admiral Thrawn. If you wish to
take fault with my decision, consult with the Grand-Admiral first."
replied Palpatine.
"He is the one who discovered this galaxy, with all it's opportunities.
The races that inhabit it are much less advanced than we are, and it will
be an easy addition to my Empire."
Palpatine paused at that, and leant forwards, his sickly yellow eyes boring
into Thelea's. "You will ensure that it becomes part of MY Empire, not
Admiral Sonnenburg's nor Surface Marshall Shimazaki's."
Palpatine added almost as an afterthought, "And above all, keep track of
Inquisitor Voltrick. He is travelling in the fleet undercover as a Lieutenant
in my Stormtrooper Corps by the name Hit-Man. You are to watch him carefully
as well, to ensure he does not try and seize power of his own Dark Side Empire,
far from MY reach."
"My Lord, if you truly wish me to keep control over your Inquisitor, I will need
at least a dozen male and female Ysalamiris and the habitats for them."
replied Thelea.
Palpatine's eyes widened ever so slightly. How had SHE found out about
those cursed creatures?
"Certainly. They will be delivered to your quarters within a fortnight." replied
Palpatine. _These Chiss were getting to be too much trouble than they were
worth_, he thought.
"Good. As you well know, My Lord, no one stands a chance against
a fully-trained Sith Lord without Ysalamiri. If you truly do want me to keep
track of Inquisitor Voltrick, without getting killed in the process, it
is a necessity."
Palpatine grumbled at that. "Be gone. I wish to meditate." was his reply.
As Thelea left the same way she had entered, Palpatine briefly thought
about having her terminated, but banished the thought as quickly as he
had entertained it. She was a cut better than most of the bumbling fools
in the ISB, and she had stopped one of the many assassination attempts
against him. That one had come much, much closer than the rest.
Palpatine cackled at the thought of such insects actually killing him. What
they did not know was that he had already died many, many times before,
and that the body that he now inhabited was not his original body, which
had died a long time ago. Death was merely an annoyance to him.
[1 day later - Nar Shadda]
A cloaked figure strode through the steamy neon nightlife of Nar Shadda,
and everyone from the highest pimp to the lowliest street thug kept a wide
berth of the figure after one of their numbers had tried to accost the
stranger and had gotten their head removed for his trouble.
The figure looked up at the towering slab of durasteel before him - the
Carral Hotel. The one relatively safe place to hang your hat on Nar Shadda
without having to worry about your neck being slit in the middle of the night
for a quick cred by street scum.
The figure smiled. Actually, the safety of the hotel and it's occupants didn't have
to do with it's security systems, however formidable they might be. It had to do
with the fact that the hotel was run by Parga the Hutt as a front for his many
crime schemes, and it was an open secret that Parga's lair was deep inside the
hotel's sub-basements.
Parga in turn looked down very harshly on people who interrupted paying guests,
often assigning bounties on those who attacked guests of his hotel. The tactic
had worked, and quite well at that. Every scumbag for a hundred kliks around
knew about the hotel and not to fuck with it.
The Emperor didn't really care about aliens, nor their business, unless they
were skimpy with their taxes. Parga had embezzled quntillions of credits from
the Imperial Treasury, and he was an outright figure of defiance for untold
trillions of beings slaving under the Imperial Tax Burden. This was unacceptable.
There were also rumors that his shipping companies were supplying the Rebellion
with highly advanced weaponry, for a price of course. No one thumbed their nose
at the Emperor like that and got away with it. His intransigience had persisted,
despite repeated Imperial Envoys, and the other Hutts were starting to get
ideas. This was also unacceptable.
The figure stopped before a guarded doorway on the 102th level of the hotel
that his intelligence had indicated was one of only a few entrances to Parga's
lair. Standing in a transparisteel booth with windows several centimeters thick,
were two guards, a Rodian and a Human. Both of them looked at the newcomer warily.
Parga was paying them well. Quite well, for a bunch of wanted criminals on the
lam from the law for murder in a dozen systems. They just had to keep freeloaders
away from this door.
"Name?" asked the Rodian, causing the figure to snort derisively.
"Death," replied the cloaked figure, causing the two guards to look at
each other sarcastically. Oh great, not another chem-fried case.
"And who are you here to see?" asked the Human guard, fighting to keep
a smirk off his face, as he contemplated calling in Hotel security,
to take care of this nutter. The light blaster cannon concealed above
the doorway seemed a bit excessive for a nut like this one.
"Parga the Hutt."
Both guards exchanged glances. "Parga ain't seeing anybody today,
especially a kriffin chem case like YOU!" snarled the Rodian as
he reached with his hand towards the activation button for the
shock panel the nut was standing on.
Suddenly, the figure threw back his hood, revealing a horribly
scarred face, accentuated by the blood-red glow from a cyber-eye.
"Unfortunately for you, I am seeing old Parga today," rasped HIT-MAN
as he reached out with the Force, and manipulated the tiny blood vessels
in both guards' brains, causing them to die near-instaneously from embolisms.
His master would be proud of him, thought Hit-Man as he triggered the door
control panel inside the now-unmanned booth with the Force. He was learning
subtulety, rather than raw violence.
Stepping inside the Hotel, Hit-Man followed the corridor down to a lone
turbolift car, which was giving him strong vibes from the Force. Smirking,
he reached down and easily disabled the hidden distengrator booth fitted
flush inside the car.
As the turbolift sped downwards at an ever increasing rate towards the
basement of the Hotel, which was actually still several hundred stories
above true ground level, Hit-Man discarded his disguise, revealing his
trademark blaster-scarred Stormtrooper armor, along with his customized
E-11 clipped to his belt, opposite of his lightsabre.
Several minutes later, the Turbolift hissed to a stop, and the doors slid
open to reveal a debauched sight - Parga sitting in a repulsorlift field
at the center of an opulently appointed room, with several Twi'lek slave
girls rubbing him all over with skin cream to keep his skin moist and fresh.
Hit-Man enjoyed the sight for a few moments before getting back to his
mission. In a low rumbling voice, he spoke up.
"Awright Parga! Time's UP! Palpie isn't too pleased with your recent
business deals. It's time for you to pay the piper!"
The girls looked up and screamed at the sight of a heavily armed stormtrooper
standing in the turbolift, his E-11 aimed directly at them, and an inky-black
lightsabre thrumming in the intruder's other hand.
[2 days after the events of Chapter One]
The Victory-Class Star Destroyer _Hellbore_ hung motionless,
suspended between the Lap system's binary suns, which bathed the
white hull in both red and white light as dozens of smaller craft
came to and fro from it's hangar bays.
While not as big as the Imperator-class vessels, the Victories formed
the bulk of the Navy's mid-size fleet as the centuries-old Rendilii
StarDrive Dreadnoughts were slowly retired.
With a flash of cronau radiation, the bulky slab-sided prison transport
_Shattered Souls_ left hyperspace with her load of prisoners from
the recently crushed Rebel base on Hopta VII.
From the _Hellbore's_ hangar bays came six more TIE Interceptors, to
join the other six already on BARCAP. Rebel prisoners were in the area,
and where there were Reb prisoners, there was almost always inevitably
a rescue attempt.
Nearly on the dot, a squadron of Y-Wings dropped out of hyperspace
on an intercept vector with the _Shattered Souls_.
[Cell #144 - Cellblock A - ISS _Shattered Souls_]
Sheppard woke up to the piercing wail of klaxons, and
shook his head, trying to get the gunk out of his eyes,
as he watched guards run past his cell through the meal
slot in the door.
"What's going on, dammit!" shouted Dalton from his cell
next to Sheppard's.
"Shut up! The Rebs are inbound!" replied the guard as
he hit the emergency lockdown button on his panel.
All over the cellblock, emergency vacuum containment
doors slammed down with dull booms, and the meal slots
were closed off, leaving all of the prisoners to sit
nervously in their cramped cells, listening to the
sounds of battle.
[Badger Squadron - Lead Y-Wing]
"Form up on my wing. Section one goes for the prison ship,
section two keeps the TIEs off our backs." ordered the
leader of the squadron.
Intel had said that a shipload of prisoners from their fallen
base on Hopta VII were about to arrive on the _Hellbore_ for
interrogation. It was their duty to try and rescue as many
of them as possible.
A scratch force consisting of a single Y-Wing squadron and
an assault transport loaded with troops had been thrown
together hastily. The window of opportunity was that short.
They had arrived at the right moment. The prison ship was
at best, 10 minutes from docking with the _Hellbore_, and
the TIEs were 2 minutes out. It was time to go to work.
With that, the 12 Y-Wings split up smoothly into two sections
of six craft each, one headed towards the transport, and
the other for the TIEs.
[T/I Gamma One]
"Y-Wings. Execute attack pattern Delta." rasped the squadron
commander, as he pulled his Interceptor into a smooth
corkscrew towards the oncoming Y-Wings, preventing the
Y-Wings from getting an easy head-on shot in the
opening enagement.
[Badger 4]
"Shit, I can't get a lock on them! They're too damn slippery!"
shouted the rookie pilot, who was frantically trying to lock on
to the lead TIE with his warhead launcher, which was loaded
with concussion missiles.
[T/I Gamma One]
Keeping a steady foot on his etheric rudder in order to 'skid'
across the sky, the commander made it through the initial
closing enagement with the Y-Wings unscathed. Others in his
squadron weren't as lucky. One took a direct hit from the
Y-Wings full array of weapons and exploded, while another
collided head-on with a Y-Wing that completely destroyed
the Interceptor, but left the Y-Wing a floating hulk,
with the cockpit area completely shredded.
Putting his dead squadronmates out of his head, the commander
spotted a Y-Wing twisting through the sky, and smoothly
moved the stick, rolling in behind the Y-Wing like he was
on rails in an amusement park ride.
Taking his time, he loosed a full volley of supercharged bolts
from his quad lasers into the Y-Wing's starboard engine, blasting
through the area's weak shielding and completely shredding the
fusial turbine, which then blew apart violently, spraying the
rest of the Y-Wing with high-speed radioactive shrapnel.
A moment later, the Y-Wing's other engine began to spin out of control
due to shrapnel damage. The cockpit area was suddenly wreathed in an
explosion, and the rebel pilot shot out of his crippled fighter on
his command chair.
The commander let the drifting pilot go. There would be time enough
to pick him up at their leisure after the battle, where he would
become a 'guest' of the Empire.
Around him, he saw the remaining Y-Wings tangling with what was
left of his squadron. A minute later, it was all over. Six Y-Wings
destroyed for the loss of three TIE Interceptors.
Turning around, he saw the prison ship wreathed in shield glow
as the other six Y-Wings traded ion cannon fire with the ship,
taking pains to attack from the lower front, avoiding the quad
laser batteries in the command section, which was at the very end
of the ship to ensure inmates couldn't take over the ship's armament.
Seeing that their compatriots had been utterly wiped out, and that
they had 9 TIE Interceptors bearing down on them, with their target's
shields still at 60%, the remaining members of Badger Squadron
decided that discretion was the better part of valor and gave the
abort order, breaking off their enagement of the _Shattered Souls_,
and trucking it to their pre-calculated hyperjump point as fast
as they could.
At the edge of the system, the 40 Rebel commandoes on the Assault
Transport groaned as they heard the abort signal come from the
surviving ranking pilot of Badger Squadron.
They wouldn't be able to save their fellows this time. It was with
heavy hearts that they entered hyperspace.
[ISS _Shattered Souls_]
Slowly, the heavy containment doors raised from their closed positions,
and the guards began circulating through the four different cellblocks
of the prison ship and doing a new headcount, to ensure that the prisoners
hadn't been able to take advantage of the confusion to attempt an escape.
It took nearly three hours because a guard fucked up on the *first* count,
and then someone *else* had fucked up on the recount, neccisating a
third.
Only then was the _Shattered Soul_ allowed to complete docking with the
_Hellbore_, and the transfer of the Rebel prisoners to begin.
The _Hellbore_ was a new type of ship: the Victory I (G) type, which consisted
of old Victory Is upgraded with new engines and modern turbolasers, along
with trading off some big guns for quad laser batteries, and troop space
for an on-board prison.
It had come about due to the increasing successes of the Rebels in springing
their compatriots from Imperial prison ships en route to prison worlds.
Strong enough to fight off most of the capital ships in the Rebel inventory,
and capable of keeping it's shields up long enough against a Mon Cal to
run away, as well as packing enough quad laser batteries to defend respectably
well against the typical Rebel hit and run starfighter assault, the retrofitted
Victories had served quite well, and were routinely assigned to sectors where
heavy combat with the Rebels was occuring.
Several hours later, the _Shattered Soul_ undocked from the _Hellbore_, and
slowly moved away, three out of her four cellblocks now empty. Several minutes
later, the _Shattered Soul_ jumped.
A short time later, the _Hellbore_ also jumped to an unknown destination,
where the interrogation of the Rebels could continue uninterrupted
by their friends.
[3 Days later]
The blue tunnel of hyperspace faded away, to be replaced with blue streaks
of starlight, and then simple pinpricks of white as the prison ship
reverted to realspace over the Imperial military world of Carida.
Carida; where every Stormtrooper was trained, and where most of the
Imperial military's elite academies were also housed. It was also the
home of the Imperial JAG Corps.
[_ISS Shattered Souls_ - Cellblock Alpha - 0400 hours IST]
The guards walked down the corridors, banging their batons on the steel
walls as the cellblock came to life again, after five tedious days of
watching the men and women of Phoenix Company stew in their cells.
Sheppard woke up to the bright fluroscent overheads snapping on,
and the guards shouting over the cell's PA systems.
"GET UP! Stand away from the door!" snapped a harsh voice over
the overhead speaker. Slowly, trying to shake off his sleepiness,
Sheppard stood in the farthest corner from the door, and watched
as the door unlocked with a heavy 'thunk' of bolts retracting from
the frame.
A trio of guards was standing in the doorway, their uniforms masterfully
tailored, but failing to hide their bulging inseams. One was holding
a freshly pressed uniform.
"Out!" ordered the leader, as the guard with the uniform shoved it into
Sheppard's hands.
As Sheppard shuffled out of his cell, he looked around, and saw that
several other cells in this corridor were open like his, with three
guards around them as well.
The lead guard then pointed a baton towards a bank of cubicles down
the hall, which were open. Escorted down the hall by the guards, he
saw that they were shower cubicles.
As he stepped into the first cubicle, the guards closed and locked the
door behind him. Putting his clothes on the rack, he saw that the cubicle
consisted of two sections: a section with a bench and racks on the wall for
clothes, and another section separated by a shower curtain. Stripping naked
and stepping into the shower, he saw that there were no temperature panels,
or knobs, just a big red button.
It was with some trepidation that he pushed the button.
Gallons of icy-cold water poured over him, causing him to scream
involuntarily. A 'binging' noise attracted his attention, and through
the cold water, he saw a timer begin counting down from 5 minutes.
[7 Minutes later]
A visibly shivering Sheppard stepped out of the shower, fully dressed
and shaved.
A furtive glance down the corridor revealed Dalton, who was also shivering
too. Their escorts quickly fastened the Mark XXI Prisoner Transport System
around their necks, and in bored tones, began a speech they had done many,
many times before.
"Some of you may be thinking that you might overpower us, or that your
Rebel friends will save you. You are sadly mistaken. Guards! Get the
demonstrator!"
A pair of guards down the corridor nodded, and walked away, disappearing
behind one of the prison ships' corridors.
It was several minutes before they reappeared, this time dragging a babbling
wreck of a man, who had the same collar around his neck that was around theirs.
They chained him to the floor, and then slowly stepped away from him. He began
to babble in pleading tones.
"The name's Knight! I didn't do anything wrong! They had it coming! Honest!"
The lead guard scowled.
"Observe this piece of trash. Utterly worthless. THIS is what happens if
you attempt a jailbreak." With that, he pressed a button on a stylus he
was holding.
A small explosion battered their eardrums, and Knight's head disappeared
in a red mist, and the now-headless corpse clattered onto the deckplates,
staining them red.
"Take them away!"
With that, the guards jostled them down the corridor for several minutes,
before pushing them into one of four holding tanks. Sheppard found himself
competing for scarce seating space in Holding Tank #1 with Dalton and
Strowbridge.
For the next two hours, nobody said much of anything, as more and
more people were led into the holding tanks. Finally, when everyone
was now dressed and in one of the tanks, the guards performed a
head-count.
An hour later, the head count was finished, and the guards began to
bring people out of the holding cells one by one, handcuffing them
together with magcuffs after frisking them throughly for concealed
weapons.
The prisoners were then attached together to each other by threading
a chain through a hole in their magcuffs and in this manner, groups
of five were chained together, to prevent individual escapes.
"You got the food?" asked one of the guards, a heavy set man with
TROMP lettered out neatly on his nametag. "Yep, right here," replied
another, holding up a thick container with the symbol for food stencilled
onto it. "Thirty field rations which expired about a week ago."
"Only thirty?" asked Strowbridge, elicting a dirty look from one
of the guards, who gave him the look reserved for people who asked
glaringly obvious questions.
"We don't need to put you and that entire company on trial, 'General'",
chuckled the man known as Tromp. "The high ranking honchos are more
than sufficient."
"What about my men? Aren't they entitled to individual trials under
the Imperial Army General Orders of Courts Marshal?" asked Sheppard.
Tromp and the other guards laughed. "You haven't heard? The Emperor
himself suspended the General Orders six months ago. We don't need
to put everyone in your company on trial, Sheppard. Just you. We can
just cut and paste your sentence to the others in your company."
"What a nice mess you've gotten us all into, Sheppard." snarled Strowbridge,
who still hadn't come to terms with his sudden demotion from Major General
leading a division of 14,000 men to a prisoner leading just himself.
"SHUT UP!" yelled Tromp, who promptly pressed a blue button on the stylus
he had used to kill Hutchins. Instantly, every prisoner began to scream as
60,000 volts of electricity coursed through their bodies from the Prisoner
Collars they wore.
"From now on, no one talks unless they are told to!"
As the stench of ozone filled the room, the guards led the first group of
prisoners out to the loading ramp, after first leading them through
seven ceramo-carbide doors.
Sheppard and the other people were then forced to wait in the near-freezing
loading hangar while the guards searched the modified Lambda-class shuttle
they were using as a prisoner transport for bugs, bombs, and other non
standard material.
When the guards were satisfied, they lowered the rear prisoner loading ramp,
which allowed the prisoners to be kept in a totally separate compartment away
from the pilot compartment up front.
"In." snarled Tromp as he poked Sheppard's back with a stunrod. Slowly,
Sheppard began to shuffle forward, towards the shuttle, leading the
pack of four men who were chained to him.
Inside, the prisoner compartment was nothing but a solid featureless
gray, with benches rising out of the floor. The only ornamentation was
a lone light in the ceiling, and a sliding window between the pilot's
compartment and the prisoner compartment, so the guards could check
on the prisoners in complete safety.
Sheppard continued to shuffle towards the end of the compartment, and
then sat down on the bench. Looking down, he saw that Dalton and
Strowbridge were in his prisoner chain. For once, Dalton didn't have
any smartass comments, while Strowbridge was silently fuming.
The minutes went by, and six more prisoner chains were bought up
and seated in the compartment, all under the watchful eye of a
MandalMotors Prisoner Control Droid, which waved it's built in
E-11 over everyone menacingly, stopping every so often on someone
to make them sweat.
Finally, the shuttle was loaded with it's cargo of human flotsam,
and the Droid was withdrawn, it's glowing red eyes the last thing
everyone saw before the massive armored loading door clanged shut,
dropping the entire compartment into darkness, save for the thin
sickly light burning in the ceiling.
Beneath their feet, the ion drives thrummed into life, and clanging
noises were felt as the landing skids retracted into the belly of
the shuttle harshly.
It was obvious that this shuttle hadn't been well maintained. Deep
down, everyone was praying that they didn't have an 'accident'.
The horror stories had always been there, about prisoners who slowly
suffocated to death in orbit of a dead prison world, while their
jailers were rescued.
As the shuttle moved towards Carida, Sheppard looked at the others in
the shuttle.
They all had hardened looks on their faces. Many had the characteristic
cold-dead eyes of the LT, while others bore wicked scars.
These were the worst offenders in the Imperial military; they knew
the fate that awaited them, and they were ready to go to their deaths
with a sneer on their lips.
One of them fixed his eyes on Dalton, and licked his lips. "Hello my
pretty, if we survive this, want some action?"
With that, the prisoner began to inch closer to Dalton in the most
obscene manner possible, causing everyone in the prisoner compartment
to avert their eyes in disgust.
Dalton's only reply was to lunge out with his chained feet, dragging
everyone else chained to him along with him as he caught the offender
dead on the lips, causing a tooth to be knocked out with a crunching
noise and a splash of bloody saliva.
The pervert roared in pain, and snarled in a low voice, his blood dripping
from his ruined mouth as he spat out the tooth in a bloody gob of spit.
"No....one...fucks.....with Wes Hutchins like that!"
With that, Hutchins lunged towards Dalton, dragging the rest
of his chain along with him, but he hadn't counted on the still-strong
bonds of the men of Phoenix Company as Sheppard joined in on the battle,
wrapping his wrist chains around the man's neck and squeezing.
So involved in their fight were the prisoners that they didn't notice the
small window at the front of the prisoner compartment opening and closing.
Up front, Tromp turned to his friend. "Nothing to worry about. Just a minor
squabble. With any luck, they'll all kill each other and we can go home early."
"Can't we just blow the cargo doors and space the whole worthless lot?" asked
the co-pilot, causing Tromp to chuckle.
"Sithspit, who do you think you are? Lord Vader? Even if we spaced them,
we'd still have to do the paperwork concerning accidential deaths."
"Until they're convicted, they're still Imperial officers."
[Back in the Compartment]
"DIE, YOU........KRIFFING....SHITHEAD!" spat Dalton in between pained
gasps for breath as he slowly tightened the chains around Hutchins'
throat, with each breath, tightening the chain of steel around the
worthless kriffbucket's throat, causing his breaths to come out in
slow, ragged gasps.
Next to Dalton, Sheppard was pulling on the other end of the chain,
until Hutchins caught him in the happy sac with a brutal kick, causing
him to roll onto the floor gasping and moaning in pain, stars swimming
before his eyes.
"Oh, for Vader's sake," muttered Strowbridge as he watched Sheppard
go down. "Don't they teach you young upstarts anything about hand to
hand fighting in the academies today?"
"You never get involved with your own bare hands, morons."
With that, Strowbridge removed his rank insigna and worked it
with his hands, revealing a hidden blade.
"This farce has gone on long enough, and I'm tired of hearing your
pathetic squabbling with that cretin," he said in a detached voice
as he fingered the insigna knife and in a sudden motion, lept forward,
jabbing the blade into Hutchin's right eye, causing the man to convulse
in pain.
In a few short motions, it was all over, and Hutchins' body sagged to
the floor, and a horrible stench filled the tiny compartment as the dead
man's bowels released.
Strowbridge took note of his handiwork, and removed the knife, wiping
Hutchins' eyeball and brains off the blade with the dead man's uniform.
"Now, can we have some peace and quiet for once? I have a headache."
The stench from Hutchins' body quickly grew to unbearable levels, and
everyone began to cough and gag. "Sithspit, why did he have to eat
the fucking beans they gave us this morning for breakfast?" Sheppard
said as he tried unsuccessfully to hold his nose.
"Shut up, Sheppard. You're the reason we're in this kriffing mess, what
with you and that unauthorized nerve gas use." snapped Strowbridge.
That shut Sheppard up, and the rest of the flight to the Imperial
Military Justice Complex on Carida was made in stony silence, everyone
looking nervously at Hutchins' corpse, and trying to avoid the dead man's
piss from getting on their shoes
Several minutes after everyone had felt the shuttle land , the door
clanked open, and Tromp and the others appeared in the doorway, when
they suddenly rocked back in disgust as the fetid stench of shit rushed
out of the sealed prisoner compartment.
"Sith........Spit!" shouted Tromp.
[1 hour later]
The heavy door clanged shut behind Sheppard as he sat down in his
temporary holding cell deep in the basement of the Complex, along
with Dalton and Strowbridge, waiting for their turn in the courtroom.
"How much longer?" he asked one of the guards as they walked down
the corridor on their routine cellblock checks.
"Kriff yourself." came the sharp reply.
After what seemed like several hours, the guard re-appeared again, this
time holding the expired MREs that Tromp had packed for them. "Here's your
lunch. Eat hearty." said the guard as he shoved the MRE through the food
slot in the cell door.
Sheppard looked at the MRE warily, as the expiration date was stamped
prominently on the pouch, and it had expired a week ago. Sighing, he
began to open the pouch, when a foul stench hit him, and caused him
to collapse to the floor, retching. The spoiled food in the MRE reminded
him of Hutchins' corpse and he threw the MRE onto the cell door, splattering
spoiled meat and sauce everywhere.
[30 minutes later]
"SHEPPARD! DALTON! STROWBRIDGE! Up and at them! Your turn is up!"
shouted the guard as he prepared the chains for the three prisoners.
Within minutes, all three were chained together and led into a small
side elevator which took them up to the 100th floor of the Complex,
where they were then put into a smaller holding cell next to the
courtroom.
After fifteen more minutes of waiting, which seemed like an eternity
to the three prisoners, the door to the courtroom opened and several
guards came in.
"Court's in session. Get out here."
As they were led out, they saw on the judge's podium, the name
"Wesley Hutchins, Senior"
"Oh kriff me to hell." muttered Sheppard.
"Let's get this over with." snarled Hutchins, Sr.
"The Charges against you are Violating the Imperial
Surface Officers' Doctine, and the maximum penalty
allowable is death. Do you have anything to say
before sentence is passed?"
Before anyone could say anything, Strowbridge spoke up.
"Sithspit, I can't see any resemblance between you and your son,
except the fact that you're both worthless scumbuckets. You should
have heard him squeal when I scrambled his brains."
As Judge Hutchins' face turned beet-red, Strowbridge continued to talk.
"Kriff it, we all know this trial is a farce, designed for consumption to
cow officers into meekly submitting to the ISOD. Well, Kriff the ISOD.
The damn thing is a piece of shit. So, kriff you and kriff your son."
Before Strowbridge could say any more, he was interrupted by the banging
of the Judge's gavel.
"I pronounce the sentence; DEATH for you three, and twenty years' of hard
labor for your men!" shouted Hutchins, Sr.
"Take them away!" finished Hutchins, spittle flying from his lips
as he screamed.
As the guards grabbed the trio and manhandled them out of the courtroom,
Hutchins got up and quickly left for his judicial chambers. The entire trial
(all three minutes of it) had gotten him really worked up, and he needed
something to help him relax.
As he entered his chambers, he locked the doors behind him and activicated
the anti-bugging devices to ensure his privacy before he opened the hidden
compartment in his desk.
His heart skipped several beats as he saw that his secret supply of
Spice was missing. He began to look around his chambers frantically, and
stopped when he heard a dark voice behind him. "Looking for this?'
Whirling around like a man possessed, he saw a blue-skinned woman sitting
in his chair, holding the vial of precious spice in her hands.
"It would be horrible, a terrible SCANDAL if knowledge about your spice
addiction were to become public knowledge, along with how you used your
own son as a spice mule."
Hutchins licked his lips nervously. "What do you want?"
"What I want, my dear, is for you to commute the sentences on those three
to life imprisonment and place them onto the prisoner transport _FCG-2244_."
"But...But....I can't change the sentence!" protested Hutchins as his eyes
followed the vial of spice as the mysterious blue-skinned woman played
with it.
"Oh yes, you can. Paragraph 653a of the Imperial Judicial Doctrine,
specificially allows a judge to recant an earlier sentence if the
Emperor so desires it. Are you willing to go against the Emperor's
Will?"
"Er...Ah...no." sputtered Wes, thin beads of sweat forming on his
forehead.
"Good. Hopefully, I shan't have to see you again...if everything
goes well. The Emperor does not look kindly onto those subjects
who defy His Will."
The woman spun around in the chair, and when the chair spun back
around, it was empty, causing Hutchins to do a double take.
He immediately turned around and burst back into the courtroom,
his eyes locking onto the Clerk of the Court, who was typing
the final details on the trial into the Empire's criminal database.
"Clerk! CLERK! Change the sentence to life imprisonment, and have
them loaded onto transport _FCG-2244_!"
"But sir, I thought you..." stammered the clerk, annoyed at having
to redo all the work he had done.
"I THOUGHT WRONG! CHANGE THE SENTENCES NOW!" screamed Hutchins,
causing several guards to poke their heads in from outside the
court.
[5 minutes later - Death Row]
"I had to say it, men." muttered Strowbridge as he was strapped
into the distengrator chamber, in between Dalton and Sheppard.
"It's been nice knowing you all. See you on the other side,"
remarked Sheppard as the guards closed the door to the chamber.
"When I come back, I want to come back as a Hutt, all they do
is eat for half their natural life, and then spend the rest of
their lives screwing like crazy," said Dalton as the distengrator
coils came to life with the faint smell of ozone and a slow humming
noise.
As the coils began to build up in energy, so did the humming noise,
and it rose to a shriek...when all of a sudden it stopped.
"Are we dead yet?" asked Sheppard. Distengration was the fastest
method of execution known to humanity.
The door clanked open and the guards came in and began unstrapping
the trio. "Your sentence has been commuted to Life Imprisonment,"
said the guard with a look of definite disgust on his face. He
liked distengrations - seeing the offender scream in primal agony
as his body was distengrated one molecule at a time at an exponental
rate.
[1 Day Later - The Emperor's Palace - Imperial City]
"Halt!" shouted a young man wearing the stylish purple clothes
that identified him as one with money. Hit-Man simply smirked.
"Out of my way, fancy-pants."
"You dare speak that way to an Imperial Inquisitor?" snarled the
man as he snapped forth with force lightning from his fingertips.
Hit-Man simply grinned as the lightning crackled all over his
battle-scarred white armor, dissipating harmlessly. Then, with a
short brutal motion that happened so fast that if one had blinked,
they'd have missed it, he clove the Inquistitor's head from his body
in a blur of black light.
From within the Emperor's chambers, Hit-Man heard an evil cackle,
and slowly, the doors opened, and the Emperor shuffled forth. "Excellent
work, my young apprentice. Inquisitor Shymel was proving to be more
of a problem than he was worth."
Hit-Man knelt before his God, the Emperor and bowed his head. "My Master,
I live only to serve you and the Dark Side."
Palpatine courtesied with a wizened hand for Hit-Man to rise. "My Dear Hand,
I have a new mission for you. You will once again go undercover in my Stormtrooper
Corps, this time in a new galaxy."
Hit-Man nodded in interest, for the Emperor would explain everything to him.
"The details are trifling," continued Palpatine as he walked back towards his
throne, with Hit-Man at his side. "You will find a holo with everything you need
to know about your new mission in your quarters."
"What I have called you here for, is to act as my Will in this new Galaxy, as
conventional HoloNet transmissions will not be able to reach it. You are
to pay particular attention to the leaders of the expedition, Admiral Sonnenburg,
Surface Marshall Shimazaki, and Commander Thelea of the ISB."
Palpatine turned around to face Hit-Man, his yellowish eyes boring into the LT.
"You will not allow them to become...too independent. If they show signs of
independence, terminate them immediately."
Hit-Man nodded. "Thy will shall be done, Master. Is there anything else you wish
of me?"
Palpatine nodded. "Yes, there is. The Hutts have become too independent-minded.
Make an example of them before you leave for this new galaxy."
Hit-Man nodded again, the faintest traces of a grin breaking across his
his scarred face. Palpatine saw it, and cackled inwardly. Hit-Man was
proving to be one of his best tools, perhaps as good as the late, lamented
Darth Maul.
"Begone, I wish to meditate on the nature of the Dark Side." finished Palpatine,
motioning with his hands and the Force, causing a doorway on the side of
his chambers to swing open.
Hit-Man nodded and knelt once more before his liege lord before leaving. He
had a mission now, and everything, even sex, was now subordinate to fulfilling
his master's wishes.
After several minutes of mediation, Palpatine felt the essence of yet another
one of his Hands. "Welcome, my dear Hand." he croaked in his wizened voice
towards the blue-skinned woman in the background shadows of his throne room,
her twin eyes glowing like fire rubies in the darkened chamber.
"I have a new mission for you. You are to continue with your present duties
as an officer in my ISB, only this time, you will be enforcing my Will in
another galaxy."
Thelea nodded. "And would this duty involve keeping watch over certain Imperial
Army officers whose names end in 'Strowbridge, Dalton, and Sheppard'?"
"I sense you are disturbed at my sparing of these officers, my dear Hand."
"Certainly, my Lord. They have shown a willingness to ignore your Will,
and you are handing to them such a momentuous task?" replied Thelea, her
eyes narrowing into glowing slits.
"I spared them at the insistence of Grand-Admiral Thrawn. If you wish to
take fault with my decision, consult with the Grand-Admiral first."
replied Palpatine.
"He is the one who discovered this galaxy, with all it's opportunities.
The races that inhabit it are much less advanced than we are, and it will
be an easy addition to my Empire."
Palpatine paused at that, and leant forwards, his sickly yellow eyes boring
into Thelea's. "You will ensure that it becomes part of MY Empire, not
Admiral Sonnenburg's nor Surface Marshall Shimazaki's."
Palpatine added almost as an afterthought, "And above all, keep track of
Inquisitor Voltrick. He is travelling in the fleet undercover as a Lieutenant
in my Stormtrooper Corps by the name Hit-Man. You are to watch him carefully
as well, to ensure he does not try and seize power of his own Dark Side Empire,
far from MY reach."
"My Lord, if you truly wish me to keep control over your Inquisitor, I will need
at least a dozen male and female Ysalamiris and the habitats for them."
replied Thelea.
Palpatine's eyes widened ever so slightly. How had SHE found out about
those cursed creatures?
"Certainly. They will be delivered to your quarters within a fortnight." replied
Palpatine. _These Chiss were getting to be too much trouble than they were
worth_, he thought.
"Good. As you well know, My Lord, no one stands a chance against
a fully-trained Sith Lord without Ysalamiri. If you truly do want me to keep
track of Inquisitor Voltrick, without getting killed in the process, it
is a necessity."
Palpatine grumbled at that. "Be gone. I wish to meditate." was his reply.
As Thelea left the same way she had entered, Palpatine briefly thought
about having her terminated, but banished the thought as quickly as he
had entertained it. She was a cut better than most of the bumbling fools
in the ISB, and she had stopped one of the many assassination attempts
against him. That one had come much, much closer than the rest.
Palpatine cackled at the thought of such insects actually killing him. What
they did not know was that he had already died many, many times before,
and that the body that he now inhabited was not his original body, which
had died a long time ago. Death was merely an annoyance to him.
[1 day later - Nar Shadda]
A cloaked figure strode through the steamy neon nightlife of Nar Shadda,
and everyone from the highest pimp to the lowliest street thug kept a wide
berth of the figure after one of their numbers had tried to accost the
stranger and had gotten their head removed for his trouble.
The figure looked up at the towering slab of durasteel before him - the
Carral Hotel. The one relatively safe place to hang your hat on Nar Shadda
without having to worry about your neck being slit in the middle of the night
for a quick cred by street scum.
The figure smiled. Actually, the safety of the hotel and it's occupants didn't have
to do with it's security systems, however formidable they might be. It had to do
with the fact that the hotel was run by Parga the Hutt as a front for his many
crime schemes, and it was an open secret that Parga's lair was deep inside the
hotel's sub-basements.
Parga in turn looked down very harshly on people who interrupted paying guests,
often assigning bounties on those who attacked guests of his hotel. The tactic
had worked, and quite well at that. Every scumbag for a hundred kliks around
knew about the hotel and not to fuck with it.
The Emperor didn't really care about aliens, nor their business, unless they
were skimpy with their taxes. Parga had embezzled quntillions of credits from
the Imperial Treasury, and he was an outright figure of defiance for untold
trillions of beings slaving under the Imperial Tax Burden. This was unacceptable.
There were also rumors that his shipping companies were supplying the Rebellion
with highly advanced weaponry, for a price of course. No one thumbed their nose
at the Emperor like that and got away with it. His intransigience had persisted,
despite repeated Imperial Envoys, and the other Hutts were starting to get
ideas. This was also unacceptable.
The figure stopped before a guarded doorway on the 102th level of the hotel
that his intelligence had indicated was one of only a few entrances to Parga's
lair. Standing in a transparisteel booth with windows several centimeters thick,
were two guards, a Rodian and a Human. Both of them looked at the newcomer warily.
Parga was paying them well. Quite well, for a bunch of wanted criminals on the
lam from the law for murder in a dozen systems. They just had to keep freeloaders
away from this door.
"Name?" asked the Rodian, causing the figure to snort derisively.
"Death," replied the cloaked figure, causing the two guards to look at
each other sarcastically. Oh great, not another chem-fried case.
"And who are you here to see?" asked the Human guard, fighting to keep
a smirk off his face, as he contemplated calling in Hotel security,
to take care of this nutter. The light blaster cannon concealed above
the doorway seemed a bit excessive for a nut like this one.
"Parga the Hutt."
Both guards exchanged glances. "Parga ain't seeing anybody today,
especially a kriffin chem case like YOU!" snarled the Rodian as
he reached with his hand towards the activation button for the
shock panel the nut was standing on.
Suddenly, the figure threw back his hood, revealing a horribly
scarred face, accentuated by the blood-red glow from a cyber-eye.
"Unfortunately for you, I am seeing old Parga today," rasped HIT-MAN
as he reached out with the Force, and manipulated the tiny blood vessels
in both guards' brains, causing them to die near-instaneously from embolisms.
His master would be proud of him, thought Hit-Man as he triggered the door
control panel inside the now-unmanned booth with the Force. He was learning
subtulety, rather than raw violence.
Stepping inside the Hotel, Hit-Man followed the corridor down to a lone
turbolift car, which was giving him strong vibes from the Force. Smirking,
he reached down and easily disabled the hidden distengrator booth fitted
flush inside the car.
As the turbolift sped downwards at an ever increasing rate towards the
basement of the Hotel, which was actually still several hundred stories
above true ground level, Hit-Man discarded his disguise, revealing his
trademark blaster-scarred Stormtrooper armor, along with his customized
E-11 clipped to his belt, opposite of his lightsabre.
Several minutes later, the Turbolift hissed to a stop, and the doors slid
open to reveal a debauched sight - Parga sitting in a repulsorlift field
at the center of an opulently appointed room, with several Twi'lek slave
girls rubbing him all over with skin cream to keep his skin moist and fresh.
Hit-Man enjoyed the sight for a few moments before getting back to his
mission. In a low rumbling voice, he spoke up.
"Awright Parga! Time's UP! Palpie isn't too pleased with your recent
business deals. It's time for you to pay the piper!"
The girls looked up and screamed at the sight of a heavily armed stormtrooper
standing in the turbolift, his E-11 aimed directly at them, and an inky-black
lightsabre thrumming in the intruder's other hand.
