Hull no. 721- a fanfic

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

That was a royal pain to write, so much stuff to fill in. Chapter 12 is already half written, so should follow soon. I used to write in fits and starts, so I crammed as much text as possible onto the screen to mke it as easy as possible for me to find the thread of the plot again, so the huge blocks of text come from that source. Most of the early chapters have since been reformatted. I apologise in advance for one age-old and godawful pun.

Chapter 11

The final briefing was delivered by Commander Brenn himself. Normally it would have been a relatively junior officer’s job, but there was nothing normal about this situation. The two fighter pilots opposite him certainly didn’t think so.

‘In theory,’ he began, ‘you’re going to pretend to defect and feed them false information. In practise, we’re sending you to take those pieces of dreck back and trade them in for a pair of X- wings.’

It was a fairly crude attempt to lighten the mood; even Aron thought so. It didn’t stop him laughing, briefly.

‘You have read the briefs?’

‘Of course.’ Franjia said. ‘Someone worked very hard, polishing that plan to the point where it almost makes sense.’

Brenn glared at her. Parts of it had been his idea.


‘Just getting into practise, Sir. After all, we are supposed to be joining the ranks of anarchy.’

‘Don’t believe it. The rebels run their armed services on the old Republic model- the higher command levels may be fractionated and disorganised enough, but they are strong on the minor discipline.’ Brenn reminded them.

‘Military police; the common enemy?’ Aron suggested.

‘Not that far from the truth. You will be interrogated, we expect the urgency of what you have to tell them to push them into a rush job. Some will be suspicious-‘


‘Rightly.’ Franjia pointed out. ‘I would be very suspicious of a Rebel defector to us.’

‘Maybe.’ Brenn knew, more or less, what Captain Lennart was planning. ‘On the other hand, some of them will want to believe you.’

‘So what you’re saying is divide and conquer, but take care not to look like it.’ Aron said. ‘Have I got time to go on a refresher course for escape and evasion?’

‘Getting you out is less than predictable. No preset plan for that would be enough.’


‘Who did we annoy to get this job?’ Franjia asked.

‘Who else would you send? The Alliance is so fighter-centric, you’re the obvious choice. None of our people are from Alderaan, good riddance to it, or anywhere else the Empire’s sat on heavily recently. I

f there are any experienced ISB or Ubiqtorate watchers on board, they’re so experienced that we don’t know who they are to ask them.

Our organic intel consists of subsections of Navigation and Com-Scan who know too much to be allowed to go, or stormtroopers who simply wouldn’t be believable. You were unlucky enough to stand out.’


‘I promise, Commander, that if we get back alive, I will never, ever distinguish myself ever again.’ Aron snarled at him.

Franjia managed not to say what came into her mind- that shoving a laser cannon up the chief navigator’s arse and pulling the trigger would be a distinction of a sort.

‘Sir, we hate this plan.’ Was what she actually said. ‘Why doesn’t that rule us out?’

‘Because you can make it work. All you’re doing is bombing them with payloads of lies instead of proton torps. Has anyone told you to shut up and soldier yet?’ Brenn replied.

They got the hint.


‘Oficially, this meeting has been about my giving you a flight test program to conduct with the reconstructed fighters. A tactical evaluation exercise. Unofficially, it has too.’ Brenn said.

‘As you are going to be masquerading as Rebels, I suppose I should wish you- what is it they say, “may the Force be with you?” ‘

‘Try “Farce”, Sir.’ Aron stood, saluted, Franjia did the same, they turned to go.


In the corridor outside Commander Brenn’s office, he started to say ‘Flight Lieutenant Rahandravell-‘

‘We make a good combat team.’ She cut him short- then changed her mind about what she intended. ‘Do you think we could pretend to an, ah, sufficiently tortured relationship to catch their attention, serve as motive and distraction?’

‘Sufficiently tortured would be the right term for it.’ He said, wondering what she meant. Did she mean it literally, was she teasing him, or for whatever reason torturing herself- probably a combination of the first two.

Which was, in itself, warped. If he was right, she was asking him to prove that he could fake it, lie to her with believable passion, as a pass to get to the real thing, which- suddenly amateur spying seemed relatively straightforward.

Which was probably exactly how she wanted him to feel, and now his head was starting to hurt. ‘I’m probably going to regret this, but yes. I think.’ He decided.

‘Well, we’re definitely going to regret having anything to do with B-wings,’ she covered her relief with flippancy, ‘so let’s get on with it.’



Port-4 main turret, bunk spaces; most of the team were catching up on their rest. They had been officially notified that they were to stop their ‘liaison’ mission. Wonderful what you can cover up with a single well chosen word, isn’t it, Suluur had thought.

They had celebrated with a round of pillows, and only himself and Aldrem were awake.

‘What is it, Pel?’ The turret chief obviously wanted to ask him something. Probably going to be bad.

‘The skipper himself spoke to me about- a couple of things. Was it me, or did I see a few of the white- hats pacing it out afterwards, trying to work out what we had done and how fast?’

‘What did Captain Lennart say?’ Suluur asked, instantly alert.


‘Um.’ Aldrem said. This could be touchy. ‘He said that he didn’t care much whether or not you were what it looked like you were,’

‘Which is?’ Suluur said cautiously, after mentally decoding the gibberish. No security presence, so he was in no real danger- even if he could bring himself to hurt the crew chief.

Aldrem looked round carefully- as if he could spot listening devices- and said, in a whisper, ‘A deserter from the Republic Navy.’

‘Very nice of him not to care. Covering something like that up could get him in a world of dreck.’ Suluur said, sounding much calmer than he felt.

‘Is it true?’ Aldrem asked.


‘Did he tell you to ask?’

‘No. No, he didn’t, and he said he wasn’t going to. Also said you needed to get shot more often because if he could work it out-‘

‘Yes. Yes, it’s true.’ Suluur admitted. It was a long complicated story, one he more than half wanted to tell.
‘Then I’m going to need your help.’ Aldrem moved straight into that, careful not to ask why or how. Not yet.

‘What? You’re not planning to run, are you? Are you really that sold on that woman that you’d take the chance?’ Suluur didn’t believe it- Aldrem could be that crazed, but not this time.

‘No, look-’ he did, glancing around again, all still asleep. ‘I need to get her to desert to us.’


Suluur started to ask who from, got it, then decided to ask anyway. ‘I’d look like a kriffing idiot if I assumed I knew what you meant, went ahead and acted on it, and turned out to be wrong, so you had better tell me who from.’

‘And convince you I haven’t gone from hallucinations to outright paranoia- who else? Them. The enemy.’
‘Big R?’ he was referring to the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

‘She’s some kind of spy for them, she’s been sending messages.’

‘You’re taking this very calmly.’ Suluur told the senior chief. As for whether it was true or not- possible.

‘Well, I couldn’t start breaking down and gibbering in front of the Captain, could I? After that, the time never seemed right.’


‘There is a right time, when what you see, and especially what you know is going to happen next, gets to be too much to bear.’ Suluur said, slowly and reflectively. ‘A decent commander, a competent commander, gives you confidence and hope, postpones the day. An incompetent rat-bastard-‘

Aldrem was just sensitive enough to try not to let his own urgency show. ‘Areath, if you need to talk about this.’ What he wanted to do was scream at Suluur to help him with his problem.

‘Some time.’ Suluur, on the other hand, was sensitive enough to pick up on it. ‘Are you sure you want to help her change sides, rather than just- run?’


Aron and Franjia, suited and helmeted, checked out the rebuilt Rebel bombers as planned. Neither of them trusted their own acting abilities enough to go through it barefaced. Fooling their colleagues, people who knew them, would be harder than foxing strangers, wouldn’t it? It had better.

The filed flight plan had them following a spiral outward to distance, then a series of standard flight manoeuvres, then a return to base.

For a moment both of them were tempted to just fly the set plan, land, and see if Brenn could come up with any charge even remotely public to do them on.

The captain certainly could. And after all, the objective was right.


The initial tests went perfectly to script- it was as bad as they thought.

‘I want to see what the actual peak performance is- I’m shutting everything down except the engines.’

Franjia advised, as they were both nearing the point in the other plan laid down as breakaway.

‘Tensors and compensators, too?’ Aron asked, drymouthed. Go-code received and accepted.

‘Congratulations, you remembered something mechanical- we’ll make a Starwing pilot out of you yet.’

‘Anything other than a kriffing B-wing.’ He said, turning the brickish fighter to follow her.


Actually, they weren’t that bad. Short, low power thruster bells were their main curse- the power systems put out watts on par with the Starwing, if not a shade better, but they had to butcher the engines to actually fit torp launchers in.

As planned, Black Prince called them- on main intership, not the fighter control bands. That was supposed to look like a simple mistake, that would ‘accidentally’ allow them to be overheard.

‘Epsilon Test, that is an unauthorised manoeuvre. Return to the flight plan at once.’ Olleyri, in flight control, ordered.

No response. As planned. Any rebel agents on the planet- which there apparently were- would have noticed nothing more than two speeding B-wings, which was still enough of a contradiction to attract interest.

‘Scramble Beta squadron.’ The order, open mike, was heard by all.

Aron and Franjia kept building vector, one eye on the monitors- engine temps rising- one eye on what passed for a nav unit.


Beta cleared the bay. ‘Epsilon Test, are you in trouble? Do you require assistance?’

‘Beta One, Epsilon Test- emergency. Engines overheating, throttle locked, ejection systems disabled. Get a rescue shuttle out here.’ Aron replied, sounding genuine. The thought of being in that situation helped.

‘Epsilon Test lead, burn towards us, I think we can shoot the canopy off.’ Beta One decided.

Franjia and Aron both boggled at that. Somebody had far too much faith in their skills.

‘Command, negative, negative, clear the line of fire.’ Flight control announced, on the proper bands this time.


Port-4’s alarms went off, cutting Suluur’s and Aldrem’s conversation short. The collection of sleepy gunners jerked awake, blasted back to consciousness.

The drill was well established. The emergency action bell meant drop everything and get to your duty station, from wherever you were and whatever you were doing.

It took the lead pair thirty seconds to get to main gun control, and they both stood down a step- Suluur working Fendon’s board until he got there, Aldrem tapping into comms.

‘Control, what’s going on?’ he said, genuinely startled; he had forgotten about the set up.

‘Our test flight’s gone rogue- attempting defection. Shoot them.’


The guns came up to power, just as Fendon arrived. ‘Oh.’ He said, looking disappointed; they took their proper seats.

‘Control,’ Aldrem asked, remembering, ‘are you sure?’

‘Acting Exec’s orders. Do it.’

‘You’re convinced it’s not just a malfunction? You know I need confirmation.’

The blips that overlay the two fighters changed colour. Rebel red. ‘There’s your confirmation.’
Aldrem settled in, rotated the turret to bear, set the gross motion tracker; ‘They’re over dex; 3hk out, this is going to be barrage fire.’


3hk; h-hundred, k- thousand. Faster than spelling it out. They were flying straight courses, slight tangent though; the cruciform shape of the B-wing was tempting.

For a second he wondered if it would be possible to bracket it perfectly, one bolt each side of the cockpit, one bolt each side of the fin- at better than three seconds round trip delay, against a target that would start stunting when it got locked on to, probably not. And he was supposed to miss.

‘Fendon, set sub-2 up for flak bursts, one hundred thousand and rct, set sub-1 for stutter, give me fifteen thousand.’

One hundred thousand terawatts on the flak bursts, rangefinder controlled timed detonation, fifteen thousand terawatt shots cycling as fast as sub-1 could put them out. A tiny fraction of capacity, but more than enough for the target.


He played with the shot dispersal a little; pointed on to the fleeing B-wings, made the deflection, held his finger on the trigger and moved the grip in a small circle around the aimpoint.

Four screaming streaks of green, one burst low, right and behind the B-wings, one left and a shade low, one almost directly above and ahead, one right, above and ahead.

‘That’s a warning shot?’ Aron screamed at Franjia. Their fighters kicked on the fringes of the blast waves- dumb luck or very, very good shooting to narrowly let them live.


‘Nav laid in, get out of here.’ She shouted back, shoving the B-wing into a wild half- bank, half- roll. The first handful of stutter shot screamed by close to her- she knew this was daft. The more she manoeuvred, the more likely she was to simply fly into a shot.

The second seemed to assume she was going to break low and right. A tactical memory- steering for the fall of shot- came back to her, and she turned to follow them. Sure enough, the next volley of flak bursts would have been right down her mean line of vector.

Aron pulled the red lever- activated hyperdrive, and a sequence of shot followed him, across the track of the ship lunging for conversion threshold; Franjia followed, before the guns could turn back on her. Safely away.



The Lancer, partially repaired, turned to lumber after them. This was part of the plan; so was the argument Lennart and Kondracke- skipper of the Lancer- had on open com channel.

It started with Kondracke saying how usual it was to have to pull the destroyer’s fat out of the fire, passed rapidly through accusations of blind incompetence on both sides and peaked in his accusing Black Prince of being a nest of traitors.

To most of the watchers, it probably seemed as if the Lancer was escaping from the destroyer as much as leaving in pursuit.



‘Fire direction, they got away. Like trying to pick up a grain of sand with a piledriver.’ Aldrem announced.
‘Port-4, that doesn’t make sense.’

‘You noticed?’ Aldrem tried not to be that sarcastic, and failed. ‘Are we clear to stand down?’

‘Checking- yes. Release to normal watch pattern.’

‘Right.’ Aldrem looked round at Suluur. ‘Can you give me turret internal, and isolate us from the rest of the ship?’

‘Done.’ Suluur set it up. ‘I know what this is about, yes?’


‘Afraid so. Team, I don’t know about assigned, but we’ve definitely been detailed to something that I reckon is out and out espionage work. It’s also a painful subject for me personally, something I expect you’ll enjoy ragging me about later.’

‘Gun crew, storm trooper training, now intel? What’s next, reassigned to fill two vacancies in the starfighter wing?’ Hruthhal asked.

‘Remind me to put in for qualification bonuses on the strength of that.’ Aldrem postponed it, hoping one of them would work it out.


‘Hold on.’ Tarshkavik- gun maintenanceman, looking silly in his balloon- bulging, perfectly mirrored, magnetic shielded suit.

Ground combat exposed him to less energy than his everyday job, one reason he had taken to it so well; the handling suit he wore was attached by a ten centimetre thick umbilical to the turret’s heat and static dispersion systems, otherwise he would have taken it with him.

‘This is about that woman, isn’t it? So the espionage connection- ah.’

‘So it wasn’t just your dashing charm, then?’ the other subsection leader, Gendrik, asked.

‘Considering she was still talking to me after I nearly threw up on her, I should have known it was too good to be true.’ Aldrem said, suspecting that if he didn’t say it they would.


‘She snuck on board to spy on us?’ Hruthhal wanted Aldrem to confirm.

‘That’s the theory, yes.’ Aldrem admitted.

‘So,’ Suluur backed him up, ‘if we promised to buy you an E-web for your name day, on condition you shot her with it, what would you do?’ It got a chuckle, and it let Aldrem handle it as seriously, or not, as he wanted.

‘I need to talk to her, and I want you there for moral support when I do. Not fire support.’

Fendon shut down the turret, it took ten minutes for everyone to get out of protective gear and into day uniforms.

Aldrem checked; as a steward, she had no fixed schedule any more than the officer she looked after did, and he didn’t like the thought of knocking on the exec’s door looking for her. Only thing for it, though.


He did, his fourteen men behind him; it was the exec who answered. Looking past him, Aldrem could see rank after rank of protocol droids. What was going on?

‘Commander, Sir, I’m looking for Steward Jhareylia Hathren. This isn’t a private visit, Sir, I wish it was.’ He went on, before Mirhak- Ghulej could lose his temper with him. ‘Check with the Captain, Sir.’

The exec thought hard about it. ‘If you turn out to be lying, I’ll have you used for reactor shelding.’

‘That might be a less painful alternative, Sir.’ Aldrem said, sincerely.


Mirhak-ghulej looked closely at the senior chief. His file had come up, and the exec’s memory was good; maybe too good, on occasion. It kept him brooding over the past.

Aldrem had risen rapidly to his present rank on the strength of his specialist skills, and then stuck there, failing the academy entrance exam twice- both times on leadership issues. Attitude problem, the file had said. Utterly incapable of providing ideological and doctrinal support and guidance.

Some of his irresponsibility came from that root cause, Mirhak-Ghulej thought; knowing that he was never going to be asked to be responsible, and had no more to gain by trying to be.

‘You wish to see your girlfriend, on ship business.’ Sarcasm dripping off his voice. ‘What?’


‘Can I speak freely, Sir?’ the chief sounded desperate.

‘If you are fool enough to think you won’t be handing your career to me on a plate, you might be fool enough to make this entertaining. Speak.’

‘Sir, the captain’s got it in for me as well, and this is my dreck job to do. The only thing you could do would be to make it worse.’ Aldrem took a chance on saying.

‘Why shouldn’t I do that?’ the temporarily disemployed exec asked, thinking that perhaps if he did, it would make him feel better.

‘Because he actually needs this job to get done.’

Just as well the exec’s face was pretty impassive at the best of times; it meant Aldrem didn’t realise how much trouble he was in.


Jhareylia was busy supervising the protocol droids; they were doing the datawork. She heard the tail end of the conversation, recognised Aldrem’s voice; came to the door, saw the entire turret crew behind him.

‘Pellor, really, when you come to court, you’re not supposed to bring your own jury.’

He turned round to them and said ‘See why I wanted you here?’ and to Mirhak-Ghulej, ‘Sir, you can screw this up, or not.’

‘I want a full report.’ He snapped. Jhareylia ducked under his arm and out into the corridor with him.


He looks terrible, she thought. Half- slept and stressed out. I wonder how he scrubs up? ‘Where are we going?’

‘Well, my first thought was a nice stroll in the training garden, but this lot might mutiny.’ The growl from behind them served to prove that. ‘We could go down to engineering, find an inspection port and watch the ion drives glow?’

‘Considering what I’ve heard about them, that might be just as dangerous.’

‘I new it wouldn’t take you long to find your way around this ship.’ He bounced back at her.

Actually, she changed her mind, he looks about how I feel. Like something terrible is about to happen.


‘There’s always the water tanks; we use them as a swimming pool, but the white-hats use them as an exercise tank too.

A hint; if you hear that strange coloured clouds have been seen in the exercise tanks, don’t shower for a while. The filters are supposed to take it out, but I don’t trust them myself.’ He rambled.

She turned a corner at random; he followed her, she went down three more twists and turns.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘Somewhere where we aren’t expected. Somewhere we can sit and talk without anyone knowing we’re there.’ She said.


Kriff, he thought. If she’s going where I think she’s going with this, we have a crisis. We did anyway.
Counting tags on the bulkhead, they were on the lower starboard side of the ship; quarters blocks, storage spaces, the forward end of the engineering workshop space, a few point defence turrets.

He pushed open a door into a storage room; realised it was a bad idea. ‘We must be right against the outer hull, that’s a blowout panel. I think this might be the wrong place.’

Automating security had been tried and failed. Too easily cracked; human recognition worked better. This was still on the old system, the code locked door had opened for the transponder in his rank cylinder. Gunnery branch.


The room looked like a mesh of steel stalagmites, with a corresponding pattern of them hanging from the ceiling; three meter wide cones, marked with a handful of glyphs, access, handling points. Large enough, they loomed larger in the eye of an expert.

‘I shouldn’t think anyone comes down here if they can avoid it.’

‘What are they? Some form of abstract sculpture?’ she asked, looking innocent.

‘Only if you consider ‘kaboom’ to be art…which personally I do, but I thought it was just me.’ Aldrem said, quietly, trying not to breathe too hard.

‘Chief?’ Hruthhal asked. ‘What are we doing with this lot? We don’t have the launchers for them.’

‘This is Commander Mirannon we’re talking about here. Give him a couple of months.’ Tarshkavik said.

‘We can sit and talk here,’ Aldrem turned to her, ‘provided you don’t mind my skin crawling so bad it tries to escape independently.’

‘If you’re scared, then I am too- but do you think anyone would come in here?’

‘No-one in their right mind would be within ten kilometres of this lot.’ Suluur stated.


She mentally compared that with the length of a star destroyer, took a deep breath, and sat down with her back against one of the antiship proton torpedoes. She couldn’t actually touch the metal; the magazine safety systems wrapped a shield over it.

Aldrem sat down opposite her.

‘Jhareylia, you know I’m not very…well informed outside my profession. It takes up most of my common sense.’ He said, nervously looking at the torpedo and wishing it would take the rest; she couldn’t help smiling.
‘The thing is…I’m supposed to tell you that, ah-‘

‘It’s all right, Pellor, I know what you mean.’ She said, hoping they were talking about the same thing.

‘Then you will?’ he said, face brightening.

‘Um- perhaps I don’t know what you mean.’ She was confused now.

‘Oh. Right. I wish anyone else but me had been sent to do this. Anyone. The captain thinks you’re a rebel spy.’

‘What do you think?’ she asked him. This was the nightmare she had been half hoping wouldn’t happen, half wanting to get it over with.

‘I think I’d prefer it if it wasn’t true.’ He said, slow, sad and sincere.


‘Does he have- evidence?’ she asked, nervously.

‘He thinks he has. Tell me it isn’t so.’

‘I could, but…’ she could get angry with him, shout at him for taking the system’s word over hers; demand that he trust her. That was why he had brought his friends. She couldn’t fight her way out; too many of them for that, either. ‘Would you hate me for it?’

‘Eventually. Maybe. Look- we get away with a lot on this ship that we shouldn’t be able to, because there was a monumental paperwork snafu when she was commissioned and we’ve been in no permanent command, with nobody’s particular job to keep us orthodox, ever since.

In fact, we’re ahead of the game, because we’re a theatre reserve unit, it’s our job to keep others in line, so our loyalty is taken for granted as part of the system and we don’t get watched as much as most ships. I’m not saying the rest of the Empire’s like us. But are we that bad, really?’


‘Yes, you are. Your commanding officer makes you do dreck jobs like arresting your girlfriend yourself.’ She flashed back at him. ‘You admit yourself that you’re the exception that proves the rule.’

‘Pel, it’s not going to work.’ Suluur said.

‘Yes, it is, it has to. What do you think they- the regulatory branch and the organic intel and the legion’s interrogators- would do to you, if they had an excuse? I don’t want that to happen.’

‘Listen to yourself!’ she shouted at him. ‘You admit you’re afraid of what the Empire does to people, what it would do to you-or me-if it caught us- Pel, you’re not a bad man at heart,’ she blushed slightly, ‘you can’t approve. You can’t want that to happen.’

‘No but- I don’t know what your parents told you, but I was an inner city kid. The closest we got to justice or any of that abstract crud was the idea that you stand by your friends, and try to hurt your enemies.

Maybe there is some ideal concept, some big idea out there, but it’s amazing just how straightforward galactic politics starts to look when you boil it down to gang kid logic.’ All fourteen of the team behind him were nodding.


‘It’s not like that.’ she said, passionately. ‘This is about-‘

‘I do read, sometimes. The empire is average, it’s us, it’s Dexter and Aldric and Elan and Garvoth from down the road, it’s- the Empire inherited the galaxy. Whatever that is, the Empire is- despite what those New Order nutcases tell you, the bulk of the Starfleet, even, is ordinary stiffs like us.’

‘You’ve already said enough to get yourself into trouble.’ Jhareylia said, almost demanding that it was so. ‘I could walk out of here, steal a shuttle and escape to the alliance, and take all of you with me.’

‘My career may be a dead end, but I’m not that crazy. Why- actually, what made you become a Rebel?’


‘I told you, my parents had a light freighter.’

‘What happened to it?’ Aldrem asked her, softly.

‘We were- just doing business as usual; it was a typical run, out of Correllia to Brentaal, and we were stopped by an Imperial interdictor. It boarded us, and- murdered them.

They hid me in one of the cargo pods; I heard the argument, and the shots, and the sound of my mother and father being dragged away and thrown out of the airlock. Don’t try and tell me ordinary people would do that.’


Hel ooked away, and from the eye she couldn’t see gave Gendrik the wink. He felt rotten.
‘What was the name of that ship?’ Gendrik asked her.

‘HIMS Antorevan.’ She said it like it was burned on her memory.

‘Suluur,’ Genrik asked him, ‘we did shoot at an Interdictor once, didn’t we? Do you remember her name?’

‘Fantastic bloody coincidence, if it was.’ Suluur said. ‘Stranger things happen, though- to the turret.’


They were all happy to leave the vault.

‘Typical.’ Tarshkavik said. ‘Blunder into a sealed, out of the way compartment on any other star destroyer, what would you find? A still, a spice farm, a sabacc pit maybe. On this ship, we find an illicit stash of proton torpedoes.’

‘I’m sure we’ve got all those things as well.’ Aldrem said.

Jhareylia leaned on him on the way. Another day, it would have had him bouncing off the ceiling. Now he was scared, more than anything else.

Both of them were preoccupied, she too much so to notice Suluur and Hruthhal disappear, sprinting back to Port-4 for the fastest slicing job of their lives.


She should have been taking notes; it wasn’t so often the Alliance got a good look inside imperial HTL turrets. She was in no state to. She did notice, irrelevantly, that it smelt like them.
Aldrem sat her down in the com/scan chair.

She wasn’t sure what to believe was happening. Would they fake it- was it even possible? Did he have the sheer twistedness to manipulate her like that? She didn’t think so.


‘Rebels and minor powers are one thing, but you’d be amazed; we spend the vast majority of our time chasing down rogue units of the Imperial fleet, and hauling them back into line. Usually it’s fairly easy; all we have to do is roll slightly, show them our kill scores.’ Suluur said, as he was digging in the action logs.


‘Speaking of which…’ Aldrem said, using his own range taker to look down at the hull. ‘I thought so. Two Interdictors.’

‘I’m sure I’ve heard that name somewhere.’ Suluur said, fingers dancing on the keypad. ‘I don’t think it’s us, though, ours were the Ildomir and the Yelduro-Vartha. Where else would- I knew it.’

The data came flooding up on the main holodisplay in front of all of them.

‘It was in a squadron tactical circular. Tector- class Indomitable intercepted the Antorevan, ordered her to stand down and recieve auditors and inspectors from sector group command.’ Aldrem read out, and interpreted.

‘She must have been under suspicion already, especially if she was shaking down the convoys she was supposed to be escorting.’

He didn’t add, at least not out loud, ‘and not giving his squadron commander his cut.’

‘Antorevan refused, Indomitable opened fire, shooting to disable- one heavy turbolaser shot hit a grav well projector, dead centre, imploding it and overpenetrating to the reactor which, well, this calls it ‘regrettable accident’, I’d call it ‘small supernova.’


Quietly, Jhareylia watched the ship which had been responsible for her parents’ death rack and twist, then expand in a turbolaser-greenish tinted flare of white light as the energised implosion wrapped itself round the reactor, and rebounded.

‘The Indomitable’s one of ours- also part of 851 Squadron, that’s why we heard about it. A crime was committed, detected, and punished. The Empire can look after it’s own, and the Alliance is so thinly spread, running as fast as it can to stand still, it can’t.

It wasn’t the Rebellion who avenged your parents’ murder. Remind me why you’re with them again?’ he said, feeling thoroughly rotten, and weirdly relieved at the same time.

It was enough of a shock, it robbed her of the presence of mind necessary to suspect a lie.

‘Shall we go and talk to Commander Brenn, then? He’s the navigator, this sort of thing defaults to him in the absence of anybody else. Let’s go talk to him.’

Head reeling, she was in no position to say no. Her brain would pull itself together before long, and he intended to be there when it happened. For now- get it on paper, make it too late for her to turn back.

Square it with his own conscience, which was about to have an almighty falling out with his libido anyway, later.

He did spare a second on the way, as she was being helped down the accessway, to talk to the com/scan tech.

‘So that’s one outrageous lie told in the interests of truth and justice.’ Suluur said.

‘Sod truth and justice; in the interests of not handing her over to the pointy stick boys in Interrogation.’ Aldrem replied. ‘What did you actually do? That looked a bit too good to be that instant a creation.’

‘Changed the name on the ship it happened to.’

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The next part. The intel work is nearly done; the amount of lies and nonsense you have to go through to set up a battle- argh.
Aldrem was telling himself, and her, the take on things he needs, and finds suitable, to keep himself functional and moderately contented; different people, different take. This one's the fighter pilots' show.

Ch 12

The pair of B-wings emerged at the end of their first programmed jump. Both of them turned to kill velocity, scanning each other to see that they were in one piece, then searching out.

This was supposed to be one of the rendezvous points, and their fighter comms were on rebel bands- helmet comms still on Imperial, so they could talk to each other out of character.

‘Galactic Spirit, what a barrage. Are you sure they were shooting to miss?’ Aron asked.

‘I think so, just very, very well.’ She replied. ‘Time to start the spiel.’


She took her helmet off, turned the B-wing’s com unit to broadcast, began to call ‘Any alliance forces, please respond, this is B-wing Test flight Epsilon, help.’

The rendezvous point they had arrived at must have been a main fallback position. It was a more or less permanent problem for the Rebellion, and far worse for a junkheap like the B-wing whose nav systems were so limited; hit and run tactics required somewhere to run to.

That meant staging areas, covered retreats, ambush points to deter pursuit, and, when they were lucky-no, she told herself, think opposite, when the rebels were very unlucky- confused, sprawling running battles that gave hyper capable fighters lots to do.

Long range sensors revealed small craft in the area, the outsystem of a barren star; a tramp freighter, apparently prospecting, and two mercenary fighter escorts.

Supposedly. It was a fairly good cover, in the intelligence sense. Somewhere nearby with a precalculated route in would be cover, in the military sense.


One of the mercenary fighters broke off to investigate; they headed towards it, reactivating shields- just in case.

‘Identify yourselves.’ It said. Z-95; fractionally more agile than a B-wing, which wasn’t hard. In common use the galaxy over, by innumerable local governments- hefty and robust, it had never done well in fleet service but had been a standard garrison fighter of the late Republic. Common enough in rebel hands.

‘We’re Imperial, we want to defect to the Alliance.’ Aron said, quickly, before the first part made him do anything stupid.

‘In B-wings?’ the pilot didn’t believe them.

‘Captured, rebuilt, we were assigned to test them, we decided to see if they knew the way home.’ Franjia said.

‘We’ve said enough to doom us, you’ve said nothing. Are you Alliance or not?’ Aron challenged him- powering up the B-wing’s weapons.


‘Easy, hotshot. This is a holding area. You wait here while we check you out. Where did you leave from?’

‘Imperator- class, Black Prince.’ Aron told him. ‘Snap it up, they’ve probably got hunting parties out.’

The other fighter and the tramp- CorelliSpace, rounded triangular prism main body, bridge module on a stalk out ahead of it- turned towards them and moved to intercept.


‘What do you reckon the drill is?’ Franjia asked him, on the rebel channel.

‘Well, they probably use that freighter as a shuttle.’ He thought about how he would do it. ‘I don’t see them trusting anyone with nav coordinates straight off.’

‘So you think we abandon ship, board the freighter, get blindfolded or something similarly melodramatic, and ferried to somewhere safe- hopefully- but wouldn’t a litter of drifting ships be a dead giveaway?’ she wondered.

‘I suppose even fleet recon couldn’t miss that.’ Aron said. ‘Whatever sort of checks you’re making, freighter man, want to speed it up? We left with a flight group of Avengers chasing us.’


The freighter’s crew heard all of this; they were intended to. The team on board consisted of four guards, an intelligence officer and the two crew, and they were arguing it out between them.

Mainly, there was an urgent call out to a watcher unit on Ghorn IV; their response was just coming in now- unanalysed, unfiltered crackly com intercept and fuzzy point-camera-at-sky home holovid footage.

They heard the call to clear the line of fire; heard the intership between the Lancer and Black Prince, saw the unmistakable flares, visible even in broad planetary daylight, of turbolaser flak bursts.

What they were meant to hear. They also had, in a separate, self- erasing communication, an intelligence report from the ship in question.


‘Identify yourselves.’ The voice from the freighter- the pilot- said.

‘We’ve already told you, we’re on the run, and we’d like to do some more of that before they kriffing come after us- get us out of here, you can shoot us later.’ Aron snapped at them.

‘They mean personally.’ Franjia told him. ‘Flight Lieutenant Franjia Rahandravell, Starfighter Corps, Strike Wing attached ISD-721.’

‘Oh. My previous comment still stands- get the hfredium out. Squadron Leader Aron Jandras, Imperial Starfleet attached Starfighter Corps, Strike Wing nominal 721.’

‘Legitimate defectors or not, they’d be valuable captures.’ The intelligence officer decided. ‘Send for the frigate.’


‘Clear on sensors?’ the pilot asked his flight engineer, who checked- and they were not.

‘Negative, negative, incoming, small capital- light or medium corvette, fast, ten, fifteen seconds.’
That was only enough time to prepare themselves, raise shields and activate weapons; one triple laser turret. Nothing spectacular.

Stretched and slightly off- centre white flare; a poor hyper exit from a ship in a hurry, it was the Lancer- class Dubhei Targe, Kondracke’s command. It swept the area on active scan.

‘Renegades! Stand down- and we’ll only disintegrate you once.’


Kondracke sounded as if he was enjoying himself; he was certainly hamming it for all he was worth.

‘Each?’ Franjia called back, acidly, shunting energy to her own weapons. This had been one of the contingencies in the script.

Depending on how you looked at it, the Lancer’s shape served it very well, or very badly. It pretty much enforced all round fire- the other side of the coin was that it couldn’t concentrate on any one target. And it looked stupid.

‘I suppose I can finally admit,’ Franjia said, ‘just how much those things remind me of a sex toy.’

‘Considering what it’s supposed to do to us, that’s not an image I wanted.’ Aron replied, turning and heading for it. Franjia followed.


The two Z-95 followed them in. Not the rebellion’s best, not it’s worst, they were tour- expired main line pilots; in theory, this was their spell of soft duty, away from a front line attack unit to rest and recover before being thrown back into the thick of it.

Attacking an antifighter frigate was not their idea of fun. Doing anything involving combat in a B-wing wasn’t exactly Aron’s and Franjia’s.

‘Think TIE fighter.’ She told him. ‘The firepower that thing puts out, you can’t afford to get hit. Jink, stunt, don’t be afraid to break off and run for it.’

‘Is that what you did when you were back in TIEs?’ he couldn’t resist asking her. Both the Alliance pilots noticed that, banter aside, the two B-wings were coming in moderately far apart, close enough for mutual support, far enough not to crowd each other, jammers active, sensors picking out point targets, in slow, deceptive weave.


‘Stang yes. I survived. The really clever part is managing to make it not look like you’re running away…95’s, are you loaded?’

‘Affirmative, flight lieutenant.’ One of them said, in a senior officer sounding voice.

‘Good,’ Aron said, blandly ignoring the tone, ‘one of you follow each of us in- that ship did get fairly well shot up. Do you suppose it still has any blind spots?’

‘Mirannon didn’t get to it, so probably. We’re not going to take it down.’ Franjia said, and spectacularly optimistically at that. ‘Our best option is to pick off it’s com antenna, so at least it can’t report which way we run.’

‘Right.’ Aron acknowledged. ‘I’ll lead in.’


So slow, so inexorably slow; Aron wanted to get out and walk, it would be faster. ‘Headhunters, start lobbing your concussions at the turrets.’ At least it would force the Lancer to waste time shooting them down.

‘You refuse the order of the Empire? Then- DIE!’ Kondracke shouted, all the Lancer’s guns that could bear opened fire on Aron. If we ever get back, Aron thought I’m going to recommend him for psych-eval.

What’s even worse is that the rebels don’t seem to get it. I mean, he’s shooting at me, and I can see the silly side. Humourless bastards.

Aron surged the B-wing into a diving right- hand spiral, aiming under the Lancer.


He was hoping that even if he couldn’t dodge the fire control systems, at least he could fake out the gunners.

Zigzagging, twisting and weaving to draw their fire away from Franjia’s attack run, and hopefully not get killed himself- he was, when it came down to it, a better pilot than she was, and she was a better shot. That meant she got the easy job.

B-wings didn’t dodge. Not well, anyway. The quad- lasers spat green fire at them, and reflexively he twisted in his seat, trying to make himself a smaller target.

The cockpit was well away from the centre of mass, so the ejectors probably would have time to function. That was pretty much the only comfort.


The Lancer seemed to be having trouble with it’s fire control systems. Twenty quads, eight could reach Aron, three of them were empty sockets; for a second he wondered why he wasn’t dead, a glance aft- they were tracking him, theoretically perfect, but it was pure ballistic prediction.

None of the advanced modes, like calculating and coordinating to flood his manoeuvre envelope; Kondracke’s gone and left them unmanned, hasn’t he? Aron thought.

They weren’t even trying to predict what he would do next. They could still kill him if he was dumb enough to let them.


The rebels seemed to be flinching, hanging shy of the stream of green light pouring out of the Lancer; small wonder. One of them shot off a missile, the turret flicked round on to it.

Franjia rolled to bear on the turret and sent a stream of autoblaster fire though the shield gap; the missile warhead detonated, Aron used the cover of the flash to reverse course and head for the dorsal mounted antenna, the ship rocked as the turret blew up.

Not before the last of it’s stream of shot had followed on to the evading Z-95. Shields blown out, shunted aft, blown out again, engines crippled; the pilot ejected before the fighter shook itself to pieces.

It didn’t save him; one of the other turrets caught him and turned him into a luminous smear.


So much for plan A, Aron realised; fly the B-wing into the com antenna, eject before impact. Ouch, Franjia thought; that would be a public-display atrocity, then. To make this look right, he has to be prepared to do the same to us.

Vicious but dumb was what the script called for, and he delivered on the second half of that; the guns spurted bolts- what some of the bomber crews called ‘hard rain’- at her, two glancing shield hits, then switched back to following Aron.

Her target-warning was howling, but no actual incoming, she ignored it; doubled shields forward, set the guns for simultaneous fire.

The surviving ’95 had backed off, locked on from relatively long range and rippled all it’s missiles, one at each available turret; they switched into self- protection mode long enough for her to get a good, steady shot.


The heavy laser, twin autoblasters, triple ion cannon pounded into the shields around the com antenna; it had been shot off in the initial Rebel rocket attack, the dorsal aft generator crippled, and it was now covered by stretching the main dorsal midships shield emitter’s field over the area.

It was no easier to knock down- probably beyond fighter energy cannon anyway- but it was possible to get a local burn through.

The shield flared, crackled, became patchy. The Lancer’s cannon, still pulsing out their bolts, swung off him on to her, she held steady on target as the streams converged on her.

Front shields fraying, split second to weigh the odds, break away- she shut down weapon charge, dumped it into stabilising the shielding, twisted away in an asymmetric corkscrew.

They turned back to track Aron as he swung in to finish the job, started shooting- and she curved back in again, shifted from shields to weapons, hammered it again; that was enough.

The shield gapped and blistered long enough for a stream of blaster shot to leak through, the com antenna shattered, the guns turned back to her and she ran for it, all shields aft, dancing and twisting. Aron pulled away to join her.


‘I’ve changed my mind.’ She said, on private com. ‘Let’s go back to the Empire.’

‘Just when we were having fun?’ he said, sardonically.

‘It’s the worst job in the book, defence suppression. Turning out to be good at it is write-your-will time- the tour survival rate’s only about ten percent. I sure as sunspots don’t want to do it for the Alliance-‘

‘Galactic Spirit. I should have realised I was tempting fate.’ She said, as the slightly larger, slightly more ridiculous shape of a Nebulon-B wearing an Alliance transponder emerged from brilliant white flare.

‘It’s going to tear the Lancer apart.’ Aron realised what she meant. ‘Unless there’s a friendly fire hazard in the way?’

‘You lead, I’ll cover.’ Stabilise shields and weapons, and back in again. This time, they were simply trying not to be hit. Very close, high aspect, lots of twisting, unpredictable moves.

If there had been men in those turrets, gunners to second guess them and take the processing burden of judgement away from the computers, they would have been toasted on the first attack run.


For a moment Aron thought of flying in front of the bridge and making rude gestures at Kondracke, try to make sure he took the hint; a sure way to get a laser bolt in the face.

He settled for hosing down the ship’s shields with ion and blaster fire, and weaving to avoid being hit. Franjia did the same- pressed in to close range and swarmed all over it.

It seemed to be working; the rebel frigate was holding it’s fire. Neither of them were sure if Kondracke actually deserved that much luck.

Dubhei Targe rolled to bring fresh guns to bear, sent a stream of fire after the freighter; emerald sparks flew off it, it accelerated out of the way and moved to hide behind the Nebulon.


The lancer turned to accelerate away; that left Franjia and Aron with the choice of thrusting after it to keep up- predictably- or breaking off.

Hoping Kondracke had the sense to hyper out, they turned away, opening a gap between them with the total acceleration of forty-seven hundred g. Almost enough to feel safe.

The Nebulon sent a relative handful of LTL shots after the Lancer; too late.

‘You may win this one, traitor scum, but we’ll find you.’ Kondracke was still ranting, some quirk in the signal processing software caused his words to Doppler shift as the frigate made for light speed, trailing off in basso-profundo.


‘Nebulon frigate,’ Aron called to it, sounding and feeling tired as the adrenalin started to drain away, ‘permission to land?’

‘Test flight Epsilon, this is Chandrillia Rose Actual; the suggestion has been made that we should turn you down, your brand of madness may be contagious.’

‘All right, plan C, where’s the nearest Hutt arms dealer?’ Franjia said, over open channel, to Aron; they intercepted it.

‘We can use maniacs like you.’ The Chandrillia Rose’s captain responded. ‘You are number one on approach.’

As they cancelled vector and moved towards the Nebulon, Aron private- channelled across, ‘So that much of the plan worked, at least.’

‘Yes, and that was supposed to be the easy part.’ Franjia replied. ‘Scramble your helmet com, they’ll inspect it.’

‘Doing it now.’ He did; they were on official channels until they touched down.


The B-wing landed on it’s side; crazy way of doing things, they both thought. The side fins folded in and the cockpit rotated. Aron’s fins worked, the cockpit didn’t.

He hated Nebulons on principle, chiefly that they were damned difficult to land on. There had been so little manoeuvring room, even when he had been riding a TIE off one, that he had started taking a gas gun with him- hand held EVA thruster.

The principle was, it gave him the option of ejecting and space-walking home. He wished he had it now. It was very tempting.

‘Tractor beaming you in now.’ The ship com’d to him.

‘Negative, I’ll bring this junker in myself.’


That would have been disastrous. The compensators would have reacted to the tractor beam as if it was being brought in sideways, would have tried to rotate into an upright position. At the least, it would give him a headache- slam the cockpit off the hangar ceiling. At worst, boom.

There was virtually no room within the hangar bay; two half- squadrons, X’s and Y’s, sat parked there. Coming in damaged, effectively- he came in dead slow, rolled to line up, coming in on the fighter’s side, crossed his toes, hit the edge of the frigate’s relative- inertials and the B-wing nearly kicked itself out of his hands.

He had to wrestle it down on to the flight deck, steering jets flaring, threatening to twist itself out of control; there was a bang and a molten- insulation smell from behind him.

No room for this, he thought- more of a glandular scream- he bounced the B-wing off the deck, it skidded and came up trapped against the nose of a pair of X-wings.

The cockpit opened, he tumbled out on to the deck, landing on his shoulder. He got up, rubbing it, took his helmet off with the other hand, threw it at the B-wing, then started kicking the grounded fighter.

‘Useless piece of crap.’ Kick. ‘Slow, unreliable, worthless junk.’ Kick.


There was a squad of Rebel infantry, civilian blaster rifles and Alderaanian- pattern uniforms standing there looking at him; there were a couple of pilots too, one of them looking annoyed. It must have been his X- wing Aron had landed on.

Franjia’s B-wing arrived with fewer problems. She touched down, vaulted out.

‘You could treat it with a bit more respect. They got us here, after all.’ She advised him. ‘At the most, spit on it.’

The infantry were glaring at them, one of the pilots was laughing at the other one.

One of the infantry came forwards; a rank insignia neither of them recognised. He seemed to be an officer, from the attitude; sandy hair, pockmarked face like grit had been blasted into it, and it probably had.


‘Your sidearms.’ He held out a hand. The troopers behind him looked menacing. They were surprisingly good at it. They weren’t heavy, not physically impressive, but they looked as if they held life very cheap indeed.
‘What for?’ Aron asked.

‘So you can’t shoot him, I expect.’ Franjia said, unclipping the holster from her vac suit.

‘That’s daft. If I wanted to do something like that I’d have strafed the hangar bay. Scrap these-‘ he waved an arm at the fighters, ‘their power cells and ordnance cooking off could be enough to break a Nebulon’s back.’

‘As twistedly useful an idea as that is, we should probably hand over your gun and start with “hello.”’ She gave him her gun, took off her helmet. One of the rebel pilots wolf- whistled.

‘I think I might just go and do that.’ she said turning back towards the B-wing.

‘Come with me.’ The rebel infantryman ordered.


They were led out of the bay, past a workshop- the air smelt of metal filings; did they have to hand- craft their own replacement parts? Interesting.

Nebulon-B’s actually did have an inside, although it often looked otherwise, as small as they were. Down three levels, left two corridors, a couple of heads poked out of doorways to look at them in passing.

Eventually, they were led into a chamber that seemed to be some kind of ready room; it reminded Aron of a doctor’s waiting room.


‘What is this?’ Aron asked the one man already there. The squad of troops and the two pilots, as well as a ship’s officer, filed into the room behind them.

‘Debriefing.’ The man already there, in basically civilian clothes- from somewhere deeply unfashionable on the outer rim- said, in a grey, nondescript voice. Instantly both the pilots’ hackles went up.

‘What the smenge? You don’t trust us?’ Aron snapped.

‘Aron,’ Franjia said to him, ‘we’ve put our lives in these people’s hands. There probably will be a time to start screaming at them, but I doubt if this is it.’


‘We have very little on you.’ The grey- voiced man said, as if nothing had been said.

‘Small wonder; if you tried to assemble a file on everyone in the Starfleet, you’d need more data pushers than you have infantry.’ Franjia pointed out, looking at them, trying to decide who the head man was. Probably one of the pilots, by the vibe.

‘And they might do you more good.’ Aron added. ‘Look; we came to join the Alliance. Join. So why are you treating us more like prisoners of war?’

‘We do have a file on the ship you claim to come from.’ The greyish interrogator said. ‘The same ship that eliminated a frigate division and a local force fighter wing.’


‘What’s your score?’ Franjia turned round to what looked like the senior of the two Rebel pilots.

‘Fourteen.’ The man said. He was shortish- meter seventy- dark haired, pale skinned.

‘Thirty- four. Fifteen rebel and nineteen renegade Imperial. We’re a-‘ she realised where she was going with that, ‘we’re from a theatre fleet unit, we see more of the Empire than most.

The so- called loyal opposition, the local powers with grudges, the power- crazed within our own ranks, the criminals and shysters and arrogant upper- class shits that the New Order hasn’t got around to purging yet- or got bought off by…turning your back on that, how much comes down to reason and how much to revulsion?’ she asked, angrily, rhetorically.


‘We quit,’ Aron said, ‘because of what was going to happen. We were elsewhere at the time, but I know the Black Prince took that fast frigate more or less intact, with something around two thousand prisoners.’

‘How?’ the Rebel naval officer asked.

‘Burnt her shielding off with LTL fire, kept her evading long enough for a transport wing to ionise and board. The crew were turned over to the locals, who plan a mass public execution.

The Captain ranted about it in the alpha wardroom, the senior officers told the juniors- and so on down to the disposables like us.’ Franjia smiled a ghoulish smile.

‘Mass public execution?’ The pilots, the naval and the intelligence officer looked at each other, assessing, giving their opinions by expression. The pilots believed it instantly. The intelligence officer was more sceptical.


‘One of the reasons Captain Lennart never rose any higher is because he has a bad habit of telling the truth, especially when he’s annoyed. In furor veritas.’ Franjia continued. It was actually more or less true.

‘He viewed it…for complicated reasons, he viewed it as a deliberate attempt to marginalise the ship, and have the sector fleet do things their own way.

He had plans for comprehensive brainripping and follow up strikes; we had already been briefed on some of them. Then Sector threw us- sorry, him- out, seized your people, and basically plan to put them through blenders.’

She was being deliberately, brutally flippant, and it had the desired effect. The intel type was still uncertain, but the naval officer and the pilots thought otherwise.


One of them did remember his duty well enough to say ‘You don’t seem very- anti.’

‘The Empire, I don’t regret leaving behind- but Black Prince, maybe. She was basically a happy ship, and there are few of those on any side.’ Aron decided to say.

‘The other side of that- the easier it actually is to get away from, the less you need to. Usually. That was just sick, though. A fair chance is one thing. Well, for a certain value of fair anyway.’

‘A fair chance? You call what the Empire does fair?’ the naval officer snarled.

‘For a given, sneak up on them and shoot them in the back before they see you coming, value of ‘fair’ - where does your Captain Lennart come from?’ the more senior of the two Rebel pilots asked. Perception was part of the game, too.

‘He’s old Republic fleet, joined a few years after Naboo I think.’ Aron said. ‘Look- I’m a hunter, not a butcher. It is relative, I can stomach one but not the other, and aren’t you going to do anything about it?’

The senior pilot and the ship’s officer left; the interrogator, the junior pilot with the bent- nosed X-wing, and the troopers, and the two Imperials still in TIE flight suits. Routine interrogation, names, dates, places, technicalities.


Aron’s service career was fairly straightforward; young swoop ganger from Coruscant, enlisted one step ahead of the planetary police, did well enough at the Academy to go to fleet rather than garrison duty.

A convoy- escort Nebulon-B, then an assault ship, then flight command, then shifted to an Imperator-I, moved up to Interceptors, then transferred to the Black Prince as a squadron commander. Most of Aron’s score was pirates and local government rogues.


Franji’s was slightly more tortured. Policewoman, air branch, Chazwa- Aron nearly jumped out of his suit at that. Hovers and skimmers mainly, observation and rescue work.

Compulsorily transferred to the militia during a period of piracy, she had been among the group that had intercepted a major pirate attack- and been drafted into the Starfleet fighter corps for her pains.


Fighters, then TIE bombers off a Venator, then the frankly strange Int/Xt- and at that point she was questioned primarily by Aron.

‘The Xt has a weird reputation. Do they live up to it?’

‘What’s an Xt?’ the rebel pilot- Comran M’lanth- asked.

‘Squint Special.’ Franjia replied. ‘It must have seemed like a good idea at the time- maximum possible firepower; it retains the chin guns the standard Interceptor loses; and adds two more laser cannon in each wing hub.’


The Rebel pilot’s jaw dropped. ‘It does what?’

‘Flies very, very badly. There was a reason they drafted bomber pilots to them. Ten guns sounds wonderful- the idea was to hit hard enough to knock out things like YT’s, shuttles and transports quickly and neatly.

Six extra guns draining the power banks- or carrying their own capacitors, in addition to the weight of the weapon, and six more guns’ worth of waste heat, on a fighter with too small a wing radiator area to begin with.’

‘It didn’t work?’ Aron asked.

‘Like skis on an AT-AT. By the time they stripped the guns and capacitors down to save weight, you only had eight, maybe nine shots before the capacitors ran dry or the barrels melted, take your pick. It was the wrong spaceframe for the job; a version based on the Starwing hull would be more effective.’

Basically, it dissolved into three pilots talking shop. The little grey man took notes on both sides.


‘OK, but if I get anything- any fighter- in the killing position, above, behind and close, one or two shots and it’s dead anyway and your shields don’t do you any good.

They might count for something against high tangent snapshots when you can’t get a consistent sequence of hits, or against light PD, but the whole idea is not to get shot.’ Aron was ranting.

‘Without the protection of a decent layer of shields, the chances of getting killed before you learn not to get shot-‘ Comran said.

‘I don’t understand how you expect to win a war on the basis of on the job training.’ Franjia interrupted him.

‘What about getting your shot in first? Past about Interceptor, and I reckon the A-wing goes too far, you are better off with shields to hold the thing together, because something that agile is too twitchy to be a good gun platform.’


‘Which side are you on, anyway?’ Aron asked her, mostly in jest.

The side of superior firepower, of course.’

‘On many things you seem to be, in fact, broadly in agreement.’ The little grey man said; impossible to tell if he approved or disapproved.

‘Well, it is supposed to be a civil war. You expect the sides to have nothing in common?’ Aron said, still too flippant.

The squad leader clenched his fist and stepped forward, about to punch Aron; Comran stopped him.


‘There’s no call for that, Lieutenant.’

‘Perhaps there is.’ Greyface said. ‘Loyalties. I need to know more about your loyalties.’

‘Well,’ Franjia said, openly sneering at him, ‘you qualify as an outright mirror image.’

‘I have not had you tortured.’

‘The most efficient seldom do.’ Franjia said. ‘They erode their way to the truth, that way they find it in fewer pieces when they get there. All right; I admit it. I’m human, sometimes conscience and pragmatism trip over each other, and loyalty is a stranger beast than most people like to think.’


‘We believe that the cause of the Alliance is just. A search for justice is not as powerful a motive as we would want.’ The interrogator said.

‘Forces within the empire; old guard and new men, radicals and moderates- some leave the Imperial armed forces and some are ejected. Centrifugal forces.’

‘No, no, linear forces, I’m a third dan master of the Cult of Thrust.’ Aron pushed his wit a shade too far, and then turned serious. ‘Why is it so bloody hard for you to accept that you might be right? There weren’t exactly an abundance of Rebel recruitment offices on Coruscant.

Now I find myself on a ship loose enough to make a getaway from, with a hyperspace capable fighter that probably knows the way, and a messy atrocity in progress to turn my back on. Why don’t you think that adds up?’


‘Have you ever considered defecting to the Empire?’ Franjia asked him. Eyebrows shot up around the room.

‘As an academic possibility.’ The interrogator replied.

‘Why didn’t it add up for you?’ she said, innocent sounding.

‘You plan to stand my reasoning on it’s head?’

‘Basically. Why don’t you think that your reasons to belong to the Alliance and not to the Empire are enough?’

‘Because I have yet to be convinced that they are also your reasons.’ The grey man said. ‘You put up with the Empire and served it loyally this far, did you not?’


‘Actually, as a regional fleet unit, and an ex cop, cynicism is part of the territory.’ Franjia answered. ‘You get to be familiar with the brutalities that local forces perpetrate. In fact, you recognise them as exactly the same sort of bloody- minded stupidity that tore the Republic apart.’ The rebels looked unfriendly upon her.

‘I thought being part of the loyal opposition was enough; that things were no worse than they would be otherwise, and perhaps a little better.

Then you come face to face with a genuine, full- blooded psychotic, and the shock of realising that they believe that you, in fact, are on their side. That they expect you to hear and obey, as if nothing was wrong.

That their sense of what is and isn’t right is so far out of touch that they don’t understand why people are shocked by them any more- you expect to find that huddled in the gutter, not in power.’


The Alliance naval lieutenant re-entered the room. ‘Would you care to prove your loyalty to the Alliance?’ he asked, bluntly. The grey faced spy glared at him; the first sign of real emotion he had displayed.

‘Depends whether our propaganda people are right about your initiation rites.’ Aron replied.

‘Aron, think about it. We refuse, at best we get to spend the rest of our lives as prisoners of war.’ Franjia said.

Comran couldn’t help it. ‘And at worst?’

‘Spend the rest of our lives in ‘debriefing’. I don’t know who you, personally, would be prepared to kill to avoid that fate, but-‘

‘So what’s the mission?’ Aron asked. ‘Let me guess. Recon run?’

‘Correct.’

With suitable destruct charges bolted under the ejector seat, Franjia guessed. ‘Provided you don’t make us fly it in B-wings.’

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Finally...
Instead of sectioning this one up as it grew, I decided to just write it through. I plan on the basis of scenes; one plot point, one conversation, one action sequence- and try to fit two to four in a chapter. Sometimes, the plan just doesn't come together. Sometimes it takes longer than I'd like.

Ch 13


Nearly thirty- seven thousand crew, that worked out at a shade over four thousand midshipmen or better, ten thousand petty and warrant officers. Four thousand officers needed a lot of wardroom space. There was enough internal space and to spare on a Star Destroyer, but traditions died hard.

A wardroom was combination living room, dining room, lounge and library space, dating back to when ships were too small to give the officers any private space beyond a cot and a footlocker.

The Republic fleet had been more expansive about these things, but making officers associate socially with each other had struck the Starfleet as good sense.


Four decks down and two compartments aft, the main bridge officers’ wardroom was busy. Dinner, and much talking of shop.

‘As far as I’m concerned, the sector fleet are part of the problem.’ Brenn was pausing between mouthfuls. ‘Not Rebel, I wouldn’t go that far, but definitely independent. Or at least- not trying very hard.’

‘Their cryptographic security isn’t very good either.’ Rythanor said. ‘Traffic flow patterns are- strange. A lot of silent substations, too much coming and going from central command. That has advantages; they’re overworked, they get sloppy.

We’re good, but we’re not that good. If we can break in, the Alliance can- and the Ubiqtorate could blow in and out like a summer breeze. Probably even the ISB might manage to achieve something.’


The Starfleet always had a closer relationship with the substantially more competent Imperial Intelligence than it had with the enthusiastic amateurs of the Imperial Security Bureau; closer, but nobody, possibly not even themselves, had a comfortable relationship with the Men In Visible.

Black Prince, like all Imperator- class, was simply too obvious for intelligence work. Following up on information revealed and handing over prisoners taken was about it, and they would have welcomed a little professional advice now.

‘Winter typhoon, more like.’ One of the pit officers, com watch team supervisor Lieutenant Ondrath Ntevi, said. ‘I couldn’t tell you which way they’re going to jump.

One thing, they have been interested in us. Forty, fifty requests for information to regional command, theatre fleet, Central Command, you name it.’

‘That should keep them usefully baffled for a couple of years.’ Brenn said. If there was a place for glib facetiousness on an Imperial warship, the wardroom was it.


‘Well, it’s kept us baffled for the best part of two decades.’ Rythanor said.

‘Sir, is there any particular reason we’ve sometimes had to break through fleet security to get our own mail?’ Ntevi asked.

‘That’s right, you don’t know the story, do you?’

‘Story? I thought we were trailing a multiplex of gibberish. If there’s a core of sense in there, I’d like to hear it too.’ Rythanor asked.

‘Boiled down to the bare essentials,’ Brenn grinned, ‘Black Prince commissioned late. And early, technically. She was held up in construction, region command misestimated the actual completion date, and…there was no formation for us to fit in to.


We were assigned to an old Operational Fleet, 149, which had already ceased to exist when it was folded into Qiilura Sector Fleet- the original commission, already filled by another temporary assignment.

We were posted to a formation that didn’t exist yet- Shiwal Sector Fleet- when we completed working up earlier than the second due date. At this point we veer into, well, I trust I’m among friends here…outright fraud.’


‘Organisational screwups are one thing- taking deliberate advantage of them, how?’ Ntevi asked, smiling in bafflement.

‘The Exec of the plankowner crew. He appealed to a third command, the Tingel Approaches subCommand that eventually turned into Azure Hammer, a long, deceptively straightforward set of requests, which kept getting continually amended and clarified, as per procedure.

Which- and remember we’re still part of 149, and chain of command procedure meant we could effectively use their letterhead- two other commands got dragged into the mess, arguing over us.

‘What’s it called, Pseudo? Jublo? The art of using an opponent’s strength against them- it works on paperwork too.


Basically, we managed to start a faction fight over us, get them wrestling with each other while this ship sort of…slipped between the cracks, acting and drawing pay, fuel, spares and stores on one or other- or several- temporary authorisations.

At one point we were drawing pay and spares for a Shockwave with the same name- In Standard, not Basic- which was, well, interestingly inappropriate.

We had to bank the excess as capital and draw interest, horse trade the bits that were too dangerous to sell off back to the Starfleet- beginning a long tradition of improvising, modifying, making do. No-one with the specific oversight to stop us.


‘We were the lead ship against, and claimed the kill credit for, the CSS Moderniser- a separatist remnant battlewagon. The captain was old Republic navy- this was two years after Second Coruscant; pretty much everyone senior was- and not a natural Imperial.

He resigned his commission and retired to the Rim, he’s probably a Rebel now. That was what triggered the investigation, in the end, but to all practical purposes the exec was running the ship, and we were moving from zone to zone pretty much at will- looking for more war.

Distinction, glory, advancement. We were a crack ship; worth arguing over.


‘It came to an end when Captain Dodonna resigned and three alternative captains turned up over the next month. Live by the improv, die by the improv. Three separate commands claiming the right to assign and promote- or demote. It ended up at a full scale court of inquiry.

Now, I was a raw junior lieutenant at the time, just too late to defend the Republic, still so wet behind the ears my helmet kept sliding off; I only worked out the details much later.

The papers still exist, somewhere. The last I heard, the court records were a standard training document for the ISB’s fraud squads.


‘The Starfleet dealt with the ship by assigning us to a higher echelon force on a permanent basis- the only way to tidy up all the counter- claims, and exactly what we wanted in the first place.’

Brenn gestured at the squadron shield on the wardroom wall; the winged mace of 851 Destroyer Squadron.

‘One City- Urbanus- class cruiser, two Allegiance and two Shockwave heavies, three Tector, six Imperator including us, three old Venator. The squadron has two distinctions; we have never deployed all in one place at one time, and we have never sent a man to any of the strategic pursuit squadrons.

Three, if you include never submitting a dishonest fitness report.’


‘Sir, why is that so much of a distinction?’ Ntevi asked. ‘Surely-‘

‘Everyone screws up. Gets sloppy, takes shortcuts, fails in courtesy to a brother officer-‘

someone muttered ‘Mirannon’.

‘Precisely.’ Brenn said. ‘Engineer-Commander Mirannon is a perfect- no, spectacular- example. Professionally, he’s a very competent officer. Personally, he’s rude, abrupt, abrasive, pushy, ungentlemanlike and a chronic practical joker and encourager of same. I’m not saying that just because I like the man.’

‘According to our store returns,’ Wathavrah said, ‘he has been stockpiling torpedoes. Either he’s planning to go into the blasting business for himself, or he has one spectacular trick planned.’


‘Don’t worry, the authorisations actually exist.’ Brenn said. ‘First Principle of Bureaucratic Warfare; do it right, somewhere. Then lie about it all you want, once you’ve established the ability to prove it’s the other guy’s fault.

In theory we have them to replenish other ships. Next time we lose a turret,’ the navigator said it as if it was inevitable, ‘his plan is to emergency fit torpedo tubes in place of the flank LTL’s, and double them up- to preserve the ship’s effective firepower.

Of course, when we get the turret replaced, the tubes won’t go away. Net result, we acquire a large addition to our long range and bombardment firepower.

As an academic exercise, for all of you, picture the charge sheet.’


‘I knew he wasn’t mad enough to do something like that without covering himself, but he comes damnably close.’ Wathavrah said. ‘When was he planning to inform the relevant department of this?’

‘Before or after you unload- three Category One, two Category Two and four Category Three offences?- on him?’ Rythanor asked.

‘None of which will happen.’ Brenn explained. ‘He will be reprimanded, which will balance out against the commendation for putting the ship back together after being damaged.

Punishment will be administrative and internal. His fitrep will say things like “brilliant but unstable” and “achieves results at the expense of proper procedure.” Meaning we hold on to him.’


‘You can break a man’s career with an honest fitrep. The slight screwups, the mistakes you make while learning to do the job, the routine stress of sitting on a stellar power level reactor and waiting for it to burp, the enemy trying to kill you and command trying to get you killed- what’s perfection?

So- overstating it is part of the game. Expectations shift. We exaggerate, regional command knows we exaggerate, both sides know what they really mean.

“Outstanding” translates to “Can find his own ass better than 50% of the time, but only if allowed to use both hands.” We like to tell as much of the truth as the individuals involved can stand.’


‘In the interest of keeping them still standing.’ Wathavrah said. ‘If I punished all my people for uniform and conduct infractions, as severely as the book says- we’d end up parking the ship on Kessel, and could the last one out turn the lights off? What good would that do anyone? There has to be some discretion.’

‘Shandon, the last all up drill, how did your gun crews do?’ Brenn asked.

‘We benchmarked out at six point eight.’ The gunnery officer reported. ‘In accordance with standing orders.’


‘Without the minor hiccups, how would you have done?’

‘Eight point nine five.’ Rythanor admitted.

‘Which is in violation of squadron standing orders, because we are supposed to pick up on the minor details like non-standard uniform, holoposters in the turret- to keep the benchmark below seven. The screening threshold.’ Brenn said.

‘I don’t understand.’ Ntevi said.

‘Above that benchmark, you become eligible for transfer to strategic forces, like the Death Squadron, like the Death Star- picture a situation where you have to live up to the pack of lies on your fitness report.’ Brenn said, smiling like a wolf.

‘Ouch…’ Ntevi realised.


‘Their real performance is nowhere near as good as the fleet likes to think. They’re all far too busy simulating performance to have any time for the real thing.

The only way they can keep their jobs, or their lives with the Dark Lord involved, is to do it exactly by the book. No initiative. No ability to deviate from the plan, react to the unpredictable.

If you want to turn into a hollow shell of your former self, running scared of your own command structure every nanosecond of the day, join the waiting list for the Executor. If you actually want to fight for the Empire, stay put.’


All of them made the appropriate deduction for squadron pride and personal envy.

‘The loose end. The first exec. Executed?’ Ntevi asked.

‘No; it was hard to prove that a ship with over forty merchant captures and ten warship kills including a medium cruiser was acting against the interests of the Empire.

At least, it was hard then; I dare say it could be managed now. The court busted him back to Lieutenant, and a staff job. Took him eight years to work his way back to a destroyer command.’


‘So what happens next?’ Wathavrah asked. ‘Now that we have a plant in the alliance.‘

‘Who told you that?’ Brenn shouted at him.

‘Two fighter pilots go missing, and their rooms aren’t torn apart for evidence, their comrades aren’t interrogated to within an inch of their lives, their places aren’t filled- no internal security investigation worth dreck, in fact. That smells of their being sent.’

‘You may be on to something. Don’t compromise them. Now,’ Brenn said, ‘we wait for the Rebs to take the bait.’



It was a slightly augmented fighter squadron that left the Chandrillia Rose.

The apparently junior Rebel pilot who had watched them undergo debriefing turned out to be more senior than he looked, and not too bad an actor.

Squadron Leader M’Lanth’s X-wing leading, and both Y-wing flight leaders had traded up to the B-wings. In Aron and Franjia’s opinion, only very slightly augmented.

They flew a formation that made no sense, except under the circumstances. The rebel bomb half-squadron had all moved up a place; the flight leaders taking B-wings, their wingmen taking their fighters- and the last pair of Y-wings were left for their ‘new comrades’.

Physically, they were leading, where the rebels could watch them.


Just before takeoff, one of the flight leaders- what was it with these people? She hadn’t seen a single one who would have looked out of place in an Imperial uniform.

Same names, same manners, same jokes, those of them that had any sense of humour at all. Their personnel breakdown was virtually the same as the racist, sexist Imperial fleet. That worried her, to an extent.

‘So how do these things fly, then?’ the flight leader- Wordell Grannic- had asked Aron.

‘It’s one of yours, you don’t know?’

‘Central command squadrons get ships like that, maybe. One or two squadrons in a subzonal command, ten or twenty in a sector maybe; we wouldn’t even see one in a green star.’


‘Don’t you at least have sim time to go on?’ Aron asked.

‘On a frigate? We don’t have the facilities for that.’ Wordell said, baffled.

Both the imperial pilots kept a straight face only with effort. ‘Well, electronic cockpit time isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’ Aron said.

‘It’s a bomber.’ Franjia said. ‘Slow, well armed and good fire control. Fly like you expect people to get out of your way.’

‘You sure as stang can’t.’ Aron muttered.


Well, they were in the air now, and both of them meandering loose around the sky on their way to the programmed jump point. M’Lanth was fairly competent; he had the wit to realise that four of his pilots were new to their craft, and give them a little time to get used to them.

And their astromechs. RO2-ZB1 was riding behind Aron, RF2K-RL3 with Franjia; ten other droids in the unit, the odds that at least one of them was downloading to Imperial Intelligence- whether it knew it or not- better than forty percent.

Both of the astromechs had probably been briefed to prevent any re- defection attempt. Triple agents.

The Imperial pilots were, nonetheless, enjoying themselves. The rebels were short of sims, short of fuel and parts to allow their fighters to accumulate real wear and tear; fifty, sixty flight hours was normal.

Between patrol and hunter operations, Aron and Franjia both had well over two thousand. They reacted more quickly, flew more precisely and took their craft much closer to the edge, and shot a lot straighter.

Mock combat, rolling round each other, Aron got killing positions on all of his flight, one after the other, pop, pop, pop. Franjia preferred distance, long range, high aspect fire; just not quite where they were expecting, just out of the crosshairs, ducking past every time.


Comran knew his business; he might be able to take on one of them, but not both.

‘If you can keep that up, I’m glad you’re on our side. What do you normally fly?’ he asked them.

‘Starwings. And how I wish I’d brought mine with me.’ Franjia said; her astromech beeped indignantly. ‘No, Raf-Tookie, you don’t make up for the five hundred ‘g’ this clunker’s short of.’

‘You don’t rate the Y-wing?’ Grannic said.

‘Is this really the time and place for a discussion of Imperial methodology?’

‘Before a fight, dodgy- but a lot better than during or after.’ Aron said.


‘The TIE Bomber goes back to the clone wars. It was designed for close quarters brawls; massive casualties inevitable, from friendly and random as much as targeted fire.

The only way to minimise your losses is to degrade the enemy faster than he does you. The design shows that- heavy payload, good electronics, medium manoeuvrability and poor straight line thrust and damage tolerance.

The Y-wing’s a completely different type- a fighter-bomber, designed for open, running combat, faster, more agile- but not by much. It’s a step in the right direction, for the Alliance. Only a short one, but better than nothing.’ Franjia gave her opinion.


‘Intel doesn’t trust you.’ M’Lanth said.

‘Not surprised. I wouldn’t like us, if I were him.’ Aron said.

‘If he wasn’t suspicious, he wouldn’t be doing his job.’ Franjia said. ‘He’ll learn.’ Inwardly, she was calculating her probable lifespan as an Alliance pilot. It was not a comfortable line of thought.

Lady Lyria Tellick had been a senatorial aide at one point; she knew politics, and she loathed Palpatine and his empire.

Azirrn, she had never really dared to seriously believe in a future for them together; there were no broken dreams grinding against each other, at least it had been a clean amputation.

Was she really a rebel? Lyria Tellick, Alliance agent in place? Probably. That could have carried her here by stranger, although possibly more honest, routes.


M’Lanth announced the hypershift; the fourteen leapt into hyperspace, ran their way down through the energies and up through the velocities, heading for Ghorn III.

Franjia felt no reluctance about shooting at the sector forces- apart from the practicalities of doing it in a Y-wing. They might easily have ended up doing that anyway. Aron was feeling grumpy enough to attack pretty much anybody. Suicide missions had never agreed with him.

The exit was planned very close to the planet; close enough that the defences could get a bow shock and warning off them, so close that they would be deploying inside any likely screen.

Hopefully, close enough that they could be in and out without having to engage.

Aron doubted it. He had only been introduced to the fine art of operational planning, but all his instincts were against this.

The actual plan was for four pairs, Y’s and B’s, flying a low, fast patrol route, down on the deck using the planet as cover, two flights of X keeping the TIE’s off their backs.


Sensible as far as it went, but he didn’t agree with making it a squadron operation at all.

Too much to sneak in, too little to blast their way. Better, if they needs must use what they had to hand, to send a smaller force- a flight of Y’s, fake transponders as some local force defence unit, go by bluff.

That was only part of the problem. It wasn’t that he had never questioned his own loyalties; just that he loved flying, and had allowed himself to become hardened to the price of the job. Fast fighters tended to have guns strapped to them.

Basically, he was on the imperial side because he had been born there. Something about the Rebel cause did appeal; independence, freedom, being on the wrong side of the law.

Only a badly damaged society would cling to values like Order, Stability, Conformity. Then again, it was starting to look as if the Alliance had more than a few problems of it’s own.

I’m using myself as a test case, he thought. If this lot are anything to go by, I could go far as a freedom fighter- if they can convince me, or seduce me with a command of my own, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?


Emergence; and a quick passive scan revealed a merciful absence of destroyers. The Golan was still there; with them between it and the planet, all it could do was scramble the alert flight. Heavy warships around Ghorn IV, nothing nearby.

Imperial doctrine- and what an aid to the rebels it was- called for an aggressive response; instead of doing something sensible, like raising planetary shields on low power and sending for a hunter group to chase the rebels away, they would scramble the garrison fighters.

M’lanth’s lead triad of X-wings peeled off to deal with the alert flight; the four pairs of bombers dived into the atmosphere.

Their shields soaked up the heat of re-entry and deceleration, leaving them plunging ballistically through the upper air, S-turning to bring them down to a practical repulsor flight speed and heading for the treetops.


It was their most vulnerable phase; they were lucky the garrison didn’t react in time.

Grannic’s flight were headed straight for trouble, skimming the planetary capital; prisons, public spaces. The flight Franjia was part of was going wider, three provincial starports to scan.

At top practical speed- running on painfully weak gravitic engines- the B-wings’ speed gave the Y’s fifty kph in hand; and meant the planetary garrison TIEs could catch them easily.

Grannic was running with his sensors active as they came up on the outskirts, scanning forward; the other pair of Y’s were focusing on one building after another.


Aron slammed his repulsors into reverse, they lanced ahead of him, he accelerated forward in chase and hammered all three of them with sensor and fire control pulses, one after the other.

‘You’re going to fight your way past at least a flight of garrison TIEs- you want it to be this easy for them? Concentrate on the target once you get to the target.’

Franjia’s flight had three provincial city starports to scan, suborbital ion hops between them; each port had a defence flight, to pursue fleeing criminals as much as anything else.

The first had two TIEs on ready racks out in the open; they were the first target. They should have been airborne already- perhaps the controller had been reprimanded for a premature launch before; however it happened, they were too late.

The flight leader hosed one down- missing wild at first, unfamiliar gun layout, hammering the ground spewing loose and fused earth everywhere. The second was starting to lift when Franjia took a single aimed shot that hit it in the right wing hub.


It fireballed, the pilot’s ejector seat took him clear to seven hundred metres and his gravchute started to drift him down.

Franjia started a tight evasive weave, looking for the defence flight hangar and turrets; she was relieved she hadn’t killed him- in theory she was prepared for that, in practise she was happy to postpone the moment.

Relief turned to horror when she saw one of the X-wings curve after the falling black figure. She rolled out and climbed after him on a brief flash of ion drive.

Normally that was a dumb move in air- the dumping of ekawatts of energy into thick lower atmosphere made a pretty good explosion substitute.

The astromech screamed in protest, lightning bolts crackled to earth off the ion trail, and the shockwave the miserable aerodynamics of the Y-wing trailed behind it slammed into the X-wing and sent it tumbling.


Franjia rolled out at the top of the zoom. ‘How dare you!’ she shouted over the com. ‘You call yourselves the side of good and you shoot at ejected pilots?’

M’Lanth had been manoeuvring to line up on her; the tumbling X-wing said ‘Hey, all I wanted was a gun camera shot.’

‘Of a man in a mask?’ Franjia spat back.

‘Iyran, both of you, calm down and get back in formation.’


Not before time- the relative handful of defence turrets around the port were shooting at them now. Green, red, orange, blue- a low-rent garrison like this, they got the tail end of every gas shipment.

It made for an interesting light show, but not when it was happening to you. Most of the bolts were converging on the high, cover flight. Franjia rolled and dived using the column of shredded air as cover; one of the high X-wings got coned, trapped between converging streams of fire.

The B-wing went for one of the turrets, covering him; all three Y’s did the same. Too late- the X-wing tried to turn on one of them, flew too straight for too long, the converging fire hit and splashed it.

The rest dived for cover, the defence turrets looked for a fresh target; they found the B-wing, and it’s shields started to come apart; Franjia came up off the deck in a half-roll, line of fire trailing her across the sky, sent a stream of laser and ion fire into the defence tower next to the port control tower.

The fire control wasn’t as good, but more than enough for a stationary target. It’s shields blew in and the quad laser fireballed.


She had no problems at all with that kind of target. Point defence weapons were no pilot’s friend- and they were Imperial Army anyway. The rest of the defensive flight- that would be the hangar; empty.

Withdrawn, or- on instinct she broke hard right, skimming less than three metres off the ground, shields sparkling with the flare of bursting blaster bolts and shrapnel.

Two TIEs, two old Z-95; one of the TIEs went after the B-wing, which wallowed- the TIE overshot, blasting chunks out of the landing apron, the B-wing couldn’t catch it as it swung clear for another pass.

The ’95 which went after her flew by and banked, almost a pylon turn. It was relying on aerodynamics; she went for brute force- spun on the repulsors, laid up a high deflection shot as it tried to line her up- hit it and sent it tumbling, the second shot was a kill.


One of the Y’s exploded under a stream of laser fire, the TIE- sensibly- flew from there to the city, to hide behind the buildings and wait to be reinforced- or for a chance at a shot in the back.

The second ’95 did the same after spraying fire over two Y-wings, denting their shields- but the old blasters needed a long, steady stream of fire on target.

The X’s pursued, the remaining bombers went after the turrets; Franjia broke off the chase to deal with the mission, scanning the warehouses and bays of the starport.

It was small by galactic standards; total volume of trade less than a million tons a day. Zig-zagging and rooftop hopping, it was a matter of moments for her astromech to find life signs. Masses of them; the Y-wing’s computer tried to distinguish them through the jamming and lost count.

‘I have either a herd of nerf, or a jail.’


Calculated risk time; whereabouts in the building- there. It was a large square block with an undulating roof, some mad bout of architecture.

She picked the far edge of the building and blew one of the roof ridges off. Blast carried the debris clear; the shock disrupted the jammers and security screens long enough to get a good look.

‘It’s a jail. They’re in there, two thousand plus, mostly human, don’t seem to have been too badly mistreated yet.’


The planetary capital was naturally more heavily defended. The first thing Aron did as his Y-wing brought the city down over the horizon was look for the garrison ase- looming, slab-sided, tower-topped- and lob a proton torpedo at it.

‘You’re crazy! They’ll-‘ one of the Rebels shouted.

‘They’re reacting anyway- suppress them. Slow fire, make them shoot torps, not us, keep the TIEs in their hangars for fear of blast. Kriffing well fire.’

One of the Y’s lobbed a torpedo after Aron’s; he was thinking, city. Maze. Repulsors gave off nothing like an ion signature. How do I spot a defending fighter in a maze of mirrors; and on the other side, how do they find me?

By coming and looking. Already over the suburbs, less than thirty seconds from the city centre and the public buildings, when his sensors identified two four- strong flights of TIE fighters, one high, one low.


The X-wings raced ahead, the high TIEs slowed to meet them and the low flight curved up underneath; Aron accelerated up to meet them- locking on to one which began to weave, faking it out by switching his targeting computer off and spraying shot at it’s wingman; unguided, unheralded- he missed low with the lasers but the ion bolts hit the eyeball dead centre.

Not exactly aerodynamic, the pilot could have tried to fight it down to a dead stick landing- but he did the sensible thing instead and punched out, the fighter tumbling down to hit and explode in someone’s swimming pool.

The chemical-looking flare of rupturing capacitors flashed the water into a rising pillar of steam. A dogfight in fog. Fun.

The other six- against X’s, in atmosphere, at two to one- the X’s sprayed fire over the formations and broke.


One of the TIEs got clipped, half a wing broken off, it spiralled down still under power, with the pilot aiming for a controlled crash; an X-wing got hit in the upper port engine, the S-foil tore away and it spun out of control.

Two of the TIE’s dived after it, the B-wing, relatively better off in atmosphere, moved to cover- the lone TIE went after it.

The new bomber shot at the TIE, brilliant crimson heavy laser and red-orange autoblasters, the TIE- wearing flight commander’s stripes- rolled high and right out of the streams and put two twin laser bolts into the B-wing.

It’s shields flickered and crashed, Aron nailed the TIE a split second before it could finish the job.

Two for me, Aron thought, too late to stop the crippled X-wing being finished off. The pilot punched out.

Before anything else, Aron lobbed another torpedo at the garrison base. His astromech watched the sensors, the TIEs were actually giving the remaining pair of X a relatively easy time, herding them and holding them in check; most of them were going after the bombers.


One TIE dipped down towards Aron; he swung towards it aiming about twenty degrees off-rolling round some sort of district facility, a fire tower he thought- the TIE pilot tried to be fancy, aim with the gun offset.

It was a good design idea badly executed; there were simpler ways to do it. Sienar made a big- and clumsy- deal of it because the big gun on a small frame of the TIE needed the engines specifically reset to soak up the recoil; they ramped up the ergonomic difficulties to match the practical difficulties.

Cygnus, with the heavier Starwing, had been playing with the idea of an eyeball sight- servo equipped weapon mounts linked to an aiming reticule that fit over the pilot’s eye.

Aron’s Y-wing had a turret. Only ion cannon, but the little side-stick controlled them a lot more easily; high deflection, he hosed the ion stream on to the TIE- aiming down, one of his shots hit a house and blacked it out, another started an electrical fire, then he connected.

The TIE fell out of the sky, too low for reaction time, it hit the ground and tumbled like a jack until it broke up.


Two more of the TIEs were down, one of the Y-wings had an engine pod in flames; and the garrison base was launching another flight.

One of them was a /gt; Aron realised when it tried to get out of the way of his last torpedo and failed. The point defence guns caught it; not a clean hit, the torp had a split millisecond to detonate in, and did.

The blast caught the /gt, and the load of proton bombs on board detonated. The flare shredded two of the fighters and sent the others tumbling, left the face of the garrison base blackened and sintered.

That- literally- cleared the air, but from the total of forty, that was les than twelve dealt with, and the strike force would run out of fighters first. There would be smaller elements scattered around the planet, too, ‘95s as well as TIEs.


Aron dived to roof height and redlined his repulsors, astromech unit complaining and barely managing to hold them together. Time to think objective- get it done, get out.

The prisoners themselves weren’t the problem. It was the other end of the ‘humiliating and painful death’ process Aron was searching for. Something public- probably not the governor’s palace, possibly the garrison but he hoped not; and he had a city centre to play with.

Never mind womp rats. As a young capitoline thug, zooming through crowded skyways at absurd speeds was routine for him; the last time he had done this, he was being chased by the police.

How many of the gang would have been prepared to join the Rebellion…actually, probably most of them; and the best thing he could do for the Empire might be to go back and encourage them. They’d have the Rebel Alliance’s reputation in tatters within the week.


He’d never gone wallsurfing in anything as solid as a Y-wing before; the droid was a drawback- if it was possible for an astromech to have an apoplectic fit, his was- but the thing was a lot tougher than any swoop. Which gave him an idea.

Right now, defence coordination had the opposite problem; they would be getting swamped. People calling and com’ing from all over the city, to report, to complain, just to panic.

There had been some damage to the city, but the/gt had been an airburst, not really damaging anything except windows and vid reception.

Unless the garrison did something outrageously stupid- like trying to shoot through buildings to get him, not impossible that they would be that dumb- it was just standard monstrously illegal city flying.

People shooting at him was nothing unusual, but repulsortanks- that was less fun.


Ground forces had been activated, and one of them picked up on him- a technically obsolete Sabre- class tank. He had to swerve down a side loop to avoid it- it came after him.

He had four hundred and eighty km/h in hand, but couldn’t use all of them in a cityscape, and it could fly through buildings a lot more efficiently than he could.

The city wasn’t laid out on a grid; it was organised around linked loops of ring skyways, which made for fast flying- past hordes of shoppers and commuters and delivery vans.

Was it right to hose them with ion fire to create an obstruction? Probably not. It might be fun, but it wouldn’t necessarily work, either.


Flash right, a flicker of office windows to his left, someone threw a computer out of a window at him; bit of repressed frustration coming through there.

Zig- zag, trying to lose the tank- it knew the city better and got ahead, curved out of an intersection after him, but not firing; public building ahead. Fire coming at him from the rooftop- streams of blaster bolts. That made it a non- trivial problem.

An Imperial Security Bureau office, apparently; right, Aron thought, as Imperial or Rebel, I hate them either way.

They were using E-Webs on him; a strange gun, for something that size it threw a surprisingly light bolt- but the rate of fire was very high and the recoil was virtually nonexistent.

Held steady, pounding bolt-streams into the same aim point, it could chew through warship grade durasteel in seconds.


The Sabre had the sense to stop shooting at him, but the CompForce fools on the roof were dumb enough to keep firing past him and catch it in the cone of fire; the rain of blaster bolts gnawed at the hull, blew off the stabiliser fins, killed the secondary light cannon, demolished sensors and fire control, took out the vision devices.

Flying blind and paralysed, the tank tried to ground- on the roof. Three of the power generators ruptured and detonated, the tank rolled over and the crew crawled out.

Aron couldn’t resist it; the damage to the armoured roof made it a tempting target.

He pulled the Y-wing up in a hammerhead turn, attracting TIE attention. It took very little mental effort to think of those things coming at him as the enemy; they were designed to frighten and intimidate.

Only the elite got to personalise their fighters; the wing commander on his previous destroyer had “You lookin’ at me?” painted on the side of his Interceptor.

Like thousands of others, probably, but it summed up perfectly. The rebs were right to call them ‘eyeballs’; They were looking at you.

From them at least, looks could kill. Do the deed and run.


Aron dived on the building, put a couple of shots into the underbelly of the tank- it’s reactor vessel ruptured, sending a gush of eye-blasting light out.

His viewscreen went dark, he switched to proton torps, as vision started to return he shot a pair off at the hole, untargeted through the sepia haze; hurdled the far edge of the roof, doubled shields aft.

The TIEs had the sense to stay clear and give them room to detonate. They were semi- directed antiship warheads, they slammed through the roof and blew up.

Most of the blast went downwards into the body of the vaguely pyramidal, fifty- storey building, enough spread to gush out of the roof and the windows like an erupting volcano.


Aron rode part of the concussion wave away, astromech screaming something like ‘I resign’ as the building burnt and collapsed in on itself. Later on, he would get the shakes.

Right then, all he thought was- crispy fried cop. I could probably get a commendation from both sides.

He had gained distance there; he wanted enough clear space to, at least, break for orbit- he rolled right, dived down a ring-way underpass.

It turned out to be a bad move. He hurdled a jack-knifed cargo train, went the wrong way round a split, avoided a subsurface residential complex, made surface again and climbed to break for orbit; but he had been predictable, and there were a flight of TIEs waiting for him.


He tried to bank round on to one, and found the entire fighter following him; damn aircraft- like repulsors- he had to twist away as the TIE’s opened fire.

They were, in contrast, probably overtrained; they were having difficulty keeping out of each other’s way, and they were all chasing the same fire solution- he didn’t have to worry about dodging a cone of fire, just a stream.

He shot past them out into the open air, looking for room to fight in; they followed him up, and two cone-shaped glows flashed past him on the way down.

He had missed the announcement; they had found it, the stadium was being prepped. Franjia’s comment about blenders wasn’t that far from the truth.


Most of the rebel fighters were breaking for orbit; she had counted them and missed him. A fast suborbital hop on ion thrust to the capital, and two altitude fused proton torps fired into the formation; on repulsor, they couldn’t break away fast enough.

The blast broke one TIE- it’s wings folded up, the pilot dived out of the shattered viewport- and detonated another, sent the outer pair tumbling away on the shockwave; she lined up on the one that looked to be recovering control fastest, and sent single shots after him.

The pilot threw the controls away, deliberately losing control to avoid being hit; it worked until he flew into an office tower. Aron tried for the last with turret ion fire, but she got to it first, ripping the top of the eyeball open.


Both of them wasted no time- pointed the nose up, lit off ion engines on all the power the shields could sustain and rocketed out of the atmosphere to a safe jump distance.

‘How did you do?’ she asked him. Her astromech was twittering away on a side band, trying to calm his down.

‘Five, a tank and an ISB office. You?’

‘Six and a handful of defence turrets- nice work on the office.’ She said.

‘You’re not-I mean, they were…’

The ISB are thugs, not police.’ She said scornfully. ‘No concept of law, even less of justice. Good riddance.’


‘Speaking of the law-incoming corvette.’ Aron noticed.

‘Hit it.’ Barely into full vacuum, a Lancer bearing down on them, they and the surviving rebels bolted for hyperspace.

Nine fighters arrived at the rendezvous, one of those, a Y-wing, so badly shot up the pilot and droid ejected as soon as they re-entered a bradyonic state, one of the B-wings with large pieces missing.



Chandrillia Rose was accompanied by a positive battle group- by rebel rather than Imperial standards. Three Corvettes, two MC30s and a Quasar Fire, another Nebulon, a Neutron Star and what appeared to be the flagship MC40 light cruiser- frigate, by Imperial standards.

It was a fairly impressive force. Well above Sector’s estimates- well below Lennart’s hopes.

‘Aron, does that Neutron Star look familiar to you?’

‘Well, the charred spot on it’s dorsal mid surface is a bit of a giveaway. Do you think we should admit it?’ He asked her.

‘Considering that they’ve just monitored us saying it anyway, we might as well.’


The squadron- what was left of it- was ordered to divert to the cruiser- carrier, and land there. At least it was easier than touching down on a Nebulon-B.

Large bays, amazingly full- they must have been resupplied; there was a squadron of the strange local fighters, cylinders with cruciform weapon pods, a squadron of Gauntlets, squadron of T-wings, squadron of Y-wings. The locals left to make room for them- exchanging with the Rose.

There was a crowd around the battered fighters as they floated on to dispersal pads and shut down, pilots, navy and ground forces; Aron’s astromech was shaking as it was lowered to the deck, a robopsychologist led it away, pestered by a flight and two naval officers wanting the data.


Good and bad, Franjia thought. They seem to be taking the bait; but we have a whole new set of people to explain ourselves to. Eight corvettes and two frigates. Fourteen squadrons, maybe.

M’Lanth came over to them. ‘Between them, my lads scored seven, I lost five with three ejected. You two alone racked up eleven.’

The flight controller waiting to debrief him was horrified. ‘Five. Five fighters and five good men.’

Franjia and Aron both thought what any Imperial pilot would under the circumstances; the definition of ‘good’ was that you didn’t get shot down.

‘For eighteen.’ She said, calmly. ‘And success.’


‘The security building,’ Aron said, ‘is mine.’

‘It might be all for nothing.’ The junior lieutenant flight controller said. ‘We sent a preliminary report, and…sector are considering doing nothing.’

‘What?’ Aron exploded in anger. Actually, that was a bad metaphor for someone who had access to proton torpedoes. He looked like he would like to make someone explode.

Franjia’s mind raced; a loyalty test? Simulating cold anger bought her a second to work out what she ought to say.

‘If this is some kind of loyalty test, it’s sick. Conspiracy theories be damned, are you really going to stand aside and let your comrades be inventively and grotesquely abused to death in front of an audience of trillions? If you’re thinking about the martyrs-‘ she said; people were starting to listen.


‘The Empire kills lots of people.’ The controller said, looking at the deck and muttering.

‘You’re supposed to be trying to stop them.’ Aron grabbed the controller and shook him. ‘They’re trying to make it look like you can’t look after your own.’

‘It’s not a finished decision.’ The controller protested. ‘There are a lot of us prepared to argue against it- but they’re going to want to talk to you. Your information could be crucial.’


They went along with the process that far; after a basic- and paralysingly sloppy- debrief that seemed to have more to do with telling war stories than objective analysis, there was a full scale flotilla conference.

I was right about joining the ranks of anarchy, Franjia thought; there were half a dozen arguments going back and forth in the auditorium, and the senior officer was the Mon Cal cruiser- frigate- captain; he was formal and dignified, and not a natural Basic speaker.

It took him four attempts to call the council of war to order. What a time for an ambush, Aron thought.


The recon squadron were in the spotlight. Two Imperial defectors were a point of interest; when Aron corrected the intel officer- they were from a regional force unit, not the sector fleet- attention centred on them.

Game on, Aron thought; this- spreading confusion and lies- was what they were here for.

‘So,’ the Mon Cal Captain burbled slowly at them, permanently in a state of thinking of the next word, ‘what does the regional support group think of this? What are their intentions?’

Keyed up- Aron’s mind suddenly went blank. ‘We’re just fighter jockeys. I can’t be sure, but-’

‘For three days before we left,’ Franjia said, ‘we were exercising twelve hours a day- against other Imperial ships.’

‘Really?’ one of the human officers asked. ‘Attacking or defending?’


‘Both.’ Franjia said. ‘If our ship was anything to go by, Region now considers Sector to be slack to the point of encouraging rebellion. Captain Lennart wouldn’t object to attacking either side.’

The argument revolved around that for a while- the possibility of getting Imperial forces shooting at each other and sneaking a rescue in in the confusion; both the Imperials listened carefully.

‘Perhaps,’ one of the Intel people said slyly, ‘the regional forces could be persuaded to attack Sector?’ He was looking at Aron and Franjia. If they were stupid spies, they would agree, want to be sent back- and get stunshot and arrested immediately.

‘Possible,’ Franjia said, ‘but the pretext? Assume, for the sake of argument, that it happens- what then? The Moff’s going to be replaced by someone who knows he’s liable to have higher authority sit on him at any moment- and that he has to be more fanatic than thou to keep his job.’

‘A straight up smash and grab rescue,’ Aron said, ‘that could be written off as business as usual- standard issue local force laziness and incompetence. It’d make a splash, but not one big enough to drown in.’


The intel officer looked disappointed.

The argument rumbled on; polarising the force. It boiled down to the Mon Cal’s fear of traps; they seemed to be the main force behind the idea of doing nothing. Aron glared at him. I don’t think of myself as particularly xenophobic, he was thinking; but…

‘Galactic Spirit,’ he shouted at them, ‘you’re outnumbered fifty to one. How do you expect to survive, how do you expect to rally people to the cause, if you go around being afraid? If all you have are long shots, that’s what you have to take.’

Franjia supported him, yelling over the rising noise, ‘It could be better for you if it was a trap. The sector force is criminally incompetent; if you can save your comrades and humiliate the defence force, that’s two victories for the price of one.’

Most of the human rebels were, broadly, in agreement.

‘Were you involved in the capture of the Caderath?’ the Mon Cal burbled, using the name the Fulgur had served the republic under.

‘No- we were busy putting dents in this ship at the time.’ Aron admitted.

‘Remember what you said about spending the rest of our lives in debriefing?’ Franjia muttered to him.


Unexpectedly, the Neutron Star’s commander backed them. ‘You’re right. We’ve been eroding away here, compromising and working around, playing it safe. Trap, or not- that’s a matter of tactics; politically, strategically, we have no choice- we have to put up or shut up.’

‘Thank you.’ Franjia said to him.

‘You owe me a sector jammer.’ He replied. ‘He’s right,’ meaning the Mon Cal Captain, ‘it probably is a trap, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had something to do with it; but would the Empire abandon it’s people like that?’

‘If it would cause more losses getting them back, then by the book, yes.’ Aron admitted.
‘You see, no choice.’ He said; left his seat, moved to talk to the Mon Cal quietly.

‘You trust them?’ the Mon Cal said, surprised.

‘I respect their competence.’ The human said. ‘Face it; we always knew it was going to be a trap. The Empire offers us the choice of losing ships and men, or losing face. Too obvious.’

‘Then why,’ burble, ‘do you wish to attack?’

‘If we commit up front, we can get in, make the pickup, and get out before the jaws of the trap close. Move fast, and I reckon we can beat this one. And they’re right;’ meaning Aron and Franjia, ‘if we don’t at least take the chance, what do we look like?’

‘All my instincts say, cut our losses.’ The Calamari captain said.

‘Sometimes, there is truth in platitude. The boldest measure may, indeed, be the safest.’ The human urged.
‘I do not like situations where the enemy dictates our spectrum of choice.’

The mon cal took a second to compose himself, and pointed to the two Imperial pilots. ‘Whether or not they are spies sent to mislead us, or genuine fighters for freedom, I believe they are destined to lead us to disaster.’

[Tanasinn]

It boiled down to the Mon Cal’s fear of traps

I couldn't help but laugh (for obvious reasons) at this. :]


This is a great fanfic -better than a huge portion of professional work in SW, in fact- keep it up.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Dear Fnord...did it really take me better than two weeks to reply to this?
Real life is sucking particularly badly at the moment- currently between jobs and busting a gut to get back into a researcher's position- and it is doing the fun parts no good at all.

Anyway, 14, and I am starting to suffer from a terrible urge to monologue...I know what the final sequence is, more or less, but I reckon I'm juggling an inelegant number of plot elements, and getting there looks like being a rough ride.

To clear things up, for my benefit as much as anybody's, there are; a whole bunch of minor plot threads,
the local plot involving a sector group slack to the point of corruption and treachery,
two major threads, one the politics of the clone wars, and possible proof of the fraudulence of the Imperial propaganda take on Order 66,
and the one kicking off here, signalled earlier, about Lennart himself and his place, or otherwise, in the Imperial power structure.

Ch 14;

Autokrator- class Star Destroyers were not the largest ships in the Star Fleet, but they were some of the fastest.

The first ship of the class had been HIMS Arrogant, and that was how they were usually known by the Basic- speaking majority of the galaxy; this one, Dynamic, was on exercise- her new captain working her up to something he considered efficiency.

Captain Delvran Dordd was not particularly enjoying it so far.

I’ve been spoiled, he thought. I should have thought to poach about ten LTL crews from Black Prince. They were conducting a fire- and- motion exercise, target drones hiding in an asteroid field, a fast flyby- vector parallel to the edge of the field, two thousand klicks per second at one hundred thousand out.

Dynamic’s gun crews had missed every one of the TIE-sized target drones so far. Compared to an Imperator, it’s turret arrangement was back to front, and more sensible for it.

She carried medium turbolasers by the smaller superstructure, heavy turrets in the axial defence position, stepped enough to fire past each other directly forward.

Their huge fire arc was what made the Arrogant-class effective flankers and pursuit ships, provided the gun crews could shoot straight.

They were dry-firing, firing local control active sensor pulses instead of shot. In theory, the target drones would light off their beacons when hit and manoeuvre out of the asteroid field for recovery. It was still only a theory.


It wasn’t impossible that they were missing on purpose, just to spite him. He had started by putting the ship through it’s paces; terrible.

They took eight full minutes to get to general quarters from a standing start. They passed training norms by the oldest dodge in the book- take a turret; each crew was supposed to pass the tests independently.

All the training time and resources went to the handful that showed some sign of talent, and they remote controlled the turret for the rest who sat there and pretended.

Maintenance and engineering- the same. On all the standard evolutions, the overall impression was of a crew who were barely keeping their heads above water.


All of which was made worse by his knowing if not exactly all the tricks, then at least more of them than they did.

Dordd turned to his chief gunnery officer, present on the bridge for the exercise, and thought about what he wanted to say. Anger warred with prudence- on one hand, they were genuinely very poor verging on abysmal. Bawling them out would at least relive some of his tension.

On the other hand, anger might be a luxury he couldn’t afford. He had never appreciated before how comfortable stormtroopers were to have around.

Was it even possible to push this crew hard enough that they broke under the strain? They felt more like a sponge- damp, gooey, structureless, prone to flop around and lie there.

Looking on the bright side, at least they were capable of most of the standard evolutions. At a pace that suggested most of the officers were reading out of their ops manuals as they went along, true, and benchmarking out as barely good enough to be in the Starfleet, never mind on a fleet destroyer.

Some of it was natural confusion and nerves following the change of command, but more of it was simple unreadiness.

The previous captain had been promoted, if that was the word, to command one of the search lines of a patrol squadron; the job was essentially a dead end, a cemetery for the living.

The only way to restart a career from there was to actually find some trouble and do well dealing with it- chance would be a fine thing.


Dordd, on the other hand- they were walking very wary around him so far. He had come from a crack ship; cracked, most would have said, but Black Prince’s gun crews would have dropped all twelve drones in less than a minute.

‘Gentlemen,’ he addressed the bridge crew, all of whom were at least male if not necessarily noble of spirit, ‘this ship is supposed to be a destroyer. A unit of significance to the fleet.

While it is all well and good to be able to intimidate with size and strength, you may find it hard to deliver on that promise if the gun crews can’t hit the broad side of a nebula.’


‘Sir,’ the exec stood up for his ship, defending the indefensible, ‘this is frontier space; minor colonies and outposts, we’re the largest thing for thirty parsecs in any direction.’

‘How many moments do you think that would take to change?’ Dordd snapped.

‘Alliance local forces spend a lot of their time hiding from the Empire; they tend to be around trainee, or complacent garrison, levels.

Alliance strike, regional and central command units tend to get committed to combat more often than any except our strategic pursuit forces, and be that much more experienced and battle-hardened.’


One of the pit crew muttered something about the Tarkin Doctrine.

‘Ah, yes, rule through the fear of force rather than force itself. Efficient.’ Dordd said, watching their faces to see who twitched, who looked like a security service plant.

‘Unfortunately, that doctrine made the Starfleet thoroughly hated throughout the mid rim and outwards, and cost the empire at least one obnoxiously self- righteous but basically wealthy and tax- paying planet.

That, and one barely- used battle station splattered across the void by a rebel strategic strike team, with contents including more of the cream of the Starfleet than we could afford to lose, and Wilhuff Tarkin. I’m interested in the facts of force.’


The exec- Dordd was having difficulty remembering all their names; Ilarchu Rondat- no, Ridatt. He kept trying.

‘Captain, we train to meet the sector standing doctrine, which says close range, closely grouped fire- we’re prohibited from engaging at all beyond five thousand kilometres, strongly advised to close to point blank, under two hundred, before opening fire. We’ve seen precisely one rebel ship, ever.’

Not that far away from Imperial standard practise; the theory being that you needed high hit rates to get the power transfer to pound down an enemy ship’s shielding, which was true enough, but that you needed to close to almost ‘can’t miss’ range to do it was less certain.

Even in fleets and with ships that could do better- the Executor- class being the prime example- most stayed fairly close to the doctrine of decisive action at close range.

Necessity often dictated otherwise, and the physical performance of turbolasers was more than up to it, but the gunners frequently weren’t. Lennart’s and his gun crews’ willingness to fire at distant, manoeuvring targets was extraordinary by most standards, verging on freakish.


Dordd was almost surprised to realise how corrupted he had become. For a second or two he thought about it; stick to the established doctrine, they couldn’t blame him for that, or do something different. No contest.

‘I know. It’s suicidal against a larger ship, counterproductive against a smaller- likely to burn more fuel chasing it down than simply hosing it from long range would.

You came up against one ion- scarred corvette whose hyperdrive failed on reversion, and it took you forty- seven minutes to catch it and kill it. If it had taken you that many seconds, it would have been over average. It’s not good enough.’

He looked at the main tactical holo. They were clear of the exercise track, drifting away along the edge of the zone. ‘Helm, bring us around, reciprocal, same separation, eighteen-fifty KPS relative.’


Star Destroyer manoeuvrability was a debateable issue; there were at least four different ways to turn a ship.

Throttling back one outer main engine and firewalling the other could spin an Imperator end for end faster than it took to throw the switches, but the shock that inflicted on the ship’s stabilisers and compensators made it a once or twice in a lifetime manoeuvre.

Off centre thrust from the auxiliary engines was the doctrine prescribed emergency turn procedure, the thrust deflectors were usual and in the event of complete thruster failure, recoil from the guns could do.

None of them worked if you didn’t have the energy. Or the competence.


‘Captain, I have to warn you,’ the navigator told him, ‘we’re approaching our allowable exercise limit.’

‘Already?’ Penny- pinching was an at least partial explanation, but this was ridiculous. ‘Give me the data.’ Dordd said, holding out a hand for the datapad.

‘Sir, I don’t have the figures to hand, but-‘

‘Then get them. I’ll stand in for you while you compile.’


Dordd gave the helm orders himself; instead of simply rotating and retrofiring, he spun the ship in a combat curve, a long u-shape that cost energy but preserved velocity- and hopefully kept the ship from being hit. As often, anyway. He finished the end loop, on plan, and had the datapad handed to him.

His first instinct was to throw it away, his second to find the idiot responsible, sheath the datapad in ablat foam and drop it on him, her or it from orbit.

‘This is ridiculous. This is hardly enough to warm the engines up, never mind real training. The sector budget only allows fifty minutes a month at full power?’

‘Sir, that’s still billions of-‘ the navigator began.

‘Agreeing with an economist is like agreeing with a prosecution attorney. No good ever comes of it. Have you been using even that?’


‘We have been fulfilling fleet training norms.’ Ridatt stated.

‘Only on paper- and are you really content to fight a war on paper? With the fleet bureaucracy? This-‘ he threw the datapad away, hitting the disposal chute- ‘is farcical. Not enough to do any real training on.

I’m surprised some of the turrets haven’t frozen solid. In fact,’ looking at gunnery’s fire distribution chart, ‘I think some of the PD weapons have. We don’t have the fuel allowance even to recover our drones?’

‘Officially, no, Captain.’

‘Hmph.’ Dordd grunted, walked down into the pit, to one of the drone control consoles; the operator’s eyes bulged out at the sequence of commands he keyed in. Most of the drones started to drift back towards the Dynamic, two headed deeper into the asteroid belt.


‘Interrogate them.’ Dordd commanded; an active sensor pulse sparkled off them, both of their identifier blips changed colour in the main display. Enemy- specifically, Alliance- red.

‘Those things have enough processing power to be treacherous, don’t they? They must have decided they were tired of getting shot at. They’re defecting. This is no longer an exercise.’ Dodd said, decisive- sounding. ‘Live fire, engage and destroy.’

The bridge crew boggled at him. He shouted at them. ‘Move.’


The turrets were slow to react, half of them called fire direction control to query, several kept firing scan pulses; but one of the main turrets took it too far and fired a full power HTL bolt.

The ship rocked back and an asteroid near the centre of the belt got turned into a plasma doughnut- the bolt overpenetrating, the head flashing it into vapour and the tail of the bolt smearing the cloud out along the line of fire.

‘Just as well. We’d never have been able to get away with that on the exercise budget…’ Dordd managed to keep a perfectly straight face as he said it. ‘Guns, did you instruct them to do that? Fire a teraton- level shot?’

‘No, Sir, I instructed them to engage as per standing orders.’

‘Really?’ Dordd looked, studyingly, at the overweight, jowly Lieutenant- Commander. ‘I heard your fire order. Precise and disciplined- it was not. Loose words and panic are understandable when, for instance, you are drifting at high speed towards a division of Alliance cruisers- they are never permissible.’

The gunnery officer briefly closed his eyes and waited to be sacked; not quite yet, Delvran Dordd thought, not until someone demonstrates sufficient competence to do the job instead. He pointed at the drone images in the display.

‘I notice they’re not dead yet.’

Guns looked at him blankly for a second, before realising what was being asked of him. Hesitantly, trying to remember how it was done in the manual, he gave a phased, grouped fire order, too slow to be useful in combat; a more or less coordinated volley of shot blasted out.


One of the drones got a close enough near miss to activate it’s hardwired routines, it shut engines down and signalled a hit.

‘It’s playing pittin, finish it off.’

This time, against a stationary target- they missed again. Nearly got it with blast waves and fragments, but not quite.

‘This ship does have torpedo tubes, doesn’t it?’ Dordd knew perfectly well it did; for one thing, the drones had been launched from them.

‘Yes, Sir- shall I fire them, Sir?’

‘I think you had better.’ Dordd said, looking down at him.


Two tubes fired; torps catapulted out, energising themselves- violet-tinged red teardrop- shaped electromagnetic sheaths forming around the warhead cones.

Although less effective at normal combat range, they were at least more interesting to watch than a TL bolt. They twisted and weaved through the asteroids, caught and detonated on both drones.

‘Secure and stand down.’ Dordd ordered. ‘On the evidence, I would be better off dismantling some of our torpedo stock, removing the guidance computers and replacing most of the gunners with them.’

‘Sir,’ the exec said, ‘that’s not really fair, after all it was only a pair of drones-‘

‘You think their performance would be improved if the targets were shooting back? Perhaps we should go further- invite the Rebellion to come and attack us. Yes, definitely. They might think it was an ambush and avoid us, that could be this ship’s best chance of survival.’


He looked round the frightened bridge officers.

‘There will be no more live firing unless needs must- for one thing, they may be a danger to themselves, we seem to have an electrical fire in no. 17 LTL mount. Exec, go and sort that out, will you?’

Ridatt hurried off the bridge, to the little electric cart waiting there. They raced those things up and down the corridors...have to put a stop to that. Eventually. No sense beginning with the trivial.

‘Simulations.’ he continued, ‘We will simulate until the crew’s eyes go square. Clearly they need it.’ He stalked off the bridge to his day cabin, to begin drafting an exercise programme.


To be fair to them, it wasn’t really their fault. In the growth surges, first from the Republic Starfleet, neglected, demoralised and understrength, to the cauldron of the Clone Wars, then from there to the dominating presence they needed to secure the peace of the Empire- the fleet had long since outrun any available reserve of trained personnel.

The early clone crews had, arguably, been misused; it would have made more sense if the pattern had been clone officers and petty officers in charge of womb-born ordinary spacers, rather than the other way around.

There weren’t really enough veterans available to serve as instructors for the rest, never mind cadre or full crews, and the womb-born parts of the Republic Starfleet had learned a frightening amount of their business through on the job trial and error- much the same way the Rebels were attempting to do now.

Fine, if it had stopped there, but it hadn’t. The fleet kept growing, drawing in more and more raw meat, and the only people whose competence was keeping up with demand were the yard workers; real talent and experience just kept getting spread thinner and thinner.


Combat hardened crews, but, perversely, the Imperial Starfleet’s very size worked against it there too; there were seldom enough enemies to go round. It also left parent units faced with the choice of keeping together a successful crew and depriving the rest of the fleet of a useful cadre, or breaking up a winning team.

Like himself; he was fairly sure now that he had been transferred out of a crack squadron, which had managed to establish consistently very high standards, to pull this ship into acceptable shape.

Imperial discipline was generally ferocious, and doctrine so precisely descriptive, because the alternative seemed to be shambolic, fratricidal chaos. Privately, Dordd doubted this crew had that much energy.


An hour later, the com/scan chief officer entered, looking sheepish. A lot of the burden would fall on him; what was this about?

‘Captain, we have an incoming message- holo, encrypted, Captain’s Eyes Only.’

‘Route it through.’

Dordd had to type in the access codes from his rank cylinder personally; he didn’t understand what extra level of security that might confer, but it was enough. The message unfolded.

A robed, yellow- eyed figure; Dordd started to go down on one knee, then realised from the shape of the head, the breadth of the shoulders, it wasn’t actually His Imperial Majesty, just someone who favoured the same tailor. Pre- recorded; no need to reply.


‘I am Kor Alric Adannan,’ the hooded figure identified himself, ‘Private secretary to Privy Councillor Gwellib ap-Lewff.’

Double-plus ungood, Brenn thought. What could a being with high connections, and a voice that sounded like a death threat, want with him? Couldn’t be anything to do with him himself, or this ship.

‘Captain Dordd, I am empowered to exercise the oversight authority of the Council.’

Which was terrifying enough, but something else niggled- the background noise. Asteroid effects from Adannan’s ship’s environment- awareness system.

Dordd left the message playing, bolted out on to the bridge, grabbed the PA,

‘All hands, prepare to receive VIP visitors, I need a Regulatory Branch honour guard at the docking bay.’
Only just in time. They were already on docking approach.


Adannan’s ship was clearly a custom job, light freighter weight class but military spec; black, an X- shaped arrowhead, an array of folding radiator fins that made the wicked little dart vastly overpowered for it’s size.

It also only barely fit in the ‘bayless’ destroyer’s very limited docking space.

That’s going to make resupply awkward, Dordd thought, irrelevantly. As if that deserved to rate as a serious problem, when Destiny is about to land on us with a distinctly sickening thud.

The regulatory branch- nearly absent from most ships where the stormtroopers took over the duty, basically the police of the navy- managed to scrape together enough bodies to make a decent show of it, all clutching obsolescent A280 rifles, shined and polished as best as may be in ten minutes’ notice.


A ramp extended, the “private secretary”- and what was he really, if one was to dare to put a name to it? Enforcer, executioner? That was how Adannan carried himself.

He stalked down it, to the deck; shorter than Dordd, but- how did someone with a shrouded face manage to have any kind of expression at all? He looked perfectly prepared to melt through Dordd with a glance until the head and shoulders of the tall, thin man dropped down to his eyeline.

Which, by then, would be pointless, but Adannan didn’t look the sort to let that get in the way of personal expression through violence.

Almost amazing in it’s way, Dordd thought of his bridge team; with all the galaxy and it’s statistically inevitable leaven of bloodthirsty madmen to draw on, how few of them were actually in it for the joy of hurting people. Adannan looked to be the exception that proved the rule.

‘Captain Dordd.’ Adannan recalled him to his duty. And what did duty have to do with creatures like this? ‘You may introduce your officers to me.’


Dordd had been close to wishing some of them dead, or at least dismissed the service; at least now he knew he didn’t mean it literally. He began with the exec;

Ridatt looked at Adannan like a mouse faced with a dianoga. He shakily extended a hand that Adannan glared at, the exec retracted it sheepishly.

Dordd introduced the rest of his senior team, with one eye on Adannan’s followers filing out of the transport.

His entourage was as bad or worse, some of them victims rather than perpetrators. One compu-mod carrying servant, black and yellow livery, looked scrubbed to within an inch of his life, and two likewise liveried twi’lek wearing electrocollars who looked whipped there instead, one male and one female.

One man who looked the sort who gets sacked from the ISB for excessive brutality, an insignia- less uniform with weapon-like bulges under both arms and at both hips- what did a man need with four pistols?

A scaly, spiky- faced alien in a half- tunic, half- robe that almost certainly also held more than a few devices of death.

Another alien, a Givin- their natural talent for juggling numbers in their head made them instinctive navigators, this one wore a breath mask and eye shields.

Another human male, in a robe similar to his leader’s, but covering a lot more bone and muscle. Put him next to Mirannon, and there would only be a haircut in it. He was certainly armed as well- there was more of him to hide it on- but he looked more as if he preferred bare hands and brute force.


The last two were both female, a robed one and a- the species was impossible to tell. Humanoid, bright-metal hands, neck and head, maybe more than that but hidden by a naval pilot’s uniform, moving as machine-like as the cybermask and limbs suggested, and being supported by the other.

Going through the motions, Adannan was introducing the com/scan officer when the other woman pushed her hood back. Dordd’s heart stood still for a moment. How had she got there?

The living double- clone sister, must be- of his own (he wished) Aleph-3, what was she, her clone, doing amid this damaged, deranged crew? As swift on the uptake as her sister, she noticed his attention; so did Adannan. His expression was unreadable, but Dordd knew he had just landed himself in it.


Captain Dordd had barely moved in, still hadn’t finished unpacking. It was no great personal misery to offer Adannan his main suite in the terraces of the superstructure, and move in to the day cabin on a permanent basis.

Apart from the symbolism of it. As expected, Adannan invited him to join him in what were now the Private Secretary’s Chambers.

It was almost more worrying not to see the collection of freaks waiting for him. The honour guard from his own crew looked severely scared, but the only people immediately visible were the robed three, the huge thug, her, and Adannan himself.

She looked good in a black robe- would in anything. Is she the second prong of the trident? Here to distract and threaten, flank and pounce? Concentrate, he told himself Adannan is the main threat, isn’t he?


‘Kor Adannan, I would like to say that I’m flattered by the Privy Council’s attention, but the simple fact is, I don’t understand it. This is my first command; we haven’t had time to distinguish ourselves.’ Or disgrace ourselves, he thought privately.

‘Precisely.’ Adannan said, like a scalpel. ‘It is with ISD Black Prince that the privy council is concerned.’
‘Then-‘ The thug glared at him. Dordd ignored it, but paused anyway. He had been about to say ‘why the indirect approach’ when his brain caught up with his mouth.

‘Good.’ Adannan said. His people understood, the naval captain didn’t. That meant that he appreciated a subordinate who thought slowly enough to be no threat, but quickly enough to be at least useful.

Dordd thought very fast nonetheless, of what it would be safe and unsafe to say. What in sanity’s name had Lennart gone and done, that the Privy Council itself sent a hatchet- man to take care of him?

What looked very much like one of Vader’s followers, at that- a licensed force wielder, exempt from the anti- Jedi legislation. And a whole raft of other things. My best bet, he thought, is probably to play it straight, as if I know nothing. Space, I don’t.

‘If you don’t mind me asking, Kor Adannan, what brought Captain Lennart to the notice of the Privy Council?’

‘He displayed potential.’ The heavyweight said, his master’s mouthpiece.


‘He has come across a dangerous and complex situation we feel he needs…support and reassurance in his handling of.’ Adannan himself said. ‘As his right hand man for five years, you should know him well.’

‘Left hand man.’ Dordd said. ‘Chief Mirannon is his right arm.’ Dordd tried to disclaim involvement.

‘That fact was not known to the Privy Council.’ Adannan lied. ‘I am fascinated by the achievements of the ship, and how they reflect on the individuals involved. It is the people, and their ability to rise- or fall- that matters to us.’


‘Jorian Lennart,’ the clone sister said, tormenting him with the name of his rival, ‘is an enigma. His service record makes no sense. He should have been promoted long ago, for his abilities, or dismissed long ago, for his irregularities.’

‘The squadron Black Prince is part of has one of the lowest personnel turnovers in the Starfleet.’ Dordd wondered how to explain it in acceptable political jargon. ‘They display to an exceptional degree the virtues of solidarity, adaptability-‘

‘Indeed.’ Adannan said. ‘I am intrigued,’ in a tone that suggested “intrigued” was a euphemism for “am about to schedule for dissection”, ‘with the statistically absurd fortune that has attended Black Prince. She was not named for Lord Vader, was she?’

‘No, it’s a traditional warship name in the Tion Cluster.’ Named for a historical, or this far downstream on the river of time largely legendary, figure, similarly renowned for a near- uncontrollable temper. Dordd had the sense not to add that part.


‘She has received extraordinarily little attention for a ship of her combat record. There are only three line destroyers in the entire galactic fleet who have a majority claim to a capital ship kill.

The Swiftsure is now assigned to the Royal Guard, the Leviathan so badly damaged her number was retired and the hulk replaced Carida’s missing mascot moon. Lennart’s ship is the third.’ The special assistant to the privy councillor thought he had to tell the career naval officer that?

‘If all that was at stake was the recognition that deserves, you wouldn’t need to be here, would you?’ Dordd replied.

‘Correct. There is a purpose, which he would suit. Captain Lennart is, however…unpredictable. Eccentric, even.’ Adannan stated, with a certainty he couldn’t possibly be obtuse enough to believe. ‘Central authority must be upheld; If I approached him directly, it is possible he would do something rash.’


‘You expect he would be less likely to do something crazy in the face of a Starfleet ship commanded by a former member of his own command team, fine- but what would make him want to do that? How terrible is this purpose?’ Dordd asked.

‘How terrible can it be,’ the clone sister said, ‘if an arm of the Privy Council is carrying it through?’ Which was not much of an answer, but to challenge it was probably more than he could get away with.

‘Tell me more about the incident.’ Adannan said. There was only one he could mean.

‘It was just before my time, but I heard all about it, and we flew it again in sim- trying to work out how Black Prince had got away with it.’ Dordd said, and proceeded to tell the tale.


Two Procurator- class battlecruisers, the Faber and the Palmus Viridis; the Viridis had spent most of her life laid up, she was over eleven hundred years old, part of Kuat’s defence force.

Come the Clone Wars, she had been recommissioned with a cursory survey, and the first major refit she had come due for post- war had found the hull frames and reactor vessel severely cracked and corroded.

It was deemed uneconomic to repair her, and Viridis was scheduled to be broken up and components recycled to refit the hundred and twenty year old Faber.


Black Prince was there both as part of the guard force for the deepdock and to lend support from the engineering team.

They were not alone- the Alliance had decided to stick their oar in; relatively new formed, but already picking up the pieces of older revolts and running discontents.

A distress signal from a supply convoy on route to the dock; Lennart had treated it with the dubiety he alone had thought it deserved, pretended to answer it, made some distance towards it- then sprinted flat out back to the dock complex.

He had arrived in time to catch the Rebel strikeforce as it was deploying; an old Recusant, two Corellian frigates- a 9600 and a Mushroom- a pair of Dreadnoughts, and transports containing two full Corps’ worth of renegade PDF soldiers from a world that had decided to cast its lot against the Empire.

Now that was shipjacking, in style.


Black Prince managed to nail two of the transports before being swarmed over by the Rebels; she had to turn to beat off the strike escort before dealing with the situation at the dock.

Dordd’s predecessor had died when the mushroom rammed the destroyer in the forward superstructure; it had been gutted by HTL fire, it was only the wreck that hit, that was enough.

The Recusant was crippled and brushed aside with no time to finish it off, one of the Dreadnoughts and the 9600 obliterated, the other Dread limping away with the Recusant.

By then, the remaining six divisional transports were docked and their troops running riot through the deepdock and the battlecruisers.

Lennart blew one of the transports out of the way, docked on the Faber and released the legion; most of the engineering detail ashore- six thousand including Mirannon- had retreated into the Faber’s engineering spaces and were holding out there.

Black Prince’s stormtrooper complement had been the 276th Armoured Legion during the Clone Wars; renumbered when assigned to the Starfleet, they had managed to keep most of the heavy equipment.

There were few spaces inside a Procurator where it was worth trying to fly a repulsortank, but dismounted secondary cannon and repeating blasters, there was more than enough need for.

Veterans, a high proportion of clones, with heavy weapons and a team of crack engineers rigging the battleground in their favour; three to one odds became almost manageable, especially with Mirannon’s irradiating, squashing and accelerating to death the three self-proclaimed ‘Jedi’ leading the attack.


They had just linked up and were starting to turn the tide when the rest of the rebels managed to release the Viridis from the dock. Two corps- level boarding actions and an escaping, hijacked battlecruiser; it was certainly an interesting life in the Imperial Starfleet.

Lennart started juggling plates at this point, leaving most of the transports and dropships by the Faber, and pursuing the Viridis with the Black Prince and the fighter wing.

Palmus Viridis’ fighter complement had been removed and reassigned, so the strike wing had free range.

Most of the rebel soldiers had limited verging on no cross- training as ship crew, and the real turning point of the action was probably when a short- interval ripple salvo from the port side HTL turrets blasted through the back of the Viridis’ bridge module.

That killed off most of the rebel officers who actually were capable of handling a ship the size of a battlecruiser.


The fighters exploited that, taking precision potshots, racing the rebels to disable shields, engines and weapons before they could be brought fully on line from the emergency positions lower in the hull;

Black Prince continued a distant fire, blasting pieces off the battlecruiser’s engines, but also firing mainly LTL into the Faber, hitting the rebel controlled spaces, lending fire support to the legion.

Once they had started to win- and the legion’s veterans were simply faster thinking, faster reacting, as well as better armed; they couldn’t use any of the available biologicals and chemicals, too many unsuited engineers on their side, but everything else was fair game.


Once the tide had turned, Lennart withdrew a strike team.

Unskilled but enthusiastic, the rebels on board the Palmus Viridis did have enough wit to return fire, and a ship the size of a Procurator- four and a half times the length, eighty times the mass of a mere destroyer- was not short of guns to do that with.

Taking out the bridge had bought time, but the secondary control positions were too deeply buried; the chances of being able to pound the giant battlecruiser into submission before the hijackers managed to jump away were minimal.

A full scale boarding action- also out of the question. Even if they had the time to transfer over, they couldn’t do six to one against. Three, maybe, but not both ships and the dock.

A sabotage team, then; a handful of engineers and stormtroopers to disrupt it, hack into local control and do enough damage, cause enough chaos to slow the ship down, buy enough time for Black Prince to find and exploit a real weakness.


Black Prince was firing more slowly, taking aimed shots at the edges of shield panels, hosing the Viridis’ gun turrets with LTL fire so that when they opened a shield window to shoot out, hopefully there would be a bolt coming in. Raw firepower was never going to be enough, but a scalpel might.

Port battery scored again; from aft forward, aiming at the superstructure beneath the ruined bridge, a ripple salvo, one gun after the other, twentieth of a second apart. If they couldn’t find a weakness, they would make one.

Pounding on the same two meter wide square of shield, extraordinary shooting- Lennart had to hold the Black Prince rock steady, she picked up scars from that, nearly losing her own command module- it fluctuated, flared; local burn through.

Bolt after bolt burned into the Viridis’ cortex, splashing hull aside, shearing deep wounds- not mortal, but enough for a landing party to exploit.

Viridis banked to hide the wound, slowly; Lennart was guessing, accurately as it turned out, that whoever was in charge after the bridge had been shredded was a junior or staff officer, head full of the naval history most academies stuffed their students with.

No reflexes- they could work out what the right thing to do was, but they took an age thinking of it.


The sabotage team knew they probably weren’t coming back; they went anyway. An assault shuttle- more likely to survive what would be essentially a controlled crash- sprinting through the defensive fire, crunching into the wreckage, disembarking the volunteers for death.

They were at least semi- prepared- they chemical-bombed and bioshot their way to the main damage control centre enthusiastically enough there was a good chance the ship would be too contaminated to retrieve anyway.

Heavy casualties- under the circumstances, acceptable. Only half a dozen made it- that was enough.

The survivors managed to hack in- central overrides to stop them were vapourised with the bridge module- and shut down the Palmus Viridis’ tensor field.

No-one would ever know the full story, some panicky idiot in the Alliance ranks tried to blast them out with a thermal detonator- killed them, took out the control linkage.

Any authorised terminal could undo the damage, if there was a sufficiently skilled hacker to hand, with enough presence of mind to do it. There wasn’t.

After that, all there was to do was fly an S-curve, swaying back and forward across the battlecruiser’s stern, firing ripples from each main battery alternately.

Overtaxing and crushing shield generators without the elasticity of their mounts to rely on, leaving guns unable to shoot back without their turrets being smashed by their own no-longer-buffered recoil, hits sending showers of shrapnel through the ship killing the people needed to put it back together.

Each failure straining the systems left, making it ripe for more- then, once the aft quarter was thoroughly shredded, coherent full salvoes, burning huge killing chasms deep in the hull.

Com chaos; thousands of signals, pleas for mercy, spurious surrenders, defiance, incoherent babble- on the fourth full salvo, the battlecruiser’s reactor ruptured.


Sector fleet had thought they were doing well to catch and kill a crippled Recusant and Dreadnaught; they simply could not believe it when they arrived to pick up the pieces, and found an expanding cloud that had formerly been a capital ship and a limping, battered destroyer claiming the kill.

There was some doubt, some disbelief- far from being praised, Lennart only narrowly avoided being court- martialled, on a variety of crimes, basically failing to be in two places at once, and worse, embarrassing the sector group. After all the fuss, he decided not to file an official claim for recapturing the Faber as well.


Dordd finished the tale; the three hooded figures looked as if they barely believed it.

‘He’s the man.’ The bulky, robed human said; Dordd was still surprised that he actually knew how to talk.
‘Against an old ship and a scratch crew? Circumstances were in his favour.’ She said.

‘In achieving the seemingly impossible, that often turns out to have been the case.’ Adannan cautioned. ‘The opening phase. How did he come to disregard a warning that by all the rules and regulations he was bound to heed?

The supply convoy was a safer and more practical target for the rebels, there was no reason to disregard it.’


‘I’ve seen him do so on other occasions- tactics, experience, partly, I think, intuition.’ All three of the robed figures noticed that.

‘Partly, also, I think he enjoys risk to a degree, sometimes he follows chances that are simply too thin for comfort- he’s not infallible. His hit rate is well above average, but occasionally we do draw blanks, spend months combing barren void.’

They had tuned him out and were trading significant looks among themselves. They seemed to reach consensus.

‘You will take this ship to Vineland sector, to rendezvous with the Black Prince.’ Adannan said.


‘Of course, Private Secretary- and after that?’ Dordd asked.

Adannan considered his options. Dordd’s co-operation might make this business run more smoothly. He could always be disposed of, or treated as an example, later.

‘The Privy Council’, he lied, ‘has a use for the only destroyer captain still below Admiral’s rank with a capital ship kill claim to his credit. The council also has uses for a man who knows how to defy standing orders, work the system, and act on his own initiative.

The fact that those two happen to be one and the same makes it all the more anomalous that he has escaped attention thus far. We intend to praise him, not bury him.’


Dordd was nowhere near as oblivious as Adannan was giving him credit for. Every instinct he possessed, for man- management and navy politics, was screaming at him that something was, very seriously, wrong.

He was desperately trying not to think about it too hard. ‘I see.’ He said, innocuously.

‘I hope you do, Captain. Best speed to Vineland sector.’ Adannan looked at the door, clearly meaning the captain was dismissed.

Dordd was grateful to get out.


Adannan sat motionless for a few moments. His team knew that meant he was thinking.

‘He seemed very taken with you.’ He said to his female aide and acolyte.

‘Thinking of turning an accident into an opportunity, my lord?’ she smiled back, hiding her nervousness. Adannan was not a galaxy- bestriding titan, like their ultimate master, but that was in some ways worse; he aspired, and imitated.

His entourage consisted of an uneasy, damaged blend of favourite victims and co-conspirators, and it was frighteningly easy to make the downward change. For the moment, she was one of the priviledged.

‘…Yes.’ the sith acolyte decided. ‘Torment him a little. Then, just to see how he reacts to it, tell him the truth.’

‘By your will, my lord.’ She gave the formal reply, then ‘How much of the truth?’

‘Use your own judgement.’ He said, cruelly.


Dordd, walking away, was kicking himself for staring at her- but what was Aleph-3, or one of her clone sisters, doing there? Among the Empire’s dirty work squad?

Mainly, he was thinking of what in space they were supposed to do. Did he have time to train his men, even? The curse of hyperdrive- short journey times that left little chance for any meaningful maintenance, damage control or training along the way.

Prioritise. At best, they were going to be acting in support of a fleet destroyer- at worst, depending on how unusual things got, conceivably, against.

That would be- suicidal. Even on the same side, the best use Black Prince would have for this ship would be as bait, or spare parts.


In general, combat; fine, but what? The Arrogant-class were actually less agile than the Imperators- faster in a straight line, but less good at the footwork.

Survivability first, then, see what difference practise made to that, and no reason why the gun crews couldn’t be busy at the same time, if not at long then at least medium range. He was still on his way to the bridge when he heard footsteps behind him.

It was her; his mouth went dry, he started to ask what she was doing following him.

‘I, ah…’ she said, mock-shyly, ‘you looked at me there as if you knew me.’


‘I thought I did.’ Dordd said, looking at the robes. ‘Or at least your identical twin.’ Yet now he was face to face with her, he noticed differences; this one, whatever her name was, was rounder faced, fuller figured, fleshier. Stop it, he thought, not listening to himself.

‘A twin? What was her name?’ she teased him.

Dordd couldn’t think of a snappy comeback in time. ‘Aleph-3.’

‘Ah, the white sheep of the family.’ The aide said. ‘Was she older? Younger?’ It was nice to have a toy of her own to play with; start with simple embarrassment and work up to misery and torment.

‘The same age, surely? She explained to me about your, um, birth.’


‘Oh, we were a very late series. The Geonosians learned a lot since the original J-model, in particular not to go too heavy on the stabilisers, especially for a line which was supposed to be, shall we say inventive? We’re more like milluplets.’ She said.

It was more or less true- they had been given room to develop. Some in the most surprising directions.

‘Is that what you do for Kor Adannan, then? Public relations?’ Dordd asked.

‘Do you think that’s what he needs?’ she said, scornfully. ‘Someone to stand up and lie for him?’

‘He’s political, isn’t he? I’m sure he does from time to time.’ Dordd said, surprising himself with where he was going. He didn’t want to be hostile to her, for more than one reason.


She changed the subject, so drastically it spoke of an underlying agenda asserting itself, even to him.

‘Is that what my sister does for Jorian Lennart? Tell me more about her.’

‘She is…leaner than you. Possibly the only person in the galaxy who can make stormtrooper armour look sexy.’
‘She’s still doing that, then?’ the woman in front of him felt offended- by his failure to flatter her, and by his attentions to her sister. Either way, he couldn’t win. ‘Never moved on, never followed her star?’

‘You don’t think being an elite trooper is enough?’ Dordd asked.

‘No, I don’t. She is either refusing to rise, or thinks she had found another way.’

‘Rise to what?’

‘Power, of course.’ The robed woman said, as if she was speaking to an idiot.


‘I don’t think that’s Aleph-3’s main motivation- and before you say “more fool her”-‘ the clone sister in front of him had indeed been about to- ‘think, and tell me what price you bought your status at.’

‘Something of Captain Lennart has rubbed off on you after all.’ She snapped back.

‘Any decent person would say the same.’ Dordd said, guts churning and wondering what his idiot mouth was up to. ‘I know there’s a growing trend that Imperial officers aren’t supposed to be decent people these days, but your lord has at least two actual slaves in his entourage.

Does he really think he can ignore the law, or is that a silly question- and is that your definition of power?’


‘Are you actually trying to challenge the authority of an officer of the privy council? Do you have that much of a death wish?’

‘If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have said no. Where does he get this untouchability from?’ Dordd asked, meaning- why does the privy council trust him?

‘He’s an adept. The rules change for him.’ She admitted.

‘To what? Get away with anything, except failure?’ Dordd replied.

‘Essentially. And you, fire this through your own head; for his tricks and outright defiance of procedure, Captain Jorian Lennart is, by rights, a dead man. He badly needs a ‘get out of dreck free’ card.’

‘That’s why Adannan was making such a big deal about his instincts…’ Dordd made the mental connection.
‘Latent, untrained force ability. Something that is simply not allowed to survive in the wild. I believe the standard text runs, “join us or die.” ‘ she stated.


'Hold on. Even assuming you're right, that you aren't simply starting at shadows, a crew with a strong, close-kint loyalty and a major warship kill- what exactly do you need them for?'

Dordd demonstrated how far common, unaided intuition could stretch. He continued 'Or should that be who? How loyal is Adannan? Who's above him, that he might want a way to step into the shoes of?'

'Very good, Captain.' She said, smiling. 'You had best take care; we might decide you have a spark of the Force as well.'

[Vehrec]

*waves a victory fan* Yay! It's back! Party Time! Hot tub in Turret 2!
I love how you disect the Imperial fleet, how you make the enigineering so important to the story. And I agree with the newly minted captain about 50 minutes of full power per month being not enough. And I'm with him about Aleph-3's sister being a bit unsettling as well. She's running around with one of the reasons the empire's so rotten.
Wonder if that Major Warship kill will soon be flanked by another one. . .

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Sorry about the slow update cycle, but between one thing and another, I seem to have settled into a 10-14 day cycle for 7-8,000 word chapters.

The fifty minute thing; I think it was Ender, someone here anyway, who came up with an estimate which I decided to take as a working model for the fuel consumption and power endurance of an Imperator, at well over the book value, close to 2.2E25 W, with years' worth of fuel at hotel load but only something like 140 minutes' worth of full power.
The inference from that, for the Anon-II "Arrogant" class is a power output well above a Venator's, at say 4.5E24W, and I'd like to state around 200 minutes of full combat power- good for 10-odd years of hotel load, 2-3 years of low-acceleration patrol routine. So 50 minutes, a quarter of the ship's fuel load, isn't that bad- good enough to maintain a standard, but not enough for the thorough working up Dordd thinks the Dynamic needs.

Ch 15;

Neutron Star class auxiliary carrier ‘Great Murzim Stem’ was, on the inside, fairly well looked after. Surprisingly so for such an inherently worthless hull.

They were not fast enough to escape Imperial hunters and, unless radically refitted, didn’t have the shields and weapons for a stand up fight with a proper warship.

Like most big civilian ships, their main power trunking went direct from reactor to hyperdrive and ion engines, and their associated systems, stasis, tensor and relative-inertial fields, closely integrated with them.

They needed a whole new secondary power system to make any worthwhile percentage of the reactor output usable for combat- credible shields and weapons.

Imperial Starfleet protected transports usually relied on local generators; this ship had made an unusually complete job of refit.

Well, it had an entire Clone War era military depot to draw on, so that made sense.

Two quad medium turrets, looked taken from an Acclamator, quad light turbolasers on reinforced point defence mounts, cargo space converted to hangar bay, troop space and magazines.


As for the people onboard, there had been a combination celebration and wake, in a borrowed ready room, snatched out of what little time they had.

The clock was running, the plan already under way; the featherweight Quasar Fire would serve as rendezvous and retrieval carrier, the Great Murzim Stem would jump in as assault party leader, most fighters already deployed and what few non- hyper units there were working off this ship.

Now they were just waiting, for the plan to reach a definite shape, for their targets to be chosen and to be briefed on them.


Aron had surprised himself- unpleasantly- by his own jealousy. None of them were indulging in substances, of any form, to any great degree- they would be flying before long; but simple talk was head- bending enough.

There were five raw replacements in the ready room with them, and squadrons did not come in fourteens. Who were the ghosts at the feast?

Grannic was rambling about something, some obscure memory of pioneer life- when one of them asked Aron and Franjia,‘Why? I don’t mean why the Rebellion; why did you ever side with the Empire?’

‘Fifty-odd million planets, and you try to call them ‘the?’’ Aron said. ‘It isn’t all bad everywhere.’

‘Get real, Aron, that’s like saying a man with cancer’s all right apart from the lumpy bits.’ Franjia said, aiming for contentiousness, and then appearing to change her mind. ‘Then again- maybe you’re half right; the people you’re trying to free from the Empire, are the people of the Empire.

Where do you draw the line between the people and the system? Is it acceptable to shoot janitors? File clerks? Traffic wardens? Teachers?’


‘Yes.’ one of them- a Y-wing pilot- said. ‘Not acceptable- but necessary. ‘

‘Most people find it acceptable to shoot traffic wardens. Now did you see-’ M’Lanth tried to head the discussion off.

‘So anyone who finds themselves working for the Empire, even picking gum off the street, is under sentence of death, as soon as you can get around to it?’ Franjia asked him.

‘They want all of us dead, why shouldn’t we do the same to them?’ he said, looking at Aron and Franjia.
Franjia was about to snap back at him when Grannic looked at him cold-eyed and said ‘Because, Neridon, we are supposed to be the good guys.’


‘Most of the Imperial Starfleet would say the same thing.’ Aron said. ‘The thing you forget about Imperial propaganda is that it works. Unless something that screwed up happens right in front of you, you just don’t get hit by the clue bat.

The pirates and dope-runners I used to chase were genuine scum the galaxy was better off without so, yes, I reckoned I was on the side of right.’

‘How? The Empire’s murdered and robbed it’s way across the galaxy, killed billions-‘

‘I feel,’ M’Lanth looked at Aron and Franjia, ‘like going for a walk. Care to join me?’

The argument- if that was what it was; they seemed to be violently agreeing with each other- rumbled on behind them.


So Aron and Franjia went wandering through the ship, ‘escorted’ by some of their new comrades and a fairly hefty security detail, both to stop them doing anything crazy, and any of the ship’s crew going for them.
After the flight facilities, next stop the magazine.

‘We never did decide who got the kill credit for that thing, did we?’ Franjia asked Aron, on the way.

‘Which thing?’ M’Lanth asked.

‘A crescent-winged missile attack ship, operating with this as it’s tender in our, ah, last meeting.’ Franjia admitted.

‘Squadron attack, team effort.’ Aron said, oblivious to the tension, or just ignoring it.


As they got to the magazine hatch, Franjia was just deciding to play with it. ‘That is- rather a lot of missile power.’ She said, looking in at the ordnance racks.

They seemed to have been put together by someone who had seen a lot of war movies, but had more actual experience with builder’s scaffolding. Half empty, which still left, at rough count, over two hundred capital concussion rounds.

‘At a guess, they lack isolated, dedicated shields and baffles…you know, if I was a double, secretly a real Imperial fanatic,’ she said, smiling evilly, ‘one or two pistol shots at the ready rack, and they would probably cook off.’ She made a little explosion gesture.


The security detail clustered around her, just in case she did do anything that stupid or dangerous.

Aron glared at her. ‘Are you trying to get us into trouble?’

‘I can’t help it, I’m a bomber pilot.’ She said. ‘Show me a target this good, with a possibility of that satisfying an explosion, I do tend to start frothing.’ She said deadpan, as cool and poised as ever.

‘You have a point,’ M’Lanth admitted, ‘but it only worries people when you admit it.’

‘The extra internal shielding is keyed to the combat shields.’ One of the techies told them. ‘When they activate, these do.’

‘Dubious.’ Franjia said. ‘The Alliance doesn’t have the intellectual property rights for ambush.’

‘By the looks of it, you’re short of smaller ordnance.’ Aron said, looking further down the cargo racks. ‘Have you ever tried slinging one of those-‘ the heavy missiles- ‘under a Y-wing?’


‘We get by.’ M’Lanth said, sounding determined not to worry. ‘Come with me a second.’ He led them round two corners and up a level, out of earshot of the ordies.

‘I suppose it probably used to annoy you,’ he said, ‘when you were back there, how all ‘Imperials’ got lumped together.’

‘No,’ Aron said. ‘It always cheered me up. If they’re that dumb, they’re probably easy meat.’

‘Argh. What am I going to do with you?’ M’Lanth said. ‘Look; big galaxy, right? What makes you think that the Alliance is any more one solid block than the Empire is?’

‘And some of the separate strands that make up the Alliance do not tend to look on the bright side.’ Franjia guessed, rightly.


‘Yes. Three wings; the political wing- call it the Chandrillian wing for convenience. Former senators, leadership types.’

‘Three wings? What, you mean we joined the wrong rebellion? Stang. We’re going to have to go back to the empire, defect all over again until we join the right one.’ Franjia decided to test his. He ignored it.

‘Fallout from power struggles within the Empire.’ Aron stated.

‘Well, maybe.’ M’Lanth said. What else were you supposed to call an ex-Senator, come to think of it? ‘

But- anyway; then there’s the ideological wing, call it the Corellian and Colonial, the guys with some big idea reason why the empire is evil. Corrupt, bureaucratic, restricting individual freedoms, yadda.’ He said, smiling to show he didn’t mean it.

‘Some of the rimmers have a verbal diarrhoea problem- talk ideological theory till the wampas come home.

Then there’s the vengefuls, call it the Alderaanian wing. Personally hurt by the Empire and ready to set the galaxy on fire to get back at them. The nonhumans, you can sort out for yourself. The point I’m getting at is that a lot of the people here don’t have much of a sense of humour left, if they had it at all to start with.’


‘Right. I can understand that, a lot of what the Empire does simply…isn’t funny. It must make revolution a pretty miserable business, though.’ Aron stated.

‘It has it’s informative side. If, say, Captain Rinpael starts telling blue stories in the wardroom, I know we’re in for a rough one. Silliness,’ M’Lanth quoted, ‘is the last refuge of the doomed, after all.’

‘So as long as the command staff are grumbling, bitching, and walking around po-faced, you reckon you’re doing not too badly? It had better not work both ways, because on those terms, I don’t see how the Empire’s supposed to lose.’ Aron theorised.

‘Once you take the maniacal cackling into account…’ Franjia corrected him.


‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Aron said, then asked M’Lanth, ‘Seriously- for the moment- what are you going to do with us? I was a squadron leader, Franjia was already tabbed for the next squadron leader’s billet. Now I know we’re in no position to make demands, but- what are we going to get to fly, and when?’

‘Between us- Galactic Spirit, we’ve got better than a Wing’s worth of kills. Intel, maybe, but if all I wanted was to get out of the firing line and spend all my life answering stupid questions, I wouldn’t have bothered running, I’d have put in for a desk job.’ Franjia said.

‘There are procedures for these things, here. You’re probably be going to be passed up the line for further interrogation and investigation. Before or after the fight, I don’t know.’ M’Lanth said.

‘Surely the Alliance’s best chance is to take in as many Imperial renegades as it possibly can?’ Aron asked, wondering where the Rebel squadron commander hailed from.

‘Best chance of- remember those aliens?’ he said, almost hissing the last part.

‘Congratulations.’ Franjia said. ‘You’re almost as bigoted as the average TIE pilot.’ Aron glared at her. If she was acting it, simulating coming out of her shell, being freer and more flippant, well and good- but if it was the stress talking, the situation starting to get to her, that could be a real problem.


‘Bad blood’s still bad blood, whatever colour it is. The Mon Cal in particular are security fanatics. Cautious, conservative, no… aggression. No killer instinct. Always looking over their shoulder- well, they can, with those eyes. Always looking for a safe, low- risk option.

It doesn’t kriffing work that way, does it? You take the risks, you suffer the losses, you hope you hurt the other guy worse, and come up swinging next time.’ M’Lanth let that go, bitterly.

‘Five men down.’ Aron said. ‘Three of them retrievable, if we get this right- if we,’ meaning himself and Franjia, ‘are even allowed to take part. I think this is one time the Imperial method has some advantage to it.’

Franjia agreed. ‘Backwards, isn’t it? The Imperial doctrine, indoctrination, is designed to harden squadrons to endure continuous combat, heartbreakingly heavy losses- and the proportion of units that go through that kind of punishment is tiny.

The Rebellion’s supposed to be a band of brothers, and yet you’re sent into the fire so often that being able to stand it at all starts to look like a triumph in it’s own right.’

‘I think you’ve started believing our propaganda.’ M’Lanth tried to pass it off, nobody believing it.


‘How did you come to be here?’ Aron asked him.

‘Oh, it’s crazy. I’m from Antigivaun- you’ll never have heard of it. Frontier planet, starting to solidify; twenty-five years ago, we threw in our lot with the Separatists. Fought for them, using a hideous jumble of captured Republican and kitbashed Separatist bits and pieces; good practise for the rebellion.

You know those over-and-under darts with the middle ball turret, Nantexes aren’t they, the ones they said were too difficult for humans to fly? My dad spent two years trying to prove them wrong. Came out of it thirty percent cyber and three quarters mad.’

‘I’ve sim’d against those.’ Franjia said.

‘You need to get out more.’ Aron bounced back at her.

‘You don’t think this counts?’ she said, plucking at one of the pocket flaps of the Rebel flightsuit. ‘Sorry, carry on.’


‘The battle line shifted as combat groups chased each other around the Rim, but when it got to us- the Separatist high command hung Antigivaun out to dry. Used us, and abandoned us. No mobile unit reinforcements at all.

Not many people from our world have much time for nonhumans. Not after that day. We dropped the planetary shield and made a fight of it, and we lost. Dad survived, just, and after I was spawned-‘

‘Spawned?’ Franjia asked, unbelieving.

‘Don’t ask. Well, the old man turned into a total anarchist. He took against all forms of being told what to do, actually ran for office on a Don’t Listen To The Bastards platform.

Most embarrassing day in his life was when they voted him in as mayor…the only way I could rebel against him was to follow in his ion trail.’ M’Lanth said.

Franjia looked meaningfully at Aron, trying to convey- I like him. Is he worth breaking cover for?

Aron shook his head. Things were going to get messy enough, without help.


The sound of clumping feet; a little grey man came round the corner, attended by a squad of Alliance infantry. Tired, drained, grim men. Where does he fit in, Franjia thought.

Interrogator on the personal staff of a rogue Imperial official? True believer, willing to sacrifice himself to the cause and erase his own personality? Outer personality, all the wrinkles of character that made a man, burnt off by some personal tragedy, leaving only a job to be got on with?

‘Take them.’ He said, gesturing at Franjia and Aron. The infantry moved out into a firing crescent, the two outermost came forward with binders.

‘Wait. What’s your authority? Who sanctioned this?’ M’Lanth shouted at them.

‘Captain Ibtilamte. Strike group leader.’ The little grey man said.

‘They’re Starfighter Group’s problem.’

‘As you would know if you understood these things,’ the grey- faced interrogator said, ‘they have not yet been accepted into the Alliance. They are to be taken for further investigation.’


Franjia and Aron were wondering whether to make a run for it. The troops looked more than willing to shoot them.

‘You little grey shit, you cannot do this. Secret police, are you now- that’s against everything the Alliance stands for.’ M’Lanth ranted at him. The squad pointed their guns at him too.

‘The Alliance chiefly stands for not being ground down by the Empire. Precautions are essential. Stand aside.’

‘No.’ M’Lanth opened his mouth to shout for help; they shot him. Stun, but still- Aron and Franjia looked at him, unbelieving.


‘You’re an ISB plant, aren’t you? Here to stop the Rebellion getting anything useful out of Imperial defectors.’ Aron guessed.

‘Hold your hands out in front of you.’ The grey man said, unimpressed. In fact, he was seriously offended that anyone should think he belonged to that bunch of amateur clowns, when he actually took his orders from Infiltration branch of the Bureau of Operations. Naturally, he didn’t show it. ‘Three seconds.’

Both the pilots decided they had a better chance of getting out of this if they weren’t comatose; waited two and a half seconds, just for face’s sake, held their hands out, had them bound. They were taken to a docking port.


Tramp freighters were, in some ways, the perfect weapon for the Alliance; fast, much larger than a fighter and that much tougher in proportion, power output to match so they could stand heavier weapons and shields, not needing much in the way of resources to customise, and ‘cargo’ translated frighteningly easily to ‘troop capacity’- or ordnance, for that matter.

Usually considered capable of unescorted flight, this one was the courier, carrying information- like the attack plan- back to higher authority, whatever could not be trusted to long distance transmissions. And them. Three guards boarded the freighter with them- no sight from the airlock, on the inside it seemed YT.

‘Any bright ideas about how to get out of this?’ Aron asked Franjia.

‘Short of my seducing the pilot, or your suddenly manifesting force powers, no.’

‘Shut up.’ The guard opposite them said. He looked barely sixteen, apart from the eyes.

‘How many fights have you been in, kid?’ Aron- early twenties- asked him.

‘Not enough to die. Yet.’ Which made a sort of sense, at least.


The freighter detached, banked away, accelerated, jumped to hyperspace. The guards were intending to take shifts- that probably meant a long, slow trip, through poorly mapped space with low- confidence routes and maps.

And low- confidence engineering. If there had been anything seriously wrong with the ship, it wouldn’t have flown at all, but it was amazing how many minor gripes they could keep going with.

Aron and Franjia were busy annoying the guard with an extended commentary on each and every little creak, shudder, twing, clunk and pink’ing noise- it was working- when there was a shuddering thud, scraping off a cliff judders and noise.

The lights and life support flickered, the ship jerked straight ‘down’ then pitched as if a space elephant had sat on it’s starboard quarter.


Aron and Franjia managed to hang on to the seat, the young guard got it wrong- tried to hold on to his gun- and briefly ended up on the ceiling, before crashing to the deck as the AG came back into alignment, with at least one bone broken.

‘We weren’t that rude, were we?’ Franjia asked. ‘Crash transition?’

‘Probably.’

Both of them headed for the cockpit- stopped by a pair of stun bolts blasting close over their heads. They looked at each other.

‘Why didn’t you steal his gun?’ Aron asked Franjia.

‘I thought you were the natural thief. Shh.’


The cockpit door was open, and they could hear incoming com traffic; ‘-Alliance Starfighter Corps. You’re holding two of ours. Release them at once.’

‘Popularity. Joy.’ Aron grumbled. Both of them ducked as another shot seared the padding on the bulkhead above them; she went back for the disabled guard’s blaster.

The guard protecting the cockpit started down the short, angled corridor towards Aron; Aron dived forwards and tackled him, both of them tumbling to the ground before he could get a shot off. Aron was faster getting up, springing to his feet and kicking the rebel soldier in the head.

Not the best move- his helmet took most of it, the pilot yelped as he broke a toe, the guard rolled over, dazed, and knocked Aron off the one foot he had on the ground.


They went down in another tangled heap, and the freighter’s flight engineer came back out of the cockpit, pistol in hand, took no chances and stun- shot them both.

Franjia had seized the other guard’s rifle, came back to see that and put a stun bolt into the flight engineer’s throat. He collapsed, choking, larynx scorched and fighting for breath. The cockpit door started to hiss shut- her second shot went into the door control panel, jamming it.

The pilot started to stand up to turn on her, the com system said, again, ‘Heave to, this is the Alliance Starfighter Corps. Cease acceleration, release our people, or-‘


That was as far as Comran got. Franjia could see part of the cockpit window, and what she saw out of it was a bright flash then a big, fast blur, red and parchment- yellow and white and chrome, all with freckles of carbon.

‘I think you’ll find,’ Captain Lennart’s voice cut across the Rebel TBS, ‘that they’re our people. Run or die, your choice.’

The rebel squadron panicked briefly; a Star Destroyer suddenly appearing in their midst was usually a bowel- loosening sight. ‘Shuttle, get the kriff out. With me, hit the scanner domes.’ M’Lanth ordered- bold and utterly dumb. Against a Lancer, it had been a viable strategy- against an Imperator, less sensible.

‘Don’t just stand there, do some pilot stuff.’ Franjia snapped at the transport pilot. ‘Get us out of here.’ She was using her command voice, and it worked; he turned his back on her.

A momentary hesitation- right, which side am I on? She asked herself.


She didn’t want Comran M’Lanth to get killed. Was that wrong? Un-Imperial? Fair fight maybe, but twelve to one, with him only sticking his neck out on her account- no. She was probably a better pilot than the Rebel shuttle jockey; either way- she shot him in the back of the head.

Stun bolts were non-lethal, and that was about the best that could be said for them. A stunshot to the head could seem like- or in some species, including some human variants, induce- an epileptic fit.

She stepped over the twitching body, into the pilot’s seat. Right, multi-engined, not a theoretical problem; effectively doing this one handed, worse.

She throttled up and started to bring the freighter round in a sweeping curve, clumsily- throttles and yoke, fine, but only one at a time.

Looking out- at least Alpha, Gamma and Delta were airborne, the attack on the destroyer was already a failure- the Rebels were starbursting, scattering to avoid the swarm of defending fighters.

Two were well out of it, a pair of Y’s just drifting there- that had been the rescue plan. Droid piloted, ready for them to step into.

Another two were down already, a Y and an X, both ejected, she saw with relief. What she should be doing was heading for Black Prince’s hangar bay; going home.

Instead- she held the freighter to a loose evasive weave and watched, fascinated, as she identified M’Lanth’s X-wing being challenged directly by Group Captain Olleyri.

The Defender came in on the X-wing’s port bow high; M’Lanth started to turn towards it, the Defender rolled outwards-

M’Lanth reversed roll, expecting Olleyri to turn in on his tail- instead Olleyri retro-burned hard, pitched the other way, outguessed M’Lanth and ended up behind him- the rebel immediately reversed turn and pitched up, curving to his left breaking across the gunsights of the Defender.

Olleyri was having too much fun to put a quad burst into the X-wing and end it there and then. Single fire, he bracketed the X-wing, ahead, behind, left, right- M’Lanth faked reversing the turn then pulled up sharply, still in the same tight powered skidding spiral.

Olleyri pirouetted the big, expensive fighter outwards to buy distance and scorched the X-wing again, neat quad bracket, at long range.


M’Lanth’s wingman tried to interfere, rolling out and heading after Olleyri- it would be down to the atomic clocks which of Lead, Alpha, got to him first. No help there.

The rebel recognised that fighter for fighter, he was outclassed; as pilot versus pilot, probably there too.

The only edge he had was his opponent’s age- skill and guile, true, but also slower reflexes, and that much deeper dyed in arrogance. A knife fight would suit- rolling round each other at point blank range, if Olleyri would give that to him.

The big Defender was fishtailing to kill velocity; it suited the Group Captain’s sense of drama too.


M’Lanth’s X-wing broke out of its bank and rolled to present, drifting away from the Imperial fighter; Olleyri accelerated towards him, M’Lanth tried to draw a bead with a torp,

Olleyri danced out of the lock once, let the rebel nearly succeed again, nearing optimum firing range- M’Lanth firewalled his engines, launched the torp on a weak contact, and rolled out to strafe past Olleyri’s fighter then J-turn and match velocities.

Good timing in principle, but it lacked surprise. Olleyri nailed the torpedo at medium range, accelerated and curved into M’Lanth’s line of flight, crossing his sights too fast, twisting like an eel out of the rebel’s snatched-trigger stream of fire.

Chopping into a reversing roll and vectoring round, then it was the rebel’s turn to dance as the Group Captain lobbed a deliberate stream of single shot after him.


One connected between the wings, smashing into the shielding, dropping it and kicking the X-wing aside; M’lanth rode into the tumble, exaggerating it and turning it into a radical evasive roll.

Olleyri waited for him to pull out of it into an offensive move; which he did, dumping weapon energy to shields and accelerating towards the group captain, cancelling lateral velocity into a long, slashing spiral, rolling round Olleyri’s gunsight.

A Defender had more energy to use than an X-wing, and the Group Captain saw no reason not to have fun with it, he kept up a slow fire.

M’Lanth rode his curve, pulling it in, widening it out as need be to dodge.


Distance and judgement; M’Lanth shot off a rapid eight round volley to force Olleyri to evade, not with any realistic expectation of a hit but to buy time for the close, swirling terminal approach the Rebel wanted.

He called the turn short, would have flashed across the Defender’s nose in perfect killing position, but he had guessed right.

Olleyri overanalysed, began to react too cerebrally and too soon, rolling wide, yo-yo’ing after a rebel that simply wasn’t there.

When he realised he had been tricked the Defender flashed round like a conjuring trick, pivoting on the thrust deflectors, and both took full salvos, point blank.


The Rebel’s shields dropped completely and one of the bolts connected in the fuselage; nothing fell off, at least not yet.

Olleyri’s fighter retained some shielding, but the Rebel refused to break off, spun low and left, nose coming up, flying almost backwards tracking the Defender;

it rolled out and extended past him, and spun, spraying a hose of fire back along its line of flight which forced M’lanth in turn to break radically, and bought time for Olleyri to retrieve and plan.


The rest of the action had more or less come to a pause, both sides’ people flying with one eye on their own business and one eye on the duel.

Franjia barely registered Delta squadron lining up on her, but when she did threw the tramp freighter into a Tallon roll out of sheer reflex, throwing most of them off and cursing herself half way through—it was the perfect excuse.

She decided to extend out and let them try to ‘get’ her, if they could- partly because she had no intention of giving in, even to her own side, easily.

Then the third guard, the one they had forgotten about, pushed the muzzle of his blaster pistol against her ear. Sithspawn, she thought. I never did think much of Delta’s gunnery.


Olleyri and M’Lanth were still fencing with each other. The rest of the rebels were either ejected, ionised, or dead- and no surprise with two squadrons of Avengers chasing them down.

He must have known the engagement was pure loss, the end came surprisingly swiftly- he shut down lasers and dumped the power into shielding, fired a pair of torps at point blank on an incomplete lock.

The Group Captain was slowing, but not there yet; he snapshot at the torpedoes and hit one of them, the explosion cooked off the other, the Defender went tumbling away flare- scorched, the blast caught the X-wing and it started to break up- M’Lanth and his droid ejected. One of the ATRs moved in to pick him up.

Delta had finally coned and paralysed the YT; Franjia could have avoided any one of them, maybe any three, but not the full pack on a coordinated fire order.


One of the search and rescue ATRs moved in on it, attached itself to the starboard lock; for once, Omega-17-Blue had lost the draw and one of the line platoons had got the job instead.

It opened- the single remaining guard was there, using Franjia as a human shield, blaster pistol to her head.
‘Let me go- or I’ll splatter this treacherous cow’s brains all over the airlock.’

It had taken years for Lennart to get it through their Mandalorian-influenced skulls that bluff was an acceptable weapon of war. He was astonished when the stormtroopers stopped coming at him; pretty much anything they said would have got an ‘eh?’


‘So what will you do then?’ The sergeant asked. ‘Assuming we care about taking either of you alive. You’re not a flier. If we do let you go, how do you intend to get away?’

Unobtrusively, the trooper at the rear of the squad activated a flash-bang, rolled it forward along the deck while the sergeant held the rebel’s attention.

He boggled, decided ‘I’ll take her with me as a hostage.’ Then the blinding flash and the deafening crunch, almost too loud to hear.

Franjia dropped, more out of the grenade’s effect than tactics, faster than he did; the sargeant and the two lead troopers put eight blaster bolts into his chest before- after eight bolts, what was left of him- hit the ground.


It was as routine as paperwork in the Imperial fleet; after the battle, the inquisition.

Aron and Franjia were given the once over by Medical- fusing the bone in his toe and removing several items of biofragmentation from her- uncuffed, allowed to change into Starfighter Corps uniform. That sent a wave of rumours scattering throughout the ship from Epsilon flight bay.

Then they were hauled up before the ‘intelligence committee’- Brenn, Olleyri still in his flight suit, someone neither of them recognised in a ranker’s uniform and steward’s insignia, Pellor Aldrem hanging on to Jhareylia as if her sanity depended on it, and the Captain.

Lennart began. ‘I think we can infer,’ he said, ‘from the Alliance Starfighter Command trying to rescue you from their own intelligence services, that your mission was not an unqualified success?’


‘Sir,’ Aron said, ‘as far as it was necessary at all, we did our part. They were thinking along those lines already, all we really did was encourage them.’

‘Assuming this hasn’t blown it wide open.’ Franjia added.

‘None escaped, no transmissions got past our jamming. Are you saying you regret being rescued?’ Brenn said, harshly.

‘Relax, Iel.’ Lennart said. ‘Time is with us on this one. They’re committed, they can’t afford to abort; even the loss of their recon squadron is one of those last minute screw-ups that has to be borne.

We do know about the escape, and the preliminary strike- taking out the ISB building should cripple the security preparations nicely; the forewarning relatively unimportant, the practical damage more than makes up for it- who was responsible for that?’


‘Me, Sir.’ Aron admitted. ‘It just…sort of happened.’

Lennart had to work at not laughing. ‘This is completely informal, in case you were wondering. It has to be, because that ‘happening’ put a hundred thousand credit bounty on your head.

As soon as we work out a good way of disguising the situation as a hypothetical, I intend to inform the fleet legal department, just to see what kind of fit they throw.’ He nodded to Olleyri.

‘We know all about the operation you took part in. What else have they got, and how good are they?’ Olleyri asked.


‘We never really got much further than general initiation and indoctrination. They- they’re almost entirely like us.’ Franjia said.

‘As people or as pilots?’ the Group Captain asked.

‘Mediocre, sir.’ Franjia answered. ‘Line unit level on average, with a large proportion of novices and a few crack pilots.’

‘Mostly crazed.’ Aron filled in. ‘Pretty grim bunch, the bulk of them. Thirteen squadrons, Y-wings, T-wings, not many X or better, only two frigates, a –40 and a Neutron Star.’

‘That X-jockey was pretty good. As long as that isn’t their average standard.’


‘Is Squadron Leader M’Lanth going to live?’ Franjia asked.

‘Not once we execute him, no.’ Lennart deadpanned.

‘But- he came after us, tried to rescue us from their Intel- is that worth killing him over?’ she pleaded.
‘You have it backwards. Is it enough to buy him mercy? You were with them for a short but intense period; long enough to make ‘them’ start to seem like ‘us’.’ Lennart said.

Brenn was not that much of a hard-liner, but circumstances left him playing the part. ‘We sent two officers of the Starfighter Corps undercover, to acquire intelligence and spread disinformation.

You are now back where you belong. Anything that happened in between was the demands, and stresses, of the job. Nothing more.’


‘ “What was done, has been done for the good of the State…” ‘ Lennart quoted. ‘Hathren?’

‘I received an- urgent, imperative- signal to exfiltrate, act as guide and local liaison for an assault team, target to be the planetdef V-150’s. Take what I could from here and run, consider myself blown.’ The ex-rebel agent said.

‘Did you get the impression that they would be prepared to go in without you?’

She paused for a second, trying to think it through and sum it up simply, and settled on ‘Yes.’ Dead-voiced. Aldrem squeezed her arm, he worried about her.

‘Very well, then. Rebel assets?’


‘Sir, we were under suspicion by everyone but the squadron from the moment we got there. Neither ourselves or the squadron were briefed on the final attack plan, so I can only tell you what we saw.’ Aron said, and detailed what he had seen.

Franjia and Captain Lennart both picked up on the attempt to spare the rebel pilots interrogation, at least; Lennart decided not to pursue that, yet.

‘Your opinion?’ The Captain asked Jhareylia.

‘This would have bypassed me completely. I didn’t do volume discounts.’ She tried to make a joke of it, chiefly to lighten her own mood- and failed to convince. ‘They’re committed, now.’

‘And their standard procedure would be?’ Lennart pressed.

‘With an escape this size, subtlety fails. I’d expect it to be done as a military rescue, cram them into a warship fast enough to outrun Imperial pursuers and try to cross enough organisational boundaries that the chase flounders in paperwork, reach a safe base then screen them and reintegrate them.’


Ignoring paperwork was one of this ship’s chief assets; even assuming that the rebels got that far.

‘This,’ Lennart said, firing up the holodisplay, ‘is what I expect to happen.’ They weren’t really here to participate, they were here to be used as a sounding board and error checker.

‘The object of the exercise is to draw out enough of the Alliance fleet to make a proper fight of it. System defence has been noticeably slack about long range scans before; I think they would take the risk-‘

‘The force commander’s Mon Cal.’ Aron interrupted. ‘They’re not good at risk.’

‘Some destroyer captains would have your lips sewn together for interrupting like that.’ Lennart said, calmly.

‘Sorry, Sir, what I meant was that the bold move might be beyond them.’

‘I believe so too; but is that a safe basis to plan on?’ he asked, rhetorically, implying it was the quality rather than the fact of the interruption that mattered.


‘So, expectations; the Neutron Star, the fighters and the rest of the human- crewed ships will make a direct entry in low orbit, which triggers whatever spec- ops plans they have- they will need to take the planetary and the capital’s theatre shields.

I don’t expect them to be activated anything like promptly, but I don’t expect the rebels to count on that either. No, demolish; they don’t have the assets, and I presume aren’t stupid enough to assume they’ll have the time, to actually steal the generators.

Sieze the V-150s, bombard or have demolition teams take out the shields, fighter and LTL fire on the prison to kill the defences and guards, then whatever surface to orbit assets they have for retrieval, and as much as possible done at once.

I do expect the Mon Cal to be reluctant to make a combat drop; they’ll time their exit too soon, end up in high orbit at best, and whether they officially mean to or not act as initial covering party.

Does anyone have any objections to the planetary defence force and the Imperial Army receiving a thorough pasting?’ Lennart asked.


‘No.’ Jhareylia said at once.

‘What about the Golan?’ Aldrem asked.

‘I expect them to buy time and raise the alarm to the rest of the sector group, maybe inflict some casualties- better off killing the small craft and slowing down the surface to orbit cycle than just denting the shields of the larger craft.

Sector will react, slowly. The Lancer-class Dubhei Targe will be present- in atmosphere, over the prison. The Rebs will, at least should, be hesitant to use heavy weapons on her, for fear of misses- or heat dump off the shielding- roasting the prisoners.

Kondracke will be able to inflict losses and buy time. When they do nail him, she’ll be grounding in a relatively friendly environment with good survival probabilities for her crew.

By then, Elstrand’s Comarre Meridian should be ready to enter the engagement. The rebels will have already done the majority of the work they need to succeed, and would be far beyond the point of no return.

Personally, I hope they do get away with the prisoners; once we recapture them, we can deal with them according to something resembling Imperial law rather than the whim of some mad torturer.’ Lennart said.

Franjia had the sense to say nothing; it was Jhareylia who asked ‘What does that involve?’ She had been about to ask what the difference was when Pel Aldrem stood on her foot.


‘Recognising it would take a major legal miracle for any of them to be found actually innocent?’ Lennart said. ‘

Standard drumhead tribunal. Short to medium sentences for the ordinary rank and file and the support personnel, medium to long for the non-coms and officers, long term hard labour to execution for the spiritual-ideological leaders and military planners. All martyr complexes accommodated as usual.

‘Ol, this is where you come in. At this point we need rid of the ion cannon ourselves, Elstrand’s fighter complement should be going for it, but even taking into account the local defence force, Kondracke and the Golan, they’ll be outnumbered at least two, probably three to one.’ Lennart explained.


‘Captain?’ Aldrem spoke up. ‘Sir, the Golan’s under- crewed for something that size, and as near as makes no odds undefended from boarding. Sieze it and they’ve pretty much got control of local space.’

‘I considered that and discounted it. It would take too long for them to clear out, too long to evacuate from; seizing it early in the engagement- it would be a far-sighted man or Mon Cal who saw the need, especially as they intend a smash and grab.

The time and troops they’d need, they need more badly elsewhere. Take it late on in the fight and all they’ll be doing is leaving more hostages behind. They’re going to have enough trouble evacuating the V-150 crews as it is. Hathren- suicidals?’

‘Unlikely but not impossible.’ She said. ‘More likely to be men willing to gamble on a thin chance of survival, or intending to lie low after the op and escape through the underground railroad.’

‘We’ll know anyway, if they leave any kind of escape ship with the ion cannon, won’t we?’ Aron asked.

‘Yes. Phase three; escalation.’ The holodisplay showed a planet with near orbit criss-crossed by dozens of trails and dots, little sparks of fire. Lennart continued, ‘Our purely tactical goal is to inflict damage on the Rebellion, and rack up more of a score for Black Prince.

The political goal is to capture information or individuals capable of testifying just how thoroughly embedded the Alliance is in this sector.’ Short term goal, anyway, Lennart thought to himself. The long term goal was to keep an old, ugly secret hidden.

‘Now, we have parts of the picture,’ he looked at Aron, Jhareylia, Franjia, ‘and we may be morally certain; but basically, we’re trying to indict a Sector Governor for incompetence, and that requires a higher standard of proof than the hunches of war. I would run with what the Fulgor’s compcore gave us if I had to, but it would be a long shot.

The Fulgor was regional command anyway; what I hope to do is draw in the distant covering party. That could present an interesting challenge. You heard nothing?’


‘No, sir.’ Aron said.

‘Captain Lennart-‘ Jhareylia began. She was still afraid of Lennart- for his casualness, more than anything else. He should look as if his responsibilities sat on him more heavily; he was frighteningly unaffected.

‘As far as I know, we have a lot of movement out-sector, we, well, we sell ships to the rest of the Alliance. Part of what we get back is preferment- a lot of people from Vineland sector have gone on to rise pretty high. There’s a lot of support they can call on, but I don’t know about the timing.’

‘My working assumption is probably one, possibly two destroyers. That should be enough of a fight to raise attention.’ Lennart said, then paused, looked up at the ceiling, cocked his head as if he was listening for something.

‘Captain, this is Com-Scan.’ Ntevi; the duty watch officer. ‘The Ghorn II defence platform is reporting hyperspace bow shocks. Several medium, many small.’


‘And so it begins.’ Lennart said, reaching for the com panel. ‘Bridge, sound General Quarters. Aldrem, Jandras, Rahandravell- wait here.’ Brenn and Olleyri left; he had to glare at Jhareylia Hathren.

He waited until she had left, then turned to Aldrem. ‘I know about the white lie you told her. I passed the information up the chain of command, and HIMS Antorevan was intercepted and boarded by Minotaur at 0200 Coruscant Time.’

HIMS Minotaur was a Shockwave-class heavy destroyer, one of their squadronmates in 851. ‘Eighty-seven officers and men were brought to trial and found guilty of piracy, robbery, murder, and misuse of Imperial resources.’

‘I see, sir. Thank you.’ Aldrem saluted, and left. Jhareylia was waiting outside, having no definite combat assignment; he caught her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, hugged the breath out of her before she could ask, let her go, kissed her forehead and sprinted for turret Port-4.


‘Aron, Franjia.’

‘Yes, sir?’ they both said, nervously.

‘I thought that you, of all people,’ he said looking at Franjia, ‘could be counted on to maintain a healthy hate of the Rebellion. Have you forgotten Tellick and Inturii so soon?’ stinging her deliberately.

No, sir.’ She said, angrily. ‘But, as we said to them, it’s a civil war. You expect the opposite sides to have nothing in common? Some of them were, really, frighteningly like us.’

‘With similar griefs, and sense of loss…what difference do you think that should be allowed to make?’ Lennart asked her, inviting her to commit career suicide.

Aron saved her. ‘We were sent to do a job we didn’t understand, and be sneaky, treacherous, devious, underhand and manipulative about it; Captain, I think you should have been more worried if we came back normal.’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’ Lennart said, shooting from the lip. ‘We’ll be deploying in thirty minutes. Epsilon squadron will be depending on you to lead them, in the name of the Galactic Empire.’

‘We won’t let them down, sir.’ Aron assured him.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Well, that went better than I expected...
16a ready ahead of schedule. Finally, finally, this is the first half of the Battle of Ghorn II.
Continuity error; round about the middle of the story to date, I forgot the number, and referred to it as -III. It should be II.
I managed to write this with a whole two lines of dialogue. That's an outlier, but, dammit, I get excessively attached to minor characters and want to give them their fifteen minutes of fame. That's where plot thread proliferation comes from. It also makes it harder for me to freely kill them off and maintain a proper body count.


Ch 16

The executions were scheduled to start at dawn. So it was the nightside of Ghorn II that lit up with nearly two hundred brief new stars.

The Alliance had burnt a lot of capital, sacrificed most of it’s sleeper cells and intelligence units, and called in a lot of favours to make this happen. The ground side was not exactly being handled by a crack commando team- and probably the better for it.

Punch a hole in the planetary shield generator network, and take out the theatre shield that could fill the gap; rather than send in a bunch of jittery enthusiasts playing Hero of the Republic with equipment patterns- and tactical ideas- going back to the Ruusan Reformation, they sent a small bunch of fixers, fudgers, and improvisers.

They had bothered to think about the problem; the garrison wasn’t officially on alert, but the men- more sensible than their officers- were so keyed up they might as well have been. So sneaky was out.


The central node of the planetary shield web was in a fenced and guarded enclosure in the middle of a major public park; the clear space around served as killing ground for the guards and safety distance and accident management space for the shield unit.

The easiest way around the problem was to hijack a heavy cargo skiff, and have it flown by a kamikaze droid- which power dived it into the planetary shield generator.

Inactive, not under the stress of carrying it’s own energy, the resilience that required made the shield a hard target; the plummeting hauler damaged it only, beyond immediate usability but not beyond repair- for the time being, that was enough.

The theatre shield was in the outer courtyard of the garrison base, and was dealt with similarly; a light freighter in transit saw the flash, banked drastically to clear the area, across normally protected airspace- and jettisoned a pallet of fuel pods over the generator.

Cluster bombing with hypermatter fuel cells was nowhere near as efficient as doing it with proton or thermal bombs, but it surely was effective.

Normally very safe, they had had their seals weakened to make them more likely to rupture. Most of them still failed to detonate, but enough managed to split open for a ripple of pressure waves that tore the generator apart, cracked the courtyard walls, caved in the face of the garrison building.


Above the atmosphere, the rebel formation started to sort itself out into task groups; the Mon Cal ships were late and high, as Lennart had expected- the -40, a –30b light carrier, a –30c torpedo boat; the human- manned vessels in lower orbit.

The fighters started to stream towards their targets; two thirds of the fighters and a third of the bombers headed for the surface to take out the planetary defence forces and start softening up the prison.

The bulk of the bombers and the last third of the fighters made for the Golan. The platform commander had not been happy about Lennart’s plan, but being immobile, the only alternative he had was either to bail out almost immediately, which would not look good.

That or rat out to the sector group. Squealing did have theoretical advantages- provided the sector group actually bothered to do anything, which was not a given.


The Great Murzim Stem no longer had it’s heavy jammer, the Golan was screaming for help and the Neutron Star putting out what static it could- it was also rolling to bring it’s main turrets to bear.

As intended, the StarGun began to fire on the fighters- it’s guns were not made for the job of tracking targets that fast and small, so it was firing predicted grid salvos, trying to get them before they got to close quarters.

It wasn’t an efficient or economical way of doing it, but the crew of the battle station weren’t convinced they were going to be around long enough to worry about that.

It was working, too; the short-barrel turbolasers were more than enough to melt rebel bombers. They were only designed to contest near- planetary space, really just to prevent bombardment and landings.

The Alliance’s best option would have been to stand off beyond the Golan’s effective range and hose it with MTL fire, but they needed things to happen faster than that. So send the fighters in, and take the losses, and the time they bought.


The turbolaser salvos the Great Murzim Stem and the MC-40 did send scintillating towards the Golan forced them to focus their shields against them, opened up soft spots for the fighters to exploit.

The platform had no actual point defence worth mentioning, because it had been designed with the clone wars and the hordes upon hordes of droid fighters in mind.

It had seemed so near impossible to get rid of them by shooting at them, the designers had settled on an alternative solution entirely- beef up the shields to soak up fighter weapons fire, so ignoring them, and carry an exclusively big gun fit to shoot at the motherships. It had almost made sense.

Their best chance was when the Alliance bombers stopped manoeuvring and settled to line up torpedo shots. As they pointed on, the Golan lashed waves of green at them, blowing five of the first Y-wing squadron apart.


The Alliance fighters tried to weave their way through the storm, started to fail, some broke off and ran, then one of them had the bright idea of throwing the book away. An immobile target with limited point defence didn’t really need a hard contact, did it?

Eleven pilots too late to work that out, but perhaps not too late for the mission. They began to touch and loose, firing on partial locks, shoot then keep moving, roll round the target, swarm it, hit flanks and underside.

Somehow, through overdriven shielding, the deterrent effect of waves of green shot pouring out of the platform, and sheer dumb luck, the Golan survived the first coordinated strike and the streams of torpedoes hammering at it’s shields.

The Golan’s own fighter complement had been held back until the rebel formation had been broken up and they had a fighting chance; now was the time.


On the surface, at Ion Cannon mount North Temperate A, the gun crew were boggled- so many alarms going off, so many separate alerts they missed the one for ground intrusion.
Most of them had been asleep; they raced to their stations, undressed and half-dressed, the night duty party already had it on-line when the main gun team arrived and brought the V-150 into action.

They got one burst of fire off- three shots, tracking on to and the last splashing over a Corellian Corvette manoeuvring for atmospheric entry. It was the evacuation transport.

It flared out spectacularly, lightning arcs crackling down to the upper air and the ship’s lights and engines spasming, and started to tumble end for end down to the planet.


The hull might survive re-entry, but one flaw in the seals would let enough hot gas through to roast the crew alive- which if it did happen would only pre-empt the inevitable, slamming into solid ground without working tensors or relative- inertials. At least it was the usual choice; buried or cremated.

One of the ion crew started their victory chant; ‘ “Ion Cannon don’t kill people-“ ‘

‘ “Uncontrolled re-entry kills people.” Set me up on the next.’ They were settling down and looking for the next target when the control bunker door blew in, and the team of Alliance volunteer commandos came in shooting.


The surface attack fighter stream had one target- the planetary capital. It was the only logical place of execution, it was where everything was going to happen.

They played it the same way, dropping below the horizon and terrain- hopping, the single X-wing squadron in the lead doing final tactical recon and wild weasel.

The truest yardstick of the Alliance’s real success was the proportion of people who, when they hit a place, came out onto the rooftops to cheer, as against how many came out to shoot at them. There was a lot of light random ground fire.

Not much of it mattered, they were after the real stuff. The garrison base received a phased squadron volley of proton torpedoes; they hadn’t finished clearing the blast marks off the walls from Aron’s go at it, never mind the new set.

It ceased to be a problem after it ran out of walls. The phased volley hit the scan towers, crippled the effectiveness of the point defence; hit the defence mounts just to be sure; dipped down the fighter launch and vehicle garage bays, blasted open the heart of the ferrocrete ziggurat.

A handful of scout troopers and stormtroopers made it out, but so much heat was dumped into the structure, it melted and slumped in on itself, liquefying.


The Golan’s two squadrons of TIE/ln took losses from stray shots as they left the hangar bays, but not enough to stop them as they broke up into their flight hunting groups and scythed into the loose, scattered rebels.

The rebels had already lost the equivalent of a squadron, mostly bombers, in the approach run; the faster T-wings extended out of the formation, accelerating clear to reform and bounce the TIE’s in their turn, the slower R-41s and Z-95s tried to stay with and cover the Y- and local bombers.

The typical cynical Imperial pilot’s definition of the usual rebel bag of odds and sods was ‘if it’s got torpedoes, it’s a bomber. If it’s got concussions, it’s strike or intercept. If it’s got blaster gas, somebody down in Supply’s on the take again.’

Two squadrons of Y-wings- the survivors of two and a half- made up the bulk of the rebel strike force; not completely hopeless as dogfighters, they were close enough to make it seem that way.

They used what advantages they had- their size and toughness, their turrets and torpedoes, weaving to cover each other against the speeding, laser- spitting TIEs.

In open space it would have meant that the rebel ships had to slow their rate of fire and take aimed shots at the platform to avoid hitting their own fighters in the furball; against the background of the planet, they were doing that anyway.


The Imperial platform did have to shift fire away from the rebel fighters, but it had more than enough other targets.

The loss of the evacuation transport would damage the rebel plan, but not yet wreck it; they had a handful of proper dropships including a stolen AT-AT landing barge, a larger assortment of superannuated Clone Wars craft from both sides, and the inevitable small gaggle of tramp freighters.

They led the attack, making awkward, brute force re-entries- dodging and twisting in the fire from the Golan, one –9979 lost control and skimmed off, the Golan blew it away as an afterthought, a Republic lander never made it that far.

Through that, they were starting to think the rest was going to be easy when Kondracke’s Lancer rose out of it’s hide like a pantomime monster. He had been in the stadium complex’s main arena; came up on repulsors, smashing through the weather dome- for no reason other than sheer drama- and into view of the Rebel fighters.

The antifighter frigate was still not in full functioning condition, but at least this time it’s guns were fully manned. Quick, accurate Correllian quads, but for all that he and his crew were frustrated and in need of satisfying explosions, they reluctantly agreed with Lennart’s insistence on minimising collateral damage.

They rose up and over the stadium rim and hovered just above the speeder park, loosing maniacal cones of fire freely above the horizon, taking aimed shots at the terrain-hugging rebel fighters.

No starship captain wanted to commit to battle in the middle of a city.

It was not exactly one of the normal engagement modes; but it was as strange to the rebels as it was to the imperials, and both sides could at least attempt to exploit that.

No two squadrons the same; X’s, Gauntlets, T’s, Y’s, R-41s and Z-95s, the X-wing squadron commander was senior, and ordered the T-wings to move out, be ready to intercept smaller groups of imperial fighters coming from around the planet, the Y’s, R’s and Z’s to stand by, and led his own squadron and the Gauntlets in.


The Gauntlets were weird little beasts; slow, solid, deep serrations in the leading edge, they were a contemporary and rival to the Y-wing. Their main point of uniqueness was their turreted proton torp launchers.

The weight penalty of that made them brutally slow- no worse than the TIE bomber really- but it did mean they could evade and attack at the same time, manoeuvre radically to avoid defensive fire and still get their shots in. They were the bulk of what the Lancer could actually see.

They held it’s attention, stunting for all they were worth, and the X-wings played hide and seek along the horizon, popping up over the rooftops to fire grouped shot and torpedoes.

Both sides were having trouble with the environment. The Lancer’s sensors drowned in background clutter and false positives; the rebels were horrified by just how much damage dumping so much energy into the air did.

The heat, magnetic pulse, and straightforward concussion wave that rolled out of each proton torpedo detonation tore at the city; if there were any windows left after the previous proton bombings, they were gone now. Pretty soon, ‘flammable’ was going to become a problem too.


The city centre was not deserted; night shifts, partiers, firms and local offices who dealt with other planets and whose business never stopped for something as mundane as local dark- there were more than enough people around. In that environment, ‘people’ became ‘casualties’ frighteningly easily.

No civil attack alarm had been sounded; it didn’t need to, as the superheated dry air around the Lancer swelled out and rose up, drawing air and windborne debris in from the rest of the city into it’s own, artificial lightning lit storm cell. The fortunate and the sensible took cover anyway.

There were no fires yet- nothing other than the trees in the park - but the alliance fighters being battered around like leaves in a typhoon would fire wild and start hitting structures soon, if the Lancer’s gun crews didn’t get overexcited and do it for them.

In orbit the fight spiralled around the Golan, TIEs and Y’s, the bombers frantically trying to claw off the atmosphere and the TIEs using their superior thrust to spiral around them, braking harder and later.

One Imperial fighter got hit at the bottom of it’s swing down the gravity well, splashed by a blaster bolt in the wing hub; the pilot ejected, and found himself doing the hundred mile freefall- racing two rebel pilots and an astromech to the ground. Well, their dust would, anyway.

The ‘95s and ‘41’s were almost as easy prey as the Y-wings; nearly fighters and might have beens, but there were so many of them.

Outnumbered by a factor of three, depending on how the fight below went- the thermal bloom torturing the weather cycle of the planet was not merely visible from orbit, it was rapidly becoming dominant.


By doctrine, the fighters were now a “mission element”- which most pilots translated as; expendable. On a broad interpretation, they were right. It meant that this part of the plan simply had to get done, to the best of their ability and endurance, for the sake of the overall objective. They were the acceptable price to pay.

There was no plausible good end to their part of it, and all there was to do was to go out fighting and do as much damage on the way as possible. Fortunately, most of the pilots who resented that chose to take it out on those actually shooting at them.

One wide-spaced trio of TIEs swung in on the tail of a pair of the cruciform local bombers; the single TIE above and behind, playing wingman, twisted out of the way as an R-41 shot at him and missed.

The rebel element leader had been hoping to slide into the clear space and gun down the two lead TIE- he was already moving towards it anyway, not registering the TIE’s survival; it backflipped and accelerated away out of the blind spot, rolled round it’s Z-axis and put two twin laser bolts into the Rebel.


The R-41 shredded itself in a carrot-shaped explosion, the wingman who had missed the first time took a snapshot at one of the lead Imperial fighters- hitting and overpenetrating low on the port wing, blasting out the lower radiator panels- then tried to sideswipe the trailing TIE.

The intact lead TIE took one chance at it’s bomber target- wrecking an engine mount, mission kill. The rebel strike craft tried to limp back to the carrier, but a shot from the Golan vapourised it on the way.

Then it tried to turn to cover the rest of the flight, but the R-41 slid into the trailing TIE before it could lock and fire; the trailer was slow rolling clear, was crushed against the shields of the Starchaser, and exploded, damaging and stunning the Rebel, lining it up for the leader.

He sprayed a rapid chain of laser bolts at it- detonating it, and being hit in turn by the bomber he had been chasing, which pumped a spray of autoblaster fire into the eyeball.

It was turning for clear space to draw breath and plan a next move when the half-winged TIE, the only survivor of the flight, managed to regain control and blasted a stream of laser pulses at it, zeroing in as it receded; the hit split open the weapon power cells and splashed a red-orange fireball in the sky.


And so it went. Imperial fighters, against the odds, managing to give better than they got but ultimately ground down by locally superior enemy numbers.

The orbital battle ended when the Great Murzim Stem dipped down into an atmosphere- grazing orbit, beneath the StarGun platform and thrusting to hold itself in place, trying to get it over with fast by firing full volleys into the belly of the platform.

The Golan-series were huge sprawling things, but they had relatively little to show for it.

A lot of heat dispersal, but the two quad mediums on the Neutron Star could pound it hard enough for local overload, bringing down shield segments and ravaging the structure underneath with the LTLs fired a fraction of a second later, and lashing out around it with what point defence turrets it retained.


That should have been the Mon Cal’s task, their light cruiser- realistically, frigate- was better built for the job, but the –40 was still leisurely descending the gravity well.

It was fortunate for the cause of the Alliance that Captains Ibtilamte and Vallander were not face to face, and could do no worse than swear at each other.

The Golan shot back, a clear target at close range, but it’s guns were only at the heavier end of light turbolaser, and it was taking in more punishment than it was giving out.

Brute force made the end inevitable; the shields billowed and flared out, parts of the structure melted and slumped in on itself, and the slablike station started to spew escape pods.

Only four TIEs broke out of the melee, and moved to re-enter and link up with a local defence unit; between them and the station they had killed better than three squadrons of Rebel fighters, and they had bought time.


The lancer Dubhei Targe was still hovering in front of the gates of the jail, preventing any close approach, with the rebels becoming increasingly reluctant to put the city to the torch by firing any more warheads at her.

It would do no short term good to cook the men they were trying to rescue- was doing no good to riddle with blast-driven fragments the citizens they claimed to want to set free from the Empire.

But in that case, what to do? Sit and get shot? For one Gauntlet crew, frustration got the better of reluctance, and they curved up from behind the office tower they were using as shelter and fired three hastily- locked torpedoes.

Two were accurately aimed, one too low. The turrets spat laser shot at the Gauntlet- two connecting, draining it’s shields and shooting half the forward fins away- and at the two torpedoes showing no aspect change;

the Lancer hit one, was hit by and rode out the blast from the second, but ignored the third which hit the car park underneath her, and penetrated thirty metres before detonating- an accidental camouflet.


The blast was bigger than that, but it left a crater in the ground- big enough for the Lancer to drop into. The Dubhei Targe’s navigator had carelessly mis-set the repulsors; programmed hover a fixed distance from the planetary surface, not the centre of mass.

The surface wasn’t there any more, and the Lancer’s own engines hauled it downwards- through the superhot vapour and the ejecta- and embedded it in the crater, tilted half-in, half out, with too many heat dispersers and guns masked or driven into foundation pilings.

Kondracke screamed at his navigator, the shields battered at the earth and rock they were embedded in and drained themselves out, and the Alliance saw their chance.

The dropship pilot had dreamed of opportunities like this; pre-celebrated in cartoons all over the galaxy.

There was a certain glorious inevitability about it. He warned the troops in back to get on to the upper gantries and strap in, cut the braking thrusters, and accelerated downwards, at the Lancer. With an AT-AT barge.

Kondracke looked at the large and growing blip on the abstract tactical display; he had just time to make the mental transition from the commander of a ship, thinking about vectors, arcs of fire, radiator temperatures, to a man on the bridge of a ship thinking, dreck- I’m going to get squished here.

He had been a leading member of the dramatic society at his naval academy; he ran for the accessway, realised he wasn’t going to make it, and his last thought as the collision alarm sounded was that it wasn’t enough they were going to kill him, someone else was going to get star billing for it.


The drop barge fell on the Lancer’s bridge module like a hundred kiloton hammer. The compensators on the barge took it in fairly good condition- it was only 3000 ‘g’ of acceleration, imposing severe but not excess strain.

The Lancer’s systems were still in failure-analysis mode over the grounding, the electronic equivalent of ‘oops’, and the crew had been too badly stunned to over-ride them. It took the impact badly. The ramming, in effect, crushed the bridge tower to twisted fragments and drove the jumble down into the hull.


The loss of the bridge took out the active control point. Imperial security provisions, legalities, verifications- with the captain dead, the next authorised in line of command had to certify that, and that he was taking over.

It was supposed to help prevent unauthorised access and mutiny- but it imposed a sometimes critical delay in regaining control of a crippled ship.

There were at least three other places that had the information systems to exercise command from, Com-Scan, main engineering and gunnery control, if anyone had the wit to; it was not impossible that the Dubhei Targe might be able to survive.

What was likely to make it impossible was the battalion of Alliance assault troops deploying quite literally on top of them, with lots of convenient hull breaches to work with.


The rest of the drop ships touched down around the crater, now that it was safe to do so, and sent their men out into the searing heat.

That was actually being dealt with; the regional weather control system was starting to conduct damage control, nudge the bloom of hot air inland, away from the city, to- relatively- barren areas where the cyclone could be left to blow itself out.

Some of the rebel pilots, from primitive worlds without such things, thought the air-heating and cooling lasers were attacking them and moved to strafe; they hit a couple before they were reined in, the propaganda damage was greater than the physical.


The weather control crews- who would later be portrayed as heroically standing by their duty in the face of psychopathic terrorist attack; it was closer to the truth than usual- managed to prevent the full scale firestorm that was building, and started shuffling in masses of cool, wet air.

The closing stages of the fight had tipped a lot of places over combustion point, and there were several streets’ worth of normal sized fires to be put out.

The stadium had caught light, of course, the structure damage less important than that the seating was burning. Not actually comparable in lethality to a chemical weapon attack, at least not in the short term, the toxic fumes pouring out of the duraplast choked and confused both sides.

Some of the Rebel troops had respirators. The prisoners certainly wouldn’t.


Inside the giant two hundred thousand seater stadium, the central space was variable, could be swapped out easily from one purpose to another.

There were many levels of basement holding the environment trays and the stadium furniture, and presumably- tacscans had failed to find them anywhere else- the rebel prisoners.

The dropship had luck it did not deserve when it hit the Lancer dead on; without the Imperial frigate to catch it’s fall, the groundquake would have collapsed most of them and killed everyone they came to save- as well as doing the city no good at all.

The troops guarding the rebels were mainly CompForce, the military arm of the Imperial Security Bureau.

They had been given the task precisely because their head office had been torpedoed by ‘Rebel murdering bastard druggie fringer scum’, alias Squadron Leader Aron Jandras of the Imperial Starfighter Corps, and they had already beaten twenty of the prisoners to death to relieve their feelings, even before the shooting started.

There were two companies of them, and between the vessels of the attack group the Alliance could scrape up the equivalent of a regiment. In their favour, they had hostages and a closed structure with clear, well defined ways in.


Until one of the circling light freighters decided that the most obvious way in was probably the worst, and set out to blow a hole in the stadium floor. Firing blind through the reddish-brown choking smoke, it set up a series of proximity flak bursts that fused shallow craters in the module surface and cracks around them.

Some of the first rebel troops in got hit by the flash, the rest took cover until it was over, then used hand weapons to blast the rest of the way through the metre thick ferrocrete slab; some covering the holes and some dropping through, they broke into the basement levels and started hunting the security force.

At this, the rebels did have a decisive advantage. More of them had seen action than the CompForcers, and the ISB troops’ doctrine was aggressive to the point of stupidity.

The more politically correct of the company commanders won the what-to-do argument, with the most politically correct course of action- counterattack and drive the rebels out.

By that point the Alliance lead elements had gone looking for the blocking parties covering the entrances they were expected to use, and blindsided them.


In the shelter of one of the burning buildings, the handful of Stormtroopers that made it out of the garrison base were monitoring, necessarily expressionless- but disgusted at the stupidity of the ISB.

There were only a shade over two platoons; against a regiment, they were certainly going to die. That was unfortunate, but it wasn’t the problem. What was worrying them was how to do enough damage to the enemy to make it worthwhile.

They were watching and waiting, looking for somewhere in the rebel plan to stick a large, white spanner. If they had known the ion mount was in rebel hands, they would have gone for that instead, but all they could deal with was what was in front of them. Then they saw it.

Outrageous luck had served the Alliance well to this point, there was no reason it shouldn’t prove to be a two-edged sword; Dubhei Targe’s bow was sticking up out of the crater.


The troopers opened fire with a rapid volley at the rebels still dismounting from their dropships and the control tower of the drop barge at the other end of the crater, dropping many and forcing the rest to cover.

As a matter of procedure, the heavy-rifle snipers and the repeatermen had aimed for the antipersonnel weapons on the dropships, degrading their ability to cover the rebel squaddies.

The senior survivor, the staff sargeant with most time in grade, made a decision; at this point it should be fire and manoeuvre, bounding forward section by section, but soon the rebels would realise how few of them there were and get their act together. Then they would be pinned down and prevented from moving at all.

So exploit the initial shock and run for it now, firing from the hip- wild but with some suppressive use- as they went. It wasn’t as if they were going to last long enough to need to conserve ammo, after all.


All the stormtroopers, then, broke cover, scrambling forwards, spraying blaster bolts wherever they had a clear line of fire past their own comrades, hitting more rebels with splinters than shot.

One of the YT’s opened up on them with it’s belly turret, spraying low power laser shot, secondary blast vapourised ‘crete knocking troopers down, picking up others and throwing them- only two direct hits, but the disruption of the blast gave some of the rebel infantry time to organise themselves and shoot back.

The small formation lost a quarter of it’s strength killed, stunned, or pinned down and unable to take part in the battle for the Lancer.

On the lip of the crater, the stormtroopers established a firing line, some keeping the rebels they had just cut through suppressed, most of them shooting at the rebs in and on the Lancer.

They picked one hull breach, fired a platoon volley at it, triple tapping in two shot burst mode- then one squad charged down over the broken surface of the crater to take and exploit, and the rest switched target to the next hole.


It was procedure, shooting each other in to the target in sequence, but the senior sergeant looked up and spotted the YT coming round for another pass, with a flight of fighters in support.

If they were stupid enough to use torps again, the blast would fry enough rebels that it would be justified to sit here and let them shoot; but they wouldn’t be that dumb twice in quick succession.

He ordered his men to move now, all forward fast, get in among the rebs and do some damage.


It was actually too late; most of the Dubhei Targe’s crew had already been taken prisoner or killed, or frightened into panicked incoherence. It would have been practically impossible to sort through who was left and regain control.

They tried anyway, advancing behind a carpet of blaster fire and bulkhead splinters, trying to punch through to the still Imperial controlled areas of the ship and take out as much as possible of the rebel command structure on the way.

Against the rest of the rebel mixed bag it might have worked, but there were two formed battalions, based off the frigates, and this crew were the Great Murzim Stem’s assault strength.

They had been trained together, under the control of someone who was more or less competent, and their doctrine said, in this sort of mutual close quarters fighting, to lay maximum fire down on the contact- including grenades, it wasn’t their ship after all- and fall back, regrouping as they went until they reached local superiority then surround and outnumber the attackers.

The stormtroopers surpassed the rebels in tactical dexterity- used that to push them locally on to the back foot, shoot some of them then find another line of advance, avoid being sucked into rebel fire pockets- but there was only so much ship to play with, and too many Alliance infantry.

The platoon sergeant died countercharging a rebel ambush party; one of them had a thermal detonator. The stormtrooper cannoned into him, broke his jaw and knocked him down, shot two of his mates, then felt something ding off his helmet.

Two feet was not the recommended range for demolition/breacher grenade use. It was almost funny. Then, boom.


There wasn’t really anyone else to stop the rebels; city of about five million people, basically peaceful and loyal, a regiment of stormtroopers, a regiment of CompForce- also dead, now- and about twenty thousand civil police.

The cops were not armed or trained for full scale war; they were forming a cordon, hoping to keep the rebels in and stop any have-a-go heroes from getting themselves killed, and protect the fire and paramedic teams.

They were actually in relatively little danger- no more than the usual demands of the job- because the infantry were busy and after the weather control laser debacle, the Rebel fighter commander was keeping his squadrons on a very short leash.


Some of them were forming their own cordon around the city, prevent any garrisons from the rest of the planet moving to intervene; only the X-wings were given a strike target, the governor’s palace, and he was three miles underground by the time they melted it.

CompForce had died like the fools they were, but they had shot another thirty of the prisoners to prevent them being recaptured first, and another hundred had died and many were suffering from fume inhalation.

Instructions from the strike commander; get them out and into the dropships as fast as possible, leave a small fighter element to protect them.

The dropships were to shelter under the atmosphere until called for, but the rest of the fighters were wanted in space now. Something about an incoming Imperial heavy frigate, Acclamator or Meridian class.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

An incomplete update- my hard disk is in the process of dying. I need a new system. This is as much of 17 as exists so far, and the rest is still draft copy- eventually. In a computer's time.

Ch 17;

The rebels reoriented themselves to meet the threat; the less capable combat vessels, the light carrier MC-30b and ‘saddleback’ Corellian Corvette conversion, remained to cover and retrieve the dropships, the MC-40 turned to meet it in high orbit accompanied by the torpedo MC-30c and the gun- armed Corvette, Great Murzim Stem and the two Nebulons following as a second division out on the flank, for crossfire.

The Meridian class- Kuat called them Acclamator-II- were shorter and more compact than their ancestors. The original Ecliptics had been designed first to replace, then after the Republic Senate refused to cough up the cash revised to serve as flagships for squadrons of, the old Dreadnaught- class.

They had a typical flagship’s generous bay space for emergencies and contingencies, and intervention assets- troops and fighters.

When one had been required, it had actually been an obvious and logical move to base the design of the fleet’s new standard planetary assault ship on a heavy, efficient, and by now proven reliable hull.

Hyperdrive and cooling systems had been moved aft- on a few nightmare examples rebuilt half way through construction it had been a problem, purpose built hulls from then on- and the interior rearranged.


True, it had left the Acclamator vastly over-rated for the mere transport side of her duties, but most people thought that had been a budget dodge anyway.

In the Imperial Starfleet, they now served as assault spearheads; sent to break through the final line of planetary defences and take an area, by seizing it or simply blasting it clean, big enough to bring the non-combatant division and corps- level transports safely down on.

The Meridians brought main engineering back inside the armoured primary hull, converted most of the bay space that was left into fuel tank, kept six of the Acclamator’s quad mediums and replaced the other six with single heavy turbolasers.

To fill a tactical gap- or, cynics said, to justify Kuat’s selling them to the Imperial Starfleet- they were designed to complement the high-power, medium- short endurance destroyers, by going for the long- haul deep patrol role. Slower, but with twenty-five years’ worth of hotel load.

While fleet destroyers specialised in hunter and deterrence operations- that is, deterring imperials from joining the rebels as much as deterring the rebels from attacking- the Ecliptics and Meridians got the slow jobs.

Distant escort for merchant convoys, protecting army and military stores transports, occasionally something actually interesting like enforcement group command and recon in force.


As far as Commander Barth-Elstrand on the Comarre Meridian was concerned, this was almost too good to be true. Large numbers of soft targets at close range, no going and looking for them required. No hide-and-seek, nothing but hijacked planetary defences to worry about.

The heavy frigate was zig-zagging, to avoid defensive fire. Also to try to get the rebels against the backdrop of open space. It was only one little planet, true.

It probably was basically expendable, and it probably wouldn’t land him any worse than a reprimand if he put a dent in it- especially considering any damage would likely be blamed on the Rebels anyway.

Also, he was supposed to be that ruthless, if duty called for it.

How many people ever do put, ‘Today I shall become a mass murderer’, on their to-do lists? Elstrand hadn’t. He had been watching the fight unfold from long distance sensors- what news footage there had been was too incoherent to show much of the tactics- and the collateral damage had been impressive.

Most of it accidental, true- lob that many torpedoes at buildings directly and the city would be a cratered, blazing ruin.

That was enough to be getting on with. Execution, maybe, but not random butchery. He would try and avoid using Ghorn II as a backstop.


As far as it using him as a target was concerned, thank fortune- or the force, although you weren’t supposed to do that any more- for budget cuts.

There were supposed to be eight ion cannon sites, both poles, three one hundred and twenty degrees apart round the north temperate zone, three equally spaced in an offset ring in the south temperate zone, something like the corners of a cube, and six superheavy turbolaser mounts, at the centre of the faces of the cube.

The economists had butchered that plan- said the planet’s status as a target didn’t justify it, not with a naval base in the same system capable of sending defending forces. They only had the two ion cannon, the other was still in Imperial hands, and on the other side of the planet.


Time to see if their plan made sense. Or for that matter if the rebels’ did. Eight squadrons’ worth of Alliance fighters- they had started with around a hundred and sixty, their shuttles were doing search and rescue, they had maybe a hundred and ten left and ninety of them were heading his way.

The rebel plan seemed to be to intercept him and fight a distant engagement, fighter strike with the ships in support. The MC-40 behaved as if it believed it, anyway.

He could almost hit it from here…it had shields and weapons ready, but it was flying a slow, straight course, manoeuvring short. Gutless frogspawn, Elstrand thought, watching it’s vector shift.


Perhaps it was inevitable. As the Imperial Starfleet managed to catch and kill the defector and leftover-Republic assets of the bolder elements of the Alliance, most of what they had left would be the more cautious, later arriving alien elements, the balance of power within the Rebel Alliance would shift, and it would start to look like the Confederation, mark II.

Most of their heavy metal was nonhuman, chiefly Mon Cal, in origin even now, wasn’t it? That would leave the Alliance increasingly politically screwed, push them from being an armed mass movement, which at least gave the Starfleet something interesting to shoot at, into underground criminals and terrorists.

The idea of an interstellar underground was slightly dissonant, but a few headaches would be the least of the price of victory.

For the moment, of his ship’s own three squadrons, the Bombers were carrying concussion and flying close escort, a trick he had heard of from the Briefcase Brigade- the parade of contractors, consultants and think-tank teams that plagued a beached warship.

Supposedly, an Imperial admiral- a nonhuman, one of the very few- named Thrawn had trialled the idea of using missile armed bombers as close escort interceptors. Elstrand had his four stormtrooper transports out and doing the same.

Neither of them could accelerate fast enough to get past the rebel fighter swarm, so they would play close escort, while the TIE/ln, which did have the thrust, would go and attempt to accomplish their strike mission, without warheads. Sometimes you just got the feeling it wasn’t supposed to make sense.


For the moment, the Comarre was fencing with them, trying to lure them away and open up clean lines of fire.

Commander Elstrand had been studying fleet tactics for years, and had increasingly despaired of any chance to put any of it into practise; his chief thought on watching the rebels manoeuvre to counter him was kriff, it actually works.

He had been impressed by Black Prince’s use of flak burst fire, and had tried to get his gun crews to do the same; only one of the HTL and one MTL crew had been able to do it consistently in simulation, so they got to try it for real now.

The process involved half- choking the bolt in the barrel, sending the lead part out fractionally slower than the main body, so the turbolaser bolt overtook, tangled with and burst on itself. Ideally at a predictable distance downrange.

Not every captain thought it was worth the wear and tear on the gun barrels, and in most cases with a turbolaser heavy enough to produce a decent splash, the cost of the hypermatter fuel to power the shot was probably greater than the cost of the fighters you could reasonably expect to bring down. That was all right. His real target was their battle plan.


There were so many rebel fighters, they had got in each other’s way down on the planet, but now they had a proper swarm- sized target they intended to make the most of it.

If you went by command equivalence- assuming the ship a Commander’s seniority justified, a medium or heavy frigate, was equivalent to the fighter unit led by an officer of the same grade- he was outgunned.

The light turbolasers opened up on the fighter group with a clear line behind them, the rebels broke into a loose pack formation and started jinking, twitching out of the way whenever they had a lock on them.

Some of the gunners tried passive targeting, but the rebel jamming produced too many false reads, and they hadn’t had time to develop the subtlety under pressure or the sixth sense to tell the real from the artefactual.


Flak bursts didn’t care. The four medium and the heavy detonated in the rebel fighter stream; they scattered as they recognised the unstably-rippling green tracer, but not far enough. The local force craft had the thinnest shielding and were hit the worst, especially by secondary detonations.

It wasn’t an inherent problem with the torpedo design; in fact, the torps the rebels were using, often stolen and reconditioned surplus, were usually beyond shelf life and more likely to fail to detonate when they were supposed to than the other way around.

Most of the pilots chose to set their torpedoes to detonate if they were intercepted, run with unusually large flank and rear distance settings on the proximity fuses.

They preferred a low-order boom to no boom at all, volatility by choice. Sometimes that turned a near miss or a point defence interception into an effective hit, and sometimes they paid for it.


The TIE Bombers followed the chaos up, shooting missiles at the damaged and tumbling rebels, launch then turn away, better a chancy shot and live to take another than press in and get killed.

It worked at first, the flak bursts killed five local bombers and four Y-wings and set up another two local and three Y for the TIEs, but the rebel interceptors broke formation to chase them down.

There were still better than twenty T-wings flying; the Bombers shot more missiles at them and broke up into pairs, started to weave in preparation for the fight.

The Imperial frigate blasted light turbolaser volleys at the T-wings as they lanced in, only hitting two- crisping them instantly- but the evasions of the rest gave the bombers a better chance as they entered close quarters.


The four Transports were still in the missile phase, firing past the dogfight at the concussion-armed rebel fighter-bombers, who returned the favour.

The transports were bigger, easier targets, but they had better sensor gear to lock and guide missiles in with, so hit scores would be high on both sides.

Concussions were multimode; capable of accepting assistance from firing or friendly vessels if it was available, doing without if it wasn’t. They could be fired and forgotten, were more likely to score if they were guided in.

The Imperial transports were doing that and preparing to rely on defensive fire, the rebels were jinking.

The first splash killed two R-41, maimed a third; hits drew down the shields of all the transports but only cracked one, bursting on the side of the absurdly minvan-looking stormtrooper transport and opening the empty troop compartment to space.


The X-wings, Gauntlets and surviving Y-wings began to loose torpedoes at Comarre; in a fleet melee you could get away with fire and forget, but in single ship operations they had to be steered- ridden in, most pilots said- to stand any real chance of not being decoyed into missing or stymied into becoming sitters for the point defence.

That was especially frustrating for the X-wings, stuck in the bomber role simply because they could and did carry proton torps, and their electronics were two generations more advanced- not technically, but tactically- than the Y’s.

They could also sidestep LTL fire more effectively. Three Y-wings failed to do so; one broke up- the pilot amazingly not dead- the other two fireballed.

The Gauntlets could do more than just sidestep; instead of locking on and flying more or less steady with the turret traversing freely to protect themselves, they could lock the turret on and manoeuvre the main hull freely.

They broke out of the rebel attack stream and some of them went hunting, one killed a TIE Bomber and one finished off the damaged Transport.

They would take some killing. Mass sequential, fire everything at one after another, might do. In the meantime, there were easier targets to hit to draw down the rebel fighter strength and the number of torpedoes they could fire at him.


The first volley was on terminal, red-lining their thrusters to sprint through the point defence envelope. Almost seventy incoming. Comarre moved into her own terminal-approach routine, jamming and evading as radically as she could, as unpredictable as a ship which answered the helm so slowly could reasonably be.

Fifty hits. Fifty tiny, brilliant fireballs sparkled off the Meridian’s shields, enough to kill a small or bring down the shields of a medium warship, against a large ship- by Alliance standards, anyway- it was degradation, more heat to be bled off. Another three or four like that would break down the shielding entirely.

The planetary ion cannon took a shot at the Meridian; electronic warning well in advance, and the slow-moving, relatively quickly dispersing ion bolts achieved nothing by the time they reached the Imperial frigate, probably more of a danger to their own ships in orbit.

Not an immediate danger, but if he closed in after the Rebel warships, and the ion cannon got him-
the fighters could pick my ship to pieces, Elstrand thought.

He felt like flipping a coin, knew if he did it would only be a shabby attempt to find someone else to blame. And it wouldn’t work. He was supposed to know. Captain’s prerogative.

Deploy the /ln now, defensively? Doctrine stated- maintenance of the aim.

[Phantasee]

More, more, more![/Billy Idol]


This is really good now. And now I want more. Quality story, man.

Quality.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

AaaandI'mnotdeadyet.
Thank you for that, and I must be doing something right after all...the system is back in functioning order, and the long space of computerlessness gave me time to write an awful lot of manuscript. I've finally managed to get most of it typed up, so here it is.


The planetary ion cannon took a shot at the Meridian; electronic warning well in advance, and the slow-moving, relatively quickly dispersing ion bolts achieved nothing by the time they reached the Imperial frigate, probably more of a danger to their own ships in orbit. Not an immediate danger, but if he closed in after the Rebel warships, and the ion cannon got him-
the fighters could pick my ship to pieces, Elstrand thought. He felt like flipping a coin, knew if he did it would only be a shabby attempt to find someone else to blame. And it wouldn’t work. He was supposed to know. Captain’s prerogative.

Deploy the /ln now, defensively? Doctrine stated- maintenance of the aim. What was the aim? The goal, the hope? To…this was technically an illegal operation anyway, wasn’t it? Doctrine be damned.

‘Change of plan. Release the TIEs into the melee. Inform their task is now close defence anti- fighter.’

‘Aye, aye, Sir.’ The increasingly nervous flight controller replied.

Rebel training was showing it’s usual uneven quality. A handful of veterans and naturals, who were capable of doing serious damage, a slightly larger total who had at least been well trained, and all too many amateur enthusiasts. Five TIE bombers and two Transports were down, for two T-wings and eight R-41.

The Starchaser was supposed to be tougher than the TIE Bomber, and combat shielded, but the difference in innate agility was less than the difference in the pilots’ training, and the Bombers’ heavy lasers, designed to strafe capital craft, punched through fighter shields and armour easily.


Numbers, though, numbers; if he committed now, as he had, what was he supposed to do about the planetary ion cannon? Bombard that bridge when he came to it.

The Gauntlets were continuing to fight backwards, turrets locked on and spaceframes moving freely, and they were chasing down the remaining Transports.

The T-wings were trying to hunt down the Bombers, and the R-41s trying to escape from the melee to join the Y-wings and add concussion to proton fire. As good a moment as any for a scramble.

The TIEs screamed out of the flight bays- at least one of the rebel pilots had been counting, and expecting it. The T and X wings swung in to intercept them, in organised manoeuvre this time, and Elstrand picked his moment.

As the rebel bombers swung away to give the fighters striking room the Comarre’s engines fired, ramped up rapidly to maximum thrust.

There had been an original mistake, that turned into a happy accident; the original heavy frigates had been supposed to be much heavier than they had turned out to be.

When the design was revised, they had kept the engines, and the results were two very and one outrageously fast classes of ship. Meridians couldn’t outrun torpedoes, but they could outpace most of the craft that carried them.


The X- and T-wings could keep up, but it left them with virtually no thrust in hand; the X especially, with their more dangerous torpedoes, they only had about 200 ‘g’ on a Meridian. They had to manoeuvre very predictably to chase Comarre, and that left them fairly easy meat for the 900 ‘g’ faster TIE/ln.

That changed things. The rebels, looking for a silver lining, were about to celebrate driving Comarre from the frying pan into the fire, when the ion cannon mount reported that it was under attack.


The Imperial garrison fighters, under remote direction, had formed into an attack stream spearheaded by the Golan’s survivors, a mix of TIEs and Z-95’s. The TIE/ln could strafe the armoured shell of the V-150 until the ground around it started to boil without doing it any serious harm.

They lanced in first, going for point defence turrets, sensor arrays, outlying units- three getaway skiffs were found and destroyed, four point defence turrets it cost two TIEs to eliminate, then the missile armed Z-95s swept in.

They were obsolescent, inferior in every respect except this; and with defences suppressed, rebel fighters near the planet still guarding the dropships and evac transports, they could afford to make a proper job of it.

They fired from close range, launching at the visible tip of the ion gun, at the line where the ball of the turret sat in the socket of the mounting; unguided, with a large, stationary target- the missiles crashed into the huge globe, jamming it in place and smashing the final aiming tunnel.


The Great Murzim Stem and the Rebel frigate appeared to be trying to change places, the Mon Cal frigate trying to get out of the way of the charging Imperial and the fragile, already shield-depleted and scarred armed merchant manoeuvring to intercept.

In terms of hardware, the neat, compact little aquaslab was the more dangerous, but her captain was, at best, a reluctant warrior. Probably capable enough if backed into a corner- which he had to have done to him to make him scream for help.

The Rebels were doing their best to fight their way out. The torpedo frigate, MC-30c, launched two full salvos at long range. Someone over there might be paying too much attention to the manual.


The ship torpedoes were much more dangerous than their relatively tiny fighter equivalents, still being sporadically fired from the frigate’s aft;

Comarre shifted all the guns that could bear forward, launched LTL and low-power MTL streams of shot at the torpedoes, and her main guns crashed out their first coherent salvo at the MC-30.

A cigar of a ship, her captain chose to take a chance and attempt to remain in the fight, turning bows on to minimise his target area. It almost worked. One of the HTL bolts hit her as she straightened out on the new heading, a glancing blow, but enough to dump heat into the shields.

The MC-30 looked something like a baby Recusant that hadn’t been properly fed, but had nowhere near the shielding, not even in proportion- the single heavy shot was enough to burn more than half the shielding off and bleed enough heat through to leave a huge molten weal in the casing.

Both the rebel frigates began to return fire, the Great Murzim Stem a slower, more deliberate fire than the MC-40, both of them at least competently trained. Target selection- on the back foot here, Elstrand realised. Firing defensively, failing to dominate the battle.


Doctrine? Take out the most valuable target first, the one which reduces the enemy fleet’s effectiveness by the greatest amount in the shortest time. Kill the force multipliers, the carriers and fighter control ships, the command and EW units, in preference, so- the torpedo frigate first.

The torpedoes themselves were unusually intelligent; it was straightforward economics- protect the investment already made in the warhead; easily wise enough to realise that they had been targeted and evade, they were not dying fast enough.

Elstrand pulled the MTL’s off them, ordered the guns up to full power and lashed out a coherent salvo at the torpedo corvette.


It bet on it’s target profile; any manoeuvre would have exposed its flank as a target. Bet and lost. Two MTL bolts hit it on the bow, cost it it’s perfect profile as they kicked it aside. One HTL bolt splashed into the exposed flank.

Thin, depleted shields not enough, the shot burned the little ship almost in half, and the manoeuvring stresses took it the rest of the way. It ripped itself apart.

The engine mount separated- both parts drifting under the influence of the impact, but no starship was completely neutralised until it wasn’t generating power. If any auxilliary generators survived in the forward hull, they might still be able to power a torpedo launch.

Elstrand ordered two MTL turrets to stay on it until it was gone, and the rest to switch target.


The Neutron Star would be an easier kill, but it would also be less likely to scream for help. The Mon Cal frigate was more potentially useful for that.

The four quad and six heavy turrets began a slow measured fire, staying on it as the light turbolasers, light ion cannon and actual point defence weapons duelled the incoming torpedoes. They were fractionally easier targets now.

The first salvo had four shot, three jammed, five impacted. They splashed blast waves over the Comarre, briefly engulfing her; she sailed out of the fireball with more than half her shielding pounded down. If the second salvo did as well, the rebels might be in with a chance.

The single HTL that could manage it launched a flak burst at the incoming swarm; they got their timing wrong, it missed- exploded behind them and scored the barrel badly enough that the safety systems shut the gun down.

Not all bad- it did make a clear background, the smear of tracer compound scattered with the burst lasting longer than a nuclear flashbulb, good to shoot missiles against.

Six intercepted, four ballistic, two hit- one local burnthrough right on the bow that left a triangular section of hull glowing white hot. Nothing important underneath, spares and life support tankage space.


The MC-40 would be grateful to get off that lightly. The rebel gunners were better; in a close range, high aspect change engagement, they would score more often- maybe enough to be decisive. They had to live long enough to get that close.

Neither ship was manoeuvring radically now, and the Imperial was pumping out enough electronic noise to eliminate the fine edge, make brute force the order of the day.

Both ships were built to deal with MTL fire, absorb the heat from it and wave it away, but the Imperial ship’s heavies scored twice in the first three salvos. That mattered.

The Mon Cal traditional heavy shielding and their focusing of it was all that held it together, the shielding flared out as the rebel frigate was kicked by the heavy shot and almost tumbled end for end.


Captain Vallander of the Great Murzim Stem was a loyal and dedicated warrior of the Alliance- enough so to contemplate the insane. His ship was not under fire, and was using that freedom to make good shooting practise, but the converted merchant simply didn’t have the throw-weight to kill an Imperial heavy frigate.

Keep it off long enough to run away, she had done that; or batter a light frigate like an Interdictor until it broke and ran, she had done that too. Not the other way around.

He took a cold look at the situation. Imperial heavy frigate, moving too fast to stop. Rebel medium and light frigate defending a fixed, defenceless objective. The light frigate had the Imperial within it’s manoeuvre cone- and two hundred heavy concussion missiles in it’s ordnance bay.

It was depressingly obvious. The Great Murzim Stem turned to cross the path of the still-accelerating Comarre.


Elstrand was starting to wonder, was the trap going to work, or was this it? The MC-30 had been disposed of, the light fire from the two Nebulons and the Corellian was somewhere between an irrelevance and an augmentation to his own point defence, it was only the two rebel frigates in it.

He began to lay LTL fire on the evacuation ships, not aiming for kills, just to stop them flying straight enough to plot a hyperspace route and make sure they needed to fight their way out.

The rebel MC-40 was behaving as he would have hoped, maximum evasion now, stunting, trying to avoid being hit and compromising it’s own fire accuracy in the process, and Com-Scan reported a high- power broadcast burst that sounded very much like ‘help’.


Good- but they also brought his attention to some very strange behaviour on the part of the armed merchant.

‘What the stang is he doing? Does he think he has a better chance at point blank?’

Speed, distance, the sheer size of space- Vallander was counting, absolutely, on the willingness of Elstrand to lay him close aboard and finish him.

Comarre had enough thrust in hand to avoid it if she wanted, but Elstrand didn’t know about the strikeship business, or the missiles still in the Great Murzim Stem’s holds.

The two quads that had been dismembering the-30c were finished, they switched targets to the armed merchant. Streams of green began pounding into her thin forward shielding; the forward turret got hit early on.


‘Right, people, listen up, this is Captain Vallander. We have nothing that can kill that Imp frigate, we’re not scoring and the Mon Cal aren’t either. So I’m going to ram the nerfson. Switch all systems to autocontrol and get to the escape pods.’

The ship kicked again, hit hard; some of them weren’t going to take much persuading, some weren’t going to live that long.

‘When our magazine goes up, it is going to be a kriffing big bang. I’ll kick you out at the last safe moment so they don’t work it out too soon. May the Force be with you.’


The Imperial frigate had enough of a head start on the fighter swarm that she should start to shed velocity now, decelerate to make a slower pass by the dropships. Elstrand was practically bouncing off the ceiling.

This was his first real chance, first opportunity for main line fire combat and it was working, he was winning, it was good. He- and many of his crew- were not in full brain mode. He did not recognise and categorise the threat until it was pointed out to him.

‘By the fire rings of fornax!’ the com-scan officer said. He was the son of outer rim disaster relief voulnteers, as primly and properly brought up as it was possible for a man to be; his increasingly elaborate exclamations were a running wardroom joke. ‘I think he’s going to ram!’

‘What’s she supposed to gain by that except suicide?’ Elstrand said, scornfully.


At that point- if not a long way sooner- Lennart would have realised something was wrong, and had it closely scanned, had the fighter wing shoot up it’s engines to buy more time, concentrated fire on it, or banked drastically out of the way, likely all four. Elstrand might mature into a competent commander, but he wasn’t there yet.

The forward part of the armed merchant was being hammered into a molten jumble, but collapsing in on itself as it was it served as ablative shielding for the engines and magazine. One of the secondary generators ruptured in a brief flare of light.

Then a shower of escape pods burst loose from the Rebel frigate, and Elstrand finally understood the significance of the suicidal approach.

‘Gunnery, cancel fire plan, cancel all tactical instructions, switch all guns to bridge target central direction, kill it-‘ Elstrand ordered, elation changing to panic.


All the functioning turbolasers paused, twisted to bear, cracked out a volley at the Great Murzim Stem; it was enough to burn through the wreckage, but it was very late, very close- they were less than ten kilometres apart when the two hundred concussion warheads blew.



Imperial Intelligence had a fascinating little gadget called a Hyperspace Orbiting Scanner. In theory, it could read off the contents of a computer- detect the movement of the electrons, the bions, the non-ons, the quantum vortices and the hairs off the back of Schrodinger’s Cat.

From a tachyonic perspective. In practise, it was nowhere near that sensitive.

The Com-Scan team of Black Prince knew this because they had stolen one, and had fun playing with it. It was listed as damaged beyond repair while being recaptured from a Rebel attempt to obtain one for study.

The Ubiqtorate probably knew the truth, but Lennart had done enough for them over the years, handing over prisoners taken and following up leads, they were not pursuing it actively.

The scan team’s working theory was that it was a double bluff; it’s literally miraculous capabilities had been invented as an excuse and cover story for many, many slicers, penetration agents, interception stations, and similar lower- tech but far more widespread and practical forms of sigint.

It could detect big, spectacular events easily enough, though, and it was. The command team of the Star Destroyer were watching the battle unfold via it, and commenting.


‘Kriff. He nearly had them in the bag, and to then go and do something that dumb-‘ Rythanor said.

‘Arguably, we were partly to blame for not informing them that it was a possibility.’ Brenn pointed out.

‘They had the information to put it together. They knew about the previous actions.’ Lennart decided. ‘They failed to think it through. We may have to move earlier than I expected, simply to rescue what’s left of Comarre Meridian. Nav- drop points?’


As far as Lennart was concerned, there was one thing severely wrong with the design of an Imperator’s bridge, the basic design concept.

They were a ported- in relic of the Clone Wars, designed on the working assumption of highly specialised clone crews, literally bred for the job, and amateur gentleman-voulnteer officers.

Too much of the routine information flow of the ship was routed away from command level, on the probably accurate assumption they wouldn’t know what to do with it, and only command decisions left to them- which, inevitably, they often were not well enough informed to make.

No physical fix was possible- the bridge was the one place every VIP visitor was sure to come, which meant they had to keep it at least apparently fairly close to spec; but the place had more holoprojectors than any three studios.


The ship also had more than enough people in Navigation to maintain a continually- updated selection of pre-calculated hyperdrive courses, which Lennart used to give himself tactical options.

He looked at the map of the system, at the symbol and status sheet of the crippled and half-molten Comarre, weighed the factors in his head.

One was missing. ‘Scan- ah, Cormall.’ It was indeed him in charge of the gadget. ‘With that thing’s sensitivity, I would think you would be able to find better music to listen to...’

The team laughed, partly because it was a captain’s joke, partly because he did use it to surf faint signals for good hard rock music anyway. ‘What, precisely, would those be?’


The chief looked guilty; caught with a strange blip on his hands. He had been about to report them, had been trying to classify them, had the signal, or signals, isolated and was processing. Lennart recognised that, decided not to fall on him too hard.

‘Sir, precisely I don’t know yet. It’s probably a bow shock, but it sharpens, fades, twists- I can’t classify it.’

‘And like a typical slicer, you decided to keep worrying away at the problem by yourself. Tacscan’s a more communal business- you are allowed to ask for help. Give me playback.’

Cormall reran the few seconds of sensor log, Lennart and Rythanor looking at the holo-projection of the display.

‘I see. Or rather I don’t.’ Rythanor said, fascinated by the apparent paradox. ‘It looks like bow shock, but it doesn’t smell like one. Interestingly weird.

Could be a couple of things-a radically-reconfigurable, polymorphic hull could throw that off, extragalactic aliens; or maybe even a tachyon-bypass distortion-manifold cloaking device-‘

He was, of course, speaking in mockery, mouth making noises to keep busy while his brain ran. Lennart pretended not to get it.

‘I hate the sound of technobabble. There’s a much simpler explanation.’


‘Radical evasion.’ Rythanor agreed. ‘But of what?’

‘Something with enough engine power to steer a highly erratic course. Our targets.’

‘They’re not manoeuvring consistently, so they’re not giving a consistent signal. Most scanners would pick up nothing, It’s only because we have this that we’re detecting anything. Chief- combine and overlay.’ Rythanor ordered.

Cormall compressed the sensor data into one image, the two senior officers tried to make sense of it.
‘MC-80?’ the sensor officer suggested.

‘Power profile’s wrong.’ Lennart decided. ‘Two smaller ships.’


He had a pair of laser pointers in one hand, he used them like a pair of chopsticks, converging them to cross the beams at a point, picking out one of the preselected drop points; ‘There, and fast.’

‘Captain.’ Aleph-3’s voice from behind him. ‘Urgent.’ She was wearing the iridiscent red-blue armour, helmet off. Full dress outfit.

‘You’re not supposed to be on the bridge at battle stations. Is there a reason?’ he asked, hackles rising.

‘Higher authority’s response.’ She handed him a datapad.

Message form, the authenticators checked out, there were some interesting bits in the routing he would have to think about later, but it claimed to be from an officer of the privy council. Not good news.

Situation under review, agent dispatched to take oversight, take no further action- withdraw to a rendesvous point. A do-not-engage order.

Lennart took the actual text in at a glance, noted the name- Kor Alric Adannan; made his decision.


‘Nav, run her up to point four seven eight, I want to be there before they are. Engage hyperdrive.’

‘Captain, the orders, you-‘ Aleph-3 began, before her brain caught up and she realised that he could and had. ‘May I speak with you? Personally?’ She said, in a frantic whisper. She looked disturbed- face calm and impassive, but somehow seeming as if the mask was coming loose over whatever was underneath.

Behind her the main viewscreen blurred into a blue-white blizzard.

‘As opposed to?’ Lennart asked, calmly. There were actually answers to that.

‘Captain, please. Understand me. I have a lot to explain, and I’m going to find this difficult enough already.’ She said, controlling herself with difficulty. She gestured vaguely to the accessway off the bridge; he motioned to her to lead on.


Some ship’s business to sort out first.

‘Guns, I’m expecting a couple of old friends for a party. I think at least one of the inbounds is a Recusant.’

‘Aye, Aye, Sir. Any special instructions?’ Wathavrah answered.

‘If you take out the rest of it with the bow heavies intact, you can keep them to play with.’ Lennart informed him over the comlink, and turned to Rythanor, still studying the developing image. ‘Deduct that, and I think we’re left with a light destroyer.’

‘Too sharp to be a Bulwark- renegade Imperial type? That why we’re rushing to get there first?’ Rythanor guessed, accurately.

‘Planning for the worst case. I have no intention of emerging from hyperspace into the kill zone of a Vic- I.’


Aleph-3 was looking pointedly at him from the bridge accessway; he took a deep breath, walked off the bridge, the blast door slid shut behind him.

‘From the very fact you think you have something to explain to me, I can guess much of it, I think.’ Lennart said to her.

‘I-‘ she took a deep breath. ‘A high proportion of my- brood- found their way into positions like this, jobs…tangential to the Force, because we do tend to display a certain- sensitivity. Woman’s intuition, the male Kaminoans called it until we were old enough to threaten to rip their testes off.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that you, a clonetrooper, have the Force?’ Lennart said, not seriously- postponing the real problem.

‘How I wish I could!’ her eyes flashed. ‘I’m trying to tell you that you do. I have a tiny, tiny spark of talent- more theoretical knowledge of the Force than almost any Jedi Master, and far more target’s- eye experience than most live through;

but I have just enough danger sense and instinct to make me doubt my own judgement, just enough contact with others to make me hear faint whispers that half- convince me I am going mad,

enough control over my own metabolism that the medics need half a spoonful less in the bacta tank each time, and I can telekinetically lift a hundred credit chit, any higher denomination and the weight of the electrons would be too much. I think part of the reason I am a skilled hunter of Jedi is sheer envy.’


Lennart took that in his stride. He was more concerned about something else. ‘So it was you who mistook simple tactical dexterity for ancient sorceror’s ways.’ Even at a moment like this, of revelation and betrayal, he couldn’t keep his tongue entirely out of his cheek.

That attitude was one of the things that had helped there be so few of them; but it looked as if that strategy had just imploded.

‘No mistake. Every test proves it- you are a powerful but untrained sensitive and precognitive. Do you know why you have escaped notice for so long?’

‘I take it that by this stage, protestations of innocence are completely useless?’


‘Galactic Spirit rot you, Jorian Lennart, why the kriff can’t you get angry with me?’ she yelled at him. ‘I betrayed you, I sold you, and you stand there- quipping, as if nothing was wrong.’

‘Clearly by your own standards, nothing is.’

‘Not mine. The council’s. The acolyte’s and adept’s. The “I”’ness that this unit was forbidden.’

‘Do I have nothing useful to say on the subject? He asked, again driving her nearly insane with his undemonstrativeness. ‘Shouldn’t I have been hearing these voices, seeing these visions in the mind’s eye?’

‘I have no idea what goes on in your head.’ She snapped at him. ‘Twenty years- you avoided being identified as a sensitive simply because you seemed far too firmly embedded between the oblivious and the disdainful, of the searingly obvious and politically sound, to have any kind of foresight- or any sense- at all.’

‘That is probably the most worrying thing you’ve managed to say so far. That this ship’s record matters less than my inability to kiss wrinkled buttock- obscene.’


She moved her hands forward as if to strangle him. ‘Aleph, us, we were the first to really consider that you were crazy like a pittin instead of just crazy. If you put the energy into going with the flow that you do now dodging it, you could have been a sector admiral by now.’

‘You’re half right; I do hate politics.’ Lennart said, dryly.

‘No, you don’t. No man works the system as effectively as you do without being a very competent political technician. ’

‘In my youth, I was a student radical.’ He admitted. ‘One of the masked nutters behind the security barriers, throwing flour bombs and rocks at Senators.

After Naboo, when we realised what was going to happen, I made a deliberate choice to fight for the Republic I knew, and despised, in hope that the Republic I believed in would emerge, purified, from the fire. Yes, I was that stupid about war then. We all were.

And it worked, for me, but not for the Republic; the more the system changed, the more it seemed to stay the same. You once described the republic to me as drowning in it’s own pus.’


‘I did, and I did not know that I was preaching to the converted. Why did you hide that from me?’ she asked him.

‘From the eyes and voice of the system? An enthusiastic voice, too.’

‘But I- we- are the change. We are the proof that it is not the same, that the new order-‘

‘Perhaps I have simply matured into the same sort of elegant cynic I used to throw bricks at.’ Lennart said, world-wearily, and acting.

‘You?’ she said, looking at his crumpled, stained jersey and battered cap. ‘Elegant? Or are you going to claim to have become indifferent to appearances as well?’


‘Inversely; a point of principle. I always intended to be followed and obeyed for who I was, not my costume jewellery.’ In fact, he had his captain’s bars on upside down, she noticed, appalled.

‘That is not the way things are supposed to work- that is outright disrespect and defiance of the system. You cannot, you just can’t demand the right to spout treason as the system’s price to accommodate you.’

‘It’s worked well enough so far.’ He said, flippantly. ‘Have we reversed positions on this, or have you simply lost track?’

She took a deep breath and started from the beginning. ‘You were identified as a force user and recruitment potential. Kor Adannan has been sent to examine and possibly induct you.’ He looked disappointedly at her. He was waiting for her to spell it out explicitly. She did. ‘As a dark side adept.’

‘What in the void possessed you to think that I might possibly make a good- no, appropriately bad- Sith?’

‘Because it was the only thing I could think.’ She shouted at him again. ‘The only other option was to kill you. Independent use of the Force is- you were there, it was forbidden.

The Emperor cannot permit anyone to be seduced and used as a conduit by the so-called Light. Once we knew, it is the one way out, the only way to live.’


‘How nice of Adannan, therefore, to begin by offering me a no-win solution.’ Lennart said, like a political technician- matter of fact.

‘The choice between practical failure and jeopardising the situation, or disobeying an order- I assume he believes he has oversight authority. Would I be wrong to expect that this recruitment involves some sort of battle of wills?’

‘Crushing and rebuilding.’ She said. ‘Normally. You? I don’t know. The aged and corrupt, the young and greedy- they’re easily taken. A man already in a position of authority, with some ideals left and what seems a very sideways take on life- the real question is not whether, but how much of yourself you emerge with.’

‘You’ll understand,’ Lennart said, ‘if I have my own ideas on the subject.’

‘I don’t know what you expect to change. You already behave as if you had that kind of authority.’ She said, part admiring, part disapproval. Stormtroopers inherited, or had pounded into them, a military sense of neatness along with all the rest.

‘So it doesn’t seem as if I actually have much to gain by this, does it? Which side are you going to be on?’

Did he realise how important a question that was to her? Possibly.

‘I- don’t know. It would help if I understood what your side stood for.’

‘I think it should be obvious.’ He said, deliberately facetious. It came so naturally to her to do the opposite- she was still only starting to comprehend what he hid under that. ‘Disappointed- optimist cynicism, political technocracy, a sideways take on life, and half-bricks in the night.

I understand that promotion, within the order of the dark side, is on a dead-men’s-shoes basis?’


‘Good.’ She said, without conviction. ‘If you-‘ then realised how cynically he meant it.

‘If this truly is inevitable, and I remain unconvinced, then I have no intention of being an easily taken apprentice. Especially not if, as seems to be the case,’ Lennart waved the datapad, ‘the man is a political fool who knows the Force, mind games and nothing but…you’ll excuse me, I have a ship to run.’

‘Would you really be prepared to do that?’ She said, as he was turning to leave. ‘not simply kill in the line of duty, but murder for your own ends?’

‘What, you mean just like the stories say a proper Sith is supposed to?’ he said with one eyebrow raised, then walked back into the bridge.


There were other people on board with problems of their own. Not as severe as being shanghaied into an order of ancient evil- just a modern one. Of the eleven active squadrons- Nu was awaiting reformation- only five were hyper capable.

All of them were being held on board for the short sprint through hyperspace, on thirty- second standby.
In practise, the fighters were ready, the pilots weren’t.

In Epsilon flight bay, they were all standing around, suited but two without helmets. The rest were boggling at Aron and Franjia, trying to work out what to say.

Aron had made a deliberate effort to avoid learning their names; now he realised he was going to have to. This was inherently bloody absurd; meeting them now, after two messy, bloody operations, as people rather than numbers.

Particularly his wingman and the second element leader of his flight. And it did come down to him; he noticed Franjia looking at him expectantly.


‘Well, fellow interchangeable components of the system…’ he paused, uncertain of how to proceed; decided to be bold. ‘Take those kriffing stupid looking hamster helmets off. We’re on two minute standby, they take five seconds to put on, no sense wasting life support time.’

Uncertainly, most of them did.

‘The senior flight lieutenant and I,’ he explained, ‘were sent as mock defectors, to pretend to join the Alliance and feed them a load of dreck.

It did not go entirely according to plan,’ understatement of the year, ‘and right now we should be being ultra-cautious, ultra-careful to spout party-line crap at every chance. Kriff it. Let’s see any of the securipricks do as much for the empire.

Speaking of which, we’re strike element. We expect Rebel heavy warships, big targets with big guns to shoot back at us with. So move and shoot, move and shoot. I want explosions. So, in the name of peace, justice and galactic order, let us go cause chaos and blow things up.’


‘That would make justice optional, then?’ Epsilon Nine- F/Lt Ardrith Yatrock, athletic and poster boy handsome, caught the mood and managed to say.

He looked much more like most people’s idea of a fighter pilot than the short, stocky Aron. Far too much like it to really be any good, cynics said, but he was competent and a shade ambitious.

‘You’re in the Starfleet. There ain’t no justice.’ Aron replied, glancing at the far wall of the bay- still showing the blizzard of blue-white streaks.

‘So, what are they like?’ Epsilon Two, Zhered Gavrylsk, Aron’s wingman, asked. He was an endomorphic yellow man- literally; a near human, his skin was the colour of a ripe lemon. It looked very odd above a flight suit.

‘Cynics and believers, fools and heroes, murderers and madmen- just like us, but more obvious about it.’ Franjia said.


‘What about me?’ Epsilon Three, Paludo Kramaner, asked.

‘All seven.’ Franjia told him, knowing he wouldn’t keep count. ‘But they fight for their sie, and we fight for ours- just as well for the rest of the galaxy. If we weren’t in the military, we’d probably all be out robbing banks.’

The rest of the squadron started arguing among themselves at that.

‘Nah, security’s too tight, everyone expects banks to be robbed. You want to go for small businesses, hit them and get the money before it makes it behind too many walls.’

‘Why do I have the feeling that you’re speaking from experience?’ Franjia asked him.

‘Too small, too risky. Fraud is the way to go. Hardly ever prosecuted, and usually a fairly civilised business when they do.’ One of the newer replacements- Epsilon Eleven- spoke up. Tall, thin, long-nosed.

‘All right. Show of hands. Is there anyone in the squadron who spent their childhood on the right side of the law?’ Aron asked. Most of them raised their hands- ‘Including the things you never got caught for.’ All but three went back down again.


‘Let me guess. You took up music late in life.’ Franjia asked Paludo, who was claiming to be innocent. ‘Otherwise there would be Assault with a Deadly Weapon, at least. By or on, one or the other.’

‘What about you, or was that just a pack of poodoo you spun the interrogators?’ Aron asked her.

‘When I was very young, I spent some time in the, ah, rapid transit sector of the economy. Moving on to air patrol from that was as good a way as any of cleansing the record.’ She admitted.

Aron’s gut started to twist- ‘Tin up, to your fighters.’


It was a magnum launch, everything out except the dropships; the shuttles would form a close defence unit, effectively additional point defence, the stormtrooper and assault transports would join the bomb wing.

In that role they operated without their troops- it was too easy a way to squander an infantry platoon.
Especially on the older stormtrooper transports, which had had their budget dismembered during construction.

They had neither the heavy energy weapons that would have made their attacking role easier or turreted weapons to defend themselves. Minimalist-brutalism, a design intended for mass production.

A Star Destroyer’s outfit was supposed to be fifteen of them, two of the far better defended assault transports, and assault shuttles, with short barrel fleet- melee turbolasers, only by appointment. Black Prince ran six, six and two.

Now all any of them really needed was a target. Like their missiles, the fighters could accept help if offered, work alone if need be. They were ‘plugged into’ Black Prince’s sensor picture.

There was some chaos around the planet, Imperial garrison fighters harassing the rebel evacuation transports and fighting a running battle on the fringes of the atmosphere with the rebel fighter screen; there was a strange melee in interplanetary space, looked like a mass antiship strike without a ship in the middle.

Two major and a handful of light warships, a half- molten Imperial and a badly chewed Rebel frigate, both of them tumbling out of control, and a couple of Nebulons, one with recent repairs around it’s lower fin, one identifying out as Chandrilia Rose.

Aron surveyed the battle zone, the afterglow of the many-teraton blast, the litter of fighters and escape pods, and said ‘So far, so normal. Where’s the fight we were promised?’


‘Scan- incoming?’ Lennart asked.

‘Twin engines, good speed, medium-poor agility.’ Rythanor said, referring to the unknown. ‘Not Vic-I, unlikely Vic-II, could be Karu or Vic-III, by upper limit it could be an even less agile type- Harrow possibly, give me a moment to sort this out and I’ll give you a probability breakdown, but is it possible they could have got hold of a Venator?’

‘I do hope so.’ The captain grinned. ‘Tell the legion to ready the lilypads for ship to ship.’

The nicknamed and unofficial class of dropship had been, officially, retrieved from the outer rim. In actual fact they were a homebrew design, one of Mirannon’s pet ideas- virtually nothing but a heatshield, a few engines, a central control pod and the largest shield generators he could find.

Ultra-minimalist, they were very vulnerable to interception, a known weakness, but they meant Black Prince could drop a full armoured legion from geosynch orbit in under twenty minutes, hours faster than most.

Loading for antiship meant piling on infantry and light vehicles- speeder bikes, AT-RT and AT-PT walkers- and going for the boarding action.

That would be last of all. First things first.


If it was a Venator, best not to send the fighters after it. Thirty-five squadrons would take some beating, and the best way to do it was kill them before they got into the air- hit the ship’s flight bays with heavy turbolaser fire.

‘Iota, Kappa, finish that –40, Mu cover.’ Lennart ordered. ‘Flight control- watch that furball. If the rebels break out, detach fighter elements to contain. Tell the rest of the group to clear our alpha arc and await orders.’

They obeyed promptly- small wonder. Black Prince had been at battle stations long since, now all they were waiting for was the enemy. Then-

‘Emergence, ten seconds.’ The sensors highlighted the emergence point, Lennart gave a final helm order; space began to bend slightly, the flash of re-entry. The enemy was with them.


The Rebel Alliance light star destroyer Kestrel had actually started life as two Recusants, and bits and pieces from a third, the remains of one of thousands of barely recorded outer rim and expansion regions clashes, another note from the constant background rumble of the clone wars.

Real military victory was dangerous and expensive, scoring propaganda points was worth the risk, but the most efficient use of the Alliance’s fleet assets was to attempt to obtain more fleet assets.

On their most recent outer rim tour Black Prince had netted a healthy score of Rebel grave-robbers, pillaging the wreckage left over from the galaxy’s last major war.

It was Fleet Technical Services’ job to police up things like that, but they had enough trouble dealing with the ships the Starfleet actually had without worrying about the ones they and their enemies used to have.

So much of the flotsam and jetsam remained, unmarked by anyone except the local patrol squadrons- which were themselves, witness the pair of Nebulons, in an easy enough position to be jumped by or defect to the rebels to form another fertile source of fleet assets.


‘Main battery, one ripple volley, I want shield depletion. Fighter wing, that’s your target. Hit power trunking, hit control nodes.’ Lennart highlighted them on the sensor image as he spoke. He knew Recusants, very well indeed.

Kestrel had emerged on alert, her fighters out of their faired-on bays but inside the open casing of the long, lean destroyer, shields and jammers up, her two huge bow cannon primed and ready.

Black Prince’s gunners beat her to the draw. Some of the turrets fired together, some quad by quad, Port-4 fired rapid sequential barrel by barrel, each shot aimed at the ripples and fluctuations the last raised, forcing it to burn energy stabilising itself, draining out- Kestrel lost ninety percent of her shield energy in the first salvo.

The return fire, a splatter of smaller heavy and medium turbolasers, splashed all over the ship, mostly accurate- the two superheavies spat bright scarlet tracer, one hitting forward of the superstructure, one on the shields of the bridge tower. She was going for the cheap kill, aiming for the command centre.

For the thousand-and-oddth time Lennart wondered if he could get away with sawing the bridge tower off entirely and moving command to somewhere better armoured and less obvious a target, and where to put the ship’s offices if he did.

‘LTLs, hit the secondaries; main guns check fire, be ready to retarget on the second. Obral, the plan is to let the wing pick this one apart, coordinate your LTL fire with flight ops accordingly. Your next major target is due…’


The second heavy support ship of the distant escort, Penthesilea, had a captain whose sixth sense was in full working order; either that or her com systems were far more advanced than the Imperials expected.
Understandable- those ships had been the pride of the republic fleet once.

She delayed her exit, overrunning the intended drop point and flashing back into bradyonic space close to the planet; an old and much patched Venator, painted mainly blue and white. Immediately she began to turn hard to bear, exposing her upper surface and main battery to the Imperator.

‘Good. I might actually have something to do.’ Lennart said.

Most of the bridge crew knew what he meant. Ntevi asked. ‘Captain? What about the frigates?’


‘Marginalia. EW, eighty-five offensive, sixty-‘ designating the Venator as prime target, ‘twenty-five.’ On the Kestrel. Lennart was speaking in percentages of antenna and antenna-analogue resources and processing power. It was a very aggressive split.

‘Gunnery, main battery, port-4.’ Lennart said, informing the respective layers of gunnery command that he was giving an order directly to a subcomponent. ‘Aldrem; I want a flak burst straddle around Penthesilea. She’s close to the planet, I don’t trust anyone else to cut it that finely.’

‘Aye, aye, Sir.’ Aldrem said, signalling for it to be set up- handwaving and pointing at Fendon’s board, and failing to think of any banter.

‘One, then return to normal operations.’


Penthesilea opened with a slightly staggered torpedo volley-at Comarre. Surprising, but sensible under the circumstances. If that ship had anything like it’s complement, then any Imperial fighter threat would be so heavily outnumbered as to be a non-event.

The attack on Kestrel would be beaten back- was really almost a breathing space. Kill the smaller Imperial ship, and it reduced to a two-body tactical problem, how to keep Black Prince busy while the rest made their escape.

Sensible, logical, decisive, and quickly thought out. Lennart approved. Of course, it depended on a Venator being able to stand up to an Imperator for a tactically useful period of time.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

No, unfortunately not an update, unless half chapters are about to make a comeback.

I recieved a suggestion, by PM, about the bridge tower vulnerability problem- normally I'd prefer to answer something like that in the body of the story as far as possible, show don't tell and all that, but the storyline isn't really going there in the next chapter (about 40% complete, trying to find a new job does tend to get in the way of the important stuff) and this sentence went on far too long.

The idea involved some attention to the internal plumbing, and building a secondary bridge tower on the better protected underside of the ship. What I think Dr. Saxton refers to as early- KDY pattern, the thin tower seen, for instance, on the Interdictor class cruiser.

So, this is probably as good a time as any to look at the issue in general. The biggest single problem with modifying an Imperator- class Star Destroyer, I reckon, is that of getting permission.


Mechanically- the EU loves to take potshots at the ISD. 174,000 design flaws waiting to be exploited and all that. What I personally reckon is that the Imperator design was something of a rush job, which had mixed results.
On the upside, they didn't have time to overcomplicate it. The basic design is very sound. The downside is that the team at KDY- hampered by an arrogant prima donna who seemed to assume that engineering talent is inheritable- didn't have time to polish it, either.

The problems would largely have been eliminated in refit, and then the design would have started to mature- five variants sufficiently radical to warrant a different class designation in under twenty years; how many more minor variants and drawing-board versions? Probably a lot.

Presumably Tector class are new built- if they draw much more power for their weapons, they're going to need more reactors, more fuel, which means more and different stresses on the hull/forcefield complex. They gain a lot of weight, and if they keep the same engines, they're going to be hard pressed to keep up with the fleet. Malfunction prone thoroughbreds. The interdictors and the carrier type, though, probably can be converted from a basic Imperator hull.


So I reckon mechanical aspects are a challenge rather than an obstacle; the biggest issue is that the ship belongs to His Imperial Majesty, and some day he's going to want it back. And in good condition.
Seeking forgiveness rather than asking permission sounds good, but this is the Galactic Empire we're talking about here. Besides which, the successful may be able to get away with it, but the failures- and those unlucky enough to have enemies to stick it to them, no matter what? Ow.


Jorian Lennart was politically active as a youth; under normal circumstances, he would have gone on to become a Senatorial aide, and gradually risen thrugh the political pyramid, possibly becoming a Senator himself one day- just about the time Palpatine decided he didn't need the Senate any more, of course. Lucky for him he joined the Starfleet instead. Well, probably lucky.

Where he excels is in finding people prepared to authorise modifications. The flight bay, for example; they were attached to an Oversector Fleet frightened enough by repeated Rebel fighter attack that, when he suggested his ship be refitted with enhanced bay capacity, they leaped at the chance. Similar moves- internal rearrangements for increased crew readiness, the shielding upgrade- all presented, carefully, as good things for the Empire, and with someone else's name on the dockyard order form.

The port-side extension is the only outright case of trading on a hero move- although if they had been allowed to loiter after the incident, what lf Palmus Viridis' weaponry was blown clear rather than vapourised might have found a new home in an axial defence turret or two. {Aside; Procurator= financial official. So it just tickled me to name them, in dubious translation anyway, the [Adam] Smith and [Alan] Greenspan.} The battered exterior is preserved half-sincerely by Lennart, half as a bargaining counter- something cosmetic that he can trade away if he ever needs to.

The bridge module presents a particular problem because it didn't make all that much sense to begin with, and the designers were perfectly aware of that. 'Mid-period' Bridge Towers are deliberately brutalist, intended to intimidate and overbear. They are a political statement in their own right, and finding someone willing to contradict that is a lot harder.

Going back to an Early period tower would run foul of Parkinson's Law. (The ship's office work expanded to fill the available space- and a moratorium was immediately placed on all airlock jokes.) Somewhere in Mirannon's files, there are plans for moving to a late period tower, embedding the command module directly in the superstructure.
The one conceptual hurdle that remains is what to do with the existing module. It is not going to be an elective modification; and Captain Lennart is understandably reluctant to agree to have it blown off, considering he and about two thousand other people are very likely to be in it at the time.

Similar problems apply to Mirannon's superlaser; he got as far as completing the design for a four-arm composite design, arms eight hundred metres long, firing down the centre of the faces of the dagger hull. Three major problems- power requirement, vulnerability, and the fact that it would be a very heavy weapon, probably a cruiser-killer, with enough power to knock out theatre shields or snipe weak points in full planetary.
It would be politically dangerous for them to posess such a thing. They would almost certainly be hunted down and have it, and probably their lives, taken off them. That would be taking it too far. In addition to the volume of powerplant and capacitor it would have required.

Of course, Adannan has the authority to sanction a whole raft of things. Once he grasps the situation, that may become the carrot- whith "Join us or die" the stick.

[Phantasee]

Wow.

This is better than an X-Wing novel.

With a bit of cleaning up (I read some typos, but I didn't note them), you could probably get this published.

Which would be awesome, of course.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Considering the stick I've heard the X-wing novels take around here, I'm not sure if that's a compliment

Thank you for your opinion I know that sounds cold but I think 'woo-hoo' goes in there somewhere. If I wanted to do something like shoot for publication, I'd probably have to boil it down a bit; hack it down into fewer words.
No doubt there are typos, but when do you get the right to edit your posts? Not yet- which means I should come out of hiding and post more, I suppose. I have actually got ch 1 through 6 re-paragraphed, so when I can edit, I'll replace those.
The only major oops I had in 17 was something I forgot to add; when Epsilon are standing talking, before drop, it should be Aron that makes the comment about small businesses being easier to rob than banks.

18, here, is the opening and mid game of the destroyer battle.
The single hardest scene to write has been the first meeting between Jorian Lennart and Kor Alric Adannan. In the discarded first version, they locked horns almost immediately- shots exchanged before they even got off the flight bay. 19 should be the endgame, and that meeting.


Ch 18


Kestrel began to loose her fighter complement; the base Recusant never had such a thing, but the endo-and-exo- skeletal structure made them easily refittable.

There had been something of a cornered- rat effect after the official end of the war as the Confederation Remnants threw away the standard unified template and started modifying.

Perhaps, somewhere back in the initial design, that had been the idea; once the confederation had won it’s independence, a series of plug-in modules under the outer shell to enhance and vary their abilities, fit them for the many duties that came the way of a galactic warship.

That hadn’t happened, and the confederation remnants had done everything possible to fight a delaying action, try to make themselves expensive enough for the new Empire to conquer that some kind of peace deal became possible. It seldom had.


Many and various things had been done to Recusant hulls in that strange war after the war, and the Rebellion had inherited the ideas as it had inherited some of the pieces.

Kestrel, amongst her other modifications, carried eight fighter squadrons. One of R-22 Spearheads, said to be a botched mass-market clone of the Aethersprite and also the base development model for the newer, faster rebel A-wing.

Two squadrons of X-wings and three squadrons of Y, so far so predictable, and two of Clone Wars relics, ARC-170s and more Gauntlets.

‘Dreck.’ Aron said. ‘We hit the turret fighters in pairs, two on one, one after the other.’

‘Can we hit one of them with ion cannon? I’d like to take a Gauntlet home to play with.’ Franjia said, half serious.

‘Kriff, no. No more rebel fighters, no more flight testing, bloody ever.’

‘Optimist…Alpha One, Epsilon Five. Reb warhead pointers swinging towards you.’

Olleyri stifled a ‘No shit’ as his own threat receivers started howling at him. How egotistical was an officer of his rank entitled to be? ‘Alpha Lead, we’ll draw fire for the rest of the group.’ I must have lost it at last, he thought.

‘Everyone else, cover us. Don’t waste time shooting torps, hit their concussions, then break and attack.’


The four Defenders fired torpedoes blind at the rebel fighter swarm, extreme sensitivity dialled into their fusing- Olleyri wanted them to detonate as they passed the wave of rebel missiles that would surely come their way, and make holes big enough for a Defender to slip through. Hopefully.

The Spearheads actually carried concussions, the rest torpedoes; they and the Y-wings fired at Alpha Lead flight.

Six concussions and eighteen torpedoes each; somebody really didn’t like them. Either that or they had lost the plot.

Olleyri spared half a second for sober analysis- the rebs had just pretty much guaranteed that they would lose the opening moves of the fighter battle, by overconcentrating on one element of the formation; good. It happened to be him; bad.


The fighter wing commander was next in line- the bomb and attack/multirole wing commanders flew desks.
‘Beta One, you have tactical control until we shake this lot.’

He backflipped the Defender and his flight followed, racing away from the torpedoes- they could outrun proton torps, although only by a hair, they couldn’t beat a concussion. Until? If.

The rest of the Alliance fighters held their fire, for whatever reason- wanting to save the heads for a ship target, somebody had been too good at warning them against shooting off expensive ordnance- well, that was unlikely in view of their resort to overkill.

More likely, they simply didn’t believe it was necessary. The Alliance had it’s arrogances, too- chiefly that of their fighter pilots.

Especially after Yavin, the Alliance Starfighter Corps was very much the tail that wagged the dewback. They believed themselves easily capable of taking on four, five to one odds- and against garrison units, it might have been possible.

They probably picked on the Defenders because they were the most dangerous; knock off the elite, and the rest would be murder as usual. That seemed to be the theory.


The Alliance formation shook out into a spearhead; backwards, slower Y-wings leading, X-wings and R-22s behind and on the flanks, Gauntlets and –170s at the rear, covering.

The Imperial formation changed shape to meet them, reaching out to engulf; the unshielded fighters going wide, Interceptors and Ravagers, the Avengers and Starwings and Hunters fanning out into a loose bowl formation to meet and flank the rebel lead element. In the rear of the formation, STR s sheltered behind the ATRs and assault shuttles.

The Alliance fighter leader realised he had misestimated his opponent just too late to do anything about it.
It was difficult to give any fire order to most rebel squadrons other than fire-at-will;

sure, they went on about how Yavin had been won with dedication and discipline and Republican military virtue, but those were central command forces, close enough under authority’s eye to actually be disciplined. Most rebel line and defence squadrons were guerillas at heart.

They opened fire raggedly and early.


The Imperial fighter force went on to individual routines; the break-and-attack order meant that at this stage they would keep rough formation, open out for individual jinking room, and each pilot pick their target and open fire when they thought they had a shot.

Little sense dodging on that frontage; there was so much fire coming in, most of it semi-aimed, almost as likely to fly into a shot as away from one. You manoeuvred to avoid a persistent lock, but the most effective means of self-protection was to shoot back, make them evade, throw their targeting off.

A wall of green and a wall of red light seemed to hit head on and detonate; in fact, that was the torpedo explosions in the middle. Some of them got hit in passing, most flew on chasing Alpha Lead.

The Rebels lost more heavily in the first pass; Avengers against Y-wings, what else was to be expected? It was more than just heads taken, it was position gained- the ability to outmanoeuvre the enemy, force them to begin in evading position, make them flee from you.

So multiple layers, one ready to reinforce the next.


In theory, the X-wings would have swung in on the tails of the Avengers- but the Avengers just left chaos in their wake and ploughed into the second wave, leaving the Y-wings to the Starwing squadrons and calling the fast flanking Interceptors down on the Rebel turret and flexible-gun fighters.

Aron was operating under orders; he would personally have preferred a more compact formation than the loose Starwing pack-

he lead A flight through to line up on one of the squadrons of Y-wings, sent C flight wide to hit them from the flank, and Franjia’s second flight looped back to cover the rest from the flight of Spearheads she saw peeling off in their direction.

The Spearheads were moving towards lead flight; she headed them off and caught their attention with a long burst that she tracked into one- and was amazed to see it start to come apart. She had thought they were tougher than that.

The three survivors shifted vector towards her- sidestepping in pale imitation of the supreme agility the Aethersprite was famous for. Not nearly as good.


The bigger Starwings actually covered more distance, both sides were squeezing off shot, one looked almost determined to kamikaze on Franjia- rolling in tight little circles round her gunsight.

She lined up on him, just off line herself- a shallow curve forcing him to adjust to meet her- expecting a point blank missile shot, she surged power into her jammers, rolled left and over him, and her own launchers coughed out a single torpedo. Overkill.

Epsilon Seven had faked his out, broke across it and let it overshoot, got killing position and lasered it. Six’s shields had been chewed but he had nailed his bird too.

They weren’t a patch on dear old Dad, she thought irrelevantly as she pivoted her Starwing on it’s deflectors, the flight conforming, and scanned to see if there were any Y-wings left.


Aron had started by hosing one pair with massed fire- they would share those- but the other six Y-wings roughly opposite them broke formation, accelerated outwards to get lateral distance and ideally be able to crossfire the Starwings.

C flight matched their manoeuvre and Aron led lead flight right through the middle.
There was method to the madness. He hoped. If Yatrock managed to blindside them- it was all a matter of timing.

He skidded through in a wild, sweeping bank, taking a pair of laser hits, returning fire on one Y-wing, forcing it to break off and burning it’s shielding out; glance at the scanner, it was just a blizzard. Red and green dots everywhere.


The two formations were thoroughly mixed, and his mental horizon had narrowed to a very small space around himself. No time to think about the big picture. This was what the Alliance called the manoeuvring phase, what he called the Mad Scramble.

Epsilon Four had had his shields stripped clean, but only an Ion bolt had gone through; his fighter was limping, one engine misfiring. At least that made him a slightly harder target.

One of the Y-wings was down, Two- Gavrylsk- and Three, Kramaner, had taken hits, but not penetrating, and then C flight hit them. Two more of the Y-wings got streamed, long lines of fire chasing them, catching them up and splashing them in flowers of energy.

The rest scattered; he looked for and saw engine vents, passed up three closer targets for a good position on one further, Kramaner banked round after the closest, him and Four switching position in the element.

Ahead of him, Aron saw X-wings starbursting out of the way of Interceptors, and rolling dogfights start to form. Beyond them, laser and blaster fire crossed as Franjia and her flight took long shots at the approaching Gauntlets.


They were, tactically speaking, screwed. The ARC-170s had very long barreled guns on pivot mounts, with a crew member who could devote their whole attention to that; it would have suited them best to hang back and on the flanks, use their superior weapon control to snipe and interdict.

Now they were going to have to play it backwards, be the element the scattered rest of the Alliance fighters formed up on. That would make them relatively easy targets.

They didn’t intend to make it easy; the shieldless Four was locked on to, forced to evade radically, the streams of blaster fire caught up to him- safe ejection, though. Insofar as anyone could be safe in this maelstrom.

B flight were trading lines of fire with the Gauntlets; with their lighter weapons, the numbers worked that a Starwing would kill a Gauntlet before the Gauntlet could burn through the heavier fighter’s shields- if both could get a stable shot.

It was the minor footwork, the slight shifting of position of jousting knights. Franjia’s flight were accelerating into the attack, the Gauntlets would have held back if they could, but they needed to accelerate to meet them.


Alpha B and C flights were heading for them also; part of Franjia’s motivation was to get them before the Avengers did.

She stabilized on one, dazzled it with active scan, then sideslipped on to it’s wingmate, level at first then a shallow curve, pivoting around it while her wingman made electronic noise to cover her. It started to roll out of the way as it’s shields frayed; called for help.

She stayed on target as long as safe, rode the kill down then hauled the Starwing’s nose round in a climbing bank, letting the rebel’s friends try and avenge him, drawing fire away from the rest of the squadron.

Jerking, spasming quad laser fire came from the follow-up unit of Ravagers, so Aron scattershot at the fleeing Y-wing, rode out the poorly-aimed scatter of ion fire and landed a three round burst that tore the Y-wing’s starboard engine off, left the Y’s to the Ravagers and ATRs and ordered the rest of the squadron to follow him in support of B flight.


Further afield, the space around the Rebel light star destroyer Penthesilea exploded in green fire. For all his sometimes irregularity, Pellor Aldrem managed his turbolasers with the same clear headed precision the physicists of old devoted to their research accelerators.

He set up four close, hard bursts on the planetward side, tight, brilliant green blooms; four looser billows of flame to voidward- that was how the tracer looked. He watched closely as the Venator’s shields reacted.

‘Captain, Port-4. I think that if that thing opens it’s bay doors, I can drill the shielding with a point salvo, get a local burnthrough in seven rounds and detonate a flak burst from the eighth inside their hangar bay.’

‘Not yet.’ Lennart decided. ‘I’ll give the word if I want that.’ Reminding him not to shoot without authorisation, this time at least.

How were things going to play out now? The initial rebel plan had been for the heavy escort to emerge in open space and sweep in towards the planet. The Recusant had done that and been depleted.


One or two more main gun salvoes would finish her off; they only had about eight percent of the power output of an Imperator at baseline. Kestrel looked to have been uprated, but not that far. The main reason he hadn’t fried her was to keep the rebels in play, he wanted both of them, captured if possible or destroyed if not.

In the Rebels’ shoes, he would back off to medium range, stabilize and recharge as far as possible and use his ship’s guns to support the fighter wing in a strike on the Imperial star destroyer.

That was what they were trying to do- but it wasn’t working. The Rebel fighters had overcommitted, staked everything on a quick victory, lost the bet, and red blips were falling off the scan picture a lot faster than green blips. Four to one, it seemed.

The furball, the original strike on Comarre- the rebel fighters from that would move to support Kestrel’s fighters, or intercept the bombers Lennart had dispatched to finish the MC-40, as soon as they cleared away the last of Comarre’s TIEs.

Which, they were probably just now starting to realize, would be Aldrem’s cue to flak-burst them.


Similarly, the nearly six wings on the Penthesilea might be better off not launching at all. By prolonging the engagement with a fighter battle, they increased the time Black Prince had available to pound their mothership into splinters.

The best thing she could do would be to recover the dropships and evacuation transports as fast as she could and get out.

The only circumstance it would make sense to sortie in would be if the Rebels couldn’t make it out in time, and needed to fight their way clear.

The mothership would have to go onto radical evasion, scattering her fighters along her path, trying to avoid fire and get them clear- a running fight the heavy defence envelope stood a good chance against anyway.

Politically speaking, mission accomplished. He had drawn the rebels out and proved that Sector was hopelessly wrong in their estimates, ascribing one frigate to a force that possessed at least two light destroyers. Now the mission was simply to take heads.

‘Guns, Kestrel; she’ll remain here as long as the Rebel fighters look as if they have a chance. When she starts to run-‘ and two superheavy turbolaser bolts splashed into the bridge module’s shields; the viewscreen glowed red for a second- ‘burn through and take her engines out. And mark my target.’

The Recusant-class simply could not power their weapons to anything like the same rate of fire as an Imperator.

They depended on the on mount capacitor banks for any kind of burst fire; Lennart had found that the best tactic was to engage at medium range, burn through the target’s shielding as rapidly as possible on the strength of the stored power, but feed the superheavies nothing at all from the main reactor-

follow up with the secondaries, the smaller heavies and the mediums, and pick off shields and gun mounts from there.

Lennart would have liked to shoot the capacitors off, but there was too much risk; a volley of HTL shot tended to make a nonsense of most failsafes, and if they ruptured and released, that would break the bow off. Which was plan B.

Lennart put the pointer on power feed and targeting control.


Penthesilea was manoeuvring slowly. She had no choice but to accept boarding from the dropships which had lost their parent craft, which meant she would have to open a bay. Some of them had lost sublight engine capability too.

She had to actually make retrieval- which meant stopping Black Prince shooting at her long enough for that. As long as that was going to have to happen anyway, she might as well let the fighters out to play.


Black Prince was keeping up a contemptuously slow fire, lazily posting one turbolaser shot after another into the Venator’s shielding, knocking down the walls. The smaller, lower bay opened, the one hidden from fire.

‘LTL, gun cluster three, some fire on the dropships please. Make them think we actually are trying to stop them getting away.’ Not, Lennart noticed, grinning, that it would actually be necessary.

There was a container left drifting in the middle of that lot, one with their own failed hyperdrive core; there was a rebel tug on route to it. That should prove interesting.

Penthesilea was returning fire as best she could- scared but coping with it, Lennart thought, watching their fire pattern nearly come apart and be recollected. Splashing shot off the Black Prince, which was coping easily with her shields semi-focused on the two attackers.


‘Enemy intentions.’ Lennart said, chiefly to Brenn and Rythanor. ‘How do they expect to get out of this?’

‘Splatter fire all over us, get us to start feeling overconfident-‘ Brenn began.

‘Which it certainly looks like we are.’ Lennart confirmed.

‘Then switch targets, go for converged sheaf component shots, take out above all else the turret that’s firing flak bursts, then make a proper battle of it, not just an escape. Try to bury us under five hundred or so fighters.’

‘When do you expect that to happen?’ Lennart asked the navigator.

‘Sir, I’d rather not be specific, I don’t trust the universe’s sense of timing.’

‘Neither do I…’ Lennart replied. ‘Gunnery, turn Port-3 and -4 over to central control and instruct the crews to move behind bulkhead DF 140, enforce it if necessary. Shields, stand by to reorient- maximum depth over port battery and tower on my mark.’


Aldrem would, of course, bitch about it, which was fine as long as he didn’t do it loudly enough to count as disobeying an order. This would be as good a time as any to suddenly sprout proton torpedo tubes, but ideally not at the price of a prime gun team.

Kestrel was stabilizing out and reinforcing her shield envelope, but the LTL barrage had destroyed all four mediums that could bear on Black Prince, and burnt out many of her lighter gun mounts.


Her light-gun focus of fire danced backwards and forwards over Black Prince, shifting aimpoint- now here, playing over the bow to port; jumping to forward of the bridge tower; aft flank, just to search for bare metal;

each point of firefall blocked, shield energy following the incoming, fencing almost, slash and parry with multi-megaton rapiers.

And riposte. Black Prince carried her weaponry spread out over a wider area than Kestrel; more room and options to fire back from.

While Kestrel’s lighter weapons were splashing power over one place, all the rest were aiming in return, looking for the hole in the shielding, the fire window to lob a bolt down. They were finding it too often for the lighter ship.

Penthesilea had suffered loss of most of her shielding, too; which was what it was for, but in a prolonged duel at close quarters, she would burn out and be pounded to bits long before the Imperator.

She had to perform pickup on the last of the dropships; the time was ripe. Lennart gave the order. ‘Shields, reorientation, execute. Gunnery, ripple salvo, as the Venator decelerates, execute.’

The Venator’s DBY-827s were actually more powerful than the Imperator-II standard cannon; sixteen of them- combined with the two superheavy turbolasers on the Recusant- lashed out in a time on target salvo.


Which would have been a good idea, maybe even worked, if it had actually hit.

Imperator class destroyers were popularly supposed to be clumsy and collision prone; which was true, to a point.

More important was that doctrine stated that in a low- energy collision like a sideswipe, it was better to take the hit rather than turn away and possibly unload thousands of petawatts from the ion drive into the other ship. When their lives depended on it they could move.


Black Prince dipped- autotrack compensating for the ships motion, keeping her own guns on target- and rolled, angling between the two Rebel destroyers, turning it into a full evasive corkscrew.

That was pure showing off. It was the ship control team’s boast that it was only fuel cost that stopped them outmanoeuvring most of their own fighters; exaggeration on their part, mostly.

They could outrun many things in a straight line, but they were average dogfighters. Perhaps a little better than that, but being a stable gun platform had been more important.

Black Prince rolled and twisted through the sky-burning blasts, took three hits from the closer Kestrel, burnt into but not through the shielding, four from the faster-firing Penthesilea; insignificant.

Then she rolled out into level flight, slowed to a steady thousand gravities, weaving gently, and returned fire in earnest.


The Rebel Venator’s captain must have realized that Black Prince was simply shaping the battlefield, firing well below her maximum potential.

He must have been prepared for heavy return fire; his ship dipped and accelerated, making herself a crossing target, rolling to present the battery to bear as she ran up to hyperspace insertion.

There was probably a fair bit of praying, religious or not, to Destiny, Karma, the Galactic Spirit, the Force, whichever, that their shields would last. Lennart thought they would- up to a point.

The heavy turbolaser bolts from Black Prince cleaved into and pounded the smaller destroyer.

‘Gunnery, send Port- 3 and 4 crews back to station, return the turrets to local control.’ Lennart remembered to order.


Penthesilea was emptying her power banks and redlining her reactor, reinforcing her shielding and overdriving the heat dissipators to survive the lash. The rebel captain probably had been intending to conduct a mass fighter strike on the Imperial ship, if possible.

Only if the objective strike had been able to take out their flak- firing main turret, which it hadn’t.

Now, they would be thinking, the battered Imperial had left it too late- an old, tired ship with an old, tired captain. Counterattack and a clear flight out would not now be possible, but a mad scramble could still succeed.

Most of the Rebel fighters were hyper capable. They could safely be left to make their own way out. Kestrel was turning to flee, too.


Gunnery remembered the orders they had been given. Lennart had his mouth open to say ‘execute’ when they did it for him anyway. The four starboard turrets paused, twisted, reoriented on the Kestrel.

Disable her engines, he had said. Being themselves, Gunnery had opted to translate that as ‘obliterate’. Better to make a clean, sharp break than leave a half- done job.

Starboard battery bore; medium- power calculated fire to burn clear the shielding, followed rapidly by higher powered shot to blast through the hull.


The engine bells were one of the toughest parts of the ship; gun barrels, engines, reactor casing. Logic suggested the most resistant material for the most demanding job; and so it was.

Armour gave some structural strength, but for it’s main purpose would be needed rarely- if the vessel happened to be unlucky, once.

A ship had to be protected from her own energy processes every moment of her life. To disable a ship, oblique shots at the ion engine venturii were actually a pretty good option.

The spaced single shots arced in, smashing thrusters off their mountings, cleaving away fins, tearing apart the aft structure through transmitted shock. Kestrel ceased to accelerate. She was trapped, now.


Penthesilea survived the attentions of Black Prince’s gunners long enough to make the entry to hyperspace. Mirannon, in Main Machinery-1, had one of his holobenches replaying the same main tactical sensor picture Lennart was looking at.

He watched with interest, ordered the hyperdrive cores raised a priority level on the power allocation board; they might have to go in chase- this was going to be embarrassing if it didn’t go to plan.

Not that it hadn’t been done with skill; just that Mirannon was an improviser. He wasn’t really happy unless he was doing something far enough out, risky and edgy enough that there was a real chance it wouldn’t work.

The hyperspace mine he had improvised from their own failed motivator did not let him down.

The Rebel destroyer appeared as a brief blur on long range scan; that seemed to invert itself, twist, distend- just as he thought it was going to break up completely, and what a very interesting explosion it would make, it flashed again and thudded back into realspace, twisted-looking.

‘Captain, take that ship in-‘ quick glance at the sensor picture, ‘-no more pieces than it is already, and make their chief engineer a job offer. They did well managing that.’


‘Unlikely, considering what I want now is to disable their power grid. Where’s the aimpoint for that?’ Lennart replied.

‘The distribution complex is just aft of the main reactor- there.’ He marked it on the target-image of the Venator. ‘If you’re thinking disable and capture, a better target- more easily repaired afterwards- is the computer core.’

Lennart shook his head. Mirannon couldn’t see it, but the tone was enough. ‘Intel reasons.’

The Imperators had a central memory core and processing complex that were powerful, but not the be-all and end-all; enough to override a rogue or damaged local system or processing node, but the ship could function without them, once the security measures were satisfied.

The Venator class were more centralized than that. The ship could be paralysed by a few hits to the bridge tower but workarounds could be made, local control systems existed.

A brain-shot Venator could function, uncoordinatedly; she would lose datalinking between sensors, ESM/ECM and fire control, most importantly, making her an easy kill- but local PD would still probably be enough to prevent capture.


‘Gunnery,’ Lennart ordered, ‘component strike.’ Handing over the target image with Mirannon’s power system highlights. Black Prince rolled to present- gunnery making the formal request to Helm- and the guns lashed out.

Bolts drilling through the depleted shielding and crunching their way into Penthesilea’s belly, breaking structures aside until main power distribution was exposed, hammered; it fused and melted, the engines went out, most of the ship’s lights did the same.

‘Gunnery, Main Battery, Port-4; do you realize why I ordered you out of your turret?’ Lennart asked his scalpel team.

‘Yes, Sir- but half of us would have preferred to take our chances; the other half were hoping it would get blown up, we still haven’t got it fully clean after Port-2 crew’s standing watches- what’s the job?’ Aldrem asked quickly, before the captain could take offence at wasted time.

‘Remind me never to transfer you to ship maintenance. Do you think you can hit Penthesilea’s bay doors precisely enough to jam or melt them shut, rather than blow them open?’ The Captain asked them.

‘Yes, Captain, I can.’ Aldrem said, almost managing to sound confident. As if flak bursts weren’t bad enough. ‘Provided you’re prepared to sign off for the damage we do to the gun barrels.’


Fendon was already setting it up- not believing it, but doing it anyway. A turbolaser fired a particle beam, in much the same way that a transatmospheric shuttle was descended from a man’s dream of flying like the birds.
Twenty-five thousand years of evolving countermeasures, the race between defence and attack, had changed and complicated them immensely.

Aldrem wanted a continuous beam, a superlaser effect from a single barrel; continuous containment and the feedback loops it would generate had been known to melt gun tubes from the inside out before this.
At least they had a clear target, albeit tumbling slightly.

Listening carefully to the monitor system, he squeezed the trigger slowly, allowing the beam to build up, looking for the sweet spot- and tracking the beam towards the Venator’s bay doors.

On board Penthesilea, they would be frantic, crossconnecting every capacitor bank they could think of to try to get enough power together to get the fighter complement out. It was their last chance of putting up a fight.

The beam seemed to undulate into the joint. Intensity spikes- sudden flares in the beam; blotches of tracer compound; a stitched line of molten hull wandering across the joint line of the bay doors.

Aldrem could smell burning metal. Pure synaesthesia, but- ‘Shut down and purge A-1, give me A-2 and prep A-3.’ It seemed to be working. If they didn’t manage to melt their own turret in the process.


‘Captain?’ Rythanor- Guns- com’d to the bridge. ‘What would you do if you didn’t have a crew prepared to attempt the impossible?’

‘Oh, we’d just have to resort to the merely possible, and blow them both to bits.’ Lennart said, flippantly. ‘Speaking of which, I expect to need long range anti-fighter fire in a moment.’

He made a general survey of the battle scene; time to start earning my pay, he thought.

By the planet- still some combat as the garrison fighters came up after the initial rebel city strike’s survivors, pinning them and preventing them covering Penthesilea. Good, one less worry for the dropships.


The surviving Rebel frigate- was no longer doing such a good job of surviving. Two squadrons of TIE bombers had rippled long-range proton fire at it; it was essentially dead, main mass half-molten and tumbling in a cloud of blown off fragments.

The strike was returning to Black Prince, pursued by elements of the fighter swarm that had attacked Comarre Meridian; the rest still busy chasing Comarre’s fighters.

Comarre herself had been hit by three of Penthesilea’s torpedoes, and was in little better state- not far off destroyed.

Right, Lennart thought. Area clearance. Neither of those rebel ships is going anywhere. Kill the Rebel fighters- and the smaller rebel ships, although one of the Nebulons had already run for it, and what’s that?


‘That’ was a Defender. Alpha Lead flight had managed to outrun the torpedoes, turned to jam and shoot at the concussions, and left one ejected, one crippled and limping back to the fight bay, and one, with a massive vector and only one objective vaguely close to it, charging head on at sixty Rebel fighters.

Lennart cut in the flight control channels; at least one controller was screaming at the berserk fighter, but the only response was a wild yell of ‘Banmotherfuckenzai!!’ Strange; Alpha-2’s blip, sounded like Olleyri’s voice.

He would have to deal with that later.


The bulk of the Strike Wing was now in the happy situation of chasing a beaten enemy. Epsilon had beaten Delta to it, got in amongst and started culling the ARC-170s; the Gauntlets had been left to the following force of Assault Transports and Shuttles.

Four twin guns on twelve times the power output- or four light turbolasers on fifty times- outclassed twin medium lasers easily.

Eleven had punched out; he had caught and held the attention of three –170s, they coned him- Franjia and Aron got one each, but the third finished him. Blasters had chewed his fighter apart slowly enough that he had a chance to get out. Maybe.

The rest of the Alliance fighters- scattered, fighting individual duels or being chased down.

Flight control asked him to report status.

‘Ten flying, I need two SAR; good condition, ninety percent ordnance. Where do you want us?’

‘Defence suppression strikes on Penthesilea, then dropship escort.’ Flight Command replied.


‘The fleet’s getting it’s money’s worth out of us today.’ Nine, Yatrock, commented.

‘You mean you wouldn’t pay to be allowed to do this?’ Aron bounced back.

‘Defence suppression, I’d gladly pay to be allowed not to do. Not an option, is it? Gamma and Delta are forming up on us.’ Franjia said.

‘You wanted a rebel fighter to take home? That thing has berth space for thirty-five squadrons of Alliance odds and sods.’ Aron pointed out. They were all shaking out into formation, proceeding as ordered. Alpha and Beta were hunting the scattered rebels.

‘I know some crack units have kept up a twelve to one ratio- but not all at once.’ Kramaner said. He was not a centimeter out of position on Aron’s right wing.

‘They probably won’t be able to get that many into the air.’ Franjia said, watching the thin, splotched green line scribbling in the hull of the Venator. ‘Probably.’

[Phantasee]

Excellent. Just a few moments where I got confused:

He backflipped the Defender and his flight followed, racing away from the torpedoes- they could outrun proton torps, although only by a hair, they couldn’t beat a concussion. Until? If.

The bolded section is a tad unclear. I think there was another bit, but I can't find it.

Good stuff.

Oh, and why would you have to shorten it to get it published? I think a nice thick novel is always good.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The 'until? If.' refers to Olleyri's earlier command to Beta One to take tactical control of the fighter wing until he manages to ride out the missile strike. If he does.

The berserker towards the end is actually him, but they lost one defender with pilot, one defender, pilot cleanly ejecting, one bringing back a fighter damaged beyond economic repair, and just him left- he's gone musth. Rogue bull elephant syndrome, well nearly. If anybody knows who James H. Howard was, what a role model.

19 is mostly written, but it's still piecemeal- to avoid a mild writer's block, I started writing all three scenes that were supposed to go in it at once, hopping back and forth from one to the other to keep the brain- juices flowing. it needs integration. A little while yet.

Somebody else was wondering, given the comparison, if Rogue Squadron were actually going to turn up. I'd need to re-read the series to get a feel for them, but Wedge is one of the few EU characters whose sense of tactical judgement I can believe in. Most of them simply don't read like the hardened killers they're supposed to be.

It would be unlikely. Olleyri- or whoever's in command after his suicide charge- would take the Rogues seriously enough to refuse a piecemeal, running battle and try to dogpile on them with every possible asset. The rebels would have more sense than to accept a straight up fight, and try to force that running battle. It would be a fencing match.

Someone who might very well turn up, though; who is Alliance fleet command going to send to investigate what is rapidly shaping into a bloody disaster? I think I would rather enjoy having Lennart sit down at a table- preferably a glass-topped table- with his fellow Corellian on the opposite side of the fence. They might turn out to have a lot to discuss, especially after Adannan starts trying to draw Lennart to the dark side in earnest. by that point he might be interested in discussing other options, even if he has no interest in taking them.

Hmmm...'accidentally' inform the Rogues, via smuggling channels, of an Imperial high official who deserves a few blaster bolts to the head, and who will be in a shuttle flashing this registry, at that place and time? It isn't an idea I'd come up with; I had a sketched-out endgame revolving around Adannan's ambitions and a man in a black suit.

Still, they have to get to hate each other first. That, or at least the beginning of it, next.

Actually, it occurs to me that I could double my post count simply by wandering through here and commenting on the fanfics that were the main reason I got on to SDN in the first place. I ought to, because I am enjoying a lot of them- and I wish that Captain Kardon of the Klingon Empire would make a resurgence, and I'm probably going to have to go back and start Children of Heaven again to pick up the thread. Amongst a lot of others.

More towards the end of this, or early next, week.

[Phantasee]

Man, seeing Lennart and Solo (you did mean Solo, right?) would be awesome. My only issue with that is how much I enjoyed this story without any previously heard of characters, ships, or locations. I thought it was an excellent example of Star Wars EU writing without Han/Luke/Wedge/Leia/R2-D2.

[Vianca]

Man, seeing Lennart and Solo (you did mean Solo, right?) would be awesome. My only issue with that is how much I enjoyed this story without any previously heard of characters, ships, or locations. I thought it was an excellent example of Star Wars EU writing without Han/Luke/Wedge/Leia/R2-D2.

Could be something like: Why can't that #%^%$ *^%&$ YT-1300 not just die?
Means Solo is on a recon, usual style.

But since this is between movie 4 and 5, Han isn't frozen solid yet.
Thus it has no good reason for it to be a YT-2400 (Outrider) from ......(what was his name again?)
He's still runing illigal cargo runs at this time.

So, who do we got left?
Nobody I know, thats for sure.

Mmmm, who was it again that was the Rebels their tactical master mind?
He did up and leave, while letting everybody think he had died.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Slightly late- never re-enact an early medieval battle in a thunderstorm, if the lightning doesn't get you the 'flu will- this is 19 up.

As far as using existing characters goes, most of that is just me thinking aloud. The story resolution, the end game, is still essentially written in pencil. What I tend to do is set up objectives for them, compare them as characters, try to gauge who's more likely to get their way, and guide the plot accordingly.

At times, this can spin out to being damnably open ended, and my wanting to trim it is pretty much an expression of frustration with myself. I had always essentially intended Adannan to go too far and challenge his masters in the dark side hierarchy, and attempt to use Lennart as his weapon in doing so; but the details of how, why and who are only slowly congealing into place.

I do read Publius' website, and the thought occurs to me that Lennart essentially fits the mould of a lapsed Impartial; broadly in agreement with their aims, but at some point he asked himself; how are these people going to be any better?- and couldn't think of a satisfactory answer. No longer active in their support.

Senior rebel generals include Jan Dodonna in the starfighter corps- the Wiki dates for him have no convenient overlap, though; he resigned almost immediately after the foundation of the Empire, which doesn't help, and was captured almost immediately after Yavin. Awkward.

Airen Cracken in special operations- and surely a general has other responsibilities, to discipline, training, doctrine, and operational control, which mean he would be of better service to the Alliance behind a desk passing on his expertise rather than using it in the field?

Carlist Rieekan seems to have been mainly ground force operations. I'll ahve to do some rooting around for the rest of the alliance high command- apart from the fish (Ackbar) of course.

I can see two schools developing, though; a shade outside canon, but there probably ought to be some division between the old school, who take the 'restore the republic' part seriously, believing that it's essential to fight full scale stand-up battles wherever possible, to look like a credible alternative and rival to the Empire, and the new school, who recognise that as outnumbered as they are- various characters have quoted figures ranging from twenty to one hundred to one- the Alliance is a de facto guerilla movement.

I have a theory, too, on why Imperial discipline is the way it is, and I'll try and bring some of that out as Lennart and Adannan fence with each other.


Ch 19

‘Almost a shame.’ Lennart said, looking at the crippled and drifting Kestrel. ‘I have fond memories of those things; I’d have liked to bring her in in one piece. LTLs, switch target to Penthesilea, target the hatches.’

‘Aye, aye, sir- fond memories? How long did you spend shooting at them?’ Wathavrah said in return.

‘My last job before I came back to this ship was at the Raithal Academy; I was part of the Black Flag OPFOR, two years in charge of a Recusant teaching humility to snot-nosed cadets.

I wouldn’t mind keeping one as a personal yacht- there’s enough waste space, we could collapse one down far enough to fit in the hangar bay.’

‘You want us to start trimming it to size?’ Wathavrah asked, joking.

‘No, this one’s a fluke; normally you wait ages for a Recusant and then four come along at once…’

then, tone of voice changing to indicate it was an actual order, ‘put starboard battery on sky sweep in case there are any other surprises. LTLs, support Port-4, then stand by to assist defence suppression, all that can bear on Penthesilea, the rest on Kestrel.’


The other two squadrons of the Bomb Wing were in open order and weaving; the rebels were a wide selection of types, and they were tired. Attacking the Bombers would be their third clash of the day.

Some were fighting mad, some were too tired to think clearly about running away, most were simply trying to do their duty.

Zeta squadron, riding the rare batch-IIa shielded version of the Interceptor, were covering as best they could; even a thousand ‘g’ advantage- which they had over some of the slower-accelerating Rebels- wouldn’t allow them to be in two places at once.

Being in one place after another very quickly, that they could do. It wasn’t enough. Then a maniacal black thunderbolt plunged into the middle of them.


Olleyri and his wingman had both survived the few of the missile swarm that managed to catch them, but the Group Captain’s bird had taken four hits, two of which had been meant for his adjutant. One of which he had intended to.

His fighter wasn’t destroyed, but it was too badly damaged to take into a fight. Quattiera’s was perfectly viable, though, and the TIE flightsuit was EVA capable with a little help from blaster recoil, and the adj owed him, so…

It was Alpha 2’s fighter, but it was a middle aged, mid life crisis suffering pilot in the cockpit. By the usual standards, Antar Olleyri was close to passing from ‘venerable’ into ‘senile old fart’ territory.

Part of him was furious that they had tried a cheap trick like burying him under a barrage of missiles, part of him blazing mad at missing out on a fight.

He had shot four missiles, ridden two out, realized he had shield energy left and moved into the path of one intended for Quattiera- and been blindsided by the fourth. I

t was a miracle the engines hadn’t come apart, and a tiny bit was terrified at his own mistake. Basically, he was getting too old for this.


So, if he was going to hang up his hamster helmet, retire alive or retire dead he was going to go out with a bang.

The rebels switched target from the bombers to him; he danced and twisted through the fire they sent his way until it looked as if his Defender was unrolling a red carpet behind it.

He had not lost his common sense, he had thrown it away, but his tactical judgement was unimpaired.

He flew a wild, jagged, zig-zagging path towards the gaggle of Alliance fighters, and took three of them out before as much as firing a shot.

One Z-95 wandered across a Y-wing’s focus of fire and was shredded; a Gauntlet and a T-wing sideswiped each other- smashing the Gauntlet’s cockpit open and ripping two thruster pods off the T-wing.


His first touch of the trigger was on the Y-wing whose pilot was still half in shock, seeing a friendly fighter explode under his guns. Olleyri’s first salvo hit together and incinerated him.

He dropped into a less radical weave, held down his finger on the trigger and used the deflection controls to hose the focus of fire across the rebel swarm, barely aimed- enough to make some of them flinch.

Closest approach, and he plunged straight through the rebel formation, rolling round a –95 that tried to ram him, catching an X-wing in the tail flare of his thrusters and he got a brief glimpse of the R2 unit melting- there was no method at all to the madness, just taking it as far as it went.

This is the sort of thing that young fighter pilots dream of being able to do, the three brain cells not directly committed thought. The sort of stunt that appears-and belongs- firmly on holovid. The sort of thing most of the Rebels actually think it’s possible to get away with.

He had too much speed to dogfight; all he could do was to strafe his way through them-giving and taking hits as he went; the local force craft, what were left of them, threw out enough blaster fire to catch something moving even as fast as he was, so they were his main targets in return.

Yaw, drift sideways, force himself to wait for the target pointer to light up, full six-gun blast- detonation. Got it. Out of short range leaving a shattered formation in his wake, turn, spray fire at them and thrust back towards them for a second pass over the scattering cloud of Alliance fighters.

The Interceptors followed in his wake, turning to counterattack; the TIE Bombers accelerated away under their cover to join the rest of the bomb wing moving in on Penthesilea.


Gamma, Delta and Epsilon squadrons were approaching in a compact stream; doctrine. Finger- fours or TIE-v formations at long range, for combat against intercepting fighters, then break to surround and englobe, for a surface and harassment profile.

All of them nervously waiting for a swarm of Alliance fighters to boil out of the battered hull, delayed only by probably the longest-distance welding job in galactic history.

‘Lead,’ Franja said, formally, ‘in that position, what would you do?’

‘Curse whoever was stupid enough to come up with that in the first place.’ Aron replied. ‘Blow the “cat flap” open, I suppose.’

The smaller flap set within the main bay doors.

‘Ten seconds?’ She asked.

‘Fifteen.’ He said, and waited- ‘The backflash if it doesn’t work-‘


There was a thermal bloom on the surface of the smaller set of doors. Torpedo hits. Two-no, three centrepoints, and the door remained closed- glowing slightly, though.

‘Somebody just made themselves an ace- in the Imperial Starfighter Corps.’ Epsilon 3 commented.

‘Jealous?’ Franjia said.

‘Kriff yes. How many people have over four hundred kills?’

‘A handful from the Clone Wars, not many more recent- when you’re fighting against numbers that large, someone’s bound to be lucky enough to rack up that kind of score before the odds catch up with her.’ Franjia said.

There was a strange click on the comnet; she guessed Aron had been about to call her on that, then decided he might be tempting fate.

He waited a second and said ‘If they had any sense setting that up, most of them would have been in the bays. They would be shielded well enough to take that.’

‘So it’s probably only the trigger-man who got a face full of proton torpedo.’ Franjia said.


He had, but was not alone. The hangar was still littered with the scooped-up dropships, many of them now broken and burning; bay shields had been lost on some of the squadron launch slots- some had had their independent-backup power systems drained to try to power the motors to open the door, and the fighters there were broken too.

The survivors started to filter out into the main central chamber, and line up on the hatch to finish the job with lasers. Magnetic shielding had been deactivated- had been shot out, more than anything else- there were no more ricochets.

Gamma, Delta and Epsilon waited for them to emerge, flying lazy, wriggling patterns to keep energy and waste time, drawing off what little energy the turrets had in their capacitor banks and take out the turrets that showed any effective resistance. Watched the gap develop- then turn in towards it.


The lead Rebel fighter element knew it was going to be ambushed. A forlorn hope was the best description; they planned to move out of the narrow, deadly space fast enough to get some through and starburst from there, keep the Imperial fighters occupied and buy time for the rest to exit after them.

The squadron that came burning out of the shredded hatch were Eta-2s. They had been the backbone of the Republic’s defence against the hordes of droid fighters- but kilo for kilo and credit for credit, they were less effective than their descendant the TIE Fighter.

As they started to show the three Imperial squadrons rounded on them, hosed the hatch area with fire.

Three Actis blew apart; another crumbled, and the fighter behind it flew into the wreckage; two wasted time stunting and twisting instead of covering distance and the Imperial fire converged on them, one extended in too straight a line and made an easy target- four survived to engage.


Too few for head to head, they meant to break past and strafe round, get into a position where they could score easy kills on the Imperials if they didn’t turn to do something about it, break up the imperial formation.

B flight Gamma broke off to deal with them- the rest remained on mission, splattering shot at the slowly spinning Venator, waiting for more Rebels to emerge.

Gamma’s Hunters were interestingly odd; the dominant theory was that they were the result of business warfare, an attempt to regain Sienar’s lost monopoly by fulfilling the same need as the Starwing.

The fact that Cygnus was part owned by Sienar didn’t necessarily invalidate that; there had been near civil war between arms of the same company before.

In fact, they didn’t fill the need. The Hunter suffered from the usual poor TIE ergonomics- originally designed for Jedi and Clones, neither of which were very susceptible to physical discomfort or inclined to complain, and in the final analysis expendable anyway, small wonder that comfort had been sacrificed for performance.

That made them unsuitable for the long duration patrol role, even if their navigation systems or their sensors
had been up to it.

Their warhead load was only a half in the later marks, a quarter in the earlier, of the Starwing’s; fighter, bomber, recon- one out of three wasn’t enough. Some sector fleets used them, most did not.

Black Prince tended to deploy them as close-in escort for the bombers, the role they were fulfilling now.


In armament and agility, they were a pretty close match for the Actis. One of the Rebel fighters died quickly; shocked by the losses they had taken, he hesitated for a moment too long.

One of them tracked a rapid burst of light laser fire across a Hunter which made the mistake of going long to evade- the Actis caught it and burnt the shields off, exploded the Hunter.

The rebel was still looking for a new target when Franjia pulled a barrel roll, yawed out of it at the top of the roll and splashed the lightly built Actis. Couldn’t let the lights have all the fun.

The rebels had enough sense to realize they were entering a shooting gallery; the next unit to run the gauntlet were X-wings, they sprayed fire out of the hole in the hatch before thrusting their way out, scattering fast.

Seven of them made it out, and C flights of Delta and Epsilon peeled off after them.

It broke down into open order after that, and a herd of Actis, Nimbus, Spearhead and A-wing interceptors tried to push out. There were three collisions- and that was it, because the bay had rolled round to face Black Prince again.

The flak burst was superbly judged. Lancing through the melee, tracer element showing how the bolt was near to tumbling, splintering on itself and exploding; the rebels saw it coming, couldn’t move out fast enough. The bolt cleaved through an A-wing, passed into the hangar cavity- and burst.


The unsealed points in the main doors gapped, the lower hatch burst open, a cone of green fire shone out of the secondary bay doors- tainted with volatilization flares as Rebel fighters burnt up and were carried away as contamination in the plume.

The only craft left to launch from Penthesilea were escape pods. She couldn’t send power to the guns, her on-mount power systems were drained, there was no fighter screen left to deploy; as a ship to ship battle, it was over.

‘Epsilon, this is Flight Control. Disable, repeat disable, Penthesilea’s torpedo launchers.’ The last way they had to inflict harm on the Empire- let themselves be boarded and blow up the ship, take as many of the Legion as possible with them. Or simply lob torpedoes at the dropships.

The stormtrooper complement was deploying now, under the protection of what of Black Prince’s fighter complement could be detached to escort.

Mirannon’s lilypads quite literally flatpacked away, control towers mating through unfolding shield/descent platform discs to thruster modules to form the flight article, dismantling for storage-

the destroyer could drop an entire armoured regiment in one lift, the complete Legion in four, with far more and heavier close air support thanks to the elimination of the waste space normal dropships would have taken up.

They had left the heavy armour behind; each disc carried a mere four platoons of infantry, well below their normal weight-lifting capability, so they moved uncharacteristically quickly.


The easiest way to disable the launchers without setting any of the ordnance off was to burn out the control station. By the time the Alliance fighters realized what was afoot, it was too late.

Penthesilea was close to the standard Venator configuration- no unpleasant surprises like moving the tubes ten metres aft.

Aron looked round; Ten was in trouble- X-wing close on his tail, both of them twisting wildly, rolling round each other; Yatrock was lining up on another X-wing. Ten had moved in to brush the second X off his element leader, and it had gone for him instead.

Some pilots would have broken off to go to help their squadronmate; Aron was lining up his shot. He hammered the Rebel with active sensor pulses, enough to half-blind him and alert anyone with no target of their own.

Gavrylsk curved away after the X-wing; he was converging on the same target as his flight- and squadron- leader anyway.


This sort of melee was either a paradise or a nightmare, and which it was varied sometimes from one second to the next. Nobody had time to think or focus; you could be blindsided from anywhere by anyone, or on the other side of the scales find targets that easily.

Epsilon Three snapshot at the threatening X-wing, blowing an engine off, sending it tumbling away into the void. He knew better than to try to ride a kill down in this maelstrom; break off, go into radical dodge on general principles, look for someone who was stupid enough to do that.

Aron was lined up on one set of control chambers, Franjia on the other; a high power rapid ripple to do any damage to capital ship armour- actually, with the tensors failing, on emergency power at best, spalling and concussion would probably wipe out the crew and wreck the electronics without needing a clean burnthrough.

They had to hit opposite sides of the ship’s bow, had to keep enough vector on to avoid being too easy a target; it would take more than one pass- so they overflew the ship and swapped targets, pivoting end for end, drifting backwards and firing at a receding target.

Aron was good at it, Franjia slightly better- but they had started on each other’s targets. Franjia caught a glimpse of Epsilon-Six chasing a Spearhead off her tail, drifted over to cover him-

deflectors tracking the bolt stream on target; the spearhead broke away, and she wished for an extra hand to work the gun deflector-targeters with.


Close scan; the ship’s jammers were silent and the hull broken down far enough that the Starwing’s scanners could get a good look inside. They showed ruptured power cells, a sort of fog of splinters, powdered circuitry and red mist in the chamber. Score one for secondary damage effects.

Further aft, the pods started to jettison. Most of them would steer for the planet. Flight control ordered them ionized, if possible- they would be easier to scoop up if they could be grabbed before they made re-entry and the occupants had a chance to run.


Franjia was curving away to do that when one of the rebels caught her attention. It was an X-wing, one of the original surface attack group- and he was bearing direct for the Venator’s torpedo tubes.

Either he was acting on orders they hadn’t managed to intercept or he had simply lost it. Her ESM picked up the reflections of the X-wing’s active lock on the torpedo bay.

She snapped the Starwing round towards him; he broke outside her and slewed round to hold his target- she didn’t think the rebels were ruthless enough for that kind of asset denial, blow one of their own ships. At least not yet, not that soon, but that was what this one was trying to do.

She spun round after him; ended up almost on his wing. He had ceased acceleration, drifting, launchers tracking continuously now, about to volley his remaining torpedo load.

She yawed and snapshot- hit forward in the long thin nose, and the view from her cockpit turned entirely red; then an irregular black shape came out of the fireball.

The last thing she remembered was her cockpit transparisteel starting to fracture.



‘That’s it. We have to win.’ Lennart said, looking at the tumbling pieces of the MC-40 and comparing them with the human crewed ships.

‘Can you imagine what the future would be like with them in government? Everything endlessly debated, if done at all done in the cheapest possible way, with ‘can’t do this’ and ‘mustn’t do that’ and ‘too dangerous’ bleated at every turn- we might as well start painting the stars grey.’

‘Sir, wouldn’t the paint just boil off? I mean…’ Ntevi began. Lennart glared at him.

‘You were intending to report something meaningful before you got sidetracked, weren’t you?’

‘Is the captain the only one allowed to ramble nonsense on the bridge?’ Brenn asked Lennart, not seriously.

‘Of course. Priviledge of rank. Well?’


‘Hyperspace is almost clear, Sir. No high energy contacts, enemy or friendly, civil traffic only. There is one medium-small trace just orbiting- unidentifiable, but estimate is a rebel observer.’ Ntevi reported.

‘Nav, do you think Commander Mirannon’s got around to inventing a way of actually shooting down a ship in hyperspace yet?’ Lennart said, only half jokingly.

‘Sir,’ Brenn replied, ‘would it be wrong of me to start praying that he hasn’t?’

‘Not really, no...Ntevi, keep monitoring that.’ Not unexpected, he thought. The rebels now know that this was a trap on a larger scale than they were expecting, and sending, say, a flight of Starwings to wait ‘under’ it and catch it as it emerged would neither give away or achieve anything.


‘Yes, Sir-Captain, cancel that, distant bow shock. Petty Officer Cormall?’

Cormall reoriented the hyperspace scanner, followed onto the faint glimmer the ship’s sensors had picked up. ‘Yes, sir…evaluation; medium-large, probable light destroyer class, on direct line, running very hot. Flank speed or close to. Too far to be classifiable, estimated arrival- nineteen minutes.’

We’re not expecting further reinforcements, are we, Captain?’ Rythanor asked him.

‘If we are, I don’t want them.’ Lennart said. ‘Get me a type on that ship as soon as you can.’


Lennart turned away to look at the holoimage of the rebel Venator, and monitor the progress of how rapidly it was turning back into an imperial warship. The stormtroopers were doing well; no reason for them not to, what ground troops the rebels had on that thing would have been billeted near the drop bays.

‘Captain, I have an ID. It’s the Dynamic.’

Lennart retrieved the message pad Aleph-3 had handed him- only, what, under an hour ago? It felt longer, always did. Checked the message routing. Hmmm.

The fighter battle- battles, really- were going well; what handful of survivors there were from Comarre- it seemed very long ago- were winning, now.

The single Defender was flying as if possessed, scattering rebels before it, herding them, choosing and swooping on one of them after another, driving them into confusion and chaos.

Penthesilea was suppressed, and the dropships were about to dock on. That promised to be straightforward enough; boarding from one of the lilypads was not simple, but it was fast.

The rebel escape pods- some of them had been ionized and caught, some of them would require a surface sweep.

Lennart had not yet made up his own mind about whether the accusation against him was true. That was what it felt like, a criminal charge. These days it so often was.

It might be, he had to concede that much; well, this would clarify the issue.

Wathavrah counted down to expected emergence; dead on zero, his former exec’s ship, carrying an agent of the privy council, emerged back into realspace.


Lennart awaited the inevitable storm of temper, that should result from open defiance of orders. Mysteriously, it failed to arrive. All that did was a call from Dynamic Actual.

‘That looks like quite a fight. I’m sorry we got here too late for it.’ Was that a message of support? Probably.

‘If we’d have known you were coming, we’d have saved you a little one.’ Lennart said, dryly. ‘You have a VIP?’

‘We have an operative of the privy council on board.’ Dordd said it with as much inflection as he could reasonably add. Stress on the ‘operative’. ‘He’s interested in you. Personally.’


‘Hmm. Regognition in high places.’ Lennart said, skeptically. ‘You’re just serving as transport?’

Dordd’s image looked around the bridge, as if checking to see that it was clear. ‘Special Assistant Adannan has not confided his plans to me, or to any of my command crew.’ Managing to make it clear what he thought of that. And Adannan.

‘Put your people on alert, but- how good are your gunners?’

‘Benchmark three point two.’ Dordd admitted, with a straight face- but how that must have hurt.
‘Then tell them to hold their fire, weapons free for point defence only. Especially on anything they don’t recognise, like my drop ships. And relax; you’re too new in command to be realistically blamed.’

Then again, both of them thought, what was there to guarantee that whoever was doing the blaming had any sense of the realistically possible?

Right now, he was responsible for them but not squarely culpable, and wouldn’t be unless they failed to improve. In three months’ time, whatever was still wrong would be Dordd’s fault, that was fair enough.


If Adannan gave them anything like that kind of time. ‘Where is the Special Assistant to the Privy Council now?’

‘On his way over to you. He has a custom small ship, and likes to arrive unannounced.’

For a brief moment, Lennart seriously thought of a case of ‘mistaken identity’; take the opportunity to blow the thing into tiny little bits and solve most of his problems in one zap.

Only most. Much as he sensed- no, expected trouble, none of that jedi gibberish, there would be far too much time for that later- his ship had managed not to perpetrate any blue on blues so far, politics notwithstanding.

It was a clear record he intended to maintain, and starting with a senior official of his own government was probably bad business from any angle.

That would be something that even he would find hard to explain away afterwards. Perhaps if he understood the situation better, knew who Adannan’s supporters and enemies were, he could make a sensible decision as to whether it was worth the risk. Given that he didn’t, the only reasonable course seemed to be to play it straight-as far as that remained an option.


The Legion was far understrength, as regarded leg infantry- only eighty platoons, and all but two of them were deploying to board, sixty-four on the dropships, fourteen on the dedicated space to space transports and shuttles.

Overstrength, as far as being able to stomp on people’s heads with big metal feet was concerned. The reception party would consist largely of vehicle crew. The official reception party, anyway.

‘Brenn,’ Lennart turned to his navigator, ‘the chief threat is no longer the rebels; it is now senior officials on our own side. I’m going to go and deal with that. You have the conn.’


Well, this was the proverbial ‘it’. Lennart watched the peculiar dart-shaped transport heading towards the bay with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. OB-173 never could tell when he was serious and when he was whistling in the dark.

If Adannan simply was above the law, it would have been easy. He wasn’t; he wielded the power of the law, could use it to gloss over his misdeeds and land hard on everyone else for theirs. Now it was himself under the spotlight.

Why do I hate the idea? He asked himself. It’s not as if I didn’t know how bad things can get. The Empire may be less corrupt and more energetic than the Republic- there’s that- but at some levels, like this Adannan, all that means is energetic corruption.


I didn’t join to be above the law, I joined up to stand by the law, Lennart thought; and that sounds too damn’ much like electioneering for decency.

I was there, kriff it. I know what the force does to a man, I met far too many Jedi indistinguishable from zombies, who had sacrificed their personalities on the altar of Detachment.

The force is a curse, not a gift; it sets them apart and corrodes their ties to the rest of lifekind- that far, at least, Palpatine was right. But is it really only one extreme or the other; demented by rage or demented by indifference? Is there no middle ground, where it is possible to be a man, and sane and healthy?

Assuming that’s what I actually am at the moment, he remembered to add to himself.


Adannan’s transport was on final approach now, preferring to land by repulsors reacting off the ship’s own artificial gravity; the honour guard of stormtroopers came to attention as it settled in the bay. And Mirannon standing by the environmental control systems just in case it came to that.

The vicious little ship landed, powered down, dropped it’s ramp; the crew and officers who had turned out to meet the Privy Council’s agent included some of his inner circle, people Lennart might need later, so he wanted them to get a good look at what he was up against.

The first down the landing ramp was a human male in severely-cut civilian clothes, with at least four guns- Lennart would have expected at least two more, more thoroughly hidden. Just behind him was a woman in a dull black robe; hood pushed back- she looked the exact double of aleph-3, and flaunted it.

Clearly she was there to draw a reaction; Lennart controlled his expression carefully, looked closer. Although obviously a clone, not quite an exact double; they had the differences their experiences had made, and those worried him.

Aleph-3 was a soldier, she had stress lines, worry lines, one or two well healed scars- but they tended to disappear, at least fade into the background, when her face was at rest. A troubled mind and a relatively clear conscience.

Her duplicate was a courtier; she had an over- polished look, and an underlying sly sleekness. Just a hint of something fouler under the mask, perhaps- a touch of rage and desperation. Why did he send her out first? Lennart wondered. Reconnaissance by fire? She looked at him, evaluating- he refused to take the bait.


The others of Adannan’s retinue followed, Lennart looked them over, evaluated them and decided to ignore them for the most part. They were beings, alive and complex, possibly dangerous, probably devious, but important only as mirrors of their master.

In at least two and maybe five cases, that would be their literal master, their owner.

Why would Adannan want to be identified as someone who could not only do that, but flaunt it? Intend to begin by making a bad impression? Get over yourself, Lennart thought, this isn’t all about me- they’re the ones in chains.

Then the man himself emerged. Six centimeters shorter than the Imperial Starfleet officer, and arrogant. Not pompous, he was too malevolent for that, and there was nothing understated about it either.

He expected those before him to bow down and worship, and do exactly as they were told. It would be so much easier if they did, it would save him the effort of coercion.

Despite himself, Lennart was frightened of him. So much for theory, he thought. Time to display some of that political talent Aleph-3, currently vibrosabring her way through bulkheads on the Venator, claimed he had.


‘Special Assistant Adannan.’ Lennart greeted him, not saluting. ‘What brings you to Ghorn?’

There were a number of different ways that the dark jedi could play it. He could be sleekly menacing- looking at him, Lennart would have expected him to enjoy that.

He could be openly aggressive- and Lennart’s contingency plan for that occasion involved a precise application of thirty-five hundred simulated ‘g’, if things looked bad enough that the subsequent consequences could go hang.

He had forfeited any opportunity to be deceptively innocuous, walking around in black robes. Instead, he chose to ruin Lennart’s plan by doing something completely unexpected. He smiled.

There would be a time for threats later; this was politics. ‘Well done, Captain. You took exactly the action I was expecting of you.’

Lennart took only half a second to work that out. ‘The doctrine is known to history- and most naval academies- as the Greater Order, I believe; when objectives and instructions conflict, go back to first principles.’

‘The first principle of the Imperial Starfleet is obedience to orders.’ Adannan said, and officially he was right.

‘The first order is to fight the enemy.’ Lennart said- virtually proclaimed. ‘Doing nothing would have resulted in an Alliance propaganda victory- and losses and casualties on our side.

Proceeding with the ambush as planned was so obviously the only positive thing to do that even a civilian political advisor managed to realise it.’


Serve and volley; now it was Adannan’s turn to think fast about what exactly Lennart meant. Calling the dark force user a mere political advisor was a calculated insult, a bait it would be dangerous to rise to- had Lennart really intended to be that aggressive as an opening move?

Adannan doubted it- but what he was reading from the Captain was something along the lines of ‘Go on. Admit that you operate outside the law- and give me all the reason I need to blow you away like the rabid dog you are.’

Alric Adannan was used to being hated-being able to inspire that in others gave him a warm glow. It was the proof that he was doing his job properly. Being loathed was just about par for the course, too. He did not take well to being despised.

‘You seem to misunderstand.’ Adannan said coldly. ‘I am here with the full authority of the council, to bring this matter-‘ no need to go into too much detail about exactly which matter- ‘to a safe and expedient conclusion. The eye of the Empire is on you.’


‘I never was much good at amateur dramatics.’ Lennart said, changing tone to genial and absurd- largely to cover the engineer officer who muttered something about cataract surgery. ‘Centre stage doesn’t suit…’ he turned that into meaning that the flight bay was not the place for a detailed discussion.

Adannan’s first attempt at that line of argument had failed, but it was still worth pursuing. Force choke him, push him to the ground, humble him, make him grovel in front of his crew- that was what he wanted to do, but Lennart was not humble. He would have to be seduced to the dark side, a direct attack would turn into a brawl.

On his own ship, as the appointed champion of forty-six thousand lesser entities to draw strength from, Lennart might prove to be a formidable opponent. That could simply make it more fun- and there was no sense relying on an incompetent acolyte.

There is the distinct possibility that I could lose, Adannan thought. One does not become strong in the dark side by refusing to confront problems; one does not live long enough to become strong without learning to take every possible advantage.

Perhaps I can use his strategy against him. Rely upon the masks of officialdom, while I learn him, compromise his associates, explore his weak points and ripen him for his fall.


‘We still have two boarding actions and the tail end of a fighter battle to deal with.’ Lennart said.

‘I have summoned the system governor, I will convene a command conference in one hour on board this ship.’ Adannan stated.

‘It would be rather unfortunate for him if there were any fighters left, and a stray X-wing managed to put a proton torp into his shuttle.’ Lennart pointed out. ‘Is that not a factor?’

‘I do have some knowledge of the situation. A little exposure to risk will do him good.’ Adannan stated, a subject they could almost agree on. ‘I and my retinue will be occupying the imperial suite.’

Another good reason to get the bridge tower blown off one of these days, Lennart thought. The throne room was sealed, and should be in good condition- and there was no real way to keep his minions out of the computer systems.


It was stunningly arrogant that he thought he had a right to; stopping him would- first, it would offend him badly enough to precipitate the crisis they both had been skirting the edge of.

Lennart had no real desire to stop him committing lese-majeste, at least not unless he actually meant it, and it was too early to be sure.

An honour guard was arranged- three repulsortank crews. A maintenance detail was also arranged- hand signals to the delegation from the engineering department present- to get there before they did and accomplish any necessary last minute tidying.

Adannan’s transport was moved off the flight lines to a transport maintenance pad, the parade dispersed; Lennart had one more thing to arrange before returning to the bridge.


M’lanth cautiously opened his eyes. He suspected he wasn’t going to like what he saw- and he was right.
There were peculiar grooves in the ceiling, and faint blue shimmers; a ward, of some kind, with isolation fields active and bulkheads ready to drop. Air smelt stiflingly odourless, scrubbed out of all character.

What- the last thing that had happened to him had been his fighter starting to break up around him. From there to a hospital bed, and unless he had been spectacularly lucky, or someone else had on his behalf-

He raised his head, looked around some things both had in common- but the medical officer’s uniforms, the hovering droid nurses, and the stormtrooper guards were a giveaway. Kriff.


‘You must be M’Lanth.’ Someone said. He looked round and saw a handsome auburn- haired woman, in the uniform of an Imperial Starfleet steward.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know putting up a fight qualified me for personal service.’ Then he took in how sharply she was examining him-which was baffling? Why would an intelligence officer disguise herself as enlisted?

‘You’re half right.’ She said lightly. ‘After today, you’re small fry- possibly not even worth the trouble of asking questions of. I used to be on your side.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

He had been caught in the collapsing compensator fields of his fighter as he ejected; he had blacked out almost immediately, and the damage done to him had mostly been put right. He was stiff and sleepy, but that was a lot better than having no spine. His brain was waking up quickly now.

‘What it sounds like; I was a former intelligence officer of the Rebel Alliance.’

‘Former?’ he said, not quite believing it. Not understanding it, either.

‘Complicated story.’ She said, wondering how closely monitored they were. She was as much being tested here as he was.

‘You’re a fighter pilot; stunts and tricks, maybe, but lies aren’t really part of your war, are they?’

‘We listen to subcomm Imperial propaganda from time to time when we’re bored and want something to laugh at- we…’ he trailed off.

‘Eight of them survived. They were lucky. How much of a martyr complex do you have?’ She asked him.

‘Who?’ M’Lanth asked. She handed him a datapad. He read it, briefly.

‘They were your people all along, weren’t they. Plants.’ He meant Aron and Franjia.

Jhareylia nodded. ‘Chosen, ordered out and not very good at it, true- how heavily do you hold that against them? Would you refuse, for instance, a gift from them?’


‘What sort of gift? Lend me an escape shuttle?’ He said, sarcastically.

‘Almost. Why do you think I’m not dead?’ she asked him.

A few highly insulting things occurred to him to say, and he started to open his mouth- then realized where that would go. He didn’t have all that much of a martyr complex, when it came down to it- but perhaps it would be better that way, thinking about what else they could do to him.

‘Because you opened your legs?’ he said, trying for a quick death.


She flushed in anger, especially because it was almost true. She was about to hit him with something when she realized what he was trying to do; the fact that he looked slightly embarrassed saved him.

‘You’re not going to get away that easily. I hated the empire, because of- something- it had done; so I threw myself into the fight against it- so much so that I almost didn’t notice what the Rebellion was doing for me, or wasn’t.

Maybe it is no better on the Imperial side of the divide, but the Alliance used me. Paid me a credit a day and got far more than their money’s worth- the satisfaction of fighting the good fight was supposed to be enough.’

He knew he was supposed to reply at this point; he decided not to, let her continue.

She did. ‘I wanted revenge; blood for blood…and the Alliance never came even close to it. Eventually, what- what wasn’t there any more…faded away to a sort of mental amputation.

I managed a stable doughnut of a life, around a family shaped hole in the center, and I never really stopped to think, until the Empire did for me what the Alliance couldn’t. From their point of view, they enforced the law. From mine, long overdue retribution.

I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to hate any more, other things happened- and here I am.’ That was far from the whole truth, but it was as much as he needed to know.


‘I was raised an anarchist. As far as that makes any sense at all. I would never side with the empire; could never, on the empire’s terms.’ M’Lanth said, determinedly.

‘Doesn’t that very much depend on the Empire? Captain Lennart is not a vindictive man; it is his duty to deal with you as an enemy, but there’s no bile to it, I think he would almost welcome an excuse not to.’

‘Anybody who sides with the forces of evil-‘

‘The Starfleet outnumbers the Alliance fleet- is it fifty or a hundred to one? We, well you, are the odd ones out- so either most of the galaxy is ‘evil’, or it’s the Alliance that needs to explain it’s extremism to the rest-‘ her comlink beeped. ‘Excuse me.’


The medical instrumentation in the ship’s hospital complex was hardened to survive much worse electronic disruption than a mere comlink.

Enough room to hold six thousand and treat six hundred; in the early days of the Empire there had been a few hearts and minds tours around the expansion regions and mid-rim, dispensing medical aid and establishing infrastructure.

Some of the older members of the gun crews had fond memories of open cast mining by turbolaser, but mainly it was deploying solar power and communication satellites, mineral surveys and mapping.

They always had a heavy emphasis on propaganda value, there were very few of them ordered these days and usually only for that.


There were a few ill and injured, but mostly it was empty and being prepared to receive prisoners and wounded stormtroopers. Jhareylia found an empty side ward to answer in. It was the Captain.

‘We have a problem.’ He began, with no preliminaries. ‘I have a particular need for the services of an amateur commando team.’ He was trusting that she was managing to keep this private, but also that she was up for whatever it was in the first place.

‘And this problem would be?’ she asked.

In for a millo, in for a megacredit. ‘We’ve been boarded by a very senior imperial official who makes my skin crawl.’ Lennart admitted.

‘Most of the bad things you used to believe about the Empire, look at him and you can see them walking and talking. His entourage- high grade thugs mostly, at least two of them don’t want to be there. Slaves.

Kidnap them, unchain them, get them talking. I need all the information you can manage to find for me. I’ve no time to give you much in the way of background, I know that doesn’t make your situation any easier, but who else am I going to get to make this happen?’

‘Technically, I’m a spacewoman-recruit-‘ she began.

‘You think this is remotely legitimate? I know it’s a team job, borrow Port-4. If they don’t know what’s going on already via the ship’s grapevine, things are even worse than I thought.’

[Vehrec]

TEST:
Ok, I can post in this thread again. Horray. Port-4 seems to get dragged into everything. I wonder how the other gun crews feel about that. They're probably running sims trying to see if they can pull off half as many tricks. I have to wonder how much cleaning those maintainance boys will do and how much of it will be installing covert snooping gear on their own initiative. I wonder if Alph-3 and her sister will have a catfight. And I wonder if Olleyri will be leaving the ship soon to go teach cadets all he's learned. After a stunt like that, I wouldn't want him on the front lines by any streach of the imagination. I sure hope Franjia isn't dead, just KOed by wreakage.
I find it interesting that the agent holds off. Apparently even an untrained backed by 46,000 living souls bending their minds willingly towards them is a formidable agent. Does this acount for some of Obi-wan and Anakin's success? They were wildly popular durring the war, and I would imagine that more or less the entire galaxy admired them on some level.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Ah, you're back-

I had intended to put replies, etc, in the header to ch 20, but that has grown a little and is going to be later, and larger, than I expected, so perhaps it would be better to do it now.

Pilot survival; the general rule seems to be- and I'm running with it as such- that the larger and heavier a fighter is, the better it is at protecting it's pilot. Partly absorbing punishment, partly holding back catastrophic failure long enough for the ejection systems to work.

The Starwing is one of the largest and heaviest in mainline Imperial service, so Delta and Epsilon squadrons should have a pretty good survival rate, even without character shielding. Which I'm trying not to lay on too thickly, but I'm pretty sure some has crept in. Of course, there is a very large gap between 'dead' and 'fine.'


I modelled Olleyri's actions, although not his reasons, on one Col, later Brigadier-General, James H. Howard; no doubt there's some sort of USAF/USAAC archive I should be checking, but I have this from the autobiography of one of the men who flew with him. He was the commander of a P-51 Mustang squadron.

On one occasion in April '44, escorting a bomber stream, they were attacked from one flank, he gave the order to attack, the squadron jumped the gun and cut across him, forcing him to break to avoid them, and leaving him the only one covering the bombers when the second prong of the Luftwaffe attack appeared, coming up from beneath.

He moved to engage, at odds of thirty-six to one against. The result, unbelievable as it sounds, was six destroyed and six damaged claims, no bomber losses, and a subsequent Medal of Honor. I find it hard to believe he's not better known as a result of this.

Antar Olleyri had no such noble motives, or at least if he did would deny it. He probably is about to hang up his helmet.


Aleph-3 and her sister- initially, they have no sufficient reason to believe they're on opposite sides; it's going to take some time before the bad blood between their principals, and the factor that their experiences have turned them into quite different personalities, pushes them that far apart. Even then, a fair amount of duplicity should occur to both of them before it gets as far as lightsabres at dawn.


Jorian Lennart is in his mid-forties, and dropped out of university to go to a naval academy and get his commission a year before Geonosis; he was a Lieutenant-Commander and exec of a light destroyer at Second Coruscant. If he had joined up after the foundation of the Empire, there's a good chance he would have been deemed politically unreliable and refused a commission.
Which is pretty much what happened to Pellor Aldrem. Lennart has already tried twice to get him a commission, and been refused on the grounds of 'incompatibility with the officer class' and similar political excuses.

The specific benchmark system I'm using has no basis in canon as far as I know, but I find it hard to believe that there isn't something of the sort; scale runs from one to ten with two significant figures, and roughly, 2 is 'untrained civilian could do as well by pushing buttons at random', 4 is satisfactory for fleet service, 6 is considered the standard for regional/oversector forces, 7 or upward is sufficient to be considered for strategic forces like the Death Squadron.

Black Prince's gun crews test out usually between 7.5 and 9.3- with Port-4 occupying the 9.3. This is on a slightly skewed version of the efficiency benchmark, ignoring normal parts like dress and discipline, political reliability. Something to do with making sure they only fire on the actual enemy. With all the not directly performance related elements, the ship comes out at 6.8.

Lennart wants to build an unanswerable case for a field commission for Aldrem, bypassing the political requirement or swamping it with proof of good conduct, and giving him a training position where he can pass on his tricks. Convincing a rebel spy to defect to the Empire was a good start; now if he can manage not to get caught kidnapping part of a dark jedi's retinue, it might even work.


Planting bugs directly is dangerously obvious, if they get caught. I think Mirannon might be able to come up with something a bit more subtle than that.
Adannan's not intimidating Lennart with the dark side has three main causes; one of them is indeed that- as reluctant as he is to admit to himself that he is a force user, and as willing to rationalise it as he is, Lennart's powers could be unusually well developed for an untrained. One of them almost certainly is a form of battle coordination, and similar such- actively drawing on the strength of others- are not unknown.

The second reason is his danger sense, although that had at least as much to do with Mirannon's ability to stop him breathing or turn him into pizza with the ship's environmental controls.

The third is one Lennart would understand; don't spoil the prize. Adannan wants a functioning apprentice in good physical condition, for the sake of his own plans. Subtler, sneakier methods of drawing Lennart to the dark side will do, until an opportunity presents itself.

20 should be up in three or four days' time.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Unbelievable. Actually on schedule, vaguely...

Two headnotes; one, there will occur proof that port-4 are not completely infallible when it comes to gunnery, and that there are good reasons why non-standard modes of fire are non standard;

two, I should apologise in advance to the 501st. Realistically, I know that the whole "Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy" slur is based on a wildly false impression of what average hit rates are, and what happens on screen is as good as can reasonably be expected, even from crack troops; but go with it for a second, because I think I've found an in universe reason. Sorry if this isn't original, but it was just such a silly mental image I had to go with it.


Ch 20

Brenn had little to do except watch the situation develop and hope that Dynamic did nothing silly. Captain Dordd had started to move his ship into line abreast, ceased acceleration half way through the manoeuvre, thought about it, and was moving instead to a support position- behind, ‘beneath’ and inverted with respect to Black Prince.

Sensible and appropriate, but her helm team were manoeuvring the Dynamic as if she was made of eggshells. Her captain might have known what he was doing, but the crew- never mind, Brenn thought, associate with us long enough and something’s bound to rub off. Just as long as it isn’t literally.

He called Engineering. ‘Chief? What’s going on down on the flight bay?’

‘You can stand down the bucket and sponge party.’ Mirannon replied. ‘No entrails, at least not yet. Skipper pushed his luck about as far as it would go, got away with it for the time being- but there’s going to be a round two.’

Brenn thought about that for a moment. ‘How much trouble would you say we were in?’

‘It was a nice, civilised mutual exchange of death threats. I think it’s time to add weapons and combat programming to the maintenance droids, and start running classes in Spanner-Fu again.’


‘Run that one by me again? This is an officer of the privy council we’re speaking of, yes? For right or wrong, he has oversight authority- he is supposed to be on our side. He might not know tactics, but-‘

‘He’s a force user.’ Mirannon said it as if it was a synonym for “scum.” ‘Above the law, and beyond rational argument. I know it’s repeatable but that still doesn’t go far enough to make it respectable. Captain threatened to meet him head on. We’re stuck with him now, until something unforeseen happens.’

Mirannon had all sorts of biologically incompatible things in mind, but the same problem occurred to him as it had to Lennart; explaining it afterwards. He was still thinking about deniability.


‘We’re equipped to act as a squadron flagship, true, but what does he want?’

‘Look at the logcorder when you have time. Nothing good for us. As long as he follows the regulations, we will too, but “if you forget my rank, Sire, I will forget yours”.’ Mirannon quoted. ‘That still gives him effective control.’

‘We were overdue something like this.’ Brenn admitted. ‘I still prefer to pay Fortune off on the instalment plan, not in lump sums- oh, yes, the hyperspace mine. I didn’t realise it was capable of doing real damage.’ He changed the subject to something that he thought might be less worrying.

‘Don’t admit this. Deny all knowledge if asked- but the idea was originally looked at as a security- driven failure mode, for hyperdrive motivators on Imperial warships.’ Mirannon told him.

‘What, you mean a boobytrap?’

‘Intended to be remotely triggered to disable fleeing defectors, keep the Starfleet in line. It was never practical; preparing a motivator to switch into that state already reduces the ship’s hyper performance, in addition to being glaringly obvious.

The only ships that could effectively carry the burden were the ones large enough to have batallion- plus stormtrooper complements anyway.’


‘Yes, thinking about them- you work more closely with them, how are they likely to behave under the circumstances?’ Brenn asked.

‘Their loyalty conditioning defaults to the highest ranking being accessible within the chain of command. That would be Adannan. Don’t ask me to do anything about that- robots I can fix, not biorobots.’

That was probably unfair to the stormtroopers, but there was historic truth in it. A junior officer- even one fairly senior on the absolute scale, like, say, a Jedi General- had control over them only as long as a more senior officer, for instance the Supreme Chancellor, chose to step in, and at that point he could order them to do anything, up to and including designating their former commander as one of the enemy.


Brenn had always wondered about that. Didn’t it make their heads hurt? A normal human, even an Imperial Army or Naval trooper, would- all right, could- argue back, try to reach a higher authority yet, stall, fudge, even ignore orders.

Black Prince’s wardroom was not exactly political, but Lennart insisted that they at least keep current with what was happening in the galaxy. None of them were entirely blinkered, and at least two department commanders made a hobby of dissecting Imperial propaganda.

There had actually been an order to the contrary, forbidding Imperial officers to listen to or quote from certain sources; Brenn wasn’t certain whether it was Empire-wide, or merely some sector governor throwing his weight around, because Lennart had shot the message pad and thrown the bits away.

It was more damning than anything our enemies could say, that we dare not listen to the truth because it might destroy our loyalties.

Lennart believed, or at least had nailed his colours to the mast by publicly stating that he believed, that it was perfectly possible for an intelligent, well-informed being to wholeheartedly support the Empire.

It had been rather difficult for even a Vice-Admiral to openly oppose that point of view. In private cynicism reigned, as usual- but not for press consumption. Anyway, how many dirty secrets could even a galaxy-spanning Empire have? Enough to impose other, similar orders further down the line, anyway.


All right, the depth of stormtrooper conditioning was probably one of them. Navigation picked up all sorts of little odd jobs related to the ship as a ship rather than a fighting machine, and all sorts of little odd facts came with that.

Brenn was probably better informed than anybody except the captain, and he still considered himself basically loyal; but that state of total, and totally transferable, loyalty escaped him.

He simply couldn’t comprehend the sort of mental gymnastics they must have to go through for that to happen.

And, like wondering just how many secrets the empire had, a part of him hoped he never got an answer to those questions.


‘Brenn, are you all right? You zoned out for a second there.’ Mirannon called.

‘Sorry, just- thinking.’

‘I have the general scan, and we’re cycling down to condition-2 here.’ Battle alert, not actively engaged. ‘If you want to send me an inspection scan of Penthesilea and Kestrel, I can start working out detailed repair estimates.’

‘Right, I’ll arrange that, can you give me a rough number now?’ Brenn wondered if they were going to be here- or alive- long enough for it to matter. Which depended on what Adannan wanted with them.


‘Standard sector fleet deepdock, nearest round number; four months on the Recusant, six on the Venator. Should be less for both, but I don’t expect any modern Starfleet repair team to know their way around either of them, so that’s mallet in one hand, manual in the other.’ Mirannon stated.

‘We’ve still got three of those things.’ Brenn pointed out- the ‘scouting element’ of Fleet Destroyer Squadron 851 consisted of Vandal, Venabulum and Varangian, and their fighter screens.

Four hundred and twenty fighters each, many of them clone war and third party relics not retained in Imperial service for any other purpose.

Enough of them were independently hyper capable, and it was a practised manoeuvre; jump in to a system, long range scan for navigational purposes, dispatch a swarm of fighters that covered the system in eyes.

Very little could hide from a comprehensive blanket like that, and most sector groups that still retained them used them similarly, for ‘hot’ recon jobs when there was a very good reason to believe there was something there.

One of them could come in handy- that was assuming they weren’t going to be the ones doing the hiding.


Loyalties were also worrying Jhareylia. She was far from certain where she stood in the hierarchy of the ship, but they hadn’t trusted her with a weapon yet. Which was not that much of a problem considering the people she was on her way to see had lots of them.

Unfortunately, ‘had’ in both the sense of possessing, and in the past tense. She found all of them temporarily stood down and in Subassembly A’s bay, examining status monitors, opening tool boxes.

‘Hallo, Jhareylia.’ Aldrem ducked under an armature, grabbed her and hugged her. ‘What’s up?’

‘Politics, chaos and treachery.’ She said. ‘How was your day?’


‘We…think we might have melted some of the gun tubes.’ Aldrem admitted.

‘ “We?” Nice line in collective responsibility you’ve got there.’ Eddaru Gendrik grumbled, not pausing to look up from a monitor screen- it appeared to be relay data from some kind of RPV actually crawling down one of the barrels.

The fact that they had lost enough of the on mount instrumentation to need it indicated that yes, they were going to find a problem.

‘Yes, as it happens. We share the credit, we share the blame.’ Suluur pointed out.


‘Fine, you can take my share of the kills for my share of the 72-hour exercise, or whatever we get landed with this time- umph. Is there a metallurgist in the gun house?’ Gendrik said, frowning at the image.

‘Deputy Assistant Acting No-one Else Wants the Job.’ Tarshkavik waddled over to the monitor, taking control. ‘It hasn’t just separated out, what’s it doing in the gamma- now there’s excitation for you. Anyone around here still want children?’

‘What have we got?’ Aldrem, who as of a week ago had decided he did, looked over and asked.

‘Broken nuclei, back pressure from the containment field. Congratulations, gang, we’ve achieved transmutation. To crap, probably.’

‘Then get the RPV out before it fuses to the tube wall and makes our lives even harder.’ Gendrik ordered.

‘Harder as in hard rads?’ Tarshkavik said, moving the little, heavily shielded, drone out of the barrel. ‘We can kill that problem, stabilise it using the binding energy tensors to lock them down, but we’re talking dismount, replace and send to Tech Services.’

‘Right, start that and-‘ Aldrem began.


‘We’ve got a slightly more urgent problem.’ Jhareylia told him.

‘The glacis and shields are enough to keep the radiation out.’ Aldrem said, hoping that would be an answer, realising it wasn’t. ‘What sort of urgent problem?’

‘You did notice the other destroyer, and the small black ship?’ she said.

‘Of course. Gunnery control sounded really sceptical when they told us not to shoot it.’ Suluur said.

‘VIP visitor. A dark acolyte of the sith, I think.’ Jhareylia told them.

‘No bloody wonder fire direction weren’t too sure.’ Aldrem said. ‘Never known one of them to be the bearer of good news- do I want to know what this has to do with us, or should I guess the worst?’


‘Before we do something this crazy and stupid,’ Hruthhal, the subassembly chief whose gun mount hadn’t melted, said, ‘can we think about it? Whichever way this goes, he is Authority.

At least Captain Lennart prefers to make us suffer rather than blowing us away outright, but annoying a dark force user can cause huge mounds of possibly terminal crap to fall on us from a very great height.’

‘Why are you so sure we’re about to do something crazy and stupid?’ Aldrem asked him.

‘Track record? Basically, if we do something to this dark lord, we’re backing our own ship against the might of the Empire.’ He didn’t add what he was thinking, which was ‘on the say-so of a very recently ex-Rebel, yet.’

‘I thought we were supposed to be the might of the empire.’ Gendrik said. ‘What exactly do you want to do?’ he asked Jhareylia.

‘Not me; the Captain. And his exact words were, I need all the information you can get for me, who else am I going to get to make this happen?’


‘Anybody? We did a week of basic training. All right, they were twenty hour days, that doesn’t make us commandos. We’re certainly not up to the job of assassinating Mini-Vader. Especially not through the stormtroopers he can’t trust anymore.

Even if we should. Do it openly and we’re renegades, and staging an ‘accident’ with blaster fire doesn’t convince like it used to.’ Suluur said. He at least probably was credible as a commando, and knew how far they fell short.

‘Team, we’re probably over-reacting.’ Aldrem said, hoping he was right. ‘What exactly does the skipper want?’


‘This force user, his name is Adannan, I checked on the way up, has an entourage. At least two of them are outright slaves. Captain Lennart wants them rescued and pumped for all the information they can give us about their master.’ Jhareylia told them.

‘There are enough pilots daft enough for that sort of job, surely? Don’t the flight group have a pool of spares just waiting for someone else to die? Some of them must be stir crazy enough, and their reflexes are probably better.’ Hruthhal pointed out.

‘Kriff.’ Aldrem said. ‘I just thought of a perfect excuse for us to be there.’

‘You don’t want to do this?’ Jhareylia asked him, wondering why she was so surprised. On the face of it, it was a dangerously lunatic idea which any sensible person would want nothing to do with. So why had she instinctively assumed he would go with it?

‘Do I want to offend a dangerous maniac- dark force user, pretty much a given really- who’s quite likely to consider something like that an act of rebellion? No. Do I think we need to- maybe.’


‘We’ve spent a lot of time, and a lot of watts, on people who thought they knew better than the official chain of command. It might be secret from you,’ Gendrik said to Jhareylia, ‘but the biggest single threat to the peace of the galaxy isn’t the Alliance, it’s rogue elements of the Starfleet.

We’ve found ourselves putting down brushfire wars based on hatreds that go back to the dawn of the Republic- and break out again now because we’ve armed them as part of a Sector Group.

Never mind small time Party thugs who should never have been given power in the first place, governors with rushes of blood to the head, would be successors- we’ve taken them all on. I don’t want to find ourselves on that target list.’

‘The question is,’ Tarshkavik asked, ‘who’s off reservation, him or us?’

‘What do you mean, maybe?’ Fendon asked Aldrem.

‘Depends what he intends to do to us. I take it he and the captain didn’t get on?’ Suluur replied instead.

‘Captain Lennart said not.’ Jhareylia pointed out. ‘If you can access the monitors?’

‘Fairly easy. Only difficulty is deciding which fake code to use, who to blame.’ Suluur said.

From main turret control, he proceeded to do that- typing it in extra- fast so that Jhareylia wouldn’t recognise it was the executive officer’s code he used. They watched the security footage.


‘Looks like a nasty piece of work.’ Hruthhal admitted. ‘Still don’t want to cross him, though.’

‘What’s that about obedience to orders?’ Fendon inquired.

‘Never mind the words, they’re both being diplomatic. Look at the body language.’ Jhareylia hadn’t seen it before either.

‘He comes in ready to trample over people, skipper stands up to him, they lock horns once then both back down- why do I suddenly feel between a rock and a hard place? There’s going to be more to this, I know it.’ Gendrik said.

‘Slavery is actually illegal, isn’t it?’ Fendon asked.

‘Yes, but you can try a citizens’ arrest on a dark lord if you like, just don’t expect us to back you up- I count three in robes, two gunmen, one of them alien, one noncombatant- slicer type?- and two twi’lek slaves.’ Aldrem assessed. Three to one odds in their favour. Theoretically.

‘He’s going to miss anyone we walk off with, what about bagging the slicer?’ Gendrik said. ‘Theoretically. Much as I’d hate to get caught, I’d hate it even more for a low value target.’

‘I think Captain Lennart wants this to look like a deniable escape rather than an obvious kidnapping.’ Jhareylia said.


‘Team. In all seriousness, now.’ Aldrem called them to order- or, depending on what happened, possibly to chaos. ‘Do we take the risk and go and do this, or not?’

‘Does it really need all of us?’ Fendon asked.

‘Considering we’d all be complicit, I’d hate to get left behind and be blamed in absentia, so-‘ Tarshkavik decided.

‘Good. Someone’s going to have to unleash the poor twi’lek, and I’d have to have to do it all by myself.’ Jhareylia said.

‘Well, I’m going.’ Aldrem said, and Jhareylia smiled at him.

‘This had better be a kriffing good plan.’ Hruthhal said, admitting he was in.



The boarding action was almost trivially easy, compared to what the Legion were expecting. In Alliance service, such large warships usually operated below establishment on crew, and well below on ground troops. They didn’t have so many that they could afford to leave them lying around.

In accordance with established doctrine, it was a multicentric attack- with sufficient superiority of numbers, inflict chaos by attacking from all sides at once, push in on an easier line of approach and make the defender need to counterattack you, tactically defend and inflict losses while the other attack groups moved forward in their turn.

Operational-offensive, tactical-defensive; they had the time to do it properly, now the ship was no longer likely to detonate.

Immediately behind the line infantry were sapper-slicers to sieze control of the ship’s systems and prevent them being used against the boarders, and disarm any boobytraps; light repeaters up front for bursting through barricades, heavy repeaters bringing up the rear to hold territory taken.

Scout teams raced ahead, through air vents, cable runs and machinery spaces, lift shafts and crawlways to hit the nerve centres of the ship; the main targets were the bridge and computer core.


Hunter Team Omega-17-Blue were not alone in doubting the wisdom of that. Not that they were not viable targets, but that at this stage in the larger operation- which was variously nicknamed Peek-a-Boo, Blue Meanie, Teacup Storm- there might be a distinct advantage in not being too well informed.

They were reserve and support for this one; the last main phase of clearance, they had hacked and blasted their way into the base of the Venator’s bridge tower, and were waiting to reinforce either of the primary attack groups.


Each of the main assault parties consisted of a boarding platoon led by a specialist team- Omega- 09-Blue, whose normal duties were planetary search and rescue, and Omega-03-Indigo, who tended to do the kind of job that even stormtroopers didn’t talk much about. Political assassination and the tactical application of blame- Destabilisation operations.

Lennart gave the Indigos relatively little to do, and they were in quite a bloodthirsty mood- they had more flame projectors, explosive flechette launchers and gas grenades than was strictly establishment. They were going after the ship command bridge module; with luck, they might leave a prisoner alive.

09-Blue would sieze the core then divert to the fighter control bridge. It was giving those there time to prepare, time to destroy what information they held- which could be an under-the-table objective, not to find out too much.

It would perhaps have made more sense if 17-Blue and platoon AC11 had gone straight for the fighter control bridge, but apart from anything else, this was a central point that it was logical to take and hold.
Two platoons of the naval batallion- not navy troopers, Stormtroopers who specialised in ship to ship boarding action- would move in to hold the area if they had to move out to support 09-Blue or 03-Indigo.


In the meantime, they had set up and were guarding an aid station in one of the conference rooms, and the medical officer, who had no-one to treat yet, was passing the time by talking to 17-Blue.

‘It must be terrible.’ Aleph-3 said. ‘Actually wanting to have nothing to do.’

‘The Army functions with conscripted civilians, or pays their way through medical school on condition of a term of service; but we couldn’t have that in the Corps. It has to be organic; within the Family, you might say.’

‘Then- how did you get to be a medical officer?’

‘I volunteered for the Stormtrooper Corps, and I was half-way through training as a rifleman when someone in planning took a look at my aptitude scores, decided they needed a surgeon and I would do.’ The medical officer said wryly.

‘You’re not cloned? It must be nice to have parents.’ Aleph-3 said, not entirely sure whether she meant it.

‘At least a third of the first generation of recruits to the Corps were running away from their families in some way. I think a good many of them thought how nice it must be to be a clone with a billion brothers.’ He understated.


‘In some ways it’s our job to understand, and all of us can pass for normal, but that is acting, it’s putting on a mask and conning the average citizens into seeing what they want to see.

We’ve never been able to not stop doing it, we don’t know what it’s like to have to be that way- you must deal with average people more than most.’ Aleph-3 didn’t quite manage to say what she meant, but he knew.

‘Training was interesting; there are enough of us now to keep it all in house, but I was one of the first generation. I went to a regular medical school, with thousands of junior doctors who knew that our group- twenty- were going to be combat surgeons. They hardly knew how to deal with us; at first, they settled on fear.’

‘I would have thought there would be a lot of curiosity in the mix?’ Aleph-3 asked, not really surprised.

‘There was, but in a lot of ways we were seeing them at their worst. Very high standards were required of them, and they were all in competition with each other;

we saw them at their most ridiculous and childish, as they played silly student games to escape from the pressure- and at their most ruthlessly backstabbing, as they tried to eliminate their rivals.

We were all young troopers, proud of our status, too raw to hide our contempt for their behaviour. We had a lot of growing up to do, too.’


‘So how did the situation develop from there?’ Aleph-3 asked, trying to picture it.

‘Awkwardly.’ The surgeon said. ‘We were trained to keep going, to be merciless to the enemy but even more so to ourselves, never rest, never count the cost, never turn aside until the job is done. It turned out to be the best preparation we could have had.

Part of being womb-born is to almost never be certain. We have the fog of war, they operate under the fog of life; never sure what’s going to happen to them next, always conditional, always dodging; they have very few simplicities, and most of those are when something has gone catastrophically wrong.

There’s another side to that, but- we gradually began to pass them by. We were less intelligent, and probably less temperamentally suited, but sheer relentlessness served us well.

As we moved up the class ranks, some of them resented us, tried to pull us down, trap us into making mistakes. Others overcame their fear, started coming to us for help and advice.

It was fascinating- we were doing our best to behave properly, not letting our opinions interfere with our duty, but we hardly needed to. They projected it onto us anyway. Did you get the same tactical training we did?’

‘No.’ Aleph-3 answered. ‘Basic self defence, staff-officer and special role specific. Advanced close combat and sniper-scout later.’

‘So you did get the Second Law of Armed Combat drilled into you.’

‘Act on the basis of what you deduce from what you see, not on the basis of what you want and expect to see? Of course.’


‘No-one’s yet been honest enough to write down a full version of the Laws of Social Combat, but I expect that one of them is going to be that you win by imposing your own version of the laws.

In all the chaos of life, they want answers to the unanswerable. Given that there aren’t any, they win by getting everyone else to agree they’ve won by subscribing to the same outlook- overcoming others’ skewed, incomplete view of the world with their own.

You’d be amazed how easy it is to be somebody completely different, just by having someone different look at you; it’s fascinating how much people can read into a rigid-faced helmet. If I was issued a zoo, I could fill it with what they thought we were.’ The surgeon- lieutenant said.


All right, she thought, turnabout is fair enough. Now she was the converted being preached to. Admittedly, she had rarely put it as efficiently. They were outsiders, beings with clear purpose, straight lines in a world of scribbled confusion.

Which begged the question; why was she trying so hard to turn into one of the scribbles? Because it mattered, who got to tell who else what to do? Because she was half way there already?

She strongly suspected that the donor for her own clone line had been an undiagnosed force-sensitive. As permissive as the shaping and filtering process had been, perhaps a shred of that had leaked through?

‘What do you know about- aging?’ She asked.

‘Planned Obsolescence, you mean? I was involved in that, I was a latecomer to the program. There were no complaints, at the time. The war was over, the Army of One Man had served it’s purpose and it was time to fade away. At least, that was the theory.

When the confederate remnants refused to lie down and die, and the peace of the Empire turned out to be more difficult to establish than the estimates expected, we realised we would be needing them as cadre for a long time yet. We experimented, trying to slow down and normalise the process.

With- not complete success. There have been a couple of embarrassing incidents where the Corps did not do as well as expected; the Reslian and Erhynradd incidents for one. Largely because the troopers involved had a biological age in their fifties.

The best are usually the worst, refusing to give up however creaky they get; add in the effects of stress, strain and injury and there are some of Vader’s Fist more fit to ride a zimmer frame than a dropship. The alternative clone lines stabilise more easily than the core template, if that’s what you were worried about.’


‘Selfish of me,’ she admitted, ‘but I was. Is it wrong, to want to live?’

‘Better than wanting to die.’ The surgeon said. ‘I presume the standard arguments have worn thin?’

‘We are special operations troops.’ Aleph- said. ‘Our arguments come in for more wear and tear than most.’
He was about to reply when there were shuffling and dragging sounds from the corridor ahead.

‘Ah, something to do. I think that’s your cue, as well.’ Eight stormtroopers- two of them wounded and being held up by another two, four of them carrying wounded rebel prisoners.

‘Team, Platoon, make ready.’ Aleph-One ordered. They did.

‘Make sure you disarm all the rebels before sending them back. Holding my own intestines in with one hand and resealing the patient’s with the other is not an experience I want to repeat.’



Damage control bunker dorsal-140 was much larger than it needed to be to fulfil it’s stated duties, which were nominally maintenance and repair of the main sensor, bridge and gunnery control data systems. That was due to it’s secondary role as a survival shelter in the most populous part of the ship.

Lots of electronics, lots of spare space, enough subdivision to be getting on with; it was the perfect place to mount a surveillance operation from.

It was on Lennart’s way back to the bridge, so he met the chief there.

‘Gethrim, I hope whatever you’re doing isn’t potentially incriminating.’ He said, after the chief had waved him into the bunker.

‘Yes, that was one idea I had to sit on. It’s exactly the sort of thing he would check for, bugging the Imperial suite means the consequences of getting caught acquire an extra layer of unpleasant, and I think I can manage to be just a little bit subtler than that.’

The chief led the captain back into the bowels of the chamber, through a locked door to a small data station.


Lennart looked at the on screen image, and got it at once. ‘That is elegant. Does it work?’

‘So far, yes.’ Mirannon said. ‘Resolution- sky’s the limit. Given tuning time, we should be able to pick up individual brain cells firing. Assuming in his case that they do.’

‘Through all that background hash? I’m impressed.’

The Chief Engineer’s plan was simplicity itself. He regretted that he had an audience who knew most of it already, and who he wouldn’t be able to show off explaining to.

With so many energy processes, never mind multiple overlapping force fields, starships were electronically noisy places. It was one of the reasons the main sensor units were in domes at the top of the ship, so they could be placed on insulated mountings.

Other noise reduction measures were also taken; chiefly waveguides to channel away- and as far as possible recycle- waste energy, and recording and filtering out stray electromagnetic waves.

As sensitive as the main sensor system had to be for clarity over distance, if a source of interference was not baffled, but instead actively searched for, it was childishly easy to isolate and identify.


The best part was, Black Prince’s sensor system was non-standard. A relic of having a sensor dome shot off eight years ago; it had been replaced with a dome mount forward of the bridge module.

Then the wreckage had been cleared, and the dome replaced properly, but the field expedient had never been removed.

There were enough custom solutions and workarounds in the control software for the triple array to make the tap inordinately difficult to spot, impossible to assign blame over. The result was possibly the most expensive microphone in the galaxy.


‘You realise this verges on negligence. Failing to carry out proper noise reduction and compensation.’ Lennart chuckled slightly. ‘How much difference will this actually make to our scan radius?’

‘Oh, we should lose…roughly two kilometres off our standard benchmark against an absolute magnitude fifteen target.’ The benchmark was in the thousands of light years.

Large enough that even in space background clutter became an issue, large enough to pull in signals to make a mockery of any kind of news restriction. ‘Do we have any idea what he wants yet?’

‘Amongst other things, apparently an apprentice.’ Lennart admitted.


‘All right,’ Mirannon said after a second’s thought, ‘this is the plan; we fake your death in some embarrassing and ridiculous way-‘

‘Does it have to be embarrassing? I always wanted to be a hero.’ Lennart said, part appalled, part amused.

‘Trust me; there has to be an element of farce in this for it to work. You croak in some sort of hideous
noodle incident that doesn’t just spoil, positively throws a yellow snowball in the face of, your reputation for foresight and luck. That discredits you as a potential force user, we literally laugh that off.

Has to be messy enough to be a closed casket funeral, though. All right, we’ve got enough people with sick enough senses of humour to run with that.

What’s left for Adannan to do? He wanders off pursuing whatever demented objective he has in mind, if he really does think you have some kind of collective influence power-‘

‘I do.’ Lennart said quietly. ‘It’s called being the captain. Go on.’

‘Losing that means we can credibly slip far enough below our usual standards to make it make sense for him to go and bother someone else. You’re discovered in the bilges, not quite dead and with no memory of the incident, a couple of months later; problem solved.’

‘You’re not entirely serious, are you?’ Lennart asked, not seriously.


‘On one thing only; I’d rather get this sorted out with a splatter of custard than a splatter of blood. Playing it straight, at the very, very least, we have to prove that he’s lost the plot, and waste him.

He’s properly trained, he won’t make silly mistakes, that’d take some doing. Then hope we get believed afterwards. None of which is sure, certain or painless.

At the worst, we get Nar-Shaddaa’d along on some mad-eyed quest to assassinate and replace Darth killed-more-Imperial-officers-than-the-Rebellion-has Vader, or the Emperor himself, while a real security problem, Ord Corban, goes unattended.’ Mirannon ranted.

‘Are you sure you’re not the one with the foresight?’ Lennart said.



The medical bay was filling up rapidly. The returning lilypad dropships and transports carried a few of the more seriously wounded stormtroopers- minor wounds dealt with in house- and most of the prisoners needed some form of medical attention. That, and a few ejected pilots.

Most of the bomb wing was recalled to rest and re-arm; that included Epsilon. From the purely military viewpoint, it had been a good day- three fighters down, minor dents on a few more, for at least fifteen kills.

No more than Olleyri was claiming on his own, mind you. Aron shut his engines down, popped the cockpit release and vaulted out in one continuous motion, and sprinted for the med bay.


He had seen Franjia’s fighter take a debris hit- six proton torps detonating less than half a kilometre away, with an X-wing to use for shrapnel, small wonder. Her starwing had seemed to come out of it intact, but then he had realised it wasn’t under control.

After a moment of pure panic, he had recovered his composure, called in the search-and-rescue, and desperately tried not to think too hard about it as he stayed on mission, hunting down the rest of the Alliance remnants.

It was over now, Alpha and Gamma were flying CAP, Beta were on deep patrol scouting along the rebel line of approach- in this case, the mean line of approach, considering the evasion- and he had nothing to do other than go and see.

They were not happy to see him; casualties of all kinds coming in thick and fast, human and droid doctors working triage as fast as they could. The med bay was above and between the two landing bays, below and forward of the superstructure.

Casualties were shuttled up to it on a cycling lift- Aron rode up with one batch of fifteen rebels, one half-choked from capture foam inhalation, two with sub-lethal gas exposure, most of the rest with broken bones from rifle butts, or blaster wounds.


The two guards assessed him and said nothing; when he got out of the elevator, a medical droid zoomed up to him and shoved a scanner in his face. ‘Come on, come on, where does it hurt, snap it up, lots to do, others waiting.’

‘Your bedside manner stinks. I’m looking for someone, just admitted-‘

‘There’s nothing wrong with you, why are you wasting my time?’ the droid beeped indignantly.

Aron grabbed it’s probe arm. ‘Who waved this at who else? A droid’s more likely to remember; fighter pilot, female, flight lieutenant’s rank, one metre eighty-seven, blonde-‘

‘Too busy. People to see to, let me go-‘

‘How much help are you going to be to them if you make me rip your arm off and beat your braincase in with it?’ Aron snarled.

‘My arms have been reinforced to deal with injured Wookie prisoners.’ The droid said, with a slight trace of smug.

‘You think that’s going to stop me trying? Where is Franjia?’

‘Let me think.’ The droid beeped a little. ‘Accessing- theatre nine.’


Aron let it go and ran- hurdling two stretchers and sidestepping another- into the medical complex.

Immediately left and right, ramps and lift shafts, up to high dependency, down to the main wards. Further in on the left, outpatients, on the right, security and medical monitoring. Straight on to the operating theatres.

Two stormtrooper guards stopped him, politely but firmly; he thought of trying to barge past them, realised they would just stun him or punch him out.

The walls weren’t transparisteel, some close cousin with controllable opacity- he could almost see in, could make out fuzzy shapes through the sepia tint.

A junior doctor- sterilisable plastic medical gown with lieutenant’s insignia pinned on- came out, took his mask off, leaned against the wall. He was very pale.


Aron grabbed him by the arms. ‘How is she?’

‘Not good.’ He said, shaking his head. ‘You are?’

‘Her squadron commander...and her friend. What do you mean, not good? Can I see her?’

‘Exactly what happened to her?’ the young doctor was already tired and strained.

‘Hit an X-wing at point blank, it’s warhead load went up.’

‘Yes, that fits. It would be- safer if you don’t go in. You’re not sterile. That fits. It was essentially a debris injury; the blast dropped the shielding and a bit of the wreckage hit her cockpit. Part of the gun module.’

Aron suddenly thought of their squadron adjutant. Combusting blaster gas had been responsible for his wounds, hadn’t it? ‘How bad?’

‘The helmet stopped her face melting, and she did exactly the right thing- vented the cockpit to vacuum for ten seconds, blew away the hot gas and cooled the debris, then restored pressure.

Third degree burns across most of her chest, most of her ribs broken and one lung, we may need to replace that, but it could have been a lot worse.’

‘Galactic spirit…’ he said, not sure if it was a curse or a prayer. ‘Will she fly again?’


‘She’s had a severe trauma, and she’s in no state to be rushed.’ The doctor said, sternly.

‘Doc, when it comes to trauma- she lost somebody recently, somebody personally close. Flying helps her focus, helps her maintain. She- needs to be able to do that.

The last thing that would be good for her is sick berth time to do nothing but brood. Maybe it is selfish to want her out there covering my back, but you need to fix her. She needs to be able to do that.’ Aron said.

The doctor was about to protest, realised how little effect it would have. ‘We’ll do what we can.’

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

New chapter- and I've re-paragraphed the first six, so they should follow. dark Jedi are proving easier to write than I had thought; for Adannan, I pretty much started with the cartoon stereotype- then pictured a man who knew it perfectly well, and intended to use that misconception like a matador's cloak.
A couple of segments of which there is clearly more to come; the catfight should begin next chapter.


Ch 21


‘So, what is this amazing infallible master plan?’ Tarshkavik, in ordinary uniform instead of his clumping survival suit, asked.

‘Oh, good, no pressure.’ Aldrem replied.

‘Does it have anything to do with these boxes? We’re not going to crate them up and carry them off, are we?’ Gendrik asked; he was lugging a heavy plasteel crate, portable in the military sense- it had a handle.

‘Is that how you would do it?’ The turret commander asked.

‘Um, Pel?’ Jhareylia asked. ‘This plan does exist, doesn’t it?’

‘Ish. Basically, we have a high level VIP on board, so we are going to survey the tower, with these crates of scanning gear, for places where we can afford to mount additional point defence turrets.

We are going to be wandering all over the place, lurking from time to time, and making loud, strange electronic noises.’ Aldrem revealed.

‘Sounds like an average night out on the town.’ Suluur said.

‘Sounds like a very useful cover; I like it.’ Jhareylia said.


‘You’d like it less if you had to carry the scanner.’ Gendrik grumbled.

‘Switch the kriffing thing into travel mode.’ Tarshkavik advised.

‘Ah.’ Gendrik managed to find and activate the repulsor unit. ‘I didn’t know it had one of those.’

‘The stormtrooper teams that usually use these enjoy lifting heavy weights. They also have armour, so it doesn’t hurt as much when they drop it on their toes.’ Suluur pointed out, with slight sarcasm.

‘Why does a scanning unit, a highly sensitive item of equipment, have to be so heavy?’ Fendon wondered.

‘It isn’t; what’s heavy is the armoured shell and the shock absorbers, which are there to protect the sensitive parts from the abuse it wouldn’t get as much of if it was easier to handle.’ Aldrem pointed out.


‘Speaking of easy to handle; these twi’lek. We don’t know the first thing about them, do we?’ Hruthhal said. ‘They could leap into our arms, they might be psychonditioned to die before they let anyone set them free.’

‘True.’ Aldrem agreed. ‘The only way we’re going to find out is to try it and see.’ Now that he was committed, he felt strangely light-headed, free from worry; all that was left was to make it happen.

‘That’s why you’re carrying the light repeater?’ Tarshkavik asked, referring to the gun Aldrem was cradling.
‘No, I’m carrying it because it makes me feel better. I can use the sight unit to estimate fields of fire, if anyone asks- and I’m fairly sure it can be set for stun.’ Aldrem said.

‘No, it can’t.’ Suluur pointed at the fire selector.

‘Oh.’ Aldrem shrugged. ‘Flesh wounds?’


They reached the turbolift cluster at the base of the bridge tower; with the line infantry deployed, internal security was short of bodies.

In this situation, they tended to become external security- protecting points where the ship could be boarded from, and choke points. There was a squad at the lift shafts.

Aldrem presented his rank cylinder; the stormtroopers, if they queried it at all, would have been told by Gunnery Control that it was legitimate. Jhareylia tried hard not to strangle him.

‘The obvious places to begin,’ Aldrem said on their way up in the turbolift, ‘are the outer surfaces of the tower. We may as well start at the top.’


‘There might well be such a thing as beginner’s luck, even in this, but there’s an obvious logical flaw in a covert op where you have to begin by handing over ID.’ Jhareylia said, skeptically.

‘You might not believe it from looking at the outside, but we are fairly competent.’ Aldrem said. ‘Covert was always a pipe dream.

Spacewalking- through active shields, into the main sensor picture, looking like a stray boarder- even worse. A credible reason for being there, and officially busy doing something else, is the best we’re going to get, really.’


The Imperial suite, as built into every line destroyer or better, was usually a ten thousand cubic metre boondoggle.

Palpatine seldom travelled, and when he did was equally likely to play the saviour of the galaxy, trusting in his popularity with his people on board a luxury liner, or ride the biggest, heaviest-gunned battlewagon available in Oversector Imperial Centre.

That, or he did so invisibly. There had been rumours about cloaking devices for decades; in the old Republic fleet, they would have been pointless- the authorities didn’t need them and the criminals usually couldn’t afford them.

In the Clone Wars, the Confederation were mostly too cheap to bother and the Republic…well. The rumours had to come from somewhere, after all.


Generally, some high level official or agent would use the suite, if anyone did. Thousands of destroyers had it installed, locked it down and might as well have thrown away the key. This was the first time anyone had ridden in Black Prince’s since she had been built.

The maintenance team who got there with maybe five minutes in hand cracked the door seals, gagged on the stale air, looked around and issued a collective chorus of ‘Oh stang.’

No penetrating damage; but sheer neglect and twenty years’ abuse to the ship around it had left it verging on uninhabitable. The independent life support appeared to have failed, that was the first thing that would need putting right.


Twelve men, a standard damage control party under a junior lieutenant, with a cross-section of skills. One man hour to exercise them in. Not nearly enough.

The sound of matching feet interrupted them before they had got more than cracking the APU and life support units, testing the wiring and detaching the filters for inspection.

The lieutenant called them to attention, thinking, we’re in trouble; there was a brief pause, then Adannan himself leapt into the room, lightsaber flourishing and glaring crimson, the huge thug on his right, carbine in one hand and vibro-axe in the other, the thin thug on his left with two disintegrator pistols drawn and ready.

They were expecting assassins, a secret Rebel cell, a rival agent. What they got was a dozen spacemen in dusty overalls, loosely drawn up at attention; who panicked.

One fainted, another cowered in a crouch with his arms over his head, two screamed, most took a step back, the lieutenant started quivering uncontrollably.


They deserve to be dismembered anyway for being such cowards, Adannan thought, recognising what he was, or wasn’t, up against.

‘My lord,’ his female aide said from behind him, where she was covering his back, ‘They’re worthless. If you want to be judged by the quality of your enemies, this would not be good for your reputation.’

In the time he squandered paying attention to her, he could have- actually, that was an idea. ‘Say that again, and I will test how many of these interlopers I can hack down in the time I wasted listening to you.’

The tech crew were huddling together; Adannan noticed one of them gripping a hydrospanner. At least one of them wasn’t completely useless. ‘Sir, we’re-‘ their officer began, stuttering too badly to speak clearly.

‘Lord Adannan,’ a voice he didn’t recognise said, ‘that would be- counterproductive.’

Adannan turned round; it was one of the stormtrooper detail, a sargeant-commander by the insignia.


‘I didn’t ask for your opinion.’ Adannan snapped at him.

‘I know, Sir, but I can recognise a broken life support unit when I see one.’ The sargeant-commander said. ‘The tech crew also haven’t had time to code the door to you yet, Sir.’

Adannan took a deep breath. Let the red mist clear.

‘Why is that important, Sargeant?’ his aide asked, before Adannan could vent his irritation.

‘I thought you might be interested in breathing, ma’am.’

‘Explain.’ Adannan ordered.

‘The module internal life support is down; disassembled for repair. The connections to main life support are also inoperable. The security systems don’t know that you specifically are supposed to be here.

When the blast door closes, you will be in a sealed chamber with no air and no exit, Sir.’ There was just a tiny part of the sargeant-commander wondering if he should have kept his mouth shut.

Adannan hefted his lightsaber, looking sceptical.

‘Sir,’ the sargeant said, ‘exactly who do you think that door was meant to keep out?’


The dark jedi thought about it for a second, then roared with laughter. Of course security on one of Palpatine’s boltholes would be intended to resist his own nosy apprentices.

‘You. Lieutenant. Come here.’ Adannan decided to settle that first. The young junior lieutenant obeyed- after one of his team whispered in his ear ‘Might as well get it over with, sir, hanging back’ll only make it worse.’

He took a step forwards- Adannan’s lightsabre lashed out, slicing through his lower jaw. He fell to the ground, burbling wildly and trying to hold it on.

‘Ahhh.’ Adannan sighed. ‘I always feel vaguely disappointed when I have to do that. Maiming and mutilation should be a hobby and relaxation in themselves; it feels like cheating when I actually make it serve a useful purpose.

Next time,’ he addressed the writhing junior lieutenant, ‘report quickly and clearly; then when I do gut you, it will be for a genuine error rather than a failure to communicate.’


Obviously, he wasn’t going to get an acknowledgement.

‘You, Sargeant-‘ he turned to the leader of his escort detail.

‘DM343, Lord Adannan.’ The sargeant-commander replied.

‘You seem unusually well informed.’

‘I’m a tanker, Sir, I work with independent closed-environment systems. We were also briefed on security for the Imperial suite.’ The sargeant realised he had said too much when Adannan’s eyes lit up and the lightsaber tip pointed towards him.

‘When?’ Adannan growled.

‘In the turbolift on the way up, Sir, it was downloaded to us.’ The sargeant said very quickly.


Not foresight at all, then, just good staff work. There was something else, perhaps even further wrong; the stormtrooper’s reactions on being threatened. They were far too…normal.

Line One, Mod One stormtroopers had been near- mindless, until their experiences had individuated them. Tremendously active subconscious of course, perception and reflex, but they had to think before they could remember how to talk at times.

This one, and he seemed to be typical of the rest, had been given entirely too much leeway to think about his tasks.

It said a lot for Lennart’s influence, even untutored, that he could even begin to break down that depth of conditioning.

Either that or his personality cult, which if he had done this without benefit of the force- or with unwitting benefit- made him a major security threat. He could sense the sargeant thinking “how do I get out of this without getting him mad at me, too?”

‘Sargeant, this place is clearly a mess. Where were you expecting to give us?’ The aide asked.

‘This ship has limited flag accommodations; there or the captain’s suite, ma’am. Permission to proceed about our duties, Sir?’

‘No.’ Adannan said. Even his own retinue looked surprised.


‘The rest of you, snap to it. And someone take that snivelling thing away.’ He pointed with the lightsabre at the lieutenant, still whimpering. ‘You, sargeant, have been allowed to think. That is not an approved activity for beings of your kind; it can land you in all sorts of trouble.’

‘My lord,’ the aide put one hand on his shoulder- of the arm not holding the lightsabre, she wasn’t that crazy. ‘All sargeant DM343 did was to protect you from-‘ your own impetuosity, she realised, the saying of which would almost certainly get him, and possibly herself, killed; ‘- difficulties.’ She finished, lamely, knowing Adannan could fill in the blank for himself.

‘Then you-no,’ he turned to his other robed follower, still with the drawn vibroaxe, ‘you, Banaar, talk to the sargeant about his bad habits. Ren,’ she hated that shortening of her name, ‘find Watcher 22173. Get the whole story.’

The aide, Aleph-3’s twin, had no legal name; she simply preferred the archaic Galactic Standard personal name of Laurentia. Naturally, her master declined to call her by it most of the time.

She nodded, realised the suite’s data systems were equally unlikely to be functioning, left the suite in search of a working computer node that would understand her priviledged access codes.


The force works in many ways, from the extremely blatant to the imperceptibly subtle. One of those subtle effects was in play; the choice of personnel to carry the maimed Lieutenant away couldn’t have been better, from a certain point of view.

The two Twi’lek slaves, used to doing ugly, messy jobs, assumed that they would be ordered to do it. They picked up the young officer, one under each arm, helped him hold his jaw on with a lekku, carried him out and set off for the medical complex.

Adannan himself left the rest of his party to settle themselves in, the menials to do the menial labour, and headed to the ready room, where he planned to begin asserting his authority.


Captain Lennart was there already, apparently reliving, in fact reviewing the battle. He was behaving with slightly more decorum; he had his feet propped up on the next chair rather than the table.

‘I was impressed that the Imperial suite had remained untouched. Other men in your position, with your record, might have started having delusions of grandeur.

Begun to think that they deserved to be rewarded more highly for what they had done- and resolved to take it rather than wait for it to be given them. Did that never cross your mind, Captain?’ Adannan probed.

‘Call me an old softie if you like,’ Lennart began, ‘but I do hold to something vaguely recognisable as a variation on the Tarkin Doctrine. Sometimes, less really is more.’


‘I find that difficult to believe.’ Adannan said, realising he had to tiptoe around criticism of the doctrine that had caught the Emperor’s imagination. Assuming that he hadn’t given Tarkin the idea in the first place.

‘You have done more damage to the Empire’s enemies than many men of greater rank and reputation. And after all, what is the ability to inspire fear but a form of reputation?’

‘I had a bet with the senior wardroom,’ Lennart said, ‘on the subject of the Death Star’s lifespan. The question was, how long would it be before one of those who fell under it’s shadow- the planetary and sector governors, the moffs and the admirals- managed to sneak an inside man on board to sabotage the thing? Fear can be a very blunt instrument; friendly fire prone, too.’


Adannan barely heard the last part; his mind was too busy boggling. The sheer level of cheek and sideways thinking that involved- analytical and unbelievably frivolous at the same time- how in the name of the Force did such a creature survive in an Imperial uniform? Perhaps he himself was the answer to that.

There was also the uncomfortable fact that Lennart had a point. Famously, the rebel ‘princess’ Leia Organa had claimed Tarkin was there to hold Vader’s leash- that much of the incident had leaked out.

Typical Alliance inaccuracy, the truth was closer to being the other way around. The Dark Lord had been there to stop Tarkin if he had started thinking that he, Tarkin, might look good himself in an Emperor’s robe and cowl, and Coruscant might look good in the Death Star’s gunsights.

Under other circumstances, it might have been the elder rather than the younger Skywalker firing a torpedo down an exhaust port.

Then again, if any of the rebels- other than a few special ops maniacs- actually understood the inner workings of the Empire, they might start being able to exploit them effectively.


‘I am beginning to understand,’ Adannan brought himself under control and said, ‘how it is you managed to remain in your present rank for ten years.’

‘Which part, the not being promoted or the not being court-martialled?’ Lennart asked him, not meaning it. ‘Besides, I know at least four sector groups used an attack on the Death Star as their major exercise problem last year.’

‘That shows a disturbing lack of faith. Which sector groups?’ Adannan asked.

‘How about a disturbing lack of forethought? All four eventually resorted to mass fighter attack on pinpoint targets. Mainly the command bridge and the superlaser emitters, nobody actually found the exhaust port, but the principle was there.

Why was there no communication between the special projects office of the DMR and the Starfleet? Why did no-one tell them that the actual working navy considered such an attack overwhelmingly probable, or did they simply not listen?

How much faith do you think it is wise or safe to have, in people who are too proud to do their jobs properly?’


‘Is that a formal accusation?’ Adannan asked.

Lennart reacted initially as Adannan had expected- backing off from the brink. Then he changed his mind. ‘You were looking for someone’s head to put on a forcepike a moment ago, perhaps the only way to protect them- which you expected me to do by backing down, didn’t you?- would be to take the problem head on, and prove a charge of incompetence against the Department of Military Research. Do you think you would be rewarded for opening that can of worms?’

‘I do not imagine anyone concerned with it would.’ Adannan said, glaring at Lennart.

All right, Lennart thought, I probably can goad him badly enough that he snaps and does something psychotic. That might not, however, be a positive development.

‘There’s another slight technical problem. The governor will not be able to attend; his palace was bombarded to slag, and his elevators don’t work through molten rock. Now we could re-invent some dead technology and cobble together a teleporter, or we could go down to the planet and dig him out.’

That was pure coat-trailing, Lennart’s trying to find out just how technically ignorant Adannan really was.

The dark jedi dodged the question, by imposing one of his own. ‘He failed in his duty; he doesn’t deserve to be rescued. You had dealings with the sector governor and the subsector fleet command previously, did you not?’


Lennart managed to stop himself before thinking ‘you callous bastard’ too loudly. Instead he said
‘Now you’re just trying to impress me with your ruthless determination, aren’t you?

Whatever you think ought to be done to the man himself- and if being an idiot was punishable by death we’d need to import extragalactic aliens to conduct all the funerals, there’d be few of us left- there’s a command and control facility buried down there with him.’

‘Good. Then he can attend by hologram.’

Lennart decided to float another test barge. ‘In theory, he can also order what’s left of the planetary defence forces to come and dig him out; considering it was us that landed him in that mess, though-‘

‘You don’t feel guilty, do you?’ Adannan growled, as if he was accusing Lennart of some hideous crime. ‘How many years have you served in the Starfleet, and you try to tell me you still feel the slightest shred of remorse?’

‘Of course not.’ Lennart replied. ‘Although it lulls some into a false sense of security when we pretend.’ He pretended.


Now provided he doesn’t call my bluff and ask me to burn the poor sod out, Lennart thought- apparently quietly enough to escape notice. Instead, Adannan was grinning. It was not a cheerful sight.

‘That is the first real sign you have given me that you might be fit for the greater purpose.’ Adannan said.

‘Apart from accounting for more than a hundred times our own tonnage?’ Lennart replied. ‘Planetary governor, subsector naval command, sector Moff, we have established links to all of them-‘ and to some parts of their staff and data setups they don’t know about- ‘ready to make formal contact.’


At that point, Lennart’s command team, less Brenn who was minding the ship- and listening in anyway- began to arrive.

‘I did not give permission for them to be here!’ Adannan raged.

‘Well, this particular ‘them’ doesn’t need or want your permission. Standing orders.’ Mirannon said, sitting down- forcing Lennart to move his feet, fast.

Adannan’s hand moved towards his sabre. That was a deliberate challenge- but from the strength of his danger sense, one it might not be wise to take up.

‘You would be Gethrim Kander Quintus Mirannon? Chief Engineer of this ship?’

‘And you would be the troubleshooter from the Privy Council.’ Mirannon stood up, made a civil bow- then sat down again.

The alternative prospect, Adannan recognised. Large, heavy- the force was telling him that Lennart was a fencer, perhaps a plotter, a more subtle threat; Mirannon was the one likely to rage and try to tear him apart.


It could be entertaining to provoke the huge engineer, but on the ground of his choosing. On the other hand, there was face to be thought of.

‘Are you attempting to demean my authority? Do you not realise what I have the power to do to you?’

‘Many things, I’m sure.’ The big, bearded man leaned forward. ‘And if you have the sense that ought to go with your rank, you’ll realise we have a practical job to be getting on with.’


‘Mirannon?’ Lennart said, tone cautioning- with overtones of mockery. ‘That was barely civil.’

He couldn’t resist it. ‘I’m sorry, Sir, I’ll try and do better next time.’

‘Look, you mad prankster,’ Commander Wathavrah- Guns- said to Mirannon, ‘this man speaks with the authority of the Privy Council, next only to His Imperial Majesty. Would you be as casual in the Presence?’

‘Well,’ Mirannon began, ‘I’d like to think I could keep my cool well enough to-‘

‘But the reality is, probably not. You’d turn into a gibbering wreck like most of us.’ Lennart said. Adannan saw another trap.

‘You have been introduced to His Majesty?’ he asked- instead of ‘then why aren’t you sufficiently afraid of me?’

‘Part of a batch. Representative officers from the fleet after Second Coruscant.’ Lennart confirmed. ‘Not counting childhood scrapes, that was only the second time I ever had to fight for my life, man to droid rather than ship to ship- we were boarded. I was still half in shock, and the Chancellor looked pretty shaken as well. All formality, no connection.’


Adannan was analysing that fact when first one, then two more holoprojectors came to life. The first was the planetary governor, still in some sort of nightgown, sweating badly.

One was a richly dressed Falleen, looking distinctly annoyed to be disturbed- although he reacted when he saw Adannan, eyes glowing wildly, slight change in skin tone, involuntary puff of pheromones so violent you could almost see the mist around him.

The third was the subsector naval commander, a Vice-Admiral; no-one Lennart recognised, early middle aged, slightly jowly, dark hair. From Elstrand’s spilling the beans, Lennart knew that the man was a political appointee, but one who did take some care over his responsibilities. Could be worse.

‘I am Kor Alric Adannan, and I am the living word of the Emperor.’ Adannan began, glaring at all three of them. The planetary governor wilted almost immediately, and was glad he was under three miles of rock.

The Admiral’s holographic image tried to meet Adannan’s eyes, lasted a whole two seconds before looking away.


‘You have an abscess in the heart of this sector, and I have chosen to give you one last chance to deal with it as you should before I cut them out for you.’

This was the man in full flood, Lennart could feel the satisfaction radiating off him.

No-one was stupid enough to answer him. Even the falleen Moff chose not to say anything that might be taken as a challenge.

‘The Alliance to Restore the Republic is strong here, how can that be? A blind eye? Mistaken and misbegotten “false sense of security” tactics? Collusion?’ the last said with so much venom, the governor blurred out of focus as he jumped away from the projector.


The admiral opened his mouth; Lennart guessed he was about to rat on the Moff, shook his head very slightly. Adannan saw it anyway.

‘You were about to say, Admiral?’

‘Lord Adannan, that’s more than enough, one good chance is all we need.’

Reflexive bootlicking as a survival instinct; and a predator adapted to it. Instantly Adannan thought of a dozen awkward and painful ways he could make the subsector commander regret his words, Lennart could see him do it and winced slightly.

‘You had years to make your own chances, and failed to do so. I expect absolute dedication, and absolute success as a result. Only that will entitle you to retain your position.’ He paused for effect. ‘And life.’


‘Governor.’ Adannan turned to the nightgown-dressed man. ‘Full marks for creative vengeance, minus enough to put your head on the block- also- for total failures of security.’

‘Kor Alric.’ Lennart said. ‘We counted on the planetary governor’s creative vengeance and failures of security, as part of the bait for the trap that caught a major Rebel fleet asset.’

‘How much respect do you expect me to grant a worm on a hook?’ Adannan said. ‘Governor, you are dismissed your rank and position. When I can be bothered, I will work my way down your staff until I find someone capable.

You are now a civilian trespasser on Imperial property, and any of the men whom your incompetence entombed with you is legally entitled to shoot you.’

The governor started to plead, screamed, ducked and disappeared from the holoviewer, the cameras panned out to the com centre; they saw him try to dodge a blaster bolt and fail. The camera cut out.

‘Three seconds? A spineless lot.’ Adannan said, coolly. He turned to Lennart. ‘You, Captain. The outsider. The battle-hungry madman who refused two orders to disengage, from officers of the Empire far your superior in grade. One of them mine. The man who took it upon himself to expose this nest of rebels and fools.’


‘Oh, no. We found the enemy and fought them; but we have not yet even begun to expose and deal with the real mess.’ Lennart said, looking away from Adannan to the sector Moff. Trying to gauge just what he knew. Adannan did the same.

The fallen kept his face absolutely impassive, this time; and whatever Adannan sensed in the force he kept to himself.

‘We will discuss your tendency to adhere to the greater order another time. For the moment, I will use this vessel as my flagship. Captain of the Line Lennart, you will assemble a hunting pack. Draw on the local forces, use your judgement as to what is necessary.’


As Lennart and his command team looked at each other and tried to work out what they were going to do next, Adannan turned to the image of the Moff.

‘You hold a high rank. Undoubtedly you ascended to it by running roughshod over the bodies of your colleagues and rivals. Trampling on many lesser beings and careers. Equally inevitably, there are many below you who would like to do the same.’

‘Undoubtedly. As a member of the college of Moffs, I am entitled to privileges and rights.’

‘You really think so?’ Adannan smiled a very evil smile. ‘You have guards there? Of course. Troopers!’
There was an off camera chorus of ‘Yes, Sir?’

‘Condign punishment, authority of the privy council. Burn your Moff’s legs off up to the knee. Slowly.’

The troopers acknowledged. The Falleen went absolutely white. ‘You can’t- ’

‘I can. Do you know why? Because I’m bored. In the midst of all this trouble, I need some light relief, and I think I will find it most entertaining to merely maim you, and then watch you try to plot against me.

Carry out your orders.’ He added to the moff’s guard, and there was a hum of blasters just before he dropped the connection.

Adannan turned to go. ‘Make your plans and present them to me.’ He said to Lennart. ‘And, Captain-‘
‘Yes, Kor Adannan?’ Lennart said, neutrally.

‘I give what I choose to give, and take away what, and when, I choose to take away. And I dislike being predicted.’



The medics were used to patching up injured pilots by now; things like putting members of the same squadron in the same ward were now written into standing orders.

Epsilon Four, Five and Eleven were together in one four-bed bay; the remaining bed had half a dozen pilots sitting on it, Aron was pacing up and down.

He was waiting for Franjia to recover consciousness; she was wired up to frighteningly many medical monitors, breath mask over her face. She had come out of surgery two hours ago, now.

‘That was the simple part.’ The surgeon had said. ‘Take a tyre pump to the lung, bung in a set of titanium ribs and smother them in artiflesh- trivial. But-‘

‘She happens to be my friend. Show some respect.’ Aron snarled at him.

‘I know. I’m sorry. We get stressed occasionally, too. Seriously, it is far easier to rebuild bodies than rebalance the mind’s grasp of them. The very speed of it often makes it worse.

Shock, confusion- all I can really give you is an educated guess about recovery time, and whether she’ll ever fly again. I’d say so, but it’s only ever a sure thing after it’s happened.’


So here they were, waiting, talking. Four had made a clean eject; the compensators had functioned properly, a sharp but not a crippling gradient on his way out. Eleven had shrapnel wounds- he had managed to seal his suit in time, one leg was badly slashed.

Four was just under observation, basically fine, Eleven was slightly brain-fried from painkillers.

The main topic was a hardcopy printout from the ‘defence’ section of Galactic News Services- more of a joke than anything else to those actually in the service - which had been torn up, and each of them had a sheet.


“Consortium of manufacturers unveil new procurement proposal” the headline ran.

‘So who’s in this?’ Aron asked. ‘It mentions Joraan, Hydrotii, Arakyd, Tagge, Koensayr, Corellian Engineering, Incom, pretty much everyone except Sienar. Procurement of what? Where’s the rest of the story?’

‘Here.’ Gavrylsk handed him a flimsy. ‘See if you can read this and manage to believe it.’

Aron tried. ‘All right, it’s our business, fighters, but this is nuts. Basically, everyone who doesn’t make TIEs has hired a consultant, a retired Clone Wars general- and Rebel agent by the sounds of it- to come up with an alternative doctrine for the Starfighter Corps, and they’re trying to sell it, along with the fighters they need to make it work.’


‘Hello, new toys to play with.’ Yatrock said, with tempered enthusiasm.

‘What’s the scheme?’ Kramaner asked.

‘Start with Alliance Starfighter Command’s wet dreams and work outwards from there…this consultant, headcase by the name of Arikakon Baraka- bloody fish, no wonder- suggests four layers, separate zones of engagement, and separate designs of fighter built for each.’ Aron said, believing what he read only because it was so dumb, no-one could have made it up.

‘How many separate types do we fly off this ship?’ Gavrylsk made it a rhetorical question. ‘Ten? Years of working up to that and the tech teams still complain. Dump a menagerie like that on the decks of a ordinary destroyer- total breakdown. Crazy.’


‘Oh, it gets worse.’ Aron read on. ‘ “The outer zone consists of operations by detached elements of the fighter wing, manoeuvring in distant support of their carrier vessel.” And if that doesn’t translate as ass-in-the-breeze, what does?

Oh. He’s not really talking fighters at all, multi-crew craft, multi-day missions, the likes of Skiprays and customs frigates.

Forward control platform with parasite high-speed recon fighters, bomber type with multiple turrets, and possible capital missiles on cradle launchers- nice work if you can get it- and a space superiority type, at least they have the grace not to call it a fighter, armed with something like a customs corvette’s weapon layout.’

‘I see what you mean about rebel fighter-wank. Anything in there that makes sense?’ Yatrock asked.


‘Maybe. “To avoid excessive loss of capability in the currently dominant zone of combat…” Anyone else feel like beating this armchair aviator on the head with a proton torp?

Anyway, the idea is slave-linked drones. Not droids, non-independent, sort of automated wingmen; about the size of a TIE globe without the radiator panels. One manned fighter with maybe four or six drones; they’d do the wolfpack attack missions the TIEs get now.

That might be worth seeing. But not if the price is accepting the rest of this. Long range heavies, short hyper range, long duration sublight, all…has this fish-head ever heard the words “Oh kriff where did they come from” spoken in anger? The ships might be good, the scheme is fragile as all Hel.’

‘So’s the TIE fighter.’ Yatrock pointed out.

‘Which we have, what, six billion of?’ Kramaner said. ‘How much would it cost to replace them all?’

‘Credits be buggered, it’s time something that radical would cost in. Building time, retraining time, for ground crews as well as us-‘

Aron stopped in mid-rant. There had been a groan from Franjia’s bed.

‘I will never…’ an electronic voice said faintly, ‘be rude about the hamster helmet…ever again.’ She was on a respirator system; a vocoder was talking for her. Aron didn’t care.


He had to think to stop himself hugging her. Not good on a patient with a shiny new ribcage.

‘You’re conscious. How does it-‘

‘You say that like…you weren’t sure.’ She said, looking at him- thanks, relief, something more? ‘What…happened?’

‘You don’t remember?’ Thank the Galactic Spirit, she doesn’t remember. ‘The last X-wing you hit must have had his torps on hair triggers. They all went up together.’

‘Don’t remember… going after him. I remember thinking the fight was…nearly over. Then blur. How bad?’

Maybe, Aron thought hopefully, she’s badly enough concussed that she won’t realise it when I try to avoid telling her-

‘You lost most of your ribcage.’ Yatrock said.

‘I was trying to avoid saying that, bantha brain.’ Aron snapped at him.

One hand, trailing IV tubes, felt for her chest. Yatrock opened his mouth, Aron glared at him- suspecting him of being about to say ‘don’t do that, they’re not set yet.’


‘Don’t feel anything.’ She said.

‘You’re still under anaesthetic. Which-‘


‘You don’t want to lie, but the truth is too…ugly to tell.’ She said, accurately.

‘Is that your brain working, or your fears? Don’t give in to them. What you have to do now-‘ dreck, Aron thought, I’m supposed to be a bloody leader, a man of responsibility.

I decided to engage with my pilots as human beings and then this bloody happens. ‘What you need to do is get better as fast as possible. It sounds passive, it isn’t, there are things you can do, stands you can take-‘

‘I know. Given that speech myself. I hope you…never have to hear what it sounds like from this end.’

‘You’re going to get better.’ He told her, slightly too desperately. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘Functional.’ She disagreed. ‘hands, eyes, all right. Bit in the middle…’

‘You’ll just have to start wearing thicker jerseys.’ Aron managed to come up with a shred of humour.

‘Or get wired into…the flight suit permanently.’ She suggested.

‘Are you trying to get me into trouble? You know it would be unprofessional for me to compliment you on your breasts.’ Aron said, and suddenly they were looking into each other’s eyes and it wasn’t a joke.

[Phantasee]

Wow. It's hard to catch up on this fic just because you have such long chapters.

I'm going to end up printing this one out, I think.

[Vianca]

Wow. It's hard to catch up on this fic just because you have such long chapters.

I'm going to end up printing this one out, I think.

One or two more pages and I will put it in words.


So, does that Sith wants to have a fleet made of commando's?