Post by Nepty on Dec 22, 2014 20:29:46 GMT
It is a time of unrest in the galaxy.
Although the Emperor's new order has
supplanted the Old Republic, there remain
survivors of the Great Jedi Purge
The Emperor has dispatched his INQUISITORS,
sith force-users of immense power to track
them down, and put an end to them. These dread
agents are feared the galaxy over
Meanwhile, the worlds of HUTT SPACE are being blockaded
by the ruthless imperial fleet for neglecting to
pay trade tarrifs to the emperor. The pressure
is on the Hutts to concede or suffer,
but on the surface of NAR SHADAA, the smuggler's moon,
festivities for the boonta eve classic continue
as if nothing were amiss, even as the awesome power
of the imperial fleet hangs above their heads...
Although the Emperor's new order has
supplanted the Old Republic, there remain
survivors of the Great Jedi Purge
The Emperor has dispatched his INQUISITORS,
sith force-users of immense power to track
them down, and put an end to them. These dread
agents are feared the galaxy over
Meanwhile, the worlds of HUTT SPACE are being blockaded
by the ruthless imperial fleet for neglecting to
pay trade tarrifs to the emperor. The pressure
is on the Hutts to concede or suffer,
but on the surface of NAR SHADAA, the smuggler's moon,
festivities for the boonta eve classic continue
as if nothing were amiss, even as the awesome power
of the imperial fleet hangs above their heads...
The lethal sliver of an Imperial Star Destroyer hung in interplanetary space like a spear on a rack, pointed at the heart of Hutt Space, a lethal weapon. On the bridge, at the age of twenty five, captain Andar Hoyt surveyed his domain with the air of a man in direct command of one of the most powerful mobile battlestations in the galaxy. Reports and whispers flew through the air and passed along the crew pits around him, but one, addressed directly to him, cut through his reverie. It was one of the men at the sensor station. A tech, dressed in fleet-grey.
“Captain, we have an unregistered ship entering our sector,”
Captain Hoyt raised an eyebrow. Smugglers, no doubt. This day might prove enjoyable after all.
“Make?”
“YT-1300 freighter, sir. Broadcast code unknown.”
He considered for a moment, but there had never been any real question. The youngest man ever to command an Imperial Star Destroyer did not attain his position by being meek. “Let’s show ourselves, shall we? Prepare for a microjump.”
“Yes captain.” Acknowledged the helm, “Mark in five, four, threen two,” Captain Hoyt reached forwards and gripped the deck railing.
“Mark.
The stars elongated into starlines as they shot towards their prey.
**************************************************_
With a dull moan as the Merkabah transitioned back into realspace. Cam gazed through the small freighter’s transparisteel cockpit viewport as the stars shifted, watching them turn from bright smears to individual pinpricks of light against inky blackness. It was a beautiful sight, he thought. No matter how many times he saw it, it would never get old.
Cam took a sip from a mug of stimcaf and placed it down on a panel next to him. Lighting a cigarette, he took a deep drag and looked at the only other being in the cockpit with him, a diminutive purple and white astromech droid, jacked into the copilot’s station.
“Well R4, I told you this would be easy didn’t I?” He grinned cockily at the droid. “We pick up the spice, run the blockade, and deliver it to the big slug himself. Easy money!” he said. R4 could only beep and whir in response. Cam was so used to conversations with the battered robotthat he could understand the gist of its noises and resumed speaking. “Yeah, I know we’ve still got to run the blockade. But that’s easy. Timuur's man told me it would only be a few frigates, nothing ‘ol Merkabah can’t handle.”
Suddenly a harsh tone began to emit from one of the scanners. Cam took a sideways glance at it and straightened up in his seat. “Speak of the devil and he doth appear.” He swiveled his chair to get at the controls. “Look alive R4, we’ve got company. Have the stealth generator ready ASAP, I want to spend as little time with these clowns as possible.”
The R4 let out an affirmative whistle as it plugged itself into another socket and began prepping the freighter’s stealth systems. Cam too initiated a complex series of technological rituals that would prepare the ship to escape its interloper, all the while watching the region of space where the Imperial vessel was predicted to appear. Within a few seconds, one of the few things capable of making Cam’s blood run cold slammed into realspace so close it almost hit them. It was an Imperial Star Destroyer, grey as a corpse’s pallor and shaped like the most lethal knife in the galaxy. Cam’s cigarra tumbled from his open mouth as the Merkabah skipped across the destroyer’s armored prow.
A cold, imperious voice crackled across the communications channel. “Unidentified freighter, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Dark Lance. Be warned, you are breaking emergency trade laws. Identify yourself and prepare to be boarded.”
*********************************************_
“They’re powering up engines sir,” said the sensors operator. Captain Hoyt smiled. He liked it when they ran. “Order a squad of Stormtroopers into the capture bay.” The bridge began to flow into the controlled chaos of a pursuit. Secretly, Hoyt wished he had a few corvettes or a Tartan Patrol Cruiser, both of which proved much better at pursuit than the mobile fortress that was a Star Destroyer. He supposed it was his own fault for spreading the blockade so thin, and if one smuggler got away, who would care? It was a valuable lesson, if nothing else.
“Order ion cannons and tractor beams to get a lock on it.” He muttered. An ensign shouted the same, and the bridge was filled gunners announcing positive locks
“Sir, their drive trails are reducing,”
Perhaps they’d come to reason, thought captain Hoyt, ordering the gunners to stand down This notion was quickly dispelled when he realized that the ship was still picking up speed. “Well well,” he muttered. “Someone’s got their hands on some new toys.” TibannaX was extremely rare and extremely illegal. It made a ship’s drive emissions invisible to sensors, and if a ship shut down most of its major functions, it would act almost like a cloaking device. The next best thing anyways. “Get a tractor lock on that ship. Quickly. Ion cannons, power back up.” He leaned into the hailing device.
“Unidentified vessel, this is your last warning. Power down and prepare to be boarded.”
Hoyt knew the request was futile. He would probably have to blow it out of space. The ship kept accelerating. The star destroyer followed, its superstructure rotating just slightly to give its massive turbolaser batteries a clear shot.
Hoyt shook his head. He supposed they’d have to destroy the vessel. “Ion cannons and turbo laser batteries fifteen though twenty, open fire. Launch T Squadron.”
The space in front of the Lance was lit with blossoming fire as the small freighter juked and jinked, the odd lucky blast splashing off of its shields. Moments later, TIE fighters roared past the bridge, rushing in pursuit of the smuggler, much faster than their bulky carrier. He began to become irritated. The pilot had managed to evade most of their shots. He cursed his lack of small weapons. He could destroy a capital ship, but firing turbolasers at this darting thing was like trying to punch a flitnat.“Tractor beams, get a lock!” he demanded. “And someone inform the Inquisitor why we’re shaking like this.” The last thing he wanted was for the Inquisitor to become…inquisitive and come up onto the bridge. His men had enough problems without soiling themselves in terror.
**********************************_
The situation was growing grimmer by the minute. Cam’s grip on the steering array was white knuckled as he threw his ship into a variety of dazzling maneuvers, just barely managing to stay ahead of the destroyer and its numerous TIE fighters. While still maintaining the stealth drive, R4 had also partitioned a portion of its processing power to operate one of the Merkabah’s laser cannons, using it to drive off any fighter that got too close. As he thought this, the Merkabah rocked with a hit from a TIE’s laser cannons and R4 twittered nervously that they had lost their primary sensor dish.
“If I ever find the rat that gave us this route again I’m going to feed him his intestines,” Cam grunted vindictively as the ship rocked under a glancing blow from the Star Destroyer’s cannons. “This is no good. If we continue any longer, they’re going to splatter us with the cannons or catch us in their tractor beams. Either way we’re done for.” he said. Cam briefly considered his options. He could try and ride the Star Destroyer out, almost certainly suicide. Or he could surrender and hope for leniency, almost as bad of an option given the Imperial’s policy against smuggling. The third and final option was nearly anathema to his smuggler sensibilities: jettison his cargo and use the increased speed to get out of tractor beam range and jump directly to Nal Hutta, where it would be much more difficult for the Imperials to track him down. Regardless, he only had a few seconds to decide.
*********************************************_
As the TIE fighters began to catch up with the fleeing ship and their laser cannons began to fire faster, there was a hiss of pneumatics behind them and the bridge grew silent. Cursingin his mind, and knowing full well what awaited him, Hoyt turned.
The black-cloaked figure of Inquisitor Zuvien strode across the bridge. Hoyt felt a sweat begin to break out already, and tried to tamp his rising sense of fear down. He didn’t know how or why the Inquisitor made anyone in its presence absolutely terrified. He chalked it down to force-witchery.
The Inquisitor was, in a word, disturbing. Its face was kept in shadow by a black hood and It’s body was covered in a black robe. No inch of skin showed. Hoyt didn’t even know what resided in the depths of that hood. Whether it was male or female or whether it was even human. A pair of its silent, similarly garbed acolytes followed.
The Inquisitor drew to a halt in front of Hoyt. The captain’s head only came up to the inquisitor’s chest. He spoke, his voice a long, drawn out hiss at the edge of his hearing. He heard it more in his mind than with his ears.
“What is the situation, commander?”
“That ship my lord,” said Hoyt weakly, feeling his former bravado desert him by the second. “ It came into our sector, my lord.”
The dark cowl swung up to regard the fleeing speck of durasteel. There was a hiss of indrawn breath, then it spoke again. “Capture that ship, captain. I want the pilot. Alive.”
Hoyt nodded nervously. “We are in the process of doing so, my lord.”
“Try harder.”
“At once, lord Zuvien.” The inquisitor didn’t go, as Hoyt had fervently hoped. Instead it remained standing there, a horrific presence behind him. He turned away and busied himself with shouting at his subordinates. “Tractor beams to full power, engines at flank speed! Bring us into range of that ship now!” He bit his lip. “TIE control, target the engines. And launch more craft! Interceptor squadrons E through J!”
The Dark Lance slid forwards, spewing a truly amazing amount of plasma into space after the tiny ship as TIE interceptors boiled out of her hangers.
More TIE fighters were following, and now the Destroyer herself was giving chase. Sighing heavily, Cam made his decision. “R4, jettison the cargo.” he said as he began punching in the coordinates to the Hutt capital. With a series of shudders, the various compartments containing tens of thousands of credits worth of glitterstim vented out into space. Freed from the weight, the freighter quickly began to lose its pursuers. The laser blasts slacked off immediately. He took a small bit of solace knowing that the TIE pilots must be going purple with rage.
“Initiating hyperspace jump… Now!” Cam cried as he cranked the activator switch forward. The stars blurred together as the Merkabah rocketed towards the hopefully safe haven of Nal Hutta.
**************************************_
Hoyt leaned forwards desperately as the freighter stopped it’s juking and jinking and slowed, it’s nose pointed at a distaint star. He would have wept, but he knew it was too late. “Fire all ion cannons, now!” he roared desperately. Space instantly filled with a veritable sheet of blue energy blasts, streaming towards the freighter.
With a flicker of pseudomotion, the teardrop vanished. The iron cannon shots slashed through its recently occupied space, catching one of the TIE fighters in their path. The fightercraft tumbled away, sparking and shrinking in his vision, much like Hoyt’s life expectancy.
The bridge was dead silent. Hoyt screwed his eyes shut and waited for a lightsaber to spring to life and seat his head off. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much, and wondered how long his brain would stay alive in his severed head. It never came. He opened his eyes cautiously. The inquisitor stood, waiting, completely unconcerned with Zuvien, hood fixed on the distant star with an intensity that bordered on hunger. Hoyt swallowed, not taking his eyes off the Inquisitor. “Steerage, get an escape vector on that freighter!”
“It went to the Nal Hutta system, captain,”
Hoyt nodded. “Send out a recovery shuttle to pick up the dropped cargo and that fighter-”
“No,” hissed Zuvien, still staring at that empty spot in space “You will give chase immediately.”
“But my lord-”
Zuvien’s cowl swung around and the entire bridge felt like it went dark. The lights themselves dimmed, from the overheads to the glows of the display panels until the room was barley lit. “you will do as you are ordered, captain,” hissed Zuvien, unmoving. “Or I will find a captain who will.”
Hoyt swallowed. “Yes…yes my lord. At once.”
Light began to flow back onto the bridge. Hoyt turned to the helm and nodded. “Set a course for Nal Hutta…and someone signal the Recalcitrant to come here to pick up that fighter.” He glanced towards Zuvien, hoping that the inquisitor hadn’t noticed this miniscule rebellion, but it was already striding off the bridge, silent acolytes in tow.
When he had gone, Hoyt took a deep breath, and the stars elongated into starlines once more.