Ask Through Imperial Lines

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

Through Imperial Lines
The story of how the Empire -almost- caught Dismas Zaa Fenn

After the events of Commander Levik Karn's Uncontrolled Descent, the Crymorah Syndicate's Zaa Fenn Crime Family had one of its assets stuck on the planet Raxus. Specifically a droid of much importance to its boss and her incessant schemes against Czerka Corporation and its affiliate, Imperial Czerka. She send her son, recently returned from an exploration mission with the DECS Pathfinder, to go into Imperial space and retrieve it from one of the Imperial Czerka Terraforming plants near the planet's south pole.

In the early hours of the morning the FT-19 Fonder Haulcraft, registered as the 'Rache-3' from Eriadu, landed planetside and opened its ramp for the droid to enter. It was disguised as an Imperial Czerka employee and thankfully the whole thing didn't raise too big of a red flag on the ground.

In the Haulcraft's cockpit, Dismas exhaled through his nose in what can only be described as a sigh of relief. He wasn't much of a smuggler, truth be told, just as he wasn't much of a pirate. Astronavigator Dismas Dolan had been a better fit than Dismas Zaa Fenn had ever been and yet here he was... call it family loyalty.

With the droid secured, Dismas engaged the flight engines once more and soon he hovered high enough to retract the landing gear and start his ascent to the desired hyperspace location. If all smuggling jobs were this easy.. he might start to understand why his father -Crix Dolan- did this for so many years.

@Tic

 

[The Storyteller]

“I brought you one.” he said, setting the caf down on the console where Junior Inspector Kessler sat. “That should perk you up a bit.”

Kessler’s wearied gaze shifted from the steaming cup before him to its deliverer. Senior Inspector Barnes stood over him, seemingly regarding the Junior Inspector with a mixture of pity and amusement. Kessler had to acknowledge that despite his initial misgivings, Barnes wasn’t altogether a bad sort. Many new recruits reported suffering dearly beneath their superiors, who seemed to share an almost masochistic delight in the belittling and abuse of the rank and file.

“Thank you sir.” he said, rubbing the fatigue from his eyes.

“Kessler, do you know how long I’ve served aboard The Warden?” Inspector Barnes asked.

The Warden, a Pugio-Class Frigate in the service of the Imperial Customs and Enforcement Division, was an all but permanent fixture in Raxus’ orbit. Among its multitudes of duties was the random inspection and cargo scanning of craft inbound and outbound toward the Imperial homeworld. Although a position aboard the frigate was considered a desirable enough post, there was no question that the tedium involved with inspection duty could be mind-numbingly dull.

Out the viewport, the curved atmosphere of Raxus glittered like a shard of quicksilver against the iodine darkness. He could make out the halogen fissures of the planet’s vast urban sprawl burning brightly enough to be seen even from The Warden’s position. Between them, a steady crawl of space faring traffic. Freighters and passenger ships in an endless rotation of descension and ascension.

He found his attention drifting towards the massive warships that hung in the distance. Seraph Fleet, the Imperial’s Rapid Response force, dominated Raxus’ orbital space. Kessler had heard rumors they were taking on supplies. For what, he couldn’t pretend to know, but he imagined it had to be more interesting than cargo manifests and identification codes.

Kessler took a tentative sip of the caf and found it typical of Imperial brews; strong, bitter and scalding.

“No sir.” he said, already favoring his burnt tongue.

“Twelve standard years, three months, and seventeen days.” Barnes replied before taking a mighty pull from his own cup, seemingly numbed to the effect of the heat. “Point is that of all the things you’ll run scant of out here, time isn’t one of them. So lets drop the formalities.”

“Yessir. Ah, that is…sounds good to me.” Kessler replied, turning back towards the console’s bank of screens and readouts. He quietly wondered if such disdain for protocol was what had kept Inspector Barnes from the higher ranks. The man was jovial enough, but in his easy smile, Kessler was beginning to see little more than a cautionary tale.

An alert chimed on his sensor and he zeroed in on the source.

“A light freighter requesting departure from orbit.” Kessler reported. Over his soldier, Barnes took another large slurp. “The Rache-3, an FT-19 registered out of Eriadu.”

“Go on.”

Kessler leaned towards the communicator, double-checked his readings and then queued the mic.

“Attention Rache-3,” he said, doing his best to sound authoritative. “this is the Imperial Customs Frigate Warden. Imperial Space protocols require customs inspection and scanning prior to orbital departure. Please transmit your identification codes and cargo manifest for verification.”

@Eccles

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

Dismas had send the request to pass through orbit and expected a simple green light based on his forged Imperial Czerka codes. Unfortunately it seemed whoever was behind the customs control panel was rather bored today. The request came in and the young Zaa Fenn's eyes quickly shot to the note he had attached next to the comms unit inside his cockpit.

"Imperial Customs Frigate Warden, this is Rache-3," Dismas replied after a few seconds as he quickly used his free hand to grab the right datacard and slot it into the transmittor. "Transmitting manifest now. Identification code Iridonia-Coruscant-Takodana-Twelve-Fourteen," or as it would appear on the manifest code that the customs agents would see pop up on their screen: ICT-1214. Imperial Czerka Transport 1214. It was an older code, from before Imperial Czerka became a Sector Authority within Imperial space and Dismas had no way of knowing whether or not that code was still conform current coding regulations. At the same time a realization dawned on him: If he didn't trust his codes then hightailing it out of there was a sure sign that he wasn't supposed to be there..

The Manifest showed a pick-up of outdated Cybot Galactica droids. The transport had a couple pre-loaded and the actual pick-up, TC-SC 23006, simply joined them strapped against the inner hull of the cargo area. Neither the Empire nor Imperial Czerka used these droid types, which were only a common sight in Hutt space seeing as the pre-AMS Crymorah droid army consisted of these models. Dismas banked on regular Imperials officials not knowing that fact.

"I'm bound for Etti IV," the young smuggler shared unnecessarily and he felt his back was already wet with sweat as he readjusted his posture in his seat. "Bit on a schedule here," another unnecessary addition. He wasn't going for the proper hyperspace-route if his destination was truly corporate space either.. looked to be direction Galactic South-East. Nar Shaddaa or Hollastin, if you went off of current trajectory.


@Tic

 

[The Storyteller]

As the Rache-3’s customs data unspooled across the screen, Kessler thought Inspector Barnes looked dangerously uninterested. Had the years of monotony sapped the man of his ambitions? His drive? Kessler abruptly felt very alone aboard The Warden’s bridge.

He busied himself studying the outbound ship’s manifest data. Barnes stirred lazily behind him.

“Well?”

“Droid retrieval looks like.” he reported, tracing one gloved finger along the readout. “Code is an older Czerka issuance, but still valid.”

Inspector Barnes drained the remainder of his beverage, set the mug aside and approached the viewport. The light freighter seemed almost absurdly vulnerable before the frigates host of turbolaser batteries. Barnes gave a dismissive sniff and turned from the port.

“Alright then Kessler.” he said. “Send them on their way.”

“Sir…ah that is…Barnes?” the younger Imperial said. “Thing is, they’re routed incorrectly for Etti IV. They’ll end up in Hutt Space with their current bearing.”

“By all means then, be a good samaritan. Inform and dismiss them.”

Kessler bent toward the communicator.

“Rache-3, please be advised…”

“Just a moment.” Barnes abruptly interjected. Kessler released the communicator switch and the channel went dead. He glanced up towards his companion expectantly. “Have you had a chance yet to take part in a secondary inspection?”

“Not as of yet.” he replied. “But we’ve covered them in training.”

“No training like experience.” The senior inspector retook his position at the viewport, all boredom suddenly washed from his expression. “Alert the Inspection Team to prepare to board. You're to join them Kessler. It'll be good for you to see how the process works soup to nuts. I'll handle things here.”

“Understood.”

In the cold indifference of orbit, The Warden appeared quiet and inert. A warship with the propensity, if not the interest, for great destruction. The frigate’s interior however, had erupted into a bustle of activity as the Inspection Team readied itself onto their shuttle and board the freighter. As Kessler checked his sidearm, he felt his heart thundering in his chest.

“Rache-3,” Barnes voice, cold and eager, came across the channel now. “you are to prepare for secondary inspection. Ensure all engines and subsystems are powered down and have all crew present for the Inspection Team. Failure to comply will be met with immediate force.”

@Eccles @OsricVek

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

While the inspection crew hurried themselves to the shuttle that had been attached to the Pugio-class frigate, Dismas listened to the instructions given over the channel. Kriff. He wasn't wearing a Czerka uniform, which was probably customary, so was having a co-pilot. Then the TC-SC model would definitely stand out and the whole charade would fall to pieces upon closer inspection. Half these pre-loaded droids didn't even have operationable motherboards.

"Warden, this is Rache-3. Understood. Powering down in three-" Dismas checked if he was still heading towards his intended jump-point, "-two-" his hand went to the lever that let him set MGLT amounts for forward movement. He regretted his earlier overconfidence and respected the job and nerves-of-steal a fulltime smuggler must have. His mother would go mental if he got sentenced to another Imperial Czerka prison after all she's done to get him out the first time. Really, he didn't have any other choice, "-One."

Instead of powering down, Dismas quickly sped up to the full 85 MGLT that his Fonder Haulcraft could manage and headed towards his calculated hyperspeed-path to Hutt space in a straight line. He knew his calculations were correct. Only thing he needed to survive was to get there... and fast.

Dismas had made sure he was out of tractor-beam range from the Imperial frigate and now engaged his medium deflector shields to protect him -and his hyperdrive- from incoming fire. He would get to his hyperdrive point. He had to.

@Tic

 

[Tavell Hamber]

Tavell wheeled the TIE around. Through years of repetition his hands and feet moved with a leisurely ease, his fingers and wrists controlling pitch and yaw and thrust, while his feet pushed down on pedals controlling the various maneuvering thrusters that helped make the ship so agile. He returned to the delta formation the patrol had adopted and together they closed on the Detente, ion engines screaming as they entered a spiral maneuver passing through the fading ion trail of the destroyer's engines. The three fighters briefly silhouetted against the flare before passing through the relatively harmless spent gases that hung behind, tails of some vast cosmic dragon.


“Lapdog - “ Tavell winced. He hated the callsign the younger pilots had sentenced him with but it stuck.


“”Lapdog to Mayday. We have orders to intercept. Echo flight to Lambda, Echo to Lambda. You are to return to the Detente. Over.”


“Gamble to Lapdog, message received flight leader. Returning to mother, we’ll be in her drawers in a few. Gamble out.”


“Lapdog to Mayday and Shark. Switch to frequency 1138.” There was a moment of static, enough time for his TIE to spin out of the path of a small asteroid, the rock drifted then harmless now. Had he struck the silent stony pilgrim he would have been dead. Had the rock struck the Detente, it would have bounced impotently off the layers of armour. Tavell pushed a thumb of dried meat into his mouth, held course with one hand as the other pulled his helmet faceplate down. There was an audible hiss as the helmet hermetically sealed and he breathed recycled air. The modern TIE had life support, but Tavell was old school. Besides, by switching power from the support systems to the ship’s already impressive weapons he could boost their power by about 20 percent. He chewed noisily inside the helmet before swallowing.


“!Flight leader to hunting party. Our orders are clear. We are to intercept but not engage, least not yet. Solari you take point on this one. Geel-” Uthef Geel was new. New new. First assignment. First time in a TIE. First time on the field. He was all but virginal. Not that that made him a liability but it paid to be cautious. “Geel, you and I will provide covering fire, should the need arise. Solari? When you’re ready.” He cut the engines for a milsec, just enough braking to allow Solari’s ship to take the lead position.

@Eccles @Tic

 

[Kellan Solari]

The orders tumbled through his comm nearly faster than Solari could process them. As Tavell’s TIE slid back into the wingman position, Kellan throttled his own craft up and took point. Why was the old man handing over the reins so easily? When it came to Tavell, Kellan found it difficult not to treat any perceived kindness with immense suspicion. The younger TIE pilot found Tavell’s stoic restraint stifling and chaffed under his command. Worse yet, Tavell knew it.

In the distance, the fleeing freighter was beelining toward open space as The Warden pursued as best it could. No time for pondering motivations now. Kellan throttled up.

“Copy that Lapdog. Echo Two taking point.” he replied.

The trio of TIEs whipped past the length of The Detente before pitching left toward the smuggler craft and its pursuer. Kellan checked his rear viewport and found Tavell on his wing. On the other side, Geel had slid a bit loose but quickly corrected. Old man’s intentions aside, this exercise would be good real world experience for Geel.

He returned his attention ahead and found the fleeing haulcraft nearing into range.

“Alright Echo Flight, this one's by the book.” he said. “We’ll intercept and give them a few shots across their bow. If we’re ordered to engage, we frag their systems. Lapdog and I will go in hot and deal with their deflector shields. Geel, you switch to ion cannons and wait for my mark. Copy?”

“I copy Echo Two.” Geel sounded sure as could be expected.

Kellan nodded and switched his comlink to a standard hailing frequency.

“This is Lieutenant Solari of the 81st TIE Wing.” he said. “Power down your engines and submit to inspection or suffer the consequences.”

To punctuate his point, he sent a volley of cannon fire whistling past the freighter’s starboard side.

@Eccles @OsricVek

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

Almost there. Almost. Dismas could hear the high-pitched whine of the TIEs approaching him as he cut a straight line through the cloudslivers in Raxus' upper atmosphere. The Haulcraft was reasonably fast, but nothing compared to the penultimate dogfighter that was a TIE squad. Maybe if he had been an actual fighter pilot, or a skilled smuggler, could he have dared to take them on with odds that were somewhat close to being in his favor. Dismas, unfortunately, was neither an experienced fighter pilot nor an experienced smuggler.

All he could was to trust in the calculations with the astronavigation suite. He knew that once he reached his point in orbit the Imperials would have a hard time following him. It wasn't easy tracking someone through hyperspace and the Haulcraft had an excellent hyperspace engine to boot.

Then the cannon fire shot across his starboard, illuminating his cockpit for a moment in bright red light. Dismas' heart was racing in his throat, his hands covered in sweat and he had to grip the controls even tighter for fear his hands slipping off at the ultimate moment. His voice broke, "Alright, Alright-" his surrender was higher-pitched than he had wanted, "I'll submit-" then the dorsal-mounted turret turned around and started firing back at the most forward TIE, as Dismas changed course slightly in an attempt to use the cloudslivers as interference from automatic targeting computers.

Due to the cloudslivers, Dismas' evasive maneuvers and the Haulcraft's design, it would be difficult for anyone but an experienced dogfighter to quickly land a shot with an ion cannon. Ofcourse, the high firing rate of laser cannons would likely cause severe trouble for the Haulcraft's shields and with Dismas' own inexperience he could really only hope to get to his jump-point intact and in time. "I'll tell the Czerka boss about this!" Dismas cried as the adrenaline of the moment fueled his confidence and general excitement.

@Tic @Vek

 

[The Storyteller]

Back aboard the bridge of The Warden, Senior Inspector Barnes was positively apoplectic. The aging officer paced the length of the room, wildly gesticulating towards the viewport and the situation unfolding on the cusp of Raxus’ exosphere.

“Who authorized that Star Destroyer to get involved?! Who?!” he roared, face reddening. “Blasted Navy thinks they own all of space! We’re in control out here! Karking Imperial Customs and Enforcement Division!”

Unfortunately for Junior Inspector Kessler, he chose that moment to return to the bridge from the hangar bay, where he had been prepping with the Inspection Team before the Rache-3 made its bid for freedom. Barnes wheeled on the newly arrived youth and stormed towards him.

“Kessler!” he bellowed. “What in blazes is happening out there?! Why is that Destroyer involved?!”

“I-well-that is i-it’s the The D-Detente.” he managed. “T-they hailed the Inspection Team d-directly, asking if we required assistance…they were in range to respond and the haulcraft was h-heading their direction so…”

“And. So. WHAT?!” the other man demanded, bunched jaw muscles severing each word, each syllable from the previous. Gone was the amicable senior officer, the easy smile, the casual familiarity. Barnes face was a twisted mass of outrage.

“S-so I authorized them to intercept.” Kessler stuttered. “I-I’m sorry Barnes I didn’t…”

“SIR YOU IDIOT!” Barnes was shrieking now. “YOU’LL ADDRESS ME AS SIR ON THIS BRIDGE! YOU?! A JUNIOR OFFICER! A KARKING TRAINEE?! Did it ever occur to you that we have PROTOCOL to follow? AGENCY? A bleeding CHAIN OF COMMAND?! The LEGALITY of having a vessel under the command of the Imperial Navy involved in a customs enforcement matter is…is…so help me Kessler when I’m finished with you you’ll be piloting a mop on a garbage scow in the Outer Rim!!”

“Barne..that is sir, I-I apologize..”

But Inspector Barnes had already turned his back and thundered back towards the console where he slammed his fist into the communicator button.

“Hangar Control!” he barked. “Get those kriffing TIEs launched immediately! Intercept that haulcraft before those damned TIEs from The Detente get their hands on it! We have jurisdiction here! Move or I’ll have every single one of you cleaning refresher stalls for the remainder of your miserable careers!”

Mere minutes later, a squad of six TIE Fighters came screaming out of The Warden’s hangar bay at a clip well outside of standard protocol. They slid into formation, throttled their ion engines to a howl and then barreled towards the location where The Rache-3 and Echo Flight were engaged.

@Eccles @OsricVek

 

[Kellan Solari]

Kellan watched the haulcraft’s retractable gun emerge and commence belching fire in his direction. He jinked the TIE into a tight roll towards port, neatly spinning around the volley of laserfire before dipping below the smuggler’s hull and out of range of the cannon. His superiors could, and often did, question his impulsivity, but his reflexes? Never! Pinning himself to the Rache-3’s underside, he followed the freighter as it slipped into the thin bank of clouds draped across Raxus’ upper atmosphere.

He exhaled an impatient nose full of his flight suit’s recycled air. This guy must’ve been out of his karkin’ mind! These sorts of shenanigans may have flown out on the Rim, but on the Imperial Capital? And with a fleet docked in polar orbit just overhead? Whoever this character was, he must’ve been hauling something hot. That or he had a serious death wish. He queued his comm.

“I should just grease this joker now.” he said. Tavell would hate such remarks, he knew. Such knowledge only increased Solari’s enthusiasm for the sentiment. Outside the Interceptor’s viewports was a blanket of white as he tailed the FT-19. Visual targeting was a no-go. He consulted his sensor readouts and made the necessary course adjustments. “Fine. To the letter then. Target has entered atmospheric flight. Lapdog, descend to eighty-five thousand meters in case he drops out of this bank. Shark, adopt a heading of vector seven-one-nine and maintain orbital presence. We’ll box him in.”

He switched back over to the hailing frequency.

“Rache-3, this is your final warning to comply.” he said. He gave the fleeing smuggler about half the time it might required for him to reach his communicator and then decided enough was enough. For the first time that day, Lieutenant Solari wore a smile beneath his helmet.

Every TIE pilot worth their salt understood that the advantages of the TIE line of starfighters lay in the twin traits of speed and maneuverability. What tended to suffer as a result of this design priority however, was some of the more sophisticated systems that other starfighters might boast. The TIEs sensors were rudimentary by modern galactic standards and as Kellan did the mental calculations required to gauge the haulcraft’s approximate location based on the scant data he was provided, he was acutely aware of this fact.

Still, he thought as he lined up his blind shot in the canvas of cloudbank. A sliver’s as good as a parsec.

He pressed the firing stub and watched as his laser cannons spat into the void.

@Eccles @OsrikVek

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

For a second after Dismas had started his evasive maneuvers through the cloud slivers he actually thought he'd be able to reach his jump-point without much hassle. He was Dismas Zaa Fenn, son of Crix Dolan, one of the most succesful smugglers of the last century and escaping TIE pilots was in his blood. The thrill of besting the Empire was-

-the screen on his left turned red as his shield's integrity dropped forty points and his right hull -just below the wing- caused a sudden pressure drop in the Haulcraft's master bedroom. Luckily a few frantically punched in buttons and that seemed resolved as the durasteel door that separated the master bedroom from the rest of the ship closed and locked itself.

Dismas' inexperience in a cockpit and his frantic reaction to getting hit caused him to stray slightly off his intended line. His heart beat in his throat and his earlier overconfidence evaporated. "Kriff off!" he cried into his comms, adjusted his hyperspeed course slightly and then -FWOOP-

He hadn't reached a proper hyperspeed-appropriate point yet. Every pilot seeing this happening would know this was a desperate attempt that had as much risk of failure than it had of success. As it happened now, Dismas breathed a sigh of relief as he sped up with his pristine class 1 hyperdrive an shot off somewhere to the galactic east.

But as soon as he felt his heart drop from his throat back into his chest, the entire ship was suddenly and violently yanked from hyperspeed and started turning rapidly and uncontrollably. All displays went red and in the chaos all Dismas really noticed was that apparently his entire right wing was missing. The astronavigator had hit an asteroid.

---

OOC
rolled a 4 on daring hyperspeed escape

@Tic @Vek

 

[Kellan Solari]

The clouds washing over his cockpit thinned until they were little more vapors strewn over countless pinpoints of starlight. The Rache-3 bobbed and swayed in his targeting panel’s crosshairs.

“...kriff…off!” a defiant cry called across the band.

Behind his helmet, Kellan smiled. His thumb slipped over the firing stub and then the haulcraft simply blinked out of existence. The Imperial let out a choked cry, searching the empty swath of space before him in numbed disbelief. The little bastard! How could he have lined up his trajectory while buried in cloud cover? It wasn’t possible. Not with the way he had been jerking that haulcraft around like some sort of garbage pod! The kid was positively green! Solari was certain of it!

“Not today, spacer.” he seethed. “Not today!”

He thumbed his navicomputer to life before consulting his TIE’s sensor array, accessing the haulcraft’s last known flight vector and attempting to get a bead on its energy signature. Nothing. Zilch. Just whisps. Ghostly contrails of rapidly dissipating energy. He fed the scant return data into the navicomputer. It was enough. It would have to be.

His comms popped to life.

“Echo Two, this is Control.” came the cool, detached voice of The Detente. “It appears you have engaged your navicomputer. Please be advised, you are not authorized to pursue. Repeat, you are not authorized to pursue. Over.”

But Kellan was already lost in the incalculable computations involved in tracking a hyperspace run. He pitched the Interceptor round and circled back towards the FT-19’s jumpoint.

“You got guts, kid…” he growled under his breath, swinging the TIE into what he hoped was an identical trajectory to the vanished haulcrafts. He primed his hyperdrive, the familiar crackle of ozone filling the cockpit.

“Echo Two, come in!” The indifference had slipped from Control’s voice now. “You are not authorized to pursue! Do you read me, Lieutenant Solari? Power down your hyperdrive imme-”

The Interceptor swept through its target.

“...but so do I.”

He punched the hyperdrive and the starscape bled away to a mottled blue.

@Eccles @OrsikVek

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

Everything in the cockpit was bathed in red light. Emergency, Emergency, Emergency. All other lights were off inside the Haulcraft and Dismas more or less hung in his seatbelts. "What the-" he stopped halfway through his sentence to puke all over himself and then cough the remainder straight onto the cockpit's control panel. Leaving hyperspace this abruptly was like an assault on your body and the way Dismas had left it just now, had been nothing short but an evisceration of his sense of balance. His body, bruised and whiplashed, was so disoriented that it was convinced it had been poisoned.

With a feeling that was ten times worse than the worst hangover he'd ever had, Dismas managed to unclip his seatbelts and allowed himself to drop to the floor of his cockpit. "-kriff, me-" he hurled some more of his breakfast onto the floor and then began to slowly climb back up to his feet.

Once he was back up completely and able to focus his eyes on the control panel, the young aspiring smuggler saw nothing to be happy about. A large part of the Haulcraft had been sealed off as an automatic emergency response to space exposure. Dismas could, through a crawlspace, reach the engine room, but he'd have to wear a vac-suit and in order to restart the hyperdrive engine he'd first have to restore a local integrity failure that would cost him three days to fix. Even with the hyperdrive fixed, the current form of the ship -missing integral parts- would change the calculations at hyperspeed in an unpredictable way. Jumping again with the Haulcraft would be utterly suicidal.

The navcomputer showed his location to be in the Pakuuni Sector, more specifically the Munto Codru System. About 46 parsecs away from the planet of the same name. All Dismas knew of this part of space was that the Codru-Ji originated from here.

It was at this moment, while Dismas was considering options he didn't have, that a TIE (@Tic) dropped out of hyperspace nearby.

@Tic @Vek

 

[Tavell Hamber]

“What the Kriff are you-” Tavell watched with a mixture of horror, outrage and something resembling mirth on his weathered face as he watched Solari break formation, then jump to lightspeed in pursuit of the freighter.

“Lapdog to Detente. Repeat, Lapdog to Detente. Do we have permission to pursue? Over.”

“Geel, power up your hyperdrive. The minute we get clearance, we go. That understood?”

“Sir.”

And then, like the good little lapdog, Tavell the once feared butcher of Beskin, hung in space awaiting his master’s voice.

@Tic
@Eccles

 

[Kellan Solari]

The shifting, vibrant hues of the hyperspace tunnel flooded his TIE’s cockpit, coating his instrumentation in a shimmering sapphire as vivid as a live flame. He normally found a sense of peace in the disconnected limbo accompanying lightspeed. There was risk involved, a palpable inertia and the knowledge that you were covering vast distances at great speeds. And yet, Kellan often found the lack of control…liberating. Starfighter piloting was about reflexes, snap judgments and instincts. But in hyperspace, you were at the mercy of fate and reality.

If the lieutenant’s glowing anger towards the fleeing smuggler had tamped such serene thoughts, any chance at inner-peace was quickly eradicated by the blare of warning alarms and the strobing emergency flashers. The Interceptor lurched out of hyperspace, a blanket of stars abruptly reeling into view.

The rugged surface of an impending astroid dominated his forward viewport and without thinking, Solari wrenched at the ship’s pressers, sending the TIE hard to keel and just barely out of the projectile’s path. He was readying himself for a well-earned exhale of relief when he caught sight of what had apparently been trailing the astral body.

A chunk of mangled debris, a wing or torn twist of fuselage, collided with Solari’s TIE and sent it pinwheeling into the darkness. More alarms. More lights. Kellan fought the controls, struggling desperately to bring the Interceptor out of the spin. After several hair raising seconds, the craft ceased its mindless whirl and course corrected. He studied the damage.

Other than moderate structural harm, he found the hyperdrive motivator had been knocked loose. Wherever he was, he was going to be here until someone retrieved him. He could almost see Commander Darrow’s reddened face, neck veins protruding to such an extent and to threaten to breach skin. Something to look forward to.

His own anger swelled hot in his throat. Where was that kriffing scum? He punched up his radar array. A lone blip winking out in the blackness. He brought the wounded TIE around on a course to intercept its lifeless drift.

“Echo-Two to Control.” he said in his comms, trying to hide the sheepishness from his voice. “Come in Control. I’ve located the contact. My hyperdrive is inoperable. We’ll require a…uh…a lift home. Location is sector designation T-6. Forwarding coordinates now. Over.”

He hotly flipped back to the hailing frequency as the craft slipped into view.

“You alive in there?” he called, switching his weapons systems to hot. “I hope not, for your sake.”

@Eccles @Vek

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

The speaker inside the cockpit suddenly came to live with enough static to raise a womprat out of post-coital sleep. Dismas heard the slightly familiar voice and turned to look outside to, "Kriff," he exhaled sharply upon seeing the TIE hovering nearby. The Jig was up.

Then he remembered what he mother had told him to do in case he couldn't clear Imperial customs on the way back and the young Zaa Fenn, still feeling like he was about to hurl in intestines through his throat, made his way to the small cargo space with the decommissioned droid units. "TC-SC 23006, where are you?" he asked as he truthfully couldn't really make out any differences between the droids and grabbed the datapad from a storage net hung against the wall.

<Statement: I am TC-SC model 23006 and I am here> a robotic monotomous modulater echeod as one pair of lights flicked on and looked at Dismas as a cold-hearted parent.

"Good, listen buddy-" they weren't friend, but considering what Dismas was about to do it really couldn't hurt to be a little bit friendly about it, "-I gotta wipe you." without much further fanfare he pulled back some plating on the side of the droid's head and plugged the datapad in. "Can't have the Empire know what you are, understand?"

<... Initiating datapad-stored wiperware on TC-SC model 23006 ...>
<... Wiperware is in progress: 20 percent completed ...>

Unbeknownst to Dismas the TC-SC model had plugged itself into the decommissioned droid behind it and was rerouting the wiperware into the other droid. Dismas was simply looking at the datapad itself and it all seemed to be going just fine. Bit slow, but he wasn't a slicer and honestly a script was a script. Keep to the script and nothing goes wrong, right?

<... Wiperware is in process: 25 percent completed ..>

Okay kriff, this was taking karking forever. Dismas figured he might as well return to the cockpit and check out what that Imperial pilot was doing, so he put the datapad down and headed back. Worst case scenario he could think of right now is that the upload wouldn't be done in time and he'd have to put a bolt in the droid's brain. That would definitely reveal it being an infiltration droid, though. Kara said that wasn't allowed to happen. It was too valuable an asset to the Zaa Fenn Crime Family.

Reaching the cockpit, Dismas sat himself in the co-pilot's chair as he had puked all over his own, and put the headset back on on. "Attention ship at my bow on zero-five-zero green, this is the Rache-3. I have collided with an asteroid during hyperspeed travel. I request assistence according to International Space Law articles four through nineteen sub twelve. I have notified rescue and salvage operations of neutral Munto Codru. They are inbound."

The specific articles, which Dismas didn't know if the Empire even ratified, spoke of a vessel's duty to protect another defenseless vessel from a possible attack by pirates. Although he was bluffing and only buying time, Dismas liked the idea of the Imperial pilot now having to defend him and keep him alive. With any luck any pirates that showed up could be convinced by the Zaa Fenn's association to the Supreme Mogul to destroy the TIE and resue him from his wreck.

@Tic @Vek

 

[Kellan Solari]

The haulcraft was lamely canting to one side, the tear in its fuselage left by the shorn wing sparking angrily, when Kellan lined it up neatly in his sights and casually armed his missiles. He had no intention of firing upon the defenseless smuggler of course (an act that would undoubtedly compound his already tenuous situation) but if the ship’s countermeasure system was still operable, the cockpit would be trilling with alarms. For all the trouble this character had caused him, Kellan allowed himself this petty satisfaction.

“You can cite galactic law at me until your life support system drains out for all I care.” he snickered into his comlink. “It doesn’t change the fact that you are a fugitive from Imperial justice. I suggest you sit back and get comfortable. You and I are going to wait for Imperial authorities to arrive and take you into custody.”

He swung his Interceptor beneath the stranded ship’s keel, careful to remain out of range of the vessel’s dorsal turret. He was unsure of its operability at this point but Kellan felt it would be a shame to provide the hopeless criminal any opportunity at retribution. He killed the throttle and the ion engines quieted to a sibilant hiss.

Next shore leave, if he was ever granted such a thing again, he’d have to remember to pay this little bootlegger a visit in whatever Imperial prison he’d be rotting away the remainder of his days in. He watched the quadrant of space from which they had come and awaited the arrival of their ride home.

@Eccles @Vek

 

[Dismas Zaa Fenn]

<... Wiperware is in process: 50 percent completed ..>

It had been a while since Dismas had sold information to the Imperial Security Bureau and the last time he'd done it he had actually told the imperial agent that he wouldn't be doing it any longer. This was before he joined the DECS Pathfinder on its exploration and his subsequent failures to make a living as an independent astronavigator. His situation now was dire enough to warrant a try, yet would it truly be worth the gamble if he could also send a mayday to Munto Codru. Kriff, there was no way that an independent world would dare getting on the bad side of the Empire over a smuggler that was stupid enough to fly straight into an asteroid.

He had only two options. Sit back, relax and accept getting send to some labor camp ran by Imperial Czerka, or try and see if his ISB-code was still active. He had to use it whenever he had intel to sell. Just broadcast it and then meet the Imperial representative at the nearest independent spacestation. Dismas sighed as he rubbed his temples and slowed his breathing to counteract his rising heartbeat. The last thing he needed now was to start hyperventilating because of the stress and adrenaline.

"Relay this to your superior officer," the short-range ship-to-ship line cracked after a few minutes, "Delta, Delta, Zulu, Foxtrot. Zero, Zero, Six, One, Two. Contact, Agent; Bravo, Foxtrot, Juliet, Delta. Information dash One."

It wouldn't mean anything to Lieutenant Solari, regardless of his recent admittance to the Imperial Blackout Fleet. His superiors would, however, recognize this code to belong to Dismas Zaa Fenn. A valuable Blackout Fleet asset imbedded in the Hutt cartel.

<... Wiperware is in process: 75 percent completed ..>

@Tic @Vek

 

[Kellan Solari]

Some guys just didn’t know when to quit. Openly flauting Imperial law required a unique cocktail of stupidity, greed and bravado but Solari had never stumbled across a smuggler so brazen as to be caught dead to rights and still continue to issue demands. Behind his flight helm, he inhaled a chestfull of his flight suit's stale, slightly metallic air. He allowed the coil of tension constricting his shoulders to slacken and let his finger slip off the firing stub.

“I’d save your oxygen reserves if I were you, pal.” he called. “Contrary to what you might think, the Imperial Navy has better things to do than to send chauffeurs out after every two-bit Rimrat that makes a break for it. We might be out here for a while. But rest assured, when they do get here, you’ll be punching your ticket to a corpo prison planet. I hear Rampa II is nice. Ever done any mining? Let me know where you end up. I’d love to have a face-to…”

The comlink channel devolved into a strident shriek as the ops-band’s powerful signal cut through it with ease. Behind him, unbeknownst to Kellen, The Warden had just dropped out of hyperspace.

@Eccles @Vek

 

[The Storyteller]

“Echo Two, this is Warden. You are to stand down immediately.” Senior Inspector Barnes’ voice was steady over the comm, belying the chill snaking through his gut. This karking wildcard could ruin everything! “We will take custody of the perpetrator. You are not to interfere any further.”

A second voice, rendered thin through distance, cut in on the band.

“Lieutenant Solari, you will pilot your craft to The Warden’s forward hangar at once!” Faint as it was, Commander Darrow’s voice sounded positively apoplectic. “When you return to Raxus, you will rendezvous with The Detente immediately.”

“Copy that, Commander.”

Barnes stepped away from the comlink and took his position at the bridge’s fore. Out the forward viewports he watched a clutch of his own TIEs spill out from the frigate’s hangar and streak towards the stranded haulcraft. A swelling satisfaction as the lone Interceptor’s ion engines winked to life and the errant pilot wheeled back towards The Warden.

The impulsive fool had nearly cost Barnes his ticket out of this dead-end posting. The figure that had introduced himself on his HoloProjector the week prior had struck him as wholly unimpressive. Between his thinning pate and heavy-lidded stare, the man hardly came across as a figure of authority or ability. Then again, Barnes considered, the gentleman hadn’t called him at all. There was none of the customary chiming of an incoming transmission. The holographic image had simply…appeared.

And so when he introduced himself as Nael Varik, an officer with the Imperial Security Bureau, something told Barnes not to dismiss the unsolicited caller out of hand. Officer Varik had a great deal to say and had spoken at length about the need for cooperation amongst the Empire’s various branches. To act not just as allies, but advocates on one another’s behalfs. In that spirit of transparency, he had informed that an individual that the ISB had a particular interest in would be departing Raxus quite soon. His apprehension would endear his captors to Varik’s superiors. Enough even, to perhaps warrant a boon.

Say, a promotion out of the same Force-forsaken frigate said captor may or may not have been rotting away within for the past two decades?

Barnes, watching Echo Two’s Interceptor slip from sight beneath The Warden’s keel, adopted a thin smile. The prisoner would be delivered into the shadowy hands of the ISB. He would submit a complaint to this upstart TIE pilot’s Command Officer. Kark, he may even let Kessler off with a stern talking to. After all, what did it matter to Barnes? The way he saw it, he was destined for greater things.

/endthread

@Eccles @Vek