Sylva stopped in midturn, rotating slowly back to face him. "A hundred thousand?" She pursed her lips in thought just a moment, then spoke quickly. "First you offered me ten thousand for the whole lot and now a hundred for part? I'll need to see the money first. Then it's your problem how you move it."

A muscle in his cheek twitched slighty as she tapped her foot impatiently. "Ok," he said finally, "we have a deal."

"Good." She turned to go again, but paused once more as a rumbling noise that had been droning in the background for a few moments suddenly grew lounder, accompanied by the sound of several explosions.

"What in space?..."

The chaos below him truly was a beautiful sight.

From the observation dome on his bright red flagship, Gorma watched as green Turbolaser blasts tore hunks of rock off of the asteroid below him. Occasionally, a lucky blast would enter one of the holoshrouded landing platforms that appeared to be craters, and the parts of some odd smugglers ships would come spewing out.

It was art in its purest form.

A flight of the Starvipers his ship carried shot past the dome, the drive streams fanning out behind him and causing the transparisteel dome to vibrate. Those ships... so elegant. When they turned, their maneuvering fins twisted as well, making them appear to be some sort of living, spacefaring creature, not a ship that could take on the best either the Empire or the New Republic could field.

Down on the planetoid below, the first of the ships began emerging, clearly surprised that their hidey-hole had been discovered. A few of them charged directly towards either the Vendetta ore one of the other three battlecruisers in formation with it, but a solid majority peeled off towards the open space on either side of the asteroid, intent on running. The 192 Star Vipers and Supa fighters his small fleet carried were hot on their tale and gaining fast.

Out from another part of the asteroid came a flight of five ships, all light transports. They bore down on a wing of fighters that had crossed over their hangers just moments before they lifted off. The hunters had became the hunted. Ah well, a few fighters and their pilots more or less wouldn't seriously hamper their resources, as scarce as they were, and these most certainly were not Black Suns heydays. What really mattered, he figured, was the big picture.

One by one, the fighters, mostly Razor fighters, were being picked off by the five-ship group. Occasionally, one would explode in a fantastic explosion, brilliant in its own right, but a mere pinprick in the amazing tapestry of color and light that was this battle.

Yes, this was most certainly art in its purist form.

A huge explosion rocked the asteroid, no mean feat since it was almost entirely solid rock.

"Holy shit!" he yelled, nearly loosing his balance.

Fumbling with his belt, he managed to pull his comlink off and yank it up to his lips.

"Jesh!" he yelled into it, "Get the Stormhawk ready to go, cause as soon as I get there, we're taking off!"

Sylva had grabbed a landing strut to steady herself as the asteroid had begun to rock insanely. "I guess this means the deals off?" she called as the would-be buyer ran unsteadily past her. He turned briefly to give her a single incredulous look before bolting for the doorway. She returned the look with a grin and a shrug before turning to her own ship. It was high time to take off.

A loud crash in the very near vicinity caused her to glance around, then turn around fully. An enormous pile of rocks had slid over the doorway, cutting off any way through it. She raised an eyebrow as the man who appeared suddenly frozen in place, mere inches from a crushing death.

"And I guess that means you can't get to your ship?" He turned on her, eyes blazing. She frowned mockingly. "And that means that you are about to be very, very angry." She let a serious look replace her grin as she guestured up the boarding ramp that gave access to the passenger part of the ship. "I could give you a lift. Free of charge of course. But only if you promise not bite my head off."

"Alright, let's go!" he called, trying to mask his true intentions.

No, he didn't plan on hijaking it, it was something much more... gutsy.

The YT-2000, a rather late model, acutally, began rising off the hangers floor and then slowly passed through the holoshroud and magnetic lock at the top of the hanger. A few seconds later it turned towards the front of the asteroid, the exact direction he wanted to go.

If he remembered correctly, his hanger was just three down from here, so it should be a simple matter just to count out three and... there it was. What he was about to do was really a shame because it might damage her ship, but what must be done must be done.

"Sylva," he spoke into his comlink, "I'm sorry about this, Jesh get that magnetic air lock deactivated, because here I come!"

And in one smooth motion, he pressed enter on on air locks activation pad, causing it to swing open and reveal him to the vaccum.

He hadn't realized just how bad of an idea it was up til now, but it was too late to stop. He pushed himself off the ship, and he slowly began drifting towards the hanger he had identified as his.

5...10...15. The seconds ticked by. His lungs were dying for a breath of air. To his left, the Starwind was turning back towards him after she had realized what he'd foolishly done.

And then it was over. He came down right on top of the holoshroud, then passed through it, and then gravity returned, bringing with it something he'd forgot about. A twenty meter fall.

This was defenitly a bad idea... he thought, accelerating towards a pile of food processor cubes.

Blackness.

What an idiot... Sylva quickly activated the controls that would automatically seal off the open hatch and repressurize the cabin. No harm had been done to the ship, thanks to the quick reaction of the mechanical hatchways that had sealed that room off from the rest of the ship. And I wonder how he knew my first name. I only gave him my last. That was what was disturbing her the most. Still, she thought, she had better stick around and make sure he got away safely. That depended, of course, on if he survived the fall. Men. Never stop to think.

A fighter came swooping in low, hammering the hangers into deeper craters than they already were, and heading straight for the crater that the man's ship was docked in. Without thinking, Sylva shot it out of the sky and resumed her circle, at least until the realization of exactly what the fighter's markings had been.

"See ya later," she muttered under her breath toward the hangar below and launched the Starwind into the blackened sky. Needless to say, most of her maneuvers from that point on were entirely evasive. She was fuly aware of the ton of ammunitions in her hold. This ship would would make an especially bright fireball if it was hit.

Gritting her teeth, she fired on a squadron of Supas, blasting to of them to particles before the rest were devoured by the fire from a ship that rose from the landing platform her former customer. She joined them, deciding it was the safest way to go. And they also seemed to be heading towards what may have been the flagship with the intent of causing danger, and that was the most important thing.

If it hurt Black Sun, she was there.

He came to moments after landing with a tremendous pain in his leg. Pain tolerance had never been a problem for him, but damn! This was worse than he'd ever experienced.

Hearing the crash of his landing, Jesh came running down the landing ramp. He looked over at Kach and the wreck around him, then up towards the hangers top. His eyes went wide, and then he said, "No, you didn't!"

He was grimacing to hold back the pain. "That's not important. Is the ship ready?"

Jesh knodded.

"Good. Now help me into my seat, we've gotta go."



He had to admit, it sure felt good to be back into the Stormhawks Pilot Seat, of course, part of the relief he was experienceing came from the Bacta patch on his right leg, the one he was experiencing pain in.

As he had lifted out of the hanger, a trio of ships pulled onto his tail, a YT-2400, a Firespray, one of the few in smugglers hands, and a Skipray Blastboat.

"Torve, Zeth, Rush, follow me, lets get out of here."

A flurry of acnowledgements poured back to him over the comlink.

The fight was still going on, the anonymous attackers were still here and the smugglers that hadn't fled were still fighting back.



It was only a moment after that that he saw them.

There they were, about 75 kilometers away at ten o'clock. Three of them long and Cigar shaped, with the fourth similar but painted a bright red instead of matte gray and haveing two massive wings sticking out of the sides.

It was huge.

"Oh my gosh, Jesh, look there," he said, pointing it the ships general direction. "There, you ever seen anything like it?"

"Haven't ever seen one of those before."

"Me neither, but let's go pay them a visit."

Three ships joined up with them as they blasted towards the enormous ship, cannons already blazing away. As the lasers bounced harmlessly off the shield, Sylva realized that not even five such ships had much chance of causing significant danger with their limited supply of torpedoes and missiles. Then an idea flashed through her mind.

"These are the times I really wish I had a copilot..." she muttered as she shrugged off her restraints and keyed the comm. "This is the Knight, I need you boys to cover to me for a few minutes. I've got to run to the hold."

She knew she was taking a risk, and she knew that if even a stray shot got through the shields anywhere near the cargo bay, the Starwind would be space dust. But she was really itching to load some of those new heavy torpedoes. These should cause some damage...

The massive ships ahead of the Stormhawk only grew larger as they approached. Sure, they had sounded big when his sensors gave him a length, 1,150 meters, but he never imagined how big they would seem up close.

They sure as hell didn't have the firepower to take even one of those out.

Of course, they could have if the attack had just happened a day later. Sitting back in the main cargo hold was a Capital Ship Grade Proton Torpedo launcher and six of the meter long warheads for it to fire. He had planned on mounting it outside the ship (though still attached of course) to give it a lot bigger punch. The two ion cannons he had wanted to buy from that woman, Knight, would have been placed on the wingtips as well as a little suprise to anyone thinking they were easy meat. Unfortunitally, fate had a funny way of ruining all your plans as it had here, but they would do what they could with what they had.

"Umm... Raptor flight," that's what he'd refer to them as, "Stick with me and arm your torpedoes. We're getting in close."

In the foward viewports, a sudden barrage of turbolaser fire lanced out to meet them.

"Oh shit!"

In his rather short but spectacular crimional career, Gorma had never been so proud of his small navy. By the looks of things, all organzied resistance was gone, including the three wings of defensive fighters the base possesed.

Of course, there was the occasional vigilante group. Outside the bridge he could see two groups of fighters accelerating towards them. He could pick out individual ships now, four and six respectibly, so they were far too close for comfort.

"Maxell," he said, addressing the captain, "open fire on those two groups."

"Yes my lord," he replied, muttering something to himself, then shouting: "Fire on targets port side in sector 0-1-6-5 and 1-7-2-2."

"Good, captain," he praised, "but if you mutter under your breath like that again I'll have your head on a platter."

"I'm very sorry my lord, I was saying..."

"I don't want excuses," he proclaimed, getting slightly agitated, "I want results!"

The humanoid captain was silent.

Outside the ship, a salvo of turbolaser energy shot out roughly divided between the two targets. None of the blasts hit, though some were close.

"Damn it, fire! I want results!"