"Frelling waste of hardware Headhunter!" De'Ville smacked her fists into the useless console, and kicked her feet at the rudder pedals as well for good measure. She had known she'd get away from Nal Hutta, but this was hardly better than being shot by the people who'd been chasing her.

The only good news she had was that they were far behind her, and would never think of looking for her here. Here, between stars in blank space. Literally, the middle of nowhere. People on Tattooine think they have it bad, but at least they have atmosphere.

The fact that this Z-95 Headhunter had been equipped with hyperdrive in the first place had been remarkable. The fact that the hyperdrive had sustained heavy damage from the TIEs chasing her off planet and had given out mid-trip was astonishing. The former bodyguard/Imperial conscript pounded on the controls one more time before giving up and slumping back into her seat.

The communications equipment had fried upon reversion to real space, making a distress call impossible. De'Ville was seventeen, cross, and tired. And hungry, too. She wondered how long her air would last, but decided that line of thought was too morbid. Instead she set her mind to trying to figure out the odds of a ship happening upon her.

Several hours later she decided that the odds of a ship's hyperspace route taking it through her was greater than the odds of a ship stopping nearby and rescuing her. Unable to sleep from stress and worry, De'Ville closed her eyes and ran through meditation exercises until she passed out.

She wasn't exactly praying. Not exactly. She'd had enough training in the Force to be able to feel It around her, but little more than that. Enhanced reflexes and combat techniques, as well as rudimentary training in energy attacks. They'd wanted to turn her into a living weapon. Angry, De'Ville struggled to escape her unconsciousness, but flailed helplessly in the dark void.

Somehow she was still conscious enough to think; conscious enough to hope. Certainly not to pray. Corellia believed in their nine hells and possibly more than one heaven... she'd never paid attention in class. As far as a deity to call her own, De'Ville had none, except the Force, and it was not an entity. Merely an energy field.

Sinking in the void of her mind, De'Ville couldn't feel her body shivering as the life support in her little cockpit started to fail. Help me... help...

The entry chime in Sim Aragon's quarters rang, followed by an urgent pounding. He groaned, threw back the covers, and squinted at the chrono display hovering over his bed. The floating green numbers told him he'd been asleep for two hours.

More pounding, followed by a woman's muffled voice. "Commander! Sensors have picked up something crossing into Imperium territory. Trajectory shows that it came within the vicinity of Hutt space."

He considered ignoring the voice, but realized he was already awake. He reached over, clicked on the light, and tapped the console that released the door's security lock. "Enter."

The door slid open, and he recognized the black uniformed woman standing there as Lieutenant Malvern, the watch intelligence officer. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Commander, but we've just picked this up a few minutes ago and thought you'd want to hear immediately."

He asked skeptically. "Is it an invasion?" Even if the random tidbit was of potential interest, Sim didn't see how it could be. Yet the Lieutenant seemed sincerely to believe that this was important. He couldn't see her face clearly while she was back-lit from the hallway, but she looked grave.

"No, sir. It is one starship. Z-95 Headhunter class."

He sat up in bed, suddenly feeling wide awake. "Anything else?"

"Nothing yet, Commander. Subcommander Sirtek hasn't charted an intercept course until you were notified. He awaits orders."

"Life readings?"

She lowered her head. "Inconclusive. As I said, the Subcommander recommends we investigate since we are patrolling this sector."

He rubbed his face and planted his feet on the cold floor. "Very well, dispatch two of our Deathgliders to make a run and investigate. Have the <I>Deimos</i> chart an intercept course. Let's see who our visitor is."

"Yes, sir..."

Inside the cockpit of the Headhunter, Lilaena had roused herself to try to reconfigure the comm to emitt a distress beacon, but there wasn't enough power left. Frustrated, she slammed her fist into the console with all the strength she had, and broke something in her hand.

Tears of rage welled up in her eyes, but they were dry tears. She hadn't had anything to drink since before the fight at Shadra the Hutt's palace. Drifting back into unconsciousness, the Force adept felt for the armblades that were tucked in behind the seat. When activated, the long vibroblades were deadly weapons that could hurt the wearer if not wielded expertly.

Her hand fell back down into her lap as life support finally failed completely, and a ship winked into real space not too far away.

Nal Hutta
Plugra the Hutt's Palace

"... and our guards report that she stole a modifed Z-95 headhunter from Shadra's hangar bay, and left the planet. Shadra's personal TIE fighter squadrons chased her to the edge of the system, damaging her craft, but it managed to reach hyperspace."

The twi'lek paused, head tails twitching.

Plurga the Lesser's face contorted into a look that was a hutt sign of annoyance.

"And??"

The twi'lek visibly gulped.

"That is it, my opulance."

Plurga the Lesser let out a large sigh got up from his oversized throne. With agility unusual to most of his species he crawled forward rapidly and proceed to backhand the twi'lek.

"Why did you not order further pursuit??"

"Her ship... it was heavily... severly... dam... literally crippled..."

Plurga reared his small arm back and the twi'leck abadoned reasoning.

"Please.... I beg for your mercy.... oh great one..... please fogive my transgression...."

Plurga the lesser lowered his short arm. The twi'leck was moderatly skilled at his current position- he did not really deserve mecry. However, dealing with a situation like this with a new chief of staff would be rather difficult. Grudgingly, he relaxed.

The twi'lek let out a sigh of relief.

"Is there any chance you can continue your pursuit of the vessel?"

The twi'lek's eyes shifted, as if wondering what to say. After a moment he said,

"It's possible that we could trace the vehicles last known vector, and send ships after her....."

"THEN DO IT!!! IMMEDIATLY!!! And do not return to my chamber until you have this Lilaena in your possession- if you must capture her personally!"

The twi'lek wisly picked himself up of the ground and scampered out of the chamber. Plurga the lesser let out an annoyed grunt. His uncle, Plurga the Hutt, head of the Desilijic clan, had recently made a deal securing Desilijic's position as the controlling kadjic of Nal Hutta and the expansive Hutt criminal empire. In his consolidation, he had named him, his favorite nephew to cheif of security of the "Glorious Jewel." And now this. Right after taking over the position, some stupid human female goes off and kills Shadra the Hutt, a good friend of his uncle's.

If he didn't catch Shadra's killer, Plurga was not going to be happy; and when Plurga was unhappy, there would be problems, even for his favorite nephew.

Cursing the stupidy and incompetance of both his own minions and Shadra's, he retired to his personal quarters in the grand palace that was his uncles's for a much need nap.

"What's the situation, Subcommander?" Commander Aragon chimed as he entered the command bridge of the <I>Deimos</I>.

Sirtek frowned at him. "About twenty minutes ago, we started picking up a distress call. Low-power transmitter and tight beam-- definitely intended as a signal for help."

"Origin?"

"It is coming from the Headhunter. The trajectory came from Hutt Space."

"Could it be a trap?"

"Possibly, Commander, but I don't think so."

"This could be good intelligence, then. Can we bring it aboard once the Deathgliders confirm it not a threat?"

"It will delay our patrol of this sector by a few hours, but it can be done. But I'm troubled."

"How so?"

"If we intervene, we may possibly be involving ourselves into something the Imperium shouldn't be."

Aragon shrugged. "If the ship has entered our territory, SubCommander, then it is our business to investigate and be involved. The Hutt Syndicate does not concern us, nor does our Imperium be concerned."

"Just the same, it strikes me as curious. All the readings we're getting say this ship is really damaged, and there's an injured pilot onboard. It doesn't seem to be a trap, and yet it has all the markings of one."

"Still, I don't see how we can let this opportunity pass us by."

"Your call, Commander. We'll pick it up and see what happens." Sirtek nodded to the comm officer and the pilots of the Deathgliders were notified to circle their target. Aragon signalled his tactical officer to power up the tractor beam. The fighters would escort the small Z-95 into the hangar bay of the <I>Deimos</i>.

Sirtek folded his arms as he studied the tactical display. "Should we inform Kessel about this?"

He considered, then shook his head. "Let's find out what intelligence we've got before we decide who to share it with. Doubtless, somebody on the other side of Hutt Space is going to wonder what we're doing poking around their borders, so come up with a cover story and stick to it. We'll have rounded up any survivors, and will be on our way to hyperspace before they get overly suspicious."

"Reducing sublight speed," said the navigation officer, as he slowly reduced thrust toward their target.

Inside the Z-95, the ship's communications snapped the girl forcefully back from nebulous realms inhabited by memories of distant dreams and fading visitations, as one of the Deathgliders raced past her ship.

The voice that barked at her via the communicator was an odd mix of empathic and anxious. "<I>Repeating... all spaceports and all landing facilities of the Black Dragon Empire, including those designated for emergency service, are closed to flights that have not originated from this locale. Unauthorized craft are prohibited from landing. Infractors will be boarded or fired upon. These regulations are in force until officially countermanded by the Farfalen government and the Imperium. Repeating...</i>"

Something went <I>bang</i> and the Headhunter bounced violently as a tractor beam locked onto it...

"The Insatible Greed is currently undergoing a refit. It cannot be sent out on a mission on this time."

The Twi'lek, Koril Tur's headtails began twitching rapidly in a unconsious sign of distress. He had been counting on using Plurga the Hutt's most modern and lethal vessel (as well as the one with the best trained and loyal crew) to ensure that he didn't fail the Hutt's nephew. Despite the fact that Plurga the Lesser was conisdered somewhat of a runt for his species (hence his title) he would still smash Koril flat.

"What is availible?"

The aerospace controller, working up in a tower coordinating Plurga's vessels paused and searched a database of ships active and currently around Nal Hutta or Nar Shadda. The database was unorganized and jumbled- not surprisingly consdering the amount of traffic around the hutt's adopted homeworld; as well as the amount of "turnover" involved in employment with the hutts.

"The Nat Gruda can be used.... she's currently orbiting Nar Shadda. Recently returned from n escort mission of Horuza the Hutt to the Corporate Sector."

"What class is she?"

Nat Gruda, loosely translated as "The Grand Wind" was not very descriptive.

"Kaloth class.... refitted and in good condition. Modified docking rack carries 6 hornet interceptors."

A kaloth class battlecruiser was an old by rather lethal vessel bristling with weaponry. It was no Insatible Greed , but Koril would have tightroped across a rancor pit to get his hands on it now- somone up there was looking out for him.

"Perfect"

The excitment was clear in his voice.

"I'll be leaving shortly to meet up with them. Have the crew prepare for a jump out of the system."

Maybe this won't be so bad after all.....

Her eyes fluttered open as the comm started to receive a signal. A strong signal... very strong. When her eyes focused, she could see the edge of an enormous ship just above her.

"Repeating... all spaceports and all landing facilities of the Black Dragon Empire, including those designated for emergency service, are closed to flights that have not originated from this locale. Unauthorized craft are prohibited from landing. Infractors will be boarded or fired upon. These regulations are in force until officially countermanded by the Farfalen government and the Imperium. Repeating... all -"

The Headhunter jerked and shuddered as a tractor beam locked onto it and pulled it into a giant maw of a hangar. De'Ville was shaken about in her restraints, but she was too weak to do anything about it. Oxygen had been very low in the cockpit, and as the Z-95 was about halfway to the larger ship life support finally gave out completely.

De'Ville gasped, eyes wide as the one-man fighter passed the magnetic shielding of the hangar opening, starting to suffocate just as she was being rescued. Her last conscious thought was, Figures...

Commander Aragon returned back to the tactical station to supervise the recovery while his SubCommander viewed the readouts from the hangar bay. "We're showing residue of blaster fire and some loss of life-support that probably vented from the Headhunter. We're getting energy readings that tell us it has a barely functioning power convertor to the systems. Of course, that may mean we'll find a warm corpse instead of a frozen one."

Whoever this is obviously had taken severe battle damage and had barely made it away from the Hutts. "Well," said Sim, "looks like the Hutt Syndicate did manage to get a few licks in. Whoever this is, may have been of great interest to them."

There was a crackle from the comlink. "First Prime, Sknirb here. We've got one survivor, but she's unconscious and in bad shape. She's barely alive."

"Get her to the bacta tanks as soon as you can, Sknirb. You know the drill."

"Yes, sir. We'll proceed to strip the ship of any intelligence materials, pull the computer cores for analysis, plant a thermal detonator charge and cast it outside to blow to slag." There was a pause. "And sir?"

"Yes, First Prime."

"What if she doesn't survive?"

The SubCommander looked at Aragon. Then his jaw clenched and he shook his head. "Burn it."

"Exiting hyperspace now."

Koril Tur didn't acknowledge the message. He didn't like sitting on the bridge of a spaceship, with only a few feet seperating him from the vaccum of space. The Nat Gruda , despite being recently refitted, was only in marginal shape and its crew was a motely collection of rif-raff and delinquents. Koril didn't see how it could get much worse.

The brightness of hyperspace faded away to the normal starscape. Koril had made an executive decision to jump to the farthest extent of the projection of where the headhunter could have made it too.... assuiming he could work his way backwards more quickly. The fact that he would have to skirt the edge of the Black Dragon Empire had not been an alluring thought; but what Plurga the Lesser would do to him if he failed resonated on a whole other level.

"Contacts!"

Koril's spine tingeled. Could he possibly be that lucky. He waiyed as the old vessel's sensor could provide a better reading, his breath caught in his throat. The sensor operator, a gran, peered down at his console.

"One Capital class vessel, with snubfighter in tractor beam."

Koril gulped.

"Snubfighter appears to be damaged..... high radiation leakage from fusion core. Capital vessel is of unknown vaiety... transpoder signal is..."

One of Koril's headtails slid down toward his mouth, one of his unique signs of nervousness. The gran's triple eye stalks seemed to bulge out slightly as the information came across the console.

"Deimos, BDE patrol vessel. "

Koril began to sweat profusely. Nothing seemed to be going his way. Unsure of what to do, he decided to release his anger, and let out a vehement twi'leki curse.

"Frotz!"