Takeover Of Vulpter

Space near Vulpter

Rac sat in his chair in his `office` on the Sentenced, which was located on the upper deck near the bridge so that he wouldn’t have to bother to travel a long way to give orders to his officers. The star destroyer was currently travelling to a meeting point where they would rendezvous with two talon carriers carrying special equipment for Rac`s next project. Of course Rac was now surrounded only by droids mostly and officers that didn’t ask questions like one of them especially in Rac`s forces. Rac was currently going trough old archive information on the separatist acts on the core worlds during the clone wars, Vulpter was one of their bases at that time and it was a great industrial waste land inhabited by its natives the vulptereen. The race had been marked for their technology, but especially in their skills to make racing engines and machines. This brought many memories to Rac`s mind such as the pod racings of Tatooine where he had made quite good bet’s with his money raising his fortunes bigger. The Vulptereen had been enslaved by the trade federation to dig huge storages for them and that was what also interested Rac in this planet not to forget it’s great industrial capacity to use. The storages would be perfect for Rac`s plans, besides weapons and all other supplies he could create a own small storage that no one would know of since not all of the tunnels were connected, then perhaps try to build some sort of smuggling chain as he once had working in the core worlds and hutt space who were his main employers at that time.

Rac had been charged countless tmes from smuggling until he was contacted by the Union and he simply grasped Fresia as his own so from there on the police force of Fresia was almost gone. Rac had gotten rid of many that had tried to get him in jail and kept all those who were corrupted or hadn’t stood against him. Money had been the way out many times and there had been some witnesses from time to time, but they somehow seemed to disappear all the sudden, but there was no evidence against Rac even with the witness because he was never on the scene of an operation. Smuggling was profitable until you get caught, but now he could perhaps open a more subtle and un-noticeable smuggling chain without being caught, if the chain was revealed. Many criminals that weren’t working for the Union paid lot money for artefacts and almost anything illegal. On the other hand a smuggling operation needed an intelligent leader and Rac needed a man that the traces would end to instead that they would lead to him.

Perhaps few of his old smuggling buddies were still on Tatooine or Nar Shaddaa working for the hutts or just left the smuggling to live a far safer life since the idea of being caught by the imperials wasn’t tempting. As Rac had though before the storages would be perfect and even, if they were revealed he would never leave any signs of his people or droids being there and claim that he was unaware of the storage spaces holding contraband. Rac opened a messaging holocron and taped a small message that he would send to few of his old friends. There wouldn’t be anything discriminating towards Rac since he just told them to come soon as they could to Vulpter and discuss about a place in his small fleet, but told that they should keep this job offer to themselves. The holocrons would of course be delivered by assassination droids, which were dependable and would kill those who didn’t keep the information to themselves as the message said. At last they would destroy the holocron even, if the man would decide to leave towards Vulpter because no evidence was suitable to be left behind. Rac sent the droids on their way and soon few shuttles left the bay towards the planets they were ordered to. Suddenly the door to the room opened and a middle aged man walked in with an battle suit on his, a blaster on his belt and two droids escorting him. Rac ordered the droid to stay at the door and a servant droids came in with few pushes of buttons. The man sat in the chair looking around.

"Well I have to give it to you that you have quite a place here..."

Rac smiled.

"Just a small replacement to my bigger offices while I am travelling on business trips... anything to drink?"

Rac nodded towards the droid, which seemed waiting and the man looked at the droid.

"Just some corellian ale..."

"Right away sir.."

The droid said with a metallic voice as the man turned back to Rac.

"So I was told that you have another job lined up for me after that jedi incident..."

Rac grinned, feeling great tempment to hit the mercenary in the face or have him shot in the shoulder for example, but that would be very un-useful in the verge of a mission where Rac needed dirty workers like this mercenary named Ilnagtus or what ever his last name was.

"Yes I do have... "

Rac said as the droid poured drinks for them as Rac had already ordered it to get him a Yardle as usual.

"But this isn`t going to be anything serious, just a recon mission into some tunnels on Vuplter that seem fit my purposes at the moment and I doubt that there will be any fighting or actually I prefer that there will be no fighting because I have no intention of the Vulpteer finding out that there are mercenaries running in the tunnels for some reason.... just too much suspicions... but there is something you must do with some small explosives..."

Ilnagtus nodded.

"Sure, I’ll have a suitable team prepared as long as we get our money after this job and the equipment to do it so I’ll tell them to drop by at the storage I guess?"

Rac took a mouth full of his drink and grinned slightly.

"Yes... Now beat it... I have few operations to take care before arrive at the planet where I am going to negotiate with the locals about some...goods..."

Ilnagtus drank his glass empty quickly and left leaving Rac alone with the droid that Rac soon deactivated before opening a control panel, the ships stopped at hyperspace and Rac made contact to a certain group that he contacted trough the Union. He had armed some pirates with heavier equipment than normal and now was going to send them to destroy all export food that Vulpter was receiving outside that planet since they had destroyed their own chance of farming.

"Is everything ready?"

The leader of the pirates smiled.

"Sure thing, we have been waiting for the convoy to arrive near the planet among some asteroids and they should be arriving at any moment..."

"Good... then get rid of them quickly before my ships arrive.."

Rac closed the channel with a smile, the pirates would do their job and as they would reach their base they would find their pal’s killed by Rac`s droids, not to forget that they would face the same fate and their small base would be blown to dust. Everything had to look real and it would be no miracle, if pirates attack ship in hope of some profit these days and no one cold accuse Rac in the end. The key of Rac´s plan was Vulpters need of food exports, the pirates would destroy this month’s convoy that was going to deliver food to them and the mercenaries would eventually blow up the Vulptereen food in the storages that they used as Rac was negotiating with them. Then Rac would kindly offer his helping hand to give food, if they gave their planet’s control to Rac and the only thing the Vulptereen would lose would be their power on the planet. Rac didn’t know how the Coalition would mark his actions, but he knew that they would keep an eye on companies such as his and Belgardi`s, which enslaved and conquered other planets so to speak. After sometime Rac opened another channel to the ship bridge where captain Jezk was in charge.

"Are we ready to procceed towards Vulpter captain?"

"In a short while sir, I am following your instructions and we will have to wait for sometime...."

"Good... then everything is proceeding as planed..."

Rac closed the channel as he leaned back relaxing; the first thing he expected to see on the screen of his computer was destroyed freighters and transports floating in space near Vuplter. All life snuffed out of them and crippled, then he could precede with the rest of his small plan to just takeover another poor and unsuspecting planet.

The orbit of Vulpter

A convoy exited hyperspace near the planet of Vulpter, it was made out of many freighters, transports and escort fighters along with few gun ships at the side. To the convoy this was just another day and another cargo, they thought that soon they would be gathered around a table drinking on their free time, but life is full of surprises and numerous factors affect it in their own way. The convoy leader opened a connection to the planet control and at the same time ships began to emerge at the convoy’s flank from a small asteroid field.

"Vulpter control this is the convoy leader Ichal requesting permission to land and unship our cargo not to forget the refuel for the trip back.."

"This is Vulpter control Ichal, you are cleared to land and your ships will be refuelled, but be advised that a number of unidentified ships are closing in fast and they haven’t answered yet to our contact... proceed with caution and we will send a fighter wing to assist you, if there is any need to... we will keep you posted on the situation..."

"Thank you Vulpter control, we will be cautious..."

The transports had no greater weaponry as about 30 fighter craft and a fast frigate was closing in fast, the Vulpter`s sent a fighter wing as no answer was returned to them, but continued the attempt to contact the vessels. Soon it was too late and the fighters engaged combat with the ships, the pirates began to win with their heavier weaponry and the help of a frigate at their side. The transports were getting severe hits as they tried to get to safety, but the fighter craft finished them off with torpedos. To the Vulptereen`s amazement the ships turned and left as the convoy was left destroyed, few of the freighters survived the fight because they had slipped to the planet surface and some pirate ships were destroyed in the process as they had pursued them. The Vulptereen began removing the remains of the battle still in shock that the convoy had been destroyed since there had been nothing of real value to the pirates and the pirates would have been beaten completely, if they had tried to board the ships. It made no sense to the vulptereen, but it made perfect sense to the arriving dug whose ships flashed out of hyperspace sometime after the battle. Rac couldn’t help smiling as he saw the remains, soon after the ships came out of hyperspace they were contacted by the Vulpter control, which seemed quite startled by the ships appearance since a huge warship appears after a vicious pirate attack it’s just doesn’t seem good. The speech was given to Rac after it had reached the bridged of the star destroyer.

“Approaching ships this is Vulpter control, please identify yourselves or we will open fire..”

“Vulpter control this is Rac Fegal speaking from the Sentenced, I have come to Vulpter on a small business trip that includes meeting your leaders concerning an arms deal…”

“Very well mister Fegal you can precede to the orbit, we have arranged a re fuel for all of your ships that arrive at the orbit…”

“Thank you Vulpter control, Sentenced out…”

Rac closed the channel and proceeded to the ship armoury where a group of mercenaries were gathered to hear Rac`s instructions of the mission that was to be a simple recon mission to some tunnels below the surface of Vulpter. Rac floated to the armoury with his bodyguard droids on his tail, Rac looked around at a group of about 20 mercenaries of many races. Humans, which Rac thought was the worst beings in the galaxy especially imperials, an azguard of the dumber kind as he had learned it and few other races among them all. Rac`s bodyguards took place by the doors side and Ilnagtus stepped forwards as the others were still getting their gear on and taking some weapons out of some crates that were taken for this trip. About 4 of them received a pack of explosives in case they had to split in the tunnel so that they could divide at least in 5 groups of 4 persons.

“Are these the one’s you chose for the mission? Are they all capable enough?” Rac said with a suspecting face.

“Yes, don’t you have trust in me?”

“Let’s just say that it’s hard to trust anyone in this galaxy since you have been a thief once and there is no trusting in one… they aren’t the best possible men, but they’ll do this time…”

“Are we going to have to do this on our own or shall we have some of your droids to assist us?”

“No you won’t get any because I don’t like idea of any Vulptereen seeing any of my droids running around with explosives and blasters in their storage halls, besides this mission requires stealth, which isn’t the thing my droids are really suited for…”

“Understood… Gather up men!”

The soldiers turned their backs at the crates and gathered up in a tight group looking at Rac, Rac snorted as he looked back and began to speak with a strict voice after a while.

“The mission will be simple, but it has few tricks on the way… first of all I demand that you aren’t seen there, but if you are then we still have a control of the situation and no problems will arise really, but it will be a lot more easier for all of us. Secondly there will be no shooting, if not necessary and you’ll follow my instructions to the letter. Finally you will all receive your targets from your captain and you’ll divide at least in 3 groups to set some bombs, then you’ll get out and watch the fireworks on your way back on a shuttle that will be waiting for you. Your captain will lead you to the entrance that we have made for you and he will stay on the surface to give your specific orders…”

Rac turned around and floated away from the soldiers who began to speak with each others until Ilnagtus brought order, the mercenaries left the armoury to the hangar of the ship as well as Rac who had gone before. Soon 3 shuttles left the Sentenced and headed towards the planet, the excuse of the other shuttles was simply other business, which was true for the other shuttle as the other was on it’s way to destroy. Rac`s shuttle on approached a large government building that held the rulers of the planet, the planet was once taken over and it’s people enslaved. Rac was going to offer a slightly more generous, deal for them after he had stalled them enough and if the attempt to blow their rations failed then he could just make a normal deal with them since Rac had been lately trying to develop his companies to being more flexible. Rac kept the selling of weaponry as his primary way of profit, but he had been opening other things that went hand to hand with weapons such as medical supplies. The shuttle landed on a landing pad, the ramp opened and Rac floated down to be greeted by a vulptereen, who was some sort of official or a politician, but a being of greater importance.

“Welcome to Vulpter mr Fegal, we hope you enjoy your stay without being bothered by the recent incident, but now please follow me to the waiting room because your appointment will be later on…”

“Thank you and I can assure you that I am not at all concerned of the recent events since my ships are far better equipped than the one’s in that poor convoy…”

Rac floated down a small ramp that led out of the lading pad and entered the building where he was guided to a waiting room with some luxury, Rac left his own chair and sat one of the chairs there after stretching out a little bit since he had been sitting quite a while. Rac sat down comfortably to wait for him to be called in to the meeting.

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Meanwhile on the planet surface the shuttle of the mercenaries landed near a certain installation and the mercenaries walked, they were long coats and robes to hide their equipment for now. They had already made their agreements about the targets and splitting up since Rac had been able to provide them with some sort of plans of the tunnels. Ilnagtus lead his men towards the entrance of the tunnels that the vulptereen used as storage space hoping that everything would go well because Rac didn’t pay for a badly done job. Soon they arrived at the entrance and one after another the mercenaries disappeared under the ground as their captain returned to the shuttle. He opened his comlink hoping that it would work and that there wouldn’t be any interference.

"Team one do you copy?"

"Yeah we copy… it`s damn dark in here, but I think we will manage very well since Fegal was kind enough to equip us with everything we need…"

"Good, but now get moving and find your targets…"

The tunnel below the surface

The mercenaries moved their way down a small tunnel that was made by Rac`s few hirelings before the trip had started towards Vulpter, they soon found themselves behind a pile of crates after they had gone trough a thin cover that was hiding the tunnel to the storage tunnels. The highest in command of the teams opened his com link to the surface where Ilnagtus answered.

"Were in, the entrance was quite poorly covered, but these storages aunt any prisons so they don’t really expect anyone to create their own detour here or have any interest in their supplies...."

"Good... Now split up in 3 teams and share the maps to everyone, move from shadow to shadow, if there are lights and take cover, if you see any guards and don’t let them see you... or more importantly raise an alarm. At the moment you are in smaller room that should lead into 2 bigger tunnels and from there on you will have to go on your own... teams 2 & 3 will take the first tunnel right across the room and team 1 will take the second to the left...."

"Copy that sir... but..."

"But what lieutenant?"

"Should lead into 2 bigger tunnels? Are you telling these maps aren`t exact?"

"Oh shut up and get moving..."

The mercenaries split up and began to make their way towards their targets hoping they wouldn’t run into any surveillance equipment or guard either. For sometime all teams advanced without seeing any contact in the tunnels and luckily the maps were correct except for few walls, after few minutes teams 2 & 3 had to take cover behind some crates as a couple of guards passed by. After a relief of not being detected they continued and discovered that they had to split up as it was planned. Team 1 reached it’s goal first and set the charges to blow when the button on Ilnagtus`s control was pushed so team 1 was on it’s way back. Team 2 reached its goal too easily and opened the channel.

“Sir the bombs are planted, but shall we wait for team three at the crossroads or come out without them?”

“There’s no need I think…”

“Copy that, we are heading back…”

Suddenly a shot of blaster fire came out of the other end of the hallway where team three was
Planting the bombs, team two headed towards them, but turned as the saw team three running at them with fire at their tails. The two teams hurried back without caring, if they were seen and quickly ran to small tunnel beginning to make their way to the surface. They finally got up and ran towards the shuttle with their weapons at hand of course getting attention besides the shouts behind them. They all got in the shuttle and the shuttle left quickly; Ilnagtus looked them trough and noticed that few were missing from teams three.

“Sergeant where is three men from your team? are they dead or captive?“

“I can’t say sir….”

Ilnagtus shrugged and pushed the button without caring anymore about it, the other new very well
That Rac would have had their heads, if they had not done it fast as possible.

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The governing building of Vulpter

Rac played a small item on in his hands that he had found from the table and threw it from hand to hand in boredom since it seemed to be taking a while for him to be allowed to enter, Rac was surprised that the vulptereen had even allowed him to enter their planet since Rac surely had given already a certain public image of himself especially at Ruan where he had turned the poor people against the planets rulers simply promising better living, but before that he had to distribute these ideas into the people because they would get even more unhappy only thinking of better chances of living. The same vulptereen that met Rac on the lading pad entered the room and looked at him as Rac stopped the item in his hand.

“You will be now taken in to the meeting…”

Rac placed the item on the table and jumped on his chair quickly after getting to his feet from the couch; he turned around at the vulptereen waiting and nodded. As the vulptereen began walking away Rac activated his bodyguards who began following him, but made the vulptereen slightly surprised of the droids activation.

“Lead the way…”

The vulptereen began walking away from the doors and Rac followed him, they preceded trough the corridor to a bigger door and the vulptereen opened the door. As they went in the vulptereen stayed at the door and announced the guest, the room was round and there was a table in the middle as all rooms made for meetings such as this one. There were about 3 vulptereen gathered in the other end of the table as Rac floated to the other end with his droids at his side, the vulptereen seemed to change worried looks since they were once slaves of the trade federation that had droids as their army.

“Mr. Fegal… we are very distressed of your ships above our world… We believe that you have more in mind than a simple meeting so we are warning you that, if you dare to start a war here then we will fight back hard because we won’t be slaves as our peoples once were…”

Rac coughed and scratched his head after the vulptereen spoke.

“I assume you are the president since you are in the middle or what ever you call your leader… but no I have no violent intentions really… just a meeting and I assure you that the ships won`t be a problem since they will be protecting this planet sooner than you think… ”

The vulptereen were confused and looked at Rac with angry eyes, but looked at each others worried about what the dug meant.

“What do you mean Mr. Fegal?”

“Oh nothing special just that you will give the control of this planet to me willingly or your people will starve to death, it’s just that simple…”

The vulptereens seemed slightly amused and their leader leaned forwards.

“Mr. Fegal are you trying to blackmail us since you think that convoy was our last hope of getting more food on this planet since our ancestors destroyed our possibilities of farming? We do have storages and ironically they are the ones that the trade federation made us build…”

Rac shook his head

“Yes… I am very aware of the situation and I have already taken that in my plans, I have also taken other convoys in my possibilities… should more come then I will just have to destroy them you see using some unknown puppets and your storages are no more… you might have food stored slightly in some other places, but you had a main storage for it and it has just been blown up just check your reports… they should have reported about it meanwhile…”

The vulptereen checked his computer and coughed loudly in a mix of confuse and anger.

“You bastard, but you haven’t taken in consideration that we can kill you here…”

Rac smiled as he pushed a button in his panel and the droids pointed their blasters at the vulptereen.

“No… I am no fool as you might desperately think… but now you will announce your resign and of course the change of power to my company, but don’t worry about your people because as long as they are nice and easy they’ll get food… of course rebellion will be punished by death…”

Sometime after Rac`s troops landed on the planet taking control and the leaders of Vulpter resigned.

Rac followed the landing troops walking into the city from the office of the former president who was now being taken somewhere else so that he wouldn’t cause any harm to Rac`s authority on the planet. Riot’s and rebellion was the last thing that Rac ever wanted in these situations because that would eventually lead to a war that would cost Rac profits or even the vulptereen would call the coalition to help them when everything would be just nicely blown to shit after all the work. Rac had been sitting there quietly for sometime pondering what would anyone else have to say of his acts and what would be his next act? The Union was surely getting bigger all the time with someone such as Rac and Belgardi taking over more space for their companies, which just seemed natural because in a way Rac saw that they both had a common goal besides the Union`s goals. To be bigger and stronger than Vinda corp, this currently was the biggest company in the galaxy controlled by Seth Vinda. Rac snapped out of his thoughts as his com link beeped, he opened it and heard a familiar voice

“I presume our work was done well sir?”

Ilnagtus asked trough the com ink and Rac smiled slightly.

“Well it could have been better since you were spotted, but that will do and now I would like you to tell the shuttle pilot to turn the course towards the governing building since I have a small proposition for you and your men…”

“Sure thing Mr. Fegal…”

Rac leaned back in his chair to wait for Ilnagtus to arrive since he needed people who did their jobs without asking question, emotionless, non suspecting killers was what Rac needed and he knew that Ilnagtus would do well in that place all tough he might not like the idea that Rac thought of, but he didn’t really need to know. After a while the door opened and a group of droids escorted Ilnagtus in. Ilnagtus sat in a chair on the other side of the text; Rac turned to look at Ilnagtus with a smile and threw a bag of credits at him. Ilnagtus cached the bag in and opened, he inspected the inside with a smile on his face before placing the bag on his belt.

“Your reward as promised… So as you know I heard there was a small fight and you lost few of your men?”

Rac asked as he looked outside of the huge window.

“Yes I did… good men are hard to find these days and there aren’t exactly many mercenary groups or at least many of them gathered together…”

Rac nodded.

“Tell me about the lack of good men; even my highest fleet commander doesn’t appreciate the job that I provide him because he had different ideals than I… I hate people who think that they can turn the galaxy to a better place, only a fool can think so since we have the empire that wants to rule the hole galaxy, but many are blessed with the existence of the Coalition and the Dragons since the imperials have them to worry about rather than attack companies such as mine…but I am going to cut the crap and tell you the reason why I called you here, I am offering you and your men a place in my own army. You see I am going to need humanoids and droids to create an effective army because droids aren’t really the best strategists… So what do you say? Are you in?”

Ilnagtus fell silent pondering his options and he would work for Fegal anyway so why not join his company staff.

“I guess I and my men are in, but I’ll have to ask them about this… should we join then we are going to need a raise of salary…”

“Surely… but now I have other matters to attend to so could you kindly leave me be…”

Ilnagtus got up without saying a word and walked out of the room leaving Rac to follow the droids that walked in the city streets, after sometime about 4 droids arrived to the room giving Rac few holocron`s. It seemed that most of the smugglers were on their way at the moment, but some had been unlucky when they had said no. At least Rac felt good that all the more important and better smugglers with better connections had accepted his invitation to work for him again. Rac began going trough his computer for his old smuggling connections that had worked as checkpoints for his smuggling ring once.

It was time to dig up the past