Juaire Mk II-class Corvette Arconit, in orbit via Felucia

“No, they’re not here yet…” mumbled Verrack, the Mon Calamari communication’s officer, nearly knocking his head on the communication’s console.

Holly Trutzig suppressed a smile and turned away from his station to let it fully blossom.  The Gossam are beginning to get to him, I’d never thought it would happen when they first started talking.  But it’s been a week, perhaps the charm of their accent has finally worn off.  Or perhaps it’s the demanding nature of General Miin.  Since Felucia’s induction into the Confederation, the corvette had remained in orbit around the world, protecting the world while waiting for the other promised Confederate warships to arrive.  Yet things had not gone entirely to plan. The pursuit line that Admiral Lucerne had promised had been diverted to reinforce a fleet blocking a probing thrust by Reaver forces in the Meridian Sector.  Several of the Gossam, however, had been counting on the Confederate forces arriving just on time, including Miin’s nephew, who had promptly cashed in on his connections to pressure her to escort several of his ships on a business venture, ostensibly for protection from both the Reavers and the Neo Death Watch.  Both he and his uncle had continued to call their vessel, constantly demanding updates.  It had almost become routine for her to listen to the increasingly irate native of Dac to begrudgingly receive their calls and inform them that nothing had changed.  But this time, Verrack turned his bulbous eyes to face his commander.

“General Miin wishes to speak with you, in a private place.”

Holly rolled her gray-green eyes, “You can tell him I’m not heading down there.  I have to be on my ship.”

Verrack swiveled back on his chair to face his console and the Gossam leader.  The two exchanged a few words, with Verrack almost reaching the boiling point.  She thought that she might even be able to hear the Gossam complaining through the Mon Calamari’s headset.  The comm’s officer turned back to face her, his mouth drooping a little more than usual.

“Commander, would you please hear him out in your own quarters?  He promises to stop calling us if you’ll speak to him…”

She hesitated and rose from her seat, “I guess, but just this one time.”

I can’t wait to get away from them.  She strolled out of the bridge and reached her quarters in less than five minutes; the Arconit wasn’t exactly a large ship.  The Audacian woman snapped the doors shut behind her and turned on her quarter’s smaller holo-projector.  A hazy image of a squat saurian alien wearing a highly decorated military uniform appeared.  He eyed the woman warily.  She cleared her throat.

“General Miin.”

“Captain.”

“What can I do for you General?” questioned the woman, “I assume there’s a good reason for you not wanting my own bridge crew to know about it…”

The general hesitated, “I would ask you to take your ship to escort my nephew and his business partners to a nearby system.  It will not take you long, and it will greatly comfort both myself and them.  Especially since it will be a business that benefits our country, and by extension the Confederation.  I admit to disliking to ask favors of people like this, but I ensure you that it will be returned if ever I could do anything for you.”

“What is your nephew’s business?”

“Import and export,” quickly snapped the Gossam leader.

“More specifically?”

“Droids, in this case.”

“Droids is also a little vague here,” mused the woman, “are we talking about janitor droids or stolen military battle droids?”

“Production,” said the Gossam, “but you will not be taking any droids.  They will be building them on Vornax, it’s less than a day’s travel from here.”

“So it’s a simple escort mission is what you’re saying.”

Miin nodded silently.

“And he has no business acquaintances or rivals that would want him dead?” prodded the Audacian.

“Not that we know of.”

“So you’re saying that it should be a walk in the park, so to speak,” said Captain Trutzig.

Miin cocked his head to the side, “I don’t know what that means.  He does need to travel through space.”

“My mistake,” offered Trutzig, “that was an idiom.  I was asking if it should be easy.”

“Yes, it should be.”

She nodded, “Very well, if you feel that you are capable of defending your world while we are gone, I will do it.”


“Thank you Captain, it means a lot to me.”
 

Several hours passed before Gamnab Miin’s random assortment of small ships managed to find themselves off of Felucia and into the proximity of the Arconit.  She warily eyed his vessels curiously.  Gamnab’s personal yacht, a Curiche-class shuttle, appeared to be fairly old but well-kept, almost in mint condition aside from one rather large carbon scorch point on its underside.  Two of his other freighters had so many welding seams and hull patches slapped on them that she wasn’t sure that they were fit even for lesser droids to use.  Yet the last of ships struck her as the most odd: a relatively new drone barge still wearing the corporate markings of SoroSuub.  She eyed it closely.  I heard there was a pretty big battle at Sullust.  Maybe a few them somehow found their way out of the system and have begun to filter around some more…illicit circles…Verrack cleared his gravelly voice, causing Holly to make eye contact with the amphibian.

“Mr. Miin wishes to inform you that his ships are ready to jump.  He has transmitted us a course for us to use.”

“Oh no he doesn’t,” contended Captain Trutzig, turning to her navigator, an quiet man who always his kept his uniform in flawless condition, “have you checked his course?”

“I have ma’am,” stated the ensign, “it is fairly close to the one I plotted.  We can use it and I won’t be offended.”

She let a wry smile play across her face, “You don’t want the Miins coming after you next, is that it?”

He merely shrugged, “The five minute difference between our couses isn’t worth the risk of it.  That’s my advice to you ma’am.”

“You’re probably right,” admitted the woman, swiveling in her chair, “and I don’t really feel like having yet another talk with General Miin.  Lieutenant Verrack, please tell Mister Miin that we are ready to jump whenever he is.”

The Mon Calamari slowly bobbed his head and began to speak into the headset.  Seconds later, the ships around the Confederate warship shot off into hyperspace, with the Acronit travelling in their wakes.  As the lines began to flash by, Trutzig loudly cleared her throat and began to make eye contact with every individual in the room.

“I did a little digging on our destination while you all were doing your jobs,” stated the woman, “there’s not much out there on Vornax, except at one point, it used to be covered in droid factories before being abandoned hundreds of years ago.  Rumor has it that it was an exceptionally nasty droid rebellion that took the place off the maps.   I think there’s a chance that something shady is going on here.  Maybe some sort of, ah, salvage operation which might not be totally legit, or another scam of some sort.  We’re going to have keep our eyes wide open for this, got it?  If any of you notices anything suspicious, anything, anything at all, let me know pronto.  Is everyone tracking?”

The bridge crew mumbled back in muted agreements before turning their attention back to their stations.  Trutzig herself began to review the dated charts of the system, attempting to use formulas she last used in the academy to estimate the spacial changes that time would have wrought on the system.   It was tedious work, but she felt it would better prepare them for the actual sublight travel after the main jump.  She was a third of the way through the second calculation when the klaxons began to sound off.  Immediately, she turned to the navigator as the helmsman cut the ship’s hyperdrive off as safety precaution; the ship began to lurch back into realspace.

“Are you sure their calculations were correct?”

She hadn’t finished her thoughts then when she realized that he had been right. 

Or rather, with the information that he had, that he would have been right.

A dense cluster of large asteroids almost the size of the Arconit stood in front of the craft.  Not only where the asteroids unusually uniform in size, but there was also no natural explanation for their presence.  There were, however, a duo of Kiltirin-class Dungeon Ships arrayed around the asteroids; all of them sporting the transponders of the Neo Death Watch.  Her gut went cold.  It’s a trap.  Miin’s ships suddenly appeared right alongside her own.  They almost instantly began to veer away from their enemies.  She quietly cursed underneath her breath.

“Looks like someone wants to sell us out,” suggested the woman.

“Not likely,” replied the navigator, eying his charts, “this is a point that pretty much anyone wishing to leave the Felucia system has to go through.”

“A chokepoint, “ she snorted, “Well, that makes it slightly better.  Sensors, how far away are they?”

“Far enough that we might be able to run it…wait…I just picked up a blip coming towards us from behind…it appears to be another dungeon ship...but there’s still a window of time…”

Holly sighed, “Helm, take us straight upwards.  Nav, get plotting a new course from a point above us to another point that doesn’t point us directly to Vornax.  We don’t need to give them our destination just so they can crash our party there…”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Comm, inform Mister Miin of our plan.”

“Yes ma’am…” said Verrack, who quickly spoke into his headset, receiving an earful in return before turning around to face the young captain again,

“Captain, we have a problem.”

“What’s that?  It better be good…”

“Mister Miin is stating that his drone barge won’t be able to make it in time…”

“Of booping course...” swore the Audacian woman, “Weapons, lock onto the drone barge with our tractor beams, we’re going to have to try and drag it with us…”

“He’s not going to like that,” commented the Mon Calamari.

“Well, he doesn’t get a say in that,” said the woman, eying the star charts, “because we might not even be able to pull that off if the barge is too heavily loaded anyways…Weapons, give the dungeon ships a spread of Starflares…”

“Captain, you know we only have two salvos left…”

“Fine, a single missile per each ship.  Just something to keep them honest.  Get everyone to battle stations…”

“Yes ma’am…”
 

Several tense minutes passed before single explosions appeared across the hulls of the oncoming dungeon ships before just as quickly fading into obscurity; one of the dungeon ships began to turn hard to its port in the aftermath.  She curiously noted that they all appeared at the stern of the vessels.  Trutzig let a wry grin crease her face as she turned to Ensign Netbers, a barrel-chested man who often wore a contemptuous sneer.

“You targeted their engines, Netbers?”

The man swiveled around on his seat with a proud smile, “And they all hit.  Hopefully it’ll slow them down a bit…”

“Good thinking,” approved Trutzig, “maybe enough that we won’t actually have to fight them.”

“Ma’am,” interrupted her sensor’s officer, a wispy woman from Metalorn, “I’ve got a lot of small signals headed out from those ships now…they’re about missile sized, but they’re not missiles.  Their heat and FST signatures aren’t quite right to be normal warheads…”

“Boarders,” guessed Holly, catching several blurry images of the objects as she flipped through several sensor screens on her own console.

If the Mandalorians were not famed for their battle prowess, then it was for their characteristic space-going armor.  In times of yore, they had rode beast-like droids deep in the hard vacuum of space.  But the advent of the mass deployment of battle droids and starfighters had almost completely stopped that the use of that gutsy tactic.  Unfortunately for Trutzig, she had no starfighters at her disposal, and far fewer battle droids than there were Mandalorian warriors, allowing its return on the battle field today.  Her only relief was in the vast number of quad laser cannons dotting her starship’s hull, which could likely cut down many, but not all of them before they reached her ship.  She wrinkled her face.

“Netbers, better get prepping your weapons crew with coordinated fields of fire to repel our Mandalorian friends…Nav, how long before we can jump?”

“Ah, seven minutes.”

“Sensors, when will the Mandalorians be here roughly?”

“I’d guess about five,” said the other woman.

“Two minutes to hold them off…well…that’s doable…”

But that remark didn’t calm her stomach any more than it did her crew’s minds.  Her eyes flitted about the various screens on the bridge.  Everything seemed to paradoxically move too fast and too slow at the same time.  Holly guessed that she was beginning to hyperventilate.  Forcing herself to close her eyes, she tried to concentrate on her breathing, for the first time suddenly realizing how quiet the bridge really was. Am I the only one panicking?  She quickly dismissed the thought. Then again, the only real thing that we can do is wait…Exhaling, she immediately opened her eyes to focus on the tactical map.  Even glancing out of the viewport, she could already see that the Acronit’s guns were alive, strending streams of emerald bolts in fire patterns coordinated by Ensign Netbers.  I wonder what sends men to fly through the cold vacuum of space in nothing more than an armored flight suit to attack a ship like ours?  It’s either guts, or insanity…Suddenly, a small group of Mandalorian soldiers flitted just in front of the bridge viewport before circling back around to their port side.  They’re only meters away from us…She immediately flicked a switch on her headset comlink.

“Attention crew of the Arconit, this is your captain speaking.  Mandalorians have been spotted on our hull.  All hands prepare to be boarded, best make sure you have your sidearms handy-”

As if to further stress her message, a whine pierced the air behind her.  She swiveled around in her chair to see bright sparks coming out of an access panel for the bridge’s escape pods.  Her stomach contorted more.  They’re already getting through to us…The bridge crew immediately began to abandon their stations and draw their own weapons and crouch behind whatever cover they could find.  Sergeant Bogen, the lean master of arms for the Arconit, rushed through the bridge foyer doors with another soldier and a pair of C1s in tow.  She watched as the soldiers and their droids quickly took up daringly close positions just on either side of the access hatch as the sparks came to a stop.  No sooner had they done so when the Mandalorian behind the hatch smashed it down and started shooting randomly into the bridge.  A storm of blaster bolts ensued between the defenders and boarders, but not before she heard the clatter of metal bouncing on the deck.  Instinctively, she crouched behind the console behind her, just before the grenade went off.  It was deafeningly loud.  The general’s daughter felt a wave of concussive force pass through her shielding console and rattle her body.  Her ears still ringing, she clutched her pistol tightly  and popped her head up over the console for a quick look through the dense smoke.

She guessed that Bogen was dead, judging by his collapsed body by the access panel.  But there was a small comfort that the Mandalorian that he had grasped in his final moments lay dead beside him; their limbs interlocked to the end.  To her left, she noticed Netber’s body lay strewn across his console, blood still oozing out to drizzle down to from glossy puddles on the metal deck.  The pair of C1s, unaffected by the shockwave, put down the last Mandalorian in a hail of blaster fire.  As the man crumpled onto the deck floor, one of the battle droids began to unemotionally advance through the now open maintenance shaft while the other stood guard on the bridge.  We’re almost safe, but not yet…She stood up, noting that most of her other bridge crewmembers seemed out of it.  She made her way to the helmsman’s station, where the slightly overweight helmsman moaned and complained about his head.

“You’re going to be all right Etison,” comforted Trutzig with a touch of her hand, before gently pushing him away from his station.

Holly glanced out of the bridge viewport to see that Miin’s ships had vanished.  Gritting her teeth, she slapped a button on his console.  Well, what’s done is done… The Arconit jumped deep into the tunnels of hyperspace and away from the ambush.
 

Hours passed before the Confederate warship reverted to realspace in the Vornax system.  Yet few of the Confederate sailors noticed, kept busy in the aftermath of the ambush.  Several of the Mandalorians had continued to fight while the ship had been hyperspace, until the Confederate soldiers and droids had finally cornered and killed them in the lower cargo hold.  But the fighting had done much damage to the ship and her crew.  Not only would her ship need a myriad of small repairs, but more importantly Holly knew that over a tenth of her crew were dead or wounded.  The small sickbay on the corvette had been overwhelmed by the casualties, though the ship’s resident 2-1B droid and his assistants had managed to keep some people alive that she thought had been pass saving, like Ensign Netbers.  Others hadn’t made it, including all of the Neo Death Watch boarders: they had fought to their last breath of life.  Now, those members of the Neo Death Watch mingled with the Confederate dead on the upper  bay of the Arconit’s hold.  With the impromptu morgue mere meters away, the Audacian woman struggled to keep her thoughts on the tedious After Action Report forms; almost an impossibility given what she had just lived through; the closest she had ever been to death.  Her mind wandered to relive the moment right before the grenade went off, but a familiar voice ripped her from that horrific near-past and back into the immediate present.  Lieutenant Verrack tapped her on the shoulder with his webbed hand once more.

“Captain?”

“Sorry Lieutenant,” breathed the woman, looking up at the Mon Calamari, “did you get a response from Mister Miin?”

“Most of Minne’s ships made it undamaged,” reported Verrack, “it looks like we took the brunt of the attack, but there were several Mandalorians who boarded the drone barge.”

She frowned, “There wasn’t anybody on the drone barge, was there?”

“No,” stated the Mon Calamari, “and there was no atmosphere onboard either.  The boarders all suffocated once it jumped into hyperspace.  He is requesting that we pick up the bodies on the barge before we arrive in orbit.”

“What?!” questioned the woman emphatically, “who does he think he is?  We have more problems on the Arconit then some dead Mandalorians on a robotic ship…I’m sorry Verrack…you know that just as well as I do.”

The Mon Calamari pursed his blubbery lips together, “We all need to let go of things, especially after…”

“Well…yes, but I don’t need to give you any more burdens.  It wouldn’t be right,” said Trutzig, running her hands down her face, “route Mister Miin’s call directly to my station.”

“Ma’am?”

“I already said it,” reassured Holly, making eye contact with the alien, “I can take this one.  You look about as bad as me, and after this, well, we shouldn’t have to deal with the Miins much longer.  We’re actually here now.”

“If you say so Ma’am, and…thank you.”

Holly nodded in acknowledgement and watched as the Mon Calamari trudged back to his station, just missing a puddle of his comrade’s blood in the process with his boots.  She tried to let out a quiet exhale as her screen began to blink with a new alert.  She tapped a button on her console, bringing up the elongated head of a saurian Gossam, who she guessed was General Miin’s cousin, Zim Miin.

“Captain Trutzig,” started the alien plainly, “I was telling Lieutenant Verrack that I need to have some attention paid to the Miin Hauler.”

She eyed the gossam carefully and straightened up, “Is the Hauler badly damaged?”

“No.”

“Do you know the situation on my ship?”

“No captain.”

“No,” repeated Holly quietly, “there are things on my ship that will happen first before I will even consider sending people over to your drone barge.  Do you understand?”

The creature briefly frowned, “Yes, but eventually…”

She crossed her arms, “Do you lack the capability to remove a few bodies and toss them out of the airlock, Mister Miin?”

“Well, they could still be alive if they were resourceful…and none of my people have the proper weapons or training…”

“A fair point,” admitted the woman, “though by the time we get to Vornax itself, I find it unlikely that they will have any air left by then.  But when I find the time, I will send people, or maybe a few droids, to take care of the problem.  Have you managed to make contact with your partners?”

The gossam gazed at her with his beady eyes, “No, I thought it would be too distant to make such a call…without attracting you know...them.”

She instinctively knew what they meant.  The Reavers did seem to be everywhere these days, though she wondered if they would bother to patrol a dead system.  Still, she found herself surprisingly in agreement with Miin’s assessment.  Perhaps he’s not totally the spoiled idiot I imagined him to be.  Trutzig nodded in agreement.

“Fair enough, when we reach orbit, let me know what they say.”

“Yes captain.”
 

Another three hours passed until the Acronit led Miin’s motley array of vessels into orbit around the desert world.  Trutzig finally acquiesced to Miin’s request, sending over a quartet of rocket-pack equipped C1 battle droids to inspect the alien’s starship to ensure there were no longer any threats on the Hauler.  She hadn’t even noticed their return , conducting a brief funeral service for the fallen, both her own and the Mandalorians, and visiting the wounded in the sick bay during the whole clearing operation.  Exhausted, the Audacian woman relieved herself of duty to collapse in her bunk.  Still in her sweat-stained uniform complete with its holstered blaster pistol, Trutzig fell asleep.  She never knew until that day one could sleep so deeply with such unsettling dreams.  A voice called to her.  She awoke and half-rose out of her bunk.

“I’m sorry, who and what?”

“It’s just me Captain, Ensign Chun…”

She briefly tried to put a name on face, before she recognized him as a short man with a youthful face.  That ensign.  Scuttlebutt says that he thinks he might be a force-sensitive, though no-one has any proof, but he’s a good enough sailor...She cleared her throat.

“What is it Chun?”

“I’m subbing in for Lieutenant Verrack right now and…well…”

“And?”

“It’s ah, Mister Miin ma’am.  He says that he wants to leave and get back to Felucia.”

“Already?  How long was I asleep?”

“Ah, I don’t know, maybe seven hours?  Anyways ma’am, Mister Miin says that he doesn’t think things are going to work out down there.  From what I’ve gathered, he thinks that several of his associates have brought in some other partners into the venture that he quote unquote thinks are ‘sketchy’.  He wants to leave as soon as possible.”

She felt a vigorous warmth rise up within her that rose to flush her cheeks crimson, “Tell Mister Miin that I will talk with him shortly, in person.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The woman got off her bunk, stripped off her tunic, and put a fresh one before stopping at her mini-bathroom to freshen herself up.  Now somewhat presentable, she stormed out of her quarters to the bridge, where she promptly relieved Chun of his station.  Holly leaned forward to the holo-projection of the placid-looking gossam businessman.

“Mister Chun here was telling me that you do not feel secure in your business dealings on-world.”

The gossam nodded, “That is correct.  I believe it in is our best interest to leave immediately.”

“Why?”

“There’s no point in squandering resources in such a risky venture…”

“Because it’s financially risky?”

“Correct.”

“You may want to reconsider,” interrupted Trutzig irrately, “because I didn’t put my ship and crew through this ordeal just for you to walk out of a business deal without you giving it a real shot.  I also won’t be leaving until my ship is fully repaired, and possibly resupplied, and depending on what message my courier drone brings back, we will not likely leave for another week.  But I won’t tell you what to do.  You can take your ships yourself back to Felucia, but in won’t be in the Arconit’s company.  But I wish you the best of luck going it alone if you do decide to go that route.  I am sure your uncle will fully understand how he wasted, err…used his favor with me.”

“I…I will see…what I can do.”

“Good,” stated the Confederate officer, “goodbye.”

She abruptly hung up the call before turning back to Chun, “The station is yours again Ensign.  If he tries calling again, route it directly to my comlink.  We don’t all have to deal with his bullshit.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me, or if anyone needs me.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Yes, well…good,” decided Trutzig, strolling out of the somewhat cleaner bridge.

She glanced at her wrist chrono.  It’s close enough to breakfast time, I guess.  She trudged down towards the ship’s cafeteria, though it seemed to take her forever to get there, between dodging the repair crews and the weight of being slightly sleep deprived.   Captain Trutzig sauntered into the room, grabbing a pre-filled cup of caf before meandering into a knot of crewmen clustered around the room’s holo-projector, which showed images taken by a recon flight off of one of the Arconit’s light transports.

“This is what we almost died for, a desert world covered in some wrecked factories and garbage?” questioned one of the men, a lanky enlisted man.

The Captain clamped her mouth shut.

“Look Morsi, it’s not what it is now, but what it could be…”

Holly recognized the voice of as belonging to one of her more competent sensor operators.

“…what I heard on the bars back on Felucia was that they were going to refurbish some of the factories down there with some more modern equipment, and start pumping droids out of there again with the old ones.  A little repair, a little updating, and who knows, they can probably make some droids down there to do all of that work for them.  And just think, several years from now, it could be the next Telti.  That’s why I had to send this report back to command.”

“You did what, ensign?” questioned Captain Trutzig, edging her way to the holo-projector.

“Ah, good morning ma’am,” said Ensign Crem, crisply snapping to attention.

She waved the décor away, “I want to know about this report you sent…you sent it with the courier drone?”

“I did.”

“What did it say?”

“Well ma’am, as you know, I am under standing orders to forward any information that I think is interesting or unusual to command.  Scanning the planet, and after a brief flyby over many of the sites, I think the factories down there are in better shape than people would initially think.  It appears that some of them have been being maintained by successive generations of droids.  With a little work, they could be profitable again.  That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

She nodded, “That’s my understanding of their business plan…”

“So just think, this place could start turning out hundreds of the C1s that saved us in that earlier fight without a whole lot of investment.  I think that’s a pretty good risk to take.  Well, it would be if I were I businessman.”

“Let’s hope your vision, and Mister Miin’s down there, works out,” said Holly downing her cup of caf.
 

Several days passed by relatively uneventfully.  The bodies of the Neo Death Watch, their equipment and war material had been routed off to Reaper’s World, the impromptu capital of the Eastern Reach, for intelligence analysis.  Several shuttles had come to pick up the Confederate dead to take them back to their families for burial.  But not all tasks were so morose.  The transports had also brought supplies to aid in the repairs of the vessel, as well as a full load of Starflare missiles to replenish the magazines of the battered corvette.  Trutzig herself, along with several other Confederates, notably Ensign Crems, had visited the surface of Vornax itself.  She had to admit, some of Miin’s partners seemed a little rough edged, possibly even wanted in some area of space, but they were competent in getting the factories running again for Miin & Tav Consolidated Ltd.  Trutzig herself had just returned from one such trip to the bridge when they arrived.  She frowned when questioned by Lieutenant Verrack.

“No, I wasn’t expecting to see more ships coming in the system now…”

“They’re not running any transponders,” noted Crems, “but their profiles appear to be civilian freighters along with one Montcalm frigate and another Juaire corvette.”

“Could be Reavers,” offered one of the bridge crew.

“Maybe,” admitted Trutzig, zooming in on the distant ships, “but they could just be running in the black as precaution against attracting Reavers…wait…they’re launching a transport, and it looks like it’s heading straight for us.”

“Battle stations, ma’am?” questioned Chega, her substitute weapon’s officer in Netber’s absence.

“No, it’s just one ship,” rebutted the Audacian, “if it was Reavers, we’d see far more ships coming at us, trying to swarm us.  One ship means that they probably want to talk with us before the main convoy reaches us.  Who knows maybe they even have supplies…still…it could be a ruse…Chega, arm and ready a Starflare to fire at the vessel if it does turn out to be a hostile.”

“On it ma’am.”

Minutes passed before Verrack cleared his throat, “The transport is requesting to land in our hangar bay.  It does have the correct clearance codes. 
What do you say, Captain?”

“What do they want?”

The Mon Calamari spoke a few words back into his mike before turning back to his superior officer, “They are requesting your audience.  Apparently the convoy is bringing more people to settle and develop the world.  They also wish to speak to Ensign Crems.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Do they now?  Permission granted.  Ensign Crems, congratulations, it would appear that your report had the intended affect.  It looks like Vornax is about to become the Confederation’s version of Telti…eventually…Maybe one time they’ll give you a payback for all your work.”

“And ours,” snorted Chega derisively.