Askam Asteroid Belt

ISD Tantamount with its starfighter complement would likely find the debris from the probes and the remains of the disintegrated Hunter hit by the probe. But that was all that it would find. Inferno fleet had left, absconded, escaped and disappeared.

For was there ever other equal to Imperial might?

And for the second time in the last month, the Askam Asteroid belt had life within its belt.



Mako Nine, Nar Shaddaa

Ick; the techs are going to hate me for the mess; but that’s okay. Slime and sewage pressed against his starfighter, and yet the Corellian was unconcerned. If the unshielded starfighter could easily survive the pressure differences of air and space, what could a sewer system, unpressurized by the leak made by their missiles, do to a particle shielded starfighter? Anarth tapped several buttons on his console, enlarging his repulsorlift field; the repulsorlifts began to propel the craft through the liquid; much like other watercraft such as the AT-AT Swimmer. Glancing at his FST screen, he could see the other starfighters plow through liquid and out of the sewer through the leak. As he cleared the sewer, Anarth became acutely aware of his craft's condition. Pieces of both wings were missing and tore up; and with them, went his ion cannons. Most of the fuselage was also mishappen, as if a team of Asps with metal poles had maliciously attempted to vandalize his ship. A part of Rush's heart dropped. The chief is definitely not going to be happy about this. If he even tries to work on it; probably not worth the effort. Other starfighters passed around him, some in better or worse shape than his own. At least it didn't affect our repulsorlifts. As if to contradict him, one of the starfighters began a slow descent as its engines failed. His comlink crackled.

“All right, looks everyone made it, in their own sort of way. We're going to try and fly to a contact of ours. If any of your ships have problems, give me a call, and I'll arrange a ride for you from some friends,” announced Mako Lead, pondering for a second, “looks like not everyone got in position to make their attack.”

“Sunleaf squadron their attacks off; the fort won’t have collapsed, but it’ll be structurally unsound,” reported Sunleaf leader, “could collapse with a little more effort…”

“We’re not going after it,” reported Mako Lead, “I have my orders, we’re to fall back to Echo Base. Probably get some rest and repair, for now.”

The starfighters idly flew on the repulsorlifts through the darkened caverns of the abandoned undercity. Mako Lead, guided by the Bothan hackers on the Armageddon’s Hammer, lead the fighter group through the uneventful, several hundred kilometers journey. Mako One began to descend, and the other starfighters followed suit. Twenty stories later, the elite starfighters of Mako squadron found themselves pulling through the loading port of a decades old warehouse. The starfighters lowered their landing gear, and began to land in sloppy rows. Several teams of scruffy technicians and mercenaries swarmed into the impromptu hangar bay and began to work; the technicians to assess and repair some of the craft; most of which would end up being scrapped. But in both cases, the mercenaries paced over to guard the wrecked craft. Mako Nine’s cockpit opened, and the Corellian breathed in the room’s musky air. He winced, and took the short jump down onto the duracrete floor. Mako Lead was already there.

“Oh, come on. It isn’t that bad enough…”

“Bad enough…”

“Besides the smell, what do you think?” questioned the squadron leader.

Anarth shook his head. “What is this place, besides Echo Base?”

The other man grinned. “It was a warehouse on the lower levels of one of those towers we saw when we were airborne. Not the best location I admit, but it was cheap to buy and get set up in; didn’t even have to bribe the officials.”

“Why’s that?”

“The Alliance bought the company that owns the building. They use the upper levels, but never use this area; it’s too close to some underground dangers. The Gank gangs and the Evocii tend to run around the area. Lucky for us, we’ve reinforced the structure and added heavy-duty blast doors to this area. Won’t have to worry about them really, and if they get in, the mercs can handle’em.”

“And no-one noticed?”

“There’s no-one here to notice; the closest level around here that’s occupied by somewhat legitimate folk is a good hundred stories up. Anyways, there’s a bunch of bunks set up over behind that foyer. Get some rest.”

“Ah…sure…”



Hutt Palace, Nar Shaddaa

“I think you will agree, that now is a time for negotiations,” smiled Thara’rtolkien avariciously.

It was an understatement.

The Hutt had little choice but to negotiate.

Assuming that he wanted to live.

While all eyes turned to the sky at the audacious attack of the unknown fighters, other undercover Inferno personnel and mercenaries had made their way to Vago Gejalli Thokka’s throne room. It was of little difficulty, as most of the Hutts had sent their people up to counter the crimson starfighters with ground weapons and other ships. Compounding that, many of the Hutt personnel had unwisely chosen to cut communications with their overlords. But even if they had, the magnetic pulse attacks might have well disabled groundside comlinks and other communication devices. With two dozen somewhat insane Ganks, and twelve Inferno operatives, it had taken little work to simply blast through the last vestiges of the palace’s security and into the throne room. Now, Vago Gejalli Thokka laid on his repulsorlift couch with a dozen blasters pointed at him. Perhaps more alarmingly were the quartet of syringes still stuck in the olive-skinned alien’s flesh. The Hutt’s luminious, orange eyes glared at the twi’lek angrily.

“What have you done with me?” demanded the Hutt, gesturing at the syringes with his flabby arms.

The green-skinned warily eyed the other creature, “We’ve injected you with Bavo Six, a truth serum. We’d like to deal with only straight-talk from you. There’s enough in there to keep you talking straight for about an hour. But let’s talk business, shall we?”

The Hutt rolled his eyes irately. “You bust into my home, shoot guards…and you think I talk?”

“You are right now,” grinned the Twi’lek capriciously, “and I see no reason for you not too; when it will only benefit you.”

“What you mean?”

“The Besadii clan is weak; you can see it now,” began Artolkien, “The Empire marches across our lands; Imperial warships ply our lanes with impunity. This is never how the Empire treated Hutt Space before. Now they act as if they own it; mere masters of it for not yet a year, forgetting how long your honored race have had dominion over it. I have heard rumors that Besadii struck a deal with the Imperials…”

“A rumor with grain of salt,” replied the Hutt warily, “but Imperials not my big problem; the other Kajidics more problematic.”

“The Imperials and the other Kajidics are your concerns, your enemies.”

The Hutt nodded. “And Anjiliac, my ally.”

“What if I were to present a partnership for our mutual benefit; a tool to bring your clans back to power within the Hutt Grand Council. Besadii and their Imperial allies destroyed Clan Desilijic. It is only a matter before they destroy your clan and those of the other hutts. Clan Besadii’s quest for power will destroy us all…”

“Who you are?”

His lekku twitched irritably, “The Empire would call me a criminal, but otherwise I would be but a mere businessman.”

“Then what you selling me?”

“Well, I’m giving you your life, I hope,” started the twi’lek, beginning to pace around the Hutt like a Corellian Sandpanther around his prey, “that I could have killed you tells you something else. I want something from you. I want your partnership in the start of a new business syndicate. One which will help run weapons the Empire deems illegal to the misfortunates of the galaxy; the bounty hunters; other businessmen themselves. There’s a great demand for it within the galaxy, and truth be told, I would have already started it if I had but the means.”

“You want guns, Ruyla?”

“Yes, and I want your connections. With those and my natural business acumen, the Syndicate will flourish, and more profit will flow into your coffers. And we will able to get some of the bounty hunters into our service by that; some to retire your opponents, noisy custom officials, government lackeys…”

“You had blast your way to here to tell me that?”

“Would you have taken me seriously if I had not?”

“You would go here, and fall into pit for pet.”

“That would be unfortunate…now, wise and mighty Vago Gejalli Thokka, do we have an accord?”

The other alien nodded. “Things…details to be worked out…now?”

“Yes, and I have but…one request mighty one: we will serve in your place as part of your retinue until the deal is worked out. After all, you will need trusted replacements for those who you lost today, from us and the raiders.”

The Hutt nodded.

“Good.”



Torch-class Gunship Lavablast, in vicinity of Nar Shaddaa Space

“Sunfury has collided with one of the asteroids, as planned,” reported the sensor’s operator, “Half of the hull is completely gone. All of the other asteroids are on course; headed straight for the Imperial Fleet.”

Captain Krask nodded. “All right, let’s get the heck out of here, and leave the Imps to their asteroids and the Sunfury’s remains.”

Dragging asteroids does not immediately imply that the asteroids were directly behind the ships. Instead, the two gunships had dragged an asteroid behind and on either side of them via tractor beams. Thus, after being guided and then released by the tractor beams, the asteroids surged past either side of the ship to their targets. The Sunfury seemed to have launched hers in perfect procedure, albeit a little clumsly. Nonetheless, the massive rocks were in good order, launched in a minute spread to crash into the enemy ships. Yet the Lavablast seemed to have done partially the opposite with one of her asterids; with one of the gunners having “accidentally” sent the asteroid clean through the Sunfury’s starboard side, from the aft through the bow, straight at the Imperial fleet. Sparks and minor explosions lit up the trashed hulk.

And yet the crew of the Lavablast was unconcerned.

For the Sunfury was no ordinary Torch gunship, nor was her dead crew.

The Sunfury had been partially scrapped from battle damage from Warlord Fossk’s Deathless One at their engagement at Entrus. Patched together with subpar welding; with all of its quadlaser cannons destroyed, it was of dubious value to Inferno Fleet. It’s ‘crew’ was even of less value; several dozen bodies of already dead smugglers, Vodran, Klatooinian, Nikto, and Weequay painstaking put onto the starships’ seats, consoles, and other crew stations; all of the crew had been victims of Ragnar’s raids across Hutt space. Now they served their enemy in their death. Of course, evidence of the previous violence would have been likely seen on the bodies; save for the pyrotechnics, the asteroid which had ravished the Sunfury, and the resulting shrapnel it had spewed into the rest of the craft. Compounding the deception, the starships computers and other systems had been completely wiped and replaced with the memories, navigation data, and logs fitting of a Hutt mercenary warship.



Bothan Assault Cruiser Armageddon’s Hammer, Deep Space

“They don’t seem to be acting to the asteroids…” mentioned Sei’lar.

Dha’tey shrugged. “They had better, if they want to live. But if they don’t, that’s fine by me.”

Sei’lar lightly laughed. “So much work put into distractions and misleading the enemy.”

“And I’ll do anything to keep it going that way, for now. Maybe even ambush some vulnerable Imperial ship.”

Sei’lar frowned. “When are we going to release the final attack?”

“Patience,” advised Dha’tey, “do you think we are really going to simply going to charge a numerically superior enemy with everything we have got? That is the path to defeat. No, we must recognize our strengths and weaknesses and act according. We have only advantage; surprise, and we will use that to get what we want…in time.”

“Except for the Hutts, right? Because I’m fairly certain that Task Force Delusion isn’t being terribly subtle at the moment…”



Carrack-class Cruiser Divine Law (ex-Valiant), Task Force Delusion, Deep Space out of Hutt Space

Standing at the bridge viewport, Captain Ridu Loren watched the bright flashes of light criss-cross space, the product of men and aliens hammering away at each other with their weapons. A trio of uglies soared audaciously in front of the starship’s prow, partially evading the streams of laser fire which poured out of the Carrack. The flak fire stopped as a quartet of shielded Tie Interceptors eclipsed the bow of the Divine Law, occupying the space which the uglies had moments before. Ridu could almost feel the roar of their twin ion engines as they passed, and felt fear’s strike through his body; the former Imperial officer relaxed, recalling that these Ties were not only on his side, but under his command. Relax Ridu. You’re beginning to become as deluded as these Hutts. Sound doesn’t travel in the vacuum of space, and you are pretty well protected here, I daresay. And with all of the ships running military TNO transponders, how are they going to tell the difference?

“Sir,” announced a voice behind him, “Verdict has neatly chewed one of the light freighters, and is letting it escape.”

“What is the count of the escapees then?” questioned the blonde-haired man, turning to face the man in the Imperial uniform.

“Five,” replied the Sub-Lieutenant quickly.

“That is enough to relay the message to the Hutts, I daresay; have the Forensics and the Witness round up those that bulk freighter trying to escape. If it must be destroyed, so be it. No-one else gets to ‘accidentally’ escape.”

“Yes sir,” clipped the man, who bowed and abruptly paced over to his station.

Loren felt a brief shudder through his body. Maker. I have not done my job to Inferno Fleet of making them look like Imperials. They have practically become Imperials in their everyday manner, not only these staged events. Am I possibly restarting the vicious cycle? A precisely clipped voice called up from the barely indented crew pit of the light cruiser; this one informing the destruction of yet another Vermilic freighter. That kajidic was currently aligned with the Besadii kajidic, albeit that might change after the attack. A brief flash of light announced yet another micro-jump of the Erinyes. The Imperial escort carrier launched another squadron of Tie Interceptors, and began to bear down on the surviving bastion of ships in the trading convoy.

“Sir, Flaming Wind Group is making its periodic check-in; their CURSE units report that all of the enemy’s long-range communications are still damaged by the sabotage. The viruses launched still have complete control over all of the convoy’s long-range communication devices too.”

Loren glanced at his chrono, “They may begin to subvert all other enemy subsystems now. The diversionary strikes at Nar Shaddaa will be ending soon, and the fleet there will not be tied up for long…”

“If the escaped Hutt ships are making standard hyperspace times with a class one hyperdrive, it will take them fifteen minutes to arrive back at Nar Shaddaa. Imperial reinforcements will take another fifteen minutes to get back-” started a man.

“You are assuming, however,” cut-in Loren, “that the Imperials do not have closer vessels nearby with which to respond to if they get the word.”

The other man frowned. “But this is deep space.”

“One never knows,” sighed Loren.

“Sir,” shouted another bridge crewman, “the Azalus Smak Telia is hailing us.”

“That is the lead Ubrikkian Frigate?”

“Yes sir.”

“Very well,” muttered Loren, “put him through.”

The bridge’s holo-projector swirled in an array of colors to engender a husky Twi-lek with heavily tattoed blue lekku. He leaned in close as if to intimidate the man in the middle of a bar fight. Loren nonchalantly wiped a speck of lint from his TNO uniform. The alien glared at him silently, as if his anger had wiped all capacity to speak. Loren let out a long sigh. Oh, to carry the Imperial Man’s Burden…what an arduous task…

“I have told you Captain, the Empire does not tolerate anyone to bypass its laws,” spoke Loren, “as your ships are carrying illegal material, they will be destroyed if you do not submit to Imperial Justice. Let me assuage you, the Imperial Courts will judge you fairly.”

“We had an agreement.”

“We did,” informed the Captain, “as I have already informed your ships. However, times have changed. I will let you know that I am not privy to this agreement, but I follow the orders of Emperor Hyfe’s servants in this regard. Therefore, debating to me what agreement you had is ridiculous. Imperial might dictates your rights. Be aware of that captain. I will ask you again, must I destroy you too? The battle is near over; your ships are outgunned.”

“That does not take much,” spat out the Twi’lek.

“Indeed, a testament to your master’s avarice…”

“You will hear about this,” charged the Twi’lek.

“Perhaps; I imagine a nice, shiny commendation; maybe even presented by Desaria himself…”

“No, you will have something else.”

“I guess we will just have to wait and see,” replied Ridu, glancing briefly off-screen, “I see that your shields are done. Resistance is futile.”

“Very well,” growled the Twi’lek, “we surrender.”

“Excellent. I will order all of my ships to cease fire. I have one demand though.”

“What is that?”

“Get to your escape pods and abandon ship,” commanded Loren, “my orders are to take prisoners and destroy the ships. We will pick up your escape pods and transport you back to the Nal Hutta system to await trial. Do it quickly, captain, for I am beginning to lose my patience with your resistance. Captain Gast out.”

The holo-projector flickered out, once again leaving the bridge to bath itself in the light of the faint glow-panels and those of the crewman’s consoles. Murmuring began to sweep across the bridge as the battle wound to a close. His XO marched over to him.

“Yes commander?”

“CURSE units have seized control over all of the abandoned ships. Their controls are being slaved now.”

“Erinyes has recovered all of her fighters,” reported an officer.

“How many lost?”

“Five,” replied the Fighter Liaison, “None of the pilots survived. So odd, leaving our people out there dressed in Imp flight suits for the scavengers…”

“Necessity of war,” mused Loren, “are all of the escape pods launched?”

“Yes sir.”

“Open fire.”

The turbolaser and laser batteries of the light cruiser, the carrier, and the four system patrol craft, modified to have hyperdrives, lit up the battlefield; incinerating the hapless escape pods with maniacal zeal. The slaved Hutt vessels almost immediately fled into hyperspace to a deep space rendezvous point under the direction of the CURSE units. After seeing to it that none of the Hutt crewers had survived, Ridu gave his consent. Seconds later, Warlord Fossk’s former ships hyper-jumped to safety, leaving behind the scattered debris of the battle as a bleak testament.

~




What has gone on before...




The fallout from surprise was a cascading series of events that either worked towards your advantage or pushed you over the precipice.


When they worked for you, how you road that wave of events would determine the type of victory claimed.


When they worked against you, how you got out of the way of that avalanche would determine how much was lost.



The Captain wanted to yell at the scanners for showing the slow, systematic destruction of the First Fleet as if her fury could compel the scanners to somehow reverse the events playing out.


But the scanners were, like her, simply observers and even if they did not give her as complete an account of the events as if she were standing on the bridge of a First Fleet warship, they did give her enough.


The scans showed that Kaine's initial strikes had taken First Fleet by surprise and that his hammer-blow had scattered their formation to hell and gone.


If she had not ordered her own section of the fleet to turn around and reverse course, the First Fleet might not have found the courage necessary to take their losses and regroup. Or, according to Zell, trip over their balls before finding them.


But they were still playing catch-up as Kaine's fleet mercilessly pounded into each Reign with enough weaponry to remove it from the board. Kaine's ISD's were, however slightly, footing the bill for remaining in their formation as they hunted specific warships in range. By ignoring the others to overwhelm each of First Fleet's warships one at a time, the ISD's left themselves open to the Reigns unleashing of their own fury.


But that fury, unfortunately, was uncoordinated, unfocused and, for most, simply a cover to protect their panic as their vectors circled ever farther away from each other in an attempt to escape the merciless onslaught.


If Malice's Second Fleet could get there in time, she would have a chance to dish out a hammering of her own.

For if she could not, First Fleet would remain broken for Kaine to hunt down at whim or allow them to retreat totally from the battle leaving Captain Malice holding the bag. Those retreating ships, should he allow them to escape, would be the first to report to the Imperial High Command (and ultimately the Emperor) and paint a picture she would have to deal with later. Assuming, of course, she lived past this battle.


No. She needed to get there in time!


But Reigns were not the fastest of ships and it felt like an eternity to turn around in formation.


And it would take longer still to reach the remnants of the First Fleet, circling farther and farther away to 'regroup'.


But all was not lost.


Granted carrying out her mission would be harder but it was by no means impossible.


"Fucking shame we cannot microjump," Zell muttered and Malice nodded knowing they were within the planet's mass shadow. Even if that were not true, she wondered if any of the First Fleet's Reigns had activated their gravity well projectors. It was something that you typically would not know unless you tried to activate your hyperdrive to that wonderful surprise.


"That also means Kaine cannot jump at us to carry out another surprise," the Captain responded.


"Fuck me if you are not right about that!" Zell exclaimed. "I hadn't thought Kaine would be crazy enough to play chicken at lightspeeds! But he's got enough of a fucking bastard in him to try it!"


"What's a chicken?" Malice's XO asked.


"Flightless fowl of dubious intelligence," Zell quipped back staring at the Scanning Station. His eyes went wide all of a sudden and his head snapped over glancing out the bridge viewport at a sister ship, the Hyfe Majestic. He squinted as a bright flash and an explosion lit up the aft portion of the Hyfe Majestic and the craft began to careen towards the flagship.


"Evasive!" shouted Malice and the Thruster Stations, working with the Navigation Stations, worked furiously and successfully to avoid collision.


But by a margin that was much too close for comfort.


"What the Fuck!?" shouted Zell in both surprise and indignation.


Planetary defensive weaponry spat out from the planet they had disregarded striking the Second Fleet vessel's aft sections comprising, chiefly, of their forward thrust and engine units. The loss of which would both keep elements of the Second Fleet from joining up with the First and hold them within range of the massive planetary battery follow-ups.


A very clean trap!


"He IS a fucking bastard!" shouted Zell over the klaxons.


Her nine ships were reduced to seven, one of which was trailing damaged as Malice ordered the fleet's thrust output to exceed specs in an effort to outdistance the planet's heavy armaments.


As Grand Moff Zell saw several of the planetary shots miss, he knew their luck could only hold for so long.


He ran a brief calculation between distance, energy bleed-off and dissipation arriving at a figure that he did not like.


Captain Malice must have realized it as well for the ships of her fleet began to spread themselves farther apart all the while making random course corrections.


It was a pretty smart idea for as the distance from the Second Fleet to the planet increased, the slightest course correction could cause a much greater probability of misses as the planetary batteries could only fire one vector at a time.


But the planetary defenses were also smart and rather than waste shots by each weapon aiming at individual targets, they all took aim at a single vessel, one firing where it was, another firing where it might be and another firing at yet another possibility for where it also might be. With such a tactic they were bound to hit something thus maximizing their hit/miss probability ratios.


Another ship was hit.


"Well... we fucking know what Kaine spent his resources on!" shouted Zell over the alerts.


"The Planetary batteries have stopped.."


Malice did not have time to think about why as the next announcement came immediately, "Enemy fleet entering range!"


"That's why the planet stopped fucking shooting!" Zell answered her unspoken question and Malice's gaze hardened.


She had five warships fully operational and a couple limping forward behind her trailing damage done by the planetary weapons.


Kaine seemed to have a fully operational fleet of thirteen warships. There were a couple of damaged Imperator's behind his fleet acting as a screen between them and the retreating RSD's of First Fleet.


A calmness descended upon Malice. "Lower our shields and launch fighters."


They were in Reigns and they were spread apart which meant that the enemy could not bring all thirteen of his ship's weapons to bear on a single target overwhelming them as they had done with First Fleet.


And the Reigns could take a lot of damage.


"Fighters launching!"


She turned to Zell, "They may make a difference.."


The old man snorted. "You are forgetting something, oh child of Drayson. We have no communications!"


"What does..?" she started, thinking that her sensors showed where her ships were and therefore where to point her line-of-sight transmitters.


"Oh my.." she whispered, half in shock and Zell nodded disgustedly.


"Exactly, my Captain of Tarts! Just because you point a line-of-sight transmitter at a ship does not mean they will automatically get your transmission! You have to hit their receiver which is alot smaller and at the
distance we have spread out to evade the planetary batteries, issuing orders is now much harder."


She was staring at the holoscreen noting that the other ships had yet to launch their fighters.


"We just told Kaine where the flagship is, you stupid whore!" Zell snapped.


The truth of the old man's words ripped into the young Captain like a full broadside and she saw that Kaine's ships were ignoring the other four Reigns heading for her ship that had launched it's fighters.



~



Askam Asteroid Belt - Present Day


The ISD Tantamount began intense scanning of the region as several fighters investigated what little wreckage there was.


One thing was certain as scans for the enemy presence came up negative.


There was no base of operations here!


In fact, the area only served as a launching area and a lack of carriers suggested the rendevous point for the surviving attacking fighters was somewhere else.


Captain Morgan cleared his throat ordering a repositioning of his ship. He noted that there was some excitement regarding the scan results from the asteroid belt but he saw from his vantage point that those excited were those nerdy officers every ship had. Their opinions, he knew, would not be of value for the current hunt.


"Relay our findings to the Commodore," he ordered briskly, clearly disappointed. He had really wanted to catch carriers with their pants down.



Nar Shaddaa Aerospace


The enemy had disappeared or been destroyed. With nothing left to fight, the mercenaries of the Hutts began to return to their hangers for rest, relaxation and, more importantly, their pay.

Despite the areas of smoldering buildings and black smoke rising to mix with the smoggy atmosphere, with uncontested skies the mercs claimed victory.

They would definitely get drunk tonight.




Ghitta



In the confusion pertaining to the attack on Primo Base above his operation and the silent Traffic Control Center, Ghitta had taken advantage of the rare opportunity to salvage his inventory saving an untold amount of money.


His transports, along with multiple other civilian shuttles and other miscellaneous craft, had sped towards Nal Hutta as the destruction wrought by the attacking fighters continued across the surface of Nar Shaddaa.


While perhaps not necessarily in danger yet, no one knew just how far the attackers would go and their random and wanton destruction across the surface caused several to take the more prudent route and visit Nal Hutta.


The Imperial battleship holding it's position between the moon and it's primary deigned not to interfere with the fleeing people in what was certainly an internal dispute of some sort.


The Imperials could be surprisingly practical at times, thought Ghitta absently as he turned to other things now that his inventory was safe.


The sudden surprise and viciousness of the attack seemed almost 'Imperial' in nature and of the kind he would expect if they had angered such powers.
Therefore, his mind naturally threaded along those lines of "Just who did we piss off now?"


There were those Hutts that saw only short-term gains and there were those that took a longer view. Sometimes such visions motivated actions that were not entirely compatible with a Hutt's preferred standard of living.


He rang the Major-domo ready to take someone's head off.


No one answered and Ghitta's bulbous eyes narrowed.


Dhet Gurb Vurb!


His orders definitely would stand and he was glad he had issued them.


Never underestimate a Hutt with self-preservation on the mind.




Nar Shaddaa Space



The explosion had caused the scanners of the four Imperial ships to momentarily think that both Torch gunships were destroyed. Unfortunetly, it was just one, the other turning away just enough that the asteroids it towed
brushed a shield generator and no more.


How the craft managed to keep it's tractor beam going at lightspeed was unknown and perhaps it was a fluke.


In any event, the gunships had no good way to slow down the asteroids once the ship reduced its own speed and exited hyperspace. With no resistance in space, a fast moving asteroid pummelled a torch gunship splitting it's hull.


The crash sent the astroid off it's original course and slowed it down enough to miss Nar Shaddaa. It disappeared behind the moon but the other asteroids and an Imperial warship fared less positively.


The Fast Attack Cruisers had leisurely turned away from the enemy stealth craft when the Tantamount made the jump to lightspeed and towards their "four" compatriots when the gunships exited hyperspace in front of
them aimed towards the "four".


Four?


The stealth ship was able to note on it's passive sensors that when the asteroids were released towards the four Imperial ships, one of the three hundred meter blips seemed to split into six smaller blips. Now there were nine ships instead of four!


It was generally thought that if something solid was heading towards you, the adjustment you needed to make to avoid it hitting you depended on the object's distance. The farther away it was the less adjustment to position and/or course was required to avoid it.


And, in classic Imperial fashion, such adjustments were made. However, what the Imperials did not expect was the speed with which the asteroid was making up the distance as it had been hauled across lightyears at superluminous velocities.


Two of the smaller blips disappeared from scopes completely and a larger blip grazed by the third asteroid went dark, as if damaged and relatively powerless.


The remaining smaller blips formed a protective semi-circular parimeter in front of the larger blips and the damaged craft.


The Fast Attack Cruisers had picked up speed and joined their comrades entering the protective semi-circle the smaller vessels created, the Imperials now on full combat alert lest any other unexpected attack come their way.


It seemed the attackers wanted one last hurrah after the fighter attack and they got it.


The three asteroids covered the distance rather quickly at their speed and descended into the atmosphere smashing any satellite, station or other object that floated or zipped into the asteroid's path.


Since there was no attacking fleets of enemies to follow-up the fighter attack, the moon was concerning itself with the damage to it's surface and so never noticed the falling asteroids until the end.


Those few Imperial bases that were active and privatized Hutt bases began to fire at the asteroids, extending their shields as much as possible to cover as much of the city as they realistically could.


One asteroid broke apart into smaller pieces burning up in the friction of it's descent.


Another was fired upon and it too broke into smaller pieces that did not burn up. These smaller pieces, about half the size of the attacker's Hunter starfighters struck half a dozen places in a thunderous maelstrom of fire.


The third had it's softer exterior burned away in the atmosphere which revealed a hardened metallic core that struck the planet as if with all the fury behind its launching.



Broadsword Necropolis, Flag - Stationed between Nal Hutta and it's moon, Nar Shaddaa


Commodore Malice stared at the harried visual footage as waves of dark ash and cloud ascended towards the upper atmosphere blotting out the light.


Day became night and fires sprang up all across the Nar Shaddaan landscape. Containment fields of all types failed throughout the ravaged area as power systems failed and untold toxins (some more harmful than others) were suddenly freed into the general public.


It was chaos brought to life.


She turned her gaze away from the moon's suffering looking at the update regarding the attack on elements of her fleet in the area.


"CP's twelve and thirteen were outright destroyed," her XO whispered, "And the Sophor is crippled."


If the Commodore could have crumpled the datapad in her hand, she would have. The loss of life on Nar Shaddaa was tragic but in the greater Imperial scheme of things, inconsequential. If the Hutts decided to anger other crime lords or criminal element that brought disasterous consequences down on their heads, what was it to the Empire? But to have an Imperial warships damaged and destroyed due to whatever it was these slugs had done to piss these unknown attackers off, there would be consequences indeed!


Her resolve solidified.


"Bring in the children," she crisply ordered her Second Officer.


And then to the Communications Pit, "Raise OSOTF Seven and Nine and give them a status update."


"What about Three, Five and Six?" her Second inquired politely sensing the anger smoldering under the Commodore's facade.


She shook her head.


"Too far," she murmured remembering old lessons of a long time ago..


The fallout from surprise was a cascading series of events that either worked towards your advantage or pushed you over the precipice.


When they worked for you, how you road that wave of events would determine the type of victory claimed.


When they worked against you, how you got out of the way of that avalanche would determine how much was lost.



And what that would mean for her, the Hutts and the attackers they had yet to find out.

~




What has gone on before...



So this is what it felt like to have your plans unraveled and your dreams cut short..


Kaine's Imperators had begun to pound her flagship mercilessly and every report that rang out from the various departmental pits became a little longer as the list of damages grew.


Percentages and capabilities fell as the casualty list grew with each strike of the enemy.


The infiltration program should have worked!


Try as she might, she could not figure how Kaine could have defeated the programming so quickly.


Even then, had she kept her fleet together, there would have been a good chance of winning the slugfest that would have surely followed.


"It looks like we will not be seeing the Emperor..." she turned to zell who had barely escaped a shower of falling debris from the overhead ceiling.


"You might try surrendering," the old man growled out but the Captain shook her head. "Comms have been signaling the surrender for the past five minutes... He's not listening."


"Of course not! You did not accept his surrender so why the fuck would he accept yours?"


Malice could only lower her head in agreement. She had blown her only chance for clemency and now her crew would pay the price. The other Reigns in her 'fleet' (if it could be called that anymore) had followed her example and signalled a surrender which was accepted.


"Who'd thought I would die with a fucking stupid ass Captain!" the old man grumbled puncturing whatever remaining self esteem Captain Malice might have had. She had lost the gamble and now she was paying for it with her life.


"Shields gone... hull breaches on levels 4, 5, 6..."


"Abandon ship!" shouted Zell finally realizing that Malice was too lost in her thoughts of failure to even remember the order and the order went out throughout the ship. People scrambled from their stations and ran for the nearest escape pods.


"Well... it was--" the transparisteel window port shattered as the bridge spire violently shook against the onslaught of Kaine's warships...


Malice and Zell raised their hands to shield them from the shattered pieces though nothing would protect them from the vacuum that was to be their tomb.





"Okay... open it up.."


From the shattered viewport, an outside light poured in giving Malice a greater view of just how damaged the bridge really was. Then a large click was heard as gears began to hum sliding the 'front' of the bridge away revealing technicians and medical specialists prepared to enter the smoke and spark filled bridge. Fallen bodies began to stir and pick themselves up.


'Captain' Malice stood ramrod straight as Zell coughed in the acrid smoke. "Somebody get the fucking air circulators going!" he snapped out sending several techs running to carry out the order lest he send them to the waste recycling center out of annoyance.


The whirring of the circulators were suddenly heard and the bridge smoke cleared instantly.


In walked Supreme Commander Simon Kaine with his gloved hands clasped behind his back. He took his time in heading towards Malice as he stopped to glance down at several pit stations giving comments here and there with those 'crew members' still remaining to shut their stations down.


When he stood in front of Malice, a slight smile tugged at his lips, "Going down with your ship?"


Malice's voice dripped venom, "Would it have made any difference if I had made it to an escape pod?"


Kaine shrugged, "Probably not. The radiation release from your destroyed warship would have probably still gotten to you."


Sensing the mood of the student with her recent failure, he dismissed her to a waiting room and walked with Zell around the 'bridge'.


"What do you think, Zell?"


"I think she took Drayson's lessons a little too literally. Bhindi's entire strategy that I've seen seems to be an overwhelming show of firepower rendering the enemy helpless in the opening move and she's too reliant on fleet coordination."


"It's her personality, Zell. It's how she retains control. Her mindless Spartan II's are a reflection of that. Overwhelming strength and power at her command that remains idle until she commands it. Without those commands, her strength is for naught."


"She's never been beaten," Zell remarked.


"She joined us so she would not have to be," Kaine corrected and then sighed. "It's the wrong lesson to learn! These kids think that because Grand Moff Drayson does things a certain way, if they do the same thing, victory will be theirs all the time. We just saw the result of what happens when someone other than Bhindi gives the commands."


"Yeah, if anyone was going to attack her territories, they would naturally be required to take her out at the onset. And the Acheron is a tough nut to crack.."


"So you take her out when she's not on the ship." Kaine said and Zell grunted a laugh.


"If you have a fucking death wish. Bhindi is rarely without her guards in that fortress citadel of hers.. You'd need some damned blue prints of the place to get anywhere in the place, if... if you have an undetectable way of getting inside!"


"About Malice.." Kaine's voice trailed off bringing the conversation back on topic.


"Stupid fucking name but whatever. Let's go see what she has to say."



**


Malice was sitting in an empty conference room nursing her anger.


When Kaine and Zell walked in, she rose with deliberate precision and stood at attention.


Kaine did not need to be a mind reader to know she was upset so he decided to deal with her anger by bringing it front and center.


"You are unhappy with the test," he started. It was not a question.


"I believe the senario incorrectly reflected my maneuvers." she said tightly.


"You think that your maneuver would have worked." Kaine stated. Again, it was not really a question.


"Yessir." Malice simply answered.


A perplexed look came over Simon's face and he quietly asked, "Why?"


Malice gave the Supreme Commander an incredulous look. The answer was as plain as the nose on his face! "Because," she stated hotly, "The program infiltrates and takes over an enemy's ship. That's what it's supposed too..." her voice faded.

She folded her arms across her chest and shifted, "You're going to say that not everything works the way it's supposed too."

The Supreme Commander frowned and shook his head, "I was going to say that your program maneuver would not have worked period, though if it had any chance of working, it would have been against me."


"Why not!?" Malice demanded.


"There are several generations distance between the Imperators and the Reign Star Destroyers. Our computers are no longer compatible. The more sophisticated your program is, and it needs to be do do what you need it to do despite anti-intrusion software, the more processing power is needed to run it! The Imperators computer systems are excellent for the purposes they were designed but they could not run your program. It was doubtful if it was even uploaded completely within the transmitter buffers and fractured programs cannot run."


"But your ships... they did not fire!" Malice shot back.


"Because we held our fire," Kaine replied. "We knew you were trying something but we did not know what because our system could not identify the half-copied program. We were just assuming if was an intrusion program and simply guessed what you might try to affect. If we had guessed wrong, our weapons were primed for firing just in case."


"And just so you know, punk, you cannot affect engines and weapons on an ISD from a fucking uploaded program no matter how sophisticated," Zell quipped.


"Why not!?" Malice demanded.


"Because, dumbass, the computers are physically separate. Only the new starships have integrated crap and their computer systems ARE more sophisticated and have much much better firewalls."


"You never said anything," Malice complained and Zell laughed out loud, "It wasn't my fucking test!"


"It's a nice thing to think a created software program will takeover an enemy ship but you are talking different operating systems, different ..even regional software, alien-designed software, alien language and mathematics... it's all incompatable." Kaine explained.


Zell snorted, "So just because you are a slicer does not automatically mean you know how to break into every system created in the fucking galaxy! It just means you are talented to hack only certain systems. Even then, you have to be on your game by being aware of updates and counters created for those systems. Everything else is not compatible with your invasive software tools."


"If the Empire designed a program to infiltrate a starship by taking over it's critical systems, the only real enemy it could be deployed against is ourselves. It's success would be dubious with outside enemies."


"Exactly! If you wanted to fucking break into an Imperial system, you don't go to the fucking Contegorians or the Mon Calamari or their fucking Coalition. No! You hire an Imperial slicer to do your damned dirty work. Of course, that fucking traitor, if caught, would be shot!"


Malice, understanding dawning, lowered her head. "I failed.."


Zell was unforgiving, "Damn straight!"


Kaine grinned, "Truth be told, however, your plan had the greatest chance of success when compared to other students. It was simply overshadowed by it's monumental failure."


Zell turned to Kaine, "Why'd we send her Drayson if she was going to suck this badly?"


Malice's eyes hardened, "You test me again and let's see who will suck this time!"


There was approval in Kaine's eyes, "Zell, that's why we sent her to Drayson."


If nothing else, she'll try that much harder until she succeeds!