Obroa-Skai

"Hmmm, I may have found an interesing article related to our studies." whispered the human to the Neimodian. The student was currently sifting through some materiels pertaining to battles waged during the Clone wars.

"Transfer it to my datapad." ordered the Neimodian, named Gerodin. A few moments later the article had been absorbed into his personal datapad, and he began to sift through it. The article talked about the crash of a freighter into a populated area of Coruscant, which had been labeled at the time as a terroist incident. The article further listed other references, one of which came up as classified for Imperial Intelligence archives.

"Very interesting indeed. Excuse me, I must make a quick comlink call." said Gerodin, as he excused himself from the table, and carrying his datapad, walked outside, where he took a comlink out of his belt, and placed a call to his personal ship, located at the spaceport.

"Hello? This is Gerodin. If you would, please run a background check on the file I am transmitting to you." said Gerodin as he keyed his datapad to use the comlink to transfer the file to his ship. Several minutes later the transfer had been completed, and the Neimodian hurried back inside of the library, anxious to see if his hired colleague had found any other articles of interest.

At the ship, a shuttle docked at the spaceport, a Verpine slicer opened the file, and went to work on it's contents. It didn't take him long, for Gack was one of the best that money could buy. Staring at what lay before him, he whistled in awe and transferred the file to his datapad, which he sent back to the Neimodian. Moments later, having downloaded the file, Gerodin took a look at the contents. Smiling inwardly to himself, he excused himself yet again as he went from the library to the holonet relay station on the planet, located nearby. Renting for use of a small band of holonet, he sent a deep space message to a pre-arranged set of coordinates, containing the details of the file along with a few notes of his own including recommendations, before heading to a small tapcafe to buy himself some coffee.

In a region of space located near the Deep Core

The one thousand meter long warship, the sole offensive weapon of any sort owned by the Starstriker Corporation, although this was not known to the rest of the galaxy, drifted near the densely packed stars of the deep core. The name of the ship was the Xion, and her capitan, and the owner of the Corporation, was a Neimodian by the name of Viceroy Gilad. At the moment the ship was just drifting, her engines on standby, her crew likewise, except for the people on the communications and sensor stations. The ship had been here for the past two days, and her mission at the moment was to just wait and see what the team on Obroa-Skai had managed to find out.

Suddenly, a beeping signal at a communications station signaled an incoming message. The officer at the station sang out that a file was incoming, and that the download would take a few minutes. When it was completed, it was transferred to Gilad's personal station next to his command chair. He keyed up the file, and brooded over it's contents. Once he had finished, he took note of the comments passed along by his associate. So, thought Gilad, This world would be a perfect source of resources, espically with the mites having done the work for us in removing the stone in which it would be trapped. According to the file, no recent surveys have been made of the world. Still, it's worth investigating. Gilad turned to his chief navigator.

"Saxton, plot a course away from this system, and for the planet of Orleon, located in the Mid-Rim. Here are the respective coordinates." ordered Gilad as he transferred the coordinates to the navigation station. Next he turned to his communications officer.

"Sent a reply back to Skai. Inform Gerodin that we will be out of touch for the next few days, and give him the coordinates of our next arrival point." said the Neimodian. Finally he turned to one of his majors.

"At one hour till reversion, I want you to first send a message to my quarters informing me to be on the bridge, and then I want you to sound general quarters at forty five minutes till reversion. We don't know what we may encounter in the planetery system, so I want to take as many precautions as needed. Prepare the Vulture-Xs for launch, and have your weapon and defense systems ready." ordered Gilad. Once he had recieved confirmation nods from all three officers, he stood up and retired to his personal quarters. He would leave the ship in charge of his subordinates while he had some much needed rest. As he laid his head on his pillow and tried to sleep, he felt a subtle vibration in the hull as the ship entered hyperspace.

The viceroy was sleeping peacefully in his quarters when the communications unit next to his hatchery suddenly barked into life, startling Gilad awake.

"Who the hell is the person that would dare to disturb me in the depth of my dreams?" demanded Gilad angrily, still half awake, groggy.

"Uh, sorry to interrupt your sleep sir, but you had told us to contact you when the time was upon us." responded the communications intendent.

"I repeat, who is this that would dare contact me, and what are you talking about? For what purpose have I been awakened?" again ordered Gilad, this time with a menace added to the voice.

"This is Hard, the communications officer aboard your flagship. And when you had departed the bridge earlier, you told us to inform you when we were within an hour of arriving at the destination system, remember?" informed Hard.

Gilad was silent for a moment as he remembered what was going on in the galaxy around him, then clicked on for a reply. "Very well then. But next time, dial down the volume a little bit, or I'll come on the bridge and eat your ears myself. Clear?" demanded Gilad.

"Very clear sir. Communications out." responded the now nervous officer.

Sighing, Gilad arose from his bedding and wallowed over to his closet. He donned his robes accordingly, then proceeded to the refresher. Having accomplished this, it was now time to get something to eat.

* * *

Gilad had walked into the mess hall, where there was quite a crowd present, mostly the sailors and officers busy keeping his ship together for him, but also a few others, including mercenaries that he had hired to act as ground troops for his upcoming operation. One of these came to sit across from Gilad when he sat down at his private table to consume his morning...no, afternoon meal. Gilad looked up at the merc captain and then acted indifferent.

"You wish to discuss something with me, captain Jovian?" asked Gilad in a dry voice.

"Yes, there is something I would like to discuss with you. We have been sitting on this ship for the past several days, traveling through various planetery systems and hyperspace, heading from this place to the next, never knowing where we are at. I thought I made it clear that we were hired to fight, not to sit in your mess halls and collect rust. If you intend to use us, It'd better be soon, because my troops are tired of waiting." said the captain in a tired and bitter voice of complaint.

At that moment, with there being forty five minutes till reversion, as Gilad originally ordered, the alarms went off throughout the ship as the crew was called to general quarters. Viceroy Gilad smiled up at the merc captain as he looked around.

"Captain Jovian, I believe your request has been granted. You may proceed to your stations. Since your troops are so eager for actions, I will make sure that your people are the first one to engage the enemy. Dismissed." said Gilad with a slight smile coming to his lips. The merc captain looked somewhere between excited and uncertain as he turned away to go join his troops and rush to the launching bays.

The viceroy finished his meal of dried Vratix claws, boiled, and a side dish of Bantha stew, before cleaning up his mess, and proceeding from the mess to the bridge, where he took his place in front of the viewports. By this time, the moment from reversion was less that a minute away.

"Reverting in five, four, three, two, one..." counted down the navigator, before releasing the level he was holding, allowing the battlecruiser to drop out of hyperspace back to realspace. Before them, the planet of Orleon basked in the brilliance of it's sun. Gilad smiled happily, but it did not last long. Alarms began to blare throughout the bridge.

"We have multipule contacts within the system. I count one small space station, two stock light freighters, five other vessels, and a relay satellite within the area." reported the sensors officer.

Gilad called for an up and close view of the station and the freighters, then snorted. It appeared that this was a family buisness of some sort. There was a small station, two light freighters as previously said, and five other vessels. Two of them were obviously mining ships, one coming up from the planet, one going down to it. Of the remaining three, they were identified as Razor class starfighters.

"Hmm, looks like some comptetition is already here. Well, like any greedy corporation, it is our job to eliminate it. Hangar boss, launch four squadrons of Vulture-Xs. Have the...mercenaries of the Harusaka gang launch as well. They are to proceed to capture the space station while our fighters eliminate the enemy vessels present." ordered Viceroy Gilad.

The viceroy watched as droid fighters boiled out of his cruiser, along with two old E-wings and an sentinel assault shuttle, belonging to the mercs. As he watched, other ships poured out of the old space station and tried to flee, but it would not do them any good. Time to begin the slaughter.

Orleon, scene of the battle

The three Razor fighters were the first to succumb. Streaking out from the station torwards the assaulting forces, the starfighters were the first ships that the Vulture-Xs reached in their headlong charge. The three enemy starfighters opened fire at maximum range and continued up a steady barrage of lasers and ion cannons, relying on a mass barrage rather than targeting individual starfighters it seemed. Two Vulture droid fighters were destroyed by random hits, but ten more fired their laser cannons with precise aiming, and two of the Razor fighters were destroyed immediatley. The third one was damaged and sent spinning off into space. A follow up pass by two droid fighters finished it off.

Next were the two corellian transports, heading out of the system's gravity well at a dead flight. Another squadron of droid fighters converted on these helpess corellian transports without the slightest bit of mercy running through their droid processors. They had a mission, and they ruthlessley carried it out. The transports fired back with laser cannons mounted for rear defense, and another droid fighter was destroyed. A torrent of laser fire overwhelmed the shields of the first, and then the second transports. One of them exploded almost immediatley, while an escape pod ejected from the second one before it detonated. Again, a follow up pass eliminate the escape pod before it could fall to the planet below.

In the meantime, the assault shuttle had landed at the station, and the mercs disgorged immediatley, beginning their assault against the security personnel and remaining civilians onboard the station. Viceroy Gilad sniffed when he thought of the credits he had wasted in hiring these mercenaries, but buisness was buisness. You just didn't go up to your boss and simply demand to be put into action. It could set a bad example for the other employees, and forment dissedents, espically if discipline was not issued. Fortuantley in this case, the discipline was well on it's way.

"Guns, have your torpedo launchers target the station and fire on my command." ordered the Viceroy. The gunnery officer, having been used on previous occasions to discipline those who would displease the Viceroy, nodded and went to work. Moments later he replied that he had a firing solution. The Viceroy smiled, and then gave the order to fire the torpedoes.

Fifty proton torpedoes leapt out of their dual launchers and streaked torwards the station. The two E-wing fighters, providing fire cover for the mercenaries, tried to warn their comrades in time, but it was far too late. Forty torpedoes survived to slam into the station, sending explosions arcing over the face of the planet. The station started to break up, and then disentegrated when it's life support reactor went critical. When the explosions faded, there was nothing left but jagged chunks than fell to the planet below, and the two E-wing fighters, which swept around to avenge their comrades and assault the Xion directly. They didn't even make it halfway before they were both vaped by Vulture droid fighters.

Finally, the mopping up was commenced. The relay satellite, having been jammed for quite sometime now, was destroyed, as were the miners coming up to and going down from the planet. The other ships that managed to get away from the station before it was destroyed, a Firespray patrol picket ship and an X-wing type starfighter, were both destroyed, although between them six more droid fighters went to their doom. Finally, the base camp were the family company ran the operation from the ground was at first strafed, and then was overrun and siezed by other mercenaries who, having witnessed the death of their comrades, was more obedient than ever.

With all the enemy forces eliminated, except for a few civilians who were captured at the base camp, Gilad ordered the Xion to take up orbit, and had a message sent to the second task group that would now be waiting just outside the system, ordering them to jump in. In came a small fleet consisting of four bulk cruisers and two corvettes. The ships immediatley proceeded to insert themselves into the atmosphere of the planet and proceeded unloading their cargo onto the airskiffs. Now that the planet was secure, it was time to set up their own mining operation.

The surface of Orleon

The tug descended into the atmosphere of the planet, lugging behind it the detached cargo module from the bulk freighter Olanji, riding lower orbit over the planet. The cargo module was an duraluminum container that held some of the mining equipment that would be set up on the planet below. The tug's destination however, was not actually the planet, but instead was a floating repulsorlift platform, a minituare floating city, that had taken up station some five hundred meters above the tallest peaks from the planet's surface. The station had a main cylinder shape pointing straight up and down, with a round platform extending outwards from it's central section. It was on these platforms that ship's landed and took off again. The central part held a small cantina and rooming, along with the repulsors that keep the station floating above the surface of the planet.

The plan in effect for strip mining the planet was simple. A modified form of the old mole miners used by Lando Calrissian for his Nkllon city operation would be used to collect ore and minerals from the planet below. They would then transport their holds full of the ore to a station, which would convert the ore into a molten state, and then would load it into an awaiting specially modified freighter that the Starstriker corporation employed. The freighter would then take off into the abyss, and head for another planet, which would then convert that molten ore into usuable components.

Right now there were three stations online that would convert the ore into molten form, and about twelve mole-miners were online, four miners working per a station. Each station currently could produce enough molten ore to fill up a single freighter per a day at the current rate, and production figures were set to expand rapidly as more stations and mole-minerIIs were brought online and went into service. As the mining operation was expanding, it was now time to set up a security operation to watch over the mines and make sure no outside sources would interfere. Viceroy Gilad, the leader of the Starstriker Corporation, would ensure to that immediatley. He was currently orbiting the planet in his battlecruiser, the Xion, awaiting the arrival of the forces tasked to defend the planet.

* * *

Bridge of the Xion

"Sir, I'm reading multipule contacts dropping out of hyperspace. I'm reading two large objects, type unknown, four smaller objects, also unknown, and twelve small corvettes. The vehicles are moving torwards the planet at a slow rate." reported the sensors officer.

"Good, it appears our security measures have arrived. Hail them, and provide them with instructions for entering orbit." ordered the viceroy.

It soon became apparent that the two large objects were actually a modified version of the Golan III defense platforms, bristling with energy weapons and torpedo launchers. The four smaller objects were also space stations, but had a large hangar bay on each of them, and also had docking platforms and maintence facilites. Finally, there were the twelve corvettes, of an Corellian design, but modified to a pretty heavy degree.

The viceroy watched as these ships deployed into an upper orbit around the planet. Now that the security measures were getting into place....

"Soon, very soon now, we will have ourselves the opportunity of a lifetime," stated the first man as he watched the data feed from the probe come in.

"Heh. The moment they leave orbit and head for another planet, we'll move in and crush them." added on the second person in the room.

There were a total of four personnel in the communications area onboard the modified Loronar Strike class cruiser, one of them a senior commander, another a lower lieutenant that acted as an aide, plus the communications officer and an anaylst type person. These people were all former Imperial crewmen, but had deserted their posts when the New Order came into power and went warlord style. Now they were traveling from planet to planet, raiding for either cash or things that could be traded for cash, plus resources to help maintain and expand their ever growing fleet. They had had a few setbacks, and had lost some of their major captial ships, but such was the fortunes of war.

Even though he had larger vessels in his inventory, the general preferred his old cruiser, his first command, to the other vessels. Most of the ships that he had were even older that his ship, some reaching the thirty to forty year old mark. He had anything from a dreadnought to a mon calamari light cruiser to corellian gunships and blockade runners and bulk freighters, all modified in some way or another.

The general looked to his lieutenant then.

"Kasimov, prepare the 1st fleet. We will make the jump to hyperspace as soon as that command ship clears orbit. By the time they recieve the distress signal and return to help, we'll be lone gone from their planet, our holds full of the resources that they meant to claim for themselves!"

The communications officer indicated that a short range message was coming in from one of their probes stationed in a nearby system. He waited until the message had been fully recieved and deciphered, before getting from from his station and presenting the Viceroy with the message on a sheet of flimsiplast. Normally the intelligence officer would have handled any messages from the probes, but for some reason or another, the viceroy had requested that all messages from their nearby probes be sent to his station personally. Gilad read the message, then, with a smirk on his face, crumbled up the plast with his hand before discarding it to the deck below.

Everything is according to plan. thought the viceroy. Those fools are far too predictable for their own good. Turning in his chair slightly, he looked torwards the navigation station.

"Navigator, prepare for us to leave orbit. Set us a course to a nearby unoccupied system. I am transmitting the coordinates to your station. Have the storm fleet meet us there. I will not tolerate failures here. Once you are in system, immediatley plot us a return to Orleon." ordered Gilad.

He felt the deck shudder beneath his feet as the Xion turned from her orbit of the planet, and headed outbound of the system torwards her destination. When she was free of the gravity well, she made the jump into hyperspace, leaving the planetery system without much in the way of protection. For the time being, at least.

It was not long after the Xion left the system when another fleet entered into it's presence. This fleet was defintly of the hostile variety, made up largely of warships, with a few freighters. The commander in charge of the defenses for the planet immediatley made the call that they were raiders or pirates, and called his men into action stations.

"Sir, vessel identification coming into focus now. My scanners read as there being one Rendili Dreadnought class heavy cruiser, one strike class medium cruiser, seven corellian gunships, four corellian corvettes, and about fifty starfighter sized vessels. These ships are forming into an attack wedge and are moving forward at sublight speed ten." reported the sensors officer from his station.

"Commander, our stations and ships are requesting orders." sang out communications.

"Order our defensive stations to hold their fire until the enemy enters effective kill range. As soon as our stations open fire, have our starfighters and capital ships execute a flanking attack to harry them a little. and send a distress call on the viceroy's personal frequency." ordered the commander, a tallish but thin human by the name of Garrett.

The four medium sized space stations came online as their weapons cranked around to focus upon the enemy capital ships. Their shields had been raised, and the smaller corvettes and starfighters were maintaining a cover behind the space stations until the enemy made their attack.

The dreadnought led the attack, it's turbolaser pumping energy into the shields of one of the space stations. The other enemy vessels came in behind it, also adding their attack against the same space station. The stations returned their fire with turbolasers and proton torpedo salvoes, followed by the corvettes and starfighters making dashing and then retreat attacks against the enemies's flanks. Two corellian gunships were soon crippled, but the defenders lost seven starfighters, and then the first space station lost it's shields and was peppered until it was a floating wreck.

The battle however was about to take a turn for the better.

Bridge of the Xion

The battlecruiser had just emerged from hyperspace back into the Orleon system when scanners called out alarms. Multipule enemy ships were in the system, and engaged with their defenders. The viceroy ordered the ship to the attack, as waves of Vulture X droid fighters rolled off the ship's bays and into space, forming up into strafing groups before going after the enemy ships.

The enemy was caught in a pincing manuever and was unable to escape. All they could do was fight valianty as they were being chewed to pieces. The enemy dreadnought succumbed to withering cannonades from both the remaining space stations and the Xion. The strike cruiser was the next ship on the target list, and was engaged with the defending corvettes. The flagship of the Starstriker Corporation fired a proton torpedo volley that collapsed it's shields and caused it's hull to stove in, leaving it dead and drifting.

All that remained were a few gunships and some freighters. These remaining ships tried to surrender, and some launched escape pods, but the viceroy ordered that no prisoners were to be taken. The enemy ships were destroyed one by one, and the escape pods were all taken out by the droid fighters. When all was said and done, space was littered with wreckage. Gilad turned to his aide and ordered that an inventory of losses be taken.

Inside of an hour, the damage had been assessed and polled for the viceroy. One space station and two corvettes had been destroyed, along with fifteen Tri-fighters and ten Vulture-Xs. The enemy fleet had been completley destroyed, although the dreadnought and two of the gunships might be salvagable. Gilad ordered that the alpha mineral exploiters be deployed to gather up the enemy wreckage and friendly debris, and once it had been gathered, taken off to one of their secret shipyards to aid in the ship construction there.

With this task completed, Gilad retired to his chambers. He had some thinking to do.

There was a knock to the door of his personal quarters.

"Come in", said the tired voice.

The aide opened the sliding door into the viceroy's personal quarters, bearing a datapad in his hand. He had an entirely neutral expression on his face, which could mean something either good or bad, but it would be up to his opinion on the matter that was being brought before him.

"Final report on the losses and gains from the engagement, sir."

"Lay it on my desk and leave. I'll get back to you later." replied Gilad. He was currently using the refreshing station, and did not want to be interrupted as he cleaned himself up. After a good day of work, he was prepared to retire for the night.

Donning his nightwear, Gilad emerged from the station and took a seat in his oval chair, picking up the datapad with his right hand as he read through it's contents.

Hmm. About fifty of our personnel dead. Enough resources can be salvaged from the friendly wreckage to effect losses of the corvette and half the starfighters. Enemy wreckage is sufficent to declare friendly losses null and void, and so we can profit from that engagement. Morale is at a high with the successful defense. Mining operations are unaffected and are proceeding at a highly normal pace. Well, it seems everything worked out okay in the end.

Sighing in content, he laid the datapad back down on the desk and stood up. Stretching to relieve his aching joints, he made his way to his personal alcove. The Neimodian slept in a breedery, unlike beds that humanoids would normally occupy. He had never been one to breed himself, although he felt that someday soon would be the time to mate. He would want a strong heir of his own to take over operations of the Corporation when he passes on, after all.

It was something peaceful to reflect on, in any case. Picking up another datapad, he made the notes to have some of his men round up a few likely candidates. He couldn't take time out from running the corporation to have an emotional attachment, like marriage, so he would merely trust in his comrades of race to pick out a suitable female for him, and if needed, he would shower her with gifts and credits to keep her happy.

Letting out a groaning yawn, Gilad rolled over in his bed and went to sleep. He had very good dreams that night, about his future mate, a potential heir to his ever expanding empire, and the future of his corporation, and beyond.

* * *