PART I: THE CAPTURE
2 Weeks after The Empire Strikes Back: Cutting the Strand...
The mighty Allegiance-Class Star Destroyer Judgment, slipped silently through hyperspace enroute to hostile Rogue Empire territory. The battle against the rebel faction of Palpatine’s Empire had been raging on for months; the last victory for the New Order had come at the world of Togoria, a victory which the Judgment had been a part of. Now, with mop up duty remaining, the Jugdment and her crew hoped it would a quick pacification effort, leaving a garrison and patrol ships behind.
Rear Admiral Tym Jaiprenl, the taskforce’s commander, laid asleep in his quarters, getting all the rest he could before the impending battle. Tym was a young man, especially to be wearing the rank of rear admiral, with sharp features and smooth skin. His auburn hair was a knotted mess from a night of tossing and turning. It had been a dreamless sleep thus far which was the norm for him these days. When he didn’t dream, Tym found that his sleep was restful and satisfying.
The chrono on his bedside table counted down the time until the taskforce was to revert from hyperspace, with an alarm set to wake the Admiral up twenty minutes beforehand. The seconds ticked down in time with the thrumming of the engines.
The Admiral’s wake up call was about to come...
But not from the chrono he’d set.
Tym was thrown violently out off his sleeping pad; awaking the instant he hit the floor. His head began to dully throb from the impact with the cold durasteel. "What in the blazes of Bastion?" came from the fetal-shaped ball of cloth on the floor, sounding sleepy and annoyed. Now standing, Tym rubbed his head and shook the sleep from his eyes as he tried to evaluate this situation.
Inertial compensators generally kept crewmen and the ship from suffering the ill-effects of the enormous accelerations and decelerations that ships experienced when moving in and out of hyperspace. On occasion, more so with the Judgment, the inertial compensator wouldn’t be able to keep up with a sudden deceleration, causing the crew to feel a "speed bump," particularly during premature hyperspace terminus when ships passed too close to a gravity well. Judging from the distance he was thrown, Tym decided this was no speed bump the Judgment experienced, it was a violent crash.
Clad in his under garments, a pure white t-shirt and shorts, Tym walked over to his desk to find out what exactly had happened. He dropped a finger on the built-in comm. unit’s call button. Tym stared at his darkened viewports as the tone confirming that the call went through sounded. Awaiting a response from his second-in-command, Commodore Lenacie, he activated his viewports, which to no surprise, showed that the Judgment had indeed come out of hyperspace.
Tym gazed into the emptiness of space and frowned as he realized that Lenacie, or even the bridge’s comm. officer, hadn’t responded immediately. It was highly strange and Tym believed his crew to be more competent and efficient than this. He sat down at his desk and cleared his throat as he pressed the open channel button. "Bridge," he started, trying not to sound as tired as he felt, "report."
Only static answered him.
Frowning again, Tym wondered if the premature hyperspace exit had caused major system malfunctions or failures. Not deterred, Tym opened up a desk drawer and pulled out his personal commlink, which was free of any of the Judgment’s systems, and keyed in Commodore Lenacie’s personal frequency.
Again, static was all the answer Tym would get.
Something was very wrong.
With a new sense of urgency, Tym brought the lights in his quarters up to a medium setting and made his way over to the wardrobe where his ISUs hung. All of the dozen uniforms were black, standard color for naval officers. Not having to fret over which one to wear, Tym pulled pants off a hanger from the middle and quickly leapt into them. Tym pulled his jacket on as he heard voices and footsteps coming from outside quarters.
He slowly began buttoning up his jacket, straining to hear anything he could. The voices were muffled and indistinct, as if they were talking through helmet commlinks. Stormtroopers, he supposed. Tym made his way to the door as the slapping of his bare feet against the floor echoed his head and time slowed down.
Tym closed his eyes as his door became a flash of light. The shockwave knock him down to the floor causing Tym to fall on his left side. He never heard the explosion but remembers the ringing it left in his ears. A seething pain erupted in right shoulder, which caused him to squeeze his eyes shut tighter.
As the initial wave of pain subsided, Tym forced his eyes open just in time to see commandos, dressed in armor like he’d never see before, pour out of the still glowing hole that had been his door. The third or fourth commando out, looked the hurt body lying on the floor, stopped and took aim. The blue arcs of a stun blot over took Tym taking away the sight of the boarding party, the ringing in his ears, but not the Pain in his shoulder.