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Colonel Broak Vessery removed his flight gloves and tucked them neatly into his belt. He straightened his collar and took a deep breath, then tapped the airlock control and waited for it to cycle. It spun open, and four ashen faces awaited him on the other side.
Colonel Vessery strutted onto the freighter, stifling a smile as the four crew members took an involuntary step back as he approached. He came to a stop, standing at parade rest, and looked each of them up and down. Only then did he smile. “Good day, gentlebeings. We do very much appreciate your cooperation today. It is, after all, not our intention to end anyone’s lives—but I do believe it is clear to you just how capable we are of doing so.” One of the crewers squeezed his eyes shut, looking like he was on the verge of vomiting. “Did you enjoy our demonstration?” Vessery said, directing his question at that crewer. “I imagine none of you had seen TIE Defenders before today.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, the colonel turned on his heel and walked down the corridor, glancing into each small compartment, the doors of which had been opened by the crew on Vessery’s orders. He strode slowly, hands clasped behind his back, and could hear the faint sound of hesitant footsteps as the crew followed.
The frantic captain had insisted there were only four aboard the big transport. It wasn’t an outlandish claim—after all, it was a simple ship, and most of it was cargo space—but nevertheless, if he’d lied, and someone were lying in wait, Vessery would have to be quick on his feet. His right hand twitched, and he resisted the urge to reach for his blaster preemptively. This was a performance, after all, and a craven performance would not do.
They reached the cargo hold, and Vessery stopped and stepped to the side. “You first, captain,” he said, gesturing magnanimously and bowing just slightly. The captain gulped and walked through. Vessery smiled warmly at the three crewers and followed the captain through, and the others fell in line behind him. Inside the massive, cramped cargo hold were dozens upon dozens of stacked crates, held in place by locked bars, labelled clearly: FOODSTUFFS, DATAPADS, TIRES SIZE XM358J, DANTOOINIAN WOOL – 72 BOLTS, BULBS SIZE M4A. And in the center of the hold, the largest box by far: STORM.
Vessery cocked his head. “Explain.”
The captain gulped again. “It’s a ship, sir. A personal vessel.”
“Yours?”
“No, sir. We’ve been contracted to deliver it.”
“Well…open it up.”
The captain shook his head. “I can’t, sir. We don’t have the passcode, and it’s magnetically sealed. It would be next to impossible to break into.”
Vessery smiled again. “Next to impossible for you, maybe. But my people are the best.”
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Disillusionment with the Empire had led to the formation of Vessery’s little pirate group in the first place, and disillusionment with the Empire was rampant in the galaxy. As a result, his squadrons quickly found dozens of other Imperial deserters to swell their ranks, and could now be said to have a full support staff: mechanics, security, a small carrier and its crew. And, most significantly for this little project, several agents of Imperial Intelligence.
Within half an hour, Vessery’s operatives had docked in a shuttle and found their way to the box marked STORM. They’d been aboard Rucapar, their pocket carrier, waiting several lightseconds away, far from the unoccupied rocky world where they had intercepted the freighter, along with Vessery’s second squadron of Defenders in case they were needed. In the interest of not drawing too much attention to two dozen privately owned TIE Defenders, Vessery rarely allowed his little group to give a full show of force unless absolutely necessary.
The former Imperial Intelligence agents were now huddled around the keypad on the large crate with several datapads, whispering amongst themselves while Vessery and the shuttle’s pilot kept an eye on the freighter’s crew. So much for a polished performance. But this is far more interesting. Why is this ship being transported under such high security? Why is it aboard this freighter at all?
It wasn’t too long before Vessery’s crew—trained by the best slicers in the galaxy—cracked the crate open. There was a single chirp, and then a series of clunks as magnetic locks deactivated. A hiss indicated the seal was broken, and the crate’s front panel swung open. Vessery raised his eyebrows. Inside was not just a “personal vessel”—it was a starfighter.
And not just any starfighter. It was beautiful, with forward-swept wings, a round canopy over a narrow central body, and beautiful etchings all over the upper surface. And it was small—one of the smallest starfighters by both length and volume that Vessery had ever seen. It was a Miy’til-class starfighter, the primary attack fighter of the Hapan Consortium, but even an untrained eye could tell it was not a standard model.
Vessery didn’t bother to try to hide his hungry expression as he walked into the crate. He hopped onto the port wing, grinning widely, and took it in. It was heavily armed, that much was obvious, and appeared to have far more secondary systems than a craft of this size usually would—or could. There was clearly some miniaturization tech involved here; Vessery saw what he thought were anti-concussion field generators on the wings, but they were smaller than any he’d seen. Then he looked closer at the etchings. Each wing had a symbol on it, an emblem of some sort. It was very familiar, but Vessery couldn’t put his finger on it.
And then it hit him, and the blood drained from his face. Storm, the ship was called. A modified Hapan fighter. A very sophisticated modified Hapan fighter. This emblem was the Hapan royal crest. “Why in the nine Corellian hells do you have the Hapan crown prince’s ship in a box on your freighter?”
The freighter captain’s eyes went wide. “We have what now?”
His surprise was entirely genuine. “What were you told about this ship?” Vessery pressed.
“Not much! Just that it belonged to an associate of our client and was to be delivered to him on Axxila once we dropped off the rest of the goods. We didn’t…we…it’s Hapan?”
Vessery sighed. “No matter. I don’t know why the prince would transport his fighter on anything but a Hapan vessel but that is not our business. What is our business is taking possession of this fine ship. I’m growing to like it more and more by the minute.” Vessery hopped down. “Ambro,” he said to one of his techs, “let’s ensure there aren’t any security traps on this beautiful thing that’ll kill us. The rest of you, get to work on gathering some of the more valuable crates for departure on our shuttle.” He turned to the captain. “I’ve decided to have mercy and take less than we otherwise would have. You’ll have enough trouble on your hands explaining to the prince where his ship went.”
The captain gulped again, and Vessery wondered if there was something wrong with his throat. Ambro hopped up onto Storm, scanned it with his specialized datapad, pressed the canopy activation panel, and—it opened. Ambro stared incredulously into the cockpit. Vessery stared incredulously at Ambro.
“Any sign it’s about to explode, Ambro?”
“No sir.”
Ambro climbed in, ran a couple more scans, then powered up the vessel. Again, it did so without protest. Ambro met Vessery’s gaze. “It…seems to be unlocked, sir.”
“Why would the Hapan prince’s personal starfighter not have any security measures?” Vessery asked, his composed demeanor beginning to crack. “Unless—”
Suddenly, their comlinks were a flurry of noise as his pilots began yelling out in alarm.
“One, two, three capital ships—”
“Our path out of the system is cut off!”
“Are those mines that they’re—”
Vessery closed his eyes. “Ah. Yes. Because it was already stolen.”
Ambro added his voice to the general panic. “Sir, there’s a tracking device under the controls!”
Vessery’s second-in-command got control of the channel and reported in. “Sir! Several vessels have dropped out of hyperspace! A Hapan Battle Dragon accompanied by two Nova-class cruisers. They’re launching starfighters. Orders?”
“Bring in Rucapar, I want their attention split as much as possible. All fighters attack. Fight conservatively but do not hesitate to destroy targets of opportunity. We will be outbound shortly.” He turned to the captain. “Do you want to live? Get your ship out of here. We’ll be off of it as soon as we can.” And to his techs. “Get to the shuttle. You’re flying yourselves. Ambro, disable or remove that tracker and then join them. Pilot, I need you flying my Defender.” And finally, with a boyish grin, to Storm. “Because this is my ride out of here.”
And there it was, that rush again. It was the rush Vessery felt every time he went into battle. It was the reason he always wanted to be alone before battle, because it is hard to look cool and collected when you are giddy. And it was the reason he still flew—even after a long, illustrious career, even after the death of the Emperor, even after abandoning Isard. Flying made Vessery feel alive like nothing else in the galaxy. And he had a feeling that flying Storm would make him feel more alive than usual.
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It wasn’t long before Vessery’s people had cleared out, leaving him sitting in the cockpit of the advanced starfighter. The cockpit was sealed, and Vessery knew that the large upper hatch of the cargo bay, intended for loading and unloading cargo by crane at a spaceport, had been opened. He engaged the ship’s repulsorlifts and nudged the stick forward. Storm glided smoothly out of the crate. Above, open space. Vessery took a deep breath, pointed the fighter’s nose toward the gap, and punched it.
The ship accelerated faster than it had any right to, and suddenly Vessery was surrounded by chaos. Vessery cursed under his breath as he struggled to get used to the controls, and before long a Miy’til fighter was on his tail. He had to laugh—a pilot who knew this modified Miy’til would fly circles around any other of its class, but as it stood Vessery wasn’t even sure he had the throttle all the way open. Much less where the weapons controls are.
The Miy’til behind him was firing a steady stream from its laser cannons, but they were coming nowhere near Storm. It took Vessery only a moment to figure out the pattern—the enemy pilot was firing in a slanted cone, trying to gently shepherd him in a particular direction. Of course. They want to capture this ship, and his doesn’t have any ion cannons to disable it. Vessery took stock of his sensor screens—ahead, and to port, where the fighter behind him was trying to guide him, was a flight of bombers. Which do very much have ion cannons.
Vessery pretended for the moment to play along with his pursuer, flying evasively with half his brain while trying to figure out the controls with the other half. It was then he noticed something on the throttle assembly. On the underside of the throttle handle was, effectively, a trigger. I was right. The throttle wasn’t fully open. As Storm grew closer and closer to the bombers’ trap, Vessery gripped the throttle tight and put his finger on the trigger. A moment before he expected their ion cannons to open up, he squeezed the trigger and pushed the throttle further forward, past where it had allowed him to go before.
Storm jumped forward, the acceleration feeling as extreme as the jump from a full stop in the cargo bay had been. He shot past the bombers, their ion blasts flying off into empty space far behind him. The fighter on his tail fell away, and for a moment Vessery had some peace.
He used it wisely. With deft fingers, he powered up the fighter’s laser cannons, armed countermeasures, and switched the comms to his unit’s frequency. “Interloper Squadron, Stranger Squadron, Rucapar, anybody come in. Status?”
“Colonel, we’re holding strong,” Stranger Leader answered. “Three enemy fighters are destroyed. No losses yet on our side. Rucapar is holding her distance. Ready to go when you are.”
“Let’s get clear. If we give that Battle Dragon time to deploy its pulsemass mines, we’ll be as stuck as if they had an Interdictor cruiser. Plot your vectors toward Rucapar; let it cover our retreat.”
Rucapar was not a heavily armed capital ship, but it certainly had enough firepower to discourage starfighter pursuit. It opened up on the Miy’til fighters as the Defenders fled, forcing the Hapans into evasive maneuvers that allowed the TIEs to create space. As they lost ground, several of the Miy’til fighters launched concussion missiles. The missiles quickly closed the gap, and several of Vessery’s Defenders fell out, desperate to avoid the nimble warheads.
Most did; TIE Defenders were by their nature agile and Vessery’s pilots were the best. One near Vessery, though, was having trouble. The colonel watched as the missile closed in, none of the fighter’s jukes having any effect. Vessery dove hard to starboard and quickly closed the space between himself and his subordinate; then, just as he entered the invisible line tying the Defender to the oncoming missile, he stabbed the red button to the far right of the control panel, which he had finally managed to identify.
The anticoncussion-field generator mounted at the rear of Storm activated, and a moment later, the missile reached the edge of its field and promptly exploded. The generator functioned by blocking and absorbing kinetic energy, making it a powerful countermeasure against projectile weapons of all sorts. The explosion’s energy overloaded the generator and it shut down, but it had done its job. Storm and the Defender flew on unscathed.
As the Defenders cleared the planet’s mass shadow and their pursuers’ fire, they got a moment’s peace to plot hyperspace jumps and began jumping out of the system. Vessery began calling up Storm’s navicomputer and realized a terrible flaw in his plan. Kriff.
TIE Defenders were equipped with dedicated navicomputers that were capable of largely independent interstellar travel. Miy’til fighters, on the other hand, were like X-wings and Y-wings: they had astromechs. Vessery knew this fighter had an astromech in the slot behind the cockpit, but it was shut down—likely by whatever thief had initially liberated this ship from its owner. I can probably power the astromech on…but then it might kill me.
Astromechs could have a wide range of control over a starfighter, depending on its model, pilot settings, and the droid’s programming. And it would not surprise Vessery at all if the prince’s astromech matched Storm in technical prowess. It would also make sense for the astromech to be a key piece of the ship’s security. If he powered up the droid, there is no telling what it could do to the ship.
Vessery spared a glance at his sensor screen. There were fewer and fewer Defenders present, and they couldn’t do anything to help anyway. Rucapar was far, far to port, and she, Storm, and the mass of Miy’til fighters formed a rough equilateral triangle. Vessery scrambled to activate his comm. “Rucapar, do not jump. Repeat, do not jump. I’m coming in.”
He vaguely heard the carrier acknowledge its orders as he swung the ship around to speed toward safe haven. He squeezed the trigger on the throttle again and pushed. Nothing happened. I’m going to die.
He looked over and saw a status bar he hadn’t noticed before. It indicated the overdrive was recharging; apparently he’d drained it in his earlier escape and it wouldn’t be available for several minutes. It’s okay. My ship’s still better than theirs.
Even without the overdrive, Storm was still faster than a stock Miy’til. Nonetheless, they didn’t need to get close enough to touch his nose. They only needed to get within weapons range, which—that will happen probably a minute before I reach Rucapar’s hangar. Time to gamble.
Piloting was always about gambling. Any pilot who couldn’t handle risk had no business in a starfighter cockpit, and Broak Vessery very much belonged in a starfighter cockpit. Power in a starfighter was allocated amongst its major systems according to preset percentages; however, to a degree, they could be changed by the pilot. Sometimes, in fact, they could be changed quite a bit by a desperate pilot. Vessery shut down the shields and shunted all their power to engines. He watched his speed climb, even as he watched the mass of enemy fighters close in.
If they caught him too soon, if he was unable to dodge their fire, Storm’s armor would not be enough to keep him alive. He could survive a couple of blows, maybe, but under the hail of laser fire this horde could dish out, it would not be enough.
Rucapar did what it could. Its half-dozen cannons fired continuously, spraying fire toward the enemy, sending a few careening away and reducing two to brief balls of flame. But the rest came on, closing the distance with Storm, and a few more adventurous pilots began firing. Their shots went way wide, but it wouldn’t be long until they started drawing a bead on his vulnerable ship.
Vessery could see Rucapar’s open hangar with his naked eye now; it grew in his forward screen, while to port more and more red beams filled his peripheral vision. They were getting more accurate as the seconds went on; soon a laser blast flew just over his bubble canopy, briefly lighting up the whole interior. And then he was inside, desperately decelerating to avoid slamming into the back wall of the hangar, scrambling to extend his landing gear and switch to repulsorlifts. He was barely successful. Storm came to a horizontal halt just meters from a Lambda shuttle, then slowly lowered to the deck. “Jump!” Vessery screamed into his comm. Outside the hangar, stars elongated, then they were enveloped in the safe swirl of hyperspace.
Vessery slowed his breathing, and closed his eyes. Then he straightened his collar, picked a tiny piece of lint from his tunic, neatly folded his gloves on the control panel, and popped the canopy. Slowly and calmly, he stood, walked onto the wing, and leapt gracefully to the deck. He stood at parade rest while two of his pilots approached, accepted their salutes, and heard their relieved congratulations with a cool smile.