Star Wars: The Evaritt Expanse Act I Scene iv

Epidode I: The Evaritt Expanse
ACT I, Scene iv

The situation has become much more complicated

With the sublight engines still offline, Corric Viridian pushed the repulsor drives on the Privilege to their max. The ship was barely 50 meters off the jagged surface, and dipped dangerously low in the valleys before bobbing up to just barely clear the hills of junk. While the inertial dampeners on board were of high enough quality to prevent anyone on board from feeling the motion, the view from the bridge was frightening. Most of the crew broke off to their cabins to prepare themselves for what was comming. Rel and Var were still holed up in the engineering section, but had a short discussion as Var was checking her armor. Rel asked some questions about dealing with combat, which Var tried to answer but broke off when it got too personal.

It wasn’t long before they go to their destination. The Trifel Shipping site was located at the margin between the edge of the costal city and the junk fields, staking out a small landing field with several hangars and what looked to be an administration building. While they had a starport beacon active, it was set to such a low power that you had to be almost on top of them before picking it up. The whole operation looked suspiciously illegal.

The party waiting until they were within 2km of Trifel Shipping before hailing them. Receiving a quick response. Diyar relayed the urgency of their need to land and the controller told them to set down in the open area. Wary, Corric maneuvered the ship so that the rear cargo hatch was facing away from the hangars and out toward the junkyard—so that they could use the ship as cover if need be. The precaution seemed to be a good one, as the local technicians seemed to be taking cover in their hangers and peering out at the party from behind half-stripped transports.

Var, in her mothers red and purple bounty hunter’s armor, stepped from the ship—causing more than one person to run for the hills. Var hadn’t come to collect any bounties, but some of the locals decided to not stay to find out. Our heroes were about to make contact when RM-2020D, now called "Delta" by Rel, emerged from the ship. The technicians and pilots quickly dove for cover and pulled a variety of weapons out to cover the ship and crew. Not wanting to get into a fight, and pressed for time, Var asked for Kerin Seltiss by name.

Kerin was an old family friend of the Theslins, and was responsible for more than a few after-market upgrades to the family starships. The Herglic was the chief of this little outlaw tech operation and ran Trifel Shipping as a legitimate, if mostly transparent, cover. The large man initially mistook Var for her mother, and was saddened to hear the news of their deaths. He took the news that the Imperials were about to attack the Rebel base very seriously. The reactions of Seltiss and many of his techies to the news strongly indicated that they were Rebel sympathizers, if not full members of the Alliance.

Seltiss indicated that he did not have the capability to directly contact the rebel base from here, but knew where it was. His information was able to collaborate what the party already suspected, that the place where the three freighter has handed was the Hidden Rebel Base. Being a mere 30km away from it at this point, the heroes felt that that was a bit too close to something that was about to be hit with an orbital bombardment. Seltiss asked the party to help him get a message to the unsuspecting Rebels.

Kilarrawarr noticed a swoop gang in that was hanging out nearby inspecting an old swoop they had pulled from a crate. Quickly relieving the swoopers of their prize, the albino wookiee raced across the junkyard toward the rebels. Seltiss and Var dashed inside the administration building to find records of where he aunt and uncle may have gone, while Delta commandeered the outlaw’s burst transmitter and began sending the Imperial forces false information. He then prepared to transmit the looped surveillance footage to the fleet while the party escaped off planet. As he was doing this, he quickly noticed that the fleet was already at the edge of the system and driving hard for the planet. They would be in orbit a lot sooner than the 3 hour mark for the bombardment.

Cutscene to the bridge of the Imperial I class Star Destroyer Devastator, lead ship of the Imperial forces about to attack Ord Mantell. Out the port and starboard windows we can see six other Star Destroyers of mixed classes and several escort and support vessels. The group of three on the port quarter were the Starcrash Brigade, infamous for wiping out the planet of Firrerre with a virus and performing a base delta zero at Milagro. The lead vessel was the Contagion under Captain Lemsh Tyderra, which flew point in a tight formation along with the Virulence and Emperor’s Fist. The three Star Destroyers off to starboard flew in a looser formation and were designated on the Devestator’s tactical readouts as the Death’s Head Squadron.

This group was of particular interest to Admiral Corric Viridian, as it was comprised of vessels that were very recently under his command—including his own flagship Judgment! The ship and her command crew had fallen from grace when the Admiral has begun his flight from the Tion Sector, reducing the Judgment to third position in this unit. The Death’s Head Squadron was filled out by the Warlord, an older Victory-class, and the ISD-I Despot. This last vessel was the flagship of the new squadron and was under the command of Commodore Mormel Fadine, a political and military rival of Viridian’s from the Tion Sector. It was almost certain that Fadine had somehow had a hand in Corric’s forced retirement.

The overall command of the fleet threatening Ord Mantell was under the well-known Admiral Kendal Ozzel. He had decanted his forces at the edge of the Ord Mantell system, well out of any Rebel scanning range. They were now slowly creeping into the system to link up with the advance scouts already on the surface. He was reviewing the updated mission status reports coming in from some of the new espionage droids that the Emperor Himself had requested be sent with his forward landing teams on a special assignment. Ozzel was not privy to what the mission was, the Emperor’s ISB agents were reviewing the decrypted burst transmissions at their own isolated bridge station, but he could already tell that there was an issue with one of the droids. The Emperor would not be pleased.

The Admiral was interrupted by a young Lieutenant, who informed him that Lord Vader was attempting to contact them via holonet. Ozzel quickly made his way to the holotank at the rear of the bridge, wiping his brow as he went. Unfortunately for the Admiral, Vader was most displeased with him. Vader berated Ozzel for jumping too far out and risking being detected before they were in position to strike. Ozzel’s protests went unheeded and he was ordered to proceed to the planet and begin the attack immediately. Vader warned him, in a more threatening tone than usual, that Admiral Ozzel best not fail him again. Ozzel, trying to regain his composure and absently tugging on the collar to his uniform, ordered the fleet to make best speed to Ord Mantell. The surface scouts were told to update Rebel positions and begin their diversionary strikes, the invasion would begin in mere minutes.

Delta, still having access to the Imperial codes for this mission, also received the new timetable for invasion. After relaying the news to the party, things went into high gear. Rel and the techies stripped out the part they needed from an old Nubian scoutship while a Treadwell repair droid prepared the sublight engine on the Privilege for the installation. There was a small incident where Rel got bit by one of the local poisonous insects while working on pulling the part from the old engine mountings. Diyar’s medical training proved to be insufficient, but Kluw’s and Var’s quick use of a modern medical pack quickly neutralized the poison. Diyar did manage to pocket two white vials from the old medkit in the scout, but did not have time to figure out what they were. Var told Diyar to contact her in the future if anything went wrong with Rel and Diyar agreed. Var then told Diyar that if anything happened to Rel, she would take it out on Diyar. Thinking to herself Diyar decided that Rel would need some martial arts combat training--to protect herself from her own sister if nothing else.

As the majority of the party went about stripping the laser cannon from the scout, installing the new part, or sipping on a cocktail. Var and Kerin Seltiss managed to find an old datapad that mentioned her uncle. According to the repair document, her Uncle Larjin and Aunt Tila had stopped at Trifel Shipping just over two years ago--mere days after Alderaan was destroyed. They had continued on to some place on the Outer Rim called the Ghambeezi Drift Station. It was on the far side of the Greater Javin sector, almost to the Unknown Territories. What two Alderaanian nobles would be doing out there Var could only grimly guess. Still, it gave her a place to go to keep looking.

Meanwhile, Kilarrawarr had managed to find the Rebel base. It was built into a massive mountain of junk, the entrance to the hangar disappearing into a maze of ship docking areas, repair bays, and improvised blast doors. She had surmised correctly that the Rebels would not shoot down a Wookiee flying uninvited up to their front door, but an albino wookiee in wraparound sunglasses riding an illegally upgraded racing swoop was something that they had simply never seen before. She initially just shouted into the hanger a warning about their imminent demise and prepared to drive off again. The shout of not one, but two, wookies halted her retreat.

Killaraawarr quickly chatted with Chewbacca and Chunara, explaining the situation. They both were the first mates on two of the YT-1300 freighters that she had seen land earlier, and she was soon introduced to their human companions: Han Solo of the Millennium Falcon and Kir'qeed id'Uno di'Ba'arstona of the Excessive Debt. Two different humans also listened into the discussion, a tall human male from the YT with the red stripes and a young female from Chuni’s ship that reminded Kilarrawarr a lot of a slightly-older Rel. They were never introduced formally, however. The group listened to Kilarra and quickly broke up to get their ships ready. Han ran off to tell "her Highnessness" while the two wookiees thanked Kilarra for the warning.

Kilarrawarr was just racing off back to Trifel Shipping when she saw a disguised bounty hunter shoot Han Solo in the leg with a slug thrower. A blonde pilot in his orange Rebel flight suit lit up a gleaming blue lightsaber and quickly blocked the remaining shots. The bounty hunter was taken down by the assorted people in the hangar, but it took some doing. Kilarra could see Han was being tended to before she raced off across the wasteland of junk.

Kilarrawarr returned just as the rest of the team were stripping the yard for anything they could use and sticking it in the cargo area in the rear of the Privilege. They had already managed to get the old laser cannon from the scout ship loaded, but it looked like they had used Kluw’s vibroswords to cut it free. She pulled the swoop up the ramp and into the bay as well, letting Rel and Kluw tie it down. The outlaw techs, along with their leader Kerin Seltiss, boarded quickly after her. They had no functioning ship of their own and not enough time to get one of the junkers in the hangers flying before the Imperials arrived. With everyone aboard, Diyar shut the hatch and Corric lifted the ship off the ground.

The Admiral spun the ship around and activated the sublight drives. Rel and the Treadwell droid had done a very good job of installing the old part. The port engine microprocessor blinked that an engine ion flow alignment was needed, but the engine was otherwise fully operational. Corric then kicked the sublights up to full power. Gaining some altitude to avoid the junk piles, they rocketed back to the starport at 850 kph. On the flight back, Viridian ignored all traffic control, as well as some heated warnings from starport control. The warnings quickly stopped when the local controllers picked up over a hundred TIE/in fighters descending on the planet and orbital ship yard. Another hundred had broken off to the largest moon, escorting three dozen TIE bombers and several assault gunboats. Additionally, yet another hundred were forming up among the Star Destroyers as an air-cap with the assistance of a handful of Skipray Blastboats. The planetary defenses, what little existed, were completely overwhelmed. Panic ensued.

Corric dove his ship straight into the fray at the starport, screaming his repulsors to redline as the Privilege came to a lurching stop over the docking bay that held Kilarrawarr’s small scoutship. She had already rigged herself a makeshift harness, and had one of the techs lower her down to her ship on a cable out the back of the cargo bay. Frida shouted down to the fan of hers that she met earlier to unhook the ship, which he quickly ran to do. Kilarrawarr quickly powered up her decrepit vessel Longshot and met Privilege in the sky above the starport. Diyar caught that the roof of the Hutt-owned casino was unfolding to reveal a large rod-shaped device. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it sort of looked like a gun of some sort.

Corric fell in with two other Sorosuub Luxury yachts fleeing the more affluent section of the starport. Kilarrawarr’s Scout-A brought up the rear behind them, as she was the only one in the pack with any sort of weapon on her ship. The crew called up the other two captains as they were climbing out of the atmosphere. One was a rich fop who had left his friends and crew behind to escape. He could barely fly the ship, but he was a useful decoy. The other ship was captained by a retired CorSec officer. He immediately took Corric’s port flank with the skills of a seasoned pilot. In front of them was a swarm of Imperial fighters strafing the orbital docks and flushing out Rebel fighters, below them the Hutts in the casino activated their planetary shield generator. Not enough to cover even the continent, it did provide cover to their section of the city. unknown to them, they also managed to protect the Rebel base. As the party raced past the TIE fighters and the orbital docking station, they could see two of the star destroyers from the Starcrash Brigade maneuver to broadside the shield.

Generally unmolested as luxury civilian transports, the party could witness the destruction around them as the Admiral started plotting the calculations for their hyperspace jump. Delta had managed to patch into the Imperial scanners and pipe it into the bridge holotank, the invasion was laid out in crisp glowing lines hovering in the air. Several fighters had broken off from the main group, flying in low to get under the shield and destroy the casino. Rebel transports were lifting off from the surface, protected by a squadron of aging craft of all variety. Green Squad threw their antique Z-95 and Cloakshapes against the wall of TIE fighters, desperately trying to buy their transports more time to escape. Red and Gold squadrons, made up of T-65 X-Wing and BTL Y-Wing fighters respectively, broke for the Imperial capital ships. Undeterred, the Imperials began a concentrated attack on the Rebel base as soon as the Hutt shield was felled by the low-flying bombers.

Admiral Viridian recognized several of the ships around them, he has been their commanding officer not more than a month before. Knowing that his codes were still good, if outdated, he decided to take a risk and call up the Imperial commander. Admiral Ozzel, amused with who was calling, responded quickly.

Viridian: "Ozzel, old boy, they still have you shooting at immobile targets?"
Ozzel: "Viridian old sport, come out of retirement to show us how it’s done?"

The banter continued back and forth, each man sizing the other up. Viridian was able to confirm that most of his command staff had been removed from their posts, but not what had happened to them. Ozzel, for his part, spent the time determining which vessel Viridian was in and quietly ordering two assault gunboats to pursue and capture. The conversation seemed almost jovial, but was laced with darker undercurrents. Viridian cut off the conversation and began to transmit the course he had plotted to Kilarrawarr’s ship.

At that moment his computer informed him that a navigational update was being transmitted to him directly from the Judgment. Taking a chance he had the droid download it to a secure area of memory and played it back. The message was not navigational data at all, but instead was a grainy video that looked like it was filmed though a pinhole security camera. The scene was shot from the control board at the navigational station on board the bridge of the Judgment. The Admiral recognized the junior officer in the image as one of the minor night-shift bridge officers. The young man had made a crude sign on the back of his datapad that he flashed the camera. The video was short but the message was clear: "Command crew is alive, they need your help. Arrested, Star’s End." Somewhere out there his loyal command crew was alive, possibly facing execution. But it was something to deal with when not in the middle of an invading army.

Just as the Imperial wave seemed to wash over the outnumbered Rebels, two hundred ships of all sizes came flying over the limb of Ord Mantell’s largest moon. Ranging everywhere from bulk transports to Corellian Corvettes and one Nebulon-B frigate, the entirety of the Rebel Fleet closed range with the Imperial Star Destroyers. Turbolaser fire flashed between the forces as TIE fighters swarmed the smaller Rebel ships. In the midst of the engagement Green Squad was being cut to ribbons. Gold squadron had scored some solid hits, but nothing disabling. The momentum of the charge stalled when the Contagion and Virulence completed reducing the Rebel base to slag and turned their guns on the Rebel fleet instead.

In the midst of this, one brash Rebel pilot from Red Squadron piloted her damaged X-wing through the TIE fighters and past the covering fire. Barely keeping it leveled on her target, she threw her shield power to the engines and slammed her beloved X-wing into the hanger bay of the Emperor’s Fist. Secondary explosions rippled through the understructure as the Star Destroyer began an uncontrolled list to starboard. Taking advantage of the situation, the Rebel fleet turned and broke in all directions—fleeing to hyperspace. Finally free of the gravity well of Ord Mantell, the party did the same.

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(caution, possible spoilers)

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