The evil GALACTIC EMPIRE continues to strengthen its hold on the galaxy, while others strive to weaken it.
Using their network of spies and smugglers, the freedom fighters of the CORELLIAN RESISTANCE have just learned of the locations of several derelict warships from the Clone Wars.
Freighter pilot Dusk Anders leads one of several teams tasked with capturing these ships and bringing them to a secret Resistance rendezvous point in the Outer Rim...
The light Corellian freighter emerged from hyperspace a kilometer from the imposing shape of a Munificent-class Star Frigate, itself nearly a kilometer long, rounded armor plating sweeping forward from amidships and four stabilizing fins arrayed like cardinal directions on a compass.
In the freighter's cockpit, someone whistled. "She sure is big," agreed Dusk Anders, pilot and amateur gunslinger.
Five out of the two dozen members of the strike team crowded the cockpit with him, one serving as his copilot. They all gawked at the abandoned ship, lifeless in the void of space, its droids and systems long since powered down and any organic members of its crew gone on to other things.
"Well," muttered Dusk, taking the freighter in for a closer inspection of the frigate, mainly looking for its airlocks, "this should be interesting."
The decision to make him commander of this little rebellious strike force had not been his own. Someone higher up, outside the cell, maybe Garm Bel Iblis himself. Problem was he couldn't tell if it was punishment or reward. Looking at this team, it felt more like a punishment. He knew none of them. Supposedly they were all trained, but with the way the Resistance operated, you never knew exactly what they were trained for.
"Sir, I see a good airlock there on the starboard side," said his copilot, voice muffled beneath a low-atmosphere battle helmet.
"Right, putting her down now," said Dusk. He flicked on the ship's comm channel. "Everybody, get ready, we're docking in thirty. Soon as that airlock's open, I want a full-go, just like we planned." A chorus of oddly uniform yes-sirs and got-it-sirs followed.
The freighter swooped in, passed the airlock, then came back around. Dusk feathered the thrusters and brought the freighter's airlock to match the frigate's and with a clank and whine they came together. He signaled the team, heard the locks cycle open, and followed the team members out of the cockpit.
---
The inside of the frigate was dark and silent, the latter being helped by the fact that there was barely enough atmosphere to carry a sound. Most of what dusk heard came over the comlink in his battle helmet. They looked like gray and black stormtroopers, twenty four of them hustling in and out of cover down the airlock corridor with blaster pistols and rifles at the ready. Dusk’s helmet gave each of them a faint green outline, handy in the gloom, though they switched on their headlamps to help.
With barely a word spoken they broke into four teams of six, one for the power center, one for life support, and two for the bridge. Dusk led his teams to the bridge, past sealed doors, past racks of lifeless battledroids curled into fetal balls. Too bad the Seps had fried their droid control systems when abandoning these ships. The hundred to hundred-fifty thousand droids on just one of these frigates could prove handy, if for nothing more than catching blaster fire.
There it was at last, after about five minutes of tense corridor sweeping, the entryway to the bridge, partially open no doubt as a standard ship system precaution due to the depressurization, or something like that. Dusk simply guessed. The most it meant to him was that they weren’t going to have to cut through it, and he wasn’t going to have to get hell from the higher-ups about replacing those doors when they got this baby into dock.
A burst of static on his comm. “Sir, life support is under control, just waiting on power.”
“Fantastic,” said Dusk. “Power?”
“Sir, one minute.”
“Make it snappy.” Dusk and his two bridge teams took up positions around the bridge, some holding the door while others moved in about the consoles, pushing lifeless husks of droids away from the controls.
“Right spooky in ‘ere, sir,” said a trooper.
Dusk sighed and checked his chronometer. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Pause. “Power.”
“Sorry-sir-coming-up-now-sir.”
“Thank you.”
With luck they’d have the ship fully powered and ready for the jump to lightspeed inside thirty minutes. That was the goal. Life support would take longer given the size of the ship, but they would prioritize the teams’ current locations, then the corridors connecting them, then the hangar for their inevitable rendezvous at The Rendezvous, creatively named.
But lightspeed in thirty, that was the goal. The intel on this frigate and the others like it was hot, and undoubtedly the Empire would not be far behind.
Three sequential bangs and the deck began to vibrate, violently at first, then settled into a low steady thrumming beneath their feet. Overheads came on and the bridge blast shields slid away, revealing a smear of stars that had ceased to give Dusk wonder even before he had turned five. In groups, in banks, the computer terminals popped to life to the scattered cheers and mild chuckling of the bridge team.
“Sir, power is a go.”
“All right, power, lock the reactor down and get to the hangar.” Around him the bridge teams were already hard at work convincing systems and subsystems to come back online. Quick diagnostics here, command lines there, and Dusk could see that more and more of the ship was coming back to life.
“Oh,” said a trooper. “Ahh…”
Dusk’s head turned toward him. “What is it?”
“Ahh, sir, think we have a problem, sir.”
Already on the move toward him. “Explain.”
“Can’t really, sir,” said the trooper, pointing at his screen.
Codes flashed across the screen faster that Dusk could read, whole strings of Basic coding language running left, right, up, down, until the screen was writhing in characters. One by one, the other workstations did the same. The screens each began to flash red.
“Bridge, this is life support. Sir, I think we have a problem down here.”
Dusk was already motioning his teams into positions around the bridge. “A Team, get a fix on that door, see if you can’t get it shut and sealed. Do it now. One Squad, figure out what is going on with these terminals, re-boot them if you have to. Two Squad, take up positions, watch crossfire. Safety off everyone.” If it wasn’t already, but a friendly reminder wouldn’t hurt.
The reply came back like deranged echoes, and not from his team:
“Roger-roger.”
“Roger-roger.”
“Roger-roger.”
