Just wrote a little bit of something for VII... figured I wouldn't make an all new thread for it.
Now, this is first-draft, rough-cut... didn't even proofread yet. So, I'm sure there's issues. But I just finished it and kinda wanted to share.
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A battered Mobqet medium transport leisurely burned for the Coruscant hyperlimit. The pilot, one Salla Zend, would much rather have had the throttle wide open but the job had gone smoothly so far and she wasn't about to draw Imperial attention by looking like she had a hell of a good reason to bolt. So, the rule was to fly casual and let the screaming commence only once the heart of the Galactic Empire was a safe few lightyears away. For her part, Salla couldn't wait to get back to Nar Shaddaa, offload, and use the cash from their current haul to get Shug to fix up a few bits on the old
Starlight Intruder.
She was a smuggler, through and through. Back when Han Solo had been with the Rebellion, she'd been willing to—as a personal favor for her old flame—run the occasional mission to help the cause. But since he'd quit, Alliance work had dried up. Certainly, having Ackbar running the military wasn't going to endear the Alliance to smugglers, but lately things had gone from mutual toleration to near-open hostility, with Alliance patrols happily boarding any “suspicious” transport just trying to make a dishonest credit in a dishonest galaxy... especially only three years after a bunch of warlords decided to bomb Muunilinst and screw up the economy so badly that it actually had to be totally reevaluated. So, when a big contract came up to discreetly move a little spice and a little hardware that was just going to go to waste sitting in Imperial impound warehouses, well, who could say no?
Probably should've; one of these times, it'll get you killed, Salla thought as she rechecked her instruments. But this time, she'd gotten away with it: she even had an official Imperial departure plan this time. She leaned back in the pilot's chair and blew out her breath as if bored. All it would take is an errant TIE Fighter on a patrol passing too close and everything would be blown. And Coruscant was not the place to get into a pissing contest with the Imperial Navy. Salla had never seen so much heavy gear in one place as when she transited into the system a standard week before. Five days later, on the way out, it seemed like there were somehow even more Imperial ships sitting out there.
And that bugged the shavit out of her. Imps didn't cluster like that, especially with the warlords running around blowing up this and that and then shooting each other over who made the biggest explosion. Something was up, and the sooner she was gone, the bett—
Alarms screeched and Salla's hands automatically flew to the control yoke. Space rippled, then something absolutely massive and terrifying was at very unsafe distance from the Intruder. Salla cursed with enough vitriol to peel the paint off the hull and jerked the yoke hard to port. Panic response quickly turned to anger and she looked at the ship's readout to give it a piece of her mind... then blanched as she recognized the menacing form of a Praetor II-class battlecruiser. Another curse escaped.
“What the kark is going on up there?” Shug Ninx's irritated tone echoed down the access corridor behind Salla. “What's with all the—for grife's sake! Where the hell did that come from?!”
“Hell if I know,” snapped Salla. “Get Flight Control on the horn; what's the big idea of vectoring us out in the path of that monster?!”
There was a pregnant pause an answer occurred to both smugglers simultaneously, and Salla turned to meet Shug's gaze. “You don't think...”
“...That they made us?”
“But why bother with the flight plan and letting us get this far out? Why not get us on the ground? Or sic the TIEs on us in atmo?” Salla asked. “Nah, makes no sense—”
The proximity alarm howled again: another battlecruiser materialized, this time further out but close enough that its Cronau burst shook the Intruder like an Eriadu nanny. “Spast!” Salla spat as she jerked the the Intruder into a near-vertical climb, escaping the bracket between the two massive ships. “I don't care if it is a sting, get on the comm to Control.”
“Yeah, I'll—damn!” Another ship, a classic ImpStar with some escorts popped out above the Intruder. Ninx snarled, “What are they trying to pull?!”
Salla banked away from the new threat, but now the alarm wouldn't shut off. She hazarded a glance at her long range scanners: multiple hyperspace ingresses along a common vector. As Shug grabbed the headset comm, she threw the balky freighter onto its back then through a clockwise roll as Star Destroyers and battlecruisers popped into being all around her, each now accompanied by a handful of cruiser and frigate-weight escorts. A panicked jerk of the yoke threw her under the spar of a newly-arrived Nebulon-B but nearly smashed her across the bow of an incoming Dreadnaught cruiser.
“Salla, I can't get through,” Ninx called as Salla pitched the freighter across the nose of the six-hundred meter warship and raced down its flank. “Everything's jammed.”
“Peachy.”
“And it's not us; I mean, they're not jamming us in particular. They're jamming the planet.”
Salla shot a look at Ninx. He merely shrugged. “Some kind of war game?”
“You don't play games with this many ships,” Salla insisted, returning her gaze to the viewport in time to see and avoid a pair of newly-decanted Strike cruisers. The Intruder passed so close Salla could see they were fitted with extra hangar modules. That hardware was reserved for offensive fleet actions. “I don't think these are regular Imps, Shug.”
Ninx's jaw dropped. “Warlords?”
“Well, someone with a lot of Imp hardware. But yeah, that'd be my guess.” Salla threw the Intruder into a sudden barrel roll to clear out of the way of a VicStar; she didn't care to look whether it was first or second gen.
“Kark me running; they're invading Coruscant? That's insane!”
“So are Imps; what the kark do you want?” Zend snarled, sweat running down her large forehead. “At least there's enough of the rodders now I can find us a clear spot and get the hell out of this shavitstorm.”
Shug nodded and began tapping at the controls. “Yeah, good. I'll recalculate the jump to lightspeed—grife, that's one of those giant carrier Esdee's, ain't it?”
Salla dove under the Secutor-class ship that materialized dangerously close above them. “Don't really have time to check; I'll take your word for it.”
“I didn't think the Imps ever had this many heavies!”
“Never needed 'em, but warlords felt a little insecure with just ImpStars, I guess. Didn't compensate enough—dammit to all seven hells!” Intruder juked hard to starboard around a full Imperial battle squadron, then flattened back into an outwardly radial trajectory relative to Coruscant. “C'mon baby, almost there.”
“I got a temp warning on engine two,” Ninx warned. “Intruder's made for hauling, not dogfighting with fleets.”
“You don't say,” growled Salla. “You got those calculations done yet?”
“Almost there. Clear zone in ten seconds, jump in another thirty.”
Salla let herself relax slightly. Sure, the biggest naval battle in the history of the universe might be about to happen, but it was safely behind her and as long as no one took a shot at her and Shug, she was more than willing to let the Imps blast each other scrap and embers. “And we're in the clear zone. Twenty-five seconds to jump and—”
At that moment, an enormous white shape blotted out the blue sun of Coruscant and nearly filled the viewport even though scanners put it over a hundred kilometers away. Salla yawed wide to port as her eyes took in the last Assertor-class dreadnought in the galaxy. It was the last bit of evidence needed: that ship was the flagship of the United Warlord Fleets, under the joint command of Grand Admiral Tigellinus and Grand Moff Kaine.
Bristling with more heavy guns than Salla could count (and plenty more medium and light defense weapons), it had enough firepower to eradicate entire fleets in a salvo... and its guns were pointing uncomfortably close to the Starlight Intruder. Another jolt to the side slewed the freighter to the side of the menacing leviathan, and not a moment too soon. Another pair of dreadnoughts, this time Mandator IIIs by the look of them, flashed into existence on the other side and above the awesome flagship.
Fear prickled Salla's scalp and that icy run of sweat returned as space twisted and contorted to vomit forth more starfaring colossi. Fear and gut dread turned to horrible realization. “Oh, kark me... this is their heavy drop zone. That's why it was clear!”
Zend turned, wide-eyed to her partner. Ninx's hands were already on the controls as she barked out a very unnecessary, “Get us the frak out of here!”
“Just get her straight and level for a few seconds; I'll get us past them,” Shug answered, his voice tight with concentration and terror.
Salla peeled out of the previous course, running perpendicular to the previous vector. Space was becoming a premium at Coruscant's six-diameter altitude. Fortunately, the Imps appeared to be holding to a limited jump plane. After a good forty kilometers of vertical separation from Kaine's Wrath, she pushed the Intruder's nose down back into a trajectory parallel to Coruscan't equatorial plane. So far so g—
The last thing Salla Zend and Shug Ninx saw was a prismatic flash of light. The bow of the decanting Bellator-class dreadnought Tur'Quaedam impaled the cockpit almost dead on. All 113 meters of the Intruder simply vaporized, then pushed aside by the shift shields and sheer displacement of the massive Star Destroyer. A few forward compartments crumpled and a few each behind those decompressed, killing the fifty-six men working within, but the massive vessel pushed forward through the remains of the freighter and its own vapor trail.
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