Ravensdagger_Overkill

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter SeventeenTime: Thirty-Seven minutes after the start of the Denon-Ryloth Hyperspace incident.Skarsk felt the pirate ship docking with the Profits of Merchandising. It was just a small shiver running through the floor before the inertial dampeners came online and compensated for the motion. It was enough. “Are you all ready?” he hissed over his shoulder.The slaves behind him were poorly clothed, underfed, tired from days or years spent on the wastelands of Tatooine and armed with blasters that had been scavenged from Hutt slavers. They were as ragtag a bunch as he had ever seen. And yet Darth Khepri still expected him to hold back an entire force of slavers with them. There was a weak chorus of ‘yes,’ and ‘aye.’There were battle droids too, twice as many as there were slaves and better equipped. He gave them about as much respect as they deserved, which was none. “You know who your targets are?” he asked them.“Roger roger.”He spat on the steel grated floor and turned back around to face the direction the enemy would come from. The droids were all off to the left and right of the group, leaving the middle area open and clear. The idea was to draw fire away from the squishier slaves.At least the woman and her droid had given him a few tricks.They were stationed behind a row of containers welded to the ground, past a three way intersection through which the pirates would have to pass. The other way was blocked by a closed blast door while the door into the corridor they were in was wide open. He had a controller for the door stuck to his belt.The Profits shivered again and he felt his ears pop. Clawed hands gripped his blaster rifle tighter. Soon.The corridor the slavers and pirates would enter had crates and boxes moved into it. Cover for the enemy to use. An idea that felt horribly wrong to him, but perhaps made sense. All those boxes and crates were thin plasteel and empty besides. A lucky blaster bolt would burn right through and hit whomever hid behind it. A second would vaporize the box.He growled as he heard distant boots clomping closer and shouted commands. Maybe if they were on land they could have rigged explosives, or used heavier ordonance, but that was suicide in a spacecraft.He snapped back to attention as the first slaver appeared at the far end of the corridor, pointed their way, then snapped a shot at them. It hit the ceiling halfway.At least, he reasoned as he ducked, both sides would be awful shots. “Keep your heads down, fools!” he barked. Then, in a lower voice, added, “Let the bastards come closer.”All the slaves dropped to the ground, but the battledroids were too dumb to react. One of them ate a blaster bolt in the head and clattered to the ground.“Open fire!” he ordered.Their call of “Roger roger,” was drowned out by the whine of blasters.Soon, the air was filled with blue and red bolts going back and forth, most missing, but a few taking out or glancing off their droids.“Our turn,” he said. “On three. One, two... three.” He stood up with the rest and took in the scene.There were a lot more than he had expected. At least forty, if not fifty pirates in sight, too cocky to use the cover provided as they took potshots at the droids. He picked out one slaver that looked more important than the rest and fried his head off with a well placed trio of shots before dropping to one knee. He felt a wash of heat over his head as a bolt zipped by.Waiting a few seconds, he poked his head out. More slavers were coming at the end of the corridor.The firefight intensified and he could feel the metal of his cover warming up. “Now,” he said.With a press of the button at his hip, the foot-thick blast doors just a pace away from their barricade began to close.The return fire intensified as the doors shut, but there was nothing the pirates could do. They clanged shut with a boom.A particularly stupid battledroid mistimed its fire, hit the wall, and burst apart when its bolt ricochetted into its head.“Idiots,” he grumbled even as the stuttacco rap-tap-tap of blasters on the other side sounded out.He grinned and brought up his door controls. This had been the murderous droid’s idea. Dishonourable, but effective.With a press of a button, another blast door opened. This one in the corridor still filled with pirates. A blast door that lead to a junction to connect to a cargo container. One that was empty.The whoosh of evacuating pressure was like music.“Come, there is another ship trying to board us. We will kill them too,” he said before tossing the door controls to one of the droids. “In two minutes, close the exterior blast door, then seal this room before entering that corridor. If the Hutt ship is still connected, board them.”“Roger roger.”This was going to be fun, he thought as he began to race across the ship.

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Time: Thirty-Nine minutes after the start of the Denon-Ryloth Hyperspace incident.Trias had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that things were about to go horribly wrong. Just a niggling little seed of doubt, but one that he had learned to listen to over the course of his long career as a bounty hunter and pirate captain. “Any reports from the Thick Stick?” he asked.The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.The Beskar Mace had just completed its docking maneuvers, connecting it with one of the many entrance hatches along the Profits of Merchandising. It wasn’t quite a sleeping mynock, but it was damned close to one. The Raider was hovering close by in case things went wrong, the Stinky was watching over the Republic ship and the Gut-Ripper was farther afield, slowly coming around.The only other ship in the fleet he had taken command of, the Thick Stick, was docked on the other side of the Profits and unloading slavers into the cargo ship. Once it was secured from within with slavers and pirates from the Stick and the Mace, they would use the hauler to drag their bounty back to Tatooine.It was a simple enough plan, and he expected it to go horribly wrong at any moment.“Loss of atmosphere on the cargo ship!” one of his officers screamed across the bridge. “No, wait... just one section. Shit, we’ve got crew from the Stick jettisoned.”He sat straighter in his seat. “Was it accidental or are the slaves fighting back?” he asked.“Fighting sir. We had a report from on the Profit about a barricade and some battle droids,” the same officer said.“Tell our own men to be careful. They’re prepared for us. Cornered as they are they’ll fight like enraged rancor.” He glared at the display. Nothing was going on beyond that, except...“Sir, those vulture droids are coming online!”“Captain!” another call. “The Profits is bringing up partial shields. It’s laser canons are aiming at out hull.”“Report from the Stinky sir, the Republic ship is warming up its engines and coming around it’s... sir, the Republic ship is opening fire!”“Captain, those Republic fighters near the waypoint are turning our way!”Trias rammed a fist into his armrest and started thinking as quickly as he could. A dozen vulture droids was nothing to scoff at, but it was too little to be a real threat to his ship. The other ships in his fleet though might have difficulty with those numbers. They would have to take care of themselves for now.The Republic fighters were little more than six Cloakshapes. Nothing to be worried about just yet. And they had a ways to travel.No, his main focus had the be the ship his own was docked to, and the Republic CR70. Neither were well armed, but they were bigger threats all the same.“Get targeting on that Republic ship. Contact the Raider and Gut-Ripper, tell them to chase that damned ship down. Recall the Stinky, it’s too far from the rest of the fleet. Cancel our boarding action. I don’t need that extra distraction.”He got a few ayes as his orders were relayed. He was almost content to sit back when he felt a slight tremor run across his ship.“Sir, the Profit’s laser canons are hitting our hull,” his first mate said, voice too damned placid for someone announcing that they were being hit. “The emplacement is rather awkward, we can’t hit it with any turbolasers. Any missile we use would impact us too. Should we aim the point defence guns at it?”“Might as well,” he grumbled. One smaller anti-pirate laser cannon emplacement wasn’t going to do much against the shields on his Mace. “Tell the Thick Stick to get its shit together and get some men in that abomination. Shut that emplacement down, dammit.”“Aye sir,” his First Mate said. “Sir, the Stinky is reporting difficulties.”He scoffed. “Put it on the screen.”The Stinky was an old DP20. Ugly as all sin, but armed to the gills and with shields well above its class. It was a ship built from the ground up to be a warship, not a retrofitted freighter or transport or a cushy little frigate like the Republic’s CR70.The holo switched to a view of the Stinky moving at a decent clip parallel to the Republic ship, blasts of laser fire were being exchanged from the two vessels and yet...“Ion cannons,” he said, recognizing the blue tint of the shots coming from the Republic ship.In hindsight it made perfect sense. The Republic ship was a policing vessel. It wasn’t made to stand up to sustained fire or destroy anything, it was made to incapacitate and hold enemy vessels. Of course it would have a full suite of ion weaponry instead of proper lasers.For every uncannily aimed shot the DP20 took, the Republic ship took two, the weight of fire from the Stinky far surpassing what the CR70 could put out, but even as he watched, arcs of electric fire ran across the DP20’s shields and its cannons shorted out, going quiet one by one.When two of its four engines sputtered to a halt and its shields winked out, he knew it was over. The Republic frigate had taken a beating but its shields still held and it was circling around to finish the job.He still held the advantage, still had more ships and more firepower, but suddenly things weren’t looking so good.“Sir, there was an explosion near our boarding ramps. We’re... we’re being boarded!”Trais glowered at the holo. Clearly he had not charged enough for this expedition.

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Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen Time: Forty minutes after the start of the Denon-Ryloth Hyperspace incident.Even after giving the order and having a good idea of what to expect, seeing the empty void of space filled with blue beams of light that rammed into the Hutt ship was startling.Taylor gripped the rails holding her back from the bridge’s window and watched as the tincan-like ship, the one HK-47 called a ‘DP20’, started to weave and duck away from their attack. It didn’t do much good, with most of the shots hitting across the ship’s hull.She narrowed her eyes at the DP20. “HK, is there a bubble around that ship?”“Affirmation: Indeed Master, that is the ship’s shield. It is visible on account of our inadequate firepower. Had we a proper warship those shields would have been bypassed by now.”“So that’s a thing,” she said as she watched forks of lightning skitter across the DP20’s surface. The pirate craft was beginning to move in earnest. Turrets sprouted out across the hull and started tracking them as they moved. Soon, the space between the two ships was filled with a veritable lightshow.She flinched as the first impacts rocked their ship. The cascading ripple of a shield warped past the bridge window, calming her beating heart a little. “Can you give me an idea of what’s going on?” she asked HK47.“Concession: Very well, Master, seeing as how your plebeian organs are unable to even begin to comprehend the events transpiring around you, I will attempt to simplify things to a level where even you can understand.” The droid’s head turned towards the bridge, then back to her. “Simplification: Enemy ship go zap zap. We go boom boom. Therefore, we go zap zap first.”She sighed as the ship rocked underfoot. At least the crew, battle droids excluded, were taking things seriously. She saw a few of the ex-slaves looking up from their consoles to look her way once in a while, as if reassuring themselves that she was still watching them to make sure they behaved.“Were you programmed to be so annoying?” she asked.“Statement: I will have you know that I have perfected my social protocols over millennia of use.”The ship shook again and she turned to follow the action, but they had turned around at some point and she couldn’t see their foe.“Commentary: The enemy has launched concussion missiles at us.”“Damn,” she said. She could guess what that meant.“Reassurance: No need to fear, Master. Our point defence turrets are still fully operational. Enemy fire has been reduced by thirty-seven percent.”“We took out some of their guns?” she asked.“Correction: This waste of resources is equipped with Ion weaponry. Its cannons are designed to fire ionized particles that disrupt delicate electronic components. Even through the enemy shields we are slowly rendering their vessel useless. Given the level of maintenance most pirates practice it will only be moments before our victory is assured.”Taylor watched as they rolled again and the DP20 came into view off to the side. One of its engines was trailing smoke, another had failed completely. Even if fewer hits were landing as it ducked and weaved, those that did caused cascades of blue lightning across the hull.The guns scattered across its hull sputtered and the launchers flinging missiles that left white trails across space stopped firing. Soon the ship was drifting across space, the lights within flickering on and off, its engines dead and its shield completely gone.“Assertion: One enemy vessel down, Master. Four more to go.”Taylor nodded and spun on her heel to walk to the middle of the bridge. She went the long way around, trying to avoid getting anyone stuck in the grasp of her power if she could avoid it. There was a hovering display there on which she could see over-sized representations of every ship in the region. The largest pirate ship was still attached to the Profits of Merchandising, as was the transport vessel that had come with them. Small flashes between the two showed how the Profit’s meager guns were slapping at the ship’s shields.The Vulture droids were moving around on a course to intercept one of the two frigates, the one nearest the ship she was on.“HK-47, let’s leave the area. We can’t take on that big one, I don’t think. It’s got guns that are bigger than anything we have, and I don’t doubt they would tear us apart if we got too close.”“Query: Master, while your observation is most astute, how would you suggest we eliminate this enemy?”“We won’t, not yet. Those other two,” she said, pointing to the two other ships, “They look small enough that we could take them on like that DP20. Maybe. But probably not at the same time.” She leaned forwards, hands gripping the edge of the console displaying the floating, semi-transparent images.“HK, this was a tax ship, right?” she asked. “We should have an idea of what all the civilian ships in the area are carrying. Anything that might be useful?” She hoped that the sort of cargo manifest that existed on Earth was similar in deep space.“Checking,” HK-47 said. “Answer: Indeed Master, I have found one thing that might be useful.” He gestured and one of the ships in the distance flashed a few times. “Answer: This cargo vessel, registration Besh-Osk-Osk-Mem 9817, is transporting 506,000,000,000 liters of liquid Tibanna gas.”“Tibanna gas?” Taylor repeated, trying the word out. “Is it dangerous?”“Suggestion: It is highly explosive and used as a primary fuel in nearly all blaster-type weaponry across the galaxy. Let’s blow it up, please.”Taylor narrowed her eyes. “How many people are aboard that ship?”“Prevarication: It is likely that there are no sentient crew members,” HK-47 said.“Right,” she replied. She watched the blips representing the pirates on their tail flashing a little closer as the holographic display refreshed. “HK, recall those Vulture droids. Get a few of them on the other side of that tanker. Set course to loop all the way around it. We’ll see if they take the bait.”Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

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Time: Forty-two minutes after the start of the Denon-Ryloth Hyperspace incident.Sib Nark fretted, hands tangled with each other, back bent forwards like an overworked clerk’s and sweat glands pouring out a sickly sweet mixture that smelled to any Neimoidian like desperation.He would never have allowed himself that much loss of control before a group of subordinates, not in any other circumstance. This entire situation was so beyond the pale that he stopped giving a damn.The other Neimoidians of his retinue were faring little better. Some sat and stared out of the bridge window at the massive curved shape of the Mon Calamari pirate vessel stuck to the Profits of Merchandising like a mynock on a power cord. One of his adjutants was screaming at a battle droid, demanding things of it that were far beyond its capabilities.Sib Nark had installed himself in the captain’s seat, as was his right, and had tried to look confident and assured. He reminded his subordinates that they had an entire army of droids, small as it may be, between them and any borders. That the slaves still aboard were armed as well as they could be, and wouldn’t allow themselves to be taken without a fight. That the Jedi and her homicidal droid were on their side.All words that he reminded himself of every minute, even as reports trickled through. The forces running into his ship were being stymied, for now, the laser cannons the Profits sported were still picking away at the pirate ship, the slaves had sustained few injuries and were still roaring for a fight.All pretty things that wouldn’t help him in the end.He just had to hope that the Hutt would be reluctant to make enemies of the Trade Federation. He wasn’t so important as to cause the Federation to back him up with this amount of trouble, but maybe the Hutts didn’t know as much.“Sir, the Republic ship is moving away from our local area,” one of the nearest droids reported. Its voice sounded loud on the bridge, enough that it shut up the screaming adjutant.“I see,” Sib Nark said. “Where is it moving?” he asked. There was an uncomfortable weight settling in the pits of his stomachs.The droid paused for a long moment, the screen before it flashing through three dozen readouts in as many seconds. “The ship is heading to the edge of the system on an escape vector. Two of the pirate vessels are chasing after it. Both are catching up. It will reach jump range in two minutes.”He leaned back into his seat, the shaking in his hands, the rumbling in his gut, all fading as he resigned himself to his faith. This was it. The moment where the Jedi, his only real hope, abandoned them.He couldn’t even blame her, not truly. Every Neimoidian knew when to cut their losses and run. It was a survival skill they valued greatly.A single escort vessel, one probably maintained as well as all the other ships in the Republic, up against ten times its own tonnage in pirate warships. There was nothing anyone, not even a fabled Jedi, could do.“We should arm ourselves,” he said. The words were delivered without a quaver of fear or a hint of the resignation he felt, but he could see the colour drain in his subordinates’ faces nonetheless. This was him telling them that they would soon need to fight.They were bureaucrats, not combatants. That would not end well.“The Republic ship’s repulsorlifts are coming online. It is decelerating,” the droid spoke.“Why would it do that?” he asked it. There was a minuscule kernel of hope left.“Unknown,” the droid said. “It is passing within kilometers of a convoy of heavy freighters. It is possible it is using them as cover.”“Bring it up on the holo,” he ordered. The same holo he had ordered shut when the number of enemies on it had seemed so daunting moments before.The projector came online and quickly shifted to show the Republic ship spinning on its own axis to bring its engines in the direction it was still moving in, a rapid deceleration maneuver, he recognized. Instead of using its inertial dampeners to slow down and its repulsors to turn, the ship was using pure kinetic energy from its many engines.“Verify if its hyperdrive is coming online,” he demanded.“Roger roger,” the droid replied. It would be difficult to tell from so far away, but hyperdrives, especially ill maintained ones, tended to rob a ship of its computational power, which in turn had a negative impact on a ship’s shields, engines and repulsor systems. Not enough to be obvious, but enough to detect. “Inconclusive,” the droid returned.“What is she doing?” he muttered, a hand rising to hold over his mouth as he narrowed his eyes on the screen.The two other pirates ships were catching up, especially after the Republic ship slowed down as much as it did.“Sir, the Republic ship is opening fire.”So, she was going to fight after all. Perhaps the run had been a ruse to make distance between her smaller ship and the one anchored to the Profits.Then the lines representing outgoing fire hit the freighters.“I don’t unde-”The Profits of Merchandising shook, the bridge going from the pale blue of a room lit only by monitors to a shocking white.The windows onto the world beyond tried to polarize, but it wasn’t fast enough.Sib Nark brought his hands up to cover his face as a new star was born just within the sector.As suddenly as it appeared the light faded and the Profits stabilized.“Shields at ninety percent,” one droid said.“Rebooting sensors.”He did not need to wait for the holo to refresh to see what had happened. Out in space, some light seconds away, a ball of phosphorus white fire the size of a small moon was expanding across the system.“She is mad,” he said.

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