The Hammer Falls
by CM Corran Halcyon
Prologue
Location: ISD Challenge (0.003 light years from the Minos Cluster)
Time: 0482 Aurora Standard Time, 13.16.72 Standard Date
Gliding through the blackness of deep space, the Imperial Star Destroyer Challenge pointed its mighty arrowhead towards the distant cluster of stars and interstellar gases that marked the Minos Cluster.
“Vice Admiral? Sir, we’re approaching three-thousandths,” a voice called out of the portside crew pit. “Everybody’s good to go.”
Vice Admiral Corran Force signaled to the helmsman to come to a halt. A more traditional Commodore would have perhaps scolded the young tactical officer for shouting across the bridge, but Force had always been one to let his officers have a little more slack. Still, it was uncalled for.
“What was that, Lieutenant? I’m not sure I heard you.” Force asked without a trace of question in his voice. When the Lieutenant did not answer right away, Force turned to look at him, then back to the main viewport. “I asked you a question, Lieutenant.”
With all my eyes on him, the young Lieutenant silently slid away from his station, clambered up the stairwell, and came to attention behind the Vice Admiral.
“Excuse me, Admiral, but we have arrived at three-thousandths of a light year from the Lyccos system border. Also, all ships report systems nominal, with all fighters ready.”
Force slowly turned towards the tactical officer, with a grim expression on his face. “Lieutenant Kavlan, you do not shout information across the bridge of an Imperial Star Destroyer. It is to be reported to the bridge officer, much as you just did. However,” he paused, then smiled sardonically, “You could have just repeated yourself.” The Lieutenant smiled and relaxed. “Sorry, sir. I’ll remember that.” As the tactical officer returned to his station, Force heard a voice say behind him: “At least you didn’t rip his head off.” Force grinned and turned to look at Colonel Darklord, the Commander of Wing X, the excellent complement of fighter squadrons aboard the Challenge. “I try to leave a little bit of humour in my life. We don’t all have to act like droids, you know. Thanks,” he said as his personal aide handed him a
datapad. He read the datapad, checked his chrono, and started yelling out orders.
“Tactical, raise shields and ready weapons, Communications; tell the fleet to do the same, Starfighter Control, launch all fighters when ready, tell them to patrol at a radius of twelve kilometres.” Alarms began ringing out across the bridge.
As soon as Force paused, the Starfighter Controller yelled at the Vice Admiral. “But sir, Inferno Squadron isn’t aboard yet! We don’t know where they are!” Force glanced at the officer, then replied.
“They have their IFF transponders set to a frequency of 223.8 hrz, and they’re flying the only X-Wings in the fleet with pure black R2 units.” The SFC looked confused, so Force looked at the distant Lyccos system and elaborated.
“They sent us that transmission on the datapad. They’re down there, and they’re our only hope.”
-----------------
Chapter 1
Location: Lyccos II, Belgor the Hutt’s Empire (93 degrees West, 46 degrees North)
Time: 2009 Aurora Standard Time, 13.15.72 Standard Date
Flashback
“Well, well, well, look what the vornskr dragged in.”
“Sh-sh-shut your fa-fla-face ‘n help us.”
Lieutenant Commander Biggs Darklighter and Lieutenant Edvard stumbled into one of the safehouses Inferno Squadron was using on the planet Lyccos II. The only other occupant of the room was Captain Calvin Nunb, who was still unaccustomed to the planet’s rotation, yet entirely comfortable. Its barren, searing wastelands reminded him of his home planet of Sullust, its miles and miles of long caverns that were the only habitable part of the globe. He asked the two drunks the question foremost on his mind. “You weren’t followed?”
“Look at me, Clalvin. Dyu reeeally ‘spect me to notice who’s followin’ me?” Edvard slurred his speech as he supported the now-passed out Darklighter. Edvard lurched his way towards one of the chamber’s four beds and dropped his companion onto one before falling backwards onto one himself. He was asleep when he hit it.
Calvin blinked his big eyes and shook his squat head. Some people, he thought, should not drink when they have no tolerance for it. He glanced at the set of holos before him, feeds from spy cameras throughout the caverns. He pulled out his comlink, affixed the scrambler to it, and entered a secure password. He did not wait for long before a voice answered.
“Go ahead.”
“It’s Calvin. Biggs and Edvard are back, but they’re hammered.” Colonel Manitsas remained silent for a while.
“Thanks. You just keep watching the fly eye in the hallway.”
“Yes sir. Oh, and if I can ask, you have some female companionship, don’t you? Perhaps a Twi’lek dancer from the club you ‘surveyed’?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we have a fly eye outside your door, too. Remember?”
“You’d better damn well keep this to yourself, Calvin, that’s an order.”
“No problem, sir. Get some sleep.”
“She and I have some business to discuss first. Manitsas out.”
* * *
Meanwhile, three kilometres away in the flight three safehouse, Lieutenant Commander Locke, Lieutenant Triji Boliv, and Lieutenant Suiral Larius were having a grand old time. They sat on a sofa, surrounded by Twi’lek food and were watching a holonude, starring Wynssa Starflare, of course. God, she was a work of art. Amazing how an actress who normally did dramas could be so good at something so bad.
None of them were watching the spy eye feeds that they were supposed to watch, so they didn’t see the shadow sneaking suspiciously through the halls, or where he disappeared into the room containing eleven TIE Defenders belonging to a certain Imperial squadron.
* * *
Commander Corran Halcyon and Lieutenant Commander Ace “decided” to take a walk when their Commander had arrived with a companion. They strolled calmly through the massive caverns; breathmasks securely on their faces for the air was redolent of carbon monoxide and sulphur, and keeping their eyes open for anybody suspicious. They began to travel through the Hutt district of the “cavern-state”, making an effort not to appear conspicuous. It was the middle of the night on Lyccos; its day was shorter than the Aurora Standard by about a quarter cycle, and it was getting shorter by the year.
Lyccos II was farther from its sun (named “Veriats” by the locals) than the only other planet in the system, Lyccos I, therefore making it habitable. Actually, the surface of the planet had an average temperature of two hundred degrees Celcius, due to Veriats becoming a red giant in the recent millennia. As the star swelled, the amount of radiation emitting from her steadily increased until everything on the surface was vaporized or killed, forcing the Humans, Sullustans, Twi’leks, Hutts, and various other groups to retreat into the long caverns within the crust. The planet had no official government, but the more powerful criminal factions had put themselves into positions of power to control one of the 29 “cavern-states” each. Commander-in-chief of the largest cavern, the one used by Inferno Squadron, was Brala the Hutt and his troupe. Presently, they had been making money selling “exclusive seats” to watch the destruction of Lyccos I as it descended into its sun and disintegrated. It had been estimated that over 96% of the planet’s population would find some way to view the spectacular event. It had also been no secret that the “government” was going to turn all of the surrounding air-space probes towards Lyccos I to observe and record the planet’s decimation.
Apparently, the Rebel Squadrons thought it was a fine moment to make their move into EH space.
Inferno Squadron was there to stop them when they did.
As the two pilots moved through the commercial district, laughing and telling jokes to each other about fellow squadron members, each kept a wary eye on the scant other sentient beings milling about in the middle of the night. The EH had received word that the RS had an Intelligence team dirt-down, and that they were hacking into the planet’s government communication network to shut down the space probes entirely at the second of their fleet’s passage through the system. Inferno Squadron had yet to find proof of the RS team, but knew that they existed somewhere on the planet. The Wildcards had a meager six hours to locate and foil the Rebels and their plans.
Halcyon and Ace found themselves in a cul-de-sac, evidently the end of their particular cavern. It was populated by two other beings, who were both munching on food from the establishments situated in the area. The two pilots sat down at a table farthest from both other patrons.
“This is not going to happen, man. We can’t find these guys in six hours, it’s impossible,” said Halcyon as he crossed his arms. Ace shook his head.
“Well, it may be impossible but we have to find them. Or do you want to be chasing a Rebel fleet around our own territory for the next few years?
Halcyon grimaced. The man had a point.
“Well, can we somehow send a message to the Challenge, see if they’ve gotten any leads?” Ace shook his head again.
“Nope. Only Colonel Manitsas has the direct frequency code, and we can only use it when we can find a secure HoloNet transmitter.
And to be honest, I don’t think there’s one on the entire planet.” Halcyon rubbed his eyes and sighed. Then he bolted upright in his chair.
“Wait a minute! It’s simple! We just have to tap into the government communications line with a-”
He broke off as explosions rocked the chamber.
-----------------
Chapter 2
Location: Lyccos II, Belgor the Hutt’s Empire (93 degrees West, 46 degrees North)
Time: 2254 Aurora Standard Time, 13.15.72 Standard Date
Captain Calvin Nunb looked at the mass of wreckage that was once his TIE Defender, the Snub Nunb, and felt his heart break into a million pieces. That ship had meant everything to him; it was his friend, his pal. The computer would comfort him in his times of need, would offer him advice if it could. Just as Rebel pilots became attached to their astromech droids, EH pilots became attached to the personalities inside of their ship computers. Colonel Callista of Typhoon Squadron had her Shakespeare, Colonel Darklord had his Booster Rooster, Vice Admiral Corran Force had his Darksaber, and on and on.
Now eleven pilots of Inferno Squadron had lost dear friends and compatriots, and be damned if it wasn’t another thing to make the RS pay for.
Calvin heard footsteps behind him, crunching in the gravel of the “hangar” floor. “Are you sure?”
Colonel Manitsas replied to Calvin’s question, a look of mixed anger and depression on his face. “Definitely. We looked through the Flight III spy eye feeds. Somebody waltzed in here and blew up our ships. We didn’t get a good look at his face, but there’s this.” The Colonel produced a datapad from his pocket and showed it to Calvin. It was a frozen holo of the person who had walked right past the Flight III safehouse and sabotaged their ships. Manitsas was right, his face was all but undistinguishable, but an enlarged portion of the photo showed the insignia sewn onto the person’s right shoulder.
It was that of Rebel Squadrons Intelligence (Which, Calvin thought, is an oxy moron). Calvin nodded, then asked his superior. “Why wasn’t anybody watching these?” Manitsas’ expression darkened. “They were watching a holonude and eating Twi’lek chow.”
Calvin turned sharply to look/glare at Lieutenant Commander Locke, who was across the room examining the wreckage of his own TIE Defender. Calvin’s rage got the best of him, and he charged towards the poor Lieutenant Commander, tackling him to the ground viciously. Calvin raised his fists and began beating his fellow Flight Leader.
“You bastard! This is your fault; it’s your fault that he’s gone! I’m gonna kill you!” Locke tried to raise his arms and defend his head, but Lieutenants Triji Boliv and Oskar Holtz grabbed the furious Sullustan under his arms and hoisted him off. They managed to pin him, kicking and screaming all the while. Locke picked himself off of the ground, wiped blood from his lip and spat.
“Let him up, boys, so I can kick his ass and teach him a lesson.”
Calvin exploded off of the ground and out of the Lieutenants’ arms, then launched himself at Locke again. The two went down into the dirt, a blur of punches and a mess of yells and hollers. The other pilots of Inferno that were present began screaming at the two to stop it, but to no avail. Finally, Colonel Manitsas waded into the battle, grabbed the two warriors by the backs of their necks, and stood them at attention in front of him.
“Would you two care to mature, oh, I don’t know, maybe about fifteen Standard years? This childish behaviour does not endear you to many people, either.”
Calvin and Locke both opened their mouths to reply at the same time but were interrupted by Commander Corran Halcyon’s voice over their comlinks. Halcyon had been sent to the Flight I safehouse to continue watching the security cameras.
“You guys, there is a way to make this thing happen.” Everybody simultaneously grabbed their comms and said, “What are you talking about?”
Halcyon explained. “The mission, stupids. And my plan is so simple I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”
The pilots in the hangar still looked blank. Colonel Manitsas said, “Would you care to tell us?”
“Simple. We join the RS.” Halcyon sounded satisfied. Manitsas shook his head. “Corran, that’ll never work, believe me, I’ve gone over that a hundred times, and it all ends up with them being too suspicious of us. It won’t work.”
“That’s why we join anonymously, as a freelance squadron of fighters, who they won’t really meet until the second they join their fleet passing through the system. That’s their plan, according to Intel, right? They set up the probes to fail at the second of the planet’s detonation, then they evac in their X-Wings. So we sort of pass along everything we know to help them, like government passwords and crap, all over a scrambled comm line. They won’t be able to trace it, and once they try out some of our info, they’ll know we’re not lying. Then, when we have their confidence, we meet them, ah, ‘borrow’ their X-Wings, and take their place in the RS fleet. To top it all off, we send a message to Jarak telling him to assemble a fleet right outside the system with an Interdictor, and they’ll wipe out the Rebels. Sound good?”
Nobody could find a flaw with his plan.
“And you guys better get out of there. The police are on their way to examine the explosions.”
The pilots in the hangar bolted for their secret passages to the Flights I, II, and III safehouses.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Inferno Squadron gathered in the Flight I safehouse around the main computer terminal where Corran Halcyon was attempting to join the Rebel Squadrons. He put his finger on his lip, thinking carefully.
“Hmm. Okay, so if we want to help out their Intelligence team, we need to find them. We can assume that they are getting support from the RS cell on Lyccos II. So we hook up to the server that the known RS supporters are on, there we go, and now we need to hack into the protected files, specifically the ones to do with the user locations and profiles. Well, shit. There’s tens of thousands of users here, and we have,” he checked his chrono, “A whole goddamn three hours.”
He turned around and faced his boss. “Sorry, Colonel, but this isn’t gonna happen. Not unless you can magically produce somebody who knows who the RS are posing as.” He reached to turn the data terminal off when Manitsas quietly spoke.
“You want to look for Vandalae Industries, a maker of latex. It’s a sham corporation put together by the RS Intelligence Team, and if you find the location the server is connected to, you find our targets.”
Calvin turned to gape at his squadron commander, who grinned.
“That Twi’lek dancer, Calvin, has, ah, entertained some from the RS Intel team. She says she makes a little bit of money on the side by looking up her customers in the ‘Wanted’ database, and turns some in for extra credits if they’re worth it. She said that after she danced for these guys, who had told her that they were with RSI, she looked up the address of the building. Guess what? In the small business directory, it’s listed as Vandalae Industries, although the building was an apartment that was supposedly abandoned. She also told me that the first two floors have been hollowed out and are home to twelve fully functional X-Wings, all with black R2 units.” Halcyon was furiously typing away on the keyboard, and pumped his fist in the air triumphantly.
“Got it! Holy crap, guys. This is going to take some doing. The bad news: they couldn’t have picked a more easily escapable hiding spot. The good news: we don’t even have to help them, we can just waltz in, blast them, and take their X-Wings. I can transfer complete structural plans to everybody’s datapads, if you want. What do you think, Colonel?”
Manitsas smiled and nodded. “I’ll handle making the assault plans, Corran, you’re going to send that message to Jarak, but let me sign it before you send it. You do have a cunning and miraculous plan to send that without the RSI’s getting a hold of it, right? Good. The rest of you are to go out and see if you can get us some thermal-shielded suits and weapons. We’ll need them, from the looks of these holos. Now, everybody, you got an hour, got it? Good. Go.”
As Halcyon turned back to the computer and nine pilots turned to head back to their safehouses and move out, Manitsas added one more thing.
“And don’t look so damned depressed. I know we lost our ships, but that’s all. I brought along full backups for our computer personalities, which we can just load into the R2s we’re going to get. Okay?”
The pilots continued on with slight bounces in their steps, and relief in their faces at not having lost their best friends.
* * *
Thirty minutes after Lieutenant Commander Talon Zetar returned euphorically with a set of eleven thermally-protected assault suits, Corran Halcyon glanced behind him to make sure nobody saw him open the airlock to the outside world. He had another plan; this one would get a message to the Imperial Star Destroyer Challenge (which, unbeknownst to our heroes, is moving into position three-thousandths of a light year from the Lyccos system). Although, out of all of his plans, this was probably the most risqué. It involved blowing the door to the outside, sprinting across the twenty metres to the communications tower, and entering the code to open the damned thing, all in two hundred degree Celcius weather and intense amounts of radiation.
Although, to be perfectly fair, he was wearing one of the thermal suits.
He took a deep breath, braced himself to start running, and pulled the handle beside the door. It whooshed upwards in the blink of an eye, allowing fatal amounts of radiation and heat into the airlock, but also letting Halcyon get a glimpse of a red-bathed landscaped toasted by years of gamma radiation and intense heat. He started running towards the eighty-story communications tower built into a hill. Halcyon ran for a little while, feeling increasingly warm, and finally reached the sheltered door to the building. He checked the underside of his suit’s arm where he had scrawled an all-access password he had taken from the RSI computers. The ink was still, thankfully, readable, though it was bubbling and evaporating. He keyed in the eight-digit number and pressed open. If he was lucky, the code should have made all of the tower’s functions available to him.
Halcyon pulled open the door and closed it behind him. Before he passed through the next door, however, several jets released an fast-cooling gas into the air, chilling it to room temperature and making his suit merely warm to the touch. He doffed his helmet, pulled out his blaster and stepped through the door. Nobody was in sight; the communications tower was apparently off-limits to commoners. He moved quickly towards the control room and found it. Pulling out a datacard, he put it into the reader and keyed the tower to send a quick, high-compression pulse to a set of co-ordinates in space where, according to Manitsas, the Challenge should be as she moved into position. Halcyon fiddled with the controls, hit send, waited for the confirmation that the message had gotten off successfully, then deleted it from the message archives. He pulled out the datacard, went back to the airlock, locked down the entire system, and headed back to the cavern airlock.
-----------------
Chapter 3
Location: (94 degrees West, 47 degrees North) “Vandalae Industries”
Time: 0233 Aurora Standard Time, 13.16.72 Standard Date
“Alright, boys, here’s the deal. This apartment was built right into the rock at its thinnest point, so that the bottom two floors have been hollowed out and open at the back onto the wastelands, and it has a radiation-shielded blast door. The top floor has enough rock between it and the outside so that it remains habitable, but we have to get in, get to the third floor, blast ‘em all, and take the X-Wings, which are stored in the makeshift hangar on the first and second floors. Easy, huh?” Colonel Manitsas finished his briefing over the comlink as the pilots huddled around the corner from the now-defunct apartment building home to an RSI team.
“Two, Three, Five, Six, and Seven go around through the right side, everybody else is coming with me on the left side. On my signal, light your charge, take cover, and go in firing.” Halcyon, Nunb, Zetar, and Edvard quickly ran to the right side of the building and huddled against the rock face while Ace set a Nergon-14 charge against the apartment and joined them, a good twenty feet away from the explosive. Manitsas said over the comm, “Go!” and Ace detonated the charge.
Edvard raised his assault rifle and was the first one through the gap. He rolled to the side, a task made much more difficult by the bulky thermal suits they all wore. To his surprise, as well as that of all of the other pilots, no fire came back at the Infernos. He looked around at the double-floor hangar with twelve X-Wings scattered around it, all facing the rear of the building, a large blast door. All of the Rebel ships had pure black R2 units, as told by the Twi’lek dancer. Manitsas pointed to Suiral Larius, then to the X-Wings. Larius moved to the nearest, clambered up onto it with his bulky backpack, and began to upload one of the TIE Defender personalities into the R2’s memory. The remaining pilots moved to the foot of the stairs that led to the third floor.
Halcyon was the first one up the stairs; at the top was a hallway with a single doorway at the end. He activated his comlink, “Boss, are we taking prisoners?”
“No. Burn ‘em all,” Manitsas replied with more than a little evil in his voice.
Halcyon waited for a few more people to back him up, then kicked open the door and began firing. The rest of Inferno Squadron soon joined him, and fifteen seconds later twelve Rebel Squadrons Intelligence agents were dead.
-----------------
Chapter 4
Location: ISD Challenge (0.003 light years from the Lyccos system)
Time: 0501 Aurora Standard Time, 13.16.72 Standard Date
“Anything yet?” Corran Force asked his Sensor Officer again, for possibly the tenth time in twenty minutes. The SO merely shook his head. “How about the Harpax II? Are her gravity wells up?”
“YES, sir, they are. Anything coming out of hyperspace within a hundredth of a light-year in any direction will stop. Alright?”
Force looked insulted at the SO’s annoyance, but decided it was justified. “My apologies, Lieutenant. If nothing’s going to happen, I’m going to get some caf then.”
Force had taken one step towards the turbolift when the battle alarm sounded.
* * *
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Lieutenant Commander Locke asked nervously.
The twelve X-Wings now in the possession of Inferno Squadron were formed up in two diamonds and one triangle, for Flight I had only three pilots. They were drifting in space two-hundredths of a light-year away from the ISD Challenge, with the planet Lyccos II between the X-Wings and the Star Destroyer. Commander Corran Halcyon had just returned from dropping a hypermass sensor another thousandth-light year behind them, and had it tied into the X-Wings’ hyperdrive motivators. When the sensor detected a large mass, like a Rebel fleet, for example, it would kick in the X-Wings’ hyperdrives. If Halcyon’s calculations were correct, they would hit the Imperial Interdictor’s mass shadow at the same time as the Rebel fleet, presuming that the Rebels were traveling at standard cruise speed of 0.2 past lightspeed.
“How dare you doubt me, impudent mortal!” Halcyon joked over the comm. Locke was about to reply when an all-frequency communication came through.
“Attention, all craft in the Lyccos system! Orient your craft towards Veriats and witness the destruction of a planet!” Halcyon craned his head towards the system’s primary and was awed.
Lyccos I’s crust was splitting open like an overripe melon, gouts of magma shooting into space. Her surface was disintegrating, which meant that very soon-
Inferno Squadron’s X-Wings jumped into hyperspace, and exited a few seconds later, in the midst of the Rebel Squadron’s main fleet.
The battle had begun.
* * *
Major Indaro Gallia was patrolling his TIE Defender twelve kilometres from the Challenge when an X-Wing emerging from hyperspace collided with him. Traveling at speeds unimaginable, the starfighter, which had a black R2 unit signifying it as a member of Inferno Squadron, had struck its starboard shields with Gallia’s aft shields, bouncing both into wild spins. Gallia fought with his joystick and got his TIE under control, heading back into the fray, shields recharging.
The X-Wing was not so lucky, however.
At the speeds it had been going when it came out of hyperspace, that the X-Wing had not been destroyed when it hit Gallia was miraculous. Its flat spin was another story. Built to handle and protect the pilot from high-G manoeuvres, the ship’s inertial compensator was not built to take the stresses at near-lightspeed velocity transformed into centrifugal force. The ship began to fragment, its wings and engines flying in all directions at incredibly high speed. Its R2 jettisoned, followed quickly by its pilot, both still spinning at the same fatal speed as the X-Wing. Fortunately for both, however, they had jettisoned right underneath the Challenge, who used its tractor beam to stop the spin of both immediately before they were killed. They were drawn into its hangar bay, out of the fight.
Of course, all that was taken in secondary to the fact that the Rebel fleet was pouring out starfighters.
* * *
“Sithspawn!” screamed Calvin Nunb, as he watched Talon Zetar’s ship die before him. But with no time to worry about his friend, Calvin turned around and armed his quad lasers. How confused would the Rebels be if one of their own ships turned on them?
“Fire!” ordered Colonel Manitsas, and the ten remaining X-Wings fired their lasers and proton torpedoes at the Rebel ships. A-Wings, B-Wings, E-Wings, and Y-Wings all died under the salvo, and the Imperial fleet moved in to cripple the capital ships.
Ten minutes later, it was all over.
Talon Zetar recovered, and all of Inferno Squadron cherished the new embodiments of their ships’ computers.
Fin
FM-TCT/CM Corran Halcyon/Inferno 1-3/Wing X/ISD Challenge