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Force Exile IV: Guardian/Part 1

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It was a time of war, reflected Imperial Captain Cas Niblim, as he stared out of the main viewport of his command, a Victory-II-class Star Destroyer dubbed the Suppressor. And in war, he surmised, men must hold to their allegiances and seek out nothing less than the utter defeat of their opponents. In doing so, there could be fabulous glory to be gained, and rewards from hands as high as that of the Emperor himself. True, in a galaxy spanning millions of light years and hundreds of inhabited planets, there was probably a skirmish or brushfire conflict going on somewhere on some dirtball, and it had been that way for thousands of years, Niblim supposed. This was different though-the Galactic Empire was now embroiled in a multi-front war on a scale not seen since twenty years earlier in the

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It was a time of war, reflected Imperial Captain Cas Niblim, as he stared out of the main viewport of his command, a Victory-II-class Star Destroyer dubbed the Suppressor. And in war, he surmised, men must hold to their allegiances and seek out nothing less than the utter defeat of their opponents. In doing so, there could be fabulous glory to be gained, and rewards from hands as high as that of the Emperor himself. True, in a galaxy spanning millions of light years and hundreds of inhabited planets, there was probably a skirmish or brushfire conflict going on somewhere on some dirtball, and it had been that way for thousands of years, Niblim supposed. This was different though-the Galactic Empire was now embroiled in a multi-front war on a scale not seen since twenty years earlier in the fires of the Clone Wars. He had been a child then, but he remembered the euphoria he felt upon seeing the Galactic Empire rise out of the ashes of the outmoded Republic and hearing the Emperor preach the importance of service and dedication to the New Order. Niblim’s heart still swelled with pride whenever he had an opportunity to show his devotion to the Empire, and it had rewarded him well in turn. In only six short years of service, he was the master of one of the most powerful ships in the galaxy, a kilometer-long triangular beast of a warship. He stood rigidly on the bridge, the perfect image of the Imperial officer. Gray eyes set in a hard face were matched by the evenly creased khaki uniform he wore, and his light brown hair was but stubble, as Niblim kept it even closer cropped than Imperial Navy regulations demanded. He had a full career ahead of him, if he kept up his meritorious conduct, and knew it. “Navigation, drop us out of hyperspace,” Niblim ordered crisply. “Aye, Captain,” replied the junior officer. The mission was simple enough-investigate rumors of pirate activity in this far-flung sector of the Outer Rim. While Niblim would have preferred an assignment closer to the much more sophisticated and cultured Core Worlds, the fact of the matter was that the Outer Rim was a hotbed of Rebel activity, and so Niblim was satisfied with doing his part to stamp out the rabble of pirates and Rebels that had been plaguing the Empire. By all military logic, they didn’t have a ghost of a chance. No force in the galaxy was as powerful as the Galactic Empire. The Empire had hundreds of garrisons, thousands of warships, millions of troops, and the unstoppable will of His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Palpatine. What did the Rebels have? Ragtag bands of insurrectionists with aged equipment? They were doomed to a quick extinction, or so everyone had thought. The Empire had badly underestimated their resolve and resilience, which was as close as Niblim ever got to respect for his nominal adversaries. Even after the destruction of their primary slashrat’s nest, Alderaan, the Rebels hadn’t been cowed. Instead, they had gone and blown up the Death Star, igniting the sparks of rebellion into a galaxy-wide conflagration. Since then, the Empire had been stern in crushing sedition with a fist of durasteel, and they had been drubbed badly at Derra IV and Hoth, but like stomping on a fire, glowing ashes and embers continued to burn. However, the Rebels continued to harrow wherever they could, to the point where Imperial resources had been diverted away from other key tasks to deal with them. Smuggling and piracy were both on the rise, and today, Niblim’s mission was to take the Suppressor and deal with any riffraff he found. The Suppressor slipped neatly out of hyperspace back into three-dimensional realspace, its sublight ion engines taking over as entered the Drexel system. The wedge of metal and composites plunged through space as its engines propelled it deeper and deeper into the system. “Sensors, do you detect any activity in the system?” inquired Niblim. “Yes, sir,” reported the sensor officer. “We’re picking up numerous ships, corvette class or better, near the planet.” “Navigation, set a course to intercept them. I want a closer look,” ordered Niblim. “Sensors, are they broadcasting a particular transponder signal?” “No, sir. They’re certainly not Imperial ships.” “In that case, we’d better have a warm welcome ready,” Niblim said. “Weapons?” “Aye, sir,” replied the weapons officer. “Turbolasers and ion cannons on standby.” “Excellent,” Niblim said. “Launch all fighters and have them form up to screen us.” Two squadrons of the ubiquitous Imperial TIE fighters, sporting spherical cockpits from which extended twin hexagonal solar panels on slender strust, zipped out of the Suppressor’s hangar bay like a cloud of flitnats, settling into neat formation around the larger ship. Niblim watched on his tactical screen as the Imperial flotilla edged closer to the unknown ships. “Sensors, have you identified any of the ships?” he asked. “No, sir,” the officer replied, somewhat bewildered. “What do you mean, no?” Niblim shot back. “Aren’t you trained in recognizing the sensor profiles of any number of ships in service?” “Sir, I am, but these don’t match anything I’ve seen before. I ran it through our database and came up empty as well, sir.” “Hmm,” Niblim mused, recalling what he had read about this system. “That’s curious. Drexel doesn’t have any unknown indigenous species capable of producing sizable spacecraft.” “Orders, sir?” inquired the navigation officer. “Proceed as planned, flank speed,” Niblim answered. “All hands at the ready! Battle stations.” The Suppressor closed rapidly on the mystery ships, which were holding position in geosynchronous orbit around Drexel. As the Imperial warship crossed Drexel’s terminator, they saw the faint cluster of ships hanging faintly over the planet’s horizon. “Tell me what I’m seeing,” Niblim said to the sensor officer. “I’m detecting one heavy cruiser approximately Dreadnaught-class, two corvettes or light frigates, and a pair of ships somewhere in between in displacement. I suspect those last two are transports, though. They’re holding position around some sort of space station. There’s a lot of interference from the atmosphere, though, sir.” Niblim weighed the numbers in his mind and liked what he found, particularly if they were under-crewed and poorly maintained pirate ships, or ancient Rebel ships. The Suppressor, if aided by the element of surprise, would have no problems dealing with the cluster of ships it was bearing down upon. “That’s fine, Lieutenant. That same interference will mask our approach. Whoever they are, they’re in for a hell of a surprise.” Despite his tough talk, Niblim wasn’t quite ready to fly in blasting. It might simply be an innocent meeting, and while in the Outer Rim, it wasn’t nine times out of ten, the possibility existed that there were no Imperial laws being broken here, no foes of the Empire skulking over the horizon. Albeit, a very small one. “Sir!” voiced the sensor officer. “I’ve determined the nature of the space station!” “And?” Niblim asked. “It’s an Imperial warship, sir. Large battlecruiser, at least twice our size.” “Is it operational?” “No, sir. It appears to be a derelict. No power at all to its systems.” Niblim’s mind was made up. As he had suspected, the distant ships were either looters, or even worse, Rebels, engaging in the theft of Imperial property. And that was utterly unacceptable. In fact, there was only one sentence in the Empire that he saw fit to level on the thieves: death. “Ah, then we appear to have found some looters of Imperial property. Weapons, prepare to fire as soon as we’re in effective range.” “Aye, sir.” “Captain, three of them are forming up to engage us,” advised the sensor officer. “The cruiser and two frigates are inbound.” Niblim could just about see them now from his viewport, distant specks of artificial construct against the black void of space, faintly backlit by Drexel II’s atmosphere. He inhaled sharply, preparing for the thrill of space combat, an adrenalin rush he enjoyed every time he entered battle. The three hostile warships approached slowly, content to let the Imperials make the first move. However, they did deploy starfighters, and Niblim was surprised by their sheer numbers. He was facing nearly fifty smaller craft, which outnumbered his TIEs two to one. Suddenly, he was filled with a pang of nervousness-after all, he was about to fight ships of which he had likely never seen before. Worms of anxiety began to form in his gut, knotting his midsection up with tension. “I’ve identified the Imperial derelict, sir.” The sensor officer’s calm voice broke into his introspection. “And?” “It’s the Extinguisher, sir.” Niblim frowned. “I’m not familiar with that ship. When was it lost?” “Over three years ago, sir, according to the database,” advised his first officer, Commander Harkspur, from his post at a screen. “It was apparently seized by outlaws.” On the Suppressor, Niblim typically maintained a nearly autocratic reign over the ship during battle, and his first officer was largely relegated to providing any information that Niblim needed, or warning him of new developments. That was fine with Niblim, since Harkspur had been in the Navy for only four years. “Sensors, are you sure it’s offline? I don’t want to enter a fight with a ship that size.” If it is operational, and is hostile, Niblim considered, I will be hot-jumping the Suppressor back to the sector base for immediate reinforcements. “There’s some activity in the ship, sir, but it doesn’t appear to have its reactor online.” “In that case, prepare for battle,” Niblim ordered, and it was so. The two clusters of spacecraft met. The oncoming starfighters, having previously maintained a leisurely pace with the larger ships, surged forward to meet each other. The Imperial pilots were all trained, skilled fighters, graduates of various naval academies. They were piloting high-speed top-of-the-line craft matched only by the newer TIE interceptors, but even then, they had serious flaws. First of all, the Empire considered TIE fighters expendable, and the craft lacked all but the most basic shielding to protect the fragile craft from spatial debris. As a result, the attrition rate among TIE fighter pilots was rather high-Niblim had noted with some dismay that none of his pilots were aces. Second, TIE fighters were rarely outnumbered. The fact that Niblim’s own fighters were entering combat outmatched two to one didn’t help an already sketchy situation. “Sensors, what are those fighters? Are they Rebel X-wings? “No, sir. Too small for that, sir. They seem to handle rather like the old Eta-2 interceptors, though.” Niblim watched as the starfighter formations devolved into twisted dogfights, as pilots engaged each other in furious duels. Both sets of pilots were flying agile craft and the nimble starfighters juked and dodged as they sought to blast their opposite numbers into constituent atoms. Distant flashes of laser light and small explosions intermingled, and the tiny dots on Niblim’s sensor board spun and wove in a frantic dance of life and death in a spectacle reminiscent of electrons whirling around a larger atomic nucleus in their oddly unpredictable patterns. “Captain, one squadron of the hostile fighters has broken off; they’re heading straight for us.” “Shields to maximum. Guns, fire at will,” Niblim responded. The ponderous turbolasers and ion cannons of the Suppressor traversed and fired, the batteries pulsing out streams of blue and green laser fire. A smattering of point-defense weaponry opened fire as well, though since the Suppressor was not designed for countering starfighters, its number of fast-tracking close-range weaponry suitable for fighting large numbers of starfighters was lacking in comparison, with, say, a Lancer-class frigate. The hostile starfighters began spraying laser fire at the Suppressor as they roared in the face of the Imperial fire. One of them was hit by laser cannon fire and exploded, another took a glancing hit and plummeted down to impact harmlessly on the Star Destroyer’s shields, but still they came on. Streams of fire pulsed from their cannons as the interceptors strafed the Star Destroyer, but the beams had little effect on its shields, which had been designed to take a sustained turbolaser barrage much greater in destructive power. However, as one synchronized unit, the fighters fired off a concussion missile each, which impacted at the base of the Suppressor’s command tower. The resulting detonation sent a roiling ball of plasma burning along the hazy blue outline of the shields at the generators fed more energy to counteract the explosions. Still, the missile barrage failed to even temporarily overload the shields. Niblim nodded contentedly as the hostile fighters fired a last futile salvo of laser cannon fire at the bridge and whipped past the stern of the destroyer. Odd, though, he mused. The fighters’ laser cannon fire was not the standard red or green coloring, but rather a brilliant purple. No matter. “The hostile warships are in range, sir,” informed his weapons officer. “Concentrate fire,” Niblim said. “I want them dead.” The batteries shifted their fire to the larger ships, pelting them with long range turbolaser and ion cannon fire. The bolts slammed into their shields, but were unable to break the defensive fields surrounding both vessels. Part of that was because Niblim was channeling a lot of energy into his own shields, playing the battle out cautiously. The warships, two smaller and one larger, returned fire. The larger vessel was six hundred meters long and roughly cylindrical, but had two wings extending from it two thirds the way towards its stern, like a miniaturized version of the Rebels’ hated Mon Calamari cruisers, though it was missing the blistered and bumpy aesthetic that characterized Mon Cal designs. The smaller vessels were also roughly cylindrical, but their forward profile ended in a cross-shape, as they resembled two-hundred meter long shafts with equal-sized four prongs extending out at perpendicular angles away from the main body. As far as Niblim could tell, they were all dedicated warships, bristling with weapons of their own. The three ships returned fire, pouring a return fusillade of energy, both cyan ion and violet turbolaser, into the Suppressor’s shields. The three ships all side-slipped to the Star Destroyer’s port, concentrating their fire on weak points. Their organization and accuracy told Niblim that he was dealing with experienced foes-in particular, foes who had fought against Victory-class Star Destroyers before. The odds were slipping against him now, and taking a glance at his sensor board, his TIEs were in a hell of a fight. No help from that quarter. “Intensify the forward firepower,” he ordered. The turbolaser batteries on the Imperial destroyer spat out more intense streams of coherent light as they tracked the hostile ships. Niblim was rewarded to see that one of the frigates lost its shields and temporarily eased off its assault as it attempted to roll the ship to present its undamaged side to the Suppressor. The Star Destroyer’s shields were holding, and his foes, for all their canny and maneuverability, had yet to inflict significant harm on his ship. Suddenly, a small gunship whipped up and around the backside of the hostile cruiser. Niblim gaped at the small black arrowhead-shaped ship, wondering how it had evaded detection for so long, even though he knew it had probably hidden in the larger ship’s sensor shadow. Even as he prepared to order his weapons stations to open fire on it, the gunship opened fire, and not just with turbolasers. In addition to a single forward turbolaser firing defiantly at the Suppressor, Niblim watched with horror as a dozen proton torpedoes arced out from the gunship to impact on his shields at close range. The Star Destroyer was rocked by the impact, and alarms wailed as the shields were overloaded. Bulkheads exploded as the hull was ruptured and torn by the impacts of the torpedoes roughly amidships. Niblim staggered as the artificial gravity generators temporarily went offline due to the power consumption drained into the shield generators. “Shields back, now!” he shouted wildly, his eyes tracking the gunship as it roared over top of the Suppressor. The hostile ships re-intensified their fire and the Suppressor’s hull spouted explosions and skittering branches of debilitating ion energy as the ship took punishment. “Counterfire!” Niblim snapped. The order was implemented and this time, the Suppressor’s guns focused on the cruiser, pummeling its own defenses and, once the shields were overloaded, burning score marks on its hull armor. Surprisingly, Niblim found that the ship was taking the beating well, which disappointed him, if only because he had hoped it would explode spectacularly after shield breach. There was nothing for it, though-he was in a slugging match. Then, Niblim glanced at his ship diagnostics, and then at his master tactical board, and what he saw turned the lingering worms of anxiety in his stomach into full-fledged fire-breathing dragons of doubt. His TIE formations had abruptly fallen apart and lost their cohesion-fully three dozen hostile interceptors remained, while only a few TIEs continued to doggedly engage them. The gunship was coming around, possibly for another torpedo run, and the elusive vessel was wreaking havoc with his ship’s targeting computers. He had yet to do any lasting damage to any of the opposing ships due to his desire to target all of them instead of concentrating fire on just one vessel. While his shields were back up, they were being slowly gnawed away by persistent streams of azure and violet fire. This was it-the crux of the battle, that instant upon which the engagement was one or lost-but what Niblim didn’t know was that it was already too late. “Sir, another gunship closing fast off our stern!” shouted the replacement sensor officer-the original one had had a console explode in his face and been carried off for medical treatment. “Another one? How? Why didn’t we see-,” Niblim spluttered, but he was abruptly cut off. The Suppressor lurched violently as another dozen torpedoes impacted into its stern shields, ripping through them and carving wide swathes of destruction on the Star Destroyer. The first gunship had yet to return, but the cruiser unloaded eight torpedoes of its own into the Imperial warship. Furthermore, four bombers had apparently been launched from the cruiser, and they added their ordnance to the firestorm that engulfed the Suppressor. Explosions racked the ship, detonating weapons emplacements and exposing entire compartments to the void of space. The hangar bay, targeted by the missiles of the bombers, was turned into a gaping hole in the Suppressor’s underside, and the few remaining TIEs were powerless to stop them. Niblim was thrown to the hard metal deck; when he clambered to his feet, there was blood dripping from a cut on his face. Surveying the bridge, which had managed to escape ruin, he saw the tactical board and the status of his own ship. There was nothing he could do-the battle was beyond saving, and he was utterly hopeless. He knew he needed to give orders, saw the anxious officers staring at him anxiously, but his mind couldn’t claw its way past the worry and fear gripping him. “Status?” he asked weakly. “We’ve sustained heavy damage, sir,” reported his first officer. “That barrage cost us half our firepower and hyperdrive is offline. Most of our sensors are gone.” “Then there’s only one choice left,” Niblim said, steeling up the last vestiges of his resolve. “Have the captain of the guard send a stormtrooper contingent to the bridge immediately. Keep fighting!” “Aye, sir,” replied Harkspur. The Star Destroyer, even damaged, was still capable of hitting back, but Niblim’s gunners failed to score serious damage on the opposing vessels, and that was partially due to the interceptors that strafed any active battery, but it was also due to the shock of battle, of having their ship so severely mauled. Niblim took some comfort in seeing the eight white armored stormtroopers take up stations around the bridge, knowing that they were necessary for the next part of his plan. It was a standard Imperial rule that, in event that a warship was unable to escape a hopeless battle, the ship must be destroyed to prevent its seizure, such as what had happened with the Extinguisher. Niblim had no desire to die, but he knew it was his duty to do so. How this battle had been lost, he had no idea-he had had his opponents outgunned, but they had sliced through his ships like a hot vibroblade through a stack of flimsiplast. Clearing his throat, he began reaching for the self-destruct handle while absently looking at the ruined wreck of his ship, which was still being battered by constant fire. By now, only a few of the Star Destroyer’s guns were still firing, and all attempts of raising shields had been abandoned-the generators had long since been destroyed. This was the only thing he could do. Then, the door to the bridge exploded open, throwing two stormtroopers back. An armored figure burst through, clad in a dark gray battle suit. In each hand, the figure held a stun grenade, which he hurled forward into the two crew pits in the bridge. The grenades went off with a burst of light, knocking most of the crewers in the pits unconscious. The intruder then leaped forward, both hands raised, and each wielded a pistol. The scene played out in slow motion before Niblim and he watched in astonished horror as the two guns opened up on the surprised stormtroopers and crewers. One was a rapid-firing blaster pistol which sent purple blasts of energy into the heads and torsos of the stormtroopers. The other shot some sort of solid slug, which slammed into any crewers unfortunate to reach for their sidearms. The man easily shot five stormtroopers and three crewers in mid-leap, and then somehow managed to arrest his forward motion mid-air and pull his body up enough to land feet-first on a stormtrooper firing ineffectually at him. In the time it took for his feet to drive the trooper to the ground, the armored figure had holstered the slugthrower and filled his hand with another weapon. Niblim had stood there petrified, his hand still clutching the self-destruct handle, when there had been a loud humming sound and a flash of gold light. Looking down, he saw that his right hand was still clutching the self-destruct lever, but it was no longer attached to his body. Instead, his arm ended in a steaming stub where the hand had been neatly sliced off. He looked back up to see the armored man staring at him, and though his face was obscured by the full helmet he wore, the nightmarish red viewsensors on the armor’s face filled Niblim with unspeakable horror and the glowing blade of gold energy held near his threat spoke volumes. The attacker held his blaster on the remaining crewers, covering them, and addressed Niblim with a voice dripping with menace, even through the helmet’s vocal filters. “Stand them down!” growled the man in a basso rumble. “L-lower your weapons!” Niblim ordered faintly, gazing down at his severed hand again. Then, another figure entered the bridge, also clad in armor, but not the same kind. His was more ancient in appearance, and a smoothed-out T-shaped visor in place of the glowing red “eyes” of the other. He bore no weapon that Niblim could see, but when the last stormtrooper popped up from behind cover to stitch him full of blaster bolts from neck to hip, a whirling green energy blade had appeared in his hands and batted away the blaster bolts away contemptuously. Niblim then watched in horror as the hapless stormtrooper was hit by bolts of energy that the second intruder conjured up somehow. The trooper flew backward, wracked by the lightning, and fell to the deck, twitching and smoking. “Surrender this ship, now!” growled the first figure and the tone of his voice implied that Niblim would not receive a second chance if he offered any resistance. “I-I surrender,” he said, activating the ship-wide comlink. “All hands, cease fire. This is Captain Niblim. We surrender!” “Good choice, Captain,” replied the figure. Then there was a whirring sound, a small pain in his neck, then nothing. The two figures surveyed the bridge, taking in the fallen crewers, some of them dead from their rapid and violent entry, and others with small darts protruding from their decks. “Is that all of them?” asked the first one. “Of course it is,” replied the second, much more casually. “We’re secure. Can’t you sense them yourself?” “Actually, no,” answered the first. “It’s the same thing as before, isn’t it, Spectre,” the second answered grimly. “It is,” Spectre answered. “My sensitivity to the Force is dropping, Selu. It took a lot out of me just to jump in here and take down all those troopers. Two years ago, I could have dropped all of the troopers in one leap.” “I don’t understand it,” said Selu, peeling off his helmet to reveal a tan-skinned face set with brown eyes. He was in his forties, but his face was one of a man who had seen much sorrow and horror, roughened and scarred. His short black hair matched the neatly trimmed goatee he wore, and while he wasn’t overly stern, the concern he felt right now was reflected in his eyes. Selusda Kraen, or Selu, was a Jedi Master, one of the final few members of that Order left in the galaxy. He had narrowly escaped the Jedi Purge instigated years earlier by the Emperor and had been a smuggler on a freighter called the Hawk-bat for awhile before being called by the spirits of several ancient Jedi to unify and defend other groups of Force-users. He, and his companions, had been successful in doing so, establishing a refuge on the remote world of Yanibar for the Force exiles. Now, he served as the head of the Yanibar Guard, the defense force for the refuge. For his part, Spectre had originally been a clone trooper in the Grand Army of the Republic. He had served honorably in the Clone Wars, at one point alongside a young Selu Kraen, but after the war, had chosen to retire from the military. Not long after doing so, he had run into Selu again and had decided to aid the fugitive Jedi against the threat of Mistryl kidnappers who were after Selu’s brother, Sarth Kraen. One crazy turn of events after another had led to him joining the crew of Selu’s ship and eventually becoming imbued with the Force power, along with the other crewmembers, and dispatched to help bring together the disparate groups of Force exiles. Now, he was the head of the ground component of the Yanibar Guard and possibly Selu’s best friend. “I don’t understand why the Force would abandon you and not me, or Sarth, or Milya,” Selu said. “It has, to some extent, for Sarth and Cassi,” Spectre corrected gently, taking off his own helmet. “We were endowed with a great gift eighteen years ago, but Revan never said it would last forever. The Force still lets me do some things, like read an opponents’ tactics and shoot exceptionally well, but I’m not as strong with it as I used to be.” “Maybe it’s a lack of training,” Selu suggested as he moved over to the communications station. “Sarth and Cassi could certainly benefit from more of that.” “Possibly, but I don’t think that’s all.” “We’ll see,” Selu said. Activating the communications signal, he began broadcasting on an open frequency. “All Guard ships, cease fire. We have taken control of the vessel. Any remaining Imperial fighters are immediately advised to surrender. We are gracious foes and won’t kill you solely for your audacity in trying to kill us, but only if you stop fighting in say, the next half a second. That is all.” Selu snapped off the comm and turned back to his compatriot. “That’s just not right,” he said. “Why should the Force suddenly abandon you?” “I can’t explain it,” Spectre said, “But that’s not all.” “What’s that?” Selu asked. “I’m getting old, Selu,” Spectre said. “The Kaminoans accelerated our growth, and as a result, I might be in my twenties chronologically, but physically, I’m twice that.” “So, you could be getting old, that’s all,” Selu argued. “Perhaps the Force isn’t the one letting you down. Perhaps it’s your age.” “Fine then,” Spectre replied. “Test me. See for yourself.” Selu reached out with a mental probe, testing his friend’s mind for a reaction and evaluating his Force strength. Spectre was open to him, his usual mental barriers lowered to allow Selu to probe his mind. To his dismay, where Spectre’s presence in the Force had once been a brightly-burning flame of power, he was now diminished. While his vitality still remained strong, he no longer emitted the characteristic aura of Force power that had characterized all five of the Hawk-bat’s crew when they had first founded the Yanibar refuge. “You’re right,” Selu said. “Your Force powers have diminished.” “I told you. Did you sense anything else?” “No, not really. Other than the fact that I’m not looking forward to being old. How do you handle it?” “As much the same you handle everything,” Spectre shrugged. “One day at a time.” “Well, now that I know exactly what your situation is, I’ll think twice before having us charge onto an Imperial warship in the middle of a raging space battle.” “Hold on just a minute,” Spectre interjected. “I’m not useless yet.” “Don’t worry about a thing,” Selu said. “We’ll get you a nice hoverchair and a protocol droid to wait on you at the Old Spacers’ Home.” “Why, you wouldn’t-,” Spectre growled, then he saw the smirk on Selu’s face and knew his friend was teasing him. “All right, very funny.” Selu chuckled, then he returned his attention to the business at hand. “How long will those Imperials be unconscious?” Spectre asked. “About four hours,” Selu said. “The sedative works for about that long, and the ylannock potion in the darts will scramble their memories of the past four hours as well.” Ylannock was a naturally growing fungus from Yanibar which, when properly refined, had the power to erase or confuse Human memories, depending on the formula, dosage, and biochemistry of the user. The use of ylannock on prisoners of war had been essential to the existence of the Yanibar Guard, as memory-wiping them with ylannock was the only way of keeping the Yanibar refuge a secret. It was either that or simply kill all encountered and defeated opponents, an idea which Selu and Spectre found abhorrent. Still, if the Empire found out that a Jedi refuge was skulking around on Yanibar, they’d show up with a dozen Star Destroyers or so and level the whole planet. Even the swelling Yanibar Guard wasn’t up to a fight of that magnitude. However, the fungus had also proven to be an effective source of income-in a lower grade form, it was a soporific, and could be packaged and sold as a mild, non-habit forming drug. The wealth the colony had garnered from selling ylannock powder through an intermediary shipping company out of Bespin, along with weapons exports, had allowed it to flourish, as those two commodities made up most of Yanibar’s exports. “Time to get a move on, then,” Spectre said. Activating the ship-wide intercom, he addressed the Imperial crew. “All Imperial forces remaining on this ship are advised to abandon ship immediately,” he ordered. “Because we’re about to slag it and anyone stupid enough to remain. Make for the planet immediately, or face the wrath of the Rebel Alliance.” He snapped off the intercom. “That should do it,” Selu said, watching as small escape pods began blossoming from the Suppressor and descended towards Drexel. “Have you instructed Captain Sirshak appropriately?” “Yes,” replied Spectre. “He’ll have his Valkyries drop airburst ylannock canisters over the Imperial landing sites.” “Good enough,” Selu said. “Not as good as having them all individually administered, but it’ll fog up enough memories that the Empire will have a hard time sorting out what actually happened here.” “As soon as we get rid of the evidence,” remarked Spectre. “What about the bridge crew?” “We’ll take them with us for interrogation and hopefully convince them that we're part of the big, bad Rebellion coming for them in the night in the process,” Selu said. “Should be interesting. Enough talking, though. We need to get off this slagpile.” “True enough,” Spectre said. “Let’s get our prisoners back to the Hawk-bat.” An hour later, Spectre and Selu, freshly changed out of combat dress into more standard dark gray uniforms of the Yanibar Guard, filed into a briefing room on the Yanibar Guard cruiser, the Quinlan Vos, holding position over Drexel. A six-hundred meter long beauty of a ship, the Quinlan Vos was a Niman-class cruiser-carrier, a multi-role warship that was currently the largest vessel in Yanibar Guard service. There were six in the fleet now, mostly concentrated around Yanibar, and they were the workhorses of the Guard navy, with a balanced mix of firepower, shielding, speed, and capacity to fulfill a number of roles. While they couldn’t take on a Star Destroyer on their own, they could hold off or defeat virtually any one ship of their own displacement. Flanking the Quinlan Vos were two Makashi-class frigates, the Djinn Altis and the Jurokk, smaller, but newer escort warships that had first started being introduced to the Guard only six years back. Equipped with high-powered targeting computer arrays and sensors, their role was typically to defend the Nimans while providing firing solutions and telemetry to the other ships. Lastly, and barely visible against the backdrop of space, were the two Ataru-class gunships, the Aubrie Wyn and the Bairdon Jace. The smallest and some of the oldest capital ships in the Yanibar Guard fleet, both vessels were over ten years old, but still served well. Although lacking a true cloaking device, they were carefully constructed so as to have a small sensor profile, allowing the vessels to get in a critical shot with their multiple torpedo launchers. Unfortunately, this meant that they were rather slow and lacking in point-defense weaponry for their size, with only four turbolasers and eight double laser cannon turrets, which had led to the development of the Makashi-class frigates as the gunships proved largely unsuitable for screening purposes. As Selu seated himself at the polished obsidian-black table in the briefing room, he reflected on how far the Yanibar Guard had come since its inception. It had been a small band of militia at first, but as Kraechar Arms, the Yanibar-based defense company run by Selu’s brother, Sarth Kraen, had grown and developed more advanced weapons designs, it had become quite well-equipped. The merging of the Yanibar Guard and the Freedom’s Sons paramilitary organization had done wonders for their numerical strength, and as select refugee communities from the galactic war were carefully culled for transport to the Yanibar refuge, the numbers had grown even more. In fact, the refuge’s population had swelled to over a million residents now. That did have its drawbacks, though, in that where the Guard had once been largely composed of Force-sensitives, they were now a minority in a force nearly one hundred thousand strong, relegated to specialty roles. However, Selu was content with that. The Ruling Council on Yanibar had decided to open its doors to certain populations of non-Force-sensitives affected by war, despite the original purpose of the Yanibar settlement being to shelter exiled Force users, and the Guard had benefited from the sheer numbers of willing volunteers. After a few minutes of waiting, a male Zabrak officer, wearing the light gray uniform and insignia of a naval captain, entered the room and came to attention with a crisp salute in front of Selu and Spectre. “At ease,” said Selu. “Have a seat, Captain Sirshak.” “Thank you, sir,” replied the captain. “Excellent fight out there,” Selu said. “You conducted your fleet well.” The Zabrak beamed. “Again, thank you, sir. And for your assistance as well.” “Certainly,” Selu said. “We don't want to take a lot of your time, but would you mind walking us through the battle from your point of view?” “As you wish, sir,” Sirshak replied, activating a table-mounted holoprojector showing the positions of the Yanibar Guard ships around Drexel. “Before I begin, shall I order my gunners to begin demolishing the Suppressor?” “Proceed when ready, Captain,” Selu said. Sirshak nodded and spoke into a small comlink. A few minutes later, the starfield outside the window of the briefing room spun as the Quinlan Vos moved into position and opened fire on the distant hulk of the Star Destroyer. Purple bursts of light exploded from the ship’s batteries, hurtling across space to detonate in geysers of superheated metal as they hit the Suppressor. Holding position a kilometer relative up and down from the Vos, the two Makashi-class frigates joined in the fray as well, adding their own fire to the rapidly disintegrating hulk. Spectre and Selu watched the firestorm of violet light for a few instances, feeling the deck throb beneath them as the ship’s power conduits ferried energy to its guns. Then, they returned to business. “As you were saying,” Spectre indicated to Sirshak. “Yes. As you know, we were holding positions here while the two Shii-cho transports conducted further salvage operations on the Extinguisher. It’s a good thing we were, too, because the Suppressor appeared from hyperspace here.” The boxy Shii-cho transports were another mainstay of the Yanibar Guard. Three hundred meters of mostly empty space, they were lightly armed and fairly sluggish, but their modular internal design meant that they could be adapted to a number of support roles, including troop transport, medical ship, or cargo hauler. The two hovering over the Extinguisher now had been configured as salvage vessels as they worked on the derelict battlecruiser. Sirshak touched a control, and a large red hologram of the Star Destroyer was added to the holographic representation. “They deployed fighters and advanced upon us, and we responded likewise. I deployed the fleet in a standard line abreast formation to prevent any possible flanking maneuvers from the Imperial ship, and kept the Jace close in to us.” “Good tactic,” Selu mused. “You kept the gunship out of harm’s way until it could get in a solid torpedo volley.” “Yes, sir,” Sirshak agreed, activating the control. “We engaged the Imperial ships, and had them about at a standstill. Unfortunately, the attack run that our Shoto interceptors made on the Suppressor failed to penetrate its shields. Either the timing wasn’t quite right, or the missiles’ yield was too low.” “Probably more of the latter,” Spectre said. “Shotos weren’t designed to fight something that large.” The small Shoto interceptors were also an older Kraechar Arms product, and while speedy and incredibly maneuverable, had only limited shielding. They were also lightly armed, sporting only a pair of laser cannons and a modular weapons bay capable accommodating either a concussion missile launcher with four missiles or a light ion cannon. They compared favorably with Imperial TIE fighters in dogfights, being only slightly less agile, and more heavily armed and shielded, but were almost useless against anything that their laser cannons couldn’t do significant damage to. Attacking a Star Destroyer was way out of their league. “Anyway, we continued to press the attack, and that’s when you arrived. I presume you know the rest, sir.” “I do,” Selu said, watching the holographic battle play out as the Aubrie Wyn, with the Hawk-bat tucked in close under it, shot in from hyperspace to attack the Suppressor from the stern. “Tell me anyway.” “As you wish, sir. Once our ships were close enough, I ordered the Jace’s captain to fire as soon as she felt her torpedoes would be effective. The salvo was quite crippling, especially since your attack came right after the Jace’s torpedoes disabled their shields. I then launched the Valkyries and volleyed off our own torpedoes to add to that damage. Our fighters mopped up the TIEs and we continued firing on the Suppressor until it signaled its surrender.” “What took you so long to launch your Valkyries?” Selu asked, referring to the flying-wing shaped bombers that each Niman-class ship carried. “They’ve got a nice punch to them.” “Yes, sir. They’ve also got the nasty habit of being target practice and maintenance prone. I didn’t want them out until I was sure they wouldn’t take battle damage. The things are just unreliable, and I hate depending on them.” “An unfortunately prevalent view among the fleet,” Spectre remarked to Selu. “We’ll have to work on that one.” “Indeed,” Selu replied thoughtfully. “Anyway, back to the battle. Congratulations on not losing any of your ships.” “Thank you, sir,” replied the Zabrak officer. “And total casualties?” asked Spectre. “I have a few dozen injured on my ship and the Jurokk,” said Sirshak. “The Djinn Altis never lost shields, same with the Bairdon Jace. We also lost eleven Shotos, but only seven pilots. The four who ejected have been recovered by our Javelin shuttles.” “The losses are regrettable, but far better than might what have happened. All in all, excellent work, Captain,” Selu said. “Congratulations on your largest kill to date.” “Sir, if I may-,” Sirshak said. “I have some questions of my own.” “Go ahead and ask them, then,” Selu replied jovially. For his own part, Selu was pleased about the outcome of the battle and impressed with Sirshak’s skill, even if he had played a part in it. Taking down a Victory-class Star Destroyer was not something the Yanibar Guard did often-in fact, though having run simulations against capital ships, they had never destroyed a vessel of this size before for fear of incurring Imperial attention. The fact that the Star Destroyer had surprised them by arriving and still was defeated was a testimony to the resilience and courage of the Yanibar Guard, as well as the quality of their equipment. Although, Selu admitted, a bit of Jedi battle meditation arriving in the midst of the battle probably threw the odds more in the Guard’s favor. It had looked close just before he and Spectre had taken the Aubrie Wyn on a microjump through hyperspace from the outer edges of the Drexel system to reach the battle. “How did you time your arrival that well, sir? Was it just blind luck . . . or something more?” Selu smiled thinly back at the officer. “As it turns out, the Force did give me insight into the battle. I did my best to show up at a key junction where the one gunship would make a difference.” “Is that why the Imperial fighter formations fell apart so quickly, sir?” “It is,” Selu said. “Not to take any credit from you and your pilots, but I was using a Jedi technique called battle meditation.” “How does that work, sir? I’m afraid I don’t understand.” “It’s not easy to explain, but it basically saps the morale and will to fight of enemies while bolstering the resolve of our troops,” Selu replied. Sirshak sat a moment, contemplating and processing the information he had just received. It was not an uncommon expression-even though all fleet officers were briefed on the nature of the Force and its abilities, the ideas still took some getting used to. In particular, Sirshak was a former member of Freedom’s Sons, a paramilitary organization that had merged with the Yanibar Guard about fifteen years back, and held a certain amount of skepticism born from being unfamiliar with the Force for much of his life. He still wore the Freedom’s Star decoration on his uniform, denoting his service in that organization, just as Selu still maintained a Jedi Order pin on his own, despite no longer claiming allegiance to the defunct Order per se. “Thank you for your time, sir,” Sirshak said finally, after mulling over the new information. “You’re welcome, and again, congratulations on your victory,” Selu said. “Be alert though-the Empire won’t be so cavalier about sending their Star Destroyers around to get ambushed after this.” “Aye, sir,” Sirshak replied. “I’ll have reconnaissance patrols deployed immediately. Will you be staying long?” “I’m afraid not,” Selu said. “Myself and General Kraen have obligations back on Yanibar that we need to tend to. We’ll be taking the Hawk-bat shortly.” “Very well then,” Sirshak answered. “How much longer until the Extinguisher is capable of hyperspace?” Spectre asked. “Just a day or so more, sir,” Sirshak replied. “We’re working double shifts to get it online.” “Good,” Selu said. “We need to get it out of here as soon as possible, before the Empire returns and finds it and us sitting here.” “It’ll be done, sir,” Sirshak promised. “I’m sure it will,” Selu said, shaking the officer’s hand as he stood to leave. “May the Force be with you.” Spectre shook Sirshak’s hand as well, and then he followed Selu out of the briefing room as the two headed to the hangar bay where the Hawk-bat, the customized light freighter that Selu used as his personal transport, was waiting for them. “I didn’t think we really had all that many obligations on Yanibar,” Spectre remarked to Selu as they strode down the wide, brightly lit and gleaming white corridors of the Quinlan Vos. “What were you referring to?” “You mean besides the fact that our wives will be very upset if we return late?” Selu replied, bemused. “Well, true, there is that,” Spectre admitted. “And I hate to disappoint.”