Harry Potter awoke from a surprisingly restful sleep, shaken awake by the merciless alarm; merciless by design of its Imperial originators. From time to time, it was easy to forget that the Lightbringer had once been one of their ships. This was not one of these times.
"Mercer, what is it?" he barked into the communicator that he always had on his bedside table when there was even the chance something like this might happen. Thankfully, it had only happened thrice this far.
"Seems our newest target found us first," the voice of his first officer, second-in-command and all-around good friend came back through the device, slightly distorted by the digitalisation. "And she brought friends."
"I'll be right up," the captain half-groaned, half-growled back, already swinging his legs over the side of his bed and into the waiting uniform trousers; it was almost like he had been expecting trouble. Well, no, there was really no 'almost' about it. He had been expecting trouble. That was a given, considering their quarry was one of the Emperor's inquisitors. In fact, she was the second of these agents they had actively sought out, and even though the first had been only a novice, he had put up quite a fight, especially when one considered his rights to simply conscript a local garrison into helping him.
The trousers were soon followed by the dark top and uniform jacket, the whole thing rounded out by a rather severe cap that Mercer claimed, 'gave him an aura of authority he otherwise lacked'. Within a minute and a half, he was on the corridor where, despite the dangerous situation, it was surprisingly, satisfyingly silent, not that he would have expected anything less. Over the last six months since their daring rescue of the Alliance leadership at Yavin, the first officer had been conducting a bevvy of emergency drills for just such a situation. By now, the watch personnel were definitely already at battle stations, while the off-duty personnel were getting ready to assume their posts, as well.
Grumbling about safety protocol, Harry entered the ladder shaft next to the turbolifts and began the short trip toward the command level; apparently (another one of Mercer's dubious improvements) using turbolifts during emergencies was dangerous, especially on such a small ship. Nevertheless, it was only another thirty seconds until he was on the bridge, looking around at the watch crew.
"What's the situation?" he asked authoritatively, a tone that had been hard to come by in the beginning but was becoming easier and easier to use, even though he did not enjoy it all that much.
"Fighters on our scanners, too far away for them to pick up a transponder, but close enough to have picked up our sensor signature," the sensor officer replied. "Switching transponder codes… now."
"Start jamming and get me a visual scan," Harry ordered, attention riveted to the view screen above the sensor station down in the trench. "Let's see what we have here… I don't know these. Mercer?"
"TIE hunters," the former Imperial replied, a tinge of worry now creeping into his voice. "Those things are bad news. If the Empire hasn't suddenly changed doctrine, those are only available to the storm commandoes, and if there are TIE hunters… yes, there it is."
He pointed at a new sensor contact closing in rather quickly now, though the rate at which they were able to close in grew smaller and smaller as the Lightbringer was accelerating. "That's going to be an escort carrier. We might, or we might not be able to take that thing out, but I really don't want to try right now. This is weird, though."
"What is?" Arden demanded, striding onto the bridge like nothing was the matter, directly followed by Iabaes, who had somehow managed to already have her armour donned, which was a serious feat, considering the intricacies of a Mandalorian's battle dress.
"Well, they're commandoes, just like the name says. The dossier we got on them says they're specialised in covert assaults, stealth, the occasional bombing," Mercer replied, his furrowed brow almost audible in his tone of voice. "This, attacking a target easily able to fight back, is not their style."
"You said it yourself," the captain observed, thinking back on the words his first officer had used to inform him, right after the alarm had started blaring through the corridors. "Their commander will be one of the Inquisitors. We have yet to meet one who isn't afflicted by terrible hubris. How long until these fighters reach us?"
The sensor operator, at whom the last part had been directed, answered promptly, "120 seconds until the fighters reach us, we're gaining on the other contact now."
"Alright, we'll make a jump as soon as possible, backup location beta. We can come back later."
"Yes, sir."
"Boss," Mercer interjected at that point. "Might be a good idea to take out those fighters now, as long as they're away from their carrier. Even with their torpedoes, they won't be able to do much damage, and each of those cost the Empire a hefty sum to build. That's not even counting the cost of training the commandoes that fly them. And if they've found us once, they might find us again. We should take this opportunity."
Harry pondered their possibilities for a while, weighing possible pros and cons. Just jumping out of the system would probably have them gone without taking any damage. On the other hand, Mercer was most definitely correct: they had been found once, they could be found again, and taking away an enemy's tools before they could be effectively used did seem like a good idea. That was without even taking into account how annoyed whatever Imperial bureaucrat would be when they read the request for new, advanced fighters because their predecessors had been destroyed in a pointless chase.
"Alright, keep us ahead of the larger ship and your eyes on the sensors," he ordered, eyes still riveted onto the tactical screen. "Lock our jump coordinates in. When they're five seconds out of range, cut all thrust and turn us around, take them out as quickly as possible, then make the jump. I want a nice, wide field of fire to greet our new friends."
"Yes, sir," the assembled bridge crew replied, from the helmsman (or rather helmswoman, on this shift) to the navigator, including tactical and gunnery, and everybody else. It seemed they trusted his command even under stress. Harry, for his part, was just happy Leia was not with them right in that moment.
They all watched as the seconds ticked by inexorably slowly, the sensor dots on the tactical map drew ever closer. "Targets in range in T-10, 9, 8, 7, 6…"
"Cut thrust and turn," the captain ordered briskly, having sat down in his chair and strapped himself in by now; the Empire might have decided the increase in authority the commanding officer gained by standing was an acceptable gain for the trade-off of aching knees, but he had begged to differ. Therefore, three months earlier, a nice, if rather utilitarian and still authoritative command chair had been added to the bridge for those long watch shifts.
Over his musings, the quick manoeuvre had been executed, and a cone of missiles from the ordinance launcher was already flying at their targets, closely followed by a dense curtain of laser fire. Combined, these shots had already managed to take out eight out of their twelve pursuers, while one had been set adrift by a lucky hit with an ion cannon. The remaining fighters, however, had a few surprises of their own, it seemed.
"Evasive manoeuvre!" Harry called as he saw the signature purple glow of proton torpedoes headed their way. "Tactical, keep up the pressure so they can't line up another shot."
Those with nothing in particular to do, which included an ashen-faced navigator, watched with baited breaths as first one, then two torpedoes sailed past, another one was hit by a stray laser bolt and three others… impacted the shields, rattling the ship mightily, but not doing any obvious harm.
"Damage report," Mercer barked, all of the usual joviality gone during the combat situation.
"Minor hit to starboard shields, no structural damage," the young man manning the tactical station announced. "All attackers dispatched, one disabled."
"How much time do we have until the carrier reaches us?" the captain asked the sensor officer, keeping a close eye on the hunter that had been disabled by the lucky ion hit.
"Three minutes, at current speed," came the swift reply, as Harry was already working on getting off any electronic equipment, he had on himself.
"Helmsman, bring us alongside that disabled hunter; Arden, get rid of any electronics you have on yourself, we're going to the hangar," he announced, both stunned and surprisingly satisfied with seeing that people were simply doing as they were told; he really did seem to have earned their trust. That was a rather gratifying experience, even if it was cut short by the Dathomirian witch grabbing his arm tightly.
When the oppressive feeling of apparition faded, they took in the sight of the hangar, looking disturbingly empty without the presence of the red-hued M14-X fighters they had left behind with the Alliance fleet to be serviced and modified to their specifications. It had been their part of a deal that afforded the Rebellion a copy of the plans for the prototype fighter. Though they were too expensive for massive production runs, a few elite squadrons were probably going to get lucky.
As the armour plates covering the hangar entrance peeled back only the atmospheric shielding remained in place to protect them from the void of interplanetary space. And right there in front of them floated the deactivated TIE hunter.
"I'm going to summon this thing to me," Harry began his wild plan (they were a specialty of his, after all), but was quickly interrupted.
"You have 90 seconds, Boss."
"Thank you, Mercer," he replied, before returning attention to Arden. "You cast a levitation charm, so this thing doesn't flatten us as soon as it crosses into the artificial gravity."
The witch nodded sharply and drew her wand, shaped from some beskar they had been given by the Mandalorians, the crystal of their first Imperial Inquisitor's red lightsabre the core, and made the classic 'swish and flick'-gesture that made casting the charm so easy. Obviously, it was possible to do it without, but infinitely more difficult, which, quite frankly, they could not use in this particular moment.
"Accio TIE hunter," Harry grunted, already feeling the strain of pumping the power for this spell through his body. Manageable, but not pleasant; the summoning charm was not the most efficient piece of magic. Even so, the disabled fighter began moving soon, enabling him to stop the flow of magic rather quickly and move around the ball-shaped cockpit to look through the canopy at the slumped figure inside. "Ion hit must have taken out life support on both the ship and the armour…"
Despite the seeming inaction of the figure inside the vessel, the wizard clambered up the still unfolded S-foils, breached the hatch with a low-powered exploding hex and sent in a stunner.
Then another one, for good measure. No sense in letting in an enemy saboteur capable of attacking his ship from the inside.
"We've secured the disabled fighter," Harry loudly announced into the direction of a corner where he knew the intercom system had a microphone. "You can take us out of here while I have a little chat with our guest."
OOOOOOOO
When the dark fog over SC-1175's mind began lifting, the acutely trained senses of the shadow scout began taking in the situation in earnest, though he kept his eyes closed for a few seconds more, hoping to catch his captors unawares, maybe overhear something useful while they still thought he was out for the count. The armour was obviously gone, as were the hold-out blaster and thermal detonator meant to be used in a situation such as this to prevent enemy interrogation. Well, there was still… No, the poison-filled tooth was gone as well. Whoever they were, they seemed to be thorough and well-informed.
"I see you've noticed your tooth is missing," a surprisingly young voice broke through SC-1175's tactical deliberations. "You might as well open your eyes, I know you're awake, anyway."
Annoyed at himself for having reacted to the loss of his way out, even if that way out was death, the storm commando raised hid eyelids and took in the room. Stark, but functional, rather austere in its design, the space contained only him, fastened to a bolted-down chair with heavy shackles and a young man whose face… whose face was barely even visible beneath the hood of a black robe. The only thing the shadows revealed were two glowing eyes with burning orange irises.
"I won't tell you anything, Jedi scum," SC-1175 declared defiantly, because the alternative to Jedi scum was too terrifying to contemplate. It was bad enough having one of these abominations on his back, let alone being caught in a struggle between two of them, and not even the Inquisitor had such burning darkness lurking underneath her gaze.
"You will, because you won't have much choice," the shadow announced, just as a feeling that was hard to really characterise swept over the soldier, who belatedly realised that he had almost been frozen in his moment of attempted rebuttal, mouth opened to speak words that would simply not spill forth. With just his eyes able to continue moving, he could just about make out as the man in the robe pulled forth a small container of a clear liquid, from which he took a pipette and let fall three droplets onto his captive's tongue. Immediately, the growing panic (and yes, panic was allowed in this situation, even for a special forces soldier) was replaced by a sense of peace and calm, something SC-1175 tried to fight, but failed to resist.
"Now, how did you find us?" the shadow asked, and as much as he wanted to want to resist, his captive could not find it in himself.
"A spy noticed you asking around on Reytha and managed to attach a beacon to your ship," the captured soldier relayed emotionlessly what might as well get him killed. If anyone ever found out about this, he would be court-martialled and executed. And he would make damn sure people found out, if only so that the Empire knew of the danger this man might pose.
"Who is the commander of your unit?" his interrogator continued to question.
"SC-1068."
"Alright, who commanded you to attack our ship?"
"Inquisitor Fandiq."
When next the shadow spoke, SC-1175 thought he might just be able to hear a hint of vindication… no, resoluteness in his voice. Despite how hard whatever had been given to him made it to think, that was enough to know the real target of these people was in fact the Inquisitor who had simply swooped in a week earlier and taken over command of their carried.
"What kind of complement does your carrier have, troops and starships…"
OOOOOOOO
As the door swished close behind him, Harry pulled down the hood of the robe he had transfigured and ended the illusion he had placed over his face, both the unnatural shadows and the burning, orange eyes.
"Fair costuming, but what exactly was the point?" Arden inquired from where she had been standing, leaning on the wall casually, yet with the grace of a predator.
"The point was that I've been wanting to test my dark-sider impersonation for a while now," the wizard replied, just as he was reversing the transfiguration of his uniform. "Think of the opportunities if we can manage to get the credentials of one of these Inquisitors. They can go literally anywhere and seize any Imperial asset they want. Oh, the things we could… let's call it requisition for ourselves and the Alliance. We could take an interdictor, maybe even an ISD."
"Slow down, Harry," the witch urged him, though the amused smile on her face told a different story. "You know as well as I do that neither we, nor the Alliance would know what to do with a star destroyer. Probably wouldn't even have the manpower…"
"Yes, yes of course. The amount of material to be gained from stealing one of those, though," the captain countered with a certain glee. "First, you unload anything that isn't bolted down, weapons, armour, vehicles, fuel, then you take out every piece of hardware time permits and scuttle whatever's left. And don't forget that each of these things has one of those prefabricated garrison bases on board. That sounds like something we might find interesting, right?"
Immediately, Arden's eyes widened at the implication, for over the months between now and their intervention at the evacuation of Yavin 4, a repeat topic among the core crew of Harry's two ships had been the idea of a base of operation, something different than the small asteroid in the Corellia system and independent of the political whims of Alliance leadership. That was bound to become important, especially if they planned to offer more people refuge from the aggressions of the Empire and teach those that could learn the magic of his original reality.
"Wouldn't even need to be such a nice planet," the wizard surmised. "Only needs to be barely known, so I can cast a Fidelius charm. Everything else can be worked out."
"That's what Kisc and the others on the Morningstar are looking for," Arden exclaimed in understanding. "I thought they were just doing the same as us, hunting bounties, keeping an eye out for anything we might be interested in."
"Well, they are," Harry clarified nonchalantly, now leading the way toward the bridge, before speaking into his commlink. "Mercer, there's a tracker somewhere on the outside of the ship, our guest just confirmed it."
Having clicked off, he looked back at the Dathomirian. "They're just also using the time that's left to scout out possible locations for our base of operations. There are millions of superficially charted star systems in the Imperial databases that were not interesting enough to exploit but might just be exactly what we need. Hello Javoc, Famet."
Waiting for them at the turbolifts were exactly the former Army technician and weapons trader Harry would have asked for to join them in the conference room, anyway. "I assume you've heard?"
"Oh, yes, I have," the blue-skinned man enthused, all the while the former Imperial nodded eagerly. "I'd be thrilled at the opportunity to study the armour of a storm commando, Captain."
A smile on his face, Harry replied in the affirmative. "One condition though," he stipulated to halt the flood of excitement that was headed his way. "We still have an Inquisitor on our tail, and I don't fancy our chances of finding the beacon that's been placed on our ship. Conference room, so you can share your insights, then tinkering."
The group of four boarded the lift at that, quickly ascending to the command deck where they were joined by Mercer and Corsek as they stepped into the conference room and each took a seat around the table with the built-in holographic projector.
"What did you learn from the prisoner?" the first officer questioned without preamble, his tone business-like and strictly controlled, like it tended to become in strenuous situations.
"Well, you were right, he did come from an Imperial escort carrier, and the one currently holding their reins is the Inquisitor we've been looking for, a woman by the name of Fandiq," Harry relayed what he had learned from their captive under the influence of his knock-off of veritaserum. Producing it had not been easy, and even finding the ingredients was ridiculously expensive, but obviously so worth it. "Luckily, they're out of TIE hunters now, which is good news, as far as I'm concerned. And, their ship is manned by a really small crew, with only 28 storm commandoes left, plus twenty support staff. And the Inquisitor, obviously."
Now gleefully grinning (more like his non-stressed persona, really) Mercer interjected, "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"I have no idea what you think I'm thinking, Mercer," the captain replied casually, though the raised eyebrow would have been enough to betray they were both equally aware of what was being talked about. "I just know that I think the Empire doesn't really seem to need that ship. And it's not like we're getting to our target any other way, right?"
OOOOOOOO
Floating around in space was an odd feeling, the weightlessness lending itself to a certain sense of freedom seldom enjoyed, even during the months of space travel he had by now been doing, simply for the fact that most of it happened on ships with artificial gravity. Therefore, simply being able to float around was something completely new Harry was determined to enjoy, and so what, if the reason for it was purely of a tactical nature; he and his team were having to wait, so he might as well enjoy himself while they did so.
"Having fun?" Iabaes, who had insisted on joining the boarding team commented wryly from the spot on the floor, to which her magnetised boots had affixed her feet.
"Very much," the captain replied humorously, all the while bouncing off of the ceiling, over to the closed troop bay doors and to the ground. "We might have been playing limp for a while now, but we still had a good lead on them last time I checked. Might have to wait for hours."
During their preparation for the upcoming battle, cognizant of their Imperial pursuers' ability to easily track them, thanks to the small beacon they had only managed to find a mere minutes before the boarding party had entered the gunship, the crew of the Lightbringer had made all the efforts to pretend like their ship had problems. Fuel problems, more specifically, that problem being not having any. They had started flying slower, even deactivated a few unnecessary subsystems on the off chance that the homing device also transmitted energy readings.
"And you're sure those mines are going to work?" Corsek asked, the question more aimed at the entire room, than any one person in particular.
"Positive," Javoc replied, a wide, somewhat self-satisfied smirk on his face. "We've mined both the direct route and the two shortest indirect ones through the asteroids, and we only have to send the signal. If Palestro says they work, they work."
These 'mines', though really, whether calling repurposed ion warheads mines was the correct terminology, Harry was not quite sure, had really been the thing that made all of this possible. Otherwise, they would have just had to get rid of the beacon and try again, or maybe sneak someone on board on the captured TIE hunter, an idea no one had been particularly fond of. They had all been able to easily imagine the Imperials opening up fire on their own ship at the slightest hint of foul play. This way though? The remotely triggered ion charges would take care of most, if not all of the enemy shields, pose a nice distraction and allow the boarding team to close in.
And was it not lucky that the Republic had added atmospheric shielding to at least some of their LAAT/is?
In one of the satchels attached to his armour, Harry's communication mirror began vibrating, so he pulled it out and answered the call.
"90 seconds, Boss," the image of Mercer on the reflective surface informed the team. "Sorry for the short warning time, we had to reduce power to the sensors."
With a sharp nod, the young wizard terminated the communication and turned toward the boarding party: a wild mix of Alliance special forces, former Imperials, the spec ops team (minus their obnoxious former leader, obviously), a wizard and a witch, though from vastly different cultures that had yet somehow managed to take on the same names. What could go wrong with that?
"28 storm commandoes, whenever you take one out, announce it on comms. The remaining 22 are non-combat personnel, so unless they fire first, they are to be captured, not killed. When you run into the Inquisitor, tell us where, and turn the other way. If you can't do that, use the slugthrowers," Harry ordered the group to generalised grim nodding. "Now, weapons check, and good luck."