The Retort's antiseptic dark gray interior was choked with smoke and the ringing howls of blaster fire. Alert beacons colored the corridors in angry crimson. Reiko found her footing soon enough after crawling through the cruiser's docking hatch, and Oktos popped in right behind her.
"Last man," he called into his comm. "Seal it up, Arbalest."
"Be careful in there, Officer Oktos," came Tess's reply, with the anxious edge she always had when Taz went on a mission. Behind him Taz heard the thunk of Arbalest's hatch closing.
"Back soon," he assured her, bringing his carbine around to a low ready position.
Reiko saw a half dozen casualties with horrible injuries, either from the breaching charge or the grenades the boarders had fired. She looked away and focused on Officer Boragog's broad back, his dromedary organs lending it a lumpy asymmetry. She tried not to think about the dead Imperial troops she was stepping over.
The support team members advanced out of the airlock past the twisted remains of the heavy pressure doors. Sal and Taz led the way with their weapons at the ready. Lighting panels flickered overhead and behind the walls. There were more dead bodies, but none wore the sterile white stormtrooper armor. Maybe none of them are onboard? Rei hoped that was the case; the white-clad enforcers of Imperial will terrified her more than almost anything else about this war.
They moved with purpose toward the sound of the firing, following the maps projected on their helmet displays. At a cross corridor ablaze with blaster bolts, Ballista troops stood their ground behind whatever cover they could find, returning fire in both directions before ducking back. A Filvian from Javelin squad lay crumpled against the wall. Oktos got to him, squeezing between the fighting troops to treat the injured Rebel soldier.
Rei started shaking all over and she leaned against the wall, her knees about to give way. She was aware of tears in her eyes, but she didn't dare raise her visor to wipe them away; the helmet display indicated very little atmosphere.
"Support-Six!" came Sera's voice in her headphones.
"Sera-sha!" she sobbed, and looked frantically around.
Sera jumped back in the line, letting another trooper take her place. "It's Javelin-Eight while we're in combat, Support-Six. Got it?" Her voice was urgent, but kind.
Rei nodded hesitantly.
"Repeat it back to me."
"J-javelin-Eight."
"Good," soothed Sera, pressing her helmet against Rei's to activate the private comm circuit. "I'm here. Everything's going to be okay. You stay with me. Where I go, you go. Got it?"
"Got it, Ser— Javelin-Eight," Rei repeated, feeling a little restored by Sera's comforting presence.
"That's my girl."
The injured Filvian was on his feet, leaning on a fellow commando as they made their way back toward the airlock.
"Time to break out," came the growl of Javelin-One. "Detonators," he followed, thumbing the activation switches on the pair of canister-shaped proton grenades in his hands. He threw one in each direction down the corridor and the Ballista commandos crouched closer to the walls. Two huge explosions jolted the deck, but before the shaking stopped, squad members leaped across the hallway, firing toward the bow and stern of the cruiser as they went prone. Two more heavy weapon troops carrying six-barreled blaster cannons entered the corridor, sending a hail of blaster fire through the passageway.
"We're moving," advised Javelin-Eight. She rounded the corner toward the cruiser's stern crouching low with Reiko close behind. Javelin-Eight fired quick bursts with her rifle, dropping gray-clad Imperials twenty meters away. Between shots she said to Rei, "Keep your blaster handy but don't shoot unless I tell you to." Rei gripped her G9C carbine and tried to feel brave, despite her shaking hands.
Another Ballista trooper went down, a smoking hole in her chest plates. Before the cry for a medic even blared over their helmet comms, Taz ran forward, firing as he went. A trooper yelled, "Covering fire!" and three more opened up, sending plasma shots past the medic to cover his advance. Taz slung his blaster and pulled his medic bag around. He hovered over the shot trooper— his helmet display identified her as Dart-Nine, the fire team's sharpshooter. Over the common channel he assured her she wasn't going to die if he had anything to do with it.
A scorching blaster bolt skipped off the back of Oktos's vest, causing him to yell in surprise, then spew a string of curses. The armor inserts he'd fitted earlier had done their job though, and aside from a deep carbonized gash in his vest, he was unharmed. The fire from the Ballistas intensified. A Filvian got in front of Taz and laid down a withering shower with his big M-45.
Rei and Sera continued forward with the rest of the boarding troops, making slow progress against the heavy Imperial resistance. The firefight stretched on forever, though Reiko's chrono indicated that only five minutes had passed. Finally they broke out of the constricting passage into a broad crossway with turbolifts on either side.
The Imperial troops they'd been fighting fled down side corridors. Major Naveen dispatched teams to track them down. She went to a control column in the middle of the crossway. "Support-Three, what am I looking at here?"
Sal sprinted over, his big PP40 in hand. He examined the panels on the column. "Environmental controls and an override for the turbolifts, Major." He tapped at the controls and a holo projection appeared. "The lift goes to Command from here. Drive systems and shield generators are that way." he pointed at the other end of the crossway with his pistol, but kept tapping. "Looks like they're running a full crew. Manifest shows only sixty troops, though."
"How many on the command deck?"
"Twelve, ma'am."
"Should be a lazy day for us, then," drawled the Ballista Leader in her melodic accent. Just then the cruiser rocked violently under the concussion of fire from the Pride of Olminar, and they struggled to keep their footing. The lights dimmed and flickered, and the faint vibration from the Imperial ship's engines ceased.
"Ion blast must've taken out the main power," Sal opined as the backups kicked in.
"Disable the lifts, Support-Three. Let's make sure the bridge is isolated," ordered Naveen. "Can you block their access to the emergency escapes and open the turbolift maintenance hatch on this level?"
"Yes ma'am." Sal holstered his pistol and got to work. Between the lifts, an access panel slid aside. Pale blue light cast dim illumination on a ladder within. Naveen poked her head inside.
"No gravity in the maintenance shaft," she observed, then keyed her helmet mic. "I'll head up to secure the bridge. Javelin-One and Eight, with me. Support-One and Three, take Javelin-Four and Five to Engineering. Make sure the ship and her weapons stay disabled. Everybody else, secure this position and our route back to Arbalest in case we need to beat a hasty retreat."
"I'll come too, if that's okay, Ballista Leader," Taz volunteered.
"Good, you can watch our backs. Just don't shoot me. That goes for you too, Support-Six. You're with us."
"Yes ma'am," Rei sighed, relieved that she wasn't going to have to wait there while Sera went to the bridge.
They entered the access shaft and Rei felt the sudden disorienting twist of weightlessness. She swallowed hard until the feeling passed. In the absence of gravity the Rebels sped up the four levels to the command deck. At the top Naveen faced the closed access panel and drew her pistol. Javelin-One was just below her while Support-Six and Javelin-Eight flanked the small door.
Naveen nodded to Sera, who pressed the panel release. It didn't move. She pressed it again. Nothing.
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"Locked from outside," offered Javelin-Eight.
Ballista Leader looked at Rei. "Hudson, run a bypass."
"Yes ma'am" Reiko acknowledged. She pushed up higher in the shaft, then flipped upside-down.
Sera touched her helmet to Rei's. "No pressure, Rei-sha."
Rei smiled, took a digital probe and power shunt from her tool pouch and got to work. She'd always had a knack for shutting out the world when she had a job to do. Now she forgot all about the terror of her situation. Twenty seconds later she looked over at Naveen. "Ready, Major."
"Hit it."
Rei tripped the shunt and the door slid open. Naveen was through in a flash, rolling onto the floor. An instant later Javelin-Eight followed. They both came up on one knee, weapons sweeping the small corridor. Two stormtroopers stood athwart the door to the bridge, their E-11 blasters trained on the turbolift. The sudden emergence of the commandos from the access hatch surprised them. The few milliseconds of delay was a few too many. They fired, but they were dead before they hit the floor, shot neatly through their helmets by the two Ballista troops. The alarm lights flashed, but the loudspeaker broadcasting the alert tones was silent here.
"Clear," called Javelin-Eight. The Razorclaws emerged from the shaft and took positions on either side.
"Safe to say the door to the bridge is secured," observed Senior Trooper Nindostam, grabbing a breaching charge from his harness.
"Let's try an override first, Javelin-One."
"Of course, Major," agreed the Filvian.
"Support-Six, you're up," he growled and positioned himself at the back of the small chamber with Naveen, covering the heavy blast doors with their rifles. Sera stood behind Rei who was prying at the panel to access the wiring. Medic-Two faced her, his blaster carbine at the ready. Reiko worked for a few moments, then nodded. Sera stepped in front of Rei, her thumb holding down the activation stud on a concussion grenade.
Reiko triggered the bypass. The heavy blast doors started to slide open with a loud hiss, then stopped after only a few centimeters. A blaster barrel poked through the little diamond of an opening. Ballista Leader and Javelin-One threw themselves to either side of the small space as the Imperial on the other side of the door opened up, firing red bolts of charged tibanna gas. In response Taz shoved his blaster muzzle into the gap and fired two shots. There was an agonized shout from behind the door. Sera fished her grenade through and yelled a warning. A searing flash of light and a concussive thunderclap erupted.
Nindorstam and Sera strained to pull the blast doors open while Taz and Major Naveen poured a steady stream of fire into the cruiser's compact bridge. Over her comm Reiko heard Sera urging her to try the bypass again, and she scrambled to reset it. The two layers of heavy doors groaned as she triggered the shunt once, twice, then a third time, before it finally opened with an awful grinding noise. Blaster fire erupted through the gaping doorway as the bridge crew put up a valiant fight.
Beside the door, Rei unsnapped a grenade from her belt, pressed the activator switch and threw it around the door frame as hard as she could. An instant before it detonated she remembered to shout, "GRENADE AWAY!" just as she was thrown back from the explosive force.
Naveen and the two Javelin squad commandos hurtled through the open doors, peppering the bridge with fire. After a few seconds the shooting stopped. Someone called the all clear, and the others went inside.
The bridge was a chaotic scramble of conduits and cabling, haze and alert lights. Three stormtroopers lay near the door, all dead. The cruiser's commander sat dazed in a corner, one hand over his head, the other hanging limp with a nasty blaster wound in his shoulder. Six Navy regulars were slumped over their consoles. One had half of his head blasted away. One was barely alive, but still breathing.
Taz checked to see if any of the Razorclaws were hurt. Javelin-One limped from a shot to the leg, but it wasn't critical. He waved Taz away after a quick examination. The medic turned to the astrogator and started working to try to save the woman's life.
Naveen stood over the cruiser's commander. "Name," she demanded.
"Doran Destril," groaned the captured Imperial with a Coruscanti's clipped accent.
"Major Jereeda Naveen. Consider yourself a prisoner of Razorclaw Cell, Commander Destril."
"Razor what?" sneered the naval officer despite the pain of his injury.
"Care to tell me what cargo you're transporting to Borga? Save me the time of slicing into your data files?"
"I have nothing to say to Rebel scum!" he snapped.
Naveen sighed, almost imperceptibly. She turned to Reiko. "Can you secure the ship from here, Support-Six?"
"I think so, ma'am."
"Get to it then. We don't need some hotshot ensign in an auxiliary control center ruining our victory."
Reiko began examining the bridge's controls, but stopped short. "Major! The ship's self destruct sequence is running!"
"Can you stop it?"
"Me?"
"There's no one else, Support-Six. If you can't do it we'll have to abandon this ship."
"I-I'll try ma'am," Reiko stuttered, her voice quavering.
"Time until detonation?"
"Uh, about two minutes, ma'am."
Naveen keyed her comm. "Razorclaws from Ballista Leader. Get back to Arbalest and prep for emergency dustoff. This cruiser's on a two-minute countdown to self destruct."
Reiko's fingers flew over the panels as the seconds ticked by. When Javelin-Eight called out "one minute," Reiko shot her a desperate look. "I — this ship is fighting me!" she cried in frustration. Commander Destril wore a smug look.
Sera pressed her helmet against Hudson's. "Don't let these Imp bastards beat you, Rei-sha. Is there a way to reset the sequence?"
She shook her head. "I'd need to do a full—" Reiko stopped mid-sentence, flipped through some screens, then gave a little yelp of surprise. She worked even faster, and a few moments later she shouted, "Cutting gravity and atmosphere!" then yanked a heavy silver double-levered switch. The Retort fell into darkness, the hum of power circuits, air circulators, machinery and electronics went dead. Magnetic boots kept the Razorclaws on the deck, but everything else began floating about the bridge at the slightest disturbance. Commander Destril looked surprised, then enraged.
A long count of seconds later, the Retort's systems flickered back to life. The lights and power cycled, and gravity pulled on them again. On the command panel the self destruct indicator was dark and inert.
Reiko looked up at Naveen. "Just needed a low level format on her base systems," she chuckled, the color coming back into her pale cheeks. "I had to slice past the operating system's security layer, but it was outdated. These older models are always last in line for patches and upgrades," she added, sounding upbeat.
Sera wrapped her arms around Rei, lifting her off the deck. "That's my girl!" shouted Javelin-Eight, her green eyes dancing before she released the technician.
"Excellent work, Support-Six," agreed the major with somewhat more reserve.
"Thank you ma'am," Reiko beamed, her face red with embarrassment. Still, she couldn't suppress her grin.
Naveen keyed her comm. "Razorclaws from Ballista Leader. Self-destruct averted. Resume securing the Retort." She turned to her prisoner who looked suddenly ashen. "It seems you don't get to go down with your ship today, Commander." Then back in her microphone: "All sections, report!"
----------------------------------------
Jereeda waited just inside Retort's hold, her smooth black skin glistening under the harsh Imperial illumination. Outside, two Ballista commandos stood guard. There were footsteps in the passageway and seconds later Colonels Rexler and Numarkos stepped into the cargo compartment. Stacks of crates stood against the back wall, each the size of a piece of hand luggage. The rest of the space was occupied with the ordinary supplies carried by a vessel of the Retort's size.
"Doesn't seem like much does it, Major?" commented Rexler.
"Agreed, sir," said the commando. "What's on the freighters?"
"You name it," answered Dee. "Fuel — high grade coaxium, no less. Tibanna gas, food, arms, meds, missiles, vehicles, uniforms, shield generators, droids. My best guess is that they're stocking a depot on Borga to supply a new sector fleet."
"Hmm, maybe," the major acceded. "A sector fleet would need a lot more supplies than that, but it could be for an advance force. In any case, I had Support-Six — Technician Hudson — slice into the cruiser's manifest. The contents of this hold are all listed, except for those cases over there. I'm thinking there's something no one was supposed to know about. Thought I'd wait for you before taking a look."
The three Razorclaw officers walked over to the stacked crates. Naveen took a code cylinder from her pocket. "The cruiser's CO hid this in his quarters. Wouldn't say what it was for. He's stubborn as a nerf bull." She touched it to the crate's locking panel. There was an audible click.
Dee lifted the lid, then let out a whistle. Inside were row upon row of silvery credit ingots arrayed in twelve layers. Over the next three hours they opened each of the one hundred twenty cases. By Dee's calculation they'd found a little over nine hundred forty million Imperial credits. It was enough to buy a fleet of capital ships. Or keep a rebel cell running for years, even decades.
"What are we going to do with all of this money?" asked Naveen, wide-eyed with disbelief.
"Well, I can finally pay you for all the troops you've been training at Arclight," Dee grinned. "Restock Razorclaw's vault too, and pay out bonuses. We've all been fighting pretty hard these last few months."
"As nice as the money is," Rexler began, "the supplies will be even more useful. There's enough on those bulk carriers to fuel and arm the Old Ghost and the R-Zed-Ones for months to come."
"We just need a place to store it all."
"You won't like this," Naveen began, "but I think we ought to turn over most of it to the Alliance."
"Absolutely not!" protested Numarkos. "They thumbed their noses at us. We don't owe them a single credit!"
Rexler held up a placating hand. "I know how you feel, Dee. I'm not happy they ignored us either, but Naveen's right. There's a bigger picture here. If we hand over these supplies to the Alliance we'll be throwing them a lifeline just when they need it most. That's a big chip we can cash in later. Taking the long view on this isn't a bad play."
Dee chewed on the suggestion for a long minute. Finally she spoke. "Alright, dammit, but we get first crack at everything — the cash and cargo. We don't have a letter of marque so we're under no obligation to split the proceeds evenly with the Alliance."
"How about this," suggested Rexler. "We load what we want onto one of the freighters and send it back home with the YE-Fours. Put a skeleton crew on the Retort, take the other transport in tow, and send them to Sector Command."
"I'd rather keep everything, but I see your point, Rex," Numarkos admitted, though she didn't look at all happy about it. "I'm going to make sure Mon Mothma knows who got this treasure for her, though."