Chapter 2: Death of a Hero

In a stable geosynchronous orbit behind the gas giant Gammalin 9, the Imperial Raptor and the pirate’s Lantillian short hauler (which XO decided to call Liberty from now on: a common name perhaps, but he hoped, also prophetic) were still locked together in a forced coupling by violent circumstances.

The transfer of equipment was taking longer than expected. The hardest was trying to find a decent place to drop it in: the GX1’s cargo hold (which T4 had unlocked and was, fortunately, devoid of concealed pirates) was already more than half full but in a messy, unorganized, wasted space sort of way and requiring to be sorted out. And that included a triangular stack of Mark 8 concussion missiles left at an odd angle right in the middle: valuable, yes, but also highly illegal without permits and which would complicate their situation to a whole new degree if they got caught by Imperials or even by typical system defense forces. But there was no time for that.

So they carefully (almost: it was hard sometimes) piled some crates in a standard layout to leave room for accessibility then several pieces of equipment latched with a few strands of cargo webbing. The rest needed to be dumped in the multiple cabins trying to keep a sorting system in place: ship parts, tools, weapons, droid parts, consumables, emergency gear and supplies, some items he had gathered from the crew’s bunks – nothing personal, since those required to be left for identification in case of an investigation. He quickly surveyed for coins, some holos, tech manuals and books (information was important to him), and also gathered a few bottles of booze including a bottle of Socorran raava and one of vacuum-distilled jet juice (he wasn’t sure he’d even want to try a taste – at least not yet).

Fortunately (or unfortunately considering ‘salvage’ value), the Raptor’s cargo holds didn’t have much in the way of confiscated contraband, stolen cargo and such. It was too early in its patrol. But XO knew the crew had stashes in several systems, especially Vrexler who had a key in his quarters to a security vault somewhere, probably in the Outer Rim, but he had no idea where. Besides, ISB would probably find it first after the investigation into Raptor’s destruction would divulge plenty of illegal details.

He was surprised though to find 2 bottles of Vishay water in the captain’s quarters, who wasn’t a social drinker: he’d never seen Vrexler drink more than one glass of the booze the crew sometimes had passed around – besides himself of course: the bottle always seemed empty by the time he entered the mess hall. So he took only the still sealed bottle, leaving the unsealed one. The only other things he took from that cabin were Vrexler’s datapad, his ID documents and his rank insignias (which, strangely, included those of a full fledge commander).

After loading what could be considered salvage (if not piracy), XO was tired, hungry, thirsty too, but he only paused to grab a protein ration and some water in Raptor’s mess hall (his last meal on-board), while he pondered what he should do next. In fact, he knew very well what he had to do. Time was ticking and some careful sabotage had to be executed all over Raptor before he left, for the Plan to succeed – many lives were at stakes. But risking using the Raptor’s droids to assist could make things way more complicated even though it would shave off precious minutes from the task.

He couldn’t risk it. He hated doing it but the droids had to stay onboard: they had to be deactivated too since they could intervene trying to save the ship and themselves. Any investigation finding Raptor without its known complement of droids – except for R2-T4 as the exception since he had secretly brought enough R2 spare parts onboard months ago – would be flagged and researched more intently by every Imperial agencies.

The droids were visibly happier (or at least more vibrant) since the crew that practically tormented or just neglected them daily was dead. Even the protocol droid seemed to take them on as an atypical foster parent in its primary role of Human-cyborg relation. They saw, recorded everything since the battle, helped fix a pirate ship, transported bodies, equipment and various cargo to a civilian ship from an official Imperial frigate. Too much information to leave to a possible – more like inevitable – investigator.

Swallowing the last of his frugal meal, he got off the table he’d sat on. It was time.

He called each droid separately through Raptor’s intercom to join him in a different room: the first being the R5 on the bridge, then the WED in engineering, after that the MSE-5 models in the mess hall, the cargo hold and the captain’s quarters, waiting for them to show up ready to assist. Each time, he accessed their power switch and turned them off before using a plasma torch he’d gathered to burn through their shell to melt their memory circuits and their core processor – he couldn’t let anything survive to be accessed even after the Raptor’s crash. While the plan was now to make sure the ship disintegrated in the thin acidic atmosphere of Gammalin 9’s fifth moon, he had to increase the odds by sabotaging and weakening its structure so that the acids would burn and strip away any evidence that could let Imperial investigators believe he hadn’t died on the ship as well. But even the moon’s acidic atmosphere could take months or even several years to eat through the tough hull on still intact sections: everything had to be exposed to be “scrubbed” clean.

But the astromech droid (R5-Z62-F893), being the third smartest droid onboard was too weary to let himself be approached to be switched off. XO had to quickly shoot it three times with Vrexler’s heavy blaster before using the plasma torch. ‘A plausible scenario’ he thought to himself since Vrexler was well known in Imperial Customs circles to “use” more droids than uniforms. Still it didn’t feel right to shoot droids, but he recognized it was necessary for now.

After the last droid was out of commission, so to speak, his thought suddenly shifted to the protocol droid: not part of the Raptor’s droid pool, it was nonetheless logged in the computers back at IC HQ as a delivery that could be traced to Raptor. So the possibility of not finding a protocol droid onboard Raptor could become a clue to unravel the Plan. But in this case, he knew he had to take a chance: alone on the ship, translating T4’s droidspeak without a linked datapad or an astromech station could mean life or death in an emergency situation. Even typical communications with civilian authorities could require some translating since he won’t have access to Imperial military and security channels anymore. Also, he had to sleep sometimes.

The next part was the most gruesome, yet, again required: DNA evidence distribution by transporting with the repulsor gurneys some of the corpses of his former crew in Raptor’s key locations: engineering, medbay and the mess hall posing as a triage area, then gathering several crewers and pirates in the corridor to the main hatch. The gory deed done, he headed for the Raptor’s armory where any explosive devices not used had been gathered (some various grenades, several pieces of detonite, a landmine & one thermal detonator – found behind a piece of scrap metal in the cargo hold, of all places!). Using a mesh bag, he carried the small but very dangerous cargo to the engine room.

While T4 had made some repairs on Liberty and a few minor sabotage actions here and there on Raptor while removing useful parts for use on the GX1 or for their resale value, he was now glad to see the XO enter the engine room, but just as he was to blurt an electronic “At last,” he registered the Human’s facial expression: it wasn’t a mood he associated with conversation. Yet seeing the webbed bag filled with various explosive charges XO shifted off his left shoulder, it made him launch a nervous tweet, that made the XO look up at him: “Yeah, time to set those up. Maximum effect.” he answered.

Together, they set several charges, in key places, after using the plasma torch to make some precise cuts to main structural supports of the ship: the idea being that precisely timed charges would go off just as the ship started burning up in Moon 5’s thin atmosphere further damaging the weakened struts and bulkheads forcing Raptor’s armored hull to break in hundreds (or even better, thousands) of pieces to splash across the acid-covered surface of the moon. The main problem was that Raptor wasn’t a warship carrying an arsenal. The hope was that the sabotage and the few explosives set with timers and most of the rest set to explode simply by heat damage could, with the overloaded power core, blow the entire ship to enough small pieces, leaving nothing but proof of its identity and destruction.

Sending T4 to the bridge of the Liberty to fly it in tandem with Raptor, XO went to his cabin and donned an emergency spacesuit he had left on his bunk. With the suit sealed as a precaution (keeping the ship’s atmosphere was preferable both for the run back to Liberty’s hatch and to allow the oxygen to fuel the fires and the explosions onboard), he headed to the Raptor’s bridge, hopefully for the last time.

T4 had to reduce his typical speed in this civilian ship not only because of the clutter that still encumbered several areas along the bulkheads but also the floor had a very different feel against his traction wheels (the closest Basic expression he could process was: almost sticky). He had seen the XO expressing an almost nauseated face while onboard their new ship, especially when they got into the captain’s cabin. Even the protocol droid’s olfactory sensor had been red-lining, so it had actually shut it off – not an option for a Human, he had noted to the disgusted translator in an effort to scold it but it only seemed to make it feel better.

T4 reached the GX1’s bridge and since it didn’t have a dedicated astromech station – that was on the upgrade list – he crammed in front of the pilot seat (currently backed at its maximum) and extended all his manipulator arms to physically activate the controls. After a quick checklist on systems online (thrusters, & comms) and those in standby like the sublight drive and the shields (in their partially repaired condition), he activated the dormant engines to their lowest setting, then beeped a ready signal to the XO directly in his spacesuit’s built-in comlink.

XO reached the bridge hatch – it was unlocked and open for the first time in years while on patrol – then sat in the pilot’s chair, not bothering to even glance at the two bodies in the back of the bridge. He heard T4’s readiness signal and tapped the controls to prepare the Raptor’s systems for its last voyage. He checked the chrono on his console: it hadn’t even been 3 hours yet since the last ultimatum had been sent to the pirate ship, yet it felt like at least 3 days without sleep.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Timing was everything. While they were lucky to have access to a planetary body with a corrosive unbreathable atmosphere (albeit thin and still accessible with droids and heavy duty spacesuits), orbital physics dictated that the moon would be in the shadows of Gammalin 9 and its second moon for only a small time period before swinging back out into view of the outpost inside the system near Gammalin 4 or any ships coming out of the hyperspace nav point – the Plan would be unravelled if sensors recorded a transport pushing an Imperial ship into a moon.

XO checked the chrono again: Three minutes, forty-one seconds left. “Maybe I should’ve gone to the fresher first...” he said jokingly aloud without realizing it, a memory of his childhood flashing through his mind...

He was barely nine years old then, excited to go on a trip to the black gold beaches of Corellia with the entire family (a rare occasion with military families). He was seated in the huge airspeeder waiting for the last two to embark: his mother and younger sister. After a seemingly longer three minutes, they got on board, but his mother then asked him somewhat suspiciously “Do you need to go to fresher before we leave?”.

“Nah!” he had replied boastfully – he wasn’t four like his kid sister after all. Off they went from Coronet City and, of course, half an hour later he was squirming in his seat.

All the family noticed and said almost in unison: “Hold it in!”. While the adults smirked, his sister poked him for fun the rest of the trip, which felt then like an eternity.

XO rechecked the ship’s chrono: Two minutes, thirty-nine seconds. “Arrgh!” he almost cursed.

“Sir? Something wrong?” came a mechanical voice over the comm. 3PO.

“No,” he replied breathing out his frustration. “T4, can we start now?” he added. Something seemed to creep out very slowly at the back of his mind. A feeling he had trusted before, and while it hadn’t always been confirmed one way or another, enough scrapes he’d managed to avoid over the years entrusted him to listen to his guts.

T4 was probably making some calculations since it took him nearly two seconds to answer in droidspeak. 3PO then translated: “Sir, R2-T4 considers a 1.73% increase per minute in detection chance on a prema...” he didn’t have time to finish.

“GO. Now!” XO cut-in abruptly. He activated the sublight engines on a mild increase rate, checking the sensors to see T4 matching his maneuver with his new ship. Using thrusters, they changed their orientation and accelerated out of their current orbit into a much steeper one, gaining extra speed from the gravitational pull of both the moon and its parent gas giant.

It was hard to know exactly how the docking tube serving as an umbilical between the two ships was faring: if it breached, the Liberty would have its atmosphere sucked out since the only internal door left in the foyer capable of sealing the hatch area had been damaged during the fights. But there was nobody requiring breathing left on board until he managed to get back by space-walk and sealed the hatch back (the second worst scenario, the first being the tube breaking-up while he was in it, tumbling in space uncontrollably).

Raptor had several bulkhead doors that would automatically seal the docking area in case of a sudden decompression. It would just be a matter of systematically working the doors as an airlock. Still XO preferred to hope the tube held long enough. The thought flashed in his mind that if they hadn’t unlocked the pirate’s hatch they would have used the plasma boarding torch to CUT through it. He dismissed that ugly notion from his mind with willpower and by concentrating on the controls. Both ships finally reached their shared maximum speed, hurled by combined forces toward the fifth moon.

‘Time to go’ XO agreed after checking the course was holding and the speed increasing. He got up and was barely out of the bridge when a worried burbled beep sounded in his helmet. “I’m on my way already.” he answered, understanding the urgent tone, but the astromech wasn’t done yet.

T4 went for a few more seconds and after hearing nothing for a full second from anyone, tweeted a very sharp tone, that was not directed at him but at 3PO who quickly spoke up: “I’m sorry sir, R2-T4 was making a comment meant for you, saying you should improve your communications skills while in moments of extreme emergencies to keep us updated on your status. Worrying doesn’t do any good to our circuits.” A new sharp bleep and tweet sounded, but 3PO just added defensively: “It was what you, and frankly myself as well, meant to say. I am a protocol droid. I do not exaggerate or embellish my translations, but...”

Before any more was said by those two, and before that twinge in his frontal lobe became an actual headache, XO cut out any more rebukes saying: “Alright, enough. I’m coming in. 3PO, get in the cargo bay and tie yourself up with a cable.” The cargo hold doors were the closest to the hatch, but the protocol droid was having a hard time figuring how he could help. But T4 just beeped happily he simply was to become an anchor.

While not seeing it, XO imagined it made the protocol droid shoot an angry glare at the astromech.

XO reached the Raptor’s hatch without incident nor sealed bulkheads, seeing the docking tube was still, technically speaking, in one piece. But it was swaying around like in a stormy sea. ‘That’s just prime.’ he thought. In fact, the ship itself was jostling slightly, even shaking the bodies of the pirates and Imperials they had leaned on the wall, making it seems they were still alive. He heard himself gulp loudly in his helmet. He then turned to the GX1’s hatch and quickly, almost running, crossed the heaving umbilical. Just before reaching Liberty (yes, a good name for his ship), he thought he heard a cracking noise. Not bothering to look, he activated some time-delay releases on the docking tube then entered Liberty and closed the hatch hoping for a secured seal signal which, fortunately, came promptly. Another cracking sound, this time louder even though heard through the hull of the ship, urged him on.

He turned to the cargo hold, called the protocol droid, expecting it to open the doors, but instead it ambled around the bend from the main corridor. “Sorry sir, I was looking for some ...” it said, but XO just jogged past him, not listening, threw his helmet on a couch in the lounge and headed onto the bridge – his bridge.

T4 was happy to see XO enter the bridge and tried to get out from the pilot’s station. He failed. Trying again, his wheels were heard turning against the floor but he was stuck. XO, barely stopping but having a slightly amused look seeing his predicament, just waved his hand at him to stay put while he sat in the copilot chair and slid it forward to get comfortable, then surveyed the controls on his and T4’s side, making sure all was in the green (so to speak). He then looked up, watching Raptor go on further ahead into the moon’s atmosphere while they altered Liberty’s course to parallel the other ship but from a higher orbit.

“Is the cannon working?” he asked.

T4 answered first by pointing at the small weapon display panel with an arm then pointed back with it in the direction of the dorsal gunwell and added a short warble and tweet that basically meant: the panel shows no power to gun but perhaps one or two shots left in its energizer if the controls weren’t damaged when they shot the Nikto gunner.

3PO was entering the bridge at that moment and was just about to give its translation when XO backed his seat and exited the bridge, mentioning to the protocol droid on his way out to “Sit down and strap-up.” As he reached the gunwell, a thought occurred to him that he normally would have had much earlier: a Nikto and a Klatooinian on a pirate ship could entail they were sponsored by an entity from the Hutt Cartels. It only made his desire to never engage in business with the Hutts, a clear safety necessity.

Reaching the gunwell, he's hoping they’d not forget to get the Nikto’s body out of it... No, it was empty thankfully, but not intact. He reached for the retractable ladder but only a third of it was left to come out, so he jumped on it and climbed into the partially scorched gunnery chair and checked the controls: the fire control system was probably working but the displays were damaged, one blown clear off. He couldn’t confirm power from the dials, but he thought he still felt a slight hum in the handgrips (technically speaking, a concerning safety issue with the energy isolation but for now could mean there might be some power to use). He yelled out loud: “Stay within gun range!” not sure if he was heard or not.

He turned the laser cannon toward Raptor’s bow, the gun definitely not moving with the smoothness it was supposed to have. ‘Another thing to fix’ he thought and sighed. He figured that by now, the coolant had spilled in the ship along with the leaking fuel, mixing with the enriched oxygen mix they’d configured, which, with the fusion power core on a critical overload should obliterate at least two thirds of the frigate to atoms. His only concern was the bow: a big enough piece of it could be thrown off by the blast and survive long enough on the acid moon to be discovered and clues retrieved – nothing electronic though, T4 had copied and destroyed the computer banks’ logs and data. So he targeted just below and behind Raptor’s bridge and pressed the trigger.

The shot went a bit wild but hit Raptor’s front section anyway and blasted a big deep hole in its hull but not enough to penetrate it. He felt a severe decrease in the humming through his gloves: one shot left, probably not at full power.

He targeted the same spot as before letting the misaligned cannon shoot at the same blast mark, then fired. The shot went out, dimmer (definitely not at full power), but it hit along the edge of the previous blast damage and punched through the hull. It was enough to activate at least one of the explosive charges they’d installed and it cascaded as several explosions became visible along the ship through a few viewports. Raptor listed left, changed of orientation slightly and started to break up.

The droids on the bridge had heard the XO yelling and both saw the blasts hit the Imperial ship’s hull and the explosive flares of energy in it. 3PO was entranced and horrified almost to silence, but not quite: “Oh my...” it barely whispered.

T4 was actually enjoying the view – so much torments coming to a fiery end. But he also read the sensors, showing extremely high temperature in Raptor’s engine room, quickly becoming much hotter. He had a manipulator arm on the hyperdrive initiator control and the others on the yoke.

“T4!” XO yelled down the gunwell, “Punch it, now!” The Liberty changed heading the instant the order was heard and it jumped to hyperspace just a few seconds later.

_______________

XO was looking at hyperspace’ streaks of cosmic lights through the gunwell’s transparisteel porthole, pensively holding a memorial to his old life and his former shipmates as he imagined it would happen if Raptor got destroyed as planned:

“The crew of the Imperial Customs frigate Raptor will be honored as having fallen in combat in the line of duty for the glory of the Emperor and the Empire.

But, after the eventual investigation(s), several facts should be found about all the corruption and the horrendous hypocrisy of Raptor’s crew, which will obviously, be kept secret (for the good of the Empire), while the loyal first officer – who left those detailed records to be found by the proper authorities – will be proclaimed (posthumously, of course), a hero of the Empire.”