Tillisk Tafo raged as the doors of his huge office closed behind him. The stink of ozone from the exchange of blaster fire clung to his white tunic and scratched at the back of his throat. He yanked the comlink from his belt and snapped orders, then pressed himself against the wall inside his office, afraid to move. He'd seen Ruatha leading a squad of her troopers toward the data vault, but the ones he'd taken with him had been overpowered so easily...

By a Rebel and a traitor! He allowed himself a feral, impotent scream for an instant before his supreme intellect subjugated his primitive emotions. Nonetheless, until he heard the all-clear signal he wouldn't feel safe. The fatal determination he saw in the rebel's eyes haunted him and brought a spasm of involuntary shivers. That imposter who'd posed as the researcher, Oktos, had nearly sliced him in half with his lightsaber. Tafo wasn't even sure how the man had gotten hold of it. He distinctly recalled having tucked it securely into his belt. He could still feel the searing heat of its blazing amber blade as it flicked near his face during the melee. It made his blood freeze to realize how close he'd been to becoming a corpse. A centimeter or two closer and that blade would have...

They would all die for their insolence, every last one of them. The comlink traffic was little more than incoherent chaos that echoed in the explosions shaking the building. Tafo shouted into the microphone again. "Where is my ESCORT?!"

"Fifteen seconds, Director," replied a man's voice, laced with an anxious edge.

Tafo's gaze wandered over his office. The expansive armored glass panels had fractured when the data vault exploded, spitting deadly silicate shrapnel through the room, shredding his priceless collection of technical drawings. They lay scattered on the floor or dangling from snapped cables, twisting in the early morning breeze. An icy trickle rolled down his back. Hundreds of thousands of credits spent to procure his irreplacable engineering drafts, reduced to paper scraps and twisted metal frames. Tafo uttered a shrill, enraged wail, his fists clenched before him. No kind of punishment, no torture could possibly indemnify the Rebels' vicious injustices.

Three armed troops in dark breastplates appeared at the end of the corridor and sprinted to his office door. Tafo straightened and forced a bland expression in spite of the hollowness he felt. He wiped a trickle of nervous sweat from his cheek, then opened the door and strode out purposefully. "Stetter and Valk in front. Teller, watch our backs," he ordered.

"Where to, Director?" asked Valk. Her knuckles were white against the black grip of her blaster.

"Just do your job, Valk!"

They walked back to the lift and Tafo shoved his code cylinder into the port, then pressed a sequence of keys on the panel. The lift plummeted to a sub-level far underground. The door whooshed open onto a dark, twisting tunnel. At the end they emerged into a sterile expanse. Two big arrays of kyber crystals sat in their adjustment frames, ready to be installed into more beam cannons.

Toma Orras directed a handful of techs and droids, inexplicably still at work amid the ground-shaking explosions and the stream of chaos playing over the monitor speakers. Tafo snapped his gloved fingers at her. "Orras! Come with me." he angled toward the concealed panel in the wall and activated it. Valk and Stetter exchanged furtive glances. The doors opened onto the repulsor tubecar.

"Get in," Tafo ordered.

"Where are we going, Director?" Orras inquired. Her flat, emotionless tone contrasted with her concerned look.

The car accelerated as soon as they took their seats on the benches. Tafo turned to the troops. "You're all rated for gunnery?" He received 'yessirs' from each of them. "Good." He fixed his gaze on the engineer. "We're going to pursue a Rebel vessel that has attacked the base."

"That sounds like a job for the Navy, Director," Orras intoned.

"This will be an operational use of the enhanced beam cannon, Orras. I want you onboard to supervise."

"Me, sir? I'm not a—"

"Save it, Orras! You serve the Empire. Act like it!"

The woman's face blanched but she acknowledged with a single nod, sat stiffly on the bench, and wrung her hands. The three troops didn't look much better. For years they'd enjoyed something that approached a pastoral life, at least for an Imperial installation. Its abrupt dissolution left them at loose ends.

Tafo gripped the top flap of his polished leather holster as the tube car decelerated. He couldn't trust any of the stormtroopers they'd secreted in the subterranean facility. Why had he been so stupid as to let Ruatha manage the troops? He'd believed the lies she told him about the importance of devoting all of his attention to the mining and manufacturing operations. "My genius!" he scoffed, then scowled at the others in the car. He'd let himself be caught out.

The director's mind whirled. The data vault's destruction had erased years of painstaking research, prototyping, and leading-edge design work. There were backup notes in his office but they only covered a minor portion of the ocean's worth of data they'd compiled, building on decades of theoretical work done by think tanks across the galaxy. Operationalizing those theories had taken dozens of talented engineers, scientists and technicians. How many had the filthy Rebels snuffed out in their orgy of desecration?

Tafo glanced at Orras, watching the patterns of the status lights on her implant. His eyes widened all of a sudden. "Orras!"

"Sir?" she blurted, startled by his outburst.

"When was your last download of the research files from the data vault?"

"Seventeen days ago, Director."

Tafo breathed a sigh and leaned his head back. Saved.

"Except," she continued, "much of the data had to be purged to accommodate the technical specifications for the beam cannon."

His relief crumbled along with his expression.

The car door opened and he stalked out, nearly striking his head on the jamb. The troops followed, looking wide-eyed at the warship secreted in the hangar with the huge GXD-Twenty-six beam cannon burdening its dorsal hull. Lieutenant Braxx stood by the door and saluted sharply.

Tafo didn't reciprocate. "The base is under attack. Prep the Kantorius for immediate departure," he snapped.

Braxx looked alarmed for a second. "Of course, Director," answered the young officer, falling into step beside Tafo. The director's short legs nevertheless carried him across the permacrete toward the Imperial corvette at an angry pace. "Will Adjutant Ruatha be joining us, sir?"

That woman could rot in the fetid swamps of Mimban for all he cared. "The Adjutant is… directing the defense of the base. We will pursue the attackers and destroy them." Tafo turned his head sharply. His eyes bored into the lieutenant. "Status of the weapon."

"Operational, sir," Braxx smartly replied, "though our earlier tests consumed most of the booster crystals."

"How many remain?" They reached the top of the boarding ramp. A technician closed it behind them while they turned down the dark-walled corridor toward the lift.

"Eight, sir."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"More than enough for one ship," snapped the director. The doors opened and the two men stepped inside. Tafo spun on his heel and addressed the others. "Valk, Stetter, Teller, you will crew the forward turrets. Orras, you will oversee the operation of the primary weapon." The lift doors closed, whisking the director and Braxx away. The guards and engineer shared uncertain looks for a moment, then went their separate ways.

Tafo exited the lift onto the bridge. He was as satisfied as he could be under the circumstances, to see that the skeleton crew were at their stations. "Status!" he barked.

Braxx consulted the display at his station. "Five minutes to launch, Director."

"Do it in three, Lieutenant."

"But sir, the automated systems won't—"

"Three minutes, Mr. Braxx." repeated Tafo through gritted teeth. He could hope Ruatha had been killed in the mayhem that enveloped Rho-277 when those detestable Rebels attacked. But he wasn't foolish enough to believe that. Ruatha was a survivor if she was anything—her miraculous escape from the fiasco on Drasis was proof of that. Never mind that her entire section had been wiped out covering her retreat.

Her first move would be to do just what he'd done: head for the Kantorius. He needed to be off the ground by the time she arrived. Once he had destroyed the Rebels' ship and reduced them all to bones and ash he'd reorganize base security top to bottom. Order needed to be restored. The workers wouldn't like it but he'd passed the point of caring about that.

"Show me Rho Two-Seven-Seven," he ordered.

The tech tapped at her controls. The viewscreen flashed black, then lit up with scenes from the base's security feeds. There was a smoking, debris-strewn hole where the data vault had been, and another crater nearby surrounded by dead and wounded stormtroopers. Other security forces fanned out across the base. Two TIE fighters flew overhead for a second before they shot out of frame.

Tillisk's face froze in pale horror for a second. He'd known, of course, but seeing the data vault reduced to rubble and flame, surrounded by mangled corpses and churned up ground... The reptilian part of his brain jolted horror aside and supplanted it with renewed fury. The death that awaited the Rebels at his hands would not even begin to compensate for the damage they'd done.

The viewpoint changed. The base's quad-laser turrets showed extensive damage and its missile battery was nothing more than twisted wreckage. The all-important shield generator that protected Rho-277 was aflame. Its blasted generator casing looked like a rank of Fasemian snail-crabs with their shells shattered.

He snarled and looked at the chrono display over the expansive viewscreen. "That's enough," he ordered, slicing his hand through the air. The technician cut the feed. "Time?"

"Ninety seconds, sir," Braxx answered at his station.

"Open the hangar."

"Aye, sir," said the pilot from his station in the control pit beneath Tillisk's feet. Overhead the big roof halves slid aside, revealing a sliver of pre-dawn sky that grew wider by the second.

"Director Tafo?" Braxx spoke up from the station nearby.

"What is it, Braxx?"

"We'll need the command codes in order to launch, sir."

Tafo opened his mouth to censure the impudent officer, but he realized the man was right. He went to the console, inserted his code cylinder into the scomp port, and punched the keys. "Launch as soon as the hangar opens, Braxx. We'll complete system startup on the way to orbit."

"Sir?"

"We're losing time, Braxx. Every second we sit on the ground is a second that band of brigands slips farther out of my grasp!"

"Yessir," Braxx said. He spoke into his headset, issuing hurried directives to the ship's crew as he adjusted the controls on his command console.

An alarm tone sounded. "What is that, Morse?"

The sensor tech looked up from her station in the control pit. "Hatch warning, sir. The starboard boarding ramp has been deployed."

"Show me!" Tafo commanded. A display screen flashed on, showing the hangar floor. The long ramp had just finished extending. A woman wearing the white tunic and trousers of the Imperial Security Bureau trod up the ramp. "Ruatha." The word dripped venom. Somehow she'd managed to evade all of the tumult and destruction. Two stormtroopers accompanied her.

"Helm, as soon as the ramp is closed bring repulsors to seventy percent and steer a departure vector for orbit." Braxx received a brief acknowledgment. A few seconds later the corvette shifted underfoot and lifted toward the lightening sky.

Tafo regretted not having brought more of his troopers with him. The Kantorius's skeleton crew had no security element with which he could detain Ruatha. He unsnapped his holster, but left the compact blaster where it was. He turned to face the doors just as they slid open.

Ruatha strode in wearing a harried look. Her white tunic was smudged with grass and dirt stains, and Tafo observed what might have been a streak of drying blood on it as well. Her hair looked like it had been hastily tucked back. Tafo allowed himself an inward smile. She looked rattled, though it didn't stop her from fixing him with an ugly expression.

"Ruatha. How fortunate you were able to join us."

"Yes," she answered, more of a sibilant than a word. "No thanks to—"

"Quite. The prisoners' escape and the damage they've caused will be punished most severely." He snapped at the two stormtroopers who'd accompanied her. "You two! Report to Lead Engineer Orras in the primary weapon control center. She can use additional personnel."

"Ma'am?" said one of the troopers.

Vaniel considered for an instant before flipping her hand. "Go." She walked over to Tafo, hiding her loathing behind a tight façade. In a low, venomous voice, she said, "You're finished, Director." In a louder tone, she announced, "It's fortunate I arrived in time. You're in pursuit of the Rebel ship, are you not? My naval combat experience will prove useful, don't you agree, Director?"

Her glaring eyes bored into him. It was true she'd commanded ships in combat before, a claim he couldn't make." Still... "It's just some rabble. We'll destroy them soon enough."

"Just rabble," she responded curtly, "who disrupted our entire operation, blew up the data vault, killed a platoon of troops, and destroyed the base's defenses. That 'rabble'?"

Tillisk shrunk a little under her withering stare. "Well. They exploited—"

Now it was her turn to interrupt. "Weakness in your security plan. That's what they exploited, Director." She shot a glance at Braxx, who looked quickly away, then back at Tafo. "I'm sure you'll agree that under the circumstances, I'm the correct choice to lead our response to this outrage against the Emperor."

Braxx and the other officers on the bridge stared stiffly ahead. None of them had any wish to line up on either side of the conflict between the two.

Tafo closed his mouth, his fleshy jowls shaking a little. After a moment he said, "Very well, Adjutant, I'm delegating command to you, for the time being."

Ruatha looked even more severe in victory. She tucked her hands behind her back. "Lieutenant, begin charging weapons. TIEs on standby. As soon as we clear atmosphere begin full sensor sweeps. The Rebels are in two ships, a light freighter and a hijacked Striker." She wore a decidedly sour look.

"Two of our fighters are in pursuit. Communications officer, make contact with the pilots and coordinate a tactical approach vector. Then contact Engineer Orras, instruct her to power up the reactor for the GXD-Twenty-six and load a booster crystal. We will strike the Rebel vessel as soon as it is in range of our primary weapon. A single shot should be more than sufficient to destroy their transport, but be prepared for follow-ups. Full drives, helm. Get us into orbit immediately."

"Hard burn, ma'am? But, the staff at the garrison, the radiation—"

"Damn the radiation! I want us in orbit now!"

The helmsman ducked, swiveled back to his station and threw the levers forward. The Kantorius's three ion engines belched plasma and a lethal cocktail of energetic subatomic particles toward the buildings only partially protected by the craggy mountainside below. A surge of acceleration made the crew sway for a moment.

Tafo stood behind Ruatha and watched her intently. He decided to let her fight the rebels while he planned her demise.

"Sensors," ordered Ruatha when the corvette reached orbit twelve minutes later.

Morse, the sensor tech, responded. "Running a narrow field tactical scan now... I've located the Rebel ships, ma'am! Feeding coordinates to the helm."

"Excellent," Ruatha responded. "Maintain flank speed, helm."

"Maintain flank speed, aye," came the acknowledgement from the corvette's pilot. The hum of the ship's reactor and the rumble of its engines reverberated through the deck plates. Vaniel felt the familiar tingle and thrill that accompanied combat.

A few seconds later, Morse called, "Visual contact on the Rebels, ma'am."

"Launch fighters," Ruatha snapped. Braxx issued the command before she'd finished her order. "Comm officer, give me a channel to Orras."

"Channel open, Adjutant."

"Status of the primary weapon, Orras."

"Ready to fire, Commander."

"Helm, line us up." She watched her display with its red aiming reticle superimposed over the image. They were eighty thousand meters from the Rebel ship when the pilot got it centered in his tactical sight.

Vaniel wore a cruel smile. "Orras… Fire!"