The frigate El Pollo Diablo, most loyal servant of the glorious and beneficent Emperor, for years she has cruised through the galaxy, obeying orders issued to her both with determination and ruthless efficiency, and in return she has earned honour and respect. Oh and her crew! The loyal Phoenix squadron, most revered servants of their master and their Empire. Together they form an integral part of the Navy and many times had she been called to Coruscant to receive accolades in recognition of her meritous accomplishments. But seeing her now damaged and exhausted, her mighty superstructure rended from continued fire and her powerful engines blown apart by warheads. Truly this should be considered a tragic sight. On her bridge, Captain Rookie, first amongst Phoenixians, was standing quietly at ease with a solemn look on his face. His command staff were staring also, at the huge monstrosity looming towards them. Its girth was at least thrice of their own and was bearing down on them painfully slowly, its mere presence an affront to all on the bridge who were able to view it. As they watched the thing it began to release small ships, Rookie counted 10, 20, 30, 37,42. Altogether 46 transports were headed towards them, Rookie did the math. 47 transports carrying 20 soldiers apiece, 940 troops would soon appear on his treasured ship, 940 foul traitors were about to take his precious craft, his home and he could not do a thing about it. As he stood there a flurry of emotion came over him. Anger, apprehension and even fear paid him a visit. But more than This was worry. Rookie was worried about his crew, they were his friends, his comrades in arms. What would become of them? Already many lay dead, slain by the Rebels this day in the line of duty, he thanked the Emperor that Phoenix squadron had sense enough to surrender to them before they were caught by the tide of starfighters that had swept over their fellow pilots. In fact Phoenix squadron had suffered only 2 casualties, Pilot Pope was killed as he engaged an enemy B-Wing, he had staunchly refused to obey the order to stand down, and he paid the ultimate price for his foolhardiness. Worse still however, the B-wing had shot Pope's small fighter out of control before it combusted, and it went hurtling into the Tie Fighter of Pilot Boyslim who suffered the same fate. Rookie sighed and consoled himself with the knowledge that it could have been worse, in fact it could have been a lot worse.
He watched the transports get closer and noted the silence in the room, he had never heard such quiet on an Imperial ship. No voices, no consoles making small beeps and clicks as they usually would and the engines, the mighty engines, they lay the most silent of all, their reassuring low rumble was nowhere to be heard. Rookie thought this unfortunate, the engines were his favourite noise on the entire ship. Their powerful sound made him feel safe somehow. Now the only sound he could hear was the beating of his own heart and it was going unusually fast. As he watched the approaching ships broke off and went their own separate ways, heading for different parts of the ship. Also some tugs appeared from the large ship in front of them and headed off to the powered down craft of Phoenix squadron. Rookie just hoped that his pilots would not put up a fight, for a supposedly compassionate faction the Alliance had been known to make a surprisingly large mess of any Imperial facilities it came across (and he noted with a twinge of panic the even more surprisingly large mess they occasionally made of high-ranking Imperial officers as well) and Rookie had no doubt that if any of the men on the tugs were opposed the guns of that large ship would open on the offending craft and probably the two or three closest to it as well to make an example to the others. His fears were not well-placed though, Phoenix knew better than to squander their lives in a foolish bid to die with honour, they had been told by Rookie often enough that honour was not gained through stupidity and callous thought or action. Evidently the message had hit home, Rookie saw their craft attached to the tugs and led back to the large ship hovering directly in front of him. However not before they were paraded in front of the bridge's main window like some sort of ghastly taunt. The Rebel's attempt to goad Rookie into anger worked, he broke the silence loudly, startling everybody in earshot.
"Damn those Rebels! " he declared with a shout, "I declare they will pay for this treachery,"
Rookie was seething, but he knew this was not the way to act in front of his men so he quickly calmed down. XO Desmo spoke up at this point.
"Captain, the transports are cutting through our hull, we are about to be boarded, what are your orders sir?"
Desmo and the others looked intently at the captain, none were sure how he would react. Rookie hung his head and thought for a moment, after a few seconds he looked at his men blankly and spoke.
"tell the stormtroopers not to oppose them, even if we do drive them off that cruiser over there will only destroy us anyway and I am not prepared to sacrifice over 3000 Imperial lives just to make sure the Diablo makes a page in the history books. We can do that while still living, and be around to see it as well!"
There were murmurs of approval from the crowd, they all knew Rookie was right however much they wished he wasn't. He nodded at a young communications officer who went to the internal comm system to broadcast the message to the rest of the men. Rookie shouted to the man,
"Tell them the first one of them to fire a shot will be the first one to be executed! The officer returned and Rookie spoke again. "I know how you are all feeling at the moment because I can assure you I am feeling exactly the same myself, I will not lie to you, the situation is bad. Very bad. But I also want you to know that we will survive, the Diablo will survive and most of all our comradeship will survive. I tell you now that when we escape from wherever the Rebels take us nobody on this ship will be left behind, I give you my word on this! We will escape, when we fail to report we will be noticed and searched for, and if I know our friends in the High Command properly I can assure you that the galaxy will be scoured in the search for us. We WILL be found, there are to be no doubts about this, am I totally clear?"
There were muffled nods and murmurs from the group, who obviously placed less faith in High Command than Rookie did. As he said this they heard a clunking noise come from the ceiling of the bridge and a grinding noise as the hull started to breach under the intense heat of the cutting torches the Rebels were using.
The process took a while and gave everyone time to get to their stations, Rookie wanted the Rebels to think that people were not concerned with their invasion, the Captain hated a smug Rebel. As Rookie watched the ceiling a section of it fell away and crashed onto the bridge though thankfully not onto anyone and soldiers began to jump down onto the steel floor. they assumed a defensive square and seemed puzzled that they weren't receiving any fire from the officers they saw before them. Their Commander came down last, he had a maniacal grin on his face as he saw his men searching the Imperial staff for weapons. He walked towards Rookie shaking his head still wearing the idiotic grin, Rookie felt like wiping it off the man's clean-shaven face but had no wish to be killed so he shelved the idea, for now.
"Well well well, Captain Rookie of the El Pollo Diablo, well, well, well it seems like we finally have you doesn't it?" Rookie answered this rhetorical question calmly, much to the displeasure and surprise of the Commander, who wanted to see Rookie go mad and make a fool of himself probably to make himself seem more important in front of his men.
"Well met Commander, I believe you are right, we appear to be in your custody."
The Rebel Commander began to chuckle deeply and stepped away from the Captain, looking through the screen at the Cruiser that practically filled it. He stayed thus a moment and turned back towards Rookie,
"Our Cruisers really are an impressive sight are they not Captain? Your Frigates give a good view of them, I’m sure you would agree?" he paused a moment then began again, "But I must compliment you Captain, you have not squandered the lives of your crew by staging resistance as we had expected you to. You are obviously a shrewd officer and care about your men..................." he lowered his voice and stepped face to face with Rookie, "in fact.....we could use Commanders like you in the Alliance," a sly smile touched his lips which was not reciprocated.
"I would rather graft my scrotum to a speeder bike" the Captain responded much to the amusement of the Rebel.
"You would be wise to reconsider that point of view you Imperial dog, even the rats do not stay on a sinking ship, if you get my meaning,"
The man turned and walked away from Captain Rookie who stood as hard-faced as he previously was. He was determined not to get annoyed much as it was difficult to do so when confronted by possibly the most conceited, pompous and arrogant person in the known universe. The Rebel took a deep breath as he continued to stare at his beloved cruiser, savouring the moment. Personally Rookie could not see the appeal of the ship, the thing looked like a potato, or a peanut. He allowed himself a small laugh.
"What's so funny?" Enquired the Rebel officer who had suddenly come back to reality.
"Oh I was just wondering what your Calamari cruiser looks like most, a potato or a peanut," the Rebel was at a loss for words at this, he could not insult the Diablo, the Nebulon B Frigate was commonly in use by the Alliance as well as the Empire.
"Oh I guarantee you will be getting a much closer look very soon" was his eventual response, but it came too late for him to save face in front of his men, many of whom wore small smirks. Rookie had stolen the man's thunder now though and the atmosphere had changed in the room.
"Right then, come on get 'em all together let's get off this thing", he told his men.
The command was executed in short order and the bridge staff were rounded up. At the same time the main door to the bridge opened and a few squads of Rebel troops moved in, they were escorting several disarmed and subdued stormtroopers.
"Ah!" Said the Rebel Commander as he saw the men enter the room, "I believe our relief is here, time to leave".
A ladder came from the waiting transport and the Imperial personnel were ushered up into it. Rookie was the last of the Imperials to go, he was saddened to see his ship in such a state, manned by Rebels, he was more heartbroken than anything that he could have allowed such a thing to happen. He tried not to blame himself though, his superiors would do that job rather well for him if they ever got out of this mess. is mind went over the details of how it had happened, and he wondered if he could have somehow avoided it. They had just received a distress call, it was being transmitted using an encrypted Imperial code so they naturally assumed that it was an Imperial ship in distress. They investigated but upon reaching the co-ordinates found themselves in an asteroid field. There was indeed an Imperial ship there, it looked like a dreadnought, it was heavily damaged and in no way would it have been suitable for further flight. They scanned for life but found none. Then without warning from behind several of the asteroids flew at least 30 starfighters. Rookie ordered the Diablo to withdraw but as they turned the dreadnought exploded, causing heavy damage to their engines, which were finished off with torpedoes from the fighters. Squadrons of Ties were released, including Phoenix squadron, but were surprised and routed by a squad of A-wings that appeared suddenly, many Imperial craft were destroyed and those that weren't surrendered. The El Pollo Diablo was a well armed ship but could not have hoped to go toe-to-toe with over 2 full squadrons of B-Wings. They lost shields and were eventually disabled from a continuous Ion Cannon barrage. Then came that foul cruiser......
Rookie reviewed these facts over and over again in his mind as they travelled to the Rebel ship, however he always came to the same conclusion. They had once again managed to underestimate the strength and ingenuity of the Alliance and had paid the price. He looked round the cramped transport, his friends looked at him hopefully, Rookie turned to his XO who shrugged his shoulders and shook his head slightly. Evidently Desmo was having as much trouble devising a plan as he was.
Chief Pilot Ginyard stood up in his Tie Fighter, He took a deep breath and removed his helmet, it clicked out of place and as the connection between it and his optic nerve was severed the various information panels superimposed on his field of vision disappeared. He also fell over as his body attempted to compensate for the irregular g-forces in the small ship and he realised unpleasantly why they were required to wear an airtight suit when flying. He choked back the vomit as he regained his senses and the blood drained from his eyes, removing the red tint from his vision. The sensation passed after a few seconds and he pressed his face against the Plexiglas window of the ship. The tug was still above him, moving him and itself slowly towards the imposing shape that was the Calamari Cruiser. Thoughts flooded his mind as he started to panic.
"Come on, come on, come on think think think.............................................Right I have it!"
He looked up to where the emergency exit was, where the tug was magnetically attached to the ship. He thought for a moment, figuring there would be 2 guys up there, one monitoring the exit and one piloting the Tug. He drew his blaster, trying to figure out a way of getting past the guard and into the cockpit himself. A difficult situation, no mistake, but by no means impossible. Just as the Tug slowed to manouver into the hangar of the cruiser the solution presented itself to him. He remembered that both the Empire and the Rebels did not arm their pilots as standard, weapons were considered a risk as their delicate components would undoubtedly overload if the ship was damaged, if an energy discharge hit them then they would explode, it was as simple as that. The pilot used this to his advantage. He put his hands on the escape hatch and turned the locking mechanism, it opened quite easily, as did the outer door. As he moved the door to one side he was confronted by a confused looking rebel pilot who was indeed armed, with a heavy looking blaster rifle. He aimed it at the pilot's head as he enquired just what the hell the Imp thought he was doing, Ginyard responded cheerfully,
"You don't know the way to Coruscant do you, I seem to have taken a wrong turning somewhere."
As he had expected the Rebel took a swing at him with his rifle butt. The Chief Pilot saw it coming and dodged to the side, simultaneously drawing his blaster. The Rebel looked puzzled as he tried to bring his rifle back to bear and thought,
"They told us these lot would be unarmed!"
He did not have time to dwell on his mistake however as the Imperial pilot fired, catching him square in the face. Ginyard looked up at the man as he fired, watching the middle part of the his head disappear in a shower of bone, blood and brains. He heard the pilot begin to shout,
"Oh shit!! No, this can't be happening!!"
The Chief Pilot wasted no time however, he hoisted himself through the ceiling of his craft and quickly subdued the panicking man with a big left hook. The man went out, totally unconscious. Ginyard then switched uniforms with the man, who was in no fit state to offer resistance. He planted the man in the Tie Fighter whilst he flew the Tug inside the Cruiser. The flight deck was bristling with activity as columns of personnel from the El Pollo Diablo were marched away, fighters were being serviced etc. It all seemed so random thought Ginyard, not like the flight deck on the Diablo, now that was the picture of order! A place for everything and everything in its place. The engineers wouldn't have stood for anything like the ramshackle affair he was confronted with here. He saw the fellow members of Phoenix being taken out of their fighters, they seemed to be having some trouble removing Senior Flight Officer Mavaric from his Tie Advanced though, he kicked one of them out of it and onto the floor before they managed to drag him away. Elsewhere he saw Lieutenant Damage with his head down, looking decidedly depressed. Ginyard left the landing to the computer, he did not feel confident flying something that moved so slowly, he didn't trust assault gunboats and this was about 900 times slower. It was parked well though, and 2 soldiers came running towards him. They looked tired but also quite amused, they had been standing near the soldier that Mavaric felled and found the whole thing very comical. They greeted the Chief Pilot, totally unaware he was an Imperial pilot. To them he was simply another fly-boy, arrogant and self obsessed. They were polite though.
"Hey. What have you two got then?"
"Oh No!" thought Ginyard, he forgot they would be expecting a second person in the Tug with him. He quickly thought of something. "We got this Imp, he put up a fight so I knocked him out though. It's only me in here today, apparently not enough people were on duty at the time so they let me go on my own." He really really hoped this would throw them, it did.
"Wow well done man! Felled an Imperial pilot on your own, I’m impressed! And I thought all you guys were soft." The soldier was genuinely impressed with the man. They dragged the prone form of what they thought was an Imperial Pilot out of the ship and carried it down to the medical bay. The CP only hoped they wouldn't search the Tug for a while yet, he had a feeling that corpse would seem a little suspicious. He landed the Tug next to all the others, doing his best to make it blend in with the others and as it was exactly the same as them it did so rather well. He concealed his weapon as he walked off the flight deck, wondering what he should do next. Ginyard knew the crew must be rescued, but how? "Hmm," thought the man as he spotted a transport manned by a relaxed looking chap reading the news from a datapad and suddenly the answer came to him. He walked over to the small ship and knocked on the pilot's entrance hatch. The man opened it and nodded a greeting. Ginyard spoke first, his hand slowly reaching for his blaster,
"Say, that's a nice ship........."
The Commander of the Rebel Cruiser Meteor stood in his ready room on the bridge of his ship, he watched the various ship personnel being moved to the frigate he now had in his possession. He could feel that promotion he had been aching for. The man smiled as he watched the ships moving to and from the frigate, am Imperial frigate, captured. More of a moral victory rather than a strategic one, the frigate itself was insignificant but it was such a prominent vessel, with such a distinguished history. He could not help keeping the big grin on his face. At once his brow furrowed though and the Commander turned his head to track a small transport ship moving away, it did not seem to be travelling towards the El Pollo Diablo, he wondered what it was doing. He was still wondering when suddenly the small ship gained speed and moved into hyperspace. His first officer appeared on the comlink.
"Sir, I think you may want to know that an unauthorised launch has just taken place on the main flight deck, we aren't sure who was in it........but we have a man in custody wearing Imperial flight fatigues, claiming he is a member of the Alliance, if you know what I am getting at."
The Commander's heart sank. There was no way they would catch the ship now without the use of an Interdictor class ship, and the Rebellion only possessed one such vessel, which was several thousand light years away at the moment. He desperately thought of answers, he could think of only one, and it would have to be carried out very quickly. He spoke to his XO, who was still waiting patiently for orders.
"Right we only have one option, let's get out of here, get the frigate's hyperdrive working and follow us to the Xerxes system, they have a huge starship yard there, with a cargo bay both the ships will fit in. Its people are sympathetic to us but obedient to the Empire, I doubt the Navy would come looking for us in there."
"Yes sir! We can have that drive up in 30 minutes, may be a bit slow but faster than static."
The comlink switched off and the Commander stepped onto the bridge. With a certain reluctance he told the Navigation officer to plot a course to the Xerxes system, a journey of 4 hours. They managed to offload most of the necessary personnel to the Diablo before crawling to the hyperspace point. They set off, leaving the El Pollo Diablo some 15 minutes behind.
The transport was a comfortable ship, at least in the opinion of Ginyard_T_R, he took the opportunity to put his feet up and relax, all in all it had not been a good day and the last thing he needed now was to start worrying. The Rebel pilot sat next to him, bound but not gagged. Ginyard_T_R sparked up conversation,
"So, what's life like in the Alliance?" the man stared at him, then after a long time, spoke.
"Imperial dog, I will not lower myself by talking to you,"
Ginyard_T_R felt sorry for the man, he looked so fed up and here he was being taken to the nearest Imperial fleet base probably ending up spending the rest of the war in prison. Poor bugger.
"Alright alright, I don't need to be your friend okay? And I can see you don't want to be mine, fine. I just want to let you know for the record, I have nothing against the Rebellion, I do what I do because it's my job, not because I have a bloodlust or a grudge, which is why I am going to stop."
He powered down the hyperdrive and pointed the man towards the ship's escape pod, a small one-man affair with no shields or hyperdrive, but it was better than burning to death in a crippled transport.. The man walked towards it and Ginyard opened the hatch, the man got in. Before he left however he turned to his enemy, nodded in appreciation and said,
"thankyou, you lot aren't all the same are you?",
Ginyard shook his head, the man seemed satisfied. He again thanked his Imperial counterpart and left. The hyperdrive was reactivated and the small ship returned to its previous course. The pilot looked at the ETA monitor, 16 minutes it said. He took the opportunity to get his head down for a bit. It didn't take long for him to drop off, he had been busy and it wasn’t even midday yet.
"Stupid Rebellion!!"
Back on the Meteor, Mavaric was getting annoyed, he turned to Drice who had a very sober expression on his face.
"Bloody idiotic Rebellion" he continued. "I do not need this!! I have leave coming up, I have a damn holiday booked, cost me a fortune!!!"
Drice noticed the man had a twinge of fear in his voice, almost as if he was trying to mask something. He let it drop, the last thing he wanted was to kick off with the man.
"I have to get off this thing, got to get off, need to get off, let ME THE HELL OFF NOW!!!!!"
Mavaric pounded at the door, eyes bulging, face covered in sweat. A guard came to the door and told him to shut up or he would give him something to shout about. Mavaric crouched onto the floor, exhausted. Damage was close by, he turned to Mavaric,
"what's got your goat anyway? You seem a little more pissed off than the rest of us," Mavaric paused before answering. His voice was pretend calm,
"It's nothing, just let it go, this is my problem let me deal with it." Nothing more was said.
In the next cell Amber stared at DrBecks, who shared a puzzled look with her. They had all heard the commotion, none could figure out why it was being caused. GPZ ventured a guess.
"Maybe they're being tortured.... I've heard what the Rebels do to their prisoners, makes yer skin crawl it does". Amber wasn't impressed,
"Shut up GPZ, I don't wanna hear it okay?" He shut up.
Across the way Apocalypse and Taloo had formed a sort of escape committee, Steeler found it quite comical, she had heard some hair-brained schemes before, but these were something else. She listened to them plotting.
"What we do is use these concealed explosives we have in our shoes to blow open the door, then zap some guards with our emergency blasters, steal some uniforms and make good our escape"
Taloo seemed pleased with himself. Steeler felt compelled to point the flaw in their logic out,
"what you fail to realise is, as soon as you use the explosives on a locked door, every alarm on the ship will go off, according to what we know about these ships there are at least 1000 troops stationed here. Even if you made it out, how would you get off the ship? And what would happen to the rest of us? Executed most likely!"
She shook here head and lay down, satisfied that the escape committee was effectively shut down. It was, Taloo looked forlorn and slumped where he was sitting, arms folded across his chest. He told the grinning Apocalypse to stop looking so smug, his plan wasn't that bad.......
Meanwhile Rookie was getting impatient, he could only imagine what was being done to his frigate. He shook such thoughts from his weary head. It wouldn't help their cause to take such a pessimistic view. He looked at O'Drick, who was sleeping. Desmo was awake though, they exchanged looks.....then he sighed. Evidently he didn't have a plan either. O'Drick suddenly jerked awake, he stared at Rookie.
"Hey sir, did you see them bring Gin in with the rest of us?"
Rookie raised an eyebrow, looked at Desmo who shook his head. A slight smile touched his lips, things were looking up all of a sudden.
The hyperspace engines powered down and Ginyard awoke as the conventional engines took over. In front of him was a pretty sight, Imperial task force Vengeance. He was in luck, the Vengeance herself was in attendance. She indeed was a sight, 8km of pure Imperial power, dwarfing even the mighty Star Destroyers that flanked her. Ginyard had only seen her once before, during the Forxantia campaign some years previously. The Rebel Cruisers had been playing cat and mouse with her for 2 hours, using hit and run tactics with great success as the Vengeance was temporarily devoid of any starfighter escort. She had eventually carried the day however when Assault Gunboat group Talon performed a surprise attack on the lead Cruiser. They destroyed its engines despite taking murderous losses, immobilising the ship. As its companions moved to its assistance the Vengeance took the initiative, powering engines to full and ramming the cruiser head on. Ginyard remembered watching the other ships depart as the stricken cruiser was torn asunder by the Super Star Destroyer, its fiery explosion all but draining the mighty ships shield strength. The cruiser's companions did not stay long after, this sight causing them to think better of their involvement in the battle. Truly this was a ship to be feared, and respected. As he was indulging in this nostalgia however a voice sounded over the comm-line.
"Come in transport you have entered restricted airspace stand down and prepare to be boarded!"
The voice sounded unfriendly, and surprised. As Ginyard responded 4 Tie Fighters came to greet him, moving slowly, escorting an Assault Transport.
"Vengeance this is CP_Ginyard_T_R clearence code JK7942 Alpha."
The man on the other end told him to hold. Meanwhile the Assault transport attached itself to the smaller transport's hull, cutting through it. As the man on the comm-channel responded 6 stormtroopers descended into the craft. They seemed surprised to find a man wearing an Imperial uniform. One of them asked what the hell was going on.
"OK sorry about that pilot, your clearance checks out, welcome to task force Vengeance, we may as well bring you in now your craft is, erm, attached to ours."
The man closed the channel. Upon being informed about just what the hell was going on, the stormtroopers seemed a lot more relaxed. They sat down and just enjoyed the ride.
It wasn't really a long ride, he had dropped out of hyperspace worryingly close to the Vengeance, just out of cannon range thankfully. They entered the hangar which looked big enough to hold several Star destroyers or perhaps about 20 frigates. It was an awe-inspiring thing to see, there must have been 20000 men working there, and to Ginyard's utter astonishment there was a Strike cruiser and about 15 corvettes being serviced before his eyes. The ship slowed to a crawl as they passed through this huge place, and eventually they set down next to a row of similar looking transports. This place was very bust indeed, pilots, troops, engineers were all walking about attending to various tasks. Ginyard exited the transport and took a deep lungful of the sterilised air. It felt good. He looked up, the ceiling was high, high above him now and small craft darted above his head like so many flies. It was no less than an awesome site.
"Hey watch it!" came a voice from in front of him, he was so busy staring upwards Ginyard evidently hadn't seen the flight officer standing in front of him. He apologised and walked away.
The nearest exit wasn't far, and it lead to a cramped looking lift. Ginyard thought a moment, and didn't know where he was supposed to be going. He reflected a moment then realised he should probably go to the bridge, under the circumstances he felt the intrusion was necessary. Though evidently fast the lift took a long time getting to its destination and Ginyard began to feel queasy, the increase in G-force did not sit well. The wretched thing finally stopped however and Ginyard gladly got out of it. The outside of the lift was just a small corridor, no more than 6 feet long, with a door at the end. He walked towards the door and activated the comm panel located on the right hand side of the doorframe. A rather gruff officer answered.
"Who are you? State your business please,"
The man looked at Ginyard with contempt, he evidently thought that such a low ranking man did not deserve any of his time.
"I am Chief Pilot Ginyard_T_R sir, I come with grave news concerning an Imperial Frigate," the man's brow furrowed and he let out a short sound.
"hmm, I'd better let you in then," he said grudgingly.
The door opened and Ginyard was faced with a large busy control centre, dominated by a large central viewscreen from which a large part of the task force was visible. He did not feel altogether comfortable here, he was getting many odd looks from the men stationed here. Pilots generally never went to ship bridges and non flight related officers never generally went to flight decks, it was one of the unwritten rules. Seeing Ginyard's presence the captain of the ship was startled and walked over to him. He spoke first,
"Hmm, may I ask who you are?" Ginyard responded calmly despite the feeling of anxiety for his shipmates that had been steadily growing over the last hour or so,
"Sir my name is Chief Pilot Ginyard_T_R." The Captain addressed him again,
"and I am Captain Senn, what is your business here?" Ginyard readily answered,
"Sir my ship, the frigate El Pollo Diablo, was attacked about an hour ago by the Rebels and was captured, all the crew have been taken prisoner sir,"
The Captain raised an eyebrow as he mulled the situation over, after a few seconds he spoke again.
"Pilot thank you for bringing this to my attention, I know the Diablo, a fine ship, I will not allow this situation to continue I assure you, where is it's last known position maybe we can still catch it,"
Ginyard promptly gave the co-ordinates and preparations for hyperspace were made. All the airlocks were closed and sealed quickly and the ship was underway within 3 minutes. Ginyard was impressed, starship Captains had generally been considered to be slow and ponderous people, the brash nature of Senn changed his mind though, he had not even asked for high command's approval for the mission let alone waited for it to be given. It was a good choice though, every second wasted lowered the chance of the Diablo being located. The Interdictor cruiser Compellor had also joined them along with several troop carrying corvettes, without a doubt the El Pollo Diablo would be under tight security and a large boarding operation would be needed to retake it. Ginyard could hear the engines even from here, he estimated their power to be at least 20 times that of a Star Destroyer, he wished he could take a look but their design and configuration were both highly classified along with information detailing the ship's shield system. Both were considered to be at the height of current technology and utterly priceless. Ginyard entertained the thought of the Rebellion constructing a ship like this using stolen plans, carrying 90 squadrons of fighters, it was frightening. When he came out of this daydream he found that Senn was still talking to him, and the worst thing happened, Senn finished with,
"Well?". Ginyard thought,
"Oh yes sir I totally agree," it seemed to work.
"Glad we understand each other Mr Ginyard, we board the cruiser and bust the crew out, destroy the foul thing and THEN retake the Diablo, if we do that first they may use the men from the Diablo as hostages, and that would be unfortunate..."
"Oh indeed it would," responded Ginyard, glad that he had scraped his way out of that one.
The Vengeance moved effortlessly through hyperspace for the next hour or so, its huge engines giving off enough heat and radiation to strip a small starship of shield in a matter of seconds. The great behemoth reached its stopping point and dropped out of hyperspace where the Diablo was last reported to have been seen. Ginyard looked through the bridge's huge front viewcreen and saw the full magnitude of the ship, several pieces of space debris moving slowly towards it as it moved.
"This thing is creating a small gravity well!" thought Ginyard, rather taken aback. Something in the distance also caught his eye, a sort of space ship, or was it a structure?
"Would a structure move like that?" He added to himself.
He turned and looked at the Captain, who was visible concerned. He met Ginayard's gaze with a look, one that said "This isn't going to be pretty".
Ginyard once again stared out of the viewscreen and saw the ships had got much closer than they were before. He could now count them, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. 20! 20 ships, they looked like corvettes! The captain was already barking orders to his subordinates, loudly and clearly. They scurried about their various tasks, totally oblivious to the black suited pilot standing in the middle of their bridge, staring at rapidly moving ships with a look of awe on his face. Ginyard had guessed what they were, and he had seen them before. The captain expressed the very thing Ginyard was thinking,
"Those ships are carrying explosives!! Get us out of the way, NOW!!"
The ship moved as hard as it could, its massive engines surging with power at the captain's command. As Ginyard watched the ships move over the vengeance's superstructure he saw its mighty batteries come into life. Volley after volley of green energy began to pour into the corvettes, but their shields held! Blue warheads flashed into view and smashed into the ships with righteous fury as wave upon wave of every conceivable starfighter appeared to pummel the Kamikaze ships. As they crossed the ship many of them began to shudder as their hulls were torn asunder by continued fire. As one, 6 of the ships exploded, sparking off a chain reaction with all but 3 of the rest. The explosion hit the bridge with full force, the viewscreen filling with a vision of flame. Several computer terminals burst apart, gouging their operators with white hot plasma. The screams were nearly drowned out by the captain, still giving orders. Ginyard had been knocked off his feet and was struggling to get up, he looked down and saw that his left leg had been badly burned by an explosion. He could no longer hear the noise everyone else heard, all he could now hear was the sound of his own heart beating loudly in his ears. The rhythmic pounding sent Ginyard's head spinning, and everything appeared to be moving in slow motion. Ginyard looked down again and saw a pool of blood, not only had his leg been burned, but a piece of shrapnel had torn through his right arm, smashing the bone and almost severing the limb. he stared at the viewscreen again, unable to stand, and saw 1 massively damaged corvette pass overhead. The next noise was clearly heard by all, even the shell-shocked Ginyard. A fearsome rending sound shuddered through the bridge as the corvette crashed into a shield generator, combusting violently. Outside, the bridge shield shimmered violently in an attempt to withstand the explosion. Ginyard had already passed out before this though, his last thought was of a steel shard flying through the head of one of the comm operators, splattering his companion with dark gore.
Slowly, his eyes opened, slowly and painfully. Movement was definitely felt, rapid movement. A throbbing accompanied it as well, still the rhythmic thud of his own heart. A man was there, bandaged and bloodied, shouting at Ginyard. It was the captain, and much to his horror Ginyard was still on the battered bridge. medical teams ran to those who showed signs of life, trying desperately to treat the wounded, and comfort the dying. Ginyard looked at his arm to find it in a crude splint and bandage, and his leg wrapped in a metal foil sheet. He could not get up still though he desperately wanted to get away from the carnage, his arm was unable to move and his leg hurt with a passion every time Ginyard tried to get it into motion. He turned his head to the side and saw the scale of the aftermath of what had happened. Damage control teams raced around putting out fires and tying up live electrics. Everywhere groaning people were laid out, and the floor was slick with blood. The captain was standing looking through what was left of the viewscreen, 80% of it being smashed beyond repair. The man was still shouting at his and with an effort Ginyard focused on his voice.
"Are you alright? Are you alright?" Ginyard shook his head slowly in response.
"Dammit, dammit! We got the shields up too late, the damage was already done by then! How did they know we were coming??" The Captain put his head in his hands and wiped the sweat from his crimson face. Ginyard could not hear the rest of his rantings as he again passed out, probably due to the volume of painkillers circulating around his body.
Bright light filled his view as he woke again, bright light and another sound, the low murmur of distant voices. He opened his eyes and saw a large room, filled with medical personnel, and wounded, so many wounded people. A man, maybe a doctor, was walking towards Ginyard quickly. He spoke as he reached his bedside,
"Are you alright friend? That was a close one, we thought we had lost you there, not long after you got out the whole bridge caught fire, we had to decompress the entire thing to extinguish it," the man sounded relieved. "Count yourself lucky pilot, we lost a lot of people there." Before he could continue Ginyard spoke, in a laboured and painful voice, he tried but it was all he could muster.
"How...many.........casualties...were there?" The doctor sighed,
"early figures suggest as many as 45 dead and 200 wounded, 12 remain in a serious condition."
Ginyard groaned and fell asleep again, the painkilling drugs rendering him totally incapable of doing anything else.
He awoke feeling much better indeed, the power of medical science was working its wonders. A medical droid stood near him, physically knitting the bone in his arm back together again. The burns on his leg had been got rid of and the arm was nearly finished. The captain was also there, he was again fighting fit. He spoke to Ginyard, his voice still sounded a bit fuzzy,
"Pilot, as you may have noticed we were attacked by kamikaze ships, remote piloted and laden with explosives." He took a breath and cleared his throat. "We survived that one," he lowered his voice, "but that was too close, without the bridge this ship would have been severely compromised." Ginyard listened to the man's tone of voice, and understood "compromised?" to mean the same as dead in the water. He looked at the captain, astonished, the man returned his gaze and nodded slightly.
"Was it THAT bad?" whispered Ginyard, genuinely puzzled.
"It was, this class of ship is too dependant on its bridge, I plan to raise that point with the designers in Kuat Drive Yards. Ginyard thought for a moment,
"But sir, why are you telling me all this?"
The captain took a step closer to the pilot, he raised an eyebrow and smiled,
Rookie was not pleased at all. They had heard noises about half an hour ago, then all the lights went dim, the engines stopped and the heating got turned right the way down. He was cold and annoyed and worst of all Desmo was making an absolute sod of a racket, would he not shut up snoring?? He had been sleeping for the past two hours and it was driving him spare. O'Drick was also sleeping, but not making a noise. He continued to look at Desmo, he began to sound like a rusty chainsaw. Eventually annoyance got the better of Rookie, he drew a breath and hollered at the subject of his irritation,
"Stop that snoring now pilot, and that is an order!!!!!!", Desmo quickly snapped to a groggy sort of attention,
"Er, yes sir, anything you say sir,"
Satisfied of the man's undivided attention Rookie expressed his concern about the lack of heating and lighting. Desmo expressed his agreement with a hearty, "Hmmmm," accompanied with an extreme furrowing of the brow. He voiced his theory on the subject,
"Seems to me sir that we have either stopped or had a massive systems malfunction, either way its bloody cold."
Rookie would have agreed unreservedly but for the intervention of O'Drick, who had woken up when he heard Rookie bellowing.
"Sir if I could venture an idea, I believe we may have docked, just before we stopped I felt a slight shuddering, I'm convinced that it was docking clamps attaching to our hull."
Rookie seemed more concerned now, if they had docked at a Rebel Base of some sort, it would be very hard for them to get out in anything other than a prison ship.
"I still can't figure out where Ginyard is" He added.
Outside the ship the Captain of the Rebel Cruiser Meteor looked at the Nebulon B Frigate El Pollo Diablo and smiled to himself. His eyes glanced around the cargo bay of the pirate asteroid hangar, all lit up and utterly silent. It was late and only the night shift were down there, there wasn't much traffic today, it had all been diverted away since news of the frigate arriving had reached them. The pirates had grumbled until the Alliance offered them a huge amount in compensation. The Captain distrusted the criminal pirates but the Rebellion needed all the friends it could possibly get and these men were the best people in the galaxy at keeping things hidden from the Empire. He wondered if the Empire had encountered the surprise they left for them. If any of the Diablo's personnel had got away and led the Imperials towards their location, that would teach them. The man stepped away from the observation tower and proceeded to the barracks. His interrogation team stood there, he looked them over and narrowed his eyes,
"Come on you lot, let's break those Imperial dogs,".
Meanwhile the Vengeance lay still in space, down for extensive bridge repairs. Several ships had been dispatched as a makeshift defensive wall in case of trouble and Ginyard sat in the cockpit of Tie Advanced Kappa II. Joining the Kappa’s today were Gunboat group Talon, Tie Advanced group Avenger, Assault Transport group Sigma consisting of no less than 60 ships and just in, 4 brand new missile boats, designated group Lambda. The odd thing was, they had been given only 1 order, proceed to the given co-ordinates and further instructions will be given en route. It all seemed suspect to Ginyard but he was used to following orders, not questioning them. The transports set off first, entering hyperspace just as the fighters were given the order to get moving. Ginyard took off and exited the hangar, setting throttle to full power and readying the hyperspace drive. He flexed his right hand and moved his arm, only a slight pain and stiffness remained, sudden movements would present no problems he surmised. He was about to enter hyperspace when his main order display sprang into life, text being reeled onto it quickly. He stared at the writing, eyes slowly widening.
"Pilots, none of you need to know why you are about to do this mission, so I will keep this short. In the Arcanus system there is a huge base, it has posed no threat to the Empire previously but has recently been suspected with harbouring Rebel criminals. Your orders are as follows.
1. Neutralise any and all fighter opposition.
2. Transport group Sigma MUST complete mission.
3. Any additional ships must complete their mission.
4. Eliminate all enemy craft without exception.
Ginyard was puzzled with order number 3. Then it clicked, additional ships? It could only be the Diablo! It must be! But how did they find it so quickly? Have they just taken an educated guess? Or is it something else? He shook these questions from his mind as they approached their stopping point, but remained puzzled as to how they located his home ship, could it be a defector?? A rebel defector, the very idea was unheard of. Presently the blue hyperspace tunnel broke down into white lines as the hyperdrive powered down. He readied the fighter for combat.
"What?"
Where were the fighters? No enemy fighters? This was unusual, pirate bases always had fighters protecting them, disguised as civilian ones. Still there was just a base, a large jagged asteroid not 10-km from their position, just sitting there stationary, no glow of lights, no transports hauling cargo. Nothing. Ginyard was feeling very reserved about this, Intel had said that there was to be a fighter opposition. Imperial intelligence was not noted for being wrong.
"Pilots, stay vigilant, something has gone seriously fubar here,"
The flight leader sounded like the rest of them felt, nervous. They continued to fly towards the asteroid at full pace, but tightened formation as a precautionary measure.
The Interrogation team entered the cell, their stern faces putting Desmo, Rookie and O'Drick at some considerable unease. The captain they had all come to dislike was with the 5 goons.
"Well looks like we didn't get all of you fools did we? Seems as though one of your number was fortunate enough to escape our clutches, he's come back with a small group of fighters. Don't worry though, we thought this might happen, and we have a surprise planned for them."
Rookie opened his mouth to speak but was immediately put on his back by a huge roundhouse punch from the biggest of the Rebel troops. He stepped back, eyeing the other 2, waiting for an excuse to put them out as well. None came to his disappointment and he slunk back to his former position. Rookie hoisted himself back up and stared directly into the captain's eyes. What was that in them, fear? Or anticipation? Rookie hoped for the former. He sat back down as the goons advanced on them, it was about this time that they revealed what they had been carrying, strange devices, Rookie's eyes opened wide, they seemed to be electrically charged, the Captain then Inquired as to the whereabouts of certain Imperial research facilities...
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"Everyone get those fighters now, 6 stay with the transports, don't leave them alone!"
Standard attack formation was formed. The enemy were only Z-95 fighters but there were at least 12, more than twice as many as there were Imperial fighters. 3km now, wouldn't be long. 2.5km, what?
"BREAK NOW!!!! Missiles, DIVE DIVE DIVE!!!!"
The fighters released a huge salvo of missiles at extreme range, and suddenly the Imperial pilots found themselves with 10 separate warheads targeting each of them. As they twisted, trying to dodge the persistent things, 6 reported in with news,
"It's the Meteor sir, its the damn Meteor!!!!"
The pilots were taken aback, this was not a good sign, but at least they now knew that this was undoubtedly the location of the Diablo. Ginyard briefly scanned his threat display, the Meteor was bearing down on Sigma group, 4km and closing. It began releasing fighters as the last of the pilots shook the last of the warheads off his tail. Nobody had been hit, the things were rather slow compared to a Tie Advanced. It was now clear that the fighters were merely a diversionary measure to draw the attention away from the transports, that were almost in range of the facility.
"Ginyard, you and Rodriguez take those Z's, Ellland, Roberts, you're with me."
The flight leader shot off to protect the transports and Ginyard sped away to keep the fighters at bay. The odds were not very good at all, being as they were 6-1 against the Imperials, but they were better pilots and were in superior craft to the obsolete ones the Pirates were in. The odds were soon made more even however thanks to a volley of fire from Ginyard's craft, going head to head with 3 of the opposing craft, he caught one of them with several shots, ripping its wing off and igniting the internal oxygen supply, causing it to violently combust. At close quarters however the pirates were able to use their numerical advantage to great effect, making it so both the Imperial pilots were constantly pinned by a pursuing fighter. Meanwhile at the other end of the battlefield things were going badly. The rebels had plenty of A-wings to keep the Imperial fighters pinned down and there were a wide range of fighters pummelling the transports. They did however not have time to stop them from firing all their warheads off, which resulted in all but 4 of the dog-fighting craft to break off and attempt to shoot down the missiles, in which time the Imperials managed to rally and spring upon these craft, wiping many of them out before they got their speed up and went back to engaging the fighters. However it was simply too much for the assault transports, the continued pounding had taken its toll. As one the escape pods launched, their mother craft exploding several seconds afterwards.
A couple of fighters fancied these as easy targets but they both proved too small to hit and too close to their hyperspace points for them to have a good go. They accelerated quickly and left the fighters to face the onslaught on a combined Rebel-Pirate force. Ginyard again tried the subspace radio no luck, their long-range comms ad been jammed ever since the pirate base had raised shields. As short range communications went he wished they had been jammed as well as one by one he heard the shouts of those engaging the Rebels, then eerie static. After some minutes only he and his wingman remained, still managing to grapple with 7 enemy ships. With the remaining rebels bearing down on them however they would not be able to last much longer. It was Rodriguez who had the idea,
"Ginyard, we got one chance, all power to engines, try to head for that base, i reckon we can make it just after those rockets collide with it",
Ginyard glanced at the line of rockets closing in on the base, Rodriguez was right, providing the inner doors weren’t made of some weird metal they should be able to blast through them.
"Right full engines, NOW!"
The pair accelerated quickly and moved off, easily shaking their pursuers, one of who was so bemused by the sight of a ship moving so fast in turning to have a look at it he neglected to remember that another fighter was directly in front of him, he turned back to be confronted with a view of the doomed ship, moving rapidly towards it. He narrowed his eyes as his brain tried to figure out what to do, unfortunately just as it did so some 0.20 seconds later he became separated from it, as indeed he and his victim became separated with everything involved with the universe as we know it. The remaining 5 gave chase but lost ground at a phenomenally rapid pace, leaving the 2 Imperial ships free from imminent danger. They formed up and reduced speed, lining themselves up to the huge blast doors of the pirate base. As the rockets from the deceased transports hit the base the pilots opened up with everything their small ships could muster. A huge volley of laser smashed against the doors, first denting and eventually melting a ship sized hole into them. They had to go to 10% speed to give enough distance to batter the inner doors into submission but they made it, just barely. The starfighters flew into the hangar much to the surprise of the ground crew that were moving towards the Diablo. Ginyard looked around the huge area that was dominated by the frigate, and flew down to the ground crew to get an idea at what they were up to whilst Rodriguez flew around firing at several turbolasers that were coming online. Ginyard slowed right down to get a good look, he swept at low altitude causing the men to drop to the ground. He recognised their uniforms, they were the Rebel elite troops. Looking for a solution something caught his eye, Ginyard switched to his last missile and targeted a control room above him. If the control for the airlock force field was anywhere chances are it would be here. Ginyard fired, the missile sped along quickly and exploded, smashing the room and obliterating everyone inside. He increased throttle to compensate for the rush of air that hit him. Ginyard looked down and saw the troops run for something to hold onto, it was no use. The ones not already inside the Diablo were taken off their feet and either smashed into the giant hangar doors or were blown into space. Even when the backup field came up there were men being carried through the air, who promptly and rather messily fell.
Ginyard looked up, his wingman was in trouble, a turbolaser had unexpectedly come online directly behind him and shot one of his wings to pieces. The small craft was spiralling down quickly and Rodruigez was shouting for help. It was soon halted however as the ship hit a crate of explosives and exploded. Ginyard brought himself down to land, not an easy feat as the Tie Advanced was not really designed for landings such as this. He turned the throttle to nothing and glided down, the angle had to be just right for this to work... Ginyard closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the ship hit the steel floor, it skidded and grinded its way along quickly and totally uncontrollably. As it began to slow down Ginyard eased his eyes open, half expecting a steel pole to be jutting into his chest or his legs crushed. From the lack of blood he saw he assumed himself to be uninjured but looking through the front window he saw that this was the least of his worries, for a large wall was moving rapidly closer. In a snap judgement he did the only thing he could, but was probably not the wisest all the same. Ginyard's arm jerked downwards and pulled the manual ejection lever, and the pilot’s chair catapulted itself out of the ship and upwards. It continued to move upwards and Ginyard became filled with a sense of dread, in the time he had left he looked down and saw the ground move quickly away from him, he had no idea how far up he was but guessed it was enough to leave his mark on the floor if he connected with it. The Tie Advanced meanwhile had defied all logic and skidded to a stop inches before hitting the wall, making Ginyard's present situation all the more infuriating. Whilst he was cursing in his mind he felt the chair lose momentum and he decided something needed to be done. He looked up and saw his chance, a metal gantry hung above his head and it was coming into reach. He managed to stand up on the chair with some difficulty and a lot of disorientation and as it began its Decent he jumped. His left hand touched the guard rail whilst the right missed totally and dropped to his side, fairly uselessly. He hadn't realised the chair would move him this high up, he accidentally looked down and became rather nauseous, the floor was at least 700 metres below him. The Diablo loomed to his left and to his right were the smouldering remains of the control centre he smashed. His grip was slipping so he made a last ditch effort to raise himself up, he flung his right arm upwards and luckily managed to find some purchase in the form of another part of the guardrail. He began to haul himself up, thanking the Emperor that he had taken up weight training the previous year. Also out of the corner of his eye he noticed something come from the ceiling, a turbolaser! It was a short distance away and began tracking for targets. As he swung his legs onto the gantry and crawled all the way onto it the thing noticed him. It turned to track him and began to emit a high pitched pinging noise as it readied itself for firing.
Ginyard got up and began to run, to his good fortune he also saw that the gantry led to one of the Diablo's many airlocks. He still had his clearance code and if he could make it into there then he would be safe. Ginyard pounded along the metal structure, running for all he was worth with the turbolaser firing and narrowly missing all the time. As he was not 10 feet from the airlock the laser cannon hit the gantry itself just in front of him and smashed it to pieces. Ginyard could not stop now or he would be shot to pieces so he used the momentum from his running to attempt a jump. He launched himself off the platform and over the abyss. The jump was a good one, and just enough to carry him over the gap. He ducked down as the gun fired again at him and he hit the door open switch. He shouted his clearance code at it and the thing opened. Just in time in fact as the instant he scrambled through the door the weakened gantry gave way and fell clattering to the ground. He shut the door and lay there, gasping for breath. His first task was complete though, he was on the Diablo.
After some minutes he readied his blaster and headed through the inner airlock. The sight was a familiar one and uplifted Ginyard's spirit. He was right in the middle of the living quarter area, and recognised this airlock as the same one he had sent that Wookie through a few weeks before. He moved slowly along, heading for his own quarters, where he kept his heavy weapons. It was not far and he quickly reached the room, opening it with his handprint. Everything was there as he had left it, a mess as usual. Ginyard looked underneath his bed and found what he was looking for. He picked up his type-9 blaster rifle and sniper scope. He fitted the scope to the weapon and shouldered it, realising that a pistol was the more logical weapon of choice for ship to ship fighting. This part of the ship was unsurprisingly empty, it would no doubt have already been searched thoroughly and there wouldn’t be any point to assigning anything more than a light guard to it. Ginyard still proceeded quietly however, slowly making his way down to the detention cells, the most logical place to house the Diablo's crew as it was doubtful they would have had the opportunity to transfer the prisoners to a prison ship yet. For a while Ginyard creeped along the ship, he knew it like the back of his hand, but the brig was still a fair way off. He could not risk detection by using the lifts either so instead he had to find alternative means. He walked towards a ventilation shaft that he knew led to the central oxygen processor, only 1 deck above the brig. As he unhooked the vent from its housings however voices came from his left and 2 rebel soldiers walked casually towards him. Ginyard hid behind a bulkhead and waited until they had left, however as they passed near to him one of them turned his head and spotted Ginyard out of the corner of his eye. He quickly withdrew his blaster but the Imperial training was more efficient than the Rebellion's own. As he brought his rifle across his chest he stopped and dropped to the ground, dead. To Ginyard things seemed to be going in slow motion, he saw the man drop and his colleague pivot towards him, he saw the shock in his eyes as the soldier saw Ginyard cast in shadow behind the bulkhead, his tight fitting flight suit camouflaging his body enough to confuse the man. A pull of the trigger and it was over, the second man stood a moment, his weapon falling from his hands. His body waited a second and crumpled onto the floor, directly onto his partner's corpse. Ginyard sank his head and fell to the floor. If his mission wasn't so important he probably wouldn’t have got up again, the look in the dead man's eyes was appalling, he could not rid his mind of it. He managed to stand and lay the men out in the traditional fashion, with weapons lying alongside them.
If he had believed in any God he would have offered a prayer, but he set to work on the vent again. It came off easily enough and he climbed into it. There was a sense of coldness that increased the more he slid down the shaft, a coldness that became a freezing sensation that chilled him to the very core. As the dark became lighter the cold came to a head, a mind numbing chill that made his breathing painful and his sweat crystallise. The oxygen processors stood before him, gigantic fans spinning wildly and protected by force fields. He ran past them, rushing to get out of the freezer-like conditions. The exit was not hard to find, a small maintenance hatch in the floor leading downwards, he could not unlock it so the blaster rifle was needed. The high-energy weapon made a mockery of the things locks and he climbed down. The heat was instantly felt, or rather the lessening of the cold. Stepping off the ladder at the bottom Ginyard crawled along one of the many maintenance shafts, and after a few minutes reached his destination. He unlocked the hatch with his handprint and moved out, looking cautiously as he did so. The corridor was long and had cells on either side, at least 100 of them in total. He gripped his firearm and looked out for guards. His search was rewarded as he saw a guard outpost at the end of the corridor and to the left. There appeared to be at least 7 Rebel officers there, manning the security terminals, and 10 guards keeping watch and conducting patrols. The odds were too great to amount a direct offensive so Ginyard was forced to use his brain. The solution was risky but had a chance. Aiming upwards he shot a security laser with his rifle, knocking it out. As he huddled back into the tunnel the Rebels responded in the way he thought they would, an officer and a soldier running towards the gun to see what had happened. Ginyard was undetected and quickly made his move, shooting the soldier in the leg and running to quickly grab and disarm the officer. He got the woman in a headlock and kicked her blaster away from her whilst the soldier writhed in pain. He shouted to the rest of the people,
"open the door or she dies and this soldier gets executed! Don't try to use the security lasers, if you do they die!"
The group of people looked stunned, but surprisingly complied, one of the officers opening the doors but taking the trouble to sound the alarm as well. Klaxons wailed and the turbolasers started up, much to Ginyard's relief. The Rebels had not realised that the guns were not directly controlled by anyone instead they fired upon anyone who was not an Imperial citizen. Every person in range of the guns would be scanned and if their DNA was not found on record then they would be targeted. The guns began to move and as one they poured fire into every rebel in the area, excluding the one Ginyard was holding as he quickly threw her into a cell along with the wounded man and closed the door manually. He turned around and smiled as he saw the crew of the Diablo rush out of their cells. He saluted his CO Rookie who smiled back at him,
"We were wondering where you had got to Ginyard!" He exclaimed. "I got a bit tied up Sir,"
Ginyard responded. The small arms cabinet at the end of the room was quickly stripped bare by the stormtroopers who were still fully armoured. They all ran off separating into their teams. They knew EXACTLY what to do, they were highly trained in this sort of operation. Everyone else who could locate a weapon stood with Phoenix Squadron whilst the others were ordered to go back into the cells and they were locked in.
As Ginyard stood talking to his comrades he got a message from the Star Destroyer N'agaroth which had just arrived in the area along with the interdictor Grappler.
"Where are you pilot?" asked the Captain, "Did you eject or something, where are you?"
Ginyard responded cheerfully,
"I'm onboard the El Pollo Diablo sir, the crew are free, its only a matter of time now"
"Well get back here quickly pilot, we've got one hell of a rebel force inbound, I reckon we have 5 minutes before its in range, then we are off!"
5 minutes? That was not a lot of time at all. So Ginyard and company made their way to the bridge. There were bodies all over the place, lots of rebel soldiers but very few stormtroopers. It was a testament to Imperial training and equipment. The way was very clear, the decks having been ruthlessly swept clear or Rebels. Near the bridge however they encountered a small Rebel position. The Initial assault forced them to retreat, suffering no casualties but looking back they saw Taloo, lying on the floor, seriously wounded. The rebels had them covered nicely now, if any of them tried to move in they would be promptly wasted by the massed guns. Unfortunately for the rebels their entire force of about 25 men was all covering this particular front. Apparently they were expecting the group to constitute the entire group of escapees. Ginyard peered round the corner to observe any weakness in their position when behind them he saw 5 stormtroopers advancing on them. He immediately told the rest of them to fire and make a lot of noise to distract the troops, it worked. 10 seconds later Ginyard looked round the corner and saw 5 troopers there, standing over the bodies of 7 Rebels and searching the ones who had surrendered. Unsurprisingly the bridge was locked tight but the troopers as always had the solution. Detonation charges were placed on the door and made a mockery of them. The troopers advanced through the smoke onto the bridge followed by Phoenix Squadron. There were defensive positions set up and they caught the troopers by surprise, 2 were killed outright and the rest were wounded by the rebels within the first 5 seconds. They did not expect any more however and began to relax as Phoenix made their way into the room. Their hesitation proved fatal, Ginyard had already shot 2 with his sniper rifle before they realised what was happening.
Phoenix charged in with a possessed fury, the Rebels who were left quickly surrendering. Rookie stood face to face with the Captain of the meteor, from the looks of things the Diablo was ready for departure.
"Well well Captain, I do believe we meet again. Tell me how is it being on the receiving end of Imperial Vengeance?"
The Captain made no answer and remained silent as he was escorted to the detention area along with all the other Rebels on the bridge. Quickly joined by the rest of the officers the Diablo was readied to go. Its shields were raised and the internal security came online, ensuring any more surviving Rebels on board would find life very difficult. Rookie looked outside and saw the ship being fired upon by the internal security lasers, it had no effect though, they were far too low power to do anything to such a large ship.
"Alright!" Said Rookie, "Get us the hell out of this place!"
His order was readily carried out, the Diablo moving towards the exit, its massed laser batteries breaching the airlocks enough to do so. Meanwhile Ginyard manned the Comm system in the absence of the Comm officer, who was still on his way.
"Sir!" he said, "Message from the N'agaroth! They say they are launching assault transports to destroy this hangar base, the rebels are too close and they have to go now, Captain says, keep those shields up!!"
"Alright!!" Said Rookie over the internal comm system, "Brace for impact, this place is going to heat up really quickly!"
It was several seconds before anything was felt, just enough time to bring the shields fully online. The hangar suddenly erupted, huge explosions ripping out huge sections of wall, causing chain reactions with ammo crates and supplies. Soon the whole place was an inferno. The Diablo just moving out of the outer doors when the whole place went up, the ship shuddered violently and the shields began to buckle. Then just as soon as it started it stopped, the debris clearing slightly and revealing nothing. Where the base had stood now was nothing, just a few assault transports moving to land on the Diablo's flight deck. Rookie watched the dust clear and saw what he hoped he wouldn’t see, four Heavy rebel starships moving to intercept but worse was the huge number of B- wings moving towards them. The assault transports had landed and everything was set to go.
"Helmsman, how long 'till hyper?" asked Rookie.
"10 seconds sir" replied the helmsman. It was the worst 10 seconds of Rookie's life, already the torpedoes were moving towards them quickly.
"Impact imminent sir!" Shouted another helmsman.
The torpedoes were on the verge of smashing the bridge to nothing when suddenly they started moving away, first slowly then faster and faster, and then nothing, just a blue tunnel of hyperspace. Rookie sighed, totally relieved. Ginyard also sighed, totally worn out. As they came out of hyperspace near the Vengeance, Rookie asked Ginyard what the messages they were being sent were saying. Ginyard didn't respond, Rookie looked at him and laughed quietly to himself. He was sitting with his head laying on his arms on the console, fast asleep. Rookie walked away from the bridge, leaving it in the capable hands of Steeler. He was on his way to the brig, very much looking forward to having words with that Captain. He also went to visit Taloo in the sick bay, whose injuries were going to leave him out of active service for a while at least. He reflected on the activities of the last 2 days or so and realised how close they came to internment in a prison camp, and the glorious El Pollo Diablo being part of the Alliance. He swore to himself he would never allow this to happen again, Phoenix would make sure of that.
Author: SP Ginyard_T_R
Editor: LtJ Amber
The Author and Editor have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all information in this story. All information is current to 23/02/2000 and we can accept no responsibility for any loss or inconvenience sustained by any reader as a result of its information or advice.