Daalang Sector
The ship had gone dark twelve standard hours ago, hanging on the fringes of the Daalang System. Its array of sensors absorbing any signal coming from the pinprick that was the planet Daalang. The ships droid brains scanning, cataloging and relaying every whisper from the space around them to central. That was the trick, matching the datastreams and duplicating the information, so that the original went on its way while its twin went another. It wasn’t possible without the cognitive modules running tandem with the ships computer.
There was simply too much information, coming too fast, to do it manually or to trust a single system. Most of it, more than 90% at least, would be chaff. Mundane. But that wasn’t her call to make, she would never see the contents of any of the thousands of datastreams she had intercepted. Not until it fell to her, or one of the others, to act on Centrals findings.
“You’ll know, when you know.” her instructor had said. As true as that had been since her graduation and her first mission, it didn’t grant her anymore patience for the waiting game that occupied the majority of her assignments.
A sigh slipped from her lips a heartbeat before her com-system gave a single ping and went dead. “About time..” she muttered as her hands danced across the ships controls and brought her to life before slipping away into hyperspace.
It wasn’t a long jump, less than half an hour, the larger chunk would be spent under sub-light moving away from the hyperspace route into the dead zone where her ship would link up with a Division com-buoy and she could call home and find out why she’d had her nose stuck up Daalangs skirt for a month and change.
She pulled into range and according to her scanners, there wasn’t anything but stardust and solar winds. Just black as far as the eye could see. Nevertheless she pinged with the designated protocol and her com-system came to life, moving through each stage of the connection and security that came with it before it announced she had a secure line.
“Vital Spark, reporting in.”
Somewhere off the Trellen Trade Route
The ceiling had been spinning for awhile. He couldn’t remember a time in the last month where something hadn’t, if he were honest. He only functioned by virtue of a carefully, and often disregarded, balanced cocktail of drugs and alcohol that took the edge of each other so that he could at least form a thought, shoot straight and not fall over.
Gods be damned he loved being a pirate. The girls, the guys, the aliens of indiscernible gender. Intoxication on the level he’d never dreamed of, or thought possible, before he’d signed on with the crew. It was a rockstar life, burning twice as bright as any other asshole out there living honestly.
There was always noise on the ship, it came with the crew. It seemed like everyday there was a party or a scrap, the latter accompanying the former, but as he sat up on the edge of his bunk he couldn’t hear a thing aside from his upstairs neighbours gentle snores.
He hammered a fist into the underside of the top bunk and the snoring stopped abruptly to be replaced with weak insults and oaths of vengeance. “Something's going down..” was all he said to his bleary eyed crewmate and walked out into the corridor and then the rec-area.
The entire crew was there, their backs to him, all standing rapt with attention and nerves. He moved his way into the crowd for a better look at the spectacle and got three bodies deep before a voice carried over them.
“This is it lads, the big score. The one that’ll make us legends,” a cheer rippled across the crowd and he got to the front just in time to see the craggy reptilian face of Pirate Admiral Hatak Korr before he continued. “The one that’ll make us rich!” the blue hue of holographic communication did little to dim the infectious excitement in his dark Trandoshan eyes. “We’re goin’ for glory, we’re goin’ to stick it to the Empire, the Alliance, the Sith, The Jedi. We’re gonna stick it to our dear mums that said we’d never amount anything!” people around him laughed and he couldn’t help but get caught up in the electric, giddy, atmosphere. “I’ll see you on the other side of history you filthy degenerates!” the hologram winked out on the Admirals fang willed grin and the room immediately broke into a murmur of speculation.
“Oi! OI! Shut the frak up!” the Captain screamed, climbing onto one of the mess tables so she could be seen. “You heard the man. This is the big one. I don’t want any screw ups, I don’t want any of you sorry sacks of banthacrap dying before we become nobility. So you have a 24 pass; go screw your brains out, get your head straight and then get back here. That's it, piss off.” and that was it, the Captain climbed down, the crew dispersed to wherever it was they were going and he was left alone with his mangled thoughts on what it all meant.
Shore leave would be nice though, Zeltros wasn’t that far away and that was a hell of a place to get your head straight after smashing it to oblivion. Yeah, he thought as his feet wound the path toward the hangar bay and the small transport he had berthed there, Zeltros.
He only had one thing to do first.
The ships dropped out of hyperspace not long after and he lit a deathstick while he guided it to the com-buoy location. The systems synched up and the fast scrolling technical gibberish on his screen sent a spike of pain through his head forcing him to reach for a bottle of something he kept down the side of his seat and took a long full tilt pull when the console announced a secure line.
“Hollow Nomad, reporting in.”
The lumbering bulk of the Imperial Star Destroyer Hand of Fate, slipped through the black. Its massive ion engines were dead, the capital ship drifting on inertia alone and all along its length, lights that should have shown habitation by the thousands of crew that it needed to run were dark. It could have been mistaken for a derelict if it weren’t for a single source of man-made light, a spec on its dark hull, emanating from the bridge tower.
“Hollow Nomad got the raw end of the deal when they were dishing out the codenames,” Salem said, a cigarra in one hand while he sat before a multi-screen display of the recent field intel and pilfered data dumps.
“The code names mean nothing, its two words the system spits out. They only serve to identify the mission file for cross referencing. He’ll get a new one when this is over.” the voice floated, disembodied, across the bridge. The speaker unseen.
“Will it sound as cool as Vital Spark though?” Norongachi took a drag from his cigarra and spilled smoke out onto the screens when he spoke again. “Finished yet?”
“Just about.”
Sals screen cleared and then filled with new, concise intel. It was everything they’d gathered so far on the operation and he let his green eyes trail over it through the haze of cigarra smoke.
“We’re linked with the buyo.”
“Zero, reporting in.” Norongachi began, the other two remained silent. He was lead on this mission and they wouldn’t speak unless they needed or were asked to. “Good work hooking up that com-tap on the Admirals ship, Hollow Nomad. With Vital Sparks data-interceptions from Daalang, Central has determined without a doubt that the Senator is involved in some shady dealings. Whether he knows how deep the rabbit hole goes doesn’t matter, it isn’t our problem. With your tap Nomad, we found out that the Blood Fangs hit an Imperial convoy two weeks ago and that your Admiral plans to steal the merch from them before auctioning it off. No honour among thieves.”
“Do we know what the Blood Fangs got their hands on?” Spark asked, her voice tinny and distant.
“Combat Droids. New ones, fresh off the line. If the GA Intell is right. They only managed a partial scan before the Imperials got wind but the report suggests its a heavy combat model.”
“Not something we want our security forces running up against the next time they board a pirate ship…”
“Right on the money, Nomad.” Sal took another drag of his cigarra. “Your work is done. We have enough evidence against the Senator linking him to piracy and slavery in Alliance space to bump it up to the powers that be and we know where they’re planning to auction off the droids. Both of you pack it up and wait for reassignment. I’ll handle it from here.”
“Sorry, Zero, but I think I should keep my cover.”
“That isn’t an option. Zero, out.” the line went dead and Norongachi sat a little further back in his chair, the end of the cigarra rolling across his lips, and gave voice to his thoughts. “That one is going to be a problem…”
“He’s been running these infiltration missions since his activation, no deviation from a mission so far.”
“It's a matter of when, not if, the mud sticks, Emah.” he responded and sighed, letting twin jets of smoke pour from his nose. “Did you put in that requisition for a tech?”
“Did you ask me to?”
“Ye-”
“Then it's done. Pick up on Naboo, in two days. Although why you need a tech escapes me.” A holographic shimmer emanated from a projector in the bridge ceiling and a female form took shape beside him.
“Unfortunately, your ladyship,” he gave a dramatic bow to the hologram. “I can’t very well cart a whole BRT Supercomputer with me and nothing says ‘I am here’ like com-signals where there shouldn’t be com-signals. I don't know what these droids are fully capable of, or what will happen if some handsy miscreant decides to tamper with them. We need a tech.” Sal finished and stood before making his way to the Fates hangar and the Helix Class Light Interceptor, Wavedancer. He strapped in, keyed in the route to Naboo and slipped the ship out of the hangar before zipping into the corridor of hyperspace.
