“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jace asked.

     Ryvo shifted on the med bed. “You already don’t trust me. Was I supposed to waltz into the conference room and tell you Xanthis is sending me messages? I did what I had to do to maintain security and keep my parents from being killed.”

     “Maintain security?” Jace raised his chin. “So you thought I’d just use Xanthis’ ploy against him to set up a trap of our own.”

     “Yeah, sure.”

     “And so you acted on your own—correction, with Skate’s help—to carry out your own plans,” Jace observed.

     Ryvo shrugged. “Yup.”

     Jace paced by the bed with his hands clasped behind his back. Ryvo was ready for whatever the Sith was going to dish out. He had come to recognize certain character traits in Jace Sidrona, and one of them was a need for control. Or something similar…a need for order, perhaps.

     “You didn’t think I would do all I could to assure your parents weren’t killed,” Jace said, stopping and looking at Ryvo.

     Ryvo met his gaze. “Would you?”

     Any answer Jace would have given was interrupted by the door hissing open. A short man with dark hair entered, followed by a woman with like hair color, taller than the man. Thunder entered after them, taking up position behind Jace.

     “How are you doing, Ryvo?” the man asked in his peculiar accent, his concern genuine.

     “I’m alive and my injuries will heal,” Ryvo said, hopping down to shake the man’s hand. He took the woman’s hand and kissed it. “Always a pleasure to see you, ma’am.”

     “It’s been a long time, Ryvo,” she said.

     “Depends on your definition of a long time,” Ryvo said. “And I hate it to be under these circumstances.”

     “I’m glad you’re well,” the short man said. “So let’s talk business. Would you be so kind as to introduce me to your friends?”

   . “Sure, where are my manners? Kaj Lieno, this is Prestin Frosto, Chairman of the Board of Vosse Technologies. And his lovely wife Reema. That back there is Mr. Lieno’s executive officer, whose name escapes me.” Ryvo had forgotten Thunder’s cover name, and while Prestin was a friend, he was also an information broker. It was for his own good as well as theirs that he didn’t know Sith Squadron’s true identity.

     “Yeli,” Thunder said with a thin smile.

     “The pleasure is all mine,” Prestin said, nodding to each in turn. “Now, let’s talk credits. I brought in over twenty ships at this site alone. That’s time spent here when we could be elsewhere making money, fuel costs, crew pay and use of medical facilities.”

     Jace looked as though he would uncharacteristically burst out laughing.

     Prestin went on. “Since Ryvo here is an old associate of mine, I am gonna give you a deal. Four hundred.” The short man folded his arms over his chest.

     “Four hundred?” Jace repeated. “Well, I am sure we have that on our person. Yeli, see if—“

     “That’s four hundred thousand, Mr. Lieno,” Prestin said, grinning. “For this site alone, I might add.”

     Ryvo thought for a brief moment that Jace would draw his lightsaber and make Prestin that much shorter. But Jace relaxed and shook his head.

     “Mr. Frosto, I think there’s been a big misunderstanding,” Jace said. “Ryvo here called you and I don’t think I am responsible for the bill. In fact…you don’t want our money. You want us to board our ship and leave you in peace.”

     Ryvo recognized the Force suggestion. He looked over at Prestin, curious if it would be successful. The diminutive man looked to his comparatively tall wife and back at Jace, as if sharing a private joke about him.

     “Four hundred thou is a good deal,” Prestin said.

     Jace grunted. “You didn’t even fire one shot. So, in a way, not even half of your intended services were rendered.”

     “But the deal was made that I would,” Prestin countered. “That I did not is of no consequence.”

     “You’re a pushy little bastard, aren’t you?” Jace asked rhetorically. “Ryvo, you made the deal, why don’t you pay him?”

     Ryvo laughed. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

     “I suppose you don’t,” Jace said, as if giving up. “But you do have a vast collection of weapons, which I am sure are worth an exorbitant amount of money. Make a deal with Prestin to sell some or hand some over.”

     Ryvo and Prestin shook their heads simultaneously.

     Ryvo spoke first. “Some of them are antiques. I won’t just let them go.”

     “And I will only accept credits,” Prestin said.

     “Ryvo, need I remind you that we are one a mission to rescue your parents?” Thunder asked. “Your material possessions are worth more than that noble cause?”

     Ryvo pointed at her. “Oh, no. That’s not fair!”

     “I’m not finished. If you can come up with half the money, we will take care of the other half.”

     Jace swung his head to Thunder. “We will do no such thing. That is still too much.”

     Prestin turned to the two Siths, interested in the sparking argument.

     “We can—“

     “Not here, Yeli,” Jace said, teeth gritted.

     “It’s a—“

     “Not now, Yeli.”

     “Well, how long would it take for you to come up with the cash, Ryvo?” Prestin asked, slightly breaking up the tension. “Because you know I don’t like waiting, especially when it involves money.”

     Jace pointed at Ryvo. “To come up with four hundred thousand. Because we’re not paying.”

     Ryvo opened his mouth to dispute when a piercing alarm sounded. He looked to Prestin, who was already on his comlink. After a very brief conversation, he looked to the others.

     “We’ve got two ships approaching!” he yelled over the alarm. “No one else is out this far, so it’s got to be us they’re heading for. I’ve got to get to the bridge!”

     “Looks like you’ll have to fire a few shots and earn that money after all, eh, Prestin?” Ryvo called after him.

     “Let’s go,” Jace said. “Thunder, Ryvo, you’re with me. Jen, Tyros, get to the assault shuttle. I will try and send a few pilots over. There is already a squad of troops guarding it. Get them all aboard and deploy. Wait for orders.”

     Jen and Tyros turned to go.

     “Wait, Jace,” Ryvo said. “I can go with them. I’m okay.”

     “I’m not concerned with your injuries, Ryvo,” Jace said, almost comically. “You’re not out of this yet.”

      “Hey,” Ryvo said, sternly. “They need me over there. Can you say that you really don’t trust me after all that’s happened? After all that hasn’t happened?”

     Jace stared at him. “Get over there.”

     Ryvo followed Tyros and Jen out of the infirmary.

     “Ryvo,” Jace called.

     Ryvo paused in the doorway and looked back.

     Jace stared at him for a few moments more. “I still don’t trust you.”

     Ryvo didn’t know whether to continue his stern glare, smile or say anything back, so he just ran after Jen and Tyros.

     Jace turned to Thunder as they walked at a brisk pace to the docking tube. “Don’t pull a stunt like that ever again.”

     “What?” Thunder said, as if she hadn’t heard him correctly.

     “We had an agreement.”

     Thunder looked over at him. “You told me yourself that any risk was worth finding Reno. Handing out a few hundred thousand credits is a risk we need to take. You were being obstinate.”

     “Do you expect us to throw money all over the place whenever you see fit?” Jace asked her. “We didn’t ask for anyone’s help.”

     “But we need it now.” Thunder shook her head as they entered the docking tube. “Damn it, Jace, I feel this is right. I am not on ‘Ryvo’s side’, as it were, but his plan wasn’t altogether faulty. The Force is telling me that this is the right path.”

     Jace held up a hand. “But it isn’t telling me that. And I am in charge. I am the one dedicated to finding Reno at any cost. And I think the cost here is to forgo this feeling of yours and choose the way I see best. We will accept Frosto’s help here, but he will be fighting for his own survival and those of his ships and crew. We won’t pay him.”

     “You’re an idiot,” The Adumari woman said, coming to a stop at the junction leading off to the docking bays. She looked at Jace, eyes unwavering and it pissed him off. How could a woman like her be so bold as to affront his authority in this manner? At least nobody was watching.

     That was all the better for his next move.

     He stepped in close to her, as if intending to become intimate. “You are a thorn in my side. But thorns are easily removed and the wound healed. Don’t ever cross me again. Before you ask the clichéd question of whether this is a threat, and before I answer with the equally clichéd response that it is a promise or a warning, let me say this…it’s a notification. Don’t cross me again…or pay the price.”

     Thunder seemed to put her face closer to his and smiled caustically. “I have as much of a chance of paying the price as your cheap ass has of paying Frosto.”

     Jace held the stare down for a few second more, then turned to head for the bridge. “Get to your fighter.”

     Every cell in Jace’s body was on fire. This was just the neither the beginning nor the end of the bad blood between him and Thunder. It was going to come to a head someday. And he was going to come out on top.

     Palin gripped her B-wing’s control yoke and formed up with Thunder, who’d only recently joined her and the ten TIE interceptors assigned to the Twist of Fate from the SSD. The ten TIEs were being designated a compact squadron while Palin and Thunder were a separate element. Palin had said they needed a name, so Thunder had come up with the amusing name Element of Surprise.

     They blazed toward the oncoming enemy formation. Two big ships and a swarm of fighters still pouring from their bays were clearly visible to the naked eye.

     “Confirm a Strike-class cruiser and a light corvette,” Palin said, eyeing her sensors. “At least thirty fighters. Gauntlets and Toscan 8Q’s.”

     “We can handle those blindfolded,” Thunder commented predatorily.

     Palin thought about that. Gauntlets were not unlike Z-95’s; good in their day, but seriously outmoded in modern terms. Toscan 8Q’s were something of a production line “ugly.” Koensayr had sold several thousand of its cockpits to Shobquix Yards who in turn used them its own design. The blunt-nosed cockpits were attached to wings that resembled those belonging to Z-95’s and sported short, perpendicular stabilizer fins on top and bottom on the ends. So, they looked somewhat like a hybrid of Y-wings and Z-95’s. But Palin knew they weren’t great snubs. Slow, under armed, unshielded and outdated, they were mainly used by backwater planetary defense forces who couldn’t afford anything better and pirates who had absorbed them in raids. She didn’t know what TOS was doing with them, but she suspected they were modified, at least slightly.

     “Orders?” Palin asked, checking her weapons status.

     “We’ll pass through the fighters and pick off as many as we can,” Thunder said. “Then you make a pass on that corvette and try to bloody its nose for our capitals. I’ll loop back into the fray. Join me as soon as you can.”

     “Will do,” Palin said, punching her throttle.

     She wasn’t sure what the hell was going on with TOS being here, but she was happy to be in battle. She was always being left out of the thick of things, and vaping stuff always made her feel better.

     “Firing range in five seconds,” Thunder said, eagerness apparent in her voice. Palin could empathize with that. “Mark!”

     Palin squeezed her trigger, firing her auto blasters at the oncoming bogeys. Several of the unshielded Gauntlets were shredded and one exploded. The 8Q’s had obviously been modified with shield generators installed, as her shots splashed against them harmlessly. And then she was past them. She changed course for the light corvette and headed for it at full speed.

     She put her finger over the ion cannon trigger and armed proton torpedoes. As soon as she was in range, she fired ion cannons. Blue needles of light stabbed into the bigger ship’s shields. She kept up the negative-charged onslaught until she was within two hundred meters, then let loose with four proton torpedoes. The corvette’s turbolasers, too slow to track her, only made good with one shot, which her shields easily absorbed.

     By the time she had turned around the rejoin Thunder, the area of space was wild with flashing lasers and blinding explosions. At a glance at her sensors, Palin found that some of the fighters were newcomers. VosseTech Edge fighters, obviously from the Money Shot. About a dozen of them. These additions, along with the TOS fighters’ disadvantages, put things more in balance.

     “Surprise Two to Twist of Fate,” Palin said. “Enemy corvette has been marinated and is ready to be cooked.”

     “Copy, Surprise Two,” Jace responded.

     “Surprise One, what’s our status?” Palin asked, picking off a stray Gauntlet.

     “Twelve—correction—thirteen enemy fighters destroyed. Nineteen more to go.”

     Palin smiled. “You wish you’d brought your blindfold?”

     “It’s in my quarters back on the SSD,” Thunder said. “Got better uses for it there.”

     “Roger that,” Palin said, still smiling. She lined up an 8Q in her crosshairs and launched a torpedo. She hadn’t had this much fun since the last time she’d caused so much destruction.

     “We should be able to make short work of them,” Ryvo commented to Tyros, who was sitting in a forward piloting station next to Ryvo. He was referring to the light corvette they were preparing to launch an attack on.

     Two other pilots from the Twist of Fate had joined the two men and Jen on the assault shuttle. That gave them a full flight crew. The squad of SSD troopers that had been guarding the shuttle was adequate enough in numbers to operate the weapons and take care of damage control. While the TelgornCorp Gamma-class assault shuttle was scantly bigger than an average light freighter, it was a powerful ship, capable of wreaking havoc on much larger ships. Besides its four capital ship-rated laser cannons and concussion missile launcher, it boasted the ability to launch forty armored spacetroopers. Unfortunately, there was only a quarter that number of available troops to use in this fashion, and they had to be assigned to the gunner and damage control duties. Still, the shuttle would do more good than harm in the already unbalanced battle.

     “They must have called for reinforcements if they’re acting this bold,” Jen said from the command console at the rear if the bridge. “We need to make short work of them, get a team on Reuss and get out before they arrive.”

     “Weapons at the ready,” Ryvo reported. “Shields at maximum.”

     “Firing range coming up,” one of the other pilots said.

     “The bridge is heavily shielded,” Jen said. “Let’s try to take out their engines. Then the bigger ships will be able to finish them off when they come in.”

     Ryvo and the others nodded.

     “Five,” the pilot began without preamble, “four, three two one. In range.”

     Aiming for the corvette’s starboard engine—the rightmost of three—Ryvo waited until he saw the shuttle’s laser cannon open fire, then launched four concussion missiles. The four projectiles made good, causing huge explosions to momentarily obscure the view of the enemy vessel. When it became visible again, the engine was still intact.

     The corvette, which resembled a grilling fork from an alien world where the natives had very different-looking hands than humans, kept on at a moderate speed. Obviously trying to buy time for the reinforcements. Jen had said that it was unlikely that TOS had many more ships of comparable size—at least according to what information they could garner. That wasn’t taking into account the Terror of Space, TOS’s answer to the SSD. If they brought that bad boy in, then all hell would break loose.

     “Jen,” Ryvo said, spinning around in his chair as the shuttle came around for another pass. “We need to get a team in now. We know these ships are just stalling for time. If we wait, we might not get the chance.”

     Jen, obviously distracted as she worked at her station, shook her head. “What are they gonna send in, a Quisenart? We can take on whatever they throw at us.”

     Ryvo looked at her with meaning.

     “They won’t send in the Terror of Space,” Jen said, shaking her head. “But something is afoot. I’d contact Jace, but we’re kinda in the middle of a battle here.”

     “Tell him we can take the Poetry in Motion in.”

     Jen clucked. “Funny. You know he wants to come. Has to come.”

     “You’re right,” Ryvo agreed, turning back to his station in time to see they were starting another run on the corvette. “He’d never approve.”

     “Besides, we’re kicking ass here,” Jen said. “Do you really want to pass up on that opportunity?”

     Ryvo supposed he didn’t. Blowing up TOS assets always made him feel a little bit better. “Targeting same engine. What with Palin’s softening them up, these shields should be ready to give by now.”

     Four more concussion missiles were released to accompany the unending barrages from the laser cannons. This time, the first two hit the corvette’s aft shields, blanketing the invisible field with destructive energy. The other two hit the engine unobstructed, causing even bigger detonations. The corvette started to slew to port. The laser cannons followed up, plastering the ship’s rear quarter before the enemy crew could redirect their forward shields to compensate.

     The pilot weaved the Poetry around and under the corvette narrowly missing the answering turbolaser attacks. When they came up on the other side, two shots hit the shuttle’s shields, rocking the bridge.

     “We can call in the big ships now,” Jen said.

     “Wait,” Ryvo said. “I don’t want Prestin risking his people unless he has to. We can handle this. Maybe he will lower his price if he takes nominal damage to his ships.”

     “Looks like only his freighters and flagship are in the fight, anyway,” Jen said, eyeing her sensor board. “But he probably plans to take nominal damage and still want full price.”

     “We need a distraction,” Ryvo said, ignoring her. “Their shields are waning. If we can get them to channel them to one section, we can take advantage of the hole.”

     “You’re assuming they’re dumb enough to channel them in one direction,” Jen said.

     “This is TOS,” Ryvo said. “Besides, they may have to.” He opened a channel. “Poetry in Motion to Vee Tee ships. Switch to encryption code Albino Ewok.”

     Jen broke out in laughter. She sobered when everyone turned to her.

     There was a double click from the speaker a few moments after Ryvo entered the encryption code into the shuttle’s own comm system.

     “Good,” Ryvo said. “We need a ship or three to make an attack run on the corvette. A head on attack. Preferably, ships with concussion missiles or torps. Give them everything you’ve got.”

     There was a short pause, then another double click. A confirmation, but Ryvo didn’t know why they declined to speak. It didn’t matter.

     He turned to Jen. “It’s your show.”

     “Pilot, bring us around on a portside parabolic course heading 619, mark 3, starting at one-fourth speed, increasing slowly as we go,” Jen said. “Prepare to punch it to full on my command.”

     “Aye,” the pilot said.

     “Now it’s your show,” Jen said to Ryvo.

     Ryvo nodded and prepared to fire. He watched on his sensors as five blips—three freighters and two fighters, it looked like—approached the TOS corvette. They juked around to avoid being hit by the turbolaser fire that had begun assailing them. The Poetry was half way through its long course, approaching half-speed. The VosseTech ships began to answer the corvette’s fire with waves of laserfire and an assortment of projectiles. Jen ordered the pilot to adjust his speed a bit, and when the shuttle had come fully about, the worst of the explosions were plaguing the corvette’s forward quarter.

     “Punch it!” Jen yelled.

     The pilot complied and the shuttle bolted forward, picking up speed. Firing range came up within seconds. With the VT ships still firing weapons at the corvette, Ryvo launched so many concussion missiles that the computer disengaged the targeting controls due to the launch tubes overheating.

     A feral smile formed when he watched the missiles hit. He didn’t see them actually hit, of course, but knew they had from the cloud of red and yellow fire four times as big as the ship.

     He turned to Jen. “I think we got them.”

     She nodded. The pilot swung the shuttle around the corvette, or what was left of it. The two long forks were separated, on of them still connected to what was left of the drive/command section.

     Ryvo opened the channel again. “Thanks, guys. May I ask to whom we owe those thanks?” He looked out the viewport. The friendly ships were now visible, one of them a YT-1300 with a laser turret mounted in the place that started out as a portside docking hatch.

     “The best damn smuggler in the galaxy, that’s who,” a husky female voice replied.

     Ryvo buried his face in one hand. “Hey, Roget.”

     “Damn it, call me Captain Jiriss.”  The woman huffed. “You never learn, do you?”

     “Whatever, Roget,” Ryvo said. “Now will you join us as we in turn join the others?”

     “I’ve dumped more respectful guys than you,” Roget said.

     “Thanks again,” Ryvo said. “Poetry in Motion out.”

     “Who in Sadow’s name was that?” Jen asked.

     Ryvo turned to her, a sheepish look on his face. “My ex-girlfriend.”

     “Well, she kicked some ass.” Jen studied her sensors. “We’re—“

     Just then, alarms wailed as ships appeared all around them, some as close as on hundred meters. Almost immediately, they began to fire. Jen worked frantically at her station.

     “Get us out of here!” she ordered the pilot. “Ryvo, launch missiles! Aft gunners, fire!”

     Ryvo programmed the targeting computer, which had now cooled down, to hit the nearest newcomers. “Who the hell are they?”

     “Authenticators come up with nothing,” Tyros said at his station.

     Ryvo took a look at his sensors. A Rendili Neutron Star-class bulk cruiser, a type of ship in which Ryvo himself had served aboard in the Alliance, was following them. While most had been modified to carry starfighters, they still had the firepower to blow the Poetry in Motion from the stars. Apparently, the ship’s commander agreed. The shuttle shook as it took hits on its stern. Then starfighters, flying by too fast for Ryvo to identify by type, began to assault the shuttle. Ryvo was too busy to appreciate the irony.

     “We’re going to lose aft shields,” he said tensely.

     “No shit, Olie,” Jen said, without humor.

     “Where’s Roget?” Ryvo asked as he fired more concussion missiles.

     There was a short pause. “She microjumped out of here a few moments ago,” Tyros said.

     “Now would be a good time to follow, don’t you think?” Ryvo suggested.

     “We can’t,” Jen said.

     Ryvo’s heart sunk. “Oh yeah. The hyperdrive…” Prestin’s techs had started work on the Poetry’s hyperdrive, but their work had been cut short and was incomplete when the attack began. “Do any of those guys back there know how to fix it?”

     “I don’t know,” Jen said, already unstrapping from her chair. “But I’m going to go see what I can do.”

     Ryvo began to work at his station. “I’ll reroute engine power to shields and buy you some time.”

     “Too late,” Tyros said grimly.

     Two of the enemy fighters, now identifiable, zoomed in from overhead, launching torpedoes. There was a loud crash from above, like lightning hitting a tree, then everything went dark.

     Jace stood on the bridge of the Twist of Fate, not giving the battle as much attention as he could have been. It was a slaughter, essentially. TOS was outnumbered by more than two to one. Their best tactical option would be to retreat, but they weren’t. Jace knew this to be indicative of them holding out for support, but he knew that TOS had to be running out of ships by now. Due to the budget of a ship like the Terror of Space—and Jace doubted they would send that in—TOS was left with little money to invest in ship procurement. What ships they had were bought at bargain prices or stolen. Jace had assumed that they were afraid to face the consequences of failure and in that regard were poised to fight to the death.

     But he didn’t want them dead. Not when they could know the location of the TOS base.

     His eyes flinched when several shots from the enemy Strike cruiser hit the bridge shields. He saw laserfire from his own Strike cruiser answer in green and blue lancets of light; turbolaser and ion cannons.

     “Lord Sidrona, the VosseTech ships are hanging back,” the sensor operator reported. “Only the Money Shot, light freighters and fighters are engaging.”

     “We’ll see about that,” Jace said. He thought about Jen and the others fighting outside the engagement zone. “How is the Poetry in Motion doing with the corvette?”

     “They’re racking up some damage on the rear shields.”

     “Take us over there to assist,” Jace ordered the pilot. “We’ll see how long Frosto keeps his other ships in reserve when forced to battle the Strike cruiser alone.”

     “Plotting course,” the female pilot said smartly. “ETFR…eight minutes.”

     Jace looked to the other Siths on the bridge, Rick and Narska. “They might need help, too.”

     “Looks like somebody beat us to it,” the sensor operator said. “Three freighters and an element of Edge fighters are preparing to make an attack run on the corvette.”

     “Holo,” Jace ordered.

     A holographic display appeared on the bridge showing the corvette and the five VosseTech ships heading straight for it. The image zoomed out, showing the Poetry in Motion in the distance, coming about in a long, tight loop. Jace watched the tactic follow through to the destruction of the corvette.

     “They didn’t need our help after all.” Jace turned to the sensor station, and asked hopefully, “escape pods?”

     “None I can read,” the sensor operator answered. “Both VosseTech gunships have joined the Money Shot in battle, though.”

     “These kind of guys are so predictable,” Jace said.

     “Fighter squadron reports all TOS fighters have been destroyed,” the starfighter coordinator chimed in.

     “Recall ours,” Jace ordered. “We’re going to disable that Strike cruiser. Helm, move us into position. Communications, send a looped demand for surrender, and make sure you make it clear that we want an unconditional surrender. Weapons, prepare to fire all ion cannons on my—“

     “Incoming!” the sensor operator interrupted. “We’ve got ships dropping out of hyperspace all over the place!”

     Jace watched a Corellian bulk freighter appear before the Twist of Fate. “Fire photon torpedoes!”

     The weapons coordinator looked at him in confusion.

     “Wrong universe,” Jace muttered under his breath. “Proton torpedoes! Proton torpedoes!”

     Jace reflected as he watched the red projectiles streak toward the new targets. He didn’t know what this meant, but he knew it didn’t make Ryvo look good. Or rather, it didn’t make him look any better.

Thunder vaped an 8Q, then spun her snub through an evasive pattern more to show off than for practical purposes. It was great being back in her Blade. She had been forced to return to her X-wing for a short time due to maintenance difficulties, but such were things when Gimmer was in the hands of TOS. She glanced at her sensor board to see that no bogeys were in range.

     “Surprise One to Two.”

     “Copy,” Palin answered.

     “Do you have anything on your board?”

     “All clear, One.”

     Thunder switched frequencies. “Surprise One to Twist of Fate. All enemy fighters have been destroyed.”

     There was short pause. “Form up on us, Element of Surprise. Bring the squadron with you. Prepare to attack and disable the enemy Strike cruiser.”

     Thunder acknowledged the Twist with a double comm click. She moved to follow the instructions and glanced at her sensor board. Jace had pulled the Twist of Fate away from the Strike cruiser to head towards the corvette, leaving Money Shot alone. Now he was turning back, after the two VosseTech gunships had moved in to make up for the temporary loss of the Twist of Fate. In the meantime, the light corvette had been taken out by a group of smaller ships. Classic Jace, Thunder knew. Frosto had every right to be pissed. But at least Jace was returning rather than leaving the VT ships to fend for themselves.

     Of course he was. The crew of the enemy Strike cruiser may know the location of the TOS base.

     Out of nowhere, ships began to revert from hyperspace near the battle. Thunder saw them with the naked eye first, then looked at her sensors. A sizeable fleet led by a Neutron Star-class bulk cruiser. Among the bigger ships were a Corellian Action IV bulk freighter, a Slayer-class frigate, and a Corellian gunship of their own. Then there were the starfighters. Dozens of them, mostly Z-95’s. Comm traffic multiplied in both quantity and intensity.

     Never fight on the battlefield that’s chosen by your enemy…

     Jace obviously hadn’t been taught that lesson by Reno. But he should have known, nonetheless, simply by observation. Reno had not heeded his own advice, and flew right into the enemy’s clutches. But Thunder knew that Toto’s logic was overshadowed by his obsession with getting Reno back. She felt that Jace was ready and willing to risk everything to reach that end. Herself (as evidenced by his sending her and Palin into the system despite his sense of something awry), the SSD, maybe even Sith Squadron itself were expendable in his eyes. To him, their importance paled in comparison to rescuing Reno. She had to admire his loyalty to Reno.

     But what was its purpose? Was his innermost desire to have himself be Reno’s only apprentice? Thunder knew that the order of Sith was wrought with betrayal and deceit. Even master and apprentice were never truly completely united in thought, goal and motivation, much less a whole squadron of Siths. Or perhaps Jace was simply setting himself up to fill the power vacuum left by Reno’s absence. If Reno never returned, they would need a new leader, and who better to fit the bill than the man who spearheaded the noble search for their lost master? Jace’s appeal to her when he’d visited her that night in her quarters seemed to go along with this. Whatever the case, he may have made a crucial error in his plotting.

     If this was a TOS force, then she and the rest of the Siths had gravely underestimated them. She didn’t know how they had come up with so many ships, unless they had paid someone to aid them, much like Ryvo had brought in Frosto and his ships. Ryvo…Thunder doubted this whole mess was a convoluted plot by Ryvo working in conjunction with TOS to ensnare Sith Squadron and destroy them once and for all. If it were, then why would he have hired Frosto to destroy TOS ships that followed the tracking devices? Skate was the key to all of it. She had betrayed the apparently innocent Ryvo in the clandestine operation, and in turn betrayed Sith Squadron. But was she just a pawn being played by Ryvo, or was she truly a traitor? Thunder didn’t know, and now wasn’t the time to think about it. She had a fight ahead of her.

     Twist of Fate gave her new instructions to stick close to them and pick off any of the new bogeys that came too close. Jace’s first move was the take on the closest of the new attackers, the Corellian bulk freighter. She moved into position to the Twist’s starboard side and checked her systems. All systems were go; shields maximum, weapons charged, engines performing at optimum levels.

     As they approached the bulk freighter, it became apparent that it was no ordinary freighter. But then again, the term “ordinary freighter” was an oxymoron in this galaxy. It was armed to the teeth, turbolasers blazing from turrets mounted all over the ship. The Twist of Fate returned fire, the hits slamming into the freighter’s shields. As well armed as it was, it was still no match for a Strike-class cruiser, modified at that. The bulk freighter’s shields failed and it broke up under the Twist’s inexorable assault.

     Immediately, the Twist changed course, heading for its next target: the Corellian gunship. That was when the wave of Z-95’s hit. Thunder angled away from the Twist of Fate towards the largest clump of enemy fighters. She put all shield power forward and fired into the midst of the bogeys, aiming at none in particular. She took out two and damaged several others before passing through them, taking several hits to her shields.

     Evening out her shields, she pulled back on her flight stick and fell in behind one of the Z-95’s. She saw Palin pulling up on her starboard wing.

     “Way to stay close,” Thunder complimented.

     “I’m your wing,” Palin said, in a voice suggesting that she had shrugged.

     Thunder squeezed the trigger and rained laser bolts on the enemy fighter. Its pilot took it into an evasive maneuver, and the shots that did make good were repelled by its shields. But still, he was no match for Thunder. She stuck to his tail as if an invisible cord were attaching her nose to it. A few shots later, his starboard engine housings penetrated, he was space dust.

     “That’s three for you,” Palin said.

     “Chalk it up. But it should be four or five by now. These guys are better than your average fringer pilots.”

     “As are their Headhunters.”

     Thunder had already chosen her next target and was preparing to fire when several shots splashed against her rear shields. Switching her targeting computer’s view over to her rear laser cannon, she found the pest and exterminated him. Palin had launched a proton torpedo at the initial target, and it was soon reduced to a fireball, then empty space.

     A quick glance at her sensors showed that the newcomer gunship was all but split in half, explosions erupting from holes all over the ship. The Twist of Fate was engaging the Slayer-class frigate, predictably getting the better of it. No surprise there. But what Thunder did notice in the two seconds that she had glanced at her sensors was that the new ships were coming in a long, arch-shaped formation, isolating the TOS Strike cruiser and the Money Shot, which was still exchanging fire with it.

     The obvious conclusion was that they were buying time for the TOS ship to escape into hyperspace. It wasn’t its physical assets that TOS was trying to protect, or they wouldn’t have paid credits these mercenary forces to attack; it was the intellectual assets.

     “Surprise One to Twist of Fate!” Thunder yelled into her headset. “The TOS ship is escaping. I’m moving to assist the Money Shot! I suggest all available ships join me!”

     Jace. That idiot. Playing his little games in space had allowed the TOS ship and Money Shot to be cut off from assistance.

     “Twist of Fate to Surprise One.”

     Speak of Sadow. It was Jace’s voice.

     “Yes?”

     “Private channel.”

     Thunder switched over without an acknowledgement. “Yeah?”

     “What do you think you’re doing?”

     “Going after the TOS ship that is trying to escape.”

     “Escape?” Jace asked incredulously. “They probably think they can take us. Now isn’t the time for them to retreat. Besides, Frosto is handling them.”

     Thunder gritted her teeth. “He can’t handle them. That Strike cruiser is more than a match for his ship and the two gunships, even if it is damaged. It doesn’t have to beat them, it just has to fight them long enough to get away, and it can.”

     There was no answer for a few moments. “Go. And take Palin with you. I’ll send—“

     Thunder switched back to the other frequency, cutting off Jace in mid-sentence. “Let’s go, Two!”

     “I’m going!” Palin said.

     Thunder couldn’t help smiling at Jace’s lesson in humbleness. She was whittling away his confidence in authority over her little by little. It had to be eating at him, she knew. Putting those thoughts away for the moment, she poured on all speed towards the TOS Strike cruiser.

     Ryvo’s eyes instinctively flinched when the battery-powered emergency lights came on in the bridge of the Poetry in Motion. Checking his station, he saw that primary power to the bridge had been cut off. He looked around. Jen stood near the hatch to the rest of the ship, while Tyros sat slumped in his seat. Jen ran to him. The pilot lay hunched over the controls. Ryvo unstrapped and moved over to the station, pulling him back.  The man’s face was covered in blood and his eyes were wide open, obviously lifeless. A quick check of the man at the navigator’s station showed that he was approaching death. Ryvo went over to Jen and Tyros. Tyros’ hands were black, and he was shaking.

     “Electrocution,” Ryvo said. He indicated the two crewmen. “These two guys are gone.”

     The bridge rocked from another hit.

     “We’ve got to get out of here,” Jen said. “Any suggestions?”

     “The escape pods—“ Ryvo began.

     “No,” Tyros said, his voice strained.

     “No?” Jen asked him, as if he were crazy. “Yeah, we’ll just swim out of here.  I’ll blast the viewport open.”

     “Spacetrooper suits,” Tyros said, ignoring the sarcasm.

     “That last hit breached the upper hull in the main compartment,” Jen said, shaking her head. “Decompression.”

     “There’s gotta be some vac-suits in here somewhere,” Ryvo said, frantically opening storage slots. “The spacetrooper armor is a good idea.”

     “I don’t even know if I fit in the armor,” Jen said.

     Tyros looked at her. “You’re not…that big.”

     “Stang,” Jen said. “I meant I’m too small. My feet won’t reach.”

     “There are extensions,” Tyros said.

     Jen nodded. “Good. What about those vac-suits, Rvyo?”

     “Not yet,” Ryvo said. “But take this.”

     He tossed a medpac to Jen. As he continued rummaging through the cabinets, he heard Jen applying several hypodermic injections to Tyros. Then, he saw a tall, rectangular panel by the hatch, barely visible in the dim emergency light. Tearing off the panel, he found at least five shiny silver suits and soft helmets of the same material. He grabbed two of the suits and threw them to Jen and Tyros.

     “Where did we get these snazzy outfits from?” Jen asked, slipping her leg into her suit.

     “It’s your shuttle,” Ryvo said, shrugging. “But if I were to venture a guess, I’d say someone picked them up at Buck Roger’s Surplus Supply Depot.”

     After Jen helped Tyros into his suit and after the shuttle was shaken by more strafing runs, they all stood before the hatch into the trooper compartment. Jen had her hand over the open switch, waiting for the pressure equalization sequence Ryvo had set into motion to complete. The sensor on the command console flashed, indicating that pressure was now equal to that of the trooper compartment. She looked to Ryvo and Tyros to make sure they were ready, then hit the switch. It slid open soundless and revealed the damage done on the other side. The hits that had disabled the shuttle had opened a huge hole in the midsection of the troop compartment’s ceiling, stretching almost the entire width of the shuttle. Had Jen been a few moments faster in heading for the engineering room, she would have been pushed right into space.

     Tyros led the way to the nearest suits of spacetrooper armor, all plugged into recharge power couplers. Some of the units had been damaged in the attack.

     “Climb in,” the Guardsman said. “I don’t know what to tell you. You two are both pilots. Use common sense.”

     Jen stepped in close to Tyros. “You sure there isn’t room enough for two in one of these?”

     Tyros smiled and shook his head. “That would be the Mark Two.”

     The couple kissed through their masks and climbed into their armor suits.

     Ryvo was already halfway inside his own suit. He looked up through the gaping hole and saw a few starfighters dog fighting and a larger, unidentifiable ship in flames in the far distance.

     Once Ryvo was inside the armor, it was obvious that he suffered from the opposite plight that Jen did…he was a bit big for the armor. It was designed to be used by operators wearing standard stormtrooper armor, but there were not very many stormtroopers that were Ryvo’s size. If anything, the suit was snug. He sealed the hatch and slipped his feet into the stirrups. Just then, he felt a wave of disorientation and looked through the view plates at the hole in the assault shuttle. Space was spinning outside. They had taken another hard hit.

     Ryvo felt a bump and saw the arm on Tyros’ suit moving to the left. The arm tapped Ryvo’s suit again. Quickly, Ryvo turned on the suit’s comlink.

     “Sorry,” he said.

     “Power up the repulsor units,” Tyros said. “The controls for that are on the right. The green ones there.”

     Ryvo found the proper switches and flipped them all on. “Got it.”

     “The thrust controls are in your feet. The direction in your arms. Let’s get out of here. Stick close together, but not so close together that we present a target. Switch off your lights. That will make us stand out, too.”

     Without further word, Tyros blasted out of the recharge socket and through the hole in the ceiling, Jen not far behind. Ryvo hit his thrust and followed after them. When he cleared the opening, it became clear that they didn’t need their lights on anyway. It was as if he had dropped right into the middle of midday Coruscant sky traffic…during a hundred simultaneous wrecks. Ships of all sizes zoomed by on all sides, some firing weapons, others exploding into light and shards.

     He followed Tyros away from the assault shuttle, which had been left to be by the attackers, who were probably planning on salvaging it. Once a safe distance away, Tyros slowed and turned towards the area where the bigger ships were exchanging fire.

     “Bring up your weapons and targeting systems,” Tyros said. “Panel on the left.”

     Ryvo looked over. The controls were self-explanatory. He powered up the blaster cannon on the right arm and the grenade launcher by the suit’s left shoulder. The tactical display showed an overview of the immediate area in the battle. Most of the fighting was in the vicinity of the capital ships, but several stray fighters had chased each other away from the main engagement zone.

     A Z-95 crossed into Ryvo’s firing range and he brought his blaster cannon up to fire, but the more experienced Tyros was quicker on the draw, and unleashed a series of blasts at the antiquated snubfighter. Ryvo and Jen added their shots into the mix, but the shields easily fortified the fighter from the personnel-rated weapons. Then Ryvo felt a shock wave and looked over at Tyros. A small blue and red ball was soaring away from him at a dizzying speed. It hit the Z-95, and while it didn’t destroy it or even penetrate the shields, it did manage to slow it down and allow the TIE interceptor chasing it to nail it with laser fire and destroy it. The interceptor swung around and came by on a flyby of its three spacetrooper-suited allies.

     “Unidentified spacetroopers,” a voice came from Ryvo’s speaker, “make yourselves identified.”

     “This is Jeni Violet,” Jen answered. “Come by and give us a ride to the main battle, will you?”

     “It is dangerous out here,” the pilot said. “I can take you to the Twist of Fate.”

     “Why don’t you keep your suggestions to yourself, pilot?” Jen said in a tone that sounded more imperative than interrogative. “Now, come pick us up. That’s an order.”

     “I obey,” the pilot said.

     Ryvo wondered what planet this pilot was from. He had an odd accent and inflection to his voice.

     The interceptor slowed and came to a stop. Tyros and Jen moved towards it.

     “I don’t know if he has room in there…” Ryvo said.

     “Your feet are magnetic,” Tyros said. “Find someplace and clamp on.”

     The trio attached to the pylons attaching the solar wing panels to the cockpit ball and the interceptor took off at an order from Jen. From behind the view plate of the armor suit, it looked to Ryvo as though he was flying through space on his own power. The main engagement zone grew exponentially larger as they headed right at the explosions and bursts of laser and projectile weapons.

     Once they were close enough, Ryvo sized up the situation. The Twist of Fate was finishing up a Slayer-class frigate that had apparently come in with the new wave of ships. They had been so busy running from the bulk cruiser that he nor Jen nor Tyros had had the time to get a full rundown of the incoming ships. Several Z-95’s were strafing the Twist, but by the time they reached the end of the runs, they were either gone or in no position to continue fighting. Off to port, not quite a hundred kilometers away, another fight was going on. Ryvo couldn’t be sure which ships were involved. But the bulk cruiser that had attacked the Poetry in Motion was sitting a few kilometers away from the Twist of Fate, as if poised to strike at the most opportune moment.

     “Jen, let’s take out that bulk cruiser,” Ryvo suggested.

     “Yeah, sure. Piece of ryshcate.”

     “No, really,” Ryvo said. “He can drop us off near a critical system and we can take it out.”

     “She,” the pilot’s voice said over the comm, slightly exasperated. “I ignored the first use of the incorrect pronoun relating to my gender, but I must ask you not to make the same mistake again.”

     “Er, sorry,” Ryvo said. “I didn’t mean to mistake your confident feminine voice for a rough male voice.”

     The pilot didn’t say anything.

     “Way to be PC, Ryvo,” Jen said.

     “But you don’t like PC’s,” Ryvo said.

     “Never mind,” Jen said, sighing.

     “I think Ryvo’s on to something,” Tyros said. “We can get close to their hull unnoticed, then blow up something like the power generators or even board it. But I wouldn’t suggest boarding with a three-person team. They could bring an E-Web to bear and things would turn ugly.”

     “Okay, we’ll stay outside, then,” Jen said. “Pilot, take us to the bulk cruiser. When you come within one and a half kilometers, we will detach and ride the inertia the rest of the way and you will pull away.”

     “The danger in this proposal is clear,” the pilot said.

     “I told you not to give us any suggestions,” Jen said.

     “You inquired of me why I didn’t keep my suggestions to myself,” the pilot corrected.

     “Uh, pilot, Basic isn’t your first language, is it?” Ryvo asked.

     “No,” the pilot answered.

     “Did you use Phoneme Fervor to learn how to speak it?”

     “Yes.”

     “It shows.”

     “Jedispit!” Jen cried out. “Everyone shut up! We’re coming up on the bulk cruiser. Pilot, adjust your course and prepare to carry out the instructions I gave you. This is an order, a directive, a command, so do it. Do I need to get a protocol droid to make you understand?”

     “No,” the pilot answered.

     “You dare defy me?” Jen asked in a dramatic voice.

     “I obey,” the pilot said as the interceptor’s vector changed. “I answered your question concerning your need of a protocol droid to make me understand. But there is no need. You have an excellent grasp of Basic.”

     There was a short pause. “Just…fly.”

     Thunder approached the TOS Strike cruiser with Palin, six interceptors, and several light freighters from the VT group. The Money Shot and its two gunships were pouring a constant stream of laser fire into the Strike cruiser, as if they were three high-tech pitchers of explosive Kool-aid.

     The VT corvette still stood off well out of the combat zone. As Thunder watched, the Strike cruiser retaliated with a sudden concentration of fire on one of the gunships. Its shields failed and the starboard engine took hits until it exploded. This set off a chain reaction that blossomed smaller explosions throughout the gunship. Escape pods darted away, like fleas from a flaming nashtah. Then the entire ship went up in a blast that took some of the fleeing escape pods with it.

     “Surprise One to Money Shot,” Thunder called. “Frosto, have your corvette move in to block the Strike cruiser’s escape vector.”

     “No can do,” came Frosto’s voice over the comm. “She’s got some cargo on board I can’t have damaged.”

     “Then why’d you bring her?”

     “The gunships were her escorts. It was on the way, so we stopped by here.”

     “Forget it, then.” Thunder sighed. “Just try to move in front of the Strike cruiser and hold it off. We’ll immobilize it.”

     There was a hint of humor in Frosto’s voice. “Whatever you say.”

     Thunder’s tactical display showed that the Money Shot was complying. The remaining gunship continued to pound the Strike cruiser with volley after volley of laser fire. Concussion missiles streaked out amid the red bolts every so often.

     “Two, how are your torps?” Thunder said, wincing at the odd feeling of calling somebody else “Two.”

     “Let me ask them. They’re fine, thank you. Seriously, I’ve got enough to stop that thing.”

     Thunder tapped a few buttons and the ordnance inventory screen came up. “Roger that. I’ve got enough left, too. I want you to hit their rear shields with ion cannons while I launch torps. After the first ones hit, the interceptors and me will fire lasers and you and the freighters will launch torps or whatever they’ve got. Got it?”

     “Got it.”

     “Interceptor people?”

     A rush of double clicks sounded over the comm.

     “Freighter people?”

     More conventional acknowledgements ensued.    

     “Let’s do this, then!” Thunder checked her sensors. “Firing range…now!”

     Blue streaks of ionized beams went from Palin’s B-wing’s cannon nozzles to the Strike cruiser’s rear shields in the blink of an eye. Thunder fired proton torpedoes, hitting the trigger until the magazines were empty. Immediately, she switched back to lasers and began to pummel the Strike cruiser, which wasn’t hard to miss due to its ever-increasing proximity and size. When the first torpedoes hit, they exploded on the shields, turning the invisible deflectors opaque for brief instants, then constantly as the rest of the projectiles hit, scattered and slightly out of sync—as long as the shortest possible interval between launches. Green and red laser fire followed the explosions, along with more explosions caused by assorted projectiles from Palin and a few of the freighters. The shields finally gave, allowing the last two of Palin’s torpedoes and a blanket of laser bolts to slam into the engine area. One of the huge thruster nozzles crumbled under the attack, while others were damaged along with the surrounding hull plates. The engineering room was pierced by the onslaught as well, made apparent by the escaping oxygen feeding the fires around the engines. From the geysers of flames small bodies shot into space, some still ablaze, some charred and smoking. It reminded Thunder of a sadistic little boy from her childhood on Adumar, a pyromaniac specializing in toy action figures.

     “Surprise One to Twist of Fate,” Thunder called with a slight grin. “Strike cruiser has been neutralized.”

     “Copy,” Jace said. “We’ll be there soon enough.”

     “Frosto—“ Thunder started before a huge explosion erupted from the enemy Strike cruiser’s stern. More explosions, all of them smaller, popped up all over the ship. “Hey, it’s going up from the inside!”

     “You must have hit it better than you thought you had,” Frosto said observantly.

     “No, we’ve seen a similar tactic before,” Thunder said. “They triggered a self-destruct. We’re pulling clear.”

     As Thunder pulled back on her stick, she shook her head in disappoint and disgust, but not in disbelief. It was typical TOS tactics. If they can’t have it, no one can. As she headed back to engage the remaining Z-95’s, Thunder watched on her rear scopes as the TOS Strike cruiser went up in a final explosion. With it went possibilities of finding Reno.

     Jen was having a hell of a time in the spacetrooper armor. The leg extensions were not easy to balance on and she had to lean far forward to grip the controls in the arms. She predicted that short soldiers would be suing the New Republic for discrimination and to appease them, the new government would produce armor to fit more petite beings. The Empire would have dealt with the complaints by telling the soldiers about a new growth program that involved tying their limbs to two TIEs that would take off different directions. Right now, Jen would have liked to use such a tactic on the armor’s designers.

     As they neared the bulk cruiser—which was hanging back like a sand panther on the hunt—she prepared all weapons systems.

     “Prepare to release magnoclamps,” Tyros said. “Now!”

     Jen hit the appropriate controls at the same time the TIE interceptor swooped down and away. The inertia maintained her speed, along with Tyros and Ryvo in their suits. She shuddered at the thought of her suit malfunctioning and floating through space for eternity or until it was caught by the gravity well of a celestial body.

     The bulk cruiser grew in her faceplate and tactical readouts until it almost filled their views. Like most vessels of its type, it was old and decrepit. The ship was irregularly shaped, with about as much sleekness to it as an elongated asteroid.

     “Prepare breaking thrusters,” Tyros instructed. “Hit them hard and activate your magnoclamps, but turn them off before you get too close. We don’t to alert them by hitting the hull. Ready…now.”

     Jen moved the leg extensions to the breaking thruster pedal and push down hard. Her momentum lessened as she got closer and closer to the cruiser. When she was within a dozen meters, she cut breaking thrusters, activated the magnoclamps and was immediately pulled feet-first toward the ship. She reversed the polarity of the mags until she came to a near standstill three meters above the hull.

     “Not bad, Jen,” Tyros complimented.

     “For a girl,” Ryvo added.

     She hit her attitude thrusters to turn and look at the two men. Ryvo was mere centimeters from the hull.

     “Looks like you almost didn’t stop in time,” Jen commented to Ryvo.

     “I thought we trying to see who could get closest without hitting the hull.”

     “Sure.”

     “Okay, what do we want to destroy first?” Tyros asked. “It should be something good, because once we make our presence known, we won’t have too many chances to do much else.”

     “Power generators sound good to me,” Jen said.

     “Okay, that leads us to the question of where they are exactly.”

     “Aft,” Ryvo said. “About midpoint on the rear structure.”

     “All right, let’s go then.”

     The three of them jetted over the hull towards the spot Ryvo had indicated. As they went, the rear structure—the biggest part of the ship—expanded before them. It looked as if they were approaching a gigantic, slightly inclined ramp. They stayed at least a meter above the hull. These old ships didn’t have the kinds of fancy sensors newer ones did, so it was no surprise that they hadn’t been spotted yet.

     That changed when they came around the weapons sail a quarter of the way up the “ramp.” Two astromech droids, R2’s it looked like, were doing what appeared to be routine maintenance on a power relay. Their manipulator arms moved about in the open access, the hull plate laying aside. One of them swung its domed head over and saw the three intruders and immediately began to rock from side to side. The other droid looked up from its work to see what the commotion was about.

     “I got’em,” Ryvo said, raising his right arm.

     “No!” Jen yelled. “We’re not going to destroy innocent astro droids. Besides, they reported us the nanosecond they saw us.”

     “I’ll hit the power relay, then.”

     “Forget it,” Tyros said. “They can just divert power.”

     “You’re right,” Ryvo admitted.

     “We’ve got to get to that power generator!” Jen said as they cruised passed the droids, whose heads turned with their passing, not taking their photoreceptors off them.

     “No shit, Olie,” Ryvo said. “Did I say it right?”

     “Not bad,” Jen said. “Now, let’s move it! They know we’re here now and we can expect a fight.”

     Just then, Jen’s suit vibrated. At first she thought it was from some cool massage feature she had accidentally triggered, but when it died off, it became clear that it was a shock wave.

     “What did you do?” Tyros exclaimed.

     Jen looked at her rear-view viewscreen and saw Ryvo floating backwards.

     “I destroyed that weapons sail,” the Kiffar said. “They could have brought those guns to bear on us. We’re almost there anyway.” He used spun his suit back around to face forward again.

     Jen looked back out her viewplate. It was hard to tell from their close proximity, but scrawled in huge Aurebesh letters across the flat ramp of the aft structure appeared to be the words “Badd Blood.”

     She gasped in fear. “Ooooh, look out, they put two Dorn’s in ‘Bad!’”

     “Tough guys,” Tyros said.

     “Badd Blood!” Ryvo exclaimed. “I’ve heard that name tossed around in bars on Reuss Eight. Local pirate gang. Don’t know which.”

     “TOS is resorting to hiring people to get their ass kicked for them,” Jen said. “It might just be cheaper in the long run.”

     “Slow down,” Ryvo said. “This is about right.”

     Ryvo shifted his armor parallel with the hull and extended his right arm. The laser cutter attached to the blaster cannon emitted a thin beam and he began to cut through the hull.

     “Here, I’ll get the other half,” Tyros said.

     The two men’s half-circles joined together to form a one meter diameter ring in the hull. They went over the furrow again with laser cutters, and still no atmosphere escaped from the interior.

     “Thick plating,” Tyros commented.

     “I got a bigger one,” Jen said. She grabbed her lightsaber from the belt on her vac-suit and opened the iris on the end of her armor’s right arm. She stuck the blade out and activated it, its amethyst glow lighting everything around it. She stabbed the blade into the same roughly circular furrow Tyros and Ryvo had made and carved around it. Immediately air expelled from the ship’s insides. When the circle was complete, the round chunk of metal fell into the ship.

     “Just fire everywhere in there,” Ryvo said. “We’re bound to hit the generator.”

     “Let’s torp them,” Tyros said.

     Jen returned her lightsaber to her belt and closed the iris valve. She aimed her left arm into the hole along Tyros and Ryvo’s.

     “Let’s light’em up,” she said.

     All three fire their mini proton torpedo hurlers, launching the dwarf projectiles into the open hole. Huge explosions erupted inside, and soon nothing but fire and smoke could be seen through the opening. The fire didn’t gush out of the hole, as the atmosphere had long since stopped venting, meaning the crew had closed emergency bulkheads, closing off the breached area from the rest of the ship. What air was left in the chamber was rapidly burnt up by the explosion and ensuing firestorm.

     “We’d better get out of here,” Ryvo said.

     “Stick close to the hull, whatever you do,” Tyros said. “Get too far out and they’ll blast us.”

     “We need to get away from this section,” Ryvo said. “Let’s go back the way we came. We can destroy any turrets we come across.”

     “Yeah, if they don’t get us first,” Jen said dryly. “This sucker is modified and you don’t know where all of their emplacements are. They could have retractable ones.”

     “Let’s just get out of here!” Ryvo said. He took off back down the curve of the rear structure. Jen followed, with Tyros right behind her. The R2 units were gone, the hull plate back in place over the power relay.

     When they reached the site of the weapons sail Ryvo had destroyed, another one similar to it further forward had its laser cannons aimed right at them. Jen tensed.

     “Don’t worry, they can’t fire,” Tyros said. “They’ll hit themselves if they do.”

     Jen relaxed at his comment. The curve of the aft structure at their backs made it impossible for the turrets on the elevated weapons sail to get a clear angle of fire at them. But the gunners had the option of trying to hit them directly enough times to knock them away from the hull without hitting the hull itself. Apparently, the ship’s captain didn’t have much faith in their marksmanship.

     “They can’t fire, but they can!” Ryvo said.

     Off to one side at the base of the weapons sail, four space-suited individuals crouched around a heavy repeating blaster. Jen, Tyros and Ryvo all maneuvered off at different angles. Jen took care not to stray too far away from the hull, for doing so could put her directly into the arc of any number of laser turrets on the sides of the ship. She spun around and fired her blaster cannon, splitting the cannon’s gunner in half at the waist. One of the men working on the power regulator jumped up and took his bisected comrade’s place. She turned and moved off again, zigzagging as best she could. All of three shots were fired—Jen wasn’t sure at whom—until the threat was neutralized. She came around to look where the heavy repeating blaster had been mounted. A blackened scar marked the hull, its ruined components floating away with the equally ruined bodies and limbs of its operators. She looked over at Tyros, who fired a pair of miniature proton torpedoes. The torpedoes hit the weapons emplacement on the sail overhead, reducing it to shards and smoke.

     “Who got the gun crew?” Jen asked.

     “I did,” Tyros said. “Concussion grenades.”

     “Concussion grenades,” Jen said, as if the term was the revealed answer to the question in the final round of a game show. “Do they cause concussions?”

     “They might,” Tyros said. “But there wouldn’t be enough left of someone hit by one to go to the doctor to find out.”

     “Okay,” Jen said. “But fragmentation grenades fragment you, stun grenades stun you. Going on that logic, concussion grenades must cause concussions!”

     Ryvo cleared his throat. “What’s our next move?”

     “Killjoy,” Jen said. “Where’s the bridge?”

     “Near the bow.”

     “Can we make it there with minimal resistance?”

     “We seem to be safe here,” Tyros said. “At least for now. I don’t know for sure if we got their generator, but they could have their backup on line by now, which has a much small power output. In either case, they could run their weapons off of portable generators.”

     “And they could send out more of these clowns,” Ryvo said, indicating the scorch mark where the blaster crew had been.

     “Let’s go to the bridge,” Jen said confidently.

     “But we’re safe here,” Tyros said. “We did them enough damage by taking out their power generator and these turrets.”

     “Safe for now,” Jen corrected. “You said so yourself. If we take out their main bridge, they will really be screwed. And think about it. If they did have portable generators to use with their weapons, why would they send out troops?”

     “The Twist of Fate should be about done with that Slayer-class frigate,” Ryvo said. “They could take out this thing easily, what with the damage we’ve done.”

     “And let Jace have the kill?” Jen asked in shock. “I think not! To the bridge!”

     Tyros and Ryvo followed Jen, who took off in the direction of the ship’s bow. Along the way, they took out several enemies in the light combat spacesuits armed with blaster rifles. The pirates ambushed from behind protrusions in the hull, fired from prone positions, and used any number of other methods to make up for the inferiority of their armor. They had taken a few hits themselves, but the thick armor had deflected them efficiently, if not easily. Tyros had a close call with another heavy repeating blaster, which could have pierced the spacetrooper armor, but the enemies had been quickly dispatched by Jen’s blaster cannon before more than a few shots could be fired. A few shots from mini torps reduced a light freighter-sized bowl of a sensor dish into countless remains. Jen thought it wasn’t unlike dropping a cereal bowl on the tiled kitchen floor.    

     If the rear structure had been a slightly inclined ramp, the forward structure was a lightly sloping hill. Though flat and smooth on top, it was about as long as a Corellian Corvette’s length. They jetted along its surface, reached the peak, and came down the other side. Due to the fact that the peak was close to the front of the structure, the ride down the hill was shorter than the ride up.

     Tyros told them to slow down when they reached the end. Looking over the edge, Jen saw more of the craggy surface like that in the middle of the ship between the fore and aft structures.

     “That first little section jutting out there is the bridge,” Tyros said.

     He sent targeting data to Jen’s suit to better indicate the location. It was less than fifteen meters away.

     Ryvo chuckled. “We can hit them from here.” He raised his left arm.

     “No,” Jen said. “I have a better idea.”

     She smiled wickedly, fully aware that neither Tyros nor Ryvo could see her.

     “Damn!” Captain Nuvel screamed, slamming his hand into the console on his command chair. “What was that?”

     “They took out our sensor dish,” a young bridge officer replied with a hint of humor in his voice.

     Captain Nuvel turned to him. “What? They must be stopped! Why aren’t our men killing these bastards?”

     The officer shook his head. “Because these bastards are killing our men.”

     Nuvel swung back to look forward again. “Where the hell did they come from?”

     “They were the three blips I picked up earlier that you insisted were too small to be ships,” the officer said. “You said they had to be debris from the battle. It’s ironic that this debris of yours is turning us into debris.”

     Nuvel swung back to look at the officer. The captain’s palm sweated, itching to grab his sidearm and burn a hole in the kid’s chest. He had only been with the gang for a few months, but had been promoted left and right. That meant one of three things, in Nuvel’s mind. One: Their leader, Lady Rianathir, was sweet on him. Two: He was a spy she had inserted. Three: He was really good. Nuvel hated to even consider the last explanation.

     Instead of blasting him, Nuvel asked, “when is main power going to be back up?”

     The kid spread his arms. “Soon. They’re having trouble stabilizing the generator, but the auxiliary—“ Then the kid’s eyes went wide. “Captain, look!”

     Nuvel swung back around again and rose in his chair. Outside the viewport, three spacetroopers floated, their six collective arms pointed at the bridge.

     Captain Nuvel could barely find his voice. “Shields, shields!”

     “Still no,” the young officer said.

     The clawed cuffs on the end of the spacetrooper’s arm moved back and the irises in their centers opened. Gloved hands came out of the arms and stuck their middle fingers up. Nuvel made a run for it. He would be damned if six hands flipping him off would be his last sight before making the final jump. He made it as far as the bridge’s blast door before a deafening crash sounded behind him and he was pushed into the vacuum of space. As he died of exposure, his last thoughts were that the punk kid that had been such a pain in the ass for the last several weeks was suffering the same fate.

     “The bulk cruiser is breaking up,” the sensor operator reported.

     Jace, still fuming over the TOS Strike cruiser’s self-destruction, only nodded.

     “Uh, no one attacked it yet,” Rick said, clarifying the puzzling nature of the sensor operator’s statement.

     Clearing his head, Jace looked over at the sensor station. “What is happening?”

     The operator shrugged and called up data earlier in the battle. “A single TIE interceptor made an approach, but pulled away well before it could have caused any kind of damage.”

     Jace thought about it. When the TOS reinforcements had arrived, the bulk cruiser had come out almost on top of Poetry in Motion. After trying to flee, the assault shuttle had been disabled and left to die by enemy fighters, apparently for eventual recovery. The crew had been assumed dead. He hadn’t told Thunder or any of the other Siths for risk of affecting their combat effectiveness. Besides, some of them might have left their duties behind to try and rescue Tyros and Jen. Jace needed everyone focused on the mission.

     But what were the chances of the bulk cruiser experiencing some sort of malfunction that was destroying it from within in the middle of a battle? Even with the old model’s reputation for being a piece of junk, Jace couldn’t be that lucky. Perhaps some of the VT freighters had attacked the bulk cruiser from the other side and the sensors had just missed it. Jace threw that theory out as soon as it formed in his mind. The sensors wouldn’t miss a few freighters attacking a bulk cruiser, especially considering how long it would take for such smaller ships to inflict the damage the cruiser was currently in.

     He thought of the TIE that the sensor operator had told him about. There had to be an explanation for this.

     “Which TIE was it?”

     The sensor operator looked at the screen. “Nine.”

     “Open a channel,” Jace told the comm officer.

     She nodded after hitting a few switches.

     “Twist of Fate to Nine.”

     “Nine is here.”

     “Why did you make an approach on the enemy bulk cruiser?”

     “Jeni Violet ordered me to.”

     Jace frowned. “What?”

     “Jeni Violet ordered me to.”

     “I heard you.”

     “I thought your saying ‘what?’ was a prompt for me to repeat my answer because you didn’t hear me the first time.”

     “No,” Jace snapped. “Why did she tell you to do that?”

     There was a short pause. “She didn’t. I repeated myself on my own will. I just wanted you to—“

     “Are you an idiot?” Jace asked. “Why did she order you to make a run on the bulk cruiser?”

     “So I could get her and two other people close enough so they could ride the inertia the rest of the way.”

     Jace looked to Rick and Narska. Both Siths stood there, Rick barely containing laughter and Narska with a sly look on his face. This pilot was either insane or a complete moron.

     “What in the hell are you talking about, Nine?”

     “I am answering your query concerning—“

     The comm officer cut the line at Jace’s signal.

     “Battle stress, perhaps,” Narska suggested.

     “I wouldn’t rule out an enemy plot to drive us crazy,” Rick said.

     “I swear, when I get my hands on the human resources manager,“ Jace muttered.

     “We have a human resources manager?” Rick asked.

     Jace looked at Rick. “Shut the—“

     The comm pinged.

     Jace swung his arms in the air. “Now what?”

     The comm officer hit a few switches and touched her headset. “It’s Jeni Violet.”

     “This is insane!” Jace said. “Put her on.”

     The speakers crackled. “Jace, this is Jen.”

     “Where in the hell are you?” Jace asked. “Still on the shuttle?”

     “No,” Jen said, as if the answer were obvious. “We escaped in spacetrooper suits. We got a ride from a TIE whose pilot can’t comprehend the fundamentals of Basic—“

     “Is that what it was?” Jace asked dryly.

     “—to the bulk cruiser and assaulted the thing. The main generator was hit but they got it under control before it went critical. We destroyed their bridge and things went to hell for them from there.”

     “We can see that.”

     “So how are you guys doing?”

     “We just finished off the last of their ships,” Jace said. “The TOS Strike cruiser committed suicide. Do you guys need a ride or something?”

     “That would be nice,” Jen said. “We’re just floating out here bored, picking off escape pods from the cruiser.”

     “We’ll send someone. But don’t kill all those escape pods. I want prisoners.”

     “All right, Eleven out.”

     Jace sighed. If this battle hadn’t been too hard, it had been exhausting. There had been several friendly casualties. One of Frosto’s gunships had been destroyed. Now it would be even harder to talk the way out of paying four hundred thousand—or whatever price Frosto wanted now that one of his ships were gone. Drastic measures would have to be taken, even if Frosto was a friend of Ryvo. Jace couldn’t let anything get in the way of their goal, his goal.

     “Rick, Narska,” Jace said. “Take the Side Effect out and pick up Jen and them.”

     “Oh, great,” Narska said with a mock enthusiastic smile, “I haven’t piloted a piece of trash in a long time.” He was referring to the Side Effect, a small light freighter that had been squeezed into the Twist of Fate’s hangar bay. The two Siths exited the bridge without another word.

     “Damage report,” Jace demanded.

     “Minimal damage to—“

     “Sorry to interrupt,” the comm officer cut in, “but we have more incoming.”

     “More?” Jace asked disbelievingly.

     “Local system force. They are transmitting under a white flag. They’re not here to attack, just to investigate.”

     “Okay,” Jace said. “Let’s see what happens when we order them to stay back.”

     The comm officer relayed the message.

     “They’re complying,” the sensor operator reported.

     “Okay. Helm, get with sensors and plot a course to the escape pods from the bulk cruiser. We’ve got some recovering to do.”

     Or, rather, the occupants will have some recovering to do after I’m done with them, Jace thought.

     Cinching the belt of his silk bathrobe, Andell exited the steamy spa room, leaving the two servant girls to dry off. He had spent a couple hours of rare free time having fun with them. They had all taken expensive Sevarcos spice, shared a bottle of Corellian brandy and enjoyed each other.

     These were the kinds of perks that Andell truly enjoyed as being TOS General. But he had noticed that with all the power he enjoyed, things became less satisfying. New and inventive ideas had to be implemented to quench his ever-growing hedonism. Only the purest spice, the best year of brandy, the most pristine spring water for his spas. And of course, only the finest women.

     He had chosen his favorite, as usual. She was a young, blue Rutian Twi’lek girl. Exceptionally voluptuous for being barely out her teens, she was accustomed to such work, having been a slave when TOS captured her on a raid some time ago. But the second girl was where the inventiveness had come in this time. Andell had brought his first non near-human servant girl to his spa. She was tall and slender, as most Woostoids were, with orange skin, large opaque eyes, and long brown-red hair. A good portion of humanoid males found Woostoid females very pleasing to the eyes, and Andell was no exception. She hadn’t been a slave like her cohort, but due to the amiable nature of her species, she had played her role quite well.

     Played her role, that was just it. No matter how many women he had brought to his spa, nothing changed the fact that they had been brought there. Most of them seemed to enjoy their time in the spa with him, but they most likely figured it was better than being locked in a cell. Andell wasn’t an ugly guy, but he knew he could never pull these kinds of women on his own merit. He lacked the personality and charm that attracted most women.

     Andell had been engaged to be married when TOS “welcomed” him into their fold. He thought he had loved the girl. She was nice and pretty, but something had been missing. He had essentially settled for her. His own complacence had angered him, for as good as his fiancée was to him, he yearned to be with holodrama starlet-type women. So when Xanthis had asked about other people Andell had sentimental links to after killing his family, the young man had not hesitated in telling the Sith Lord about his fiancée.

     She was gone. The life Andell would have had married to her was gone with her. He was in his third year at the university, already being hailed as the most promising future neurologist in the sector. He had met her there in his first month as a freshman. She was a year older, but didn’t mind his advances. While she hadn’t been holodrama starlet, she was cute, and more importantly, unchallenging. But after the physical intimacy developed into something more serious, Andell had come to look at the relationship as more of a business partnership. They studied together, ate together, loaned money to each other, provided for each other’s carnal needs…it was a good set-up. Of course, he never told her of this analysis, for she would have used lessons from her Sorik Ra Lem martial arts class to bruise him up something terrible. Her. She. Why couldn’t he even say her name in his mind?

     Because her memory disgusted him. So much of his time had been wasted on her. She had held him back. Held him back from enjoying the finer things in life, such as the spice, liquor and women in the spa room. But he remembered that those things had become dull and repetitive. Maybe a life settled down with her would have been preferential; buying a house, moving his parents off of Kwenn Space Station, to live down the street, maybe even having kids.

     No, there were better things still for Andell to experience. Better, stronger spice. Better liquor, aged for decades. Better women. More women at once. There were things in the galaxy to bring contentment to even the most demanding person. One just had to have the power and money to enjoy them, and Andell had both.

     He approached the communications station in his quarters and punched in his access codes to receive the message that had cut his get-together short. After a few seconds, the two-dimensional video display flickered and produced the visage of a frowning male human. The frown was perpetual, so Andell didn’t suspect the man to be indignant.

     “Good day,” Andell greeted. “I trust everything went well, Teno?”

     The man only shook his head. “All gone.”

     “All gone?”

     “Every…last one of my ships were destroyed!” Teno exclaimed, pounding his fist into something off screen.

     Andell himself frowned. “What about my ships?”

     “Damn your ships!”

     “Calm down, Teno,” Andell said, putting an edge into his voice. “Just tell me what happened. Tell me how a lone Strike cruiser took out a force ten times its strength.”

     Andell prayed that the SSD wasn’t involved.

     “Because it wasn’t a lone Strike cruiser like you told us,” Teno said in one breath. “There were gunships, starfighters, even a grekking cruise ship beefed up with weaponry.”

     Andell let out an inaudible sigh, relieved that the SSD hadn’t been there. If it had, his analysis of its probable location would have been completely off, and Xanthis would have made him pay for that error, perhaps with his life this time.

     “So my ships are gone, too?”

     Teno stared at Andell.

     “I’ll take that as a yes,” Andell said. “Well. I’m…sorry about your ships, Teno. I really didn’t know that the target had any backup whatsoever.”

     “You’re an idiot,” Teno said. “Why they ever replaced Veego with you, I can’t even begin to guess. Hell, maybe you’re not an idiot. Maybe this is all an ingenious scam. You wanted to get rid of a rival gang, so you put a few of your ships on the line to take out ours. A calculated risk, but one that paid off in your favor, in my estimation.”

     Andell twisted his face into a mask of anger and stared at Teno. “For one thing, we are not a ‘rival gang.’ We are an organization, and one that does far more than rival you, you little twerp. If I had wanted to take out your pathetic little operation, I would have done so head on without any reservations or need for ensnaring you in some ridiculous, convoluted trap. It was a mistake on my part. I acted too quickly without getting more information. I do that a lot. Maybe I can avoid doing it right now, though, by getting some information from you before I have the rest of your ‘gang’ decimated.”

     Teno met Andell’s stare, but he lost some of the mettle he had displayed before. “What information? You want an apology?”

     Andell laughed. “For calling me an idiot? For accusing me of setting your men up? I’d rather have an apology for assuming that I’m the sort of man that would demand such egomaniacal adulation. That gets in the way of business. No, I want information. Useful information. And some other help, perhaps.”

     “I will do what I can,” Teno said, blinking. The last traces of his audacity were fading after Andell’s tirade.

     “Well, for one thing, quit with the mean mug,” Andell said, shaking his head. “Another five years and you will be mistaken for a sunburned Weequay.”

     Teno’s frown only deepened as Andell went on to request the desired information. Yet another perk in this job that Andell liked: coercing battle-hardened pirates and outlaws into doing his—and TOS’s—bidding. It had the virtue of being a true challenge and in that respect it was as good as the women in the spa room.