Chapter 19 …And Into the Fire
The command center was filled to the gills when the Blackhawks returned.
“Blackhawks! We are so glad you have returned! When we heard about Dineas’ team, we had feared the worst!” Melvor exclaimed.
“We know that they were captured. We saw that happen,” Gorr said.
“It is unfortunate, but they were executed,” Melvor said sadly.
“Well, here’s the datafiles you asked for,” Zaron handed over the datapad.
“Thank you. My team and I will now sift through it all,” Melvor took it from him.
“I hate to have to throw you right back into the thick of it, but we still need your help,” Dnalla had joined them. “All of you including Shondra Del will be leaving Derilyn shortly. Melvor is finishing the false ID cards that will allow you to sneak through security at Derilyn Space Central, the starport in Tekar. You must board a worker shuttle headed for the Derilyn Space Defense Platform. Your cover identities list you as starship engineer assigned to Operation: Elrood. Once aboard the Defense platform, Shondra must find a way out of the system so she can meet with our pirate allies and deliver the Imperial convoy schedules. Meanwhile, I need you to complete a daring mission. As you probably know by now, the Brazen was heavily damaged in an attack by the Khuiumin Survivors pirate gang. I need you to finish the job. You must destroy the Brazen.”
The group was standing there in shock. Destroy the Brazen? Destroy a Star Destroyer. That was sounding like a pretty tall order! Andromeda’s face was the most easiest to read and it spoke for the whole group. “Yah, right. Are they crazy?”
“Uncle, are you seriously considering…” Andromeda began.
“If it gets us off Derilyn, yes,” Tolian was all serious.
“Nothing to say about it, Shondra?” Maharet asked.
“Sounds daunting, but I agree with Dnalla. I’ve seen you guys in action and I think you can do it,” she replied.
“Then that’s enough for me,” Luse said.
Melvor had made his way back to them, bringing along an antiquated holo-projector. He turned it on to show an image of the Brazen. Andromeda and Zaron gave it their rapt attention as the image revolved slowly, showing every little thing and every little detail.
“I’ll begin by quickly recapping the engine structure of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The ship had three extremely powerful Destroyer-I ion engines for sublight and hyperdrive travel. For emergency maneuvers or in the event of severe damage to the main drive system, the ship has four Gemon-4 ion engines. The aft section of the ship consists of reinforced superstructure and support columns, honeycombed with power feeds, durasteel armor for the reactor and drive systems, access tunnels, and control spaces. Normally, these sections would be invulnerable to sabotage and inaccessible from the exterior of the ship. Let’s not forget that the power input from the reactor core can incinerate a TIE fighter at close range,” Melvor began.
“The Khuiumin pirate attack changed this. A concentrated assault destroyed the lower, port-side Gemon-4 ion engine and severely damaged the center and port Destroyer-I engines. The assault caused extreme power surges, which swept through the engines and propulsion shafts. The Brazen’s engineering crew managed to vent the energy away from the reactor, but it cost most of them their lives. Even partially dispersed, the power overload rocked the entire ship, rupturing power feeds, disintegrating armor plating nearly two meters thick, and buckling the superstructure. Somehow, the Brazen managed to escape the battle and limp here to Derilyn,” he continued.
“All port-side engines must be replaced. As the facilities here at Derilyn are rather limited, these engines are now undergoing temporary repairs. Minor repairs are also being conducted on the central engine, which is being held on standby status. When the Brazen is minimally operational, it will jump to a fully-equpped Imperial Navy shipyard, most probably the deepdock facility that’s in towards the Metharian Nebula.
“Now is the time to strike. The ship is vulnerable. If it leaves Derilyn, the Empire will have it fully repaired in short order. If we act quickly, we can destroy the Brazen.
“By carefully examining the damage reports, I have determined that correct placement of three powerful bombs will cause total destruction of the Brazen. You must enter this ship via these access tunnels. From there, you must travel deep inside the Brazen’s superstructure: the proper locations have been uploaded into this datapad,” Melvor handed it to Zaron.
“The bombs must be placed in these three key positions,” Melvor pointed it on the holovid. “Once detonated they should do the job, taking a piece of the platform with it. Needless to say, there’s going to be quite a foreworks display! Just remember to wear heavy radiation gear. The whole area is contaminated with lethal radiation levels,” he concluded.
“Come with me now and we’ll get your pictures taken for your fake ID’s,” Dnalla was leading the way. Andromeda wanted to make a joke about it, but felt it wasn’t exactly a good time for it.
“These badges should get you onto the platform as yard workers. After that, you are on your own,” Dnalla said as she handed them the finished badges. “And one more thing. Security is so tight that it will be absolutely impossible to sneak any weapons in.”
“You’ll see on the datapad that the bombs will need three components. I’m giving you the timers and the magnetic field projectors. You’ll have to find six proton torpedoes for each bomb,” Melvor handed more gear to Zaron. “Directions on how to deactivate the torpedoes’ warheads are on the datapad. “It should take you less than ten minutes to build one. Good luck and may the Force be with you.”
As they made their way back to the command center, a high-pitched whine was resonating through the tunnels. The ground suddenly gave a lurch while choking clouds of dust descended from the ceiling. The overhead lights flickered twice before plunging them all into complete darkness. The sound of blaster fire and the screams of cut down resistance fighters came from the end of the hall. The emergency lighting kicked in and in the distance despite the heavy dust and smoke was the unmistakable form of an Imperial probe droid and it was heading in their direction!
Blasters were out and blasting. The droid sparked as their shots bounced off of it. Gorr got a lucky shot in, damaging its electronic eyes, blinding it. That made it all the more dangerous for a terrifying moment or two ad the droid went about firing back in all random directions before Tolian with Maharet’s help took it down, leaving it in a fiery metal heap in the middle of the hall. The Blackhawks took off running again when they could make out at least two more probe druids and a squad of five scout troops making their way down, firing at anything that moved.
“Back to the Command Center!” Tolian called out as they raced down the hall, doing their best to dodge the random blaster fire.
Kosh extinguished the emergency lights as they went, making pursuit a little tougher. They were able to reach the door, cutting down troopers in their path.
Through the smoke and the flashes of light and blaster fire, Andromeda dared a look over her shoulder to see if they were still being pursued and nearly stopped dead in her tracks as she could see an Imperial officer that looked and awful lot like…
Dineas D’Ink! So he was the one behind this attack. He had infiltrated and sold them all out. Andromeda’s sudden anger was what fueled her to keep going. They were going to escape and get that mission accomplished if it was the last thing she ever did!
Kosh was doing a very good job of extinguishing lights and making pursuit difficult. They reached the Command Center and by the monitors that were still operational, they could see that the entire base was overrun and that they were being surrounded outside so that they could ensure that no one could escape. That only meant that they had to work faster than fast.
On another monitor, Andromeda had triumphant confirmation as she pointed out the traitorous Dineas D’Ink who was now on the outside, greeting another officer who had just pulled up in a command vehicle.
“You guys have to find a way out! Our sentry posts are either cut off or destroyed, and from the garbled intelligence I’m getting, there are four Imperial Walkers on their way here. There won’t be anything left once they get done with the place!” Dnalla had just burst in, leaning against the door she just closed. She reached over to a console and punched in the codes that gave the retreat order.
“Not to mention, that officer that Dineas is speaking with is ISB Agent Cayble. Thorn in our sides, managed to get his nose into about everything and to get a step ahead of us, and now I understand why. When he finds out about you guys, you’ll have a hard time shaking him,” Dnalla pointed him out. “Now get out of here before you can’t! Head for the munitions cache and set off that bomb that Khamp built. That should be a big enough explosion to cause a big enough diversion!” She practically herded them out the door as she was frantically retrieving back up files and wiping the main computer so the Empire couldn’t find any real evidence of the Friends of Paran Base.
The passageways were overrun with thick smoke and random blaster fire. It was hard to see Maharet once she had gone a ways ahead down one of the hallways. Gorr had nearly run into her at one point. Kosh was bringing up the rear, deflecting blaster bolts.
Andromeda was keeping her eyes peeled for Dineas—if he were to show his face, she wanted to be the one to mess it up permanently.
As they got closer to the munitions cache, the smoke was thinner here and the emergency lighting working perfectly. Blaster fire was being exchanged around nearly every corner they came to, ducking out of troopers’ way, mowing through some and having to hide from others.
It felt like and exhausting game of hide and seek, but they eventually found the munitions cache and it was thankfully untouched by the Imperial troops. As Dnalla had indicated, the bomb built by Khamp was where she said it would be. Zaron was already looking it over, pushing buttons to get it activated.
“Let’s see…forty-five minutes should be enough for us to get to the surface and out of here,” he mused as he continued to push buttons. “Any objections? No? Okay, here goes!” and with the last button the familiar “beep” of the timer beginning to count down commenced.
“Oh, good! Dnalla mentioned I’d find you in here,” Shondra came in next. “Let’s get out of here!” She was leading the way. The air was beginning to take on that fresher feeling as they neared the surface. They ducked down behind a door that led out, keeping an eye on the trooper activity as they ran in all directions.
“So how long did you set it for?” Shondra asked
“Forty five minutes,” Zaron replied.
“Good. That should give some time for the others to make it out—or so’s the hope,” Shondra confirmed.
“We’re down to just over 30 minutes,” Zaron returned. “There looks like an awful lot of troopers out there. How are we going to get through?”
“Looks like they’re thinning out to me,” Tolian pointed out after several minutes.
“Once we’re beyond the complex, I have an errand to run, so I’ll be meeting you as planned at Derilyn Space Central,” Shondra said. “Good luck as always, Black Hawks!”
“May the Force be with you,” Tolian murmured solemnly. “Okay. Zaron, how much time is left?”
“About 20,” he checked his wrist.
“Okay. I see a gap. This is about as good as it’s going to get. Maharet, Gorr and Luse. You go first. Andromeda, Zaron and I will follow along with Shondra. Take care!” Tolian pointed to a rubble heap that was at one time part of a building. They took turns making their way across the yards to the hangars where the speeder bikes were housed.
“Fifteen,” Zaron hissed in warning as they found the hangar. There were several speeders still there that hadn’t been destroyed. Shondra hopped the nearest one and indicated a direction that had the least amount of troops.
“We’ll get out that way,” she indicated.
“Or not,” a voice sneered.
They all stopped and slowly turned to face Dineas D’Ink and several troops. Tolian’s hand was Andromeda’s shoulder, but she shook it off. She was having none of it. She stood still, glaring at him, just waiting for her opportunity.
“Off the bikes and drop the weapons,” he barked at them as the troopers began an advance.
“Dineas, how could you?” Shondra began.
“Oh, it was more than easy! I’ve been feeding my superiors information about this place for months! And now I finally get to burn this dump and everything in it to the ground!” he gloated and turned to the troops. “Kill them.”
The troops opened fire and the Black Hawks were diving for cover, returning fire. The troopers were no match for the Black Hawks and were falling like flies. The moment Andromeda saw her opening she took it and tackled Dineas to the ground, knocking his comlink out of his hand before he could call for backup. They were wrestling on the ground, Andromeda trying to get her hands around his throat. She had him pinned at one point and her fists were flying. Dineas managed to turn the tables and he suddenly slumped over Andromeda, lifeless.
Andromeda gave a yell of surprise as she rolled out from under him and was surprised to find Shondra standing there with a blaster still pointed at Dineas’ now lifeless body.
“That’s for Sneeze. And that’s—” another shot into his head—“for Kailage, you son of a…” She broke off, dropping the blaster and walking away. She got on her speeder and sped away.
“Let’s go,” Tolian said gently as he helped Andromeda up. “We’ve got a mission to do.” They jumped on the remaining speeders and sped off into the night, just as an explosion rocked the ground behind them.
Back to Chapter Selection
Back to The Hub
