Twists of Fate, Part 1

Posted on Thu Jul 2nd, 2020 @ 8:07pm by Spacer Sterling Sard
Edited on on Thu Jul 2nd, 2020 @ 8:35pm

Mission: Episode 1 - All Roads Lead to Nowhere
Location: Forward Operating Base Pretioasa, Mygeeto, Albarrio Sector, OUTER RIM
Timeline: Day of Order 66, concurrent with events on Coruscant

"You made it!"

The declaration had to be shouted over the loud whine of the XS stock light freighter's idling thrusters. It was spoken by a slender, blue-skinned Pantoran woman who strutted confidently up to the vessel's starboard loading ramp.

"Of course I made it!" exclaimed Sterling Sard in return. His devilish black eyes lit up at the sight of the sky-blue complexioned Pantoran. The tall, brown-skinned Human male looked resplendent in fitted crimson & embroidered gold military jacket, breeches and cape. The charming scoundrel strode over to the Republic lady officer. "You look amazing, Pilandra!" Sterling smiled, in admiration of the statuesque Pantoran's figure swathed in slate-blue military dress.

"Flattery will get you everywhere!" laughed the Pantoran Republic officer, reaching up to clasp the Human privateer by the forearm. "Any problems with the blockade?"

"Oh, you know," Sterling said, flashing his most charming smile as he hoisted a black leather satchel more comfortably onto his shoulder. "Nothing I couldn't handle!"

"Nothing we couldn't handle," corrected a slimy male voice from the top of the ramp. Past the queue of clone troopers that offloaded crate after crate from the Libertine stepped a shifty-eyed Devaronian. "I'm the one who had to shoot our way past those vulture droids." The red-skinned demonic alien crossed his arms in a challenging gesture.

"And an amazing job you did, D'Arvo," Sterling acknowledged aloud, with a knowing wink to the Pantoran officer. "I couldn't have done it without you!"

The Pantoran walked over to the nearest of the gray hover-crates being offloaded by the cadre of white-armored clones. Aurebesh lettering marked the sides of each crate in stenciled white glyphs:

SOROSUUB CORPORATION
SURPLUS MATERIEL
SULLUST SECTOR, OUTER RIM

Breaking the seal on the container, the Republic lieutenant lifted its lid, and removed a Mk II Paladin blaster rifle. Sterling walked up to Lieutenant Pilandra as she examined the weapon's white plasteel frame.

"All good?" asked Sterling, arching an eyebrow as he held out a holopad in the woman's direction.

After a moment's consideration, Pilandra nodded. She took the offered pad, and thumbed her ID into the device's interface. After a few moments and a series of satisfactory beeps, Pilandra gave the device back to Sterling, who looked eagerly at it to confirm.

PAYMENT RECEIVED

"Pleasure doing business with you, Lieutenant," came the privateer's smooth, smiling voice.

"Likewise," Pilandra grinned, as she placed the rifle back into the crate and closed the lid.

"And the other thing?" sneered D'Arvo the Devaronian, who had managed to appear behind Sterling and the blue-skinned Republic officer.

Pilandra's grin faltered. "Right." She led Sterling and D'Arvo away from the landing pad and off to a series of cylindrical lockboxes, secured upon a hover-pallet. Producing a key-remote, the Pantoran woman pointed and clicked. The nearest cylinder's locking mechanism disengaged, and its aperture dilated open. Both Sterling and D'Arvo's eyes widened as they beheld the lockbox's contents.

"Huh," observed Sterling, cocking his head. "Not as impressive as I expected."

"Impressive or not, trafficking in these is still strictly prohibited," Pilandra said softly, passing the key-remote to Sterling.

"One of the many downsides of war," retorted Sterling, narrowing his eyes as his devilish crewman brushed forward for a better look. "All kinds of things just slip through the cracks.

"What are they?" sniffed the Devaronian, reaching in to pluck out a colorless and translucent uncut stone. The straight lines of its jagged surface suggested the crystalline structure of a mineral or gemstone, but as far as D'Arvo could tell, it didn't look like any precious stone he'd ever heard of. In fact, it didn't look particularly valuable at all.

"Who cares?" shrugged Sterling, reaching in to find a stone for his own examination. "All I know is, the price is right. If someone is willing to pay that much for 'em, then I aim to deliver." Shard took D'Arvo's stone out of his hand and tossed it back into the lockbox. "Let's get these on board and shove off."

The Devaronian gave a suspicious snort, seeing Sterling key the lockbox closed again, then walked around to assume the hover-pallet's directional controls. As the clone troopers finished moving the last of the SoroSuub weapons crates from the Libertine, D'Arvo wheeled the pallet towards the XS freighter's boarding ramp.

"Well, so long, Pilandra, my lovely," Sterling smiled, pocketing the uncut stone that remained in his hand. He then slid the black leather satchel off of his shoulder and held it out for the Pantoran woman to take. "Until next time?"

"Hopefully, we win the war and there won't be a next time," the Pantoran smirked, as she took the satchel and undid it's clasp. A satisfied smile graced her delicate cerulean features as she looked inside. The sight of 10,000 Republic credits greeted her big golden eyes.

"Then I'll have to track you down and buy you a round of zesthril to celebrate your victory!" Sterling enthused, needing to raise his voice as he walk away from Pilandra and followed D'Arvo back toward the whine of his ship's engines.

"Wait! How did you know I drink zesthril?" Pilandra called after him, smiling.

"When dealing with a beautiful woman," Sterling called back, "I make it my business to learn about the things that bring her pleasure!"

Pilandra laughed, playfully waving a dismissive blue hand at Sterling, who bounded up the Libertine's ramp, and with a final wink and nod, disappeared into the XS light freighter.

"We all set" asked a female voice from inside the ship. The voice came from an open hatchway at the fore of the Libertine's starboard hold. Standing there was a leering Zeltron woman with vibrant pink skin.

"All set," Sterling confirmed, engaging the cargo hold's loading ramp & doors. Gears ground and clanged together. Pneumatics hissed as the boarding ramp retracted, lifting until it sat flush against the Libertine's hull. Having cleared the hatchway at last, Sterling stepped onto the main deck of his ship, and regarded the attractive, pink-skinned Zeltron woman. "Ready to lift off?" he asked, striding forward toward the Libertine's cockpit.

"Absolutely," said the Zeltron pilot, her accented voice an almost inviting purr as she followed Sterling up towards the XS freighter's flight controls. "And not a moment too soon. Based on the comms chatter I've been listening to, this base is about to see some serious action, real soon."

"Then by all means, Zina," smirked the Human smuggler, as he brushed back the crimson and gold folds of his flowing cape and took a seat in the navigator's position. "Let's get the kriff out of here!" Sterling took a moment to appreciate the woman's lithe, leather-clad form as she slipped into the pilot's seat, and began the Libertine's lift off sequence. "D'Arvo!" Sterling yelled behind him towards the cargo hold. "Secure the cargo and get up here, buddy! We're shoving off!"

Snowflakes billowed as the freighter's ventral repulsor vent slats opened. Jets of steam snorted from the XS' retracting landing gear. The Libertine managed to remain aloft in the air as it yawed to port, and prepared to ascend. The freighter's bow pitched skyward, her twin sublight thruster engines glowed hot blue, and the rugged Corellian freighter sailed up, away from Mygeeto's frozen, glaciated surface.

"Atmo clear in ten seconds," announced Zina, as D'Arvo crept into the cockpit and strapped himself down in the flight engineer's seat behind her.

"Once clear, make your bearing 1-2-7 mark 4-5 mark 5-9," ordered Sterling, working his fingers across the console in front of him and he ran through a series of computer-assisted hyperspace calculations. "We can use the magnetosphere of the planet's moons to mask us from the blockade." Sterling made a face and gave a skeptical shake of his head. "Maybe. D'Arvo, how's she looking?"

"Power & propulsion, all set," answered the Devaronian. "Hyperdrive's spinning up, looking good. Scopes are clean. Coast is clear."

"Let's hope it stays that way," said the Zeltron pilot, her voice tight with worry.

"I wouldn't count on it," muttered Sterling, when, as if to cruelly punctuate his statement, a shrill warning alarm shattered the cockpit's rising tension into full-blown panic.

"Contact! In-coming fighters!" announced D'Arvo.

Up ahead, a constellation of glittering far-off stars suddenly broke apart and appeared to rush forward in a standard attack formation.

"Get up top, D'Arvo," Sterling ordered, his fingers working swiftly. "They're gonna try and take out our hyperdrive. Keep them off our aft port side! All I need is three minutes."

"Got it," D'Arvo acknowledged, unbuckling his safety harness and scrambling out of the cockpit back towards the topside laser cannon turret.

"Zina?" Sterling asked pointedly, furiously working through another subset of calculations.

"I heard ya, honey," Zina grinned, gritting her teeth. "Buy you three minutes. Keep 'em off our back-left. Easy-peasy."

Sterling pounded up at the round, red alarm button, situated on the control-littered ceiling of the Libertine's cockpit. Immediately, the shrill klaxon died, leaving behind only the heightening whine of the XS freighter's sublight engines executing a high-G maneuver at speed, and the unmistakable whir of the ship's laser cannon turret, wheeling around to draw a bead on the incoming vulture droid starfighters.

The readouts gave a tell-tale warble, relaying to Zina and Sterling that the pursuing droids had opened fire. The signal was followed by a series of loud pneumatic whooshes that shuddered throughout the ship. D'Arvo had begun returning fire with the Libertine's laser's. Tremors suddenly rocked the Libertine as she took fire from the vulture droids. Direct hits to the freighter's aft-starboard quadrant had drained the ship's rear deflectors to 82%.

"Hang on to something!" Zina shot, pulling back on a series of levers with her left hand, only to suddenly jam forward upon another series with her right.

The XS freighter executed a daring 720° roll to port, as the first three droid fighters closed in and sprayed the Libertine's flight path with burning orange laser fire. Righting itself, the freighter pitched up towards the nearest moon, a glowing green orb that hung in the blackness above Mygeeto's silvery atmosphere. The Libby's engines glowed bright blue as she arced up and away, on a full sublight burn for the celestial body. The warble of the incoming fire alarm sounded ceaselessly as the XS freighter shimmied, shook & stuttered through its flight path, dodging more of the angry orange laser blasts than it should have. The Libertine rolled to starboard as she careened into the green moon's gravity well, and swung briefly out of sight around its darker side.

"We ready to rock, yet?" Zina urged, throttling back to conserve output, letting gravity and momentum slingshot the freighter around the satellite.

"Two minutes," Sterling muttered, sliding the first of three data tapes into the nav computer's interface. "You're doing great, baby. Keep it up!"

"Why can't you just install a new nav computer on this thing?" challenged the pink-skinned pilot, gritting her teeth as she jerked back on the levers with both hands, to cause the Libby to slingshot past the moon and out into deep space. "Or get a kriffing astromech droid?"

"The word 'astromech' is an insult to a navigator," Sterling shot back, punching through a second series of calculations with his fingers. "And, this is an old ship. Installing a new nav would require a full rebuild. A full rebuild requires money."

"More fighters in-coming!" yelled D'Arvo over comms, the pneumatic wheeze of the Libertine's red laser cannons bursting steadily in the background. "Bearing 1-5-6 mark 8-1 mark 1-1-5!"

"Damn it!" Zina spat, as another string of shudders struck the freighter against its starboard and aft deflector screens.

"Almost there, beautiful," Sterling soothed, glancing at readouts as he worked. "Keep 'em off our back left!"

Another series of rolls to port, then the Libertine veered off to the left — only to suddenly bank swiftly to the right, faking out the pursuing vulture droids. She careened up and away from the moon, and directly towards the line of Lucrehulk-class battleships that formed the Separatist blockade.

"Here we go again," Zina said tightly.

"Only way out is through," quipped Sterling.

"You don't pay me enough for this!" Zina shook her head.

"One third of 100,000," Sterling retorted, completing a final series of keystrokes. "Just one more minute, and we're home free!" A second tape slid home into the ancient nav computer, as Sterling started in on the final set of hyperdrive calculations without missing a beat. Suddenly, a devastating boom quaked the cockpit down to the rivets in its deck plating.

"That was a direct hit!" Zina shouted before D'Arvo broke in over comms.

"It's getting pretty thick back here! How much longer?"

"Almost there, D'Arvo!" called Sterling, brow knitted in concentration. "Keep it up, buddy, you're doing fantastic!" To Zina, he added, "You remember what to do?"

"This isn't gonna work," Zina she said, panic rising in her voice. "We're not gonna make it."

"We are," Sterling responded. "It will. The Libertine's built specifically for this maneuver. It will work. Fly right at the battleship, head on! Thirty seconds!"

Sterling knew that the maneuver would work. Blockade running was all about tactics and timing. A hundred thousand credits, he prayed in a silent mantra, as his fingers danced across a keypad. A hundred thousand credits.

The Libertine maintained a relatively straight flight path, despite the fluttering, side-winding and juking needed to keep the cadre of chasing vulture droids from getting clean shots on her stern. As they bore down upon the CIS battleship ahead, the broken-ring shaped behemoth turned, bringing her turbolasers to bear upon the on-coming XS stock light freighter. The Lucrehulk yawed into position to broadside the blockade runner. Then, its guns opened fire, sending a barrage of burning orange lasers at the Libby.

"Now!" Sterling yelled, to Zina.

The Libertine suddenly dove, dipping down beneath the wave of Separatist laser fire. All the power that had been sent to the shields at once failed, being immediately shunted to the sublight engines instead. The added energy gave the thrusters an immediate boost, granting the Libertine a sudden burst of added speed. The pursuing droids behind her faltered. The imposing guns ahead of her lagged. As Sterling completed the final subset and slid the third data tape into the Libby's old navigational computer, Sterling watched a green light blink to life on the controls in front of him.

"Hit it!" he cried to Zina.

The Zeltron pilot flicked the blinking green switch on her own console, then pounded a fist onto the hyperdrive's activation button. The stars outside streaked and elongated. A rising high pitched whine sounded from the rear of the freighter. And in the blink of an eye, the Libertine vanished into hyperspace at faster-than-light speed.