MONDAY, JULY 31, 2406 BANATU SYSTEM, OUTER RIM TERRITORIES The spacecraft was an old one, of a design not often seen in the galaxy nowadays: a small, slim arrowhead of alloy inside a vertical ring, with a pair of thrusters inboard and another pair, somewhat larger, on the ring at the horizontal axis. It had a single cockpit at the back with a high-visibility bubble canopy. At some point, this one had been retrofitted with an astromech droid, its dome head somewhat curiously installed on the left side of the arrowhead fuselage forward of the cockpit. At the moment, as the ship drifted in orbit around a blue-green gas giant planet, the cockpit stood open, and a spacesuited figure floated alongside it, working inside an access panel. "Great," the figure remarked over her suit's radio comm. "The main power converter's fried." The droid head swiveled to fix its main optic on her. Over the comm, a stream of electronic bleeps and whistles flowed into her helmet. On the inside of her facebowl, her holographic information system projected subtitles: The pilot sighed, briefly fogging her helmet before the atmospheric system cleared the mist away again. "Keep it up, R4," she grumbled. "That memory wipe is looking more attractive all the time. You can't run and you can't hide." the droid replied smugly. The woman had owned him long enough to detect smugness in his electronic tones, even if she didn't have the translator to tell her what he said. "Navigational data," she replied calmly, "can be backed up independently." The droid made a querulous noise which the pilot's translation system had to think for a moment before translating as, She smiled. That would shut the little bastard up for a while, anyway. She yanked the dead power converter out of its housing, shoved it into the waste pouch on one leg of her spacesuit - littering is rude, after all - and then handwalked to the back of the small craft's fuselage. "R4, open storage compartment 2, please," she said, making sure to tack on the 'please' to let the droid know there were no hard feelings. The compartment opened without the droid offering a comment, and she thought she knew why as she rummaged around in it. Yup. "Spast," she muttered. "We don't have a spare?" R4 informed her. "Great. So now what?" "Thanks, R4. I can always count on you for a lift." The pilot touched a control on her wrist computer which displayed a status readout in her helmet. She didn't like to have that information up all the time because she had a tendency toward morbid fascination with her suit's power and oxygen levels if the data was there to be seen all the time. She was still in the green for the moment - several hours of both commodities, and that was at standard consumption rates. If she had to, she could put herself into a trance that would make those quantities last for days, maybe even weeks. Admittedly, that extension did come at the price of not being able to do anything. It didn't look like there was much she could do anyway, though, so she figured she might as well. "Survival mode, R4," she said, shutting the spare parts compartment and climbing up to the cockpit. "Activate the distress beacon and let's hope we get lucky." "Let's hope it's only little," the pilot replied, strapping herself back into her seat and closing the canopy. She didn't bother repressurizing the cockpit; it would just be a waste of oxygen. Instead she connected the cockpit environment fittings to her suit's systems, adding the ship's reserve capacity to hers and giving herself, by her quick mental calculations, something like a year of life. Plenty of time, assuming R4 was wrong and their orbit didn't decay. This system was off the beaten track, but the ship's distress beacon was a powerful one, top of the line. Someone would find them. She just hoped it was someone she'd -want- to find them. Just as she was settling back and starting to compose herself for entry into a metabolic trance, the comm panel flashed at her, and her suit's computer, knowing that the cockpit hadn't been repressurized, obligingly reproduced the beep it would have been making in her earphones. Shaking the first of the trance's cobwebs from her head, she punched the acknowledgement key and heard a voice that sounded human: "... is the GENOM Corporation Star Destroyer Eidolon calling. Do you require assistance? Over." A moment later, the biggest damn starship the pilot had ever seen jumped out of metaspace, a huge silvery-grey wedge of duralloy that her targeting computer informed her was more than half a mile in length. She had never seen an Imperator-class Star Destroyer before except in pictures, and she had to admit that it was even more impressive in real life than she'd always figured it would be. R4 remarked. somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT THE VASTRU ENCOUNTER Benjamin D. Hutchins with Kris Overstreet (c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited Captain Niels Piett, GENOM Military Arm Space Navy, brushed some imaginary lint from his uniform's trim grey tunic, squared himself up, and strode out of the turbolift and down the corridor toward Docking Bay 17. He was a fastidious man under the worst of circumstances, abhorring dishevelment in his person and his crew even in the midst of battle, and when welcoming dignitaries to his ship, he was especially particular. He stopped in the docking bay's anteroom and performed a quick inspection of the company of White Legionnaires and wing of TIE pilots he'd summoned to serve as honor guard. The stormtroopers' white armor was spotless, their formation flawless, and the pilots' black flightsuits were in perfect order. They all knew their captain and what he expected from them. Through the anteroom window, he saw the distressed ship being tractored into position and smiled. Niels Piett had been a fighter pilot before he became a line officer, and he knew his small craft. This one was a bona fide classic, living history, beyond a mere antique. Piett's own pride and joy, his fully restored Koensayr BTL-A4 Myrmidon, dated from the late twentieth century, and it was fresh off the assembly line compared to this ship. "Well, I will be damned," he heard one of the TIE pilots murmur. "Is that an Atlantean Delta-7?" "It is indeed, Leftenant Krellick," said Piett with a smile. "A relic of the Second Epoch. I would guess its age at something around 3,500 Standard years." Krellick whistled, the sound modulated oddly by the speaker in his pressure helmet. "Still flying. They don't make 'em like that any more, sir." "No, Leftenant, they surely don't," said Piett. He and the pilot stood and watched as the arrowhead body of the ship detached from the ring-shaped drive module. One tractor operator disengaged with the ring, moving it carefully to a special universal hanger mount in the bay ceiling. The mount had originally been intended to suspend TIE fighters, but it worked just as well for this. The main body continued on into the bay, its landing gear deploying, and settled onto the deck in the perfect position. "Though I daresay not much about that ship besides her basic structure is original," Piett went on thoughtfully. "My father used to say that nothing lasts forever except a well-made spaceframe." Krellick chuckled. "My instructor at the Flight Academy said the same thing, right before she sent me up in a brand new Avenger and waxed my tail with an old Subpro Headhunter." Piett's little smile got a bit wider. "General Tangril is a very wise woman," he remarked. "She is that, sir," Krellick agreed. "Docking bay pressurized," the PA system announced. "Honor guard may depart the anteroom at any time." The honor guard could, in fact, have gone out there anytime - TIE pilots' suits and stormtroopers' armor were both designed to support their occupants in hard vacuum - but with Piett in only his duty uniform, that would have been fatally rude of them, so they'd waited. Now Piett nodded to the maroon-pauldroned company captain of the White Legionnaires, and he formed his men up and led them out into the bay with military precision, Krellick and his TIE pilots right behind. Piett stood with his hands folded behind his back in the doorway and watched his troops as they marched out in two columns, one even with either of the Delta-7's wingtips, pivoted smartly to face each other, and came to attention with a single unified "click" of boots against deckplates. Marvelous. Makes a fellow proud to be a soldier, thought Piett with a little smile. He started toward the ship, down the corridor formed by his men, with an easy, unhurried stride. When greeting dignitaries, it was important not to seem too anxious. The Delta-7's cockpit opened with a 'whoomp' of inrushing air, and a figure in a patched, well-worn but well-maintained pressure suit climbed out and down the ship's left side, past the asymmetrically installed droid head. As she descended, she reached up and worked the locks on her helmet. The pressure equalized with a soft hiss, and as Piett came snappily to attention, she pulled the helmet off, tucked it under her arm, and shook her head to free her hair. Piett felt a mild thrill of surprise as his visitor removed her helmet. He had known that she was a woman, but he hadn't expected one so young. This person looked to be barely out of her teens, if at all. She had shoulder-length hair that looked like it might be blonde under the streaks of an iridescent purple highlight job, pale skin, and regular features centered on a neat little nose. There was an air of simple unclutteredness about her whole being, despite the slightly motley appearance of her patched and battered spacesuit. For just a moment, Piett entertained the notion that there might be some mistake, that he might have just trotted out an honor guard for a random tramp spacer he'd encountered having drive troubles. There would be no shame in that - after all, a guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality, whatever her station - but still, given who he had been -expecting- to pick up, it would have made him feel a little silly. But no - how many people out here flew ancient Atlantean starfighters nowadays? Besides, there hung at the pilot's belt, along with a multitool and a conduit spreader, one artifact which completely erased any doubt Piett's mind might have contained about her identity: the distinctive silver cylinder of a Jedi lightsaber. Piett had seen a couple in his years, and he noticed that this one was particularly nice; its surface was not just silver but chrome, and it had tasteful golden accents. It was almost as much art object as weapon. "I'm Captain Niels Piett," he said, saluting. "Welcome aboard the Star Destroyer Eidolon, Master Jedi." The girl blinked, then laughed. "I'm not a Jedi Master," she told him. "I'm just a Knight. No room for a padawan, see?" she remarked, angling a thumb at her single-seat spacecraft. "Forgive me," Piett replied, covering whatever embarrassment he might have felt at the gaffe. "I was under the impression that 'Master Jedi' was the correct form of address for all Jedi, regardless of rank." "Hmm... you might be right," the Jedi replied. "Now that I think about it. Not many people get that kind of thing right any more, so I tend to forget about it. Anyway, I'm Anne Springsteen. Pleased to meet you." The droid head grafted to her fighter bleated indignantly; she chuckled, put a hand on it, and added, "And this little ray of sunshine is R4-P17. He's a little disappointed that you picked us up - he was -sure- we were going to die this time." Piett smiled dryly. "Well, I hate to disappoint, but my orders were to find you alive," he said. The Jedi cocked an eyebrow at him. "You had orders to find me?" "Certainly," Piett replied, "but that can wait. Let me arrange quarters for you - I'm sure after the day you seem to have had, you wouldn't mind an opportunity to rest." Anne smiled and went around to the other side of the Delta-7, where she opened an access panel opposite the spot where R4 had been installed and pulled out a small duffel bag. "Lead on, Captain," she said. "If you can show me a place to get out of this suit, you'll be my hero. I've been living in this thing for a week." After a shower and a change of clothes, Anne Springsteen was feeling considerably more human. Dressed in the simple, functional robes of her Order (for her, a dark fawn pleated tunic over a comfortable cream-colored shirt and trousers), she came out of the bathroom in the positively palatial guest quarters she'd been assigned. She scrubbed at her hair with a towel while she crossed the room, then tossed the towel back into the bathroom and sat down on the end of the bed to put on her boots. As she did so, she noticed that the 'message' light on the room's commset was flashing. She got up, crossed the room, and pressed it. Immediately, the face of a live comm operator appeared on the viewscreen. "Master Jedi," said the operator briskly. "Captain Piett regrets that he is in a meeting with Grand Admiral Thrawn. He hopes you'll forgive him for keeping you waiting, but he should be able to meet with you and explain the situation in about an hour." "Oh. That's fine," said Anne. "Is there someplace around where I can get something to eat? I've been living on tube rats for a week." The operator made a face - the common nickname for Rations, Emergency Field, Tube-Contained did a good job of conveying just how appetizing they were - and replied, "I think we can do better than that for you, yes. There's a caf on your level, two blocks over in Section 17. Maps are available in the public dataterm network, or you can ask the White Legionnaire outside for directions." "OK, thanks," said Anne. "No problem," replied the commtech, and he vanished. Anne sat at the terminal for a moment, started to call up the map, then blinked as her mind went back over something the operator had said. She got up, went to the door, opened it, and leaned out into the hallway. Sure enough, there was a stormtrooper out there, in full armor, blaster carbine at port arms. "Why are you hanging around out here?" she asked him bluntly. The trooper turned to face her and replied in the slightly metallic tone imparted by all White Legionnaires' helmets (prefaced by the distinctive click of the suit's voice-activated loudspeaker kicking in), "I was instructed to stand by in case you needed anything, ma'am. This is a big ship... it's easy for newcomers to get lost." "Ah. Well, you don't have to stand around in the hall," she told him. "Why don't you come in and sit down?" That seemed to take the trooper - "McCANDLESS", according to the nametag on his plastron - aback slightly. "Um... no, thank you, ma'am," he replied. "I'm fine." Anne smiled. "OK," she said, "have it your way. Can you show me where the food is?" "Uh, sure," replied McCandless. "Follow me!" Chuckling under her breath, Anne closed her quarters door and did so. As she did, she thought to herself with amusement, Boy, this one must have just come out of the tank. (White Legionnaires weren't clones, of course, but it was a common enough joke in parts of the galaxy.) Well, one rumor was true about GENOM Star Destroyers, anyway: the chow was first-rate. And she did manage to persuade McCandless to sit down in the chowhall and stop hovering over her, though she couldn't get him to take off his helmet and actually have something to eat. She was just finishing up a plate of very good vegetarian lasagne when the trooper suddenly said, "Yes, sir? Yes, sir, she's right here. Just finishing up some dinner. Very good, sir. Right away. TK-779 out." Having figured out that he was talking to someone on the radio, Anne looked politely across at him, and he said, "Captain Piett would like to see you in his ready room now, Master Jedi, if it's convenient." Anne smiled. "It's his ship. Show me the way, TK-779." "Right!" McCandless got to his feet, nearly dropped his blaster on the floor, scrambled to retain it, then shoved it into its hip holster as if he were annoyed with it for making that embarrassing escape attempt. Anne drew upon the strength of the Force and did not visibly notice. Trooper McCandless managed to deliver his charge to Captain Piett's ready room at the top of the bridge tower without appreciable incident, unless you count the brief argument he had with the turbolift computer when he told it to take them to "Paptain Kiett's ready room." He remained outside, stiffly at attention, as the Jedi entered the captain's office-cum-conference-chamber to meet with him. It was a nice room, big and expansive, a fitting reward for Piett's years of seniority and service. Its windows, which had retractable blast shields for battle, looked out over the vast expanse of the Star Destroyer, a commanding viewpoint indeed. The decor was very Senior Naval Officer, with dark wooden furniture and a brass plaque reading "GMV AURORA - VICTORY CLASS WARSHIP" affixed to the wall behind the desk. "My first command," Piett explained as he saw her eyes flick to the plaque. "She was scrapped some years ago, and the yardsmen were kind enough to send her dedication plaque to me. Now - I suppose you're wondering why I had orders to find you." "That'd be a safe assumption," Anne replied mildly. "Well, as it happens, they didn't come from my direct superiors," he said. "News travels slowly on the Outer Rim - are you aware that there is a civil war in progress in the Inner Galaxy right now?" Anne nodded. "I hear things. The Earth Alliance has fallen under martial law and annexed outright all the nations which once fell within its borders." Piett's lips were pressed tight. "Indeed," he said. "Their press has it that the takeover has been painless, in fact welcomed, but other sources indicate that there are places on Earth that still haven't been pacified." The Jedi furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "Why isn't the Federation taking action?" "They have," Piett replied with an air of faint disgust. "The Federation High Council issued a decree the day after the crackdown, in which it essentially rubber-stamped all of the EA's actions except the annexation of the Sol VI Territory." To his guest's look of surprise, Piett nodded. "As you might expect, this has caused considerable uproar in the Inner Sectors. The International Police are monitoring the situation very closely as the balance of power in the galaxy changes." "A noble undertaking," Anne allowed, "but what's it got to do with me?" "The Chief of the IPO, Fleet Captain Benjamin Hutchins, is taking the long view," Piett explained. "The galaxy is becoming an increasingly dangerous and unstable place. The International Police will need all the personnel they can recruit to combat the forces, both internal and external - foreseen and unforeseen - that will surely see opportunity in the disorder. One of those has already reared its head - your Order's ancient enemy, the Order of the Sith." Anne gave him an incredulous look. "The Sith! There must be some mistake, Captain. They've been extinct for millennia." "By most accounts, so have the Jedi," Piett replied mildly. The Jedi accepted it gracefully. "Point taken, Captain," she said. "Please go on." "To that end," the captain concluded, folding his hands on his desktop, "Captain Hutchins has asked all his allied forces to help him in an attempt to locate and recruit as many of the galaxy's scattered Jedi Knights as possible. He hopes to reintegrate the Order into a new, more dynamic form, as an arm of the Experts of Justice to operate in parallel with the Lensmen." Anne blinked. "Really. That's... an interesting idea. How'd you know to look for me out here?" Piett smiled. "Your name, a description of your ship and the general location where you might be found were provided to the Chief by his main contact in what remains of the Order, a man who I believe is known to you - Jedi Master Mace Windu." The Jedi's face brightened. "You could say he's known to me, yes," she replied. "He only taught me everything I know. How is he?" "Quite well, as far as I know," Piett responded. "He's currently at Babylon 6, conferring with the Fleet Captain and the Security Council of the Babylon Foundation." Anne nodded. "OK, I'm interested. But before I commit to anything, I'd like to meet with Master Windu and Captain Hutchins. I'm especially interested in finding out what makes them think the Sith are involved." Piett frowned thoughtfully. "Yes, of course. I'll call the Chief and arrange a holomeeting." The Jedi smiled. "No offense, Captain, but I like to size people up in person when I'm deciding whether to join up with them. If you could set it up for me, lend me some parts and tools and give my droid the coordinates, I can get myself to Babylon. I'm used to traveling alone - except for R4, I'm kind of stuck with him." Piett considered this, then rose. "Of course. I'll place my small-craft repair staff at your complete disposal. Take all the bay time and parts you want to refurbish your vessel - it's a long haul to the Inner Sectors from here." He consulted one of the monitor panels built into his desk. "Our patrol route takes us past Tatooine in another two weeks; from there, it's a fairly straightforward route to Babylon 6. Much easier than trying to pick your way across the Enigma sector, and it will give you and my techs ample time to make your ship spaceworthy again." Anne thought it over. On the one hand, having been presented with such an intriguing proposal, she wanted to waste no time in following it up. On the other, two weeks of unlimited bay time, free materials and competent help was an extremely attractive proposition; her poor Delta-7 was in desperate need of the sort of overhaul she could accomplish with that at her disposal, and when would another such opportunity arrive? She knew which side R4 would vote on, that was for sure. "OK, Captain," she said with a grin. "You've got yourself a houseguest." "Excellent," said Piett, rising from his seat with a smile. "Please make yourself at home. I'll have Security issue you a full-access datatag. Is Trooper McCandless proving a suitable escort, or would you prefer someone a bit more seasoned? He was available on short notice and has been wanting to prove himself, but he is admittedly a bit... green." Anne laughed. "Just a bit. How old is he, anyway?" "Seventeen," Piett replied. "He thinks we don't know he lied on his application, but we find out everything about our recruits - including the fact that his parents are overjoyed that he's escaped Earthforce conscription and joined a force with honor and integrity," he added with a tight smile. "But if his inexperience is a problem, I can assign a senior trooper to assist you." "No, that's all right, Captain. I think I'll get used to him. No way for a young soldier to get experience if he's never given an assignment, right?" "You're quite right, Master Jedi. Of course. If there's anything you need, please don't hesitate to contact me directly. Grand Admiral Thrawn and I want to do everything we can to make your stay aboard the Eidolon a pleasant one." Anne thanked him and left his ready room; McCandless fell into step beside her as she left with only moderate fumbling. "Your company doesn't spare anything when it wants to impress a prospective employee," she observed, "even when it's someone -else's- prospective employee." "Master Mann and his staff are very committed to the Corporation's support of the International Police and the Babylon Foundation," said McCandless earnestly. "I can see that," the Jedi replied. "Think you can show me to the bay where they're keeping my ship? Captain Piett said he'd have your fighter techs help me fix her up." "No trouble at all." They entered the turbolift, and, trying to freight his voice with all the confident White Legion authority he could manage, McCandless ordered it, "Bocking Day Seventeen! ... oh, -damn-." For the next eleven days, Anne divided her time between working on her ship (with the aid of a pair of master spacecraft technicians detached from the ship's TIE squadron's maintenance wing and the micromanagerial supervision of R4-P17) and exploring the Eidolon (with the eager, if occasionally -too- eager, assistance of Trooper McCandless). The ship was as vast as her outer appearance suggested, and exploring the interior was a bit like getting the lay of a new city - one that was essentially all one great building. As the days went by, McCandless came to represent several different kinds of enigma. Her faithful companion and guide whenever she wasn't in her quarters or the spacecraft repair bay, he never seemed to eat or sleep. He must have, she reasoned, at some point; but when she retired each nightcycle he was at her door to see her off, and when she emerged each morning he was there to escort her to breakfast. There hardly seemed time for him to go to his own quarters, wherever they were in this vast ship, sleep, tend to his own needs, and return, especially since her schedule wasn't entirely regular. When he was with her, he never removed his helmet, so she still didn't know what he looked like. She also hadn't managed to learn his first name. She could have found out easily enough; with minimal effort, she could probably have persuaded him to remove the helmet and tell her his name, his parents' name, or more or less anything else he knew. That would have been cheating, though. She could also have asked Captain Piett, and had meant to the first couple of days, but eventually she came to view that as cheating too and decided not to. It was more fun to try to guess. At any rate, she was busy, too busy to worry about it over-much. It had been too long since she'd had the services of an experienced master spacecraft technician, let alone two, to help her with the Delta Dagger, and she was determined to make the most of the opportunity. There was much to be done, too. A surprising amount of the ship's ancient technology still worked and showed no signs of stopping any time soon - the shipwrights of Atlantis had built things to last - but those systems which had failed had been bypassed or replaced several times, as less sturdy replacements wore out and were replaced in turn. R4 was an example of that kind of 'repair'; at some point in the Dagger's past, the navigational computer installed to bypass the failed original had itself failed, and been replaced not with another navicomputer, but with the head of an R4 unit. Not even R4 himself knew what had happened to the rest of him, but he was just a trifle bitter about the whole affair. Carefully, methodically, the Jedi and Tech Sergeant Mack Henderson, a grizzled veteran of forty years who had worked on everything from the old Lancer IIs through the full TIE series and the Cygnus Assault Gunboat, went from one end of the old Delta-7 to the other, testing, repairing, and replacing systems. At Captain Piett's order and by his own inclination, the master tech spared no expense, even stripping parts from a couple of the squadron's spare TIE Avengers to increase the Dagger's shielding capabilities and the firepower of its weapons. Some of the Delta Dagger's hidden qualities raised his eyebrows, but only in appreciation. Mack Henderson liked a ship with a few tricks up its sleeves. The pilots of Longbow Squadron pitched in too, stopping by periodically in their off hours to help with the jobs that took a lot of steady hands, like wiring. Even a small ship like the Delta-7 had miles of wiring, and a lot of it wanted replacing, at least by Tech Sergeant Henderson's standards. While Henderson worked on the main ship, his colleague, Tech Sergeant Winema de Villiers, overhauled the drive ring. This was Anne's favorite feature of the ship. She'd once had a museum in the Inner Sectors offer to trade her any modern single-seater she cared to name for the Delta Dagger, which they told her they believed to be the last of her kind still flying. When she's passed on the offer, they'd made another: the drive ring for the paid installation of an integral hyperdrive in the main ship. She'd passed on that too. For one thing, the ship didn't have as much spare space on board as the museum people thought; and for another, it was in large part the drive ring that made it feel so endearingly antique to its owner. In the previous epoch, three to four millennia ago, drive rings were common fixtures on small craft. Hyperspace motivators small enough to be mounted inboard on single-seat spacecraft were a relatively recent innovation, developed by the Salusians back in the 1600s. Before that, anything smaller than a gunboat had to have an external drive module with its own fusion reactor and power management system, and the most common form for that module was a ring that the ship locked into the center of. Like the fighter's main body, the Delta Dagger's drive ring had been overhauled several times (and modified countless) over the ship's career. This was the first full overhaul since the ship came into Anne's possession, though, and she was pleased when Sergeant de Villiers told her that she though she could get the ship's hyperdrive rating down to 0.75 or so. The single-seater was handy in a fight and a good way to ensure that one traveled light, but spending hyperspace time in a meditative trance got old after a while. As her two weeks aboard the Eidolon wound down, Anne Springsteen counted herself a fairly pleased Jedi. Her beloved ship was coming to the end of a much-needed overhaul; soon she would be able to get back into the saddle and wring out the upgrades and modifications for herself. Her impromptu tour of the Outer Rim (not the first one she'd had) was coming to a close as well. She looked forward to returning to the Inner Sectors, especially visiting Babylon 6. From all that she'd heard and read about the place, it sounded like quite a thing to see. FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2406 Whatever woke her on the morning of the twelfth day was subtle enough that Anne didn't consciously know what it was. It wasn't a sense of danger; she woke perfectly calm, just a bit puzzled. Habit and training made her pick up her lightsaber from the bedside table anyway. She touched a control on the headboard of her bed and the stateroom's lights came up gently, like the house lights in a theater. It was still the ship's nightcycle, so they stopped at a gentle level, making the room light enough to navigate in but too dark for comfortable reading. That was all Anne needed, though; she crossed the room, unlit saber in hand, to the windows, then pressed the control that would switch them from opaque to transparent. When the windows cleared, the reason for her awakening became obvious. What lay beyond the windows was not the blue and white riot of hyperspace, but the pinpricked darkness of normal space. The Eidolon wasn't scheduled to drop out of hyperspace again until they arrived at Tatooine on Thursday. Anne wondered what had happened. A drive failure in a ship this big and well-made didn't seem credible, and anyway there were no alarms sounding. She supposed such alarms might be interdicted from the passenger area, so as not to bother or upset guests, but the notion struck her as unlikely. Captain Piett must have stopped the ship on purpose. She closed her eyes and tried to sense any disturbance in the Force that might give her a hint, but received only a general feeling of mild agitation, the sense that the ship's thousands-strong crew were rushing to stations. Nothing more specific came through, certainly no sense of any crisis that could be -causing- such a reaction, which was what she had been after. She gave up, sighing. Like Master Windu's, her connection with the Force was more immediate than cosmic, and such exercises were rarely fruitful for either of them. Anne went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and threw some water on her face and hair, then dressed hurriedly. Whatever was going on, she thought it likely Captain Piett would appreciate the help of a Jedi Knight. When she went out into the corridor, she was mildly amused to notice that, for once, McCandless wasn't here - - until a moment later, when he came charging around the far corner, having obviously just come from the bank of turbolifts back that way. As he ran, he was still fastening the utility belt of his armor, and his helmet was slightly askew. Seeing her already out in the hall, he clattered to a stop and said in a much brisker tone than she was used to from him, "Come on. Captain wants to see you." Made as businesslike as he was by the urgency in his tone, Anne nodded and followed him back to the lifts. Her mind wasn't all seriousness, though; as they went, walking fast this time instead of running, she used the Force to gently straighten his helmet. He was so preoccupied he didn't seem to notice. This time they didn't go to Captain Piett's office; they went straight to the Star Destroyer's bridge, one level below. Several different designs had been tried for the bridges of GENOM's Star Destroyers, starting from a rather imperialistic type with no seats for anyone and all the working crewmen in pits below a sort of promenade deck for the officers. After the death of Maximilien Largo, this design's only real fan, Star Destroyers had been modified in several different ways, trying out different common bridge types. The one that worked best for the most commanders and had become standard was derived from the type pioneered by the Salusians on their early space battleships, like the ancient Republic Saenar Systems Dreadnaughts, and still in use in the modern day. The room was about the size of a movie theater, with the usual huge windows overlooking the vast expanse of the ship's foredecks in place of a screen. Captain Piett and his executive officer sat on a raised dais at the back, Piett in his command chair, the exec at a workstation. Banks of other workstations marched toward the windows, each row one step down, giving the place a stadium-like feeling. It reminded Anne of a picture she had once seen of the room where Earth's first attempts at space travel had been controlled on the ground. She paused in the turbolift doorway to take in the view from the bridge windows. They were in a star system, looked like a G-type star, maybe two AUs out if her eye was any good, and inbound at high sublight. They weren't making straight for the star, but coming in at an angle - a planetary intercept course, probably bound for a world in the star's habitable zone. That time spent learning to be a navigation geek wasn't wasted after all, she thought with a private half-smile. She had no time for further reflection, though, because her White Legion guide was hustling her the rest of the way out of the lift. McCandless led the way to the open space to the left of Piett's command chair, came to letter-perfect attention, and saluted crisply. "TK-779 reporting as ordered, sir!" he said. Piett suppressed a smile. "Very good, Trooper McCandless. At ease." McCandless dropped from attention into a very aggressive parade rest, which was as close as a White Legionnaire could get to ease in the presence of a line officer, and the captain turned to Anne. "I owe you an apology, Master Jedi," he said. "I know I told you we would be at Tatooine in a little less than a day, but we've encountered a slight delay. This is the Vastru system." Anne nodded. "I've been there," she said. "Two inhabited worlds, agriculture, some light mining... what's going on?" "We aren't sure yet," Piett replied regretfully. "We received a hyperwave distress call from the capital of Vastru II about twenty minutes ago. We were barely on the fringes of their useful range, so the message was a bit broken up, but from the sound of things, the colony is under attack." The Jedi looked thoughtfully puzzled. "Attack? Out here? Who would attack a farming colony? There's nothing there that pirates would want." "You mentioned light mining," said Piett's executive officer, but Anne shrugged doubtfully. "Common stuff, for local use - tin, iron. Nothing worth exporting, let alone stealing." "Mm. At any rate, it's our duty as good galactic citizens to respond to distress signals, so we're checking it out. It may prove to be nothing." "Sir!" said one of the commtechs in the row of stations closest to the command dais. "Signal from Vastru II." "Put it on," said Piett. At the front of the bridge, the air shivered as a holographic curtain display rezzed up in front of the windows, and then the slightly transparent image of a man appeared. He was portly but healthy-looking, tanned, with an impressive handlebar mustache and not much other hair, and behind him could be seen what looked like a fairly well-appointed office. A prosperous man, and probably an important one on his local scale. The overwhelming impression his appearance gave at the moment, though, was one of barely contained panic. "Incoming vessel, this is Governor Tev Garlis of Vastru II! Can you read me? Can you READ me!" Piett stood up, straightened his uniform, and replied, "This is Captain Niels Piett of the GENOM Corporation Star Destroyer Eidolon. We read you clearly, Governor Garlis. We received your hyperwave transmission twenty minutes ago, but the message was unclear. Are you in distress?" Garlis let out a short, mirthless bark of a laugh and said, "In DISTRESS?! They're KILLING us! Please, you've got to help us!" "Of course we'll help you," Piett replied. "We're inbound at maximum speed. But please try to calm down, sir, and give us as much information as possible about what we're helping you -with-." "I don't know!" Garlis replied. "They came out of nowhere, ships don't conform to anything in the database, THEY don't conform to anything in the database! They're... sort of humanoid, I think, but - their armor - never seen anything like them! They wiped out our aerodefense forces in -minutes- and they're tearing apart our ground defenses like they were nothing!" "Do you have any idea at all where they came from, what they want?" Piett wondered. "Nothing! They haven't made any demands - all attempts to communicate have failed! They just chitter in that horrible way they have and - " The transmission cut off. "Governor Garlis? Governor!" Piett turned to the commtech. "What happened?" "Transmission stopped at the source, Captain," the tech replied. "Most likely the antenna was destroyed." Piett clenched a fist and came very close to swearing aloud. Then he dropped back into his command seat and snapped, "Engineering. More speed. Go to 110% on the main reactor." The bridge engineer made no demur; a moment later, the ship's constant subliminal hum stepped up a notch, becoming consciously audible. That was the only sign that the Eidolon was being pushed beyond her design limits, though, at least for the moment. A sensor operator in the second rank reported, "Multiple sensor contacts at Vastru II. Three heavy ships, probably warships, and two smaller ones, probably troopships. Configuration unknown. They're not moving to intercept - either they haven't noticed us or they don't care." Piett nodded, then reeled off more orders with the well-polished confidence of a man who is used to giving them: "All gunnery stations, firing point procedures. Shields to full power. All TIE crews to standby alert. Colonel Tenn, muster the Seventh Legion to Assembly Area C and prepare for counter-assault. Give me all-call." A moment later, the distinctive chime of an all-call alert sounded throughout the hull, including on the bridge to let the captain know he was on, and Piett addressed his ship: "Your attention please. This is Captain Piett speaking. We have received a request for aid from the agricultural station at Vastru II, which is under attack by unidentified forces. A ground assault is already in progress, which the White Legion will be deployed to stop. Ship to ship combat is imminent with enemy space forces. That is all." "Fighters inbound, Captain - at least I think they're fighters," the sensor operator reported. "I make it about a hundred of them, contact in twenty seconds... mark." "Launch all fighters," Piett replied immediately. Then, with a moment to breathe, he turned to Anne and said apologetically, "I am sorry about this, Master Jedi. If you would like to remain here, I can have a chair brought for you." Anne gave the captain a look. "Sit around on the bridge of a starship while people are suffering down there?" she asked, gesturing at the growing blue-brown disk of Vastru II. "I'm a Jedi Knight, Captain, not a bounty hunter." Piett smiled slightly - he didn't have a very high opinion of bounty hunters either - and nodded. "TK-779, take Jedi Springsteen to Assembly Area C with you and have your platoon sergeant make room for her on your transport." McCandless snapped to attention and saluted with a brisk, "Yes, sir!" Then the two, trooper and Jedi, turned and jogged for the turbolift. The ride down to Vastru II was a new experience. Anne had never traveled aboard a White Legion assault transport before. They weren't built for comfort, that much was certain. The vehicle was little more than an armored box with a cockpit, reactor, blasters and thruster pods attached. It wasn't particularly stable, either, and as Anne was the only person aboard not wearing pointy-cornered plastoid body armor, she noticed more than the others. She sat at the end of one of the parallel benches lining the long walls of the compartment, wrapped in the dark green traveling robe she hadn't had cause to unpack since arriving aboard the Eidolon, watching the two dozen troopers packed in with her readying their equipment. Right next to her, McCandless checked over his gear with the rest of them. Anne leaned back into the corner of the transport, arms folded, and watched him. The quick, clean precision of his movements was so at odds with his nervous clumsiness in social situations that it made her smile, even at a time like this. He finished his work, racked the carbine into one of the slots cut in the bench for that purpose (it being difficult to use the hip holsters while sitting), then reached into an overhead equipment bin. "Here," he said, turning to Anne. "Fieldcomm earset. You can keep track of our tac band with this." She took the field radio, fitted it into her ear, made sure the microphone was positioned correctly, and nodded. "Thanks." "You're already wearing a belt," the trooper went on, "so just take this - it's an emergency field kit." He held out one of the white modules from a stormtrooper's utility belt. She took it, turned it over, noted the universal mounting clip, and fixed it to her own belt, inboard of her lightsaber. "You never know, it might come in handy." She nodded again. The transport bumped and shuddered - either they were taking fire or they'd just hit atmosphere. A moment later a thin shriek filtered through the armored walls, answering that question. Atmospheric entry was always a bit dodgy in a craft like this, that had the aerodynamics of a brick. Anne preferred ships that were at least vaguely atmosphere-ready. Her own Delta Dagger wouldn't make it in an atmosphere without its repulsor array, but at least it could cut the air with something other than brute force. The ten minutes that followed were tense ones for her not because they were flying into danger, but because she couldn't quite shake the irrational suspicion that they were just plummeting to their doom. A -window- would have been nice, at least... It was thus a mild relief when the voice of the transport pilot crackled in her ear, "Second Platoon, stand by. Twenty seconds to the dirt. Crisis area about thirty yards northeast of LZ. Enemy... well... you'll know 'em when you see 'em." The platoon sergeant, easily identified by his orange pauldron, looked up toward the cockpit, his body language clearly announcing, "What the hell kind of opposition briefing was that?" He didn't have time to say anything, though, before the transport shuddered again, this time with the forces of touchdown. Green light flooded the troop compartment, replacing the red of the flight down, and the hatch at the rear opened. Immediately the two dozen stormtroopers rose, pivoted, and hit the dirt with the Jedi right behind them. Anne hadn't witnessed a scene of such utter confusion for quite some time, and never since she and Master Windu had parted ways. For a moment, surveying it - the devastated field they'd landed in, the transports, the troopers (some already dead), the burning town just a few yards away - she felt a little lost and wished he were there. Only for a moment, though. Then she shook her head slightly, reminded herself that -she- was the Jedi here, and these troops needed her help. She took her lightsaber from her belt and ran for the town, following a group of troopers from Second Platoon to the end of a stone wall that marked the periphery. There she got her first look at the unknown enemy, and after seeing them, she still didn't know what they were. Governor Garlis had been right - they were vaguely humanoid - but they were impossibly thin to be human, even in their armored suits. The suits seemed to indicate some sort of rank distinction: some were a dull green, others maroon. They seemed to be full environment suits, and they had bowl helmets that appeared to be partially mirrored, so that only a vague impression of what lay within could be seen. Anne Springsteen had been traveling the galaxy since she was old enough to walk, at the side of Mace Windu and alone. She'd been from one end of it to the other and encountered all manner of alien life - but she'd never seen these before. They were making chittering sounds, too, as Garlis had said, and Anne had to admit that they did indeed sound quite horrible. Master Windu had taught her that the first duty of a Jedi Knight is to endeavor to find a diplomatic solution to any problem. Somehow Anne doubted that these creatures would be open to negotiation, but she tried anyway. "Who are you?" she asked the nearest one, throwing the weight of the Force behind the question. "Why are you doing this?" The creature chittered at her, raised the rifle-like weapon it carried, and opened fire. The Jedi responded without conscious thought. Her lightsaber was raised and activated before the stormtrooper behind her realized she had moved. Its violet-edged blade snapped out, intercepting the first shot from the maroon-armored alien's rifle before it was even fully extended. The weapon was a projectile gun, not a blaster, and Anne's lightsaber vaporized the bullets as it intercepted them. The creature pressed the attack, firing on full-auto. Anne's saber intercepted each shot before it could reach or pass her, one bullet destroyed for each step she took toward the creature; then the Force cried a warning just as the alien shifted its grip on its weapon and fired the lower, larger barrel at her. "Grenade!" she cried, and thrust out her left hand, palm open. The Force rippled through the space before it, stopping the grenade and flinging it back toward its source. The alien chittered and backpedaled, switching back to autofire. The grenade hit the ground just in front of it and exploded, flinging it down in a heap of shattered armor, broken chitin and yellow ichor. Well, so much for communication, thought Anne to herself as she and the White Legion entered the town. Looks like it's going to be one of -those- kinds of days. Indeed it was. Of all the types of fighting the White Legionnaires had been trained for, house-to-house infighting in a settlement was the one absolutely -none- of them enjoyed the thought of, and it was exactly what they were doing here. These creatures, whatever they were - the White Legion's tactical band had started referring to them by the simple shorthand 'the bugs' - had invaded most of the homes of Jandara, Vastru II's capital, and the Legion had to go in and rout them out - preferably minimizing damage to property and civilian casualties at the same time. The result was, for the Seventh Legion, a very long day. The bugs' rifles were probably linear-accelerator-based, and despite the fact that they were projectile weapons, they were soon classified at the same Threat Level as medium blasters. Their projectiles had to hit a Legionnaire's armor dead-on to penetrate, but penetrate they could, with lethal results. What was worse, though, was the fact that the aliens were very free with their grenades. Most of the Legion's casualties that afternoon were concussion injuries and explosive dismemberments. In the chaos, units got broken up. Troopers were trapped in buildings collapsed by grenade explosions and enemy fire; the battle to take back Jandara soon became just as much a fight for individual survival, trooper against alien. Still, despite the disorganized appearance of the initiative at the surface level, it somehow managed to have its desired effect. Even when separated and improvising, the White Legion maintained discipline and stuck to the mission goals, and by four-thirty that afternoon, a large portion of Jandara had been liberated - not all of it reduced to smoking wreckage in the process. Anne Springsteen wasn't entirely sure where she was by that time. She thought she was a fair way downtown; the buildings down here were mostly brick and concrete rather than the simpler wooden dwellings of the outlying area. They were still mostly residences, though. She paused in an alley, back against a concrete wall, to take a breather and reorient herself. As she'd expected, she'd gotten better at sifting through the comm traffic on the communications earset McCandless had given her. While she rested, she listened to the traffic, trying to determine if there were any units in her area. She soon determined that there were; the very squad she'd come down with, in fact, had mostly regrouped and was hunkered down half a block from her present location, preparing to take City Hall. She made her way through alleys, senses alert, and notified the group by radio that she was coming so that her appearance in the staging area didn't surprise them. She was pleased to note as she arrived that Trooper McCandless was still alive; he knelt with the rest of his squad in the alley next to the building which stood catercorner to City Hall on the town square. He glanced up as she entered the alley, nodded, and went back to checking his blaster carbine. Sergeant Nomura, who crouched by a dumpster observing the building through a pair of electrobinoculars, turned when the Jedi entered the alley. "They didn't take City Hall without a fight, but they took it all the same," he observed. Anne came up alongside him and looked. City Hall was a wide, two-story, flat-roofed building, modest and unprepossessing like all the structures of Jandara. There were a number of dead aliens, most of them the more numerous green-armored types, and a lot of human corpses, most dressed in the uniform of the Jandara Militia or City Police, scattered around on the pavement in front of the front doors, which looked to have been broken and then hastily resealed. On the roof was the twisted wreckage of what had once been a hyperwave transmitter. Nomura grunted, then turned to one of the troopers nearest him. "Wilson. Scanner," the sergeant said, and the trooper addressed pulled a large handheld battle scanner from his belt and keyed it on. A few beeping seconds later, the trooper handed the scanner to the sergeant. "I read sixteen life signs, all aliens," the trooper said, "but they're not in any deployment. They're just... well... -standing- there." "All right," nodded the sergeant, "we'll flank them out. Master Jedi, you watch our back. Cox, take your squad between those two houses there," he pointed across the way, "and come around behind City Hall. Everyone else with me," he said, raising his carbine to ready position. "We're going to knock on their front door and see who's at home." Cox and six other troopers formed up and moved to the back of the alley, vanishing behind the building, while the rest of the platoon dodged from cover to cover, climbing over fences and regrouping behind trees, crossing the town square. Anne followed about ten yards behind them, focusing northwards, watching for more enemy forces or Legion reinforcements. Thus she wasn't quite close enough to intercept the first round from City Hall, which caught the sergeant just under the chin of his helmet just as he reached the sidewalk opposite City Hall and nearly decapitated him. She was by his side in an instant, kneeling just in time to feel the life fade from his body, and the troops around her hesitated for a dangerous instant. The fire began to intensify from City Hall's two wide upstairs front windows, and McCandless jumped up and shouted, "Double echelon formation! Element Two: covering fire! MAIN SQUAD: ADVANCE!" His voice, snapping with the whipcrack of command, galvanized his fellow troopers. Instantly they broke into two well-rehearsed groups, four of them fanning out two on a side, kneeling, snapping the folding stocks of their new-model DC-15 blaster carbines out, and volleying well-aimed cover fire at the upstairs windows. With a wave of his arm, McCandless ran across the street, blasting at the ground-floor windows where two more bugs stood, weapons leveled, showering his fellow troopers with fire. Anne, caught absolutely flat-footed and still feeling a little out of sorts from being so close to the sergeant's death, shook herself out of her reverie and dashed after him, her saber springing back to life and covering his off side. Not for the first time, she regretted her inability to do anything other than block the creatures' fire. Had they been wielding blasters, whose fire she could have sent back to them with her lightsaber instead of simply stopping it, she could have been of more help in a counterattack. The lightning advance caught the bugs by surprise. Their fire was inaccurate, bouncing from the troopers' armor, not catching any of them directly or solidly enough to penetrate. Keeping up with McCandless, Anne had to concentrate almost as much on not being hit by ricochets from his armor as on protecting his left. The platoon followed, and as McCandless reached the porch he began waving the troopers left and right, ignoring the front door for the blasted-out windows. Only when troopers were climbing through the windows on both sides did McCandless turn and blast the door in to follow. Anne was in City Hall's lobby only moments after McCandless, watching with amazement as the young trooper directed his fellows through the building, up the stairs, securing every room. A brief flurry of blasterfire echoed from the back as Cox's squad arrived and took out the remaining aliens, and then the platoon was reassembled, three men short, in the main lobby. Cox stepped over to McCandless and asked, "Where's Sarge?" "Bought it," McCandless replied. "You're in charge." "Notify the colonel?" Cox asked. "I was a little busy," McCandless grumbled. "All right," Cox said, and he activated his helmet's comm link and reported the loss to regimental command. After a long spell of listening, he muttered, "Third Regiment's landed on the north end of town, Fourth on the east. More troops on the way down. Aero recon estimates something like three thousand enemy troops, all more or less stationary at the moment, and a couple of -huge- troop transports at the center of town. The enemy's herding prisoners into those troop transports. Mission objective is to keep those transports on the ground and evac the prisoners. Top wants me to detach a heavy squad with Jedi Springsteen and send them ahead of the main line. McCandless, I'm putting you in charge." "Roger," McCandless acknowledged. "How far do we have to go?" "This must have been the center of town when they built the place, but since then it's expanded mostly to the south, so we're a good half-mile from city center now." He pointed at the boulevard running across the front of City Hall. "There's a minor highway at the top of this street. Turn right on it and it'll take you straight downtown. One small ridge between us and city center - when you hit the ridge, you'll be able to see your destination." "Roger," McCandless repeated. He turned to survey the survivors for a moment, then nodded and said crisply, "Stevens, Beldran, Van der Groot, Asaki, Chin, Smith and Berry, you're with me." He looked at Anne and asked, "Are you ready to move out, Master Jedi?" "So kind of you to consult me," Anne replied, trying not to chuckle. "Corporal, my compliments to your superiors, I'm more than happy to assist." "All right," said McCandless with a nod. "Squad, refresh magazines." The named troops dropped the power cells from their blasters and switched them for fresh ones from their belt. As a round of loud clicks and snaps ran through the squad, he nodded. "Let's move." It took the newly formed Special Assault Squad 779 twenty minutes to reach the ridge mentioned by Corporal Cox. The eight of them crept carefully to the crest of the ridge, first crouching, then crawling, moving forward on their elbows to peer over the peak at the area beyond. It had been a park, a large, grassy expanse surrounded by the taller buildings of the small city's center. Now it was a battlefield and a landing strip all at once, occupied by a pair of enormous alien spacecraft. They took up nearly half the park's surface area by themselves. Three stories tall, their armor shaped in eerie curves, they squatted on thick landing legs, their ramps lowered like the tongues of the alien beasts they resembled. More of the armored bugs stood around in a defensive perimeter, weapons aimed outward, watching... and some new types were to be seen down there as well. "So that's what they look like," McCandless murmured as he observed the scene through electrobinoculars. He handed the optics to Julius Van der Groot, the squad's close combat specialist. Van der Groot was a Dutchman from Valeria, one of the two super-gravity colonies established during the first Earth diaspora, circa 2025. Bred for life in three-plus Standard gravities, he was a rough-hewn tower of muscle and bone, capable of lifting nearly a ton if his blood was up. At six feet ten inches tall and nearly six hundred pounds, he broke up the uniformity of the squad's appearance a bit, but on the other hand, he was a comforting presence to have at hand in a scrap. "Mm," the Dutchman replied. "Looks like they don't bother arming their security types - just the shock troopers. Ugly bastards. Never seen their type before." He handed the binoculars back to McCandless, clenched one massive armored fist, and rumbled confidently, "They don't look too tough." Anne took the binoculars and looked for herself. Sure enough, only the aliens on the perimeter were armored. The ones engaged in rounding up the bewildered, cowed-looking civilians were wearing simple tunics of colored fabric, some orange, others blue. They weren't carrying those automatic rifles, either, but peculiar weapons that resembled staves with large crystals at the end. And the Valerian was right - they were certainly ugly, with their hideous, spindly mockeries of humanoid shape, their yellow-grey chitin and their three staring red eyes arranged in a triangle on what would have been a humanoid's forehead. "Spread out," McCandless told his troops. "Set up a perimeter. Berry, find a good position and com in when you're set." "Roger," replied Trooper Berry, the squad sniper. He moved off, surprisingly silent in his armor, and entered one of the high buildings overlooking the park. Not more than a minute later, his voice clicked through on the tac band reserved for Squad 779: "TK-901S in position. This looks like an import/export office. If its owner is one of those hostages down there, he's going to have reason to be glad he popped for the comfortable chair." "Just don't fall asleep, Berry," McCandless replied tersely. "Perish the thought, sir. What's my protocol?" "Hold fire until we move in. Then it's open season." "Understood. Too bad I can't tell which ones are the officers." "Well, you can't have everything," McCandless replied. "I - " Whatever he was about to say, the trooper reserved it, for a sudden wave of agitation spread through the enemy. The staff-wielding ones started prodding people faster; the armored ones started falling back, keeping their weapons trained outward, their awareness increasing almost visibly. The ones with staves began breaking off the lines, scattering hostages with gestures that seemed almost frantic and herding the ones they had left onto the ramps. "What the hell?" wondered McCandless. "They're getting ready to leave," Anne said in a tone of sudden, horrified realization. "They're almost panicking - something's happened, maybe to one of their ships. They're pulling out." "Shit!" McCandless snarled. "Command, this is TK-779. Enemy is bugging out! How long until the main force gets here?" "TK-779, Command," a calm, efficient voice crackled back. "Main force ETA ten minutes." "They'll be gone by then," Anne told him, but from the set of his helmeted head as he nodded sharply, he already knew. "We'll just have to stop them from leaving," said McCandless, the way a normal person would say, "We'll just have to take the bus." Then he continued, "Van der Groot, take Chin, Smith and Beldran and stop the one on the right. Asaki, Master Jedi, you're with me. Berry, hold fire until my signal, then cover us." The troopers acknowledged their orders and readied their weapons. Anne drew her lightsaber, but didn't ignite it. For a moment, the six troopers and one Jedi poised themselves tensely on the ridgetop. Then McCandless raised himself up and declared, "Special Squad, move in! Berry - fire at will!" /* Apocalyptica "Hall of the Mountain King" _Cult_ */ The six white-armored figures and one green-and-tan-robed Jedi charged down the ridge toward the park, splitting into two groups and making for the two dropships. The armored aliens, surprised, started chittering furiously and opened fire, while their staff-wielding comrades doubled their frantic efforts to herd the humans up the ramps. Seeing their rescuers (and not having registered that this first wave was the whole rescue force), the human hostages broke and ran, jumping off the sides of the ramps and scattering. A few of the aliens turned to fire on them, but the White Legionnaires cut them down as they tried to train their guns. The park filled with the unmistakable sound of powering engines. The transports started visibly vibrating as their pilots ran them up to power as fast as possible, skipping the niceties of a warmup period. McCandless and Asaki bore down on the lefthand transport, protected from flanking enemy fire by the humming, flickering lightsaber of their Jedi protector, which at times resembled a solid wall of energy as its wielder moved with superhuman agility to guard the two troopers' backs. Julius Van der Groot's group, lacking such protection, reached their assigned transport down a man - Beldran was sprawled on the grass at the edge of the park with a hole in his chestplate, but he was still moving. As the big Dutchman reached the end of the ramp, he holstered his DC-15 - which looked like a light pistol in his enormous armored paw - and drew his Valerian space axe from its sling across his back. This weapon, almost exclusively found in the hands of Valerian spacers, was renowned and feared throughout the galaxy for its brutal effectiveness in close quarters. The unknown aliens received their first lesson in its power when the Dutchman stepped foot on the end of the ramp and clove the green-armored alien who tried to bar his progress clean in half with a single swipe of the massive blade. On the ramp of the ship to the left, one of the maroon-armored aliens raised its weapon and made the peculiar motion with it that the Legionnaires had come to recognize, over the course of the afternoon, as the prelude to a grenade launch. McCandless swore and tried to dodge, but he knew he was too close - he wouldn't be able to get out of the blast radius before - Silently, a black-edged half-inch hole appeared clean through the center of the alien's domed helmet and the head within, smack between the red smudges of its two lower eyes showing through the partly-mirrored material. McCandless smiled under his helmet as the creature pitched backward; Doug Berry's Walther M96 sniper rifle, with its laser beam tuned beyond the visible spectrum, was like the invisible finger of God sometimes. Clearly, the other aliens had no idea what had happened to their fellow; they looked around, body language showing surprisingly humanlike confusion, and in those seconds they were lost. Berry burned down another one, this one in green, while a third fell in a storm of crossfire from Asaki, who had reached the top of the ramp, and McCandless down at its base. The fourth and final, down on the ground trying to flank the troopers from behind, found itself cut down by the violet blade of Anne Springsteen. /* 00:30 */ A moment later, the dropship shuddered and lifted off, engines screaming. McCandless slapped the belt control which activated his boots' magnatomic adhesion plates, sticking him firmly to the ramp, and turned his body to look back and down. They were already twenty feet in the air, McCandless on the ramp and Asaki up covering the mouth of the corridor it led to. It looked like they were going to have to do the rest of this without their Jedi guardian angel. A moment later, she was right there next to him, having made a patently impossible leap from the ground to the end of the ramp and landed as if her plain leather boots were MAPped as well. "You OK?" she asked. "Fine," he replied. "Let's find the control room." As the ramp whined up and sealed behind them, the three humans moved into the body of the vessel. The corridor leading from the ramp was deserted, the humans and their staff-wielding captors having disappeared further inboard while the troopers were dealing with the last of their armored adversaries. The inside of the ship was bizarre by human standards, finished in strange, bright colors and weird textures, with some surfaces that almost looked alive. "This technology looks like it might be partially organic," mused Trooper Sachiko Asaki as they moved warily into the dropship, weapons ready. "It doesn't conform to any of the technorganic starship technologies I'm familiar with, though." /* 01:04 */ Suddenly, the empty corridor wasn't empty any more. Panels along the side walls which hadn't looked like doors abruptly revealed that they -were- doors, and through those doors came dozens of the staff-wielding aliens, chittering furiously, their weapons at the ready, barring the intruders' way deeper into the ship. "Burn 'em," McCandless snapped. "Autofire." Asaki raised her DC-15, set it to autofire mode, and blasted two of the aliens before a third, in a blue tunic, swept its staff in an arc. She wasn't sure what it hoped to accomplish by that - she was a dozen yards away, far out of melee range - when a pulse of white energy crossed the space between them and smashed against her chestplate. Screaming, the trooper was catapulted up and back, her blaster dropping to the deck where she'd been standing. She crashed to the deck, blue-white energy crackling over her armor, and lay still. McCandless dodged to his right, letting another of those energy pulses pass him to splash harmlessly against the wall behind, scooped up Asaki's DC-15 in his free hand, and opened fire with both of them as he faded back toward his fallen comrade. There were too damn many of them - his weapons' charges were both starting to give out - Anne Springsteen flowed around him like a shadow, her lightsaber hissing to life. One of the white energy pulses flickered toward her; with the smallest of motions, she sent it back. It smashed into the middle of its firer's staff, blasting the weapon in two and sending the alien down in a spray of yellow ichor. Then the Jedi exploded into motion, and Trooper McCandless could only stand there, his jaw hanging open under his helmet, and watch. He knew Jedi were powerful combatants; hell, he'd seen this one protect his squadmates and himself as though that inch-wide saber were a ten-foot-square deflector shield, and he'd just seen her make a vertical leap of at least twenty feet, probably closer to thirty. But never in his life had he seen anything like this, not even from his close-combat weapons instructors in the Legion, not even from Julius Van der Groot and his space axe that could shatter armored bulkheads. There were at least thirty of the aliens, most of them in blue tunics, packed into the twenty feet of corridor separating McCandless from a pair of enormous doors, and in the next few moments, the trooper saw them all die. And they didn't just stand there and watch, like he was doing; they fought back with considerable speed and agility, whipping those staves with their glowing crystals at their attacker, loosing packets of the energy that had just felled a fully-armored White Legionnaire in a single shot. Occasionally, as they missed the Jedi, they hit the bulkheads with the crystals, and where they did, they left explosive craters in the material. But they never touched Anne; she moved among them like a fish cruising through a reef, her saber a splinter of violet-white light all around her, slicing through a staff here, an alien body there, with the same easy, effortless grace. More of them poured out of the side doors. McCandless regained his wits, slammed fresh charges into his weapons, and opened fire again - tentatively, hesitantly, afraid he'd hit the very person he was trying to protect, since she was moving so fast and so unpredictably. As if to illustrate the point of his worries, she turned suddenly - - and as though it had been part of her plan since she first started moving, interposed her saber into the path of one of his shots, subtly deflecting it from a miss to a clean killing hit on one of the charging aliens. /* 02:20 */ As that happened, she made eye contact with him - somehow, through his helmet - and something seemed to go 'click' in the invisible space between McCandless and the Jedi. He lost his fear of hitting her and just started blazing away, knowing that his shots would go where they needed to go, either because of his own gunnery skill or by the infallible grace of her killing dance. There was no passion in him as he filled the air with scarlet death, no rage for his fallen comrades or the terrorized citizens of Vastru II; just a cool certainty that what he did was the only thing he could do. It was a serenity he'd never really known before, and it struck him profoundly later, when he had a chance to contemplate it. Right now, though, he contemplated nothing; he merely supported the Jedi as she toiled against the seemingly endless hordes of chittering yellow-grey monsters who sought to destroy them both. /* end */ Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. The doors closed. The aliens stopped coming, stopped dying. Anne Springsteen glided to a halt at the far end of the corridor, as if arriving at the spot she'd known all along she would reach, her lightsaber's blade sinking back into the handle with a quiet "ssssphut!" Then she turned and walked with calm, measured tread back through the field of carnage toward the two troopers. McCandless stood rooted to the spot like a tree, the barrels of his DC-15s glowing a dull red and pinging audibly in the sudden quiet. The trooper blinked, suddenly aware of the sweat cooling on his face in the slight breeze of his helmet's atmosphere processor. The blasters were too hot to holster. He put them carefully down on the deck, shook his head to clear the last echoes of the trancelike state that had come over him, and turned to see if anything could be done for Asaki. The city of Jandara was a shambles as evening fell over it, but a surprising number of its citizens were alive to see it who hadn't counted themselves likely to see another nightfall six hours before. Combat engineers of the Seventh Legion were starting to clean up the mess and assess the damage and the difficulties of repairing it. The shaken city was already beginning to pull itself together and try to make some sense of the events which had overwhelmed it. Above, the GENOM Star Destroyer Eidolon orbited, coordinating all the rescue, repair and medical aid efforts through her central command computer and communications staff. Her own repairs were underway as well, for the three alien ships had not gone down easily. One had not gone down at all, instead escaping into hyperspace while its fellow's death throes blocked the Star Destroyer's field of fire. "Sensor tracks on the enemy's escape route are inconclusive," Captain Piett said to Anne Springsteen, "but the best indications are that they were headed out of the galaxy altogether. Medical are still too busy tending to the wounded to autopsy any of the alien corpses recovered, but initial checks turn up no matches. They seem to be unlike any life form ever encountered before by our civilization." He shook his head, looking out over the scorched foredecks of his command at the planet below. "There's no sense to it. We weren't able to communicate with them any more than the colonists were. We have no idea what they wanted, why they were here - we don't even know what to call them - and we took none alive, so we're unlikely to find out anytime soon, either." "We have their dropships," Anne pointed out. "The technicians will probably learn something from them." "Probably," Piett admitted, "but who knows how long that will take? In the meantime, they've devastated an agricultural colony, killed hundreds of people, and put an entire sector on alert." He removed a data plaque from his desk computer and handed it to the Jedi. "This is a copy of my complete preliminary report to Dr. Mann on the incident. He will almost certainly pass it on to Chief Hutchins of the International Police himself, but I'd like you to take it to Babylon 6 anyway. It never hurts to have multiple channels for important information - and I've a feeling all the data we have on these creatures is going to be very important." "I've a feeling you're right," Anne said. She took the plaque and tucked it away in her robes. "I'll see that he gets it." "Thank you. And thank you for your assistance during the incident, Master Jedi. Without your aid, the Seventh Legion would have suffered much heavier casualties. It's doubtful they would have been able to prevent both dropships from escaping the system, with terrible consequences for the colonists." Anne smiled. "You're welcome, though I don't know if I'd have put it past McCandless to succeed without my help," she said modestly. "He's quite a dynamo when he gets going." "Yes, so I've noticed," said Piett with a carefully modulated smile. "Ordinarily I would have suspected his after-action report of some... embellishment... but yours, Master Jedi, reads almost identically. Yes, I suspect young Mr. McCandless will go far in the service of the Corporation." He rounded his desk and went on, "You must be tired. I've kept you too long. Get some rest; I'll have your ship prepared for your departure as soon as you want to go." The young Jedi got to her feet. "Thank you, Captain. I'll check in with you in the morning and make sure I'm no longer needed here before I leave." Captain Piett showed her to the door and bade her goodnight. As the door closed behind her, she was startled to see McCandless standing at parade rest next to the captain's office door, just as he had been when she'd concluded her first visit to the office. His armor was dented and scuffed, but he was standing as straight as if he were at an inspection. Anne marveled inwardly at his discipline; she was tired, but he must be -exhausted-. She told him so as he accompanied her to the elevator, and he replied, "I've felt better, but a job's a job." "How's Asaki?" she asked as the turbocar set into motion. "Still unconscious, but the docs say she'll pull through," he replied. "Her armor saved her from blast damage, and it looks like the neuroshock is reparable. She'll be out of action for a few weeks, but they think we'll have her back on the line soon." "Is Cox replacing Sergeant Nomura?" "Mm-hmm. His promotion was waiting for him when we docked." He sighed slightly. "It's a shame about Sarge, but Cox is a good leader. He'll do OK." Anne smiled a little at the change in his bearing - he was still standing professionally upright, but there was a certain underlying ease and grace to the stance that he hadn't had when they first met, only twelve days before. Then he had been a boy in a suit of armor, trying to be a soldier; now he -was- a soldier, tested and proven, a White Legionnaire from armor to bone. "So who's replacing Cox?" Anne wondered, though she thought she knew the answer. She could almost taste McCandless's pride as he replied, "Looks like that'll be me. Seems someone said something to the Colonel about me... someone with some influence with the Captain." "Hmm, I wonder who that could have been," Anne teased gently. "Well, whoever it was must've had a good reason. Congratulations, Corporal McCandless." "Thank you, Master Jedi," said the trooper with a nod. The lift stopped, and he followed her to the door of her quarters. "You'll be leaving us tomorrow, I suppose?" he asked as she keyed open the door. Anne nodded. "Mm. I have to get to Babylon 6 and report. Captain Piett's sending a full rundown by hyperwave, of course, but it's always good to have an eyewitness account." "Definitely. Well, I'll be here in the morning to see you off, then. Good night, Jedi Springsteen." She considered teasing him a little more for his bearing, decided against it, and nodded. "Good night, Corporal McCandless," she replied, and went to bed. The next morning she rose, dressed, made sure she hadn't left anything behind in the room (not likely, as she hadn't brought much into it other than her clothes), and went out into the hall. Sure enough, there was McCandless - his armor fully repaired (or perhaps replaced), spotless, and fitted with a brand new, gleaming yellow corporal's pauldron. "Morning, McCandless," she said as she shut the door behind her. "I see it's official." "Good morning, Master Jedi," replied McCandless. "Yep." He accompanied her to the messhall as he had every day, then up to Captain Piett's office for her final conversation with and formal leave-taking of the captain; then they rode a turbolift down to Docking Bay 17. Her ship's hyperdrive ring was already deployed, parked a few hundred yards off the Star Destroyer's cavernous bay entrance; the Delta Dagger herself sat on her landing skids, completely reassembled, while Master Tech Henderson and de Villiers clambered over it running checklists and double-checking panel fittings. "Well," said McCandless in the docking bay anteroom, "here's where we part company, Master Jedi." He came to attention and saluted her. "It's been a privilege serving as your guide while you've been with us, and it was an honor to fight alongside you. I see now where all the legends about the Jedi Knights came from." Anne smiled. "Thanks. I think I've learned a little bit about where the legends of the White Legion come from, too." She reached for the door activator to the pilots' locker room off to the side, then paused. "You know, McCandless, we've been together for almost two weeks now, and I have not -once- seen your face. I don't even know your whole name." McCandless tilted his helmeted head slightly, as if just realizing that; then he reached up and worked some mechanism underneath the chin of his helmet. There was a soft hiss of depressurization; then he pulled the helmet up and off. Anne had to suppress a laugh, because he looked -exactly- the way she'd envisioned him. He had dark brown hair, almost black, cut short but not quite buzzed and parted on the right; his eyes were dark and he had a lantern jaw. The jaw in particular made him look older than his seventeen years. It was easy to see where he might have gotten the idea that he could bluff about his age to join the Legion. When he spoke, his voice has subtle tones in it that the helmet's speaker erased, tones that gave it more warmth than his professional persona projected. "My name's Jay," he said, grinning. "Jay? Short for Jason?" "Nope, just Jay. Actually my first name's John. I'm named after one of the founders of the old United States on Earth, but I had a cousin John and I got tired of everyone mixing us up, so I started using my middle name when I was 5." Anne chuckled. "Well, John Jay McCandless, it's been fun." She put her hand on his corporal's pauldron, pulled him down slightly, leaned up on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek. "Take it easy," she told him as she tabbed the locker room door open. "I'll send you a postcard from Babylon 6." McCandless, grinning with a faint blush in his cheeks, put his helmet back on, sealed it up, and replied, "See you around, Jedi Springsteen." Then he saluted her again, about-faced smartly, went back into the turbolift and disappeared. The Jedi, shaking her head and still chuckling, went into the locker room and changed into her spacesuit, which had been cleaned and serviced by Henderson. She went out into the docking bay with her helmet under her arm, waving cheerily to the two techs. "Hey, R4!" she called. "Everything all right?" The droid replied with a surprisingly upbeat-sounding stream of tones, and Anne laughed. "Well, you two," she said to the two technicians, "looks like I'm finally out of your hair. Thanks for all your help." "Thank -you-," Henderson replied. "It's not every day a tech gets to work on a classic like this," he added, patting the Delta-7's flank. "Even if she is mostly replacement parts," Anne said wryly as she climbed up and plopped down into the cockpit. "The soul of a ship is in the spaceframe," Henderson told her with a grin. "Send us a note and let us know how those combat mods work, eh?" "Soon as I get a chance to give them a real test," Anne promised. "I got your final drive factor down to 0.70," de Villiers informed her. "That low?" Anne asked. "Cool. Thanks. That'll help out a lot on the long trips." "I'm going to keep working on the field dynamics software in the simulator," the hyperdrive tech went on. "I think in a month or so I can give you a patch that will get you down to 0.62." "Wow," said Anne; then she grinned and added, "Thanks some more." "Clear skies, Master Jedi," said Henderson as Anne put on her helmet. "I hope so, Sergeant. Good luck out here, and watch yourselves - looks like the Rim's heating up... " "We'll be OK," de Villiers assured her. "Captain Piett won't get us into anything he can't get us out of. You just watch yourself with those International Police types!" She gave the Jedi a conspiratorial wink and added, "I hear they get up to all -kinds- of crazy things." Anne grinned broadly. "I hope so!" she replied. De Villiers clapped her on the shoulder, and then the two techs climbed down and retreated to the anteroom. Anne closed the Delta Dagger's cockpit canopy, powered up the reactor, waited for it to hit maximum efficiency, marveled at what a short time that was, then activated her comm system. "Eidolon control, this is Delta Dagger." "Go ahead, Dagger," came the crisp voice of the Star Destroyer's airboss. "Request permission to depart." "Permission granted to depart at Bay 17," the controller replied. "Babylon 6 is expecting you." "Thank you, Control. Delta Dagger out." Gently, Anne gripped the controls and eased her fighter up off its landing gear and out of the bay. They'd even ironed out that nasty double thump the nose gear used to make when retracting, she noticed, and the repulsorlifts worked so much more smoothly as the fighter glided out of the bay and into open space. She cut in the main drive, winged over, and headed down to rendezvous with the drive ring. "Commence docking, R4," she said. replied the droid jauntily. The controls nudged at her hands as R4-P17 took partial control, guiding the old Delta-7 into the center of the hyperdrive ring and snugging the fighter's triangular body up to the docking clamps. With a series of clicks, thumps and other reassuringly solid mechanical noises, the clamps closed around the fighter's midbody like a pair of giant robotic hands, locking it firmly in place. The hyperdrive systems monitor flickered to life as the ring's computer interfaced with the fighter's and the whole assembly became one integrated spacecraft. Feeding power, Anne felt the ring's twin heavy sublight thrusters add their power to the fighter's main engines, boosting easily, effortlessly, away from the Star Destroyer and its escorts' patrol pattern. Once clear, Anne gave the order for R4 to pull the coordinates for Babylon 6, entered by de Villiers, from his memory and feed them to the drive ring. R4 reported. "Yes?" Anne smiled. "Excellent," she said. the droid went on. "That's all right, R4," Anne replied. She cut in the hyperdrive and enjoyed the transition as she always did, the stars smearing into lines and then vanishing into nowhere as the blue-white swirl of hyperspace surrounded them. "After the last twenty-four hours," she went on, settling down for a meditative trance, "I'm looking forward to a couple days off." /* Huey Lewis & the News "Couple Days Off" _Hard at Play_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited I like my job and I don't mind the work presented But 11 out of 12 is bound to hurt UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES The pay's pretty good and the benefits FUTURE IMPERFECT are fine But I got a little girl and I wanna Anne Springsteen make her mine John Jay McCandless Don't mind tellin' you I get a little THE VASTRU ENCOUNTER mad To get a bit ahead takes all the time also starring I have Niels Piett Don't misunderstand me R4-P17 I'm not gettin' soft All I want is a couple days off featuring Margen Krellick I don't need another high song to sing Mack Henderson I don't need a shiny new diamond ring Winema de Villiers I don't need to meet nobody else Tev Garlis I just need a little time for myself Carl Nomura Kelvin Cox 'Cause I'm only human, I ain't no Julius Van der Groot machine Doug Berry I need a little lovin' only you know Sachiko Asaki what I mean Don't misunderstand me with the I'm not gettin' soft 7th White Legion, GENOM MILARM All I want is a couple days off and the crew of the Let me catch my breath! GENOM ISD Eidolon (SD-201) Thank God for the weekend Back to the old grind and introducing The Pfhor I don't need another long coffee break I've had as much coffee as a man can written by take Benjamin D. Hutchins I need to change my disposition Change my point of view with an infighting assist from I need time to figure out what I want Kris Overstreet to do the connivance of Believe me when I tell you, it gets John Trussell & Anne Cross a little rough We work a little harder but it never the approval of is enough Anne Springsteen I'm not afraid to say I'm a total loss and the indefatigable aid of All I want is a couple days off The Usual Suspects Just a couple days in spite of the best efforts of Can't wait for the weekend Rob Shannon's Rogue CueCat Awww yeah! The Pfhor created by Bungie E P U (colour) 2002 (.C3nZC3nZC3nXD3TXD3vXC3nX.aaer.Ba.)