The Fall of an Empire [Slow]

Valentin Serav: intelligence agent, saboteur, pirate, infiltrator extraordinaire, today a prison guard. He'd been 'lucky' enough to draw a shift guarding a group of thirty slaves towards the aft of the Grey Blaze, along with another pirate, during what was to be another raid. Just him, another pirate, and thirty potentially angry slaves. Not to mention the ridiculously large rotary blaster cannon in his hands, and the couple of flashbangs in a pocket, to dispose of the slaves if they decided to try anything. But those would be more useful in a different, if somewhat-related fashion, later.

Truthfully, Val hadn't gotten much of a leash since he'd negotiated his way into crewmanship aboard the Grey Blaze six months ago. No major assignments, no bridge duty; just guarding during down time and being first out of the airlock during the raids he participated in. He'd been , trying to gather information on any potential allies, any evidence pointing to any kind of crime ring, before either he sabotaged the ship or called in a Galactic Alliance cruiser to do some cleanup. This group of slaves complicated things somewhat, however: Val could have just killed life support in the middle of shipboard 'night', been off in an escape pod, and happily been on his way.

Collateral damage, he pondered as the general sounds of the pirates arming up reverberated through the ship, wasn't exactly something he sought out. Fortunately he'd gotten his handler - anonymous and code-named Rough to avoid potential information leaks; even if these were just pirates, that kind of information in the wrong hands could have disastrous effects - to agree on that point, at least.

He put such thoughts out of his head for the time being. It was raiding time; and, having come up with little in the way of pirate association and having a good grasp on their tactics, that meant it was about to be kill-everyone-still-aboard-and-flush-the-airlocks time. Not that Val's plan was any more advanced than "shoot guard, leave prisoners, storm bridge, kill pirates" at this point, but he was well aware that Rough was getting impatient. He knew there was also a Jedi aboard, another prisoner being used for his abilities or something. Val would have to be careful trying not to kill him when he stormed the bridge, now that he thought of it.

A little help from any of the prisoners would have been nice, too. But what spare weapons there would be--three blaster pistols and one carbine--weren't exactly going to keep a bunch of probably-untrained civilians from getting mown down. Not that Val was especially interested in getting shot in the back over a misunderstanding about what he was here for. No, it was definitely better to leave the prisoners here, reassure them of his intentions, and then go storm the bridge alone - surprise would help more than numbers. Nobody could get in his way that way.

He started sidling over to his companion. He'd have to do this without blasters and without screams to avoid the noise.

Val managed to look fairly restless and not at all intending to do violence, from the first step, to the aimed stumble, right up until he dropped the blaster cannon and buried a knife in the guard's throat as he caught himself.

Val retrieved his knife, grabbed the man's blaster carbine and pistol. He slung the carbine at his shoulder, sheathed the vibroknife at the small of his back, dropped the pistol and rotary cannon between himself and the prisoners. That'd probably be enough to stave off anyone who decided to come in. "I'm with Galactic Alliance Intelligence; you can trust me. Stay here until I come back. And kill any pirates who come in." And if nothing else, his cover was irreversibly blown now. He ran for the door, hearing some action spark up behind him - footsteps, speech. Hopefully they'd listen at least for a little bit, and hopefully there weren't any monitoring devices in the hold. He hadn't seen anything to indicate such was the case, but pirates could be as sneaky as spies when they wanted to.

As the grenades went off, the airlock seemed clear, with not a single person or droid in the hallway beyond. Tower watched the pirates from a video feed in his HUD, and was pleased when the pirates did not advance as a group, but rather half of them came forward. When they'd reached the end of the hall, a signal to the second team came up, and Tower tensed.

Things happened quickly, and it wasn't the Syndicates first use of the trick. Once the second team of pirates had stepped through to the Ghost of Solitude's airlock, the doors on both sides had slammed shut, and neuro-gas had begun flooding the room. A few gulps of air, and the whole group would be out for awhile. As the doors to the airlock shut, fake portions of the hallway wall opened inward, with stun grenades rolling out under the first groups feet. As the grenades went off, eight Mandalorians in black Beskar armor and a black robed, hooded man sprung from three different sections of the wall, surrounding the dazed pirates. Without even a word of warning, the force ripped weapons free of the most coherent of the pirates while the Mandalorians fired darts from their neural inhibitors into the group, quickly sending the assault team into unconsciousness.

Emperors voice came over Towers comm-link, and he holstered his neural inhibitor. "Good work team. Now get through that airlock and secure the ship. Teams of three, you know the drill. The recon droids will catch up to you soon."

Tower opened up the airlock, smirking as he looked over the unconscious pirates. One of them had an explosive out, and looked like he'd been trying to arm it before he'd went cold. Behind them, a second team arrived, led by Angel, who began securing the downed pirates, with three recon droids zooming over their heads and into the ship as Tower, Shadow, and the hacker Livewire broke away from the others and down a hall towards the bridge, with one of the recon droids leading the way and checking for threats.

Val hadn't gotten far before he noted a small squad of individuals boarding the ship - Mandalorians, if he remembered rightly. Well, that was a pleasant surprise. He ducked into an alcove, clicking his back teeth to activate the comlink implanted in his head. Blast comm silence; he had to know if Rough knew there were Mandalorians here.

The comlink buzzed to life uncomfortably against Val's jawbone. "Go, Barbarian," a smooth voice reverberated through his head.

"Rough, there's a squad of Mandalorians here. Just boarded the ship, look to be on their way to taking the bridge. Unsure if there are more of them. Please advise."

He checked his weapons as he awaited a response. Val was glad that he had: the carbine he'd taken off the first pirate he'd killed back in the prison hold had been set to stun. That wasn't exactly what he would have wanted to fight a fully-armored squad of Mandos, not that a carbine set to kill would do much better. "Try and work with them, if they'll let you," the reply came down. "If not, don't let them kill you."

Hm. How helpful. Val took a breath before he turned the corner, approaching the Mandalorians with his carbine in a rest position: ready, but lowered. If they started shooting, he wanted to be ready, but there was no sense in being threatening when heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

"Hey!" he called as he jogged closer, fluidly doing his best at dropping the accent and stiff-shouldered stance of a military man - Val was just an escaped slave now, here to get revenge. "You guys are here to take the ship, right? Want a hand?"

It's hard to keep track of time in space, minutes could have gone by...hell it could have been days, watching a two ships at idle is is like watch paint dry...

Huggle began to grow impatient, he was unwilling to the two ships, seeing has he had no idea who was docking the pirates, huggles head began to fall, he caught himself before he sunk any further into his chair, as more time passed he began fogging up the window of the cockpit with his breath and then writing obscenities on the glass.

If boredom had a sound it was Tap, Tap, Tap the very same noise being created by huggles finger on the arm rest of his seat, huggle sighed and began to speak "uh this is insufferable, UMU has anything occurred between the ships?"

"Danger, Danger" UMU began shaking his head frantically as the words spilled out of his voice modulator.

"What is it? What has gotten you so riled"

The robot began wildly waving his hands in the crampt cockpit it clutched its head and then began pointing out the window at the imperial ship. "Danger, Danger"

Huggle gave the automaton a queer look "what has gotten into you mechanical man? Huggle squinted his eyes, peering out the window when he spotted the star destroyer, his mouth opened whide, he was momentarily left speechless other than a less than audible gasp.

Huggle broke the silence with gaping eyes, as he spoke "As I live and breath!" He turned towards the pilot droid, and spoke "UMU, while you were busy dancing in your cockpit an imperial start destroyed came into view! prepare the ship for an emergency take off, quickly UMU!"

The droid slammed it's head against the glass, and then began turning the ships engines on "Roger, Roger"

Huggle gained a vigilant look, his gaze would not leave the ship UMU, on my mark, get us away from this forsaken rock..."

The Captain of the Grey Blaze was unaware of Val’s betrayal. Let alone his true role on the ship. The captain was too busy focusing on the defence of the ship against the Mandos to know what had happened in the slave pens. As for the escaped slaves, namely the Ithorian, Twi’lek and Chiss, they too were practically invisible. As the captain got to his feet, he looked over at Jax and calmly sighed. “You have proven yourself over the years, do not fail me now Jedi.”

“Captain, another ship has entered the system. It’s… an Imperial Star Destroyer.” Said the pirate at the communications console.

“What?!” the Captain said. “Mandalorians AND the Imperials?!” his voice showed his irritation. “Hail the Imperials, we have a few people in the slaves they might be interested in… Perhaps we can offer them for assistance.” The captain continued, just as the tractor beam hit the ship. The captain sighed, he knew now there was no negotiating. “Arm yourselves. We’ll fight our way to the escape pods; we’ll blow the ship and ride them off in the shockwave. Get ready to blow the engines.” The pirates ran to the lockers nearby and began pulling their armour on and equipping themselves with anything they could find. By now all the blast doors around the cockpit were closed firmly.

Little did the captain know the two escape slaves had broken into the store room and had freed the rest of the slaves. Once the slaves were freed, they were let into the stores and told to grab anything they could. Some took food, some took valuables. Once they had as much as they could carry, they were led to the escape pods, through the access tunnels that ran parallel to the main corridor. As luck would have it, the Pirate captain had ordered the escape pods readied, and thus, the slaves found the pods unlocked. Once they were inside, the doors were shut. In total, the slaves took five of the eight escape pods, and waited to be jettisoned. The Chiss female and the Twi’Lek male had agreed to rescue the Ithorian together, and take one of the escape pods for themselves, so once the other slaves were secure they began crawling back through the access tunnels.

The Ithorian had been busy, very busy. He was stood amongst the bloodied corpses of the pirates in the engine room; several of the wall panels had been crushed inwards and torn in places. The Ithorian was tapping at the controls. One by one the security systems fell until the self-destruct mechanism was engaged. Having already hacked into the communications array, the Ithorian opened the communications channel and started to talk. “This is the Bounty Hunter known as The Gardener, aboard the Corellian Corvette known as the Grey Blaze. To the freighter currently docked with this pirate vessel, I warn you to recall your troops. I have rigged the engines to blow and I intend on destroying these pirates and their vessel. Do not attempt to stop me. You have less than five minutes to recall your troops. To the Imperial Star Destroyer, I advise you disengage your tractor beam immediately to save the risk of damaging your vessel. I apologise for the inconvenience.” With that the Ithorian closed the channel.

Meanwhile in the bridge, the captain snapped at his fellow pirates in anger. He’d heard the Ithorian’s warning and had just lost it. The Ithorian had done exactly what the captain had planned to do, before they had even had a chance to initiate it. Jax smirked to himself before looking over at the door to the escape hatches. He looked around calmly, knowing that every pirate’s attention was elsewhere. No one noticed as Jax stopped meditating and subtly open the hatch with the force. Ever so quietly it opened, and then finally came to lie against the wall. He breathed a sigh as none of the pirates noticed. Patiently, he looked up at the lights, and breathed out. He only had one shot. He aimed at the lights with his hands with the force. He knew he’d have all of ten seconds to get into the hatch, before the emergency lights came on. Once the emergency lights were on, the pirates would begin to fire. Jax sighed ever so slightly, and force pushed up at the lights above him as strongly as he could. The lights exploded in sparks and drew temporary darkness over the cockpit. Sure enough, ten seconds later, the emergency lights were on and Jax was gone.

Coruns cool, calm, exterior cracked for a moment, revealing his anger. He growled, his fingers curling into a fist.

And then he heard Gardener's voice, and tilted his head back and laughed.

"Disable the Tractor beams on the two ships, now! Focus it on the small one trying to leave the Asteroid."

"Sir! The Corvette has launched escape pods!"

Corun could not physically see the small escape pods and the puffs of energy from their release from the Corvette, bu he could certainly imagine it.

"Take them as well, and keep monitoring for any other Escape Pods. I don't want anyone leaving this that's not on that Freighter."

Captain Dernsorls cool had returned at this point, and he took deep breaths to steady himself. Things would be alright, yes, yes they would.

Those were his thoughts as the tractorbeams on the Corvette and Freighter ceased, and then focused on the escape pods and (butters) small ship.