Far Light

[Sea Skimmer]

After much other work to real work on my promised fic has begun with this introduction.



Far Light

Three and a half years after Yavin.

"Do I have your approval to go forward with the operation?"
The Emperor looked over the small man who stood before him.
"Yes. Your proposal is approved for now, make begin you work Admiral. However I have something else in mind for now."

Seven years later..

"Far Light is on schedule. The largely self contain nature of the operation naturally makes for slow progress, but the dispatch of the devastator should speed our progress significantly. In eleven months we will be ready."

Not long after..

Byss exploded. The miss directed Galaxy gun missile destroying it in a mammoth chain reaction. The debris and gases engulf the gun and the Eclipse II. The great fleet of Imperial star battleships and cruisers gathered high above are consumed with them.

Far away on the world of Onderon the Jedi Brand dies. Entrapped within him is the dark soul of the one who had mortally wounded him, the Sith Emperor Palpatine. From this death there was to be no resurrection for Palpatine. The Emperor had finally fallen.

Nine years later

"Its all right, Han" Leia said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. Pace. After all the years, after all the sacrifices and destruction and death. Finally, they had peace.

[Kuja]

OK, you've set up the story background well.

I eagerly await a new fic.

[Stravo]

Thats the BEST fanfic I ever read, short, concise to the point and it has a happy ending!!

[Kuja]

Thats the BEST fanfic I ever read, short, concise to the point and it has a happy ending!!

ROTFLMAO!!!!

[Sea Skimmer]

Thats the BEST fanfic I ever read, short, concise to the point and it has a happy ending!!

Now I'll have to find a way to kill you painfully in it. So much for no avatars..

[Sea Skimmer]

Far Light, Part One

Imperial Braxant Sector, 16 years after Endor

A small freighter reverted to hyperspace. The freighter was rounded in its lines. A flat rounded disk with six protrusions made up the main hull. Ahead a rounded cockpit reached out from the disk on a fat spar, flanked by a pair of stubby bulges. Above the hull was a single weapons blister, and below it another. It was a modified Ghtroc 580, ID Star Punk, IFF registered Zarh Merchants Guild ship.

A pair of oversized drive nozzles dominated the rear. Both engines lit and the ship moved towards the planet. Ahead loomed the warm world of Goalmen. Over a hundred vessels hung in orbit or were docked to platforms. Scores more where leaving and entering the atmosphere. Eleven Imperial warships and a swarm of lesser patrol craft watched over them.

Andrew plopped down in the cockpit chair. He was young, only a few months past seventeen. Not even hold enough to vote at home he thought, flipping the switches that would bring the cockpit to life. Course, I don't think I could have stood another week there. Neither could Mike. And so we find ourselves here..

He finished the task and switched to the ships side stick helm control. After altering course slightly an going to ahead one third he relaxed to await the traffic control query. It wasn't a long in coming.

"Freighter Star Punk, this is Goalmen system control. State your destination and cargo."
He keyed the Punk's comm.
"This is Star Punk, bound for Taros space port with a load of driod's for SFS."
The controller didn't reply. Instead he waited for confirmation that no Imperial warrants existed for the vessel and that Sienar was expecting them.

"Freighter Star Punk, you are cleared for landing at Taros space port, pad six zero niner. Follow vector one zero nine by six seven into pattern."
"Acknowledged control."
Andrew switch back to standby comm. while turning around. Mike stood behind him, switching power packs on his comlink.
"Told you they woundn't notice the similarity."
"Yeah, guess you where. I'll help fifteen get ready."

Andrew watched Mike leave for the cargo hold, then turned back to the cockpit windows. He ran a hand through his stringy hair. Then took the Punk's side stick and adjusted course to match the vector assigned by control. That done he got up and headed back into the hold as well.


The star destroyer Dark Storm slowly orbited Goalmen. Her thrusters where dark. Few fighters patrolled the surrounding space. Only a few turbolaser turrets were active, and then only for training. It was an Imperial warship at peace, or at least as close to peace as anyone ever came to on the edge of the rim.

Dark Storm was a KDY Hammer class medium destroyer. At 1200 meters she didn't boost the firepower, shielding or carrying capacity of an Imperator, but was far superior to the Victory II. Dark Storm was one of only a few of her kind. Produced by Kuat for less the a year, under five hundred had ever served the Empire. Dark Storm was one of only seven left. The nickname "Impstar light" was a fair reflection of the ship capabilities. However aginst the new generation of New Republic heavy frigates and destroyers the light aspect had proven fatal.

Her captain walked onto the bridge, relieve the XO of his duty before turning his attention to the sensor station.
"Anything unusual in the last eight?" He asked.
"No captain Forbes, nothing out of the ordinary. A few ships where possible warrants but they all checked out."
Forbes glanced his eyes over one monitor array. A six different ships where displayed. Each a new arrival being tracked, scanned and then checked again. Another vessel jumped into the system, bumping the earliest arrival shown off the display.

"Lieutenant bring that last ship back up."
"Yes sir." The lieutenant in charge hit a few keys to bring the image and data back up. Forbes took a longer closer look at it.
"There ID checked out sir. Should I hold them sir?"
"No." Forbes glanced back at the image.
"No, I was incorrect in my suspicion. Continue as you where lieutenant."

Forbes moved away from the sensor consoles. The sensor boys where good, they got enough real work to keep in fighting trim he thought. Unlike the rest of the fleet branches. The unthinkable peace the year before had been both a blessing and a curse. The end to a long war was welcome, even if the wrong side had won. But then the New Order would prove its self in the long run. A military victory wouldn't be necessary.

However it hadn't done much for the military that remained. Efficiency in all departments was down by two to twenty two percent. Dark Storm was near the low end of the range, but it was still unsettling to see any significant drop off in the crew he'd know for so many years.

He snapped back to reality on his own accord. That little semi daydream only took a few seconds he figured. It woundn't do for the crew to see him staring at a wall standing still for a few minutes. Forbes walked towards fire control to get a report on the days training.


Star Punk slid into orbit of Goalmen. Andrew was back at the controls, Mike sat alongside him. After firing a cluster of braking thrusters Andrew pushed the side stick forward to take the ship down into the atmosphere.

After a steep reentry through the upper atmosphere he guided the Punk across the hills and plains of Goalmen. The planet was developed, but much of it was concentrated on a few landmasses around the equator. The rest of the dry surface was devoted to massive driod farming tracts and a few smaller manufacturing stations that supplied. Small oceans and seas intercut across much of the terrain.

The ship sped over all of it tens of kilometers in the air, quickly bleeding off airspeed as it descended.
"Coming up on Taros." Said Mike. "Looks like we've got a fifty klick radius no fly zone to port around an airhook."
"That would be one of the shield generators." Replied Andrew. "Out over the water on repulsers as expected to help that big one in the city." He glanced at the sensor display. "None active though."
"No reason for it these days, I takes a lot more to get people to bring them up since the end of the war."
"We'll see" Replied Andrew. "Soon enough anyway."

On the horizon the city loomed. Low at first, but then rapidly rising out of the water. The entire landmass was a single city, with only a few points of land exposed as beaches. In most areas the ferrocrete extended out into the water.

As they passed over the cities edge the nav system highlighted there assigned landing pad. It was on the roof of a huge building. A near solid ferrocrete block with countless hundreds of pads built into the sides and roof. It wasn't part of Sienar's main complex, located almost ten kilometers away but was often use by them for loading and unloading lesser cargos.

The Punk flared slightly as it came in to land on the pad, dug into the roof. The skids touched down near perfectly on the markings. After a quick check the engines and systems began powering down. Then the cargo and boarding ramps opened.

Mike walked down into the pad. His eyes blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the bright overhead sun. He walked away and set out to find the speeder truck Sienar Fleet Systems was suppose to send. Remained in the ship, Andrew got to work.

He got out of the cockpit and move back trough the corridor and to the cargo hold. The ships hold was filled with driod's. Every last one a ASP-61B high-end work unit. We'll not quite Andrew knew, though few on the ship could tell otherwise.

He walked to the center of one row.
"Ready fifteen?" The photoreceptors of the seemingly inactive driod lit up.
"I am more then prepared Andrew." Replied the driod in a calm controlled voice.. "Chatting will not alter that fact."
"The, where ready to launch." The driod nodded and then his eyes went dark once more.

Andrew stepped back and switched on the repulser pads, which held each row of driod's before moving them to the open side cargo hatch. In a few minutes there would be no turning back. Outside he could see Mike had found the speeder truck and its driver.

[Sea Skimmer]

Far Light, Part Two

It didn't take long to get the driod's unloaded. Each of the repulser equipped racks held six driod's but could be moved with a simple push. They easily fit into the back of the Sienar truck after a brief quality control scan. It then came time to sign off on the delivery.

"You're a bit young for this kind of work." The Sienar driver, Pleck he said his name was noted. "But you get these driod's here fast enough and in good condition." He held out his data pad. "I need your retina scan and signature." At the top of the pad was a small reader.
"Sure." Andrew took the pad and held it up to his eye. The scanner made a pass, then another before making a disapproving sound. Pleck took it back.
"Strange. Seems the remote linkup's not working. I'm going to need you to come down to the main building to verify this."
"No problem" replied Andrew. "I've got the time."

The two got into the speeder, which quickly drove off the pad and down one of many ramps to drop down to a level above ground it repulsers could safely take. Then it would simply fly out the side of the building and drop down to street level.

Mike watched them go, inspecting the seals on the cargo hatch for much of the time. Soon as the speeder truck rounded the corner he reached into a pocket. Inside was what looked like a comlink. It had many of the same parts, but was more limited in its function. He switched it off, and with that the localized distortion field it emitted ceased.

The jammer's range was less then 25 meters, not enough to cover the Punk completely, but it had worked perfectly. As it only distorted the single, the logical assumption for the effect was that some feature of terrain or the proximity to a ship was at fault for their poor transmission, not jamming. And its low power made detection nearly impossible. Mike smiled before slapping the hatch seal. Thing where moving along nicely.

***

Dark Storm completed another planetary orbit. Each orbit was precisely calculated to keep the destroyer close to the orbital platforms and cargo storage cluster's it was protecting. While well armed, without dedicated battle station support they where venerable.

However one couldn't maneuver ten of millions of tons of durasteel with that much precision and the orbit drifted with time. Forbes called for routine corrections, something helm normally did on its own. But hearing the captain give precise orders couldn't hurt he thought.

Forbes returned to looking out the bridge windows in-between reading reports in his chair. He noticed a BBF-1 and a Xizor transport hanging in space. Both where close together, and also inactive. They'd been like that for nearly an hour. Most freight haulers got turned around as quickly as possible to increase profits. These two hadn't done anything period.

He turned his head to look at the tactical holo display to his front. It showed an enlarged view of the platform and the area around the Dark Storm. Both freighter where in its view. One was indeed the ship he'd suspected when it had jumped in. They'd run a sensor focus he decided. That would settle things.

***

The speeder truck pulled past the outer gates of Sienar Fleet System's Goalmen facility. During the Emperors reign Sienar had built fighter planets in almost every sector to supply the vast needs of the Imperial star fleet. Now only two remained in its possession. It was impressive to many, especially anyone who had never been on a core world. While less then seventy stories high

Pleck turned his truck over to another man to take it into the vast, and restricted storage and handling areas of the facility.
"Come on." He said to Andrew. "Administration is this way." The truck entered a massive lift, which headed up into the building. Andrew followed Pleck in. The abort was out of his hands.

They traveled by turbolift to the administrative area. After a few hassles the scan went through and the process was done. Just before he turned to leave he asked a question.
"Say, could get directions to get some here?"
"Yeah, canteens six floors down, make a left from the lift, you can't miss it. Mess hall's closed to visitors though." Replied Pleck. He left as Andrew got into the turbolift, leaving him alone to find his way out.

***

The speeder truck came to a halt deep within the complex. Each driod load was removed and then hauled to the far vast storage area. Manual labor driod's then carefully placed each of the ASP units on a storage rack against the wall. There they would wait until needed. For one driod the wait was much shorter.

S-R15 activated his photoreceptors and began powering up his primary combat systems. But he didn't yet move. Instead he carefully scanned the area for sensor devices. The search turned up three and a plan for avoiding their limited searches was easily formed.

From the outside S-R15 looked exactly like a ASP-61B work driod. It wasn't a coincidence. The partly functional appearance was useful when combined with his sensor shielding for infiltration. For S-R15 was a assassin/sabotage driod. One of only a handful produced by Rendili for its own purposes. But he served them no longer. As was the problem with countless such driod's, long mission and infrequent memory wipes had resulted in S-R15 achieving sentience.

As one holo came turned away he began to work. Every driod storage slot such as the one 15 was in had a computer port built in. This allowed for the main computer to directly interface with a driod for programming purposes without needing to move the driod. Now it would be turned against its self.

15 slid what looked like a black brick out of a compartment in his side. He locked it in place over the port, and then activated the burnout feature. That done S-R15 switched the small slicer driod before returning to an inactive position himself.

The slicer worked quickly. It had been design for exactly what it did now, infiltration and manipulation of the systems of those who competed with Rendili Star Drive. The first defensive firewalls quickly fell.

***

Eldo Tser surveyed the starboard cargo hold of his ship, a BBF-1 named Three Moons. A dozen fighters where now packed into it. Each was an A-Wing. Eight more along with a trio of shuttles were in the port hold.

Tser climbed into his fighter and began starting up the systems. No one would be remaining behind. Already the last crewmembers left behind manning the systems where grabbing weapons to join the teams on the shuttles.

The fighter look less then a minute to come to life. Tser lifted up his secondary comm. Unlike the normal system it ran through the ships inbuilt network, allowing all the craft to talk without broadcasting any singles.

"This is Tser, we go in two if no ones got any problems." No one had any. "Very well, countdown starting now." He flipped up a switch cover, hastily bolted into the cockpit, and then pressed the button below. A small timer began counting down on the HUD.

***

Andrew walked casually through the security checkpoint. The Protector security driod's manning the point had insisted on checking his ID twice, but it had passed both times. Neither paid attention to his improper attire. He rounded a corner, putting the driod's and there check point out of site. The slicer was doing an excellent job of clearing the way, he thought. Rendili must really have wanted to win some contracts when the put that unit together. Now it should be another fifty meters to the side cargo bay.

Andrew picked up his pace slightly. Sienar was big on automation, which was actively being fooled, but a live person might not let him pass so easily. He arrived at the blast door set he wanted. Bay 634, Authorized Personal Only. This was it. He looked up at the closest holocam, the signal for the slicer to open up the door. If it could get that far through security, he thought. If not I wait one minute before heading back out. The massive doors lock began to work. They began to retract into the wall. Andrew slid through as soon as the gap was wide enough.

***

The HUD counter reached zero. The bay doors at the end of both of Three Moons exploded. A ring of explosive bolt blew each away from the ship, the normal retraction system was too slow for the task.

Tser hit the throttle and A-wing shot into space above Goalmen. Two TIE Interceptors where cursing past not far away. He locked on and moved to attack, noting that the objective was exactly where he wanted it.

"Blues, engage the TIE's and cover the shuttles." He ordered. "We've hit pay dirt today."