A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

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sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Thu Mar 10, 2011 6:57 pm

Caught a break at lunch and was able to finish this "interlude" lenght segment. Still plan to put up the rest tonight but I figured since I was done with this and its stand alone it couldn't hurt.

“ …Boundless hunger…countless souls trapped, a thousand eyes glistening in the great darkness…insatiable…an unstoppable blackness reaching across the inky shores of infinity…engulfing whole civilizations, whole races in its bottomless maw…now…now its tendrils reach out…reach out to a milky blue-white orb…reach out to us…”

USS Saratoga:

The flight cabin of an A-17 multipurpose rocket was joked to be slightly less roomy than a child’s little red wagon and with the typical three set crew of pilot, electronic technician and commander it certainly felt that way but with twice that number crowded into it was almost unbearable. Making matters worse was Colonel Tagget’s beloved pet and ship mascot Ofog a very shaggy sheep dog who hovered curled into one whole corner of the tiny compartment and blocking one of the two vents piping in refrigerated air into it.

The restless canine twisting its powerful snout towards its owner and sensing the sharp tension in the smoky, stale air issued a sympathetic whine compelling Tagget to reach over and stroke the great hairy beast. Gently muttering a few soothing words to the animal as Lt. Grove their sensorary expert studied the readings which had sent shockwaves rumbling through out the mighty vessel. A spacer since before the Planet X debacle the officer was a veteran of electro-magnetic stimulus but now his sweating face was warped in confusion and surprise as he studied the glare projected on the telescopic monitor as well as the gauges on the thermals.

“ Radar is showing we’re clear for the next hundred thousand miles at least.” Grove answered removing his cigarette from his lips as he spoke, clumps of ash joining the gray collective swirling through the stagnate air waiting to be sucked away and recycled.” Yet something is projecting enough light and heat for it to shine like a beacon over us. Hell like fracking towering inferno.”

“Think they’re tired of playing pirate? Think they decided to push for broke and take Last Chance?” Major Todhunter the ship’s number two suggested leaning towards Grove seated and restrained in his chair, contrails of smoke stretching behind the Major’s head as he did so.

Grove, putting his smoke back and inhaling deeply, looked up at Todhunter and shook his head from side to side fighting to keep himself from laughing. When the urge subsided he turned back to the softly beeping consol and gestured to their thermal gauges which were ironically frozen as if the Saratoga was currently speeding directly towards the system’s sun.

“The entire first fleet, including transports, firing their engines at once couldn’t project heat this far out and certainly couldn’t make that big of a halo. Unless those Imperium rejects sold their souls to a Dark god again there is no way on Heaven or Earth they could be responsible for this.” Grove answered.

“So we’re talking alien.” Tagget answered crushing the butt of his previous cigarette and immediately began lighting up the next.” A confirmed, living alien presence outside the home system fracking great.”

“There goes the neighborhood.” Sergeant Dauntless, leader of the two boarding squads carried in the gut of the Saratoga, said in agreement.” The question is what next?”

That indeed was the question and no one said anything for while except Ofog who let out a low howl of despair. Tagget petting his dog again as Dr. Seldon wiggled his way out from between the floating military men who had crowded over him during the excitement. Small and typically failing to perform the daily exercises of the others to combat the gnawing effect of weightlessness he might have passed for a large child if not for his pointed “V” shaped beard, wild bushy eyebrows and pale gray hair. His eyes alone still burning with the bright wonder which had been slowly extinguished in the rest of the present company, all of whom had either lost a friend against the Bugs for Planet X or been onto freighters suspected to have been raided by them. The closet Seldon had ever come to any alien life were specimen pictures of dead Venusians and Martians taken for biological purposes so had no fear to dampen his enthusiasm.

“We should make a jump after it. Give me thirty minutes and I can compute the proper sequence to shave off anywhere from half to a full million miles of space.” Seldon suggested thinking only of the glory of confirming the discovery.” We can’t let a chance like this slip through our fingers or worse fall into the marauders who plague this system.”

“ What if they pull a Bug?” Dauntless asked with a snort.” You going to chart out a response as they fire heat-rays and mag-cannons off our port?”

“That unfortunate set back occurred solely because we sent an armada of armed ships towards their planet, their response while brutal was the only rational one giving the facts they had at command. We are a single ship and if we go with weapons unpowered I think the odds favor two obviously intelligent species communicating instead of killing each other.” Seldon answered back just as quickly, the argument and its ilk shared numerous times over collective meals.

An argument that quickly threatened to fan into a seething conflagration as Todhunter derisively stated his opinion on jumping towards an unknown craft unarmed. The officer going on to add he wouldn’t even consider it unless he had their umbilicalicly berthed gunboats ready to “pop” the moment they cleared. Seldon, voice dripping scorn, kindly informed the Major that any force which could project that grade of “waste energy” likely wouldn’t be intimidated by a thrice number of Atomic armed auxiliary boats and they could only provoke a “greater power’s” wraith.

“Doesn’t matter.” Tagget said stepping in before the situation either crumbled further or either Seldon or Todhunter needlessly risked his ship and crew.” We have no range on this source, so far away we can’t even hope to see it on the telescreen except for its exhaust plume. The stardrive could carry us two million miles and we may not be any closer to reaching this thing and as you say doctor anything which can throw out that sort of wake isn’t something I want to close the distance with regardless.”

“Sir you can’t…Colonel we could be throwing away a chance for a peaceful contact or worse…if those pirates make first contact…” Seldon pleaded to the stony commander.

“Can’t risk it. I do want you running up jump calculations but for returning to Last Chance and the ShipNet. No buts, get to work doctor. Sims I want you to prepare two messages one coded, one not. The uncoded message is for the Last Chance station manager informing him of our coming arrival and departure. Let him know about the light, as if it won’t reach them soon enough, and our inability to determine its source. Also add our regrets our tour is ending early, that it is due to circumstances beyond our control and warn him…warn him that…just tell old Fred to keep his mag-cannons and heat-rays in working order until we get back. The other message, to be relayed by the station through the ShipNet back to Earth, is to warn command of a possible alien vessel, possibly in league with the Imperium remnant and my request for a full battle squadron to secure this system and or that ship.”

Ofog from his corner growled at his owners betrayal of an old drinking partner and Tagget didn’t disagree with his dog’s reaction. It stung like a bullet to his gut but priorities were priorities. It would take long enough for the snail paced ships of the fleet to assemble and until than the Saratoga was the only ship in the vicinity to guard the five ShipNets in the system Last Chance’s emptied into. Five star systems with their own people, their own lives all weighting the scales against the man he’d served with. A very bitter pill but a pill he’d had to swallow none the less.

sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Fri Mar 11, 2011 3:07 am

“I have walked this Earth since the time Christ hung from the cross, I have watched empires forged and tumble, commanded and slaughtered armies too many times over to count. In that great time, conversing with the greatest kings and the darkest demons, I have learned much, much which will benefit you Leader’s cause that I will share in exchange for certain “indulgences” which I trust you and he won’t find as distasteful as others have in the past. Never doubt this however, when your thousand year Reich is but a faded memory I will still walk this blighted globe. That is not a threat but a bald statement of fact and you’ll be wise to remember it.”

Hungry Hun, Haven:

The Hungry Hun was far from the best beer hall in Haven which considering that until eighteen years ago the entire settlement was a threadbare depot on the world now christened New Hope spoke volumes. What the Hungry Hun was however was strategically located near Haven’s, indeed the entire planet’s, only star port with an understanding owner who tolerated the shifty characters such proximity attracted. Actually it was men like Wulfen Ryder who drew the skulking rough faced hoods and rat faced crooks who huddled under the dim, smoky lighting with their beer stines, greatly contrasted with the prim and measured posture of Ryder and those like him. Still carrying themselves with the same pride and discipline long after they’d removed their uniforms for the last time, identifiable even from distance or even well inebriated and singing old folk songs as a few of those still with some trace of young blood in their veins did.

It was they, those who once braved the inky blackness shuttling people and freight for the Imperium’s stillborn star empire, who once again looked after their people, protected them from the ruinous imperial powers of the decadent West. They, the wolf pack raiders, who plied the stretch of space still and taking by force of will what the money grubbing traders hoped to barter with or the precious man hour intensive machined parts the traders left with and returned it to the Imperium. Minus ten percent of course through as much as Ryder believed he would ride off into the depths out of patriotic duty he knew his freelance freighter, officially at least, couldn’t run on sense of duty or repair itself with dedication. Hence the human roaches he’d in better times be scrapping off the sole of his boot which dotted many of the tables, corrupt degenerate men who for their own cut of the action liquidate raw ore or finely crafted cuckoo clocks or whatever into rocket fuel or electrical wiring or anything else a crew might need.

Taking a seat he drew the chubby, balding beerman over with a glance, two frothing stines of his preferred choice foaming over in his hands, and waved off with the motion of his hand a pair of painstakingly comely ladies of the sort who were quick to gravitate towards a Raider after a big haul. Several of his crew, he saw, hadn’t so abstained leaning in close to the heavily made up women as they told leeringly greatly exaggerated exploits. Acting more like first year conscripts on leave rather than the veterans of such hardships but Ryder remained seated and instead drowned the first of his stines in one thirsty gulp. It hadn’t been that long ago, he thought slamming his mug down for it to be replaced with a refilled one, that he’d similarly had participated, in fact competed, in attracting a lady’s smiling face. For a time after that war, after the very soul of his proud Ayran nation had been expunged from its native soil, it was but all he could do when not in the depths to keep his mind straight but with the onset of years he found it no longer as intoxicating.

“Become the old man now.” He chuckled to himself draining away another mug full as he thought back to his old pious commander, eighteen years back, and the old, soft spoken but assured manner in which he spoke.

The old man had possessed similar reservations, preferring to drink in solitude when at all, and entering the Hun solely to discuss business arrangements. Furrowing his brow slightly as he sat his second stine down and reached for his third Ryder pondered if his increasingly gravelly voice didn’t sound more and more like his commander when he sneered at the “roaches” he had to deal with. The old man had turned a phrase about the living scum on more than one occasion and without warning the Raider was reminded of all of them with a snotty voice saying his name. His mug half filled he sat it down as the waiter, returning with a fourth stopped and turned around scuttling as fast as a tub of lard like him could move for sanctuary.

“Wurmwood.” Ryder answered back without looking, staring straight ahead as the man took the seat across from him.

Slithered might be a better description of the small, prematurely hunched figure, skin gleaming with the thick motor oil he’d used to hold his hair flat combed against his head as well as the natural byproduct of his youth. Barely eighteen, if that, and looking far younger due to his small size and lean frame he’d knew of the great exploits and greater sacrifice which had carried his countrymen from the suburbs of Paris to the steppes of Russia only as fable and legend treating those that knew better as rungs on a ladder.

“ You didn’t think you could just walk back into town and slip on a debt owed to Diepier did you?” Wurmwood asked directly without any circumventing or pretense of friendship the other equally miscreant but older and more worldly criminals would have done.” He expects when you promise to pay the gambling debt of one of your crew to be compensated promptly. You’ve been out of port four months now Ryder, four very long months.”

“Hunting was bad.” Ryder lied leaning back in his chair.”If we had gotten any good prospects we’d have paid a call sooner. Diepier knows me, I always pay my due.”

The two were silent for a moment, each looking the other over trying not to show anything themselves, and then Wurmwood laughed. A nasty mean little thing which reminded Ryder of a bully who had beaten him up more than once at class, a laugh which meant he had you in his corner.

“That isn’t what your men have told my girls.” The snot nosed punk said glancing at the dames draped over his jovial crewmembers.” You hit a rich vein two months in, but you stayed out burning resources. Trying to work up the nerves regressing on your promise perhaps? I think so, I only hoped you’d be smarter.”

Wurmwood lifted up his sloppy work tunic revealing the grubby butt of a pistol stashed in his waistband like in the American cinema as he slowly “tsked” the freelancer’s behavior. Unflinching Ryder merely waited for this bit of theater to end and soon enough the scraggly criminal mirrored his own relaxed posture, keeping a hand in his lap through, waiting to hear the explanation.

“Okay we caught a leaving freighter with machined parts, very high end. But I don’t have it with me, perhaps you shouldn’t pay your girls so much if failed to mention we arrived yesterday and only now finished unloading. I already have a contact spreading it out for a tenfold swap of raw ore. The armament industry was most interested I’m told, engines which can move the West’s miners can move our tanks equally well and there is never enough of them. I imagine that I’ll turn a tidy profit in a few days, which is all I’m asking to be overlooked. His ledger is big and my debt is so very, very small.”

“ Been busy haven’t you? Arranging to fill your hold with “cheap” irons, coppers and the like and let Diepier take that as his share when you really have another nine tenths sitting in some bin you’ve set up over the past two months. So the question is what are you offering to forget about you for the next couple of days?”

“1% straight off the top. I think a hundred thousand Reichmarks is good enough for two or three day grace.” Ryder said correcting himself when Wurmwood’s befuddled look reminded him that the young man had likely never seen the currency of old.

Even when computed into a rubric of measurement not alien to him it didn’t sate the hungry look in his eyes as he leaned forward in his seat towards the freelancer. His interest drawn he made sure to hush his voice to a secretive tone as he made his counter offer.

“You’re right it is enough to buy grace but not enough to make me forget how badly you plan to scam dear Diepier. Five times your figure should do it however.”

“Five times? Are you sure, I might be able to turn two out of deference to your youth and inexperience but I can’t in good conscious stand by to a highway robber.” Ryder said reaching for his beer mug.

“I’m afraid my dear captain that you are in no position to make demands, no more than a mouse could to a snake.” Wurmwood said flashing a soulless smile as he wrapped his hand around the handle of his gun again.

Across the table, not spilling a drop from his rising beerstine, Ryder slipped his well oiled lugar out from his holster and fired twice through the table, both emptying the contents or lack thereof of the younger man’s skull. The gun returning to its sheath while the criminal, smug expression frozen on his face, slumped forward onto the table.

“Indeed.” Ryder said after finishing his drink, setting it down to rise and toss a few gold coins onto the cluttered to pay for the mess.” Sorry but it’s cheaper to pay Diepier for the insult.”

Around him several of the seedier characters who filled the smoke plagued, reacting as much on instinct as wit, stood half raised from their own chairs with pistols and revolvers pulled from coat waists, boots and sleeves. In response Ryder’s own men had risen, their own automatic pistols freely held in their hands. With the slightest word or gesture many more shots would adorn the grubby dive and the coarse floorboards would be giving a new shading with the losers lifeblood.

“At ease, we are all friends here.” Ryder said good naturedly gesturing to his crew to show he meant it and, slowly, they sat back down holstering their pistols.

The criminals across putting their weapons back as well and returned to their drinks as the pretty girls, shooed away by when the Raiders rose together, returned to their respective spacer’s arm. What passed for normalcy with the girls sweet, tinkling laughter that came with the natural ease that only practice brought mingling with the gruff and hoary whispers of back room deals and graphic threats resumed in the Hungry Hun and in a few moments it was as if the incident never happened. Confident he’d no longer be riddled the chubby waiter returned, frowning as Wurmwood’s body proved heavier than he expected as he lifted him up onto his shoulder. Bits of brain and gore dribbling out of the back of his ruptured skull onto the waiter’s already well stained and discolored work shirt, more of the ruby substance coating the back of the table’s chair and floor.

“Sorry about the mess.” Ryder replied drawing out a silver coin from his pocket and flipping it at the man who deftly caught it despite his girth and burden.

“Is this justice of the “master race”? Came a cultivated voice that never lost that inkling of aristocratic ancestry despite the rancid contempt accompanying it.” Bribing the help to cart your victims away?”

Once again everything froze, hands vanishing inside coats and sleeves, as the English accented man dressed in a pristine ocean blue uniform with a very dark crimson sash running across it and a silver and gold sheath for his long and tapered sword which rested off of his hip. Gaunt with the onset of advance years with a crown of fading grey he moved with a purposeful stride which belied the ravages of time, his piercing hawkish gaze briefly sweeping across the other occupants of the tavern before settling on Ryder as the Englander walked over to the bar and tossed a coin down. The beerman picking it up after a moment, inspecting the royal coat of arms imprinted on it, and then produced an overflowing stine which the man in blue took as he all but swaggered over towards the Raider captain. Being sure to sidestep around the bits of flesh covered skull and brains of the late Wurmwood which dotted the plank floor as he did so.

“The man was a thief and a murderer.” Ryder explained to the Englander, deeply regretting his luck today, who tepidly sipped from his foaming mug.” He was drawing a gun General and I reacted to save my life. Ask around, I’ll have twenty men ready to swear on their honor I speak the truth.”

General being the moniker the European Alliance Security agent preferred, each of their spooks having a bigger flair for the dramatic than the decadent American ones, and it was the only name Ryder knew this particularly thorn in his side by.

“I’m sure. Just like last time I was here to understand your peoples’ good will.” The General replied smiling a bitter little smile.” I’d be more curious what he thought he could steal from a “humble” tradesman as I believe you called yourself previously.”

Lowering a hand down to the table he picked up one of the gold coins Ryder had tossed and held it up in the dim light inspecting it. Flecking away with his thumbnail the little bit of engine grease and oils that one natural became coated in onboard an old ship like the Valor before dropping it back with a clatter onto the table.

“Made a good run for once, just brought in a hold full of raw ore from Last Chance just as the factories are experiencing an uptick in production. They paid handsomely for it.” Ryder said, his face unchanging as he studied the General’s own lean mask.

“That little asteroid mine doesn’t pull out half as much ore needed to keep your squalid fleet as busy as it always is when I visit.” The Englander said taking another sip of his beer.” What would you say I have the ship’s register from Last Chance and the Valor hasn’t docked there in more than half a year? What would you say to that?”

“Prove of poor clerks nothing else.” Ryder would have said hadn’t a shrieking siren cut through the walls of the Hun like a heat-ray.

With barely a pause Ryder turned towards the door as his crew, and other Raiders present, stood up and followed as fast as possible. Rushing out into the street where they commandeered every car, bike or push cart they could find, streaming back towards the star port where the siren blared as the rest of the Hungry Hun’s customers fled out and dispersed back to their homes or shelter. After all the alarm klaxon would only be sounded if Western warships had finally gathered for the final push, with memory of the atomic firestorm which had erased the Fatherland still deeply engrained the greater bulk of the inhabitance they naturally sought to dig themselves as deep as possible and wait out the coming storm.

sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:31 am

Sorry didn't finish as much as I hoped so I'm still "stalling" so to speak but I hope you enjoy.

“They are called Traders, part of those who have visited our blue-green world in the past. Sometimes they brought gifts of wonder, allowing mere mortals such as Alexander or Genghis attain great power both personal and imperial, other times they came sowing terror and destruction. Like noble Atlantis, the crown city in the pre-hyborian age, transformed in a blinding instant to soot and ash. But always they come with marvels and trinkets we not of yet could hope to understand.”

ISS WRAITH, Sickbay

The main medical bay aboard the Wraith was the same on just about any medbay in the fleet painted a lighter tone of the smothering gray of the ship to be conducive for lightened moods, threadbare beds with less padding than the wafer thin “steaks” served in the galley, the omnipresent Tie pilot doing his best to nurse his bought of clinical depression to stay off the roster, and opaque bacta tubes so one didn’t have to look at ones shot up comrades drown. It was in essence the sort of place you didn’t want to spend the next five minutes in if you could help it and Stuart had been forced to endure the place for the past three or so tedious and grueling hours.

“Don’t you think that’s enough?” The Corporal called out to the medical droid as it neatly carved off an upper layer of epidermis from Rookie’s back.

As declothed as Stuart was save for the mercy of a large, sterile towel reeking of disinfectant both wore they’d both been poked, prodded and bled by the infernal machines. Each encased beneath the flowing, blue curtain of a rayshield they’d been shoved under after breathing the faintest word of what they’d seen which would have fried to a cinder anything organic that tried to pass through which, regrettably, didn’t include the tin plated dictator.

“I reckon it will along with your latest blood samples.” The machine drawled, its vocalizer and vocabulary heavily modified since it had come to the Wraith. “Hopefully I will be able to give ya’ll the good news afterwards.”

“The same good news you’ve been giving us since you’ve gotten your robotic claws on us?” Rookie demanded scratching furiously at the recently exposed patch of skin.” How many different times do we have to prove we’re not infected. The most rudimentary scan should have revealed that, their giant slug like things which live in your head.”

“We can’t be taken chances if these little old things are nasty as you made them out to be.” The machine declared turning away from them and waddling on its creaking legs to the lab equipment taking up one corner of the bay.

Adding Rookie’s skin to Stuart’s inside a fluid filled tray, beside it tubular recessed into an abstract of scarlet whirred and bubbled along some scientific principal both stormtroopers had likely slept through all those years before. What wasn’t lost on them, and which they continued to voice loudly, was how much of themselves had already been sacrificed like that. Both men sporting odd, discolored square patches were they’d been trimmed down as well as the reddish marks over veins where the blood had been extracted and still felt the burning of their throats from the “mucus scrapping” that had been taken from it by the demented dynamo.

“I swear he’s enjoying this, happy to finally have something to do besides set a broken limb or sign a death certificate.” Stuart complained pushing off of his cot and pacing his small prison.

“ That is complete rancor spit. I am a medical droid and everything I have been doing here has been to protect this ship and this here crew.” The medical robot decried without ceasing his meddling with the samples, his angular head rising up on his piston like neck and twisting around to glare accusingly at the Corporal.” Frankly being pent up with a pair of ornery critters like yourselves is hardly a picnic for me either. This used to a nice quiet place.”

“Yeah!” The Tie pilot IS-50-13 or Seth as he’d introduced himself complained from his cot, slipping a flask out from under his belt and taking a long swing once the droid’s head returned back around.” Some of us are trying to rest.”

Stuart paused, looking back at the pilot as he stashed away his liquor, and thought about showing him what he thought about his “rest” but decided against it knowing he’d need both hands to do it properly and he didn’t want to risk what little of a garment he had falling. He’d had enough nightmares without adding to ones he’d had in his learning crèche.

“Look we’re not saying giving us a physical wasn’t prudent, after what I’ve seen it was almost a comfort, but when are you going to let us out of here? Huh? When?” Rookie demanded ignoring Seth and jumping to his feet, instead of pacing he’d rushed to the edge of the swirling cone of light and appeared to brace himself to try and dash through it.

“Once we’ve confirmed the little old ship is safe of course.” The droid responded finally turning away from its work and shambling back towards them. “ Until than anything which might make ya’ll stay here a wee bit more tolerable may be considered.”

“How generous. I presume a fully functional thermal grenade would be out of the question.” Stuart said, tiring of his pacing, sitting back down.” Pants would also be nice. Real trousers not some medical smock.”

The machine replied with bland and indistinct noises designed more to lull an agitated patient than actual compliance until its equipment beeped and the machine forgot all about them. Possibly a defect from how Jackson had used a durasteel pipe to “reprogram” the droid or perhaps the robot actually liked doing something approaching what it had been designed to do instead of the treating scrapped knees like it had been since being dumped onto this lackluster ship.

“Are you listening to us? We want out!” Rookie screamed swinging his fist for emphasis and yanking it away from the rolling blue field with a higher pitched yelp filling the room with the smell of burning flesh.

“If ya’ll won’t settle down I will sedate both of you, this here is a place of healing not some play pen.” The droid scolded lifting up the tray which held the dissolved remains of the skin samples and pour them out from a corner into a beaker.

Then pressing a button the entire thing receded from sight as various pumps and unseen machinery began to hum presumably analyzing the material for any foreign traces. Its attention no longer required the machine proceeded over to the still fuming Rookie producing a bacta wrapping for the soldier’s injured hand from a compartment in its polished torso. The young stormtrooper tearing the bandage from the robot’s steely fingers the instant they were through the shimmering blue field, stepping back around his medical bed to administer the salve.

“Didn’t we used to have a flesh and blood doctor? An Achilies or something?” Stuart asked vaguely remembering a cantankerous if knowledgeable old coot who used to putter around the sickbay.

“I am afraid the good Doctor Antilles had a minor headache today, after taking medication I prescribed he left me to run the store so to speak.” The android said to Stuart without looking, its robotic lenses fixated on Rookie’s burned hand.” Do be careful with the field now, flesh is so easily damaged. Really such frail things you are, I reckon I will never understand why ya’ll still bother with this squishy frame.”

Before Rookie could respond to that remark, feeling to show the medical machine just how “squishy” he was, however the door to the sickbay opened and Ambrose stepped in. Immediately Stuart slide off his seat and saluted as did Rookie and even the sloth like Seth. Done both because it was likely Jackson was to be announced by his aid and assistant of many years and because Ambrose was the sort of fella you fear on his own even with his taller than life commander. At the moment he’d looked mad enough to head butt a Reek into submission, the Mandalorian like officer giving the two armorless stormtroopers the lightest of gazes as he strode towards the medical droid.

“These men were supposed to have appeared at Commander Jackson table hours ago, explain the delay.” The officer snapped looking around and finding no trace of the expected doctor.

“The commander sent you personally?” The droid asked sounding remarkably surprised, something inside its metal skull clicking in series.” There is no delay, I have just completed a full battery of tests proving no sign of biological contamination.”

“Good release them, the Commander wishes them to be present in full military dress in no more than thirty minutes to personally thank them for their bravery and quick actions.” Ambrose declared with just the barest glances at the two men before he locked eyes with the tie pilot, whom was still locked in a salute.” You don’t appear to be unduly hindered pilot. Report back to your duty master at once or if you have grown tired of flying I’m sure we can find a new job for you competing with the floor scrubbers. Am I understood pilot?”

“Perfectly sir. I was just about to report to duty.” Seth snapped ending his salute and all but breaking out into a run to exit the sickbay.

The pilot downing the rest of his flask as he exited the door, something Ambrose noted with disgust, wiping his mouth with one hand as he stood outside in the hall furtively glancing in both direction before he remembered which was the hanger was. Then he was seen darting back across as the door began to close as he realized he’d remembered wrong.

“Of all the pilots of his squad the pirates had to kill, why did he have to survive.” Ambrose thought with hammer like precision inside his mind, gritting his teeth, as the ray shields holding the stormtroopers ended.”By the Emperor how are we supposed to win supporting layabouts that could have come from whimpy “sin planet” like Coruscant instead of a proper world like Soth Thejas.”

He was next about to chastise the two stormtroopers, heroes for the minute or not one did not keep Jackson waiting if he had a say, when an alarm klaxon sounded. It was just one of the several dozens distinct different sirens built to warn crew to abandon ship, that there was a raging fire, of boarders, etc but Ambrose recognized it immediately. His ears picking up and heart beating a hair faster as he realized they were under assault and he and the mighty vessel he served on would get to do what both had been born to do. Utterly destroy without mercy whatever drew Commander Jackson.

“Get back with your squad and suit up. We may have some real action this time.” Ambrose ordered Stuart and Rookie, failing to realize that they were their entire squad, as he rushed out.

With both men following very quickly behind before the droid decided to put them back inside their cages who watched all of them depart with stony silence. Once the doors had closed the robot shook his head side to side in a learned gesture and plodded over to a bacta tank, tapping at the buttons with his claw like fingers causing the opaque, black material of the cylinder to become transparent. Inside the gently swaying fluid hung Antilles, most of the skin and skull from the back of his head removed and a matrix of silver strands had been embedded.

“Wonderful.” The droid cooed over its handiwork.” The implants are taking better then we could have hoped. Soon your suffering from migraines will be at a permanent end.”

Admiral Breetai
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Mar 16, 2011 8:09 am

pre-hyborian age? fan of marvel comics? or the works of Robert E Howard are you? now I have a frank Frazzeta art style mental image when picturing your characters!

great update I like the quotes allot and the action even if it is stalling is good none the less

keep it up man

sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:31 pm

Admiral Breetai wrote:pre-hyborian age? fan of marvel comics? or the works of Robert E Howard are you?
Robert E Howard, through ironically HP Lovecraft since one or two stories refrence to his setting.
Admiral Breetai wrote:great update I like the quotes allot and the action even if it is stalling is good none the less
Well as long as the segments are enjoyable. I tried to put "interesting" individuals in them or at least move other parts of the plot even if the main is sinking like a stone.

Speaking of which any ideas on what I should name the oh so slightly batty medical droid? Also how is the blue working for the quotes? I've been meaning to ask but I've been forgetting. Are they too dark, too blurry or does it work?

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:11 pm

I can see them just fine

Joseph for the droid? if you've got an empire vs lovecraft setting may as well go with a mengele reference it'd fit

sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:45 pm

Sorry for this being late, I've been tinkering with this post trying to get it right and...well sorry also if its a mess. Tried differnt "angles" to get what I wanted to show and nothing worked and so I decided to post what I had to keep from fiddling with this for the rest of the week.

"We were on patrol when the bloody things swooped down on us, death coloured silver. Three of them, the big one eyed kind. The fluctuating field that allows them flight kicking up mountains of the coarse, Martian sand blinding us as they descended into our midst’s. But not them, no never them. The lead’s eye flashing an emerald green projecting a destructive cone which cremated two straggling men to ash in an instant and set off our Comet, their real target, like kindling. Aye no one not lucky enough to be inside the bosom of another armored vehicle or dropped behind a dune survived their first volley!”

Judgment, bridge:

“Five…no six compact spacecrafts emerging from the planet’s atmosphere.” A sensor technician called out directing the Commodore’s attention to the bridge window which blurred for the split second the logic engines needed to triangulate, focus and sharpen on the pack of warships piercing through the frosty white sphere surrounding the planet.

Beside him he sensed Tyler grin, that same face he wore after he laid a winning hand onto the table, as he watched the motley force ride jagged geysers of flame towards them. The glass screen easily adjusting itself every few moments to keep up with the vessels piddley advance, granting them a rare “mid-flight” profile of holo-vid grade that Imperials were seldom privileged too.

“Looks like that crude series of light pulses were a sensor system after all.” Tyler observed excitedly.” We should signal the launch bays, send up a sortie or two of Ties. No need to waste heavier firepower on these things.”

“ I fail to see the need for even that.” Krevin corrected glancing and getting confirmation from one of the sensor scopes officers. “Remember we come as friends not conquers…for the moment.”

That took some of the wind out of Tyler’s sail through he rebounded quickly, quietly pulling the Commodore aside and suggesting a show of strength was their best option both short and long term. Laying it strongly but with just the right amount of “good old boy” routine and ease when he wanted someone to make the mistake they were coming up with his idea like that time on shore leave with those twi’lek dancers.

“ For the moment at least our position is weakening. At the moment our Deuterium reserves for our reactors can only maintain current output for a few months, once it goes perhaps even their paltry firepower can harm us. We can’t worry about a protracted issue with these people, if we intend to stay here for any extended length we must, one way or another, make absolutely clear we are superior. That the Empire can not be trifled with.” The subcommander said congenially.

“I agree our current mess is pretty grim but that is why, just for this moment, I’m abstaining from the Tarkin doctrin. As you said we need every joule we have for later, at least until we obtain for us a fresh supply of fuel, and our Ties are equally finite. I can’t, not against such a powerless threat, risk the loss of even one by the exploding ship’s deaththrows. The lost Tie may prove pivotal if more advanced warships abound or if these people manage to cull together a sufficiently sized force to threaten our tiny fleet.”

The look on Tyler’s face was worth a month’s pay as he broke away almost as if he’d been burned before it was submerged by another face he wore while playing cards, through less frequent than his former. The narrow cat eye half smiled when he’d realized he’d been outplayed, the officer’s head tilting slightly in a nod in toast to Krevin’s maneuver and stepping back as he pledged his agreement. While the tone wasn’t filled with malice it spoke loud and clear that he thought he was right and planned to get his own way regardless.

“Sir!” A technician called out from his pit interrupting the dispute, both officers looking towards him.” Minute power build up in all of the crafts, primarily in the nose of the vessels in alignment to the pair of double barreled particle cannons.”

“Attempt to open hailing frequencies.” Krevin countered quickly.” Alert them that we mean no ill will but will defend ourselves.”

Which was the exact sort of cheesy line the various one dimensional heroes used on a plethora of cheap holovids but the Commodore hoped it would convey the proper tone to these low tech dirt worlders. Looking uncannily like an old instructor who insistently called on him Krevin’s second in command walked with him to the communication officer, hands clasped tightly behind his back.

“Of course not sir, defeating your opponent without firing a shot is the first thing they teach you at the academy.” Tyler answered smoothly when Krevin pressed him on, through the growing smile as the com officer reported no response from the vessels betrayed him.” I hope this succeeds.”

“Enemy ships firing!” Someone called out from the crew pit, the bridge window helpfully inserting dozens of red beams running out from the prow of the ships coloring the entire screen as they crashed against the forward screens.

The beams dwelled there for a moment, cascading streams of volatile EM energy washing against the Judgment’s defensives, and extinguished themselves like a spark in the wind leaving the vessel none the worse for wear. None the less Tyler, looking pleased, wasted not a breath in suggesting a counter strike which Krevin brushed aside heckling his communication officer to reach the vessels at any cost.

“Until we repair our reactor every laser blast wastes needless energy. Energy you yourself concurred we can’t spare. I strongly recommend we smash them aside before they finish recharging for another attack.” Tyler pressed as the curious build up was detected again.

“We will if it comes to it but I’m trying to save us headaches later.” Krevin answered sticking to his guns even as the silent enemy prepared to unleash theirs again.” Holms broadcast all frequencies that the Galactic Empire wishes nothing but well tidings to their hearth and home and to discuss peaceful terms of berthing but if pressed we have locks onto their vessels with weapons that will atomize them. Broadcast that, let’s see if they’re at least listening to us.”

“Yes sir.” Holms the on duty communication officer snapped briskly as the Commodore turned to the bridge window to see if the half dozen rockets attempted to veer away.

In all the logic engine enhanced glory he watched as the black pitted and dented cylinders increased the flowing ruby exhaust of their crude drive system increasing their pitiful rate of acceleration by a very small percentage. His eyes drawing to the ship’s nose cone he heard a sensor technician report their power levels reaching the previous point of discharge and someone else began a short lived count down. Almost as one the six craft’s lit up a bright red streaming a colossal amount of laser beams for such tiny vessels, setting off a minor klaxon as most of them held it for three or four seconds before faltering.

Seasoned veterans, if in many ways little better than the pirates they hunted, Krevin didn’t need to look or even ask for a damage report it was simply provided. One of the countless droid like technicians poking his head up among the pack down there in the pit and called out to the Commodore that the forward deflector had been dropped by point zero one from the two combined salvos.

“By the Emperor’s ghost sir they’ve spat on your offer of friendship and dare insult our glorious Empire by firing upon this vessel. With respect I think it’s time we lay our cards on the table and take the winnings.” Tyler recommended huddling near the Holm to give the order for the Tie squadron that much faster.

“I’m not so sure. Either they are as bloodthirsty as that crew of Wookie pirates a few weeks back or they didn’t hear about our weapon’s lock.” Krevin said with an odd little smile of his own, not sure himself what he was trying prove.

“Immaterial sir, they have fired upon our vessel twice while under a flag of truce. Our response is clear, if they won’t respect the Empire they will fear it.” Tyler countered cutting off Shanulas who had returned to his station.”Sir…I can understand if representing the highest echelon of the Empire you turn to our beloved Emperor, may he guide us in death eternal, with his infinite mercy and forgiveness but if nothing else…please for the love of him let me be your Vader. Let me do what must be done for Humanity and the greater glory of our Empire.”

Following his plea Tyler stood and waited by the communication board wearing the same face he wore when they played cards making it impossible for Krevin to deduce if Tyler had meant that last rather off kilter statement or not. Raising a hand to stall Shanulas who attempted to break in on the intervening silence he studied his second in command as the second slowly ticked by, almost the entire bridge crew looking up from their seats or posts at them.

“I will do subcommander what I feel is in the best interests of our Emperor and our Empire without question. At this time, without the full support of a Starfleet, without a way home or even to leave this system against an unknown strength I still prefer, perhaps too mercifully, to stray to a more refrained course than the Grand Moff may approve of.” Krevin started and was starting to segue to a reassurance that they would act decisively soon one way or another when the science officer rather bluntly stepped in between them snapping a finger to get his attention.

“Commodore I believe I have something you need to see…” He started before being interrupted his own self.

“Shanulas as I explained, later I will listen to all your inane jabber about quasars and singularities and many other words with I won’t butcher to pronounce but right now unless you have my drink I don’t think this is the time or place for us to talk.” The Commodore said very slowly fighting to keep his tone even keeled.” I have a war fleet closing in, we’re stranded in alien space and what we decide in the next few seconds could decide our fate. I don’t have time for another lecture on the importance of science.”

“That’s just it sir, the enemy vessels. My sensors are detecting very low energy old style radio waves being emitted from each other in a series of pulses. Very archaic and inefficient means of communications, limited to light speed, but plausible for a low enough tech civilization. I believe I might be able, using some of that “science” so to speak, modulate one of our emitters to send and receive it. I can’t swear to the quality but we should be able to at least transmit something to them, make them realize we are trying to talk.” Shanulas said puffing out his chest and standing a hair taller, looking as arrogant and smug as a scrawny scientist like him could.

“Do it.” Krevin ordered after a beat of just staring at him, immediately turning to order the gunnery officers to place a very precise and delicate barrage into the approaching fleet.

In the meantime the six ships held their own fire, according to scopes the power levels had actually dropped on two of them, through they continued to speed towards the Judgment and her escorts. The angling of their prows causing the back of the Commodore’s neck to tingle fearing he’d have to open fire before he could otherwise act, and thereby risk starting a war he wasn’t sure he could win in his present situation, through he did his best to hold himself like the heroes on the holovids. He didn’t need to give Tyler anymore fodder who still hovered near the com system no doubt doing mental calculations of the approaching ships and the closet they could come before the Ties didn’t have time to launch.

Thankfully after only a tense minute or two Shanulas announced his success reprogramming an honest to Emperor sensor rode, as opposed to a communication nodule as would be typical, to decipher and transmit the primitive electro-magnetic emissions. Through he was careful to warn Krevin he wasn’t sure if it all would work properly, apparently only toyed with the novel form of communication back during his early learning crèche days as more of a hobby than anything else.

“It will have to do. Holms inform the unknown vessels that having witnessed our invulnerability they can now bare testament to our power. Gunnery crews carry out my standing order!” The Commodore ordered looking once again to the bridge window as four red bolts erupted from his ship and flew towards the rockets.

While slower than their respective laser cannons the balls of unstable plasma flew far too fast for any of the enemy ships to turn away through Krevin saw a few try as the four bolts sailed through their formation. Releasing destructive forces which could melt, nay vaporize durasteel like butter not onto the ships themselves but into the tens of kilometers condensed down to meters on the bridge window between the war rockets themselves. Like a placid pool disturbed by a pebble the solid battle squadron was flung apart by the buffeting force of the volatile reactions with ships abruptly turned end over end as they tumbled through space, shunted backwards against their straining rocket assembly or sent careening only semi-piloted far off course.

Through not destroyed, each of the ships valiantly fighting to regain its footing as shone on the viewer which shrunk back by several hundred kilometers to properly showcase their six wildly separate tangents. Krevin noting that as they stabilized themselves and curved back towards the Judgment that while they once again drew near each other to focus their attack they stayed distant enough for the stygian depths of space to absorb any further flak bursts. Gesturing that he wished to transmit directly Krevin walked over to Holms’s station and effected what he hoped was a good rendition of the tone of voice pirate captains he’d had the displeasure to talk to over the years. Those folks rarely got talked back too from people in anything smaller than a star destroyer.

“Unknown vessels that was only a taste of what my sole vessel can unleash. You are currently at-“ The Commodore announced pausing to glance at the appropriate technician who quickly answered him.”- two thousand kilometers and closing. If you reach one thousand nine hundred without responding I will release a hundred fold worse and this time I will not take such great concern for your well being. The Empire does not wish harm on you or your people but we will not suffer any further assaults. Do I make myself clear?”

He waited for a reply feeling the back of his neck heat up and itch again as he was informed three of the vessels were charging back up again only to have what sounded like fingernails being dragged across a slab of hull plating erupt from every one of the bridge’s speakers. A long ear bleeding sound which persisted even after a voice became apparent behind all of that grating white noise.

“This is Captain Ryder, speaking for myself and my crew we would rather perish Englander than yield our last haven to you Imperialistic scum. I doubt you will find much disagreement with my fellow privateers. The hardships of space, of the travesty, hardens men in ways you can not imagine.” The crackling voice announced fading in and out of clarity even as Shanulas worked feverishly trying to compensate.” It will take more than these technological terrors you’ve constructed to subdue us.”

Inwardly Krevin groaned and fought to keep his eyes from rolling, unseemly at this point and time he deduced, at what could have been a boilerplate response from a first year Imperial cadet. While no where near as good a reader of men as his subcommander, as his losses would attest, he’d spent enough time around the gaming table to realize this Ryder meant it just as much as any of those devoted officers whose names were now household words and their bodies compost. A quick conference with Tyler convinced him he was on the right track, the second in command going farther recognizing when a player was bluffing and warning the Commodore Ryder would likely try to close to a ramming attack now that he realized he couldn’t shoot his way through.

“We do not hail from, or have contact with, this…planet England. We are…peaceful explore on a mission to…seek out new life and new civilizations…to open contact between your world and ours. The Empire wishes no harm to come to you but make no mistake we have the power to destroy you and will use it if you continue this fool hardy attack.” Krevin tried hoping they were just naïve enough to believe any space power would behave in such a manner.

Standing across from him Tyler stifled a laugh, his outer façade breaking to show off Tyler’s old more benign grin as he imagined these crude, primitive space dwellers listen to the corny message and buy into it. Sure enough when the teeth grinding static resumed there was a softer edge to the voice, softer inasmuch as an ISD was smaller than the Judgment at least.

“ I did not realize Englander that it required three gigantic warships to conduct a peaceful mission of exploration.” Ryder answered still sounding like he’d prefer to chew durasteel than talk to Krevin.” You surely can understand how we might misconstrue your high velocity arrival as an assault, do not encroach further into Imperiuim space with your warships and we may be able to discuss relations. If you disregard I assure you we will not stop until either we are dead or you are.”

“You have my word my destroyers will not advance further towards your world but hold relative here. Now I would have your force break off your attack run now or I’m afraid our diplomatic discussions will began very rocky.” The Commodore answered keeping himself so cool that even Tyler could only guess how close he was to simply firing and taking the squadron out of the black.” You have fifty seconds and counting or I will be forced to defend my people as you are bound to yours.”

On the screen the ships continued to rocket towards the Judgment for several seconds, sending encoded pulses to one another Shanulas informed them, before seemingly at the last possible second each deliberately flipped end over end and fired its thrusters on maximum sluggishly stalling them out in space. Not that there was much difference compared to their slug like velocity before but so much as there was it increased the ease of the gunnery crews popping the tin plated rockets like balloons. An urge Krevin fought, well aware that legions of the puny craft could prove problematic. Besides it did no one any good to make enemies with the first race you met in a strange galaxy.

“There now we can all act civilized. Now Captain Ryder we have a compliment of auxiliary crafts aboard, unarmed, do we have your permission to send that closer to dispatch one? It can bring forth an envoy from us or we can use it to bring a representative of your choice back to our ship the Judgment.” The Commodore said slowly, humoring the primitive savage.

“A poor trick Englander. My crew and I are freelance tradesmen, we have no ability or connection to parlay for our government. Your request will be brought to the ruling Lords’ attention however. Do nothing until I announce their verdict.” Ryder announced with a brief burst of static before drawing silent again.

“ Last time I met something like him was when we got too close to that supernova, through that rebel craft was cooked a little bit worse.” Tyler joked placing a hand against the side of his head and rubbing away at the growing pain caused by the background noise of each transmission.” But I belief him. He wants to strangle you with your entrails but he’s willing to let you talk. For now.”

“I know, they are not the Chiss however, thank the Emperor.” Krevin responded remembering with a small dripping of ice down his spine how his last attempt at gunboat diplomacy had ended.” But at least they made you happy to deal with Wookie pirates afterwards and how often does that happen?”

Before Tyler could return the verbal spar about how there was nothing to like about seven foot tall walking carpets with a perchance for laser cutlasses the bridge was filled with what sounded like a million logs crackling on a fire. The subcommander holding his tongue as much from audio pain as respect as Ryder made his proclamation.

“ The council of Lords has heard your request and are willing to grant it one condition.” The freelance captain said as if in the middle of a raging wind storm.” They will allow your auxiliary craft to enter our atmosphere and guide it down to a landing of our choice for hopes for peaceful contact but only if you are the one to conduct them. The council will not settle for toadying yes-men but the true commander of this…exploration force you have brought to our doorsteps.”

“That’s outrageous! An insult to your honor sir.” Tyler blurted out.” Do they think we are fools, the minute you landed they’d try to get the upper hand by taking you prisoner, just like the Chiss attempted.”

“ I really did like that poor officer, good and competent, a pity he had to vaporized along with everyone else. However our situation is a tad bleaker than it was then too and as you say at some point you have to put your money on the line or go home.” Krevin answered reaching down and activating the com-link himself.” As a commodore in his Imperial majesty’s star fleet surley you don’t expect me to simply fly down unarmed and unprotected do you? I will require a Tie squadron for escort down to your planet plus a compliment of my own personal guards to assure my safety once we set down.”

Ryder immediately cut in protesting, swearing that no invasion force would touch Imperium soil, intact at any rate. More bravado soaked pronouncements from a man it was a miracle hadn’t managed to die for his planet yet and once again Krevin had to remind himself of his larger goals to keep from turning a turbolaser onto him.

“I warn you very few people have survived suggesting the council would break its word. They have sworn you will be protected until you return to your vessel, you can ask no more of them.” The abrasive voice finished like an old style king making a statement.

“Well to have friendship we must have trust. I must trust you won’t use your warships to destroy my shuttle and you must trust me that my honor guard won’t turn their lasers onto you. If a full compliment is too much inform your council I am will to make do with a half squadron and as little as five stormtroopers.” Krevin haggled, rewarded when the opposing captain announced he would ask.

While they waited for Ryder to signal his paltry Lords Tyler resumed his objections to the occurrence which the Commodore brushed aside in what he thought was a fairly heroic looking manner. Partly because without the planet’s help they’d have to leave the Judgment behind, along with most of the crew, partly because he found himself fearing being at the mercy of a commander like Jackson more than a quick clean death, through that scared him by the Emperor, and partly because it was he had to admit it made a good image.

The courage commander putting life and limb at risk for his crew just like those lying holovids which the populace ate up and as Krevin looked at the way everyone including the prickly Shanulas looked at him a gambit finished crystallizing in his mind. While he had no intention of stepping outside of his shielded and armored platted lambda shuttle, not when his uniform could be worn by anyone as far as the natives were concerned, the thought that he was hopefully would stay Tyler or Jackson, who had openly talked about having the southern colonies succeed hence him being dropped on the outer rim as far away from them as possible, from any attempts to “simplify” the chain of command. At least in the short term and hopefully by then he’d have legions of idiot techno-savages twisted around his finger and armed with crude knock offs to keep everyone in line. Hopefully.
*
Admiral Breetai wrote:Joseph for the droid? if you've got an empire vs lovecraft setting may as well go with a mengele reference it'd fit
To be honest I wasn't not really thinking of the bot being "evil", I was going more for a MadDok type effect, but I could see where your coming from. Thank you for the suggestion.

sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Fri Mar 25, 2011 5:15 pm

And lo hurling one final expletive the barbarian threw himself atop the bloated guardian’s mottled and disgorged shoulder and with one decisive swing of his broadsword removed the loathsome thing’s head at the throat. With it, as the foul beast’s tainted and blacken ichors most verily gushed forth, went the last follower of the old demoness in our grand city

New Hope, three hundred meters above sea level:

“Class D powersource detected.” The sweet voice of the electronic adjunct purred over the hum of the straining engines.

Inside the darken shaft, buried under layers of rubbery flight gear, the pilot stirred from his almost sleep like trance at the near automated controls. Fully enclosed within the steel capsule the only light offered inside the slim flight crevice the soft twinkling of the control lights which curved around him on the walls and ceiling. A pale, diffused light was also radiated from the plastic screen recessed just inches from the craft’s controls feeding the pilot glyph heavy footage of the outside world color coded by threat, thermal, relative motion and a thousand other criteria with a gradient too refined for any human eye to perceive.

“Class D…one of their smog-pods returning?” The pilot asked turning slightly in the confined space to glance up at the blinking toggles and buttons overhead where the Adjunct’s speaker was hidden.

“Negative. Thermal and radar profile does not match the enemies known aero-space units. Target does not match any known profile.” His adjunct answered in that same lovely voice it had taken so long to instill into her.” Detecting two class F power sources in close proximity, they do not appear to match any known profile.

That really intrigued the pilot, adjusting his course around a hillside automatically without thought, who requested targeting coordinates. His Adjunct answering back succulently in that sultry tone of hers, informing him that all three targets were descending at a slow but stable rate. She also concluded from a lack of detectable exhaust, minus navigational thrusters, and insufficient velocity that all three crafts were likely employing a form of contra-gravity.

“Impossible.” The pilot exclaimed on hearing the two smaller profiles measured a few paltry meters.” That’s smaller than a gravity sled.”

“That is correct but my conclusion is supported by all available evidence. Targets trajectory, speed and thermal readings do not support a freefall reentry nor are the required heat presence from engine-motors. Suggest we inform air command?”

The pilot dismissed that with a shake of his head, which his Adjunct had learned to understand over their years together, not wishing to alert the barbarous savages of his presence just yet. Their feckless commanders would unleash squadrons they seemed to hide across the planet for just this opportunity and the precious seconds it would take him to swat the pesky gnats aside could allow this anomaly to escape. Moving his craft onto an intercept course but keeping to his level course beneath the crude invisible eyes of the savages that inhabited this planet he turned his Adjunct to unveiling more of this descending mystery.

“They may not be hostile to us.” She cooed sweetly, whispering to him in the darkness as his sleek craft pulsed over the countryside.

“They have pierced the canopy of a planet that was once and will be again our world. They shall be broken and repulsed like the current hairy savages. As Saargoth himself observed all the soft skinned races our are foe and the coming twilight of our cosmos will be greeted solely by our hardy race.”

She understood as best as a silicon avatar could, not forged by the primal forces which had shaped her creator’s race, and more importantly she obeyed dropping her line of reasoning and focused her matrix onto the three anomalies. The cocoon of metal and plastic around the pilot softly murmuring and clicking with the work, a steady noise the pilot had come to regard as comforting and familiar. A constant and soothing reminder his craft was more than another slab of hardware, that she was a separate and distinct entity. A living organism composed of warped titanium and ceramics instead of the fragile blood and bone of her pilot safely nestled inside her protective embrace.

“New targets detected.” His Adjunct announced breaking her silence, the electronic hum dying away as she spoke.” Four Enemy interceptors rising up to intercept the initial three targets. An additional two Enemy twirlers are in a holding pattern at a lower attitude beneath the rising interceptors.”

“Only six crafts and two of them twirlers? They typically take delight in filling the sky with their bloody wreckage. Signs of hostility from the descending crafts?” The pilot asked turning slightly again in his cramped space to glance up at the ceiling of his flight cabin.

“Negative. I am detecting radio transmissions to and from the interceptors and the class D power source. Both are utilizing the Enemies’s substandard dialect, the interceptors are requesting the descending crafts follow them back to base.” The Adjunct breathed.

“ A pity. I had hoped to see these newcomers in action before we destroy them.” The pilot announced gently pulling back on his flight stick.” Weapons check?”

“All systems optimal, missile pods deployed, all missiles reading in the green, rotary cannon engaged. There are no errors.” The Adjunct announced quickly and without hesitation.

There could have been no other answer, the pilot’s Adjunct demanding nothing less then being pristine when flight crews were done with her. Many a time the pilot had wasted away his sleep-time tightening bolts, cleaning connections long after the maintenance people had thrown their hands up in frustration at her demands.

Now such devotion proved itself as the elegant warbird’s wings smoothly glided closer to her body without sound, angling themselves better to withstand the coming resistance as the twin engines roared with new life. Her tepid pace replaced with a phoenix propelled on a shower of flame rocketing her through the dense air that suffocated her engines so. She, and her pilot, both yearning for the thinner, lighter atmosphere of the upper reaches of the world’s protected sphere.

“Send a focus com-link to air command. Alert them to what we found and inform them to have a recovery-ship ready to pick up the pieces. The Apes won’t give us long.” The pilot informed his Adjunct pressing a small red stud on his controls, causing the well tuned engines to shriek louder, hissing with pleasure at the familiar sensation of pressure true speed brought.

“As you command.” The Adjunct whispered in that voice of hers while feeding his screen with all the relevant targeting information.

*
Well to anyone, that is you Admiral Breetai, who may have been upset at how easy things have been going for the Imperials I hope this teaser shows I do plan to...sigh...drop the hammer to use that contrite phrase.

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Apr 06, 2011 3:01 am

things going easier for the imperials makes sense given the tech gap..but man something nasty has taken interest in them?

these last chapters have been awesome i like how the imperial officers seem smart enough to know when to talk and when not to shoot the bit about the chiss is pretty awesome too.

keeps it up!!

sonofccn
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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Fri Apr 15, 2011 1:41 pm

Okay I'm back! *crickets* Well...I'm still back. *angry crickets* don't make me call an exterminator!* slightly less angry but still annoyed crickets* that's better. Anway I'm back and to touch things off here's the first half of that big air battle I promised. I like it but tell me what you think.

“In my time I have encountered countless subterranean horrors, eldritch spawn and demon god worshipping freaks aching for another pound of human flesh. In my experience a few well placed volleys however will teach the fear of God to just about anything.”


Commodore’s log: Flying to meet your enemy in his stronghold can typically be summed up as a way to commit suicide without your beneficiaries losing their policy claim and I’m far from saying this is a good idea. I am saying that an honor guard of five stormtroopers, an additional batch of ten waiting in reserve, and a pair of Tie advanced which likely could fieldstomp this pathetic race’s air force all by themselves do wonders to improve one’s betting odds. Besides like all good officers sworn to defend the Emperor and his enlightened domain sometimes you do have to simply roll and take your risks.


With a dramatic flair Krevin completed this latest entry into his datapad, the little device chiming as it electronically wired the packet back to the Judgment, he wielded remarkably skillfully inside the white gauntleted glove of the borrowed storm trooper armor he wore. Its original owner, a dapper young chap with way more bravery than intelligence much less field experience, standing beside him ironically doing his best to fit the Commodore’s cap over his slightly larger cranium. Like the rest of Krevin’s uniform it left something to be desired but in the end brawn won out over the fabric and he turned on his polished heels as if administer a parade formation obviously enjoying himself.

“Don’t smile so much. No one ever trusts a commander who smiles, they expect us to be dour and serious at all times.” Krevin corrected his pupil, one private Lancaster or SSD-245-56, whose beaming smile immediately broke into a frown and then, hesitatingly trembling, shot back into a full blown grin.

“Sorry sir, I’ll try. I know the faith you must have in me to trust me with this sort of assignment.” Lancaster dutifully answered with the textbook the academy had pumped into him.” I won’t let you down sir, if these aliens prove to be hostile they may boil me alive, threaten to have a Wookie pull my arms from their sockets, or feed me to some ravenous beast but I will never even hint that I am not Commodore Krevin.”

“Good, good. You do that and the Emperor will be proud of you indeed.” Krevin said sidestepping to and fro around the young soldier checking how looked from different angles.

Not for the benefit of the Imperium folks of course but for his legion of bodyguards waiting outside the sequestered flight cabin, and luckily the green as grass private bore a slight resemblance enough to suggest a family relation which was all that was needed. Partly because as he learned over his many years of service that such low level subordinates generally didn’t actually look at his face, either out of deference or a mild dislike he’d never inquired to learn, and partly because of a faulty but cheap design used by the Emperor bootlicking corporation which churned them out in job lots that made it all but impossible to see a blasted thing with them.

He was nearly confident enough to think he could get away with dressing a Womp rat in his uniform but they were impossible to train through as he watched Lancaster try and fail again at a serious expression he began to have doubts on that. After all if the circus could train them to ride that big red ball…

“So remember try not to say anything unless you have too or if I give you the go ahead.” Krevin heard himself continuing while wondering where in this galaxy he would be able to find a trained one.” This is largely a meet and greet sort of thing, I don’t expect to hammer any big things out or even really talk to these people. Just a touch down and hand shake to let them know we don’t mean them any harm.”

“Unless they mean us harm.” Lancaster finished for him, still obnoxiously giddy, fidgeting in place as he adjusted his collar.” Then we drop the Emperor’s wraith on them.”

“I’ll drop it.” Krevin, stepping back as if inspecting the mock officer again, thought to himself holding up his armor plated hand to his bare chin.” You’ll be dead if…well actually either or isn’t looking to hot right now.”

Another thing he’d learned from experience was never let anyone hold the advantage over you, the first time Tyler had been good enough to take care of the matter but the rest the Commodore had made sure he could handle. Hence why he chose young and dumb every time, fresh faces no one would miss or remember in a week’s time that were eager for perceived glory and admiration and never suspected the blaster until it had cratered a smoking hole in their back. This would leave only one other witness the shuttle’s android pilot whose memories could easily be altered upon their return preventing such unpleasantness for the black painted and sullenly silent tin man sitting behind the controls.

Satisfied for his “double” to pull it off while he stayed back and “held” the shuttle Krevin gave his final approval and moved to take the copilot’s seat fishing the polished white helmet up off the floor and holding it with disdain under his arm with no intent on putting the blasted thing on a moment before he had too. Lancaster in turn continued to pace about the cramped room too excited at being entrusted with such an important mission to stay still forcing the Commodore to have him run a diagnostic on the com bead hidden in his ear just to keep the pounding of the man’s feet on the floor plating from driving him mad.

“Everything’s appears to working perfectly sir.” He gushed like some disgustingly cute puppy into the tiny metal sphere between his thumb and forefinger.” Is everything functioning on your end?”

Glancing at the shuttle’s read out, and fingering his blaster carbine, Krevin nodded with a small sigh. His tight beam transmission had been received flawlessly which meant he’d have to think up something else to keep the private busy as the shuttle languishedly followed this planet’s perversely slow atmospheric crafts. Thankfully before Lancaster could start preening again, prancing or needlessly stating how honored he was the shuttle chirped at the Judgment hailing them silencing him as Krevin thumbed the correct glowing button conjuring up Tyler’s voice. His static laced avatar however remained unseen from the typical perch set aside for the holocomunications, the holo-emiter disabled partly for safety concerns, the Commodore refusing to weaken his shuttle’s shields for the additional signal strength even against this world’s clunkers, and mostly to keep his charade undiscovered.

“Don’t tell me you miss me already do you?” Krevin asked with what he hoped sounded like a friendly, little laugh tacked on the end while inside his stomach began to tighten.

As happy as he was for a distraction, any distraction, from his handpicked doppelganger at the back of his mind he knew Tyler wouldn’t call merely for some piece of boondoggle that needed his personal approval. Unlike some commanders who believed the universe, or at least their ship, revolved around them the Commodore had taken to great lengths to ensure his crew could weather any circumstance, even the one they found themselves in now, with little to no input from the guy in the fancy uniform.

“ I don’t wish to alarm you sir but we’re reading what appears to be a craft ascending towards you at extreme speed from the planet’s surface. At its present rate it will be within laser cannon range within…three and a half minutes.” The subcommander answered proving Krevin’s point.

“It could be a late arrival for our welcoming party subcommander.” The Commodore feebly suggested aware of how unlikely brethren of the sluggish tugs puttering outside could be considered moving at “extreme speed”.

“Negative sir, while they match nothing in our database biological scans do not, I repeat do not, match the pilots of your escorts. They appear-“ Tyler started before stopping himself at an unfolding event dutifully watched by the Judgment’s electronic eyes before resuming, his demeanor more alarmed and his voice higher by an octave.” Nine objects launched! Colossal speed…closing with you sir. Missiles.”

He grew silent after that or perhaps Krevin merely stopped listening instead turning towards the shuttle’s scopes which frantically became active as each of the deadly packages crossed into its more limited range. His helmet falling out from his limp arms as he watched the things zip across the screen faster than anything in atmosphere had a right to be, like a hungry pack of sharks closing in on a fat, stupid whale.

“Threat detected. Evasion?” The flight android questioned uselessly, three of the bombs slamming and exploding into the shuttle’s deflector screen before it could finish turning its head towards the Commodore to complete its question.” Portside hit detected, screen depleted to fifty-eight percent. Holding. Evasion?”

It followed this with an attack on the bow panicking the Commodore further as he scrambled in the bulky and restrictive armor he wore to his seat, knocked clear from the unexpected shudder which had shaken the wind out of everyone but the android, fearing another salvo of missiles only through stare out through the ship’s viewports into the hellish maelstrom of burning wreckage and ash colliding against the front shield that only a scant moment ago had been his native escorts, flashed to vapor and gouts of flame before they had known the threat existed.

Which was a frank and disheartening abstract at the brutality and dehumanizing agent of war but one of little concern to the rising Krevin who was instead focused on not following their example. Answering at last the blasted droid as it repeated for the thrice time if it had permission to evade enemy fire, reminding him why despite their atrocious lost rate the Empire still fielded living pilots, reassuring Tyler at his continued existence and looked to his own Tie advanced escorts, whose shields had allowed them to survive where the native fighters hadn’t, who had both taken the initiative and were speeding after the enclosing enemy.

Twin dots on the jinking shuttle’s sensors, moving at a snail’s pace compared to the object which appeared on the far outer edge furiously shrinking that distance down. The craft’s icon bloating up as the Commodore and Lancaster watched, turning into a nebulous blur which fragmented with the greater share eclipsing the original icon leaving it behind.

“It’s second volley.” Krevin explained to the private’s question, both watching the missiles home in on their targets with far too great a speed for their puny shuttle to out run.
*
“I’mgoingdieI'mgoingdieI'mgoingdie…” Pilot SSD-72-49 chanted inside the dark crevice that was his mind, fighting to keep his hands around his worn controls as he sank into his threadbare flight seat.

A all too familiar chant that had developed into an almost mystical warding spell for danger for the white knuckled pilot, however fanciful allowing him to feel in control of situation planed and executed by officers in the belly of well shielded and armored destroyers with fewer repercussions than his wingmate’s. His wingman, ident number SSD-86-86, letting out a whooping war cry as his sleek engine of death straddled dangerously close to 49’s, the stim shot coursing through his blood increasing his reflexes to almost jedi like level but blotting out his mind in a sea of rage and instability.

“Faster!Faster!Fasteryoufethingcrate!” He slurred through the intercom without pause or breath, each syllable accompanied by an acoustic thud as he struck a chemically dulled fist against the side of his fighter trying to egg it on to greater speed.

Truly remarkable considering 86, when under such a state, dropped his inertial compensator down well below its safety limit so that he could “feel it” as he had explained it the one time 49 had questioned the rational. What would have flattened 49 into his seat and imprisoned him barely seemed to fluster his snarling wingman continuing to curse and pound as threat detectors on both craft’s blared to life.

A flock of missiles appearing smaller, but only slightly, than what had first announced the presence of the alien threat hurtling at speeds that would have turn the pilot’s to strained juice and their fighters to molten slag from the friction of the air with two peeling away. Peeling away and curving towards the two Ties screaming through the air as fast as their own ion engines would carry them, the distance between each other decreasing faster then a human eye could have followed.

“Faster-“ 86 started to scream as 49 sent an impulse to his arm, a kneejerk reaction based on instincts and hard worn experience than an actual conscious plan or thought.

An occurrence he’d undergone over a million times over his long, for a pilot at least, and sordid life. It had been this act then think impulse which had allowed him to survive in the lowest slums of Coruscant that had been neglected by the old and nearly forgotten Republic and disowned by the glorious Empire, left him standing over a bloody, broken corpse over a handful of credits that were rightfully his and seen to it he’d made it off world one step ahead of the hangman’s noose. From there it sheltered him against a Wookie Pirate Lord who attacked the garbage scow he’d stowed on, taken him across a galaxy littered with broken promises and tatters of crimson and scarlet, ultimately impressing the right Moff with his “killer” instinct and Emperor given talent to deserving to be vaporized with the rest of the subhuman jetsam he’d been caught with.

Again his gift had kept him alive, protected him, for the demanding training both physical and physiological the flight academy had fostered on him, pushing up the ranks where his peers ate only the suffocating embrace of space and, as before, left him standing over the body of a man who had tried to wrong him. The captain of the star destroyer he had been assigned too, a bloated man fearlessly sending squadron after squadron to their deaths in a hellish asteroid thicket crawling with rebel fighters. That time he hadn’t been able to run but a grateful Reyzack, promoted to command in the wake of the captain’s demise, had been lenient merely demoting 49 and transferring him to the worst assignment he could imagine. From there Krevin had been quick to snap him up after personally seeing his gift and until his unconscious knack for survival carried him away he’d served the Commodore.

“-Faster!” 86 finished screaming over the roar of explosives as the missile meant for him exploded head on blasting down his shield leaving his hull bared for further assault.

49’s shield instead remained intact as his impulse directed hand bucked his fighter up and away from projectile which appeared as a speck off in the far distance streaked past with a buffeting force strong enough to knock teeth loose all in the same blurred image that only a machine eye could have dissected into its chronological parts. Undamaged and intact the pilot felt a surge of adrenalin as he always did when he just did the impossible, imitating his frothing fellow pilot’s verbose voice as he clicked on his broadcaster.

“Feth yeah I dodged it, got anything else you Xeno sc-“ He brazenly declared just as his threat klaxons fired off again, the pilot’s brow knotting as his forward scope revealed nothing but clear air for kilometers and kilometers.

A split second later he moved to switch to rearward view, unneeded with a sole enemy in front, only to feel like a rancor had struck his spine slamming him face first into his console despite the force of pressure holding him down. His vision turning murky from a bleeding gash torn into his forehead as he pulled back up steadying his flight, the entire control board one giant flashing neon light as he was alerted to the fact his screen had been blasted down. At his side 86, similarly flustered, let out an angry growl more animal than man but what else 49 saw on his board made the veteran pilot feel like his stomach had turned into a blackhole and for his hands and face to tingle with clammy sweat. On his sensor scopes, on its extreme range, the enemy craft had just appeared.

*
“Objects not destroyed.” The pilot’s adjunct whispered in her caressing voice but even her velvet tones could not hide her regret or shield the pilot from his ancestral rage.” Enemy fighters still closing.”

“No!” He shrieked in response balling a fist and nearly striking the side of his imprisoning cylinder, stopping himself at just the last minute before he struck.” Impossible nothing that small can be shielded. Nothing.”

Which was completely true, the needed generators couldn’t even be fitted onto a lander and if Cytherean knowledge and expertise had failed to miniaturize it some lesser, soft-skinned race could not possibly have. Of course his Adjunct, limited by the facts and facets of her silicon matrix, took his disbelief a verdict against her judgment and began to restate her case for this otherwise ludicrous assumption before the pilot cut her off.

“Locking on all remaining missiles onto the larger craft, I will see it burn!” He narrated no longer caring if there was anything worth salvaging afterwards, overriding his Adjunct’s targeting of the two approaching fighters.

“Enemy fighter contact eminent, it is advisable…” She started only to be countermanded.

“Activate the cannon.” The pilot commanded as a new target icon appeared before him.” These bugs will die like days of old.”
*
END PART I

I should have the other part by lunch *knocks on wood disturbing termites who join forces with angry crickets* oops!

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Fri Apr 15, 2011 1:51 pm

Admiral Breetai wrote:things going easier for the imperials makes sense given the tech gap..but man something nasty has taken interest in them?
Which is what I think and I'm trying to "accurately" portray the two universes, whatever that means between two completely fictional realities, and prevent "oh look how cool my verse is it just dropkicked your verse's best fighter" but on the other hand a curbstomp story of how the Imps defeat threat after threat thanks to their super great and untouchable firepower is hardly an interesting story either.

Admiral Breetai wrote:these last chapters have been awesome i like how the imperial officers seem smart enough to know when to talk and when not to shoot
Well Krevin does at least but he's the sort of unprincipaled pragmatic bloke who only works for the Empire because it pays better than strict piracy. Anyway yeah I was going for less gung ho more "rational" Imperial I just hope I didn't make too big a mess of it.

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by Praeothmin » Fri Apr 15, 2011 6:26 pm

sonofccn wrote: Anyway yeah I was going for less gung ho more "rational" Imperial I just hope I didn't make too big a mess of it.
Nope, not all Imperials were Gung-Ho crazed lunatics, just look at Piett...

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:01 pm

Part II

Blinking to clear away the worse of the ruby colored haze falling into his eyes 49 watched as the tiny digital readout of distance accompanying the threat icon dwindle in an indistinct blur. Eight hundred kilometers, five, two each of these were superimposed together onto his iris, a meaningless jumble his inadequately slow brain couldn’t comprehend as his instincts took over. His gloved fist unlatching the safety and squeezing down on the firing stud unleashing a spectacular shower of light into empty void, at his side 86 needed no further encouragement opening up his own volley from his badly weaving strikecraft regardless if he understood how close the enemy bandit was or not.

“Hereitcomes!Hereitcomes!” He’s drug tightened and stretched voice shrieked into 49’s headset, meaning he hadn’t been so addled he couldn’t read his display, starting to shake his fighter even more violently around like a drunken fool crudely trying to hack something apart with an ax.

His bare and exposed wing panel missing being snapped off by 49’s only through the latter who adjusted his heading away without thinking, the pilot lifting his stinging eyes up from his readout, which proceeded to jump from ten kilometers into the negatives within that breadth of time, to his armored canopy where enemy craft slipped through emerald hedgerow they had thrown up unscathed. In atmosphere or out the basic Tie hull was just about the fastest thing in the galaxy so much so pilot cadets were warned to be easy on it or risk overshooting the older module rebel fighters and scoring a one way ticket to oblivion but the two straining war machines might as well have been hovering against the phenomenal atmospheric craft eclipsing the two of them in the barest fraction of time and leaving a tumbling and confused 49 embedded afterimage of the encounter.

Chief among that emblazoned sight slowly developing in his brain was the fighter itself, a tight cylinder tapering to a pointed nose painted, or burned from the parting air rushing over it, the deepest onyx of space imaginable. From either side flowed a graceful trim wing, needed for flight 49 recalled from some history class not as an alternative power source, extended at such sharp angles the edges nearly bisected back into the tubular body and flickering with fickle and illusive gradients of color from the unrivaled plumage of what subsidiary sensor analyze would confirm was a hybrid of oxygen breathing engines and very primitive thrusters. While not as fanciful or artful as some of the more elegant fighter designs in the galaxy’s history it possessed a certain grace and pose the most decorated or colorful craft could never accomplish, that intimidating aura of a sleek and purposeful predator.

The jumbled mess overlayed on top of that pristine image bore that out, 49 seeing that tapered nose all but melting away before a blinding red glare a match in intensity for any turbolaser. It wasn’t quite as effective, the pilot had recorded out of the corner of his eye, the minimalist swing of the scarlet “beam” disintegrating the middle out of 86’s fighter but leaving the rest of the now evenly red coated portions to continue forward where they no doubt comically dropped towards the planet in a kilo or two. Continuing the killer “beam” had completed its arc towards 49’s Tie who only thanks to an unregulated impulse pushed flightstick forward to dive and his craft’s exceptionally agility surived the passing. Much of his leftward solar panel vaporizing along with the upper portion of the ball’s body showering his flight suit with fragmented and partly melted debris the onslaught of frigid upper atmosphere congealed into irregular lumps on him but snapping out of it in his strikecraft explosively blown of course and bringing it back under control he was very much alive. Looking back over his display for the enemy icon he regrettably found it on the outer fringe of his range running aground his charge’s shuttle.

“Feth.” 49 exclaimed tugging on the controls sharply spinning his fighter around and rocketing after it knowing everything would be long done before he’d have a chance to catch up.
*
“Port shield knocked down.” The android chattered after the shocks of the four deadly missiles consisting of the second salvo had subsided.” Alleviating issue.”

“Alleviate? Yes…now would be a good fething time to alleviate!” Krevin grunted grabbing his seat and pulling himself up again only to grasp onto it for dear life as the android performed what its machine mind concluded was the most logical solution to the problem.

Without warning and quicker than the artificial gravity could compensate the dim witted machine flipped the shuttle over displaying the starboard shield towards the enemy fighter. Which the machine announced with the soft spoken preening pride that certain machines accumulated turning its rickety head towards the Commodore who slipped from grasping his seat to balancing himself against the ship’s console as the world steadied around him. Spotting the robot’s meaningful glare, and his stomach spasms calming, he slipped a furrowed hand off of the metal edge of the controls and extended a finger which wouldn’t ungnarl no matter what he wanted towards the droid’s metal face.

“ Don’t you ever do that again you fething machine without telling me!” He started staring into a face he could swear was sniggering at him despite its impassivity only a third cluster of warheads throttle the entire spacecraft.

Knocking Lancaster from his unsteady posture against the wall sliding him into the opposite corner and sent the Commodore tumbling forward until he caught himself but only after his hand had smashed into the android’s immobile face snapping off the loose bolts and wires holding it. A mild exclamation of surprise and regret coming from Krevin, steeling himself for the frantic outburst he knew was coming in a moment, as the head bounced off of the deck plating on the machine’s body, sparking, continued its previous course tugging everyone and everything towards a shuttle wall which had spontaneously decided it would be the floor for a moment.

“Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeth!” Someone screamed, possibly Lancaster giving a good rendition of trying to swim in midair as he was slammed against the wall or the Commodore, in the turbulent craft which from the all observing eyes of the Judgment as well as pilot 49 racing to assist appeared to be purposefully exposing it vulnerable flank.

The same thing which popped into existence inside Krevin mind about the time he collided with the droid’s body knocking it aside and which quickly blossomed into a full blown delirium, thrusting his hands out for the controls as the straining gravity systems stabilized reality again hitting and activating countless poorly labeled buttons in the process. Grabbing hold of the controls he twisted his neck towards the chaotic sensor scopes struggling to properly convey the ever smaller distance between the shuttle and the unstoppable alien vessel. From its perpetually changing and indistinct readout he gleamed an important if rather imprecise understanding, simply just two words “Too close”.

Across the way against the far bulkhead where Lancaster found himself floundering with a headless droid there came a humming whine like a lightsaber being charged up and with it vibration individually far weaker them the tremors the missiles had wrought but making up for it with continuously dwelling. From somewhere amid the sea of toggles, switches and dials came a klaxon and a monitor filled up with a frightening wire diagram showing the entire side starting to dissolve against a stream of high velocity projectiles and with that flashing in front of his eyes Krevin he snared the controls and pitched them as hard as he could. Unaware in his quest to pull away before the alien’s gun ate through the rest of the armor plating as well as the coming vertigo from the sudden shift of his fingers falling over the shuttle’s laser cannons, accidentally armed previously, which filled the air ahead of him just as a specter of a blur dove past.
*
The Adjunct detected the stream of volatile plasma, just one out of the hundreds the craft had brilliant unleashed with millisecond timing, charting its course and ultimate destination with impeccable precision. Foreseeing and accepting her destruction with the cool grace of all Adjuncts there came hesitation when she moved to inform the occupant who dwelled inside her metal body.

The need academic as the pilot, honed for years inside her metal shell, understood her every tick, every sigh, every facet of the cocoon she shrouded him in. He knew almost as when she did, as close as his crude organic mind could formulate, that he had failed her. His reckless drive to bring down the enemy’s preservers, their energy field, with the rotary cannon drawing them too close and into the wraith of the obviously wily pilot. There was no time to escape, no safe path through the dazzling green forest of energy, and he didn’t waste his energy or focusing trying instead trying to meet his end with the same resolve of his Adjunct.

“I’m sorry.” He said over the hiss of vaporizing metal, over her anguished screams as undiluted heat melted plastics and shattered silicon wafers.

He felt his protective cylinder shudder once, buckle, felt the air rise to such temperatures that even he found them too hot and then he and his Adjunct flew as one.
*

“Perfect shot sir.” An astonished Lancaster said with awe eliciting a confused grunt from the panicking Krevin until he released the streamers of flame he was piloting the ship through had been the enemy craft.” Vader himself couldn’t have done it better.”

“Perfect shot…wha?” The Commodore muttered as the private pulled himself to his feet and approached, the officer still grasping the controls so hard the soft metal was warping.

His mind, gearing everything for survival from one moment to the next, still wrestling with the concept that he was alive and everything was fine for the foreseeable future. At his elbow he could hear Tyler, giving up a cheer as readouts confirmed the enemy’s destruction, reassuring Krevin that a squadron of Ties were being dispatched for him with a turbolaser standing at the ready to “torch the whole worthless world if they objected” as he explained it.

“Assuming you still want to go through with it sir.” The subcommander added after a pause.

“Go through with it?” The Commodore numbly asked still expecting the elusive ship to swoop back and tear apart his weak little boat, the very essence of mechanical as he continued to pilot the shuttle.

This caused another whoop from Tyler as well as a distant thunder Krevin placid mind slowly recognized as applause from the assorted bridge crew, Lancaster adding his own cheer as he thrusted his fist up into the air flushed with nervous energy now that the crisis had passed. All mistaking his thoughtless repetition as a confident statement of fact something he was still too far in shambles to correct. His fear blotted mind in fact construing Tyler’s outburst as a command and mindlessly began easing the ship down glancing energetically all around for enemy combatants.

The nearest he found were the pair of virtually prehistoric prop driven fighters which chokingly reached his altitude just barely parting fast enough to avoid the sinking shuttle as it barreled past at twice their maximum speed. The voice of one of the pilot’s, as both angled their planes back around and fought to catch up with Krevin’s ship, sound absolutely incredulous at the furious air battle of which they had gleamed only the tail end of as they belatedly realized their comrades were under attack as bits of their flaming wreckage fell past them. Much like what 49 would gush to the Commodore hours later back when he was safe aboard the Judgment’s hanger the pilot congratulated Krevin on some of the best flying he’d ever seen performed as well as his steely heroics.

“ Simply amazing, how you drew the killcraft in, drawing its fire like that…praise the leader if one tenth of our pilots had your skill and nerve we’ve have wiped those loathsome beasts from the sky by now.” A very excitable Imperium pilot exclaimed over his crackling radio.

“ We need to get him to the base before others come, after a showing like that it’ll attract them like blood. Imperial shuttle, disengage throttle by one half and form up behind us. We’ll lead you in where our valiant brothers started.” His more level headed wingmate interjected causing Krevin to wince and hunch over the already deformed controls following the command and counting with baited breath when he could touch down be out of what amounted to a target beacon.

The steady chirping as 49 rejoined the group or the steadily descending cloud of standard Ties moving to protectively encircle the battered spacecraft not as reassuring as one might have thought.

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by Admiral Breetai » Fri May 20, 2011 3:46 pm

excellent chapter man friggen missed this earlier don't abandon yer work man this is a class act

feth is an actual wars curse word?

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Re: A NEW TERROR( STAR WARS CROSSOVER)

Post by sonofccn » Thu May 26, 2011 6:22 pm

"In the shadows of the night, in that perverted stillness you hear her. That glittering voice like fine wine spilling into your ear, tickling your brain until its raw and bloody. You hear her scratching...scratching to get in. To get inside, gnawing away at your timber, eating until nothing of you remains..."

Calling the dubiously named airstrip 38, as Krevin had been informed the natives called it, an airbase was an insulting disgrace. One of the tens of dozens of “hotspot” fields sat up across the depressingly blighted planet to combat their vicious enemy it was little more than consecutive dirt ruts carved into the ground with some barb wire strung around it forming a perimeter and a handful of curious AA-guns pointed skyward and manned by lean, nervous sort.

They and the hundreds of other misbegotten who lived in the shanty-town of felt tents and crude lean-tos maintaining the flying the pristine warbirds all looked up with some trepidation as the Commodore’s blocky shuttle gently descended like the marauders’ gunships into their midst’s. Men busy trying to rebuild delicate jet engines with half the needed parts and a quarter of the required time pulled their grease stained faces out from beneath their chosen birds of prey, awesomely coiled beneath grubby tarps pulled off to the side of the runways, watching as the mighty vessel settled down and its side split open. A silvery gangplank, like a great metallic tongue, extending from the orifice as a pair of armored juggarnoughts appeared in its threshold looking over the assembled masses with a predatory gaze apparent even behind their masked faces.

Long black rifles not outwardly unlike that found hanging off of every mechanic or soldier assigned to the compound hung clasped in their arms in a slight downward angle away from the crowd ready for the slightest provocation but none came. The natives kept their distance respectfully watching as the pair of stormtroopers, confident no immediate threat was present, gestured to someone unseen within the craft and proceeded to march the walkway’s bottom taking up position on either side. Pulling themselves up straight and cradling their rifles skyward against themselves as two more identically garbed men with smaller more compact firearms held firmly against their body just low enough to keep from being aimed at the base personal who led a man clad like them from the neck down but who bravely walked with his head uncovered showing his sculpted and fearless face. Behind him came the last of his bodyguards armed with a carbine like the two ahead of his charge, walking only a step slower than the Commodore he lifted a hand up to his helmet ordering the door to be closed behind them but not for the gangplank to be retracted wanting a quick retreat as possible should something else “unexpected” happen.

Krevin saw things in reverse wishing, until he could began winging his way back to the Judgment and her all powerful deflector screens, to stay as far away from the juicy target should another one of those high speed horrors return. His faith in the squadron of ties hovering like sea buoys over his shuttle considerably lacking much less in the propeller crafts shakily lifting off to circle over the base. Better to lurk with the leaders of this pitiful world whom, in the nature of ordered society, would have sequestered the safest place possible in the region.

However not that he stepped out into the tacky strip echoing with the anguished wail of fighters taxiing up and down from the sky above and ripe with the smell of unwashed bodies it truly dawned on him that they were in an inhospitable wasteland. If any door led to an underground bunker with meters of rock and concrete to protect from those hellish missiles it was too cleverly hidden for his eyes and beyond the camp’s confines there was nothing in the scruffy fields of grass except a gritty gray mountain in the distance. But that was still fine the Commodore thought to himself, breaking out into a smile many of the natives looking at him mistook for something warm and confident, that simply meant the brass was situated someplace else, someplace safer than a military airfield likely to draw enemy fire. Which suited Krevin’s goals even better, a new shuttle could always be dispatched for him if his was destroyed.

Concluding that the youngish, blonde man slightly cleaner than the rest with a fancier uniform than what appeared normal rushing out of a field tent to be a personage of some local import and likely his ticket to safety he motioned for his guards to part moving to greet him. An old trick he’d learned out in the wild space of the outer rim, his body guards forming a tight wedge formation half a step behind him, allowing the illusion of trust and brotherhood to whatever local idiot he had to deal with but at the same time only a solitary stride away from being protectively engorged in the womb of his troopers.

“Commodore Krevin, honored delegate of the Galactic Empire and his glorious majesty, at your service.” He said with all the warmth he could muster holding out his hand to the presumed officer who, after straightening out somewhat his uniform, accepted it in a strong grasp and with much innocent vigor nearly dislocated the Commodore’s shoulder.

“Standartenführer Thedore Dietrich Waffen-SS. Hallo Fremder!” He gushed with kid like innocence and joy while pumping Krevin’s arm up and down, frowning a moment later as he realized what his exuberance had caused and tried again.” Pardon me…I seldom have need to practice your tongue. I am Colonel Dietrich and in the name of our Leader and our defiant Imperium I bid you welcome.”

He was excitable boyish type of man Krevin noted, reminding him of a wookiee “pup” he’d once observed, who exuded unbridled energy in everything he did. Ceasing his inadvertent wrenching of the Commodore’s arm he couldn’t help but fidget, trying to smooth out his uniform or run a hand through his messy blonde hair which kept falling in his eyes, like a pupil being grilled by a proctor at a teaching crèche. His eyes sparkling with a childish charm most would have found disarming and untempered courage that likely meant he wouldn’t live long enough to grow old.

“And I thank you for it, after our ordeal you can be sure friendly words are much appreciated.” Krevin informed him broadly hinting towards leaving to a place safe from such attacks.

“Yes I was informed the…Schlange…ambushed our forces. Your fighters fought magnificently I am told but…you have my and the Imperium’s deepest sympathy for the one lost.” Dietrich said growing crestfallen making no effort to move from the Commodore’s path or lead them to whatever lair the brass had secured for themselves.

“Indeed and I thank you again.” Krevin answered smoothly doing his best to keep his eyes from rolling at the eager, younger office.” Such tragedy only compels me stronger to form bonds with true friends such as your Imperium, as I’m sure you do as well. If you could but secure for me some form of land conveyance and their location and I’ll gladly be off strengthening the ties between our two lands.”

He hoped Dietrich would rush off and unveil some such transport, one not likely to attract the interest of the Schlange, and expected the officer to mount some protest at so briskly being pawned off but instead the young man merely stared at him as if he just declared he was the Emperor’s grandmother. Slowly he looked side to side to his men who crowded loosely behind him and stepped slightly closer to the Commodore, much to his guard’s dismay, and spoke in a low and very meticulous voice as if given instructions to first year cadets.

“Leave? The regional commander will be here to meet you in person shortly, listen can’t you hear it?” The colonel asked quizzically.

A puzzled Krevin took a half step back from the officer and started to turn to his guards to see if they could shed light on what was transpiring when it hit him. The noisy, smoke belching planes the locals used for power flight had mostly all risen up into the murky sky inside of a holding pattern far above the airfield or his hovering ties meaning the gnashing noise of their combustion engines should have lessened. It hadn’t, instead growing louder and now that he focused upon he realized it was still doing so. A pained, grinding noise which made him think of tortured souls crying out to the heavens or at least for a drum of oil.

The words demanding to know what the noise was growing on the Commodore’s tongue as the Colonel finally stepped aside and gestured to the majestic mountain rise off in the distance, his mouth going dry and the words dying unsaid as he saw the gray mass steadfastly glide towards the airfield. From either side of him he heard his guards breathily curse as they realized the size of the colossus of steel and armor and Krevin could only meekly nod in agreement.

Rationally it was hardly that impressive of an achievement for one who commanded a Super-Star Destroyer much less the great Death Star, of which all those years ago Krevin had been one of the prestige few considered to command that behemoth, but being exposed to it naked free from any starship or even a lowly shuttle made it seem so much larger. Treads which could crush AT-ATs flat plowed through the coarse, hard grassland leaving ruts wide enough for fighters to launch from and which seemed to stretch for all eternity behind it. Its grizzled hull hanging with branches of greenery and shrubs in hopes one might mistake it for a thousand ton bush, dotted with numerous flak cannons and machine guns protruding from every conceivable angle. Huge cannons except in comparison to the monster that jutted from the armored snout of the war machine, its reinforced barrel so large AT-STs could walk two abreast down it without touching.

There were places, blacken marks dotting its side or monstrous treads, where the metal had been carved, melted and patched from where aerial torpedoes had struck and failed to penetrate the tens of centimeters thick hull. Nestled between these scars and weapons hung lesser, more sensitive equipment and arrays for scanning and communicating with the world at large, relying on quantity of devices to protect them from attack.

““Rat” command vehicle.” Dietrich said with pride over its throat roar, holding a hand out to steady himself as the ground began to shake from its approach.” Not even the Schlange infernal tanks dare assault one directly.”

Krevin nodded, listening to the chattering of his teeth as they knocked together, as he heard his communicator chirp and he reached down to pluck it from his belt holding it close to his ear to have a chance to hear over the ponderous noise. From the other end came Tyler’s voice, oddly subdued and refrained than it had been of late.

“Sir we appear to have a problem…several alarm boards have just gone off across the Judgment. It appears…it appears we are being scanned from the system’s edge, unknown source.” Tyler informed him slowly lapsing into silence from time to time from indecision either on the situation or him informing his commander of it.” I thought you should be made aware of the situation and any reaction I take.”

“Good…good. I’m sure you can handle it.” The Commodore said without thought tilting his head back as the command vehicle came to a rumbling stop just shy of the airfield.” Keep my updated.”

INTERLUDE-


The matrix of carefully filtered light that was Turhan’s body coalesced and formulated onto the bridge, arms folded behind his back holding a digital tablet for effect rather than need. Wearing the graven image of his creator’s race proudly as well as the muted red and soft black of their now defunct naval forces he stood in sharp contrast to the pitiful and unwashed figures hunched over by weighted chains against their controls or the taller figures draped in cloaks as dark as sackcloth crowding near the corroded vents which vomited the matted geysers periodically onto the ship’s command nodule making it a sweltering, humid hell.

“What have you spied Familiar?” One of the hooded figures, named Ug’o, demanded in a wet and bubbling voice.

“Three vessels of unknown configuration, elder who speaks for the progenitors.” Turhan said forced by corruption to his programming to give the scuttling hybrid the same respect as a Grand Admiral of old but showing his loathing and hatred with every fiber of his projected face.” The residue of the energy burst we detected suggest they are the source.”

Ug’o hissed with glee at that proclamation, like a swamp’s bog bubbling, through whether it was from finding the source or at fresh prey to torment Turhan did not know. Extending a billowing hand towards the digital avatar the elder beckoned for him to continue, the folds of black cloth falling away to reveal a slimy green tendril which wiggled and waved where a man’s arm should have been.

“I must beg your forgiveness elder.” Turhan said grimacing at every syllable.” The alien vessels are enmeshed in a protective forcefield making our scans less than the perfection I live to bestow upon you. They clearly favor energy emplacement, our scans can reveal that much, with dozens of heavy emplacements but I can only speculate as to their yield. The fact that one surpasses the progenitors’ most divine chariot in size makes me beg caution.”

“ Caution is for the weak.” Ug’o gushed as he extended his mucus dripping limb further from his sleeve revealing a sickle curved hook which caught and pulled back into place the drooping fabric.” Advance, quickly I long to hear the enchanting cries of tortured souls in fresh and exotic languages.”

The knot of hybrids around the elder burbled agreement with a few whispering in anticipation of females being found among the starships, not all of whom would have to be given to the progenitors. The thought of what they would do, indeed had done countless times since taken over the ship once called Noble Spirit, making Turhan’s nonexistent flesh crawl and his prudent suggestion cast aside moved to distance himself from his masters.

Uncurling his four arms out from behind his back pretending to write into his tablet, better than looking at the mournful eyes of the indentured slaves lashed all about, just as his sensors detected a mammoth spike of energy released into the universe. The three ships momentarily obscured by the disturbance and when it cleared he saw only two. The giant and one of its protecting siblings, the other he discovered only after a few tenths of a second reeling back in their sensor net spotting it only a few hundred thousand kilometers away and fast approaching on a plume of plasma.

“One of the smaller vessels has jumped towards us Elder.” Turhan said puckering his face and blotting all four of his eyes shut so he did not have to look on to the lows he’d been dragged to.” I believe it may have detected us.”

From the same emitters which conjured his own visible presence the AI made a flatscreen representation of the approaching triangular ship along with a plethora of numerical texts to helpfully convey scale and distance from their own vessel to the hybrids. Not that it mattered, the race as a whole caring little for the subtleties or nuance of warfare but only their perceived rewards. As was typical Ug’o merely swatted an arm at the image and commanded it be laid low.

“But not too quickly…let us enjoy the ravaging.” He finished his voice cracking and bubbling like a sewage system overflowing.

“As you wish.” Turhan, eyes still closed through it didn’t effect his ability to see and record what was to come, as he willed himself to destroy yet another hapless race whose only crime was to stumble onto his path.

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