From the Dragon's Den (Prakith)

[Zofia Marek]

A lone ship broke into realspace, shattering the calm and quiet in a short burst of soundless noise. Wasting no time, the ship kicked on its engines and got moving; a moving target was harder to hit after all. The frigate had landed within the Prakith system, but outside of the planet's gravity well. To most, the ship had appeared far from any real astronomical landmark and, in fact, far from anything of any real value. It had landed roughly near an old space junkyard; a more or less cohesive cloud of junk, debris, and scrap.

"Well, at least there's a scrapyard," muttered Zofia Marek, captain of the Corona-class frigate Hellion. She'd paid a small fortune for information leading to the proper person with the right information, and then a small fortune just to get the right information out of the proper person. The fact that they'd landed approximately near to a junkyard in the Prakith system was a good sign that she'd not been swindled, but there was still the rest of the job to do. That would make or break this particular venture.

"Ms. Pemrum, keep you and your staff on the sensors. Mr. Midoto, I want your ears glued to the comms. Anything happens out there we can hear, I want to hear it. Mr. Chafor, we want to minimize our time here, full speed ahead until it becomes too dangerous," the Cathar belted out orders from where she stood on the command dais. For her and the rest of her crew, it was just another day as a part of a well oiled machine. "Gunnery!"

From the appropriate sensor bank a pair of heads glanced up. Male and female Bothan twins, Yan and Yot had quickly shown their skill as they'd moved up the ranks. Thick as thieves, the two worked well together and, despite not wanting to have two members of the same family on board - much less in the same compartment of the ship during engagements - they were a package deal and despite her reservations they were some of the best gunnery control techs she could ask for.

"Keep targeting on passive," she said, knowing full well that for them targeting computers were just tools for their natural skill. "But keep the guns hot. I want to be ready to haul ass if they come after us with something we can't tangle with and limp away."

"Listen up, ladies and gentlemen," Zofia called out, a gloved hand switching on the internal comms for the ship to address her crew as a whole. "Despite the waning power of the Republic and the One Sith, the One Sith are not without their teeth and claws even now. The goal is to get in and get out without a hassle. I want everyone on alert. I don't expect trouble, but we need to be ready if trouble finds us."

She switched off the comms and looked over at her sensor crew once more.

"Ms. Pemrum, please keep on the lookout for anything that might be a spike in power levels against the background of the debris field. We're looking for a signal higher than anything else in there. The signal should be typical of a frigate in scale, but perhaps twice or more times more powerful."

Pemrum nodded once and turned back to her console. Marek did the same and watched the HUD like a hawk. The icon for the Hellion edged closer to the debris field, but that wasn't where her concern lay. Her concern lay with the system itself. Prakith was a One Sith hub and if someone came knocking, she doubted it would be the local police equivalents.

 

[Zofia Marek]

"Multiple energy signals in the debris field," Pemrum called out, pushing a strand of brown hair behind one ear as she rifled through the various data streams on her console. "There's two that look to be matches, but there's a lot of interference and multiple other signatures in the area."

"I need you to narrow it down to as few as possible," Marek responded as she kept one eye on the HUD projected on the command dais. "Try and bring it down to two, if you can. The fewer places we have to rummage through, the faster we can get out of here without the Sith navy finding us."

"Aye aye, Ma'am."

The Cathar glanced at the HUD once more and brought up a small star chart. A few seconds of thought were all she needed to make a decision.

"Ms. Trugrid," she called out. In response, the Nautolan in question poked her head out from her station, the tentacles of her head swept back and loosely tied together. While it looked faintly ridiculous to Zofia, she knew it was a habit formed from the occasional loss of gravity. "I want a hyperspace course plotted every fifteen minutes. Target is Coruscant. If we get jumped, I want us out of here as soon as physically possible."

Not waiting to hear a reply, Marek turned and keyed her commlink. After a moment, she heard the voice of her ship's chief engineer, Ensign La Ludypt.

"Ensign Ludypt, is your crew ready?"

"<Yes, Captain. We're ready and waiting,>" came the Sullustan's response. "<We're all loaded up on skiffs and all tools are stowed. Just waiting on your orders, Ma'am.>"

"Good. As soon as we have a verifiable target, you and your crew are going out and bringing it in. I want it in as few pieces as possible, please."

"<Understood, Captain. We'll do our best.>"

With that, Marek closed the channel and returned to her HUD. They had very little time and all of it borrowed. With luck, things would go smoothly.