Raid off Garos Four (open to one Mando)

[Ashin Varanin]

GAROS SYSTEM
NOT FAR FROM GAROS IV

The ship of the day was a Corellian YGX transport, tough enough to tackle a Mandalorian patrol boat but fast enough to catch the convoy before it jumped. It had the maneuverability for a good knife fight. Vastor manned the controls, personally.

The convoy was a small one, lightly defended as such things were reckoned. Garos Four would have been a middling-priority world if not for Myrkr, Mandalore, Aeten, and everything on the Primeval border. As it stood, Castor could probably take at least one freighter from the convoy with the YGX and the squadron of old TIE Tarals that escorted him. Fingers crossed.

His turbolasers hammered into a freighter's shields as the Tarals engaged the escort.

Fingers crossed.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

He'd picked this intercept vector carefully enough, but wariness drew his eyes back to the long-range sensors every few seconds, even as he soared through the little convoy with cannons firing. The Tarals had the escorts pinned down; desultory fire rocked the YGX, but between tracking speed issues, the Taral distraction, and the proximity of the transports, his shields barely dimmed. The transports began to scatter, clawing for hyperspace, just as concentrated turbolaser fire from the YGX slashed into the lead ship's shield generators. One of the Tarals broke away from the scrum and dropped a pair of mag pulse warheads into the unshielded transport, disabling it.

"Scan complete," said Futz at sensors. "Hibridium."

"Nothing at long range?"

"Not yet, but we'll have Mandos on our tail any min-"

"Yeah, I know." The YGX settled in beside the coasting, disabled transport. "Aux guns, rip open the container. Stand by tractor beam."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"System defense forces inbound, Cap. They're on long-range sensors."

"Ship makeup?"

"New makes and models. We don't have the idents. Looks like...well, not something we want to be around for."

"Start jump calc for Donanyd." The YGX shuddered gently, not in line with weapons fire. Vastor's eyes flicked from sensors to viewscreen and back as the little convoy and its light escorts scattered. Tarals -- a decade ahead of their time, and still tough, fast, and nasty enough to put just about anything to shame; so far he'd lost three. The YGX's ridiculous firepower didn't hurt. Shields dropped to sixty percent and held. "Where do we stand on the tractor beams?"

"Cargo modules coming free. Inbound."

A trickle of cargo was still cargo. He'd costed out the mission, knew how many little modules -- space-sealed crates, really -- would pay for this mission's fuel, HUMINT, and acceptable losses. Whether they would reach that point before Mandos intervened...that was anyone's guess. The art of it was knowing when to cut and run.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

A few cargo modules -- not enough, but some -- started piling up in the bay as Vastor kept a weather eye on the long-range sensors. The Tarals had scattered the convoy, but now that the other freighters were jumping, the escorts were closing in again, firing at extreme range. Mandos didn't run, after all.

"Shields at fifty percent, Cap."

Vastor hissed through his teeth. "Not fast enough. Not fething fast enough. Disengage the tractor and give me manual on the big guns."

"What're you going to do?"

"Something downright Procrustean. Open the hangar door." The YGX looped and centered on the forward section of the freighter it had been looting.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The heavy turbolasers fired, transfixing the target freighter, and a whole section of it just ceased to be. Overkill was the word -- but more importantly, clean. Deftly, Vastor snared the inert aft section with the tractor beam and pulled it away from the reactor breach.

Away, and into the gunship-sized hangar of the YGX.

More serious weapons fire began to rain down from the returning escorts. "Sword Leader, break and run. I'll be right behind you." The YGX curved a tight loop, the hangar door closed, and Vastor engaged his hyperdrive.

Garos Four to the Graveyard of Donanyd was a short jump, all things considered -- a couple of hours, no more. Not long enough to get the hibridium loot under control but, with labor droid aid, enough to at least shift the hibridium crates out of the hangar and into the cargo bay, once scanned for things like survivors and tracking devices. That left the aft section of the target freighter just...sitting in the hangar, ready to use as a shroud if necessary.

He exited hyperspace in the Donanyd ruins, surrounded by asteroids that had been continents. This, too, was in Mando territory, and by now the Garos system defenses would have called ahead to everything along his vector. There might be something...unpleasant waiting here and at half a dozen other places.

Or not. Because the Mandalorians would be, justly, wary. Wary that any raid, no matter how small, was meant to lure them away from Aeten, Mandalore, Muunilinst, and the worlds of the Primeval front.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Long-range sensors picked up a Mando flotilla, part of the Donanyd system defenses. Vastor grumbled something uncharitable - but so far as he could detect, those patrol ships wouldn't get close enough to intercept, not within the time it would take to calculate the final jump. A jump that would take the YGX, its precious cargo, and its Taral escorts out of the rubble, past the Mandalorian border, and straight to the neutral and terminally unlucky Contruum system. There was every chance Mando forces would pursue or intercept; Contruum was on the Mando- Republic border, and the Mandos had never been shy about imposing their presence. Then again, neither had the Republic.

The navicomputer timer ticked down inexorably.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Cap?"

"Yeah, Futz?"

"We should push our luck. No sunk costs fallacy, right? We should hit Khorm, get some agrocite..."

"We don't have an op set up on Khorm, and they'll be ready now. Besides, invoking a fallacy like that is a fallacy all in and of itself. We're jumping for Contruum, full stop."

"As you say, Cap, but they'll harden up the south. We won't have this shot again."

"Sure we will. The Primeval are hungry, Futz. Far as I hear it, people look at the Mandos and smell a carcass on the grill."

"Doesn't say much for us, taking a piece out of'em if they're that weak."

"Well, we took a piece out of the Primeval, didn't we? All right. We're clear. Jumping for Contruum. Let's see if the Mandos follow."

Stars blurred to starlines.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Cap?"

"Jendo." Vastor was watching hyperspace, hands close to the controls. Interdiction was a thing. Behind him, the hulking Gran stirred.

"Finished taking inventory and sorting the lot. Eight hundred kilos of hibridium ore."

"That's it? Feth. Well, thanks, Jendo." Vastor grimaced, chewing the inside of his cheek. "Good work back there. Is it all braced and sealed?"

"All strapped down, sir."

"Good. Now go strap yourself down too, preferably somewhere near a turret. We'll be coming up on Contruum soon. It's not Mando territory, but there's a decent chance we'll have someone waiting for us regardless. Garos Four to Donanyd to Contruum is a pretty clear vector. Not the only place we could have jumped, but they might have covered their bases."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"All hands, this is the Captain. We're about to hit realspace over Contruum. Weapons live. Don't fire unless I give the order. Realspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

The countdown had a momentum to it that made it hard to keep his voice level, every time. A blind reversion into potentially hostile space was nothing to sniff at.

Hyperspace became starlines became stars, and the Contruum system unfolded before him. "Futz, what do we have on long-range scans?"

"Nothing I can peg as Mandalorian, Cap," said the Noghri. "Local patrol ships...and some Republic patrols."

Vastor blinked. "This is Republic territory now?"

"Peripheral, anyway. Maybe they're just passing through. Either way, if a Mando was looking to stop us, they'd have to risk all this for a shot at us."

"Mandos will risk an awful lot. Power down weapons. Same to you, Sword Leader. Let's cut and run before people start asking questions about Tarals and carbon scoring."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Starlines burned to hyper-ash once again, and slowly, very slowly, Ric Vastor allowed himself to relax.

They'd done it. Mostly by making sure that any given Mando had bigger priorities, granted, but they'd done it nonetheless. Internal sensor and visual sweeps had found no stowaways or tracking devices, but he'd dumped the hulk off Contruum just to be safe. The hibridium -- not nearly as much as he would have liked to secure, but enough to make a tactical difference -- had been divested of its containers and those, too, had been jettisoned despite the indignation of the Contruum authorities.

Down at the sensor/tactical panel, Futzchag lit up a cigarra. Vastor considered saying something about shipboard smoke and air filtration systems but after a couple days' worth of low-profile op...well, whatever.

It was done.