Private The Stygian Reach - Echoes of the Past

[Gir Quee]

Mon Onoma, somewhere in hyperspace

"This is a fool's errand," said Sariya, laying sprawled out across the chair with her booted feet resting on the cafeteria table.

Around them, the Directorate instructors, marines, and recruits casually navigated through the myriad of tables and chairs holding trays of almost appetizing looking food. Students ran the Mon Onoma as a school ship, and for the first time in weeks, Gir was beginning to second guess that decision. Gir himself poked at a half-charred piece of gray blob was supposedly a nerf fillet. After one bite, he was almost certain that while it was a nerf fillet, it wasn't a particularly well cooked one. The man poured an ample amount of Corellian steak sauce on it to partially make up for its shortcomings.

"No risk, no reward," chimed in Dav, shoveling in another bite and seemingly unphased by the students's subpar cooking skills, "I think we got a fair deal off the infochant."

Ariela cocked her head to the side as she regarded the amber liquid in her cup, "Surely that's an unbiased opinion, says the man who made the deal."

"You agree with me, Gir?" said the old Corellian, briefly pausing his binge eating, "don't you?"

"At this point, I'd say it's worth the shot. But I guess we'll see once we arrive at the coordinates."

Sariya sighed and pulled her booted feet off the table, "Look, I get that closure is something that's important to you...but I'm sure your parents would be proud. You made it further in life than they probably did."

A wan smile crossed the admiral's face, "Probably...but it's an apples to orange comparison. My parents weren't interested in commanding warships or being some sort of corporate titan...at least, not from what I hear from others."

That brought a grin to Dav's face, "No, they weren't. Simpler folks in that way, but good folks...just like what Salmakk and his kin told you...at least to the best of their knowledge. But I have to let you know, your father did get a streak of adventure from time to time, and your mother just want along with it."

"But..." interrupted the echani woman with a wag of the finger, "that doesn't mean that this is a good idea. Couldn't you just delegate this investigation to someone else?"

"Let me get this straight," said Gir, starting to lean forward over the table, "you think I'd prefer to have someone else find out what happened to my parents?"

"No, I'm not saying that...not exactly," said Sariya with a rare frown, "...just not yet until we have something more firm for you to look into before we get our hopes up..."

"On that we agree," said Ariela, finally deciding to push her glass to the side, "but then again, when was the last time the admiral here did something for himself?"

"You need to find a wife," stated the echani woman, "that might be productive..."

"Well, I'm not picking you..." retorted the blonde man.

The flowing lines of hyperspace disappeared from the cafeteria's viewport. The admiral looked out, mostly of curiosity, expecting to see a vast sea of stars. And he did - bright blue stars along with twinkling red and white ones - all casting their eerie glow through the red brown dust from the nearby nebula. Yet there other flashing, familiar lights in the distance that caused Gir's brow to furrow. Turbolaser fire...Who's shooting who? His comlink soon chimed.

"Sir, you're needed on the bridge."

 

[Gir Quee]

"Moving," replied Gir tersely as he rose from his chair.

Ariela and Sariya were quick to get up too, but the old corellian simply kept slicing up the remains of his nerf fillet and looked up at them, "I'll join you guys in a little bit."

Gir bit back the immediate urge to call the corellian worthless. It wouldn't do any good... you can only control how you react to a situation...The wisdom of which was easier said than done: the man irately strode through the sea of midshipmen and other denizens of the mess hall, who very quickly cleared a path for their commanding officer. He typically preferred a more fatherly touch with his subordinates, yet as might as he try, there were times where he could only bottle in, even if it showed on his face. The trio stormed through into the ship's corridors, with the man breaking into a light trot that only made other crewmen get out of his way quicker. He'd admit that that was a little empowering, and let him vent a little bit of his stress and frustration off before they entered the bridge.

The ship's hawkish looking captain snapped a quick salute as one of the marine sergeant's bellowed, "Admiral's on the deck!"

Gir quickly cut off the pomp of the ceremony with a quick wave of the hand, "It looks like someone's shooting out there."

"Yes," agreed Captain Blo'unt bluntly, waving a hand at a holo-projector which showed the space around them.

Gir's own little squadron of ships stood at the edge of the battlefield in a triangular formation, with the Cassian Andor in the point position followed directly astern by the Mon Onoma, with the smaller Stellar Liberty to the port of the cruiser. Ahead of him, Gir saw a dark gray bar-like warship that he instantly recognized as a Dreadnaught-class Cruiser. But it was firing at something he couldn't immediately identify. At a first glance, the dreadnaught's target seemed like mishappenly shaped asteroid with a rocky, tan exterior from which came sprouts of red and green outcroppings. As he peered closer at the unknown vessel, he watched as turbolaser fire from the dreadnaught seemingly disappeared into thin air right before it should have hit the strange asteroid. But seconds later, dozens of streams of flaming rocks erupted out of the apparent asteroid and smashed into the dreadnaught's shields. Confusion and wonder in his mind turned guarded skepticism.

"That's a vong construct, isn't it?" said the admiral, turning his eyes up to Blo'unt.

Blo'unt offered a quick smile, "Yes, that's what initial scans suggest."

"I'd ask for its transponder, but I'm going to guess it doesn't have one. The dreadnaught though, it has one?"

"Care to guess?"

He audibly groaned. Though there were probably still hundreds of original dreadnaughts still in service throughout the galaxy, let alone hundreds more of derivate designs, Blo'unt's mere posing of the question already narrowed it down to three different names in his mind. He eyed the old warship once more, finally taking note of several immaculately maintained set of blood red stripes in her lateral trenches.

"The Firelance."

"Correct again."

The admiral let out a sigh, "Do we have any identity of the Vong starship?"

"No," said Blo'unt.

"But," said Ariela, pointing on the side of the vessel, "these dark green striations on the side here, those are markings of the Strohna heretics."

"Heretics?" said Blo'unt.

"A shaping caste that has not gotten along well with most of the other Vong in the galaxy for following a warped view of some of the teachings which led the Vong here," said Ariela, "Though they'd say they were merely following the way of Yun-Yuuzhan."

Blo'unt frowned, "You sure know a lot about them..."

She frowned in turn, "Something of a personal interest...My homeworld has been devastated by extragalactic invaders in the past...but that doesn't matter now. The Strohna are bad news, even worse than the appearance of Lord-Commodore Harrsk and his Firelance. A read a holo article that showed that there have launched several slaving raids recently, even hitting Eryn III..."

 

[Gir Quee]

"What'd I miss?" asked Dav, sauntering in from behind.

Sariya spared a quick glance at him and pointed at the holo of the two duelling starships, "The admiral is trying to figure out which one of them he wants to shoot first."

"But they're already fighting each other," observed Dav.

"He wants to make it a three-way brawl."

"Why not let them kill each other, and then swoop in to kill the survivor?"

Gir shook his head, "Harrsk isn't technically my enemy..."

"He's a rival after the same treasure that your parents were trying to get to."

"...and the genocidal Stonha are not anyone we want wandering around the Stygian Reaches," said the admiral, ignoring his bodyguard's commentary, "try and a get ahold of Harrsk on the comms. I will attempt to talk to him."

Ariela eyed him curiously, "You know he isn't going to like this."

"But, he'll like this less than getting his ship damaged more than it already is...and maybe with some luck, we can get something out of this..."

Dav smiled, "I'm proud of you, taking advantage of the situation for once..."

"Let's not push our luck-"

"Morals-" interjected Sariya.

"...too far yet."

Blo'unt quickly hurried to one of the ship's crewmembers to make that comms connection, leaving the admiral's entourage to observe the battle. With the captain temporarily gone, Gir took full control of the projector, and zoomed in several times on various parts of the opposing warships while he reviewed streams of data from the Mon Onoma's sensors. His eyes narrowed as he realized that while he saw several coral skippers flitting around the vicinity, he hadn't seen any conventional starfighters that Harrsk should have had flying. Have they all been destroyed in the fighting? Or is Harrsk holding them still in the hangar for some reason? As he pondered that, Blo'unt soon paced back to him. More questions, less time...

"Harrsk is on the line."

"Patch him through here."

The visages of the duelling starships vanished, while the light quickly recoalesced to form the visage of an aging man - half of whom was clearly now cybernetic - wearing a crimson uniform that almost wouldn't have been out of place in the Old Republic thousands of years ago, if save only for about a dozen medals festooned across his breast now. Harrsk's eyes ran up and down Gir's frame.

"You still look scrawny and weak to me..."

 

[Gir Quee]

"...and I think our idea of stylish remains different too," countered the man from Hast, "but we can trade insults and insinuations, or we can talk about getting rid of the Vong ship that seems to be giving you some trouble.."

"It's target practice."

"If it were," said the admiral, "then my sensors wouldn't be seeing gravity signatures showing that it's latched onto you, and not you onto it. I don't know how you got entangled in it, whether it was ambush and you thought it was an asteroid at first, or if you truly thought it'd be a good piece of practice, but I can tell you that your ship is being damaged while we talk here."

Harssk frowned, "You're not going to risk your ships and people just because you like me or out of some goodness of your heart. If you did, you would have already attacked them. What do you want?"

"I want to call in a favor...later, shall we say."

"I'm not giving you the Hoard, nor am I giving you any hints to find it."

"Deal."

"Deal?" repeated the Lord-Commodore briefly, before offering a more reaffirming, "Deal."

"We will add our fire to your's momentarily then."

The holo of the Caridan vanished before being promptly restored to the tactical battle. As the squadron had practiced many times before, the little corvette slid behind the two larger Directorate warships as they advanced upon the rear of the Suuv Ban D'Krid. Deadly light danced out from the trio, with the Mon Onoma's lasers burning exceptionally bright. Clouds of dust seemed to rise off of the Stronha heretic vessel, even as dozens of coral skippers departed from the cruiser analogue to attack the newly arrived Directorate warship. Streams of superheated rocks from the coral skippers were met with bursts of laser cannons and a handful of concussion missiles, which scattered the Vong's paltry counterattack. Yet Gir ignored the enemy attack, instead watching with pained fascination as the Vong cruiser, which had seemed to be besting the Firelance before, now began to struggle against its foes. While larger than any of the other ships present, it did't have the mass of the forces being brought against it. Its poor position and sheer attrition by firepower meant the Vong ship was doomed. Yet it fought on, deliberately moving to crash into the Firelance. While not experts, the student gunners of the Mon Onoma soon changed their targets to the dovin basals which both propelled and protected the Vong ship, causing them to focus more on protecting than moving, and giving the damaged Firelance a little more breathing space to move out of the way. Seconds later, several salvoes of Deliquescer-class Corrosive Torpedoes crashed along the spine of the Vong starship, releasing streams of burning gel which seeped into the rock-like coral before burning through the hull itself. Gases and debris began to vent out of the Vong ship, until the ship seemed to crumple into distinct blocks that began to tumble away from the battlefield. Regardless of the section, every single Yaret-kor kept spitting out molten rocks while every single dovin basal kept bending gravity to its will - fighting on to the bitter end. But the disjointed nature of the heretic's ship now meant that it was done for. Turbolasers and mass driver cannons pulverized what had been the innards of the Vong ship into a fine dust, while the few surviving coral skippers attempted to ram themselves into the Firelance or the Mon Onoma. The mon calamari cruiser's thick, layered shields easily withstood the attacks, but the Firelance didn't seem as lucky, with one coralskipper almost perilously hitting a portside engine cluster. Yet before Gir could converse again with Harrsk, the Firelance surged into hyperspace, leaving the admiral and his little squadron among the ruins of the battlefield.

 

[Gir Quee]

"Not even a thanks," quipped Sariya, "that's some class for someone who made up a fancy title for himself..."

That guy's motto ought to be might makes right...

Gir shrugged, "I wasn't expecting any niceties from his lordship. But whatever we may think of him, he appears to know where to go, and we do not. Navigation, try and see if you plot the Firelance's trajectory with any known point in space. I'm going to go talk to Commodore Perit."

Sariya raised an eyebrow, "Just of the two of you then?"

"Yes."

His entourage exchanged knowing looks before Dav simply shrugged and walked off the bridge. But both his bodyguard and aide stood still. They had become nearly inseparable from the man, largely because they made Gir's life so much easier. Yet neither of them could quite figure out why he refused their presence around the other Directorate officer, whether it was Ariela's carefully planned probing or Sariya's full frontal verbal interrogation. Sariya let out an exasperated sigh.

"Well, I'd say don't go get killed, but I'm probably more likely to die on this ship than you are. Ariela?"

The replica droid eyed him intently, "One day we're going to find out, you know that, right?"

He gave the two a dismissive nod. Not likely anytime soon...because whatever you two think, it's not actually about me...He'd been tempted several times to explain to them why Perit disliked their presence, but he almost figured it would cause more complications than simply not telling them at all. Besides, it felt a little good to keep them just a little off-balance and unfamiliar, if only to give him the self-satisfaction that not all of his secrets were open to them. The admiral quickly departed, making his way through several corridors and blast doors before he arrived at the mon calamari's quarters. He lightly rapped on the blast door, which soon slid open to reveal the mon calamari officer in a half state of dress pondering the holo-map that Dav had bought off the infochant. Perit almost ignored the man as he walked in, but Gir waited to speak until the blast door slid behind him.

"The great Lord-Commodore was here," informed Gir, "as well as a Stronha Vong heretic ship."

The mon calamari's bulbous eyes blinked and finally turned from the map, "Did you dispose of them both?"

"Just the vong. I don't have any moral or legal reason to attack the Lord-Commodore, as obnoxious as he's started to become. His Firelance jumped out immediately after the engagement, I have the navigation officers on duty trying to plot out where they may have gone."

"Hm."

That doesn't sound promising...

"Any luck reading the map?"

"I think," guessed the mon calamari, "that the data is partially corrupted, and some has made some very basic, educated guesswork in there to fix the astronavigation. I'd guess it's add on information by someone looking to explain the probably purposeful partial notes of its originator. Some of the celestial objects I can recognize after reviewing our own charts, and it suggests that the celestial object's drift during time has not been compensated for. We'll probably have to do some minor recalculating for parts of the journey."

Gir winced at the news, "How out of date are we talking?"

"Probably a little over a hundred years."

"That's not insignificant. We'll have to rechart every route if we don't want to get splattered by a mass shadow that's moved since the mapping.."

Perit offered a smile, "But that's why you have me and the AI. That should help make out for some of the lost time."

 

[Gir Quee]

"No contest," slowly smiled Gir, "I'd much rather have careful and deliberate work and have our ships arrive safely and entirely intact in the process."

"You know I would never cut things that close," snorted Perit, "but there is something to be said for haste. As much as we can cut navigation time down compared to competitors, they still have the informational lead on us. And as much as I would like to say I can compensate for it because of my abilities...I am not truly sure if that is the case."

"There's a lot of unknowns," said Gir quietly.

His comlink chirped, causing the man to activate its speaker, through which Captain Blo'unt's gruff voice promptly flowed through.

"We have projected a possible path that the Firelance took, it ends in the Shanch System."

"Send the projected course down via datastream to Commodore Perit's quarters please. We will review it, and prepare all ships to jump out."

"Understood sir."

Seconds later, the two Directorate officers found themselves pouring over a pair of maps: one showed the projected trajectory of the Firelance, while another displayed Perit's interpretation of the astronavigation data that Dav had purchased from the infochant. He glanced at the two routes, carefully comparing their routes. All things considered, they are very close...though Perit's should give us an advantage of a couple of hours in arrival time...We might be even able to beat the Lord-Commodore in arriving there. The man from Hast turned to his mon calamari friend.

"What do you think?"

"I think Harrsk's supposed route confirms that he's at least following the data provided by the infochant."

"So if nothing else, we have a confirmation that at least one of the other seekers is using the same data," said Gir, briefly activating his comlink to speak to Blo'unt, "Commodore Perit will be transmitting you navigation data shortly. Take the squadron into hyperspace based on those directions as soon as possible."

"Yes sir."

"Quee out."

He turned the comlink off before returning his attention to Perit, who in turn tapped a button that transmitted the data to Blo'unt and the bridge.

"Have you looked at what's in the Shach System?"

Perit hesitated for a moment, "Peoples engaged in an endless war..."

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir arched an eyebrow, "That description fits about half the galaxy right now..."

"Internally," said Perit with a slow shake of the head, "as in multiple factions on the world, rather than outside forces bringing war to the world itself."

"Sounds like an opportunity for profit then, to an outsider."

The mon calamari nodded his head in agreement, "Donell was rumored to dabble in arms dealing, selling weapons and tech he purloined from various ships that he captured. It's not likely he ever got huge bulk shipments of anything in the process of his raids, but consistent sales of small volumes seems like a good supplemental source of income. I bet the Shanchian factions would take anything galactic standard they could get their hands on too."

"Not up to galactic standard themselves, I take it?"

"Our information on them is sparse," started Perit, "and likely outdated too, so take this all with a grain of salt. But allegedly, Palpatine or one of his lackey's established a research outpost on the world and with the various conflicts that came after Palpatine's death, it was basically forgotten or left on its own. It's own remoteness from the Core and the Gulag Plague further isolated them over the years, so while they're all very familiar with the basics of modern technology, their own ability to produce their own is rather limited. I briefly asked Dav about it when he first gave me the Infochant's information - he says supposedly the world makes its own military walkers which evolved from some now ancient KDY models. That's the extent of their manufacturing advancement - not even spaceflight yet. Those walkers and some basic raw materials are the only outside trade material. "

"You said they were divided?"

"Three city states, effectively vying over a large agricultural plain on the world's one continent..."

"And the infochant's clue to the next piece of the puzzle?"

"An ancient battlefield."

Gir snorted, "I'm sure there's no shortage of those on world with constant petty squabbles..."

Perit nodded, "There's not enough information available from outside sources on what that could be. We'll probably have to survey the area ourselves from orbit or make contact with one of the local factions. And hopefully not blunder into some battle in the process."

"It's going to take time, and enough time that the others will probably arrive there too while we're there."

"Very likely."

"Just great."

 

[Gir Quee]

He spent the next few hours picking Perit's mind about the system and the strategies needed to either secure the data or to stave off the other treasure hunters. Yet what he received was sparse - it was through no fault of Perit trying though - they simply didn't know about the Shanch system and only know just a little bit more about their opponents, largely through Ariela's effort of having established a limited spynet with the Stygian Reach. The issue was that travel within the area was erratic at best, with most systems largely remaining isolated from the others except for a few outside traders and organizations. One fruit of the discussion was that they postulated that the battlefield site was probably the old Imperial facility itself - supposedly fallen into disrepair and abandonment after the factions had fought non-stop to control it over the years. What wasn't ruined was likely stripped out by the vying powers to take back to safer areas, which was a double-edged sword. It might be desolate and worthless now to the point where no-one kept watch of it. But the struggles also meant that whatever clue Donnells had left behind had been moved or destroyed in the process.

With only a few minutes before their ultimate reversion to the system, and now feeling more flummoxed than informed, the admiral departed the navigator's quarters and made his way up to the bridge. The doors whisked open to reveal it relatively quiet, with Gir managing to quiet the pomp and ceremony of his arrival before anyone else could react. He spied Sariya lounging in his command chair.

"Keeping it warm for me?" he asked with a slow grin.

She shrugged indifferently as she rose to abandon the admiral's chair, "It was open, and no-one was using it. Beats standing up here waiting for you...How was Perit?"

"Helpful," said the man, sinking into the chair, "though not as helpful as I'd like him to be - no fault of his own, of course."

Ariela slowly shook her head, "Give it more time and more resources, and we could know more."

"Time that we don't have, unfortunately," said the blonde man, glancing at his wrist chrono, "otherwise I'd agree with you."

"Reversion in two minutes!" sounded an ensign.

He took the notice to mind and immediately reconfigured his station for a more tactical role, switching out cultural databank displays and navigation charts for real-time sensor feed and the datastreams from the squadron's tactical network. After double-checking it all, he allowed himself a brief moment of daydreaming before a brief series of sounds announced their reversion into the system. His holo projectors immediately began to fill up with data. As to be expected in a such a remote and unadvanced system, interstellar traffic was sparse. There appeared to be a half dozen light freighters in total either approaching or departing the world, but to his surprise, there were two vessels present - a DP20 light frigate and a Flurry-class Escort Carrier - both clearly aged but well-maintained - both using transponders that associated them with the Arcadius Foundation. He sighed. Looks like we're not the first here...

Blo'unt cleared his throat, "Action stations?"

"They don't seem hostile or taking notice of us yet," said the admiral, "but clearly we should take some precautions to make sure we don't get hit with our pants down..."

He quickly sized up the situation before turning back to the ship's captain, "I'm going to depart for the ground with a pair of dropships and troops to secure the site. You're in charge while I'm away."

"That's pretty rash of you," warned Sariya, "and I almost wonder if Perit drugged you down there."

Ariela nodded her head in agreement, "You're taking this too personally. It's pretty risky, moving before we even know the basic situation of the world or our competitors."

"The longer we wait, the more likely someone else is going to secure it," said the man, rising from his chair,"and I'm calculating that at least individually, our opponents won't have the firepower to remove us once we take the site. But conversely, there's going to be a whole slew of political problems if we start the shooting first."

"What about the natives?" asked Sariya, "are you sure they're just going to let you land and look around the place? Its probably someone's sovereign territory."

"If we move quick enough, they may not even have a chance to realize that we were there. Are you two coming with, or not?"

Sariya shook her head in resignation, "Do you even have to ask? For once though, and I want this on record, you're being more brash than me..."

"Dav, see what you can find out and keep us in the loop on our way down, all right?"

The old corellian grinned, "I can do that..."