The Virtue of Proportionate Response

[Jorus Merrill]

The first alarm came from a source that only Jorus Merrill’s immediate family could know about: a long-range hyperwave signal interceptor that he maintained on a moonlet in the hidden Q-27 system. Not wishing to expose said system to his entire crew, he left the Wretched Hive at Kal’Shebbol and took a quick snubfighter to Q-27.

The fighter had a good Class One drive; with the Force and a lot of sweat, he hit Class 0.5 equivalency. He settled into orbit alongside the moonlet, over the innocent pre-technological paradise where he’d married Alna and helped raise Mara. As he hovered there, he felt the same blood-fire that had come over him when the Black Rose first moved into the neighbourhood and interrupted his retirement. Someone was in the area with serious hardware. That meant a threat not only to Q-27, but to the Underground, the Outback proper, its member governments, and the greater area that had come to be known as the Kathol territories.

He could think of better ways to spend an afternoon.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Once he interfaced with the automated signal interceptor, though, he got a better handle on his apprehension. The sensor contacts hadn’t come within twenty parsecs of Q-27 at the closest, and they’d gone right on by. This corner of Wild Space was choked with hundreds of thousands of obscure, unobtrusive little systems; they would have no reason to think anything different of this one. Q-27’s secret was safe.

The intruders’ destination, however, might be another story.

There had been two specific incidents, a fleet and then a solitary ship, both following the same approximate route. The group had come first: two to four Star Destroyer-scale vessels and a swarm of what had to be escorts and fleet tenders. They’d been followed, after some time, by a single much larger ship, a battlecruiser. When detected, they’d been en route from somewhere like Echidna or Oberon, but before that lay the end of the Corellian Run and the Death Wind Corridor. Between the Run and the Corridor’s transition into the Mara, their point of origin could have been anywhere in the galaxy.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Their destination, however, might be determinable. For a better read on the data than the snubfighter’s gear could provide, Jorus landed on the spinning moonlet and went out in a basic vac suit. Crouched shivering by the signal interceptor’s glossy black dish tower, he went through the raw data over and over, until he had a sense of where they’d been when detected, and where they were heading.

It took a good two hours to put the pieces together, but as he wrapped himself in a foil survival blanket and huddled in the pilot’s seat, he came to a conclusion. Their course could more or less have led toward the formal Kathol Outback, especially worlds like Pitann or Binaros, but there were no stable routes out of the Outback proper between Kal’Shebbol and, well, the Aing-Tii homeworld. The long chain included places like Exocron, Binaros, Pitann, and Aaris Three.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

No, if the intruders had gone anywhere in that direction, along the shifting, uncertain hyperroutes whose closest terrestrial equivalent was a dirt road through a desert, they’d done one of three things.

Option one: they’d looped in Coreward again to get to Kal’Shebbol, the actual Outback’s gateway, in which case the Underground’s long-seeded monitoring and relay satellites would start screaming anytime now.

Option two: potentially, they’d gone all the way around the Kathol Outback proper and headed for someplace like Jelucan, Terminus, or Zonju Five. Those regions had a strong Underground presence, including monitoring gear and rapid-response options to counter potential First Order incursions.

More worrying than either one of those possibilities was option three: they’d gone to some unknown destination outside and beyond Underground territory, deep in Wild Space. And any destination that required a task force and a battlecruiser needed serious examination.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

***​

By the time he rendezvoused with the Wretched Hive again, an official Underground monitoring station over Binaros reported via relay that it had pinged a whole lot of long-range contacts. Now that Jorus had a publicly valid reason to know about the fleet’s existence and rough trajectory, he could use Underground and Judge resources.

He’d need them. None of his usual options suited the task at hand. The Wretched Hive wasn’t an appropriate ship for this, and the Black Dagger - a dedicated scout ship - was off surveying the Red Nebula for First Order presence. The snubfighter didn’t have the right kind of sensor gear. The Aegis of Dayark was deep in the proper Outback between Exocron and Demonsgate, months away from Kal’Shebbol and the rest of the galaxy. The D’Lessio was a killer, not a hunter, and anyways it was off rooting out Omega’s Rogue Sith leftovers on the other side of the Core. The Absolution was on a surveying mission over by Hagron’s World in cooperation with the Levantine Astronautical Academy. The Daragon was submerged on Q-27, and not specced for something like this. The Gypsymoth was scrap.


In this particular region of Wild Space, however, the new overarching Kathol government didn’t have much in the way of disposable resources, not even for a Judge and a General in the Underground. Or maybe it was just that he’d run for it when they’d sent Julius Sedaire to bring him in that one time. EIther way, the ship they sent to meet him would not have been his first choice. Better for the task than the Wretched Hive, for darn sure, but still.

Feth.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

***​

“You’re Captain Jorus Merrill? The Judge?” The first officer looked about thirty-five -- or twice what Jorus looked right now -- and also looked none too pleased about his new commanding officer being a teenager in oil-stained overalls. “Any relation to General Jorus Merrill?”

“Yup, yup, and no comment, in that order.” Jorus adjusted the strap of his duffel bag and cast a longing look back at the Wretched Hive’s airlock. He caught a flicker of red hair as Alna gave him a mocking wave, and he blew her a kiss, then turned back to the uniformed crew of the good ship Gossamer. Old memory rushed back: the ships he’d commanded as a decorated Omega Defense Force officer, the uniform he’d worn.

The crewers and officers on the Gossamer weren’t blooded ODF navy, though. Not even close.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

With well-hidden reluctance, the first officer drew herself to attention and saluted; the others followed suit, and Jorus returned the gesture. “Welcome aboard the Gossamer, Captain,” said the first officer. “We’re at your disposal. Mister Stilikaa?”

An Uukaablian yeoman presented Jorus with a folded uniform and a small toiletry kit. Subtle. Jorus accepted them and tucked them into his duffle. He’d taken in the ranks and nameplates of everyone on the welcoming committee, and skimmed their files; now he met the first officer’s eyes and tried to remember how to talk like a command officer in a proper interstellar navy. “Thank you, Commander Typhor, Mister Stilikaa. I apologize for my appearance; I’ve been in the field for some time. Walk with me, Commander.”


Her jaw tightened, but some measure of uncertainty crept into her eyes. She was a Togruta, a bit of an oddity this far into the Kathol territories, and at first impressions she looked like a good solid desk officer; she had that look. Not a warrior by any means. “Your cabin’s this way, Captain.”

The Gossamer was a frigate, at least by scale, but scientific instrumentation and analysis facilities took up the bulk of its little hull. It wouldn’t take long to reach his cabin, at a guess. “I’ve never had the chance to see a Laureate-class from the inside,” he said, walking a step beside and behind her. “What should I know about her?”

 

[Jorus Merrill]

“She’s a fine ship, sir. Came off the line six months ago at Theed Hangar.”

“Naboo-built. Fine sensors.”

“Yes, sir. The multispectrum instrumentation packages are specced for scientific exploration: astrophysics, stellar cartography, ecosystem analysis.”

“I’m told these ships can handle pretty much any field of scientific research.”

“With a little adjustment in the modular bays, yes, sir, they can. Ah, sir, if you don’t mind me asking, when we received our orders…”

“...yes?”

She paused outside a cabin door whose holodisplay read Cpt. J. Merrill. “The Foundation didn’t send a service record.”

He held her eyes for a long moment; she didn’t flinch. With a nod, he opened the door and stepped inside the decent little suite where he’d be living for the next few weeks. She followed him in. As the door closed, he dropped his duffel and the toiletries by the sink and went to the cabin’s viewport. Out there, the ugly shape of the Wretched Hive was just maneuvering away. Darr and Alna and the rest were off to keep doing what he’d really prefer to be doing. But this needed doing too.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

“As far as this crew’s concerned, I’m some young Underground guerrilla who’s been given Judge status and a temporary commission. But I don’t believe I can work with you, specifically, under false pretenses.” He turned to face her and leaned against the window, folding his arms. “I am General Merrill. Rebel Alliance, ODF, Silk, Levantine Astronautical Corps, Underground General Staff, seven years building safe houses and hiding holocrons for the Jedi Council - that’s my service record.” He tapped his cheek, which didn’t need much of a shave. “There’s stranger things in Wild Space than a science ship can analyze, let’s put it that way.”

“I see.” Her face remained inscrutable, and he’d never had the knack for reading emotions. “And can you provide…”

“Proof?” He shrugged. “Get to know me, do your job with me, and watch me do mine. I’m not half your age, Commander; I just look that way. Or I could get out my comm and call up Sarge Potteiger.”

“Lord Protector Potteiger?”

“My daughter’s godfather.”

Her eyes tightened. “That won’t be necessary, sir.”

“If you have any lingering doubts, Commander, just know that if we find what I think we’ll find, you’ll have all the proof you could ever need. Don’t find that reassuring.”

 

[Jorus Merrill]

The name Merrill had certain connotations in the world of navigation. He didn't have to get explicit about the hows and whys, but it didn't take much coaxing for the ship's navigator to turn over his chair to his new commanding officer.

The Laureate-class science vessels had been designed for operation by civilian crews, biased heavily toward scientists rather than professional starship crewers. The instrumentation panel was frighteningly basic; it took all Jorus' self-discipline not to rip it open and start tweaking. Then again, he had an engineering team for that. In pretty short order, he'd convinced the Chief Engineer to adjust the fuel mixture, tweak the s-thread inverters, and otherwise finesse the modest Class 2 drive into a reasonable Class 1.5. With that kind of nerfpower behind him, and with his own hands on the controls, Jorus finally felt ready to get things done.

The command crew assembled on the bridge; he turned the navigation chair to face them and rested his elbows on his knees. He'd shaved, showered, buzzed his hair, and put on the new government's uniform. Now he looked like an ensign wearing captain's stripes, and that was never a good look. He tapped the intercom on.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

"Folks," he said, discarding most of the stiff formality he'd used to get Commander Typhor's attention, "this is Captain Merrill. The Underground monitor network has picked up what I believe to be a hostile fleet, or at least it's going to real serious lengths to avoid our territory. It might be taking the long way 'round to Terminus or Zonju or farther, but none of those places have picked up anything at this scale. We're looking at two to four Star Destroyers, plus support ships, with a lone battlecruiser following them. We've got an approximate vector through Wild Space, and we're going to try as many likely systems along that line as we can hit. I understand you've got hypercapable probes and shuttles; we're going to make use of them for a fast, thorough sweep. I know I don't look like much, but Commander Typhor's been briefed on the background that went into these stripes, and she's on board. And I'll tell you the same thing I told her: work with me, and you'll see you're not being saddled with some kid and tossed off a cliff.

"Back to business. We're lightly armed with civilian-grade defenses; I understand that. I want you to understand that I'm not going to take any unnecessary risks with this ship and your lives. But we are going to find that fleet, and we are going to let the Foundation know where it is, and there's a degree of necessary risk in that mission. Most of you are scientists. Anyone who wants off, that can be arranged, no shame in that. Our shuttles are hypercapable, and there's places they can rendezvous with other Kathol ships to drop you off. Talk to your supervisors, talk to your people, and make your decisions. The Gossamer hits lightspeed in two hours."