Private Unseen Cargo

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Flickerfox

Equipment:
Training Jumpsuit | Lightsaber | Modified DL-27

The cockpit was quiet. Outside, stars streaked like silver veins across the dark a hyperspace corridor. Ace sat with one boot kicked up on the control panel, his body relaxed but his eyes tracking the nav readouts. They were only a few minutes out.​

​

He could feel it again. It was like a quiet ache in your bones before a storm hit. The Force was stirring for some reason. Ace wondered to himself, was this more than just a simple cargo interception?​

​

He'd volunteered the Flickerfox for this mission and, in turn, himself. The fresh rebel figured he'd may as well put her through her paces. Show the Hidden Path he wasn't just a lightsaber. Signal scrambler, blackout stealth plating, fast too - she was perfect for an assingment like this.​

​

Aris Noble was to accompany him on this, or maybe, Ace was accompanying Aris. He wasn't sure. Either way, they'd worked together once back during that weird business with the Forge, and a few times after - Hidden Path stuff. Aris was a decent person from the short time they'd spent together. Although, neither had really spoken much. Still, he was Valery Noble 's kid and they survived the Forge together, so Ace trusted the now crimson-haired Jedi Knight to keep him alive. And, he'd do the same for Aris.​

​

"Got the manifest again." he said, tapping the screen beside him. "Still blank. Ship ID checks out Imperial, but whatever's onboard? It's not logged. Either it's contraband… or classified."​

​

His gaze drifted toward the viewport, just in time to watch the flicker of realspace bleeding through the corridor. It was almost time.​

 

[Aris Noble]

"Imperials don't do contraband, so classified it is." Aris settled down in a seat beside Acier, hands noticeably in his lap. Away from the controls. As much as Zaiya Ceti had taught him, he still wasn't good with actually piloting himself. Last thing they needed right now was to crash, especially considering their mission.

Find whatever it was the Imperials felt they needed to keep off the books and bring it back to the Rebellion.

"We'll have to hit it hard and fast so they can't get any reinforcements. Think your ship can handle it?

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Flickerfox

Equipment:
Training Jumpsuit | Lightsaber | Modified DL-27

Ace snorted, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"She can handle it." he said, giving the console an affectionate pat.

He sat up straighter and dropped his foot from the dash as the nav readout ticked down the final seconds. Ace's expression hardened into a stony focus. Then, he glanced sideways at the giant sitting next to him: For a stealth mission, Aris was a unique person to have by your side. Guy stuck out like a sore thumb, red hair and tall as all hell.

The viewport shimmered, stars slowing, elongating, folding into stillness. Realspace. Ace's fingers flew across the controls. The stars snapped into place.

The moment they dropped out of hyperspace, the target lit up on sensors. It was a mid-sized Imperial freighter, drifting like a dead thing with no escorts. No patrol routes either. Just a big, silent box gliding through the dark. Ace adjusted the Flickerfox's trajectory, angling for a low sweep beneath the freighter's hull.

Ace activated the ship's stealth plating, flicking the switch on the console. The ship's lights dimmed. Outside, the hum of the shields died, replaced by a soft vibration through the floor - the telltale draw of blackout mode draining the auxiliary core.

"Signal scrambler's live too. We're totally invisible."

Ace guided the Flickerfox in close, flipping on the external camera feed as they approached the freighter's underbelly. His eyes gravitated toward the monitor, what was displayed was a faded maintenance hatch nestled between coolant ducts.

"There." he pointed, tapping the monitor "Weak point."

He keyed in the docking protocol. The Flickerfox gave a low thud as magnetic clamps engaged. There was no pressurized link-up, just hull-on-hull and a sealed crawlspace.

Ace stood, grabbing the breaching pack from a floor locker, and made his way toward the hold. He dropped the hatch and stepped into the crawlspace, the chill of exposed metal settling into his bones. He paused at the hull, set the charge, and looked once to Aris above.

"Ready, Red?" he said.

Then he blew the panel. The charge cracked outward with a clean, muffled explosion, cutting a neat ring into the freighter's underside. Ace slipped in first. His boots hit the floor of the cargo bay with a dull thud. It was cold and dim inside. Crates stacked in tall rows. As far as Ace knew, the ship's crew were still none the wiser.

The stir he felt in the Force earlier, it was denser now. He could feel... distress? But it wasn't his, or even Aris's. It was as if the air, the atmosphere, was in distress. Without a word, he moved forward.

Aris Noble​

 

[Aris Noble]

"I trust your word on it."

Aris didn't know enough about stealth ships or the like to know what was and wasn't good. In a way, his life was in Acier's hands. If something went wrong, there wasn't much he'd be able to do to help the other. He tilted his head curiously as he heard the hum of the shields fade and the buzz of something else. Stealthed.

Interesting.

He looked over the screen, nodding as Acier pointed out the weak point. Then he followed, right into the crawlspace. Kind of. Given his size, he mostly waited for Acier to blow open the door for them both to enter. He gave a nod, and the moment the explosive went off he followed in. On the other ship he was already looking around, listening for heartbeats as he always did.

He didn't need to really be stealthy if he could just hear where the others were.

And a heartbeat beating much faster than the others. Panic and fear. His brow knitted together as he glanced to Acier. Had he noticed too? He seemed to have noticed something b how quick he had started to move.

".. There's a patrol coming, just around the bend. Stay low, they're not alerted to anything."

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Imperial Transport

Equipment:
Training Jumpsuit | Lightsaber | Modified DL-27

Aris had alerted him that a patrol was nearing. His senses were already pulling in threads of something, stress, noise in the Force. But Aris sharpened it with certainty.​

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He nodded once, wordless, then slid into cover beside a tall container marked with faded Imperial crate stamps. His breathing slowed but muscles tensed. Ace's hand hovered near his lightsaber, ready to draw if he needed.​

​

He listened keenly to the oncoming footsteps. They maintained a steady rythm - armored boots on durasteel. Their steps were heavy and measured, too measured to be techs or officers.​

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"Three..." he murmured after a beat, listening. "Maybe four. Stormtroopers, for sure.."​

​

Well, this definitely upped things. If there were Stormtrooper patrols, it meant whatever they were transporting was important. Ace flicked his gaze to Aris, subtle and clear.​

​

"Should probably try not to kill anyone."​

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He reached beneath jacket and unfastened his lightsaber from its holster, but didn't ignite it. Close quarters meant time for a stun wouldn't exist. Better to avoid detection altogether. Then he shifted to the edge of the crate silently.​

​

Ace kept low, his back pressed to the container wall. The troopers were close now, voices low, distorted through helmet filters, footsteps steady and unaware. The lead pair rounded the corner first - full armor, standard-issue blasters slung casual at the hip. Ace's fingers hovered near the switch of his lightsaber, but he didn't reach for it yet. It would draw too much attention. If Aris could end this quietly, he'd let him.​

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He glanced across the crate stack, catching a glimpse of the towering redhead. Ace gave a slight nod signalling for him to go. Then he shifted just enough to cover the flank, in case anything went sideways.​

​

Aris Noble​

 

[Pari Sylune]

Location: Aboard the Imperial Ship - Locked in Brig


It was cruel luck that Pari had been on Coruscant during the Imperial invasion. She'd been deep in the Jedi Archives, carefully studying how to construct a lightsaber, completely unaware that everything was about to fall apart.

When the stormtroopers stormed the building, they found her clutching a lightsaber crystal worn as a necklace. It hadn't taken much for them to assume she was a Jedi initiate.

Worse still, the Jedi Master she'd been speaking to ( Valery Noble ) had left abruptly, their conversation unfinished. When the soldiers came, there was no one left to shield the young girl.

Now she sat alone in a cold, metallic cell aboard an Imperial transport. Her kyber crystal was gone, confiscated, like her freedom. Not that it had been of much use strung around her neck. She had just begun to grasp how to construct a lightsaber when the attack came. There had been no time to try.

So she waited.

With nothing else to do, Pari clung to memory, reciting every detail from the pages she'd studied. Not just to stay sharp, but to keep the rising tide of fear and despair at bay.

How long had she been here? What did they intend to do with her? Was her life in danger?

Questions spun in her mind, but she pushed them aside with disciplined calm. She sat cross-legged, eyes closed, mentally retracing every step of the lightsaber construction process. Word by word. Diagram by diagram. For the hundredth time.

Until.....

A ripple stirred the Force. Subtle but distinct. Her eyes fluttered open, the warm teak of her gaze sharpening.

Someone new had arrived.


Acier Moonbound Aris Noble

 

[Aris Noble]

Don't kill?

Aris gave a single nod as he palmed his own saber, idly holding the wooden and metal hilt in his hand. It made sense of course. They weren't here on an assassination, and leaving bodies was much more difficult to hide. His eyes did narrow though. The jumbled speak- Death Troopers. The elite were here? Something valuable, then.

Good.

Unfortunately for them, it was over in a flash. Aris stepped through them, the cold blue of his bade weaving through them in exposed gaps of their armor. It wasn't as brutal as it initially seemed, however. They all fell, one by one, into unconsciousness as Aris let his saber extinguish. The Entropite he used didn't cut, but rather knocked someone unconscious as if they'd been hit by a stun shot.

"There's more, on and off. They seem to be deeper in though, standing guard over- Someone. I hear another heartbeat that doesn't match their positions." An Imperial officer, by chance? Someone important enough to have Death Troopers?

Likely.

"Be careful. These people are trained to kill Jedi."

Acier Moonbound | Pari Sylune

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Imperial Transport

Equipment:
Training Jumpsuit | Lightsaber | Modified DL-27

Ace blinked at the quick, clean and efficient way he'd dealt with the patrol. Not only that, he'd managed to do it non-lethally. Yeah, he'd said not to kill but... still, he was surprised. Impressed even.

"What was that?" he whispered, eyebrow raised.

He'd caught the look Aris gave - someone deeper in, heartbeat out of place. Not moving with the others. Contained. It pulled at something in the Force. A presence small but steady, coiled in on itself. Ace's gaze swept down the corridor, toward the deeper holds.

"Guess that's where we're headed then."

Ace took a step forward, assuming the lead. He halted upon hearing Aris's warning, the white-haired rebel looked back - glancing up at Aris. He flashed him a lopsided smirk. He'd dealt with things designed to kill Jedi before. He wasn't worried.

"Good thing I'm not a Jedi, huh?" he confidently retorted.

Ace's smirk faded as he turned back down the corridor. The deeper they went, the more the air changed. The hum of the freighter's engines became a low thrum underfoot, joined by the faint echo of armored boots somewhere ahead. The guards Aris had heard. And under that… there was something else. That same coiled presence. Closer now. Brighter.

The presence had led him straight to a sealed blast door at the end of the hall. The console beside it blinked in slow, deliberate intervals, the hiss of a heavy lock punctuating each pulse of light. Ace stopped just short of it, eyes narrowing slightly as he focused. Yeah… whatever was behind there, it wasn't a crate or a data core. It was a person and whoever they were, they were Force-sensitive.

He glanced up at Aris and whispered "They've got someone in there. You picking up on it, too?" His hand went to the slicer kit tucked inside his jacket. "I can open it… but once I do, we're committed."

Aris Noble Pari Sylune ​

 

[Pari Sylune]

Page two hundred and fifty-one… metals suitable for a lightsaber hilt.

Page two hundred and sixty… hilt designs and how to choose them.

Pari kept her eyes closed, sifting through memory as if she could see each page hovering before her mind's eye. Her breathing was calm, trained and measured from years with the Chalactan Adepts. But no matter how steady her breath, her heart refused to slow its pounding.

Something…no, someone…was drawing near. The closer the presence came, the sharper it became in the Force, until she realized there were two of them. One radiated power, the other a warmth that seemed to wrap around her like a blanket on a cold night. She was certain she had never met them, yet she felt an almost magnetic pull toward that gentler presence.

A muffled commotion broke out beyond the door, shattering her focus. The mental recitation of the library text slipped away like water through her fingers. She should have been afraid, there was every reason to be, but somehow she knew.

They were here to help.




Aris Noble Acier Moonbound