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"'Innocent', my a**!" Freya scoffed. "Like, were you not totally threatening my father the last time you were here? And, I daresay you're so not 'innocent', drawing a weapon on us. Try that again," she coldly told the Chiss.

"Yes, but under Imperial employ," Rusty said. "Now, please, state your business,"

"Are you here as a representative of any party?" Kalnar also added.

"He's dead," Freya coldy told the Chiss. "And I so wouldn't be surprised if it was by your 'former bosses'," she said, glaring at Vaan.

"But, he may have been unaware of it, assuming there were any Imperial plots," Kalnar chimed in.

"Treachery of the Sith, mayhaps, Master?" Gunther added.

"Mayhaps," Kalnar thought. "But, at this time, we have no evidence,"

Freya then addressed the business at hand. "So, like yeah. Why didn't you say so before?" she asked Vaan. "And what is your interest in the Community?"

Vera woke up with a low groan, and glared at the stump that was once her hand. She quickly took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing her eyes, gaining strength through the force. Then she stood up and looked around. She was in an energy cage, which was alongside several other, similar cages, and a loud hum permeated the stale air. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind; there were others nearby, several beings who felt strong in the force. She opened her eyes when she heard a mournful whistle and saw Ebony in the cage adjacent to hers, a large restraining bolt stuck firmly to a chest panel.

"Don't worry, Ebony. All is not lost." Vera offered the droid a warm smile, then reached out to the others, who woke up instantly. They walked or limped toward her from inside the cages and began whispering among themselves.

"Who're you?" one of them asked her abruptly.

"I am Vera, and this is my friend, Ebony," she indicated the droid.

"Are you a Jedi or a Knight?"

She blinked. "A page. And you?"

"I'm Jedi master Sihja Toren," a young woman answered in an even tone.

"Imperial Knight Yolee Kor," offered another woman, who appeared to be in her mid fifties.

"Imperial Page and nephew of of Yolee Kor, I am Gith Fedder." He was a young man with a sharp chin and sharper eyes, and a slight air of confidence and pride despite the surroundings.

"And I am Jedi Master Lom Huert," said a Bith male, inclining his large head to Vera.

Vera nodded back to him. "How do you propose we escape from here?" she asked solemnly, meeting each of their gazes.

The Bith extended and arm into the air. "I have devised a plan to get us out, but the one flaw is that it requires a transport, which we no longer have access to."

Vera smiled and turned to Ebony, who twittered excitedly. "I can provide an Imperial shuttle, Master Lom," she said. "ssuming someone here can pilot it."

Gith Fedder spoke up. "I can pilot almost anything Vera, especially if it's made by KDY."

Master Lom scratched his head. "Then I believe we may follow through with my plan. But it requires a concerted effort on everyone's part. Vera, we have already practised extensively, so you may sit out the procedure until we are freed from the cages. Then you must direct us to your vessel."

"Direct you? I'm afraid I can't remember the correct walkways to use to get back to the landing pad."

The Bith's lips turned stretched into what was the equivalent of a smile. "My dear, we are not in a building, we are on a ship."

"His last wish was for me to carry on his work," Freya soberly replied.

"She is indeed correct," Rusty added. "The contents of the late Veron Jarek Starsinger the Fourth's Will resides in my databanks, if you wish me to show you,"

A trio of Sith guards entered the prison chambers with another victim in tow, this one a young female Mon Calimari. The force users already in the chamber closed their eyes and sunk into meditative trances, with the exception of Vera, and the Sith suddenly pulled their hands toward their foreheads, eyes opened wide in agony. After fighting for a few moments, one of them finally succumbed to the Jedi's control and staggered to a nearby control panel, keying a combination that released Vera. In a flash she was out of her cell, a whirlwind of motion as she incapacitated the Sith with blows to their heads via fist and foot. She used the keypad of a fallen Sith to release the rest of the energy cages and stole the lightsaber of another, which she used to expertly slice off Ebony's restraining bolt.

Sihja Toren and Geth Fedder took the other Sith's lightsabers and Yolee Kor dragged the Mon Calimari behind them. Those with lightsabers guarded the Bith Jedi, who guided them down a short hallway that lead to the armory, the blast door of which he opened with a confiscated keypad. The startled Sith inside were quickly dispatched, and the rest of the escape team armed themselves with blasters. They saw that all of their lightsabers had been destroyed on a large table in the center of the room, so Yolee Kor quickly filled large pockets in her robes with salvageable parts.

Gith disappeared further into the ship with a handful of thermal detinators while the rest moved toward the ship's escape pod bay and clambered into one of the pods. Geth returned and tumbled into the pod, slamming the pod release button on his way in. The docking seal opened and the air lock shut moments before the entire craft exploded, rocketing the pod outward and bathing it in fire.

Ebony plugged herself into the pod's rudimentary navicomputer and directed it back towards Nar Shadaa, which was a very short distance away; the ship they had escaped from was merely hanging in orbit.

Ebony set the pod down on a low rooftop near the Star of Kalustha's landing pad, and the group dashed to the shuttle, running up the boarding ramp and settling down as Geth acquainted himself with the controls. "Simple enough," he muttered, grinning at Vera, who smiled back before disappearing into the aft end of the ship to administer to the Mon Calimari.

Ebony sent the appropriate funds to the docking controler, and the Star of Kalustha lifted off, pausing in the air to adjust its wing formation before rocketing into the sky and winking out of realspace.

((Not really... You never should have fought me at the convoy.))

Borill's face flushed with rage as he watched the enemy's Victory IV slam into the Trafalgar. His tactical displays yelled out all that had happened, the ship had sent all its power to the engines and maneuvered itself into a 180 degree turn, pointed upward toward the Stalwarth.

The captain had seen this action and moved to avoid the collision, but his ship was moving too fast already, he couldn't quite get clear. As the Victory IV shot upward it was slowed by the gravity projectors on the Hektor's Shield and its attempt to jump to hyperspace was cut off for the same reason. The ship hit the Trafalgar ripping off the sensor globes, battering the bridge and disabling both dorsal deflector systems. This damage was relatively minor for the Stalwarth, the bridge crew was shaken, but not killed.

The same could not be said for the Victory IV, its power generator had scrapped across the top of the bridge and been breached... Seconds later the system had failed and the ship exploded sending a shockwave into the Stalwarth. The dorsal systems failed on the ship and the bridge crew was once again thrown about, but fortunately the dorsal systems were not those engaged with the enemy.

Borill glanced back at his tactical displays as he keyed the comm, "Captain Vernor! Report status."

"We can still fight sir, so long as the enemy remains below us."

"Good," Borill glanced back at his displays.

The sensor operator spun around, "Sir, we have ten Mandalorian Star Destroyers exiting hyperspace, their course indicates a jump from Mandalore. They seem to be deployed to catch any ship waiting to ambush a jump from Onderon." A blaze of turbolaser fire shot from the ships into an empty void, the enemy they'd expected simply wasn't there.

Borill smiled, "Pity there aren't any ships waiting in such an obvious ambush position." He keyed the comm, "Hero of Corellia jump to these coordinates and set your turbolaser batteries to ion-pulse fire." Then he glanced at the displays, "Signal all ships to begin jump prep. We got what we came here for, now lets do as much damage as we can while we wait for the hyperdrive to spin up, and shut down the gravity well generators."

A volley of Turbolaser fire soared in on the remaining Victory IV blasting through the bulkheads and exposing more of the crew to the icy vacuum of space. The ship began to slowly tumble away, out of control. The six Wombat-II Escort Frigates had already plastered the four Tartan Cruisers they'd been up against, now they were gathering in a loose circle around the Ebon Hawk attacking like a ring of horseman, firing turbolasers and concussion missiles as they approached the vessel and then scurrying away to reload and recharge their weapons.

The Sensor Operator spun around again, "We've got nine more ships exiting hyperspace from Onderon, the force includes an Acclamator and some Mandalorian ships."

The Hero of Corellia arrived mere seconds after that. The ship shot out of hyperspace between the two fleets so stunning the gunners of both fleets that it recieved no immediate return fire. Then it fired sending a volley of missiles into the targets dead ahead, the forty or so Mandalorian destroyers. The missiles hit their targets, exploding against the engines and shields, roughly a third of the missiles were composed of either ion or magnetic pulse warheads. These warheads sent cascades of brilliant ion energy through the ship or delivered a pulse that temporarily disabled the weapons of the vessel.

The newly arrived fleet behind the Stalwarth rushed forward hoping to engage, but the Hero of Corellia shot forward moving between the now unthreatening Mandalorian Destroyers. Once clear the ship formed up behind the Hektor's Shield and hung there daring the enemy to attack.

The two Stalwarth's that had dealt the first devestating blows hung in space, their weapons now reloaded while the Hektor's Shield blasted the remaining Victory IV completely out of space. The Ebon Hawk suffered a failure in its power generator as a missile from one of the Wombat IIs struck home. It exploded in a brilliant fireball.

Then the two Stalwarth's fired, their volleys targeting the two Acclamator IIIs that had been the only two ships left from the initial response force. The volley brought both ship's shields down and tore apart the weak hulls of the two heavy star frigates. Both ships were destroyed within seconds, either from the volley of missiles or the follow on volley of turbolasers from the massed Imperial Force.

The reinforcements, now once again battle ready soared after them but before they could be caught the ships leapt out, disappearing into the alternate reality of hyperspace. They were bound for Garos IV.

((I didn't destroy any of the Mandalorian Ships. I just used mag pulse to keep them from using their weapons... The Ebon Hawk was destroyed too.))