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Dark Star
Rising 1999 short story by Louis Turfrey Under a year after Episode IV – A New Hope
The
wind raged wildly through the domes of Mos Eisley. Sandstorms weren’t rare on
Tatooine, but no one, except Tusken Raiders or Jawas, ever liked them. Blake
De’Athe had gotten used to their stinging blast, and today they would provide
the cover he would need to complete his task. Imperial Governor Traken Xor
lurched out of the brothel across the street and staggered towards the
Stormtroopers who were waiting, on guard duty, just outside the doorway. They
helped him to his feet as he fell face first into
the sand. Blake, seeing his chance, stepped lightly from the shadows of the
cantina, and walked briskly across the street. As the two Stormtroopers
lifted the Governor he ignited his lightsabre, at the same time bringing it
out from the cover of his dark Jedi tunic. It took just three slashes, the
Stormtroopers lost their weapons and the Governor lost his trousers, together
with the lower parts of his legs. Blake stepped back, took a small rod out of
his tunic and quickly recorded an image of the stunned imperials. Ten seconds
later he was dashing around the street corner and running headlong for the
nearest docking bay. A red
light flashed as the COM unit Blake was using chirped. Blake flicked a switch
to open the channel. "Yes Your
Excellency, how can I help you?" The Dark Phoenix
lifted gently from docking bay ninety and climbed gracefully towards the dark
space surrounding Tatooine. Blake had made sure that port control had
provided clearance that afternoon and was now reaping the reward of his
foresight. A red Astromech droid entered the cabin behind him, whistling in a
questioning tone. "Arfive,
would you feed the data from the vidi-bot to the main command terminal and
patch yourself into the nava-computer. I want a course plotted to Yavin IV as
soon as possible". A series of confirmatory tones emitted from the small
droids audio speaker, as it plugged itself into the nearest data point. The debris stretched on for half of the system. Blake
stared on, concentrating on his scanners. Three days in hyperspace and now
this. The debris still glowed from the force of whatever had torn the space
station apart. They had picked up a weak signal from an imperial homing
beacon and now Blake was targeting the location with a high resolution
scanning sweep. "Arfive see
if you can clean up the sensors, they keep reflecting back off of the
debris." The little droid whistled his ascent and almost
immediately the image started getting clearer. A lambda class imperial
shuttle. Captain Nerain had failed his Emperor - now he was to
fail the Empire. His pain-racked body was very near to collapse and the
captain knew it was only a matter of time until the power supply from the
shuttle ran out entirely. He injected himself with the last of his stimulants
and settled down to the waiting game that had started days before when his
shuttle had been caught in the dying blast from the Death Star. An hour later he was surprised to be awakened by a
metallic thud upon the hull of his ship. He summoned the last of his failing
reserves and hoisted himself from the command chair that had been his home
for the last twelve hours. Taking a crouching position, and leaning upon the
command console for support, he withdrew his blaster from its holster. The hatch cycled and Blake De’Athe stepped through
cautiously. Scanners had shown one humanoid life sign, and Blake’s own
enhanced senses picked up a crouched figure from within the darkened interior.
"That’s far
enough. Identify yourself or I’ll
fire!" The voice had plenty of conviction but Blake doubted whether the
owner had the strength to activate the blaster he was holding out in front of
him. Blake activated his sabre and stepped fully into the cockpit letting its
red glow fall upon the figure crouched before him. The blaster fired. "Blue
Leader to Blue Two, I have two small craft upon my scanners. One appears to
be a Lambda Class Shuttle; the other is a medium sized craft, about the same
size as a YT-1500. I’m going in a little closer to
investigate. Hold back and scan my rear, you never know - we might have a
live one here." The X-wing fighter glided around gracefully and settled
into attack configuration, its s-foils parting and its laser cannons charging
as it did so. "Roger that
Blue Leader, Blue Two standing by." Blake
parried the blast into the console behind the figure. He registered the look
of astonishment upon the mans face as he casually
disarmed him with a flick of the wrist, the gun flying up into his own hand. "My name is Colonel De’Athe, formerly
of the Imperial Guard. I had hoped
that you were some one worth finding." Blue Leaders X-wing passed closer to the field of debris,
slowing as it did so. He had failed to be a participant in the Battle of
Yavin to an engine failure. His predecessor had not survived the attack. Blue
Leader intended to hold on to his ranking just a little bit longer. His
scanner beeped back at him. "Uh-oh,
Blue Two, cut me a second sweep at these ships. I think one of them is on the
move." The droid sutured Nerain’s wound and then replaced the
bacta patch. The captain had been sedated and that suited Blake just fine. He
placed his hand gently on to the captains’ forehead and closed his eyes,
concentrating, letting his mind probe the others subconscious. Thoughts and
dreams drifted in front of his awareness. Each one different, each one
fractured by the damage done to Nerain’s body. He could just force the
information from the mans mind, but that wouldn’t be
right and besides it would leave traces that other people would find easy to
follow. There it was. Stood out like a beacon. A second Death Star, about to
start construction! Now that was interesting, why hadn’t he been told about
this earlier? Blake started to search deeper and then all hell broke loose. "I have it
in my sights Blue Leader. My scanners don’t pick up any weapons, but I’m not
taking any chances." Blue Two swung his X-wing in behind the freighter
and locked on his targeting scanner. "Roger Dell, lets see what he does. I’m picking up two life forms
but they’re still not answering my hails." Blue Leader used his
compatriots’ first name in an attempt to calm the lad down. The kid was only
a rookie and this was his second patrol, he didn’t want it to be his last.
Then his comm. board lit up like a wet Wampa in a lightning storm. "This is
the Dark Phoenix, who the scrag are you and what gives you the right to target my
ship." Blake knew who they were but he hoped they would fall for his
belligerent act. He switched off the proximity alarms. Sure enough one of the
rebel ships answered. "Dark Phoenix, this is Blue Leader,
our apologies for the inconvenience but we scanned you attached to an
Imperial Shuttle. This is now Alliance space and we must ask you to
leave. We can’t vouch for your safety
in this area." "Sorry Blue Leader, but I’m going to
have to stick around for a while, I have a friend who is lost in this area.
If you want me to leave then you’re going to have to force me. Otherwise, I’d
appreciate it if you’d leave me to go about my business." Blake hoped
the pilot was as level-headed as he sounded. He didn’t want to attract any
further attention. Blue Leader had a problem. He couldn’t let the captain of
this ship get any nearer to Yavin base, not yet. With their base still in operation it was
too sensitive an area. He swung his X-wing in closer, slowing to get a view
of the cockpit area. "Dark Phoenix I must ask you to leave this immediate
area. If you wish to search for your friend then pass us a description of his
ship and leave us with a forwarding number. We’ll be in touch." Blake had had enough of this. He flipped two switches on
the command board and spoke over his shoulder to R5. "Take
control of the shields. I’m going to show these two idiots just what they’re
messing with." He rolled the ship through one hundred and eighty degrees
and then hit the burners. Blue Two nearly lost all bowel control as the ship in
front of him spun upon its axis and barrelled across his screens. He hadn’t
been flying X-Wings for long, but knew that even his highly manoeuvrable
little fighter wasn’t capable of doing that sort of trick. He just managed to
tuck in behind the Dark Phoenix. "Blue leader I have him in my sights,
do I have permission to engage?" "Negative
Blue Two, just hang on his tail and follow him, I’ll be with you in two
marks." Blake angled the Dark
Phoenix towards the great gas giant Yavin. At the same time he did a
targeting sweep of the debris field he was flying over. Arfive whistled
behind him. "Yes, I see
it, just outside of the planets atmosphere. Prepare the tractor beam and give
me more boost to the sublights." The damaged fighter flew on skimming the atmosphere of
the gas giant. Occasional energy discharges erupting across it's damaged ion panels. It had taken three days just to
stabilise the ships hyperdrive and ion systems. Fortunately the planets large
magnetic flux had shielded the small craft from prying rebel scanners.
Unfortunately the hyperdrive systems had been unable to operate because of
the gas giants greater than normal gravity well. It was now just a matter of
time before the small craft would be able to return to imperial space. The Dark Phoenix
banked sharply as a warning bolt of crimson flame shot underneath its lower
hull. "We repeat, leave the area or
surrender your craft - this is your final warning." Blake cursed as the two X-wing fighters spun around on to
his tail. He switched his shields to double strength and hit full reverse. Blue leader was lucky; his quicker reactions saved him as
the craft in front came to an almost dead stop. Blue two wasn’t so lucky. He
impacted on the surface of the outer shields, bouncing right off towards the
nearby debris field. This left Blue Leader with no option but to try and
rescue his friend. The pilot engaged the Hyperdrive but nothing happened. He
swore silently to himself. A red light on the diagnostics board showed that
an external power linkage had been disabled by one of the power cores
frequent energy discharges. It was then that something else caught his
attention. A series of energy signatures on the long distance scanners.
Slowly rotating the damaged ship, the pilot powered up his one remaining blaster
and headed towards the nearby battle. He’d fight his way out. Two new X-wings climbed in on the tail of the Dark Phoenix. These two were taking
no chances and had opened fire almost immediately. Blake relaxed into his
seat and ran a series of evasive manoeuvres that should have shaken them off.
No luck. These guys were good. "Arfive,
power up the ion cannon and give these two hotshots something to write home
about." "Red Two to
Red Five, he’s powering up his weapons systems, set your shields to double
front." Red Five complied, wondering what had happened to change
a routine patrol into a policing action. He didn’t notice the strange TIE
fighter drop in behind him until he had reset the controls. The rearward X-wing that had been chasing Blake exploded
in a ball of incandescent energy. His scope showed a TIE fighter pulling in
behind the other X-wing. Its configuration was so unusual it confused Blake
for a moment. Why hadn’t he detected it before? He felt momentarily giddy, as
If somebody had hit him with a strong narcotic. Relaxing, using Force
techniques, he cleared the giddy spell. The second X-wing peeled off as it realised it was
out-gunned and headed back towards Yavin base. Blake's new ally pulled up
beside his ship. His comm. board chirped. Blake opened the channel. "My
thanks. Do you require
assistance?" "Yes my
friend. We have much to discuss. Prepare for hard docking." Dark Star
Rising 1999 short story by Louis Turfrey Under a year after Episode IV – A New Hope
Histories – Mere days after the destruction of the Death Star the Imperial agent Blake De’Athe arrives in the Yavin System.
Showing his early days, this short Louis
Turfrey tale illustrates the
huge changes De’Athe made in his life – from Imperial to Jedi via the dark side.
Cast of Characters
Blake
De’Athe Captain
Nerain Dell –
Blue Two Blue Leader
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