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Setnin
Star Chapter One - Hijack 2008 short story by Louis Turfrey Thirty-nine years after Episode IV – A New Hope Ranth woke from his slumber to find
himself floating twenty centimetres below the ceiling of his cabin. He
reached across to de-activate the Zero-G field, annoyed that he had left it
on. It was switched off. He flipped the switch for the cabin lights, and they
stuttered into flickering life then started flashing consistently. His senses
became immediately alert. Rotating around his centre of axis, he pushed
himself out of the sleeping cubicle and towards the locker across the room.
The room was a standard four by four metre cheap transit cube, situated on
the Star Ferry Elysium, and would have been his sleeping quarters for the
next week as he transported himself away from his last assignment. He emptied the locker quickly, putting on some low level
body armour and covered it with his black Jedi style robe - one that he had
inherited from his clone/father. He removed his blasters from their shielded
compartment in his briefcase, placed them in their holsters and activated the
micro grips on his shoes. Now he could walk normally. He thought of leaving
the lightsabre in the locker, but for some reason
he picked it up and placed it on his belt, out of view under the robes. The corridors were empty, power was low, and oxygen was
thin. His first thought was there had been some sort of accident upon exiting
from hyperspace, but he soon came across crew bodies and scorched walls. Pirates. He placed a hand on a blaster and extended his Force
awareness out in front of himself. Life forms filled the ship, many of them
weak. However, several strong life signs were heading towards the cargo area
and they had a definite purpose. He looked into the Force and increased his
oxygen uptake, calmed his mind and started to run. It was a big ship, over six hundred metres in length and
with a cargo hold big enough to hold several starships.
The leader of the raiding party had known they were onto something when he
saw the manifest, and the size of two of the crates. One was about the size
of a small speeder, and unsurprisingly contained a small speeder. The other
was much larger, and stretched thirty metres by fifty metres and well over
twenty metres high. The crate was shielded, and magnetically sealed with one
of the most complex security devices that the man had ever seen. He snorted,
Fixer would break that. He picked up his communications unit with one hand
and signalling for the magnetic clamps to be released on the larger
container, called through to the mothership. "Pride to Bantha, we are ready for emergency decompression, is the
scoop in place?" The response was immediate and to the point. "Yes, now
just blow that bloody airlock and we will be going." The raiders all moved out of the cargo area into the
small control centre that overlooked it. Suspended from the ceiling as it
was, it moved up and down the hanger-like area on fixed rails and was
accessible under normal circumstances by a ladder and a walkway. However,
with the gravity out, it was just a matter of a simple leap for an
experienced spacer. Ranth finished accelerating the
healing of the last of the injured crew members, and took a deep breath. A
lot of the injuries had been superficial, but many had been quite ugly. He
had arrived at one man to find his head had been blown clean away. Luckily,
many of the crew and passengers had not tried to tackle the raiders, who had
seemed to be in an awful rush. Ranth heard klaxons
start to sound and an immediate sinking feeling took hold. The cargo area was
undergoing emergency decompression and anything that was not nailed to the
floor would be ripped free of the cargo netting and dragged out into space. Ranth had recovered a very special cargo on his last
mission, and it was stored in the hold area. As the air exploded outwards much of the smaller cargo
jumped straight out into the net. The larger cargo pods lifted more
gracefully, with the largest of all only just lifting off the deck. The unit
drifted slowly outwards towards the now open cargo doors and into the waiting
energy field of a powerful tractor beam. It would have torn the net apart had
it impacted with it, and the raiders didn't want to lose the hijacked cargo.
As the last of the cargo disappeared out of the cargo doors, they started to
close back together. As they sealed shut, the remaining raiders exited the
control pod using breather masks. They dropped down to the floor of the cargo
area and moved towards a small container that was still attached to the
floor. Whilst one of them unpacked compact space suits, the others dressed.
Within less than a minute, they were all ready. Ranth dashed down the corridors using
all available haste. The Force helped him run much faster than he would
normally have been capable of, and two hundred metres were covered in mere
seconds. Ranth came to a halt outside the main
doors to the cargo area, but they were still shut. Sealed tight by the
partial vacuum that still existed inside. He watched the air gauge as it
registered a partial atmosphere. Using the Force he tapped into the controls
on the door and moved them to an unlocked position. The seal sprang open and
the air whistled and screamed until the pressures were equalised. Ranth knew it would place extra stress on the already
taxed oxygen recyclers, but the raiders needed to be caught. He squeezed
through the gap as soon as it was possible, and burst into the cargo area. There was nobody there. As the doors sealed behind them, the raiders used micro
thrusters in their suits to jet back to their own ship. Within minutes they
were onboard and the ship was turning to go into hyperspace, its cargo safely
stowed. There was a beeping sound that became more audible as the
air flowed back into the cargo bay. Ranth turned
towards the sound to find a large box magnetically sealed to the floor near
the outer cargo doors. Ranth didn't need to know
what the box did; he could see the timer counting down. There was thirty
seconds left on the timer. Ranth took a small
grapple out of his utility belt, and unravelled the line attached to it. He
threw it up into the superstructure and anchored the end of the line to his
belt. He did this as he ran towards the manual release for the doors. He
stopped inches from the doors and used the force to close the inner door to
the cargo area. Calling his lightsabre to his hand
he severed the magnetic grapples that held the box to the floor and braced himself. He started cycling the outer door, and air fed
out as the door opened painstakingly slowly. When the gap was big enough, he
lifted the box and thrust it through the door with the Force. Ranth hadn't used the Force to any extent for some time
and the healing had taken its toll on him. As the door started to cycle shut, the bomb exploded,
sending the escaping air back at him at near to supersonic speeds. His grip loosened
and his body shot across the cargo area towards the rear wall. His hold on
the Force gave out just before he impacted the wall, but there was enough
left to allow him to absorb some of the kinetic energy. He stumbled to his
feet, bleeding and sore, as the cargo door slammed shut. Ranth was not pleased. It had taken
him months to track down and purchase the ship that now sat in the hold of
the raider. It had taken him even longer to convert it to his specifications.
He had taken delivery of the craft without the hyperspace engines, hence the
high security cargo pod, but in all other respects it was a fully working,
fully specified Mandalorian Dragon Attack Craft. Ranth wasted no time, pulling a comm
unit off his belt he tapped in a hyperwave number
and got an immediate response. The pre-recorded message asked for a security
code and a series of commands. Ranth gave them, and
aboard the ship that would soon be known as Setnin Star, security measures
activated and systems locked down. The last thing to activate, just before the raider jumped
to hyperspace, was a tracking beacon. Ranth slumped down against the wall of
the cargo area as the inner cargo doors opened and the ships security
personnel entered. He grinned to himself as one of the men that he had helped
earlier came up to him and started to administer aid. He resigned himself to
the fact that he might need some help recovering the ship. As the blood was
wiped away from his injured temple, he picked up his hyperwave
comm. unit and dialled an old number. Time to talk to Centaur again. Setnin
Star Chapter One - Hijack 2008 short story by Louis Turfrey Thirty-nine years after Episode IV – A New Hope Histories – The first Lightsabre story in over two years and one which features the return of Tar Ranth. Set right at the end of the New Underworld Age Part Two, this chronicles the latest adventure of Tarr Ranth. Cast of Characters Tar Ranth |