The Rebel Faction

Roonta City, Sy Myrth

“Our people are already rescuing your own. I think the very least you can do is provide more information about the liner.”

The confederate diplomat checked his anger, falling back to one of the office's chair. At forty-seven, the man had already seen chaos rip through the galaxy: civil wars, the Wraith Virus, and now the Reavers. Yet he didn't understand how peoples had not managed to evolve past the stage of denial. Order could only come to last in a galaxy among like-minded cooperative people. Yet the Sy Myrthian bureaucrat in front of him seemed to take some amusement in not cooperating with the man. The being's almost rodent-like face peered up from a datapad to dully gaze into the eyes of the man.

“Ambassador, I only wish it were so simple. But the liner's owners filed a statement of privacy about the ship and its whereabouts. I cannot rescind it as merely the starport administrator, even if it is for emergency purposes. You will either require a lawyer or you will personally have to talk to the holding company to get that sort of information....”

Like the Diplomatic Corps doesn't catch enough flak from the military about being able to do our jobs. He suppressed the urge to sigh. A holding company sounds like another great place to catch a ton of bureaucratic messes and meetings. Unless...He straightened his face.

“Sir, can you tell me who owns the holding company? It is a holding company for a reason, isn't it?”

The sy myrthian peered at him curiously, “I suppose you are an offworlder. The Sy Myrthian Far Horizions holding corporation is an investment vehicle for the Serdin clan. I must warn you though, you may not be able to directly get a hold of them. Some of them were slated to be on the Far Horizon liner itself. They made a very big show of it, since it was their first venture into space.”

“What were they previously involved in?”

“The entertainment industry,” supplied the bureaucrat, glancing at his chrono, “and they still are. I do have another appointment starting shortly ambassador. I regret that I could not fulfill your request, but I hope that I was of some use to you nonetheless.”

“Ah, yes, thank you,” stammered the Confederate, “thank you for your time.”

Well, it's a start at least...

*****

Juaire-class Corvette Fleur de Treppok, Jospro Sector

“That's another two dozen,” noted the ship's young lieutenant, chalking another series of lineso n his datapad, “we're going to start to run out of deck space for them soon.”

“Meh, they'll fit,” replied 1st Lieutenant Suole, “We'll have to head back to the Themis and the rest of the fleet. There probably aren't many more, if any more here given how the passengers are talking.”

“What do you think it was? Accident or sabotage?”

Suole considered the question. It was incredibly rare for all of a ship's life support systems to suddenly entirely fail. He had never heard of such on thing on such a new ship like the Far Horizon. Yet at the same time, he found himself having a hard to explain it as sabotage, since there supposedly weren't any explosions onboard the vessel, at least before the ship jumped away yet again to drop off more passengers into deep space. The liner's captain probably was right; by jumping away, the liner was luring any potential reavers or other opportunists away from the passengers towards the ship itself.  Yet the young naval officer couldn't help but feel that if he were one of the passengers, he would have felt abandoned; dumped into the middle of deep space with Reaver vessels prowling around the route. He hesitated.

“I've got nothing. Could be anything,” said the Wroonian, scratching his chin, “my guess, and it's only my best guess, is that's a computer glitch of sort. For all I know though, maybe they were secretly carrying around some random Jedi or Sith talisman that decided to curse the ship. Maybe it was the Cree'Ar, hell, who knows, maybe the Reavers themselves have evolved well enough to start infiltrating our own ships.”

“Like with bodies, or with computer viruses?”

The blue-skinned man shrugged, “I don't know, maybe either? It's all conjecture...well, it looks like you're right there...there's way too many of them now. We'll have to call in another ship to take a look in the area. Let's get back to the bridge and plot a course back to the fleet. I want you to plot this jump, I'll double check it of course... ”

Serdin Manor, Sy Myrth


“So, uh, why am I really here?”


Allegriante stared at the female sy myrthian's Gandelia fly collection. Dozens of the brightly colored insects fluttered up and down in the containment field. The sy myrthian quietly shut the door to her room, letting her brother play just outside of it with his toy landspeeders. He was fairly certain that Uncle Toonta didn't buy the fact that he was an uncle either, but luckily the kids had stalled long enough that when an allegedly important Holo-Net came for him, that he had scurried off to take it. Using the Holo-Net for personal calls was typically an exorbitantly expensive affair, so Allegriante wasn't too shocked to see him move so quickly. Still, it made him wonder just how close he was to his neice and nephew.


“Because Mom and Dad are gone,” replied the girl, “and Uncle Toonta is not a good one. You're here to protect us from him, right?”


“How is Uncle Toonta a bad man?”


What am I getting into? I can't babysit these kids...


“Uncle Toonta said that Aunt Toonta was going with our mom and dad, but that they wouldn't ever be coming back, ever. He said that we'd get to have him here now instead. But I like you. You're nice and different. And you didn't shoot Fluffy with your blaster.”


Allegriante easily pieced together the blatant picture of a schemer sending a family to their doom to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But not everything made sense then. There had to be easier ways of offing the parents, and maybe their aunt, to do that. As simple as hiring a pair of hitmen or street thugs to kill them in a random act of violence. Frowning, the man pulled out a cylindrical device from his pocket and handed it to the girl.


“Do you see this blue button at the top?”


“Yes.”


“Push it if you think anything bad is going to happen to you or your brother,” said the man, “if you do, in ten or so minutes, you will have dozens of soldiers coming here, ok? I'm going to go have a chat with your Uncle Toonta, ok?”


“Ok Uncle.”


The confederate man slipped through the bedroom doors and attempted to creep along the hallways where he thought he had seen Uncle Toonta go. Roman began to hear a voice talking from a door down the hall, though he couldn't understand it, though he wasn't sure if it was simply distance or if the alien was speaking Sy Myrthian. He slowly walked up to the side of the door frame and stopped. He heard a stream of unintelligle words come out of Uncle Toonta's mouth. It's definitely Sy Myrthian...
Allegriante briefly peered into the room.


It was a wide circular room, with a holo-projector growing up from the middle of it, projecting an image of another pair of Sy Myrthians standing on the deck of a starship. These ones wore blue uniforms that he had seen at many of the world's governmental buildings. One of them quietly chattered something; Uncle Toonta managed to somehow flip on his one foot to face the man and drew his blaster. Allegriante slowly edged out of the doorway and raised his hands.


“You're not one of their real uncles,” stated Uncle Toonta, “who are you, really?”


“Ambassador Allegriante of the Contegorian Confederation,” stated the man plainly.


The alien's eyebrows fluttered, “I knew the Serdin clan had friends in high places, but I didn't think they were that high, or even that broad in reach. I've never heard of them leaving the world before. Have you been discussing business ventures with them?”


“You don't sound like much of a family member yourself, Uncle Toonta.”


“That's because I'm not,” replied the alien, lowering his weapon, “Agent Korloon at your service.”


“Sy myrthian security?”


“Close enough,” muttered the alien, “do you know what happened to them? Or what's going on with the ship?”


“That's why I'm here.”


“That makes two of us,”started the sy myrthian, “I was just talking to our defense forces; there isn't any new news on the ship or the rest of the Serdin clan.”


“So what? You just happened to come here? Little Renyr thinks that her parents aren't coming back...”


“I told her they might not be. Truth is, she asked, and I told her the truth as best as I could. But you're right, I just didn't come here by accident. There have been a few odd signals coming out of the mansion as of late; I came here to investigate them.”


“What kind of signals?”


“I can't say for sure,” reported the alien, “they seem to be using some code obviously inspired by the late Senator Toonta's actual resistance group. Confederacy of Independent System stuff, and it all started happening with the arrival of their real aunt Toonta.”


“Related to the same Senator?”


“Indeed,” confirmed the sy myrthian, “which makes this all the more unusual...”
 

Styria-class Galleon Dieppoise, in orbit via Sy Myrth


“You'll forgive my skepticism if I don't think this is going to work, right?”


Ambassador Allegriante spared a glance at the sy myrthian agent. The Confederation had scrambled the closest ships it had to the world, resulting in a blend of smaller Confederate warships formerly searching for the Far Horizon's escape pods and a handful of Confederate Merchant Fleet galleons forming up in orbit around Sy Myrth. The few Sy Myrthian vessels available, mostly customs vessels, joined up with their planet-based starfighter squadrons to join the Confederate fleet in defense of their world. Yet for all their scraping, Allegriante too questioned their combined ability to hold off the Great Recusant-class Destroyer dubbed Toonta's Revenge headed towards them. He forced a smile towards the alien, who nodded in agreement.


“I would,” admitted the sy myrthian, “but I think your Confederation won't lose too many vessels before they arrive.”


“Why's that?”


“Well,” started the agent, “the main cannon on a ship like that takes a while to charge up. So there won't be too many single-ship destroying shots out there, especially with the phalanx formation your fleet commander wisely put us in.”


“Then why are you here if not for solidarity?” questioned the man, frowning.


“Because this is the safest ship I'll be able to work on once the Destroyer does get here.”


“That's almost reassuring.”


***


Delaborde-class Star Destroyer Themis, hyperspace


“We can maybe cut off a few parsecs here.”


“But that puts us a little too close to that black hole,” muttered Captain Viuso, drawing on his electronic astrogation chart with a stylus, “I'm not interested in risking that, but if we cut that parsec just by one, we'll still have a gain in travel time and not risk getting swallowed by the hole.”


Valeska conceded the point in agreement. The Toonta's Revenge and the Far Horizon had a greater headstart in their journey to the Sy Myrth, simply because they had their course already plotted out from that point in space. Valeska thought that the more modern and faster hyperdrives of the Confederate Fleet might allow them to make up some of the lost time, but they needed something better than the clumsy route they had quickly slapped together to lessen the amount of time the Toonta's Revenge would have by itself to slaughter the impromptu defense fleet the Sy Myrthians and the Confederation had slapped together. She turned her blue eyes to peer in Viuso's.


“Let's do it your way then; you're probably right. Helm, take your next coordinates from Captain Viuso's chart. Captain Viuso, I am going to trust your judgement here on out for making our course. I am going to go study the data we have on the Revenge.”


The Confederate and Sy Myrthian ships flashed into realspace before quickly realigning their prows and shooting back into hyperspace. She paced over to her command chair and immersed herself in the sensor data of their last engagement. Preliminary data suggested to her that the Revenge actually wasn't any better armed than the original Recusant-class, though the ship's prow heavy turbolaser was likely significantly more capable of being super-charged. Instead, the larger variant seemed mostly concerned in actually having dedicated hangar facilities. Perhaps more worrying to the woman, the Revenge also had several large C-7797 Landing craft docked to it, suggesting that the ship's new owner, likely Loora Toonta, was interested in actually interested in conquering the world. Valeska hated ground engagements. Minutes passed as she analyzed the footage of the craft, and comparing it to data the Confederation possessed on the original Recusant-class, she formulated a rough estimate of the ship's abilities. The voice of Captain Viuso invaded her thoughts.


“We're almost there Commodore.”


She glanced up and nodded. The Abhean woman toggled her holo-screens again to her standard tactical presets. Letting out a deep exhale of air, she watched the elongated star lines converge into tiny pin-pricks of light. Some thousands of kilometers away from the Themis, the Toonta's Revenge clashed with the hastily gathered defense forces. She watched one Juiare-class Corvette break ranks from the embattled phalanx formation and flee into orbit, leading a trail of pursuing Vulture droid fighters in its wake. Clouds of ion tags drifted onto the Confederacy-built vessel initiating swathes of electric blackouts across the hull of the large vessel.


“Close the distance,” ordered Valeska, “and all ships, fire at will.”


Where's the Far Horizon? She flipped through her screens until she saw the sensor profile of the cruise liner, adrift in orbit around Sy Myrth. There were no lifeforms aboard the vessel, nor any activity aside from the ship's autopilot keeping the vessel on course. They probably just used it as an additional carrier once its role as lure was up with. She turned her attention back to the Toonta's Revenge. The longer range guns of the Task Force Justitia began to bear down on the vessel, with the Themis' own long-range ion cannons sweeping her hull aside from the several batteries dedicated to disabling the Revenge's enormous prow turbolaser. Suddenly the lights went out across the entire Great Recusant. A cacaphony of voices rose up from among the dull murmur of her bridge crew.


“The enemy has been deactivated-”


“Cease fire, cease fire,” shouted Viuso.


“What?” questioned the Commodore, rapidly scrolling through her tactical screens.


The hundreds of vulture drones engaged in dogfighting the allied Sy Myrthian and Confederate fleet simply tumbled through space. Activity onboard the Toonta's Revenge was minimal at best. Weapons fire across space halted to a stop. Viuso rapidly strode up to her.


“The sy myrthian's intelligence group combined with the use of our own technology were able to replicate the deactivation signal,” informed the man, “the enemy is vanquished.”


“Not yet,” grimly replied the woman, “send in the Paladins to secure the Revenge.”