The Rebel Faction

Imperial Reign-class Star Destroyer Autarch

On Station – Commenor


There was a hushed air in the room when two figures clad in white tunics and fieldgrey breaches raised pistols before their faces in salute. In unison, the pair, easily seen as males not having greeted middle-age, brought their weapons to rest alongside right-trouser seams.


No time was given for the crowd of spectators to gasp when the men readied their weapons and fired off a salvo towards one another. Recoil from new-model MerrSonn blaster pistols jolted their firing hands up and down, a motion both compensated for marvelously. Despite the jerking action, both managed to maintain an iron fire discipline that kept all shots on target. Five, ten, then fifteen neon bolts passed one another in the air before passing the standing men barely a tenth of a meter from shoulder pads that would have nothing to protect the flesh underneath from severe scalding only a hair’s breadth from lethality.


Ten and five shots poured from the barrel of each pistol when both men ceased their shooting and returned their weapons to hip-stance. Not a word was spoken when each party placed his weapon in a side-holster and near-marched past one another to identical white and red target markers. After a moment regarding the markers and the singed holes collected without exception at the respective centers, the gentlemen turned towards one another.


“ Fifty-six,” one called.


His opponent tipped his head ever so slightly towards the floor before he replied,” fifty-eight.”


The duel had ended. Released from its silence, the assembled viewers gave a standing ovation to the sportsmen standing in the middle of twelve rows of seats, every chair filled.


Opposite one another, the men ignored the cheers and clapping. Both bowed lowed at the same time and approached. They met at the half-way point between targets and embraced outstretched hands.


“ Your Excellency, you have my most profound apologies.” The speaker, his hair light and eyes a deep, twinkling blue, bowed once more, only to be called erect by a dismissive chuckle.


“ Nonsense, Lieutenant. I’ve not shot like this for a year, and there aren’t many opportunities for Admirals to use their side-arms. You bested me and you deserve this.” The other man gestured to take in the still-applauding spectators. “ As of right now, you are forbidden to take any action that might put your life at risk, because I command a rematch presently.”


Senior Lieutenant Viscount Arison smiled cordially as he clicked his heels and bowed low. “ As you wish, Admiral.”


The junior officer was shortly overtaken by his fans, mostly peers of equal or inferior rank wanting all the details of previously ignored dueling stories. One aristocrat had engaged another – that the latter was an Admiral of the Fleet elevated the first in the eyes of all who would behold him possessing a glimmer of the day’s memories.


Admiral of the Fleet Baron Telan Desaria smiled anew and turned away only to be approached himself. He had barely removed his white gloves when Lieutenant General Maxim gave him a slap on the shoulder.


“ You’re getting old, Baron.”


“ Are you still here? I thought I transferred you to…somewhere far from me.”


Maxim waxed indignant as Desaria broke into a friendly grin. The pair had been inseparable since the conquest of Ylesia and had long since shirked formal titles in private.


“ Fancy a go?” Desaria asked, motioning over his shoulder to the door where many of the crowd was funneling into passageways and anonymity amidst forty-thousand other crewers. Maxim arched an eyebrow and drew his own side-arm, a slightly aged but high-caliber BlasTech pistol.


“ For the Honour of the Fleet!” Desaria shouted as he readied himself, soliciting catcalls of legendary service rivalries from across the room.

Gir’siz
Fringe of the Mimban Sector


The Majestic was universally known as the ship farthest separated from its name. Many freighters owned by small firms or freelance captains were considered opulent if there was a meter between one bunk and another: even against this harsh measurement, the Majestic was Spartan. While her Captain, Slythic, loved his ship, her first mate hated the craft with a passion.


Prakin’ ship, Gesst thought as his thick-boned forehead came into close contact with the bridge bulkhead. “ Why does every reversion have to be like a trip through an asteroid field?”


Tall, proud, and infamously sarcastic, Captain Slythic wiggled his whiskered nose. “ If you don’t like the accommodations in steerage, perhaps next time you will think of accepting our Crown Package and go first class.”


The humanoid first mate snarled, one of his bare hands making a lazy journey to tired eyes. Rings were sunken deep below orbs of yellow in thick, weathered flesh. One glance would forbid anyone the trueness of his two-decade youth. “ My second assignment and I get to sit second omni-box to the worst scrap pile in the fleet.”


Slythic smiled and turned his chair forward, ripped and formed leather creaking as weight shifted to and fro. Four years to date he had purchased the Majestic from the Auril Corporation but remained in their employ: every one to be rotated out of its ten man compliment hated her Captain for putting money to engines and cargo lifts before seating, decent protein synthesizers, or frequently-operable refreshers.


Shaking the remnants of a most appealing sleep from his head, Gesst readied a string of derisive comments on the ship when the ship shook violently again. “ What the Frell???”


Slythic smiled widely and gave a hearty laugh from his trio of lungs while Gesst scrambled to grab hold of anything. The cabin rocked frighteningly before slowing to nothing. “ Oh, that’s right! This is your first trip to Gir’siz. Those bigger ships you are accustomed to never show here – no ports big enough. All except this one, that is.”


Gesst was still shaking when he looked where his captain gestured. He was taken aback by a turning Victory-class Star Destroyer silhouetted against the system’s star.


“ The Resplendence. She puts in here every few days to keep an eye out. I tell you, I’ve been across the Empire and that’s one well-drilled crew. A pirate showed here once when she was takin’ on supplies and gave it what-for in four minutes. Most ships can’t switch axes like that. Stay on the Imp-side of the law and she’ll escort you through trouble. Orders come from Corsucant for your arrest and you’ll be floating scrap.”


“ I didn’t know Gir’siz was garrisoned.”


Slythic brushed a hand down his cheek. “ It’s not, but all worlds in Imperial sectors get visits. Technically, it’s a protectorate. All right, enough history. Take the helm and get us to that dock. I’d like to unload before the end of the week.”

This is Kent Brochmann bringing you all the news all the time. First in sports here at home, the Imperial City North-side Lancers beat Treeton 12-9 in last night’s shockball tournament. Civil Defense forces were on hand to quell any rioting but were not needed. Rumors of an un-official rematch have been circulating since the all-night celebration ended early this morning. The party gained publicity when angry Treeton players accused prominent Lancers center Toris Karter of cheating and were literally kicked out of the area by Lancer-fan Moff Theren Gevel. Needless to say, the Treeten team will be practicing round the clock for the game is sure to draw quite a crowd. Back to you, Sarra.

Thank you, Kent. The afternoon took a somber turn as a large Rebel-crest was found spray-painted on Sienar Corporation’s headquarter-skyhook. The area has been sealed off, Civil Defense and military personnel coming every meter of the surroundings. An anonymous source inside Imperial Intelligence reports that no witnesses have been found.


No, there have been no claims of responsibility from terrorist organizations. I can tell you that Imperial Intelligence has informed me no viable threat is evident, nor is there any cause for alarm. On a personal note, I can say that whoever wanted attention got it.


Adjutant-Minister Sorrn of the Civilian Liaison Office was quoted as he left the briefing as saying,” I think the point is pretty clear: some ex-GDI administrator wants to bring back the days of olde, but can’t challenge the Empire legitimately and has resorted to graffiti.”

Other sources have disagreed on sources and leads, but all see no danger imminent.

Gertal Hesse with weather. Ger?

Captain Releaux felt his face tighten as his eyes strained against their biological limits to see the small track in-bound for one of several orbital platforms about Gir’siz. Sitting just over twenty kilometers from the launching vessel’s remains, all humanoids aboard the Resplendence were ill-able to gazed upon their sensors so clearly illustrated: a slow moving missile that was massive amongst its peers.


“ Can you get a lock?”


Commander Tylre turned from the console, his head cocked to see the captain on the catwalk, and shook his head. As the gunnery-bridge liaison officer, he had contact with every battery commander and gun captain anywhere in the Star Destroyer, none of whom needed advise him. The first ten of his eleven years in Imperial Service had been spent slaving various turbolasers and knew such large-bore weapons could not hope to hit a target of such profile, even if it was ten meters and moving a tenth-as slow as missiles should.


“ Blanket fire?”


Tylre nodded in the negative once more: repositioning the guns and aiming anew rendered any option impossible.


“ Fine. Pick a spot on that missile’s track and flood it with fire: every port emplacement is to fire at will.” Releaux might have appeared to b panicking, for he almost was. It simply would not do to let the civilians come under fire while a battleship was on-station. Such action would anger the populace and doubtless find him helming a las-drill deep in the stimm mines of Thorakk VI. The Regent, a man of limited political patience, would be very angry if one of his only ventures in that field went awry.


The gunnery chief clicked keys and flipped switches to relay the orders to those in need, but to his glee he found one of the forward battery commanders had already put into action the captain’s order on his own initiative. Happily, Tylre reported this to his captain.


“ The target’s slowing!” exclaimed the sensor chief barely a heartbeat after the gunnery liaison gave a one-minute’s warning to the missile’s destruction. Every eye attached to a being in an ear’s reach turned out the nearest viewport. Releaux snapped his neck towards the bow, Gir’siz blue-grey primary satellite in the distance.


“ Reading an energy build-up!!-“ The explanation was never finished. A titanic nova flared in every direction from where the lumbering missile had been. Debris spread in every direction, oddly visible in the depths of space as an endless number of miniscule shards just perceptible without electronic aid.


Just as the detonation expanded it receded. Like an act of the Gods sweeping away a stain on the galactic design, what light had been no longer was. The Laws of Physics then defied themselves, white swapping for black, light for dark, emptiness with a true void.


“ What the-“


“ All engines back full!!!” Releaux shouted, gesturing shakily for the helmsmen in the crew pit below. His turn was not balanced, however: the mighty Resplendence shook with a terrible force. Deckplating and hull vibrated almost apart as a horrid symphony of terror built up around the warship. The scream of men could be heard throughout every corridor of the vessel. Nary a man was spared a hurl from one face to another. Officers and men alike were thrashed about like beans in a shaken can.


Matter of all kinds found itself caught in the pull of a most unholy sort. Ships and stations, big and small, fed power frantically to greedy engines that strained against an unbreakable grasp. Though silent in the dead of eternal night, many a horrified shriek resounded.


“ Shields!” screamed Lieutenant Pol Tainder as he drew a sleeve across his face; moving it back to his console, he could see it covered with blood but could feel no pain. He reasoned then it was not his and glanced just slightly up to the catwalk before him to see Captain Releaux’s shattered skull leaking a vile crimson from every orifice. With the ship’s first officer elsewhere, he assumed command.


The lieutenant’s query received no response so he grabbed hold of his chair. Fiercely, he propelled himself towards the bow and the two helmsmen seated just before the end of the crewpit. One of the poor chaps seated there held his head through a torrent of blood, the other sprawled lifeless under the terminal itself.


Tainder’s head was slammed against the catwalk-brace, but he bit down hard against the pain. His left eye now inoperative, he pulled himself on anyway as best he could with the ship shaking to pieces under his feet. Furious, he punched three keys on a numeric pad nearby then slammed his hand down on the emergency override: the Resplendence pushed towards the vacuumating mass and when its prow was pointed away, struck off into hyperspace before her every motor ground to an exhausted halt.

“ Is this even possible?”


“ It would appear so.” Colonel-General Poreon angrily glared across the table at Rear Admiral Zarris, an officer the long-time infantryman considered the dumbest person on the General Staff. His opinion had never been veiled leaving the outburst wholly unsurprising to the others sitting before their Chief.


Admiral Virenius shot both of them a tired look, enough of a warning that they both withdrew from an exchange of insults yet to be born. Even before his installment as the General Staff’s head, he had heard the two bicker constantly and had had his fill for the next several generations into which he might be incarnated. “ Doctor?”


General der Pioneeren Jarv Yamato, Chancellor of the Imperial Institute for the Military Sciences, released a hand-carved pipe he had been nursing. “ The ability to create any type of astronomical phenomena - “


Vice Admiral Yuri Oslov cut off the khaki-uniformed man to his left. “ Jarv, you’ve been my friend for twenty years but I still don’t understand what you’re saying. I just thought I’d let you know before you got carried away. Firstly - what is that?”


Yamato smiled at his peer’s shaky gesture towards a wall-mounted holoscreen image of Gir’siz. “ Some sort of subspace rift, sucking all matter towards it regardless of size, dimension, allegiance, et cetera. Anything it can touch, it grabs and pulls.”


“ A black hole?” incredulously spat Tscharles Reynolde, Vice-Marshal and General Staff representative of the Fighter Corps. “ I mean that’s what it looks like, but I never thought - “


“ It isn’t, but then it is,” Yamato replied, secretly relishing the occasion he could cut short someone else’s musings. “ I cannot give you quantum mechanics lessons. A black hole is a massive stellar body only similar to this. A black hole is constant in all of its dimensions; readings from this have been variable.”


“ Do we even have the technology to just create one? I mean, look happens if you even get close to the Maw,” Oslov asked.


“ Any type of concentrated ion-tetronic charge can tear the fabric of space into subspace, all you need to do is concentrate inverted plasmatic explosions. No one ever has because after doing so, the hole would be unstable and destroy everything around it. If whoever did this has found a way to control the size, manipulate the physics of this sort of thing - in essence making it stable, then we’re facing the next greatest weapon since the Death Star!”


Rear Admiral Zarris sat back in his chair. “ Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?”


“ Is it?” Yamato retorted. “Look at the data. A dozen ships have been destroyed from sheer gravimetric pressure, another twenty damaged with their hulls impacted as if bulkheads were matchsticks! I can think of little else with such raw power. One of our own ships had to fight for its life to get out of the area! Think of it like throwing a live abolisher-array into the middle of a staging area - an array once deployed is uncontrollable through its death. Ships would be crushed, regardless of size or armor, and what’s more, they’d be drawn towards it from enormous distances, not just unable to get away like, say, a standard immobilizer globe. Do you understand?”


Zarris must have, for he slouched back more than before and said nothing. Other officers sighed or scribbled confused and angry notes on flimsiplast shards. The questions asked, the only input now of any importance was that of Admiral Virenius who had been seated at the table’s end, observing all like some bespeckled patriarch.


“ Do we know who did this? Salazar?”


At the left hand of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff sat a gracefully aging man whose looks were eerily akin to the legendary Grand Moff Tarkin, Butcher of Alderaan and Liberator of the Outer Rim. While the physical relationship was uncanny, his uniform and department were however in no relation to his resembled role-model. Donning black from jackboots to tunic, he represented a feared and respected cadre: Imperial Intelligence.


“ We’ve received only one claim as to responsibility that is rather puzzling. I’ve not made nobs or bottoms of it, but I can guess. Fortunately their Intelligence is not very good. Their message was simple and short - they claim that the same lot that destroyed the Resplendence destroyed two Death Stars.”


“ Rebels?????” asked Zarris, spitting a portion of tea in the wake of his words.


Salazar only nodded.