The Sorority, The Doctor, & Yavin IV

Chapter III | Episode II | 1/?/2017

“What is this gibberish?” Twil asked, looking up to Rath.

“It’s the only information we could get off that scrapped droid.” Rath replied.

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Darven spoke up, “What does any of this mean?”

“Well.” Rath began, taking the datapad in hand, “Salvage DS-1, terrorist attack… my best guess is that they’re talking about the Rebel attack on the Empire’s new super weapon, the Death Star. Ota told us about that a couple years ago, if you recall. Something that big probably left a lot of salvageable materials behind after it blew up.”

Rath reread the remaining data, “This other stuff… Officer Barris… beam technologist… Project Aura… cyber specimens. Any of that sound familiar to you?” He asked, looking towards Draven.

Draven just shook his head in response.

“Well, the only other piece of information left is that they’re having trouble with the Rebels. And unless Draven was a Rebel before he lost his memory, I doubt that’s going to be of any use to us.” Rath finished.

“Grayson said that droid had the answers I needed.” Draven said, “If that’s my only lead, then I need to follow it. Maybe this Barris person knows something.”

“Looks like we’re headed to Yavin IV, then.” Twil stated eagerly.

“Hold on!” Rath interjected, “Why? Just because this guy, who we barely know, says we should? From what I can tell, this Barris is ISB, and I’m not to keen on getting involved with them.”

“Draven has helped us multiple times now, Rath.” Twil shot back, “He secured our entry into the auction. He risked his life trying to help us pull the heist. And he very recently helped you kill Garalug. I’d say we all owe him one. As far as I’m concerned, Draven is crew now.”

Rath shuddered at that last statement. He knew full well there was no point in arguing with the Zeltron when he claimed someone as a member of his crew. When it came to that, Twil was more stubborn than a Nerf.

“We should go to Yavin IV.” Zanroy chimed in, “I feel like that’s where we need to be. I can’t explain it…”

Rath rolled his eyes, “Great, now Zanroy thinks he’s some Jedi mystic.” He thought to himself. He had no personal reason to go to Yavin IV, but he also knew that his own priorities were on hold, until more information became available, so he muttered, “Yeah, fine. Let’s go. Why not.” Before wandering towards the cockpit.

As he arrived, he gazed out through the transparisteel windows of the cockpit. The Wheel was still sitting there, looking dormant as ever. However, new figures began to emerge, and were heading straight for the Sovereign. “Twil, we got company, get in here, now!”

Just then, a loud Aqualish voice played over the Sovereign’s comms. Apparently the new ships were the remnants of Garalug’s forces, looking for vengeance.

As Twil rushed into the cockpit, the duo input the commands into the ship to make a hyperspace jump. As the enemy ships drew closer, the ship finally confirmed the coordinates, and the Sovereign shot past the enemy fighters with blinding speed, leaving them, and the Wheel, far behind.

The Sovereign was roughly halfway to Yavin IV, when the ship’s alarms suddenly started to blare. Seconds later, it was ripped out of hyperspace, coming to a complete halt. This caused every member of the ship to go flying, most crashing into the nearest wall, with great force.

“Rath, what just happened?!” Twil shouted out.

“Obviously we got pulled out of Hyperspace.” Rath answered, annoyed, as he pulled himself up of the ground.

“How?!” Twil asked,

“You think I know?!” Rath replied.

The two then looked out from the cockpit, to see a massively large asteroid directly in their path, simply floating there in the emptiness of space.

“The ship’s computers should have calculated for something like that.” Rath said, double checking the ship’s astrogation computations. “There’s no way we’d have missed something this big.”

Just then, the ship’s comms lit up. Rath and Twil exchanged looks, before Twil answered. As he did, a new voice came on over the ship’s comms, “Unidentified freighter, you have been caught by the sisterhood of the Veiled Sorority! Surrender now!”

“The what?” Twil asked Rath.

Rath let out an annoyed groan, “Pirates. They’re a ‘women only’ gang of pirates. They’re led by someone who calls herself the ‘Pirate Queen.’” As Rath scanned the surrounding areas, he could spot, just behind the asteroid, an old Clone Wars Era Acclamator-Class Assault ship. Much smaller than a Star Destroyer, but still possessing far more firepower than the Sovereign could handle. “I need to restart the hyperdrive.” Rath added, “Pulling us out of hyperspace like that screwed something up. Not to mention the damage your crash landings have caused the ship.”

“How much time do you need?” Twil asked.

“As much time as you can buy me.” Rath replied, before he and R5 left the cockpit, heading for the engineering bay.

The Sorority hailed the Sovereign a second time, “Unidentified freighter, surrender now, or we will take your ship by force!”

Twil then made the order for Idozzi and Zanroy to man the ship’s guns, preparing for a fight. But another idea then struck him, “An all woman pirate gang, eh?Hmm…”

As Rath and R5 worked on getting the hyperdrive up and running again, Rath could hear Twil chatting away over the comms. He wasn’t sure why he was at all surprised by what Twil was doing, but he was.

The Zeltron had somehow managed to charm the entire deck of the Sorority ship. He could hear the women clambering over one another, in attempt to get to the comms, to talk with the “dashing and debonair” Captain Twil. “He’s not even in the same room with them, and he can still charm the pants off of any living creature in the galaxy.” He commented to R5.

R5 let out a low boop in response.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. That Babs Terll woman wasn’t too fond of him.” Rath laughed.

Just then the hyperdrive thrummed to life,once more.

Twil was getting quite a kick out of the situation. There was entire ship of women, that all wanted Twil in the best way possible. Unfortunately his fun ended when Rath’s voice came on over comms.

“Hate to do this to you, Twil. But the hyperdrive’s fixed. And we need to get out of here. Unless you’ve forgotten, those women are pirates.”

Twil let out a heavy sigh, “Yeah, yeah.” He replied, before hailing the Sorority ship, “Ladies, I hate to do this to you, but I’ve got to go now.”

He could hear dozens of female voices whine and moan in protest, before he set the Sovereign back on course to Yavin IV. And, just as suddenly as they had stopped, they were gone. Escaping the clutches of the bizarre Veiled Sorority pirates.

The Sovereign, once again, pulled out of hyperspace, this time as intended. They had arrived, just outside of Yavin IV. A cursory glance could tell anyone that this planet was under heavy Imperial guard. Whatever they were salvaging, it was important enough to have multiple star destroyers deployed in orbit, with plenty of TIE fighters in tow, as well.

As the crew discussed how to approach the planet, without getting blasted to pieces, they were interrupted by an Imperial hailing frequency. “Unidentified freighter, state your purpose for being in this quadrant immediately, or you will be destroyed.”

Twil was quick to get on the comms, “Yeah, hey! This is Captain Twil, of the Sovereign. I was sent here by, uh… General Tessala, of the Imperial Army. She’s asked me to help you guys out with your Rebel problem. I understand you’ve still got some pockets of resistance on planet.”

A long silence followed, before the TIE pilot responded, “Sovereign I’m not seeing you on our list of authorized vehicles. Send your certification immediately or you will be brought in for questioning.”

Twil looked over to Idozzi, “Make something up, quick!”

Knowing what to do, Idozzi quickly went to work on her datapad, forging documentation.

When she had finished, Rath took the datapad, and uploaded it into the ship’s computers, sending the files to the nearby TIE, noticing more TIEs heading their way.

More silence, followed by, “Okay, Sovereign. Please follow the escort. You’ll be taken to landing pad 2.”

“Sure thing!” Twil replied.

The approaching TIEs changed their vector, moving into an escort formation, leading the Sovereign quietly to the planet’s surface. As they neared, the view below became clearer. Hundreds of Imperial troopers, officials, and heavy vehicles, such as AT-AT’s carpeted the planet’s surface. The could see multiple salvage camps and mining operations as well.

“And we’re supposed to find this Barris, in all of this?” Rath asked.

“We’ll figure something out.” Twil replied with a smirk.

As the Sovereign landed, Zanroy could feel an unmistakable presence. Elaiza was on the planet. He wasn’t sure where, but he knew that she was here, somewhere. There was something else here as well. He couldn’t tell what it was, but it’s siren song was unmistakable. It was calling to him. And, it was nearby.

As the crew disembarked, the bored looking Imperial barely gave their forged documentation a glance. “Tessala sent you, huh? Well, there’re Rebels all over the planet. Feel free to look for ‘em.”

“Wait.” Twil said, “Who’s the commanding officer here?”

The Imperial glanced at Twil, “You mean ol’ Doc Barris? She’s around. Find her yourself.”

“Really? That’s all you’re gonna say?” Twil asked, annoyed.

“Looks like it, Zeltron.” The Imperial replied, before walking off.

“Well, that was helpful.” Draven said, dejected.

“We need to go that way.” Zanroy spoke up, pointing.

The others all looked at him confused. “You been here before?” Rath asked.

“No, but I know, we need to go that way.” Zanroy replied, before heading off in the direction that he had pointed.

“Well, I guess one direction is as good as any other.” Twil said to the others with a shrug. They all then quickly followed Zanroy.

It wasn’t long at all before they made their way to some sort of open mining pit. The entrance was guarded by two heavily armed stormtroopers. Across the way, there was an AT-ST, with its weaponry pointed directly into the giant pit.

As the group approached, they were stopped by the two guards. “Halt, state your business.”

Twil spoke up, “Yeah, hi. I’m Captain Twil. I was sent here by General Tessala. I need to meet with Doc Barris. Could you tell me where I might find her?”

The stormtrooper was clearly sizing Twil up before responding, “What business do you have with Doc Barris?”

“Uh, it concerns Project Aura.” Twil bluffed.

Again, the stormtrooper waited before responding, “Yeah, okay. She’s down there.” He said, pointing down towards the pit behind him, “You’re free to pass.”

“Thank you!” Twil replied, turning to his crew, he said, “Let’s go!”

Eyeing the AT-ST across the way, Rath said, “I think I’ll stay up here.”

“Yeah, me too.” Idozzi added.

With a shrug, Twil, Draven and Zanroy headed down into the pit. Whatever it was that Zanroy could sense, it was getting much stronger. Whatever it was, it had to be down in this pit.

As they reached the bottom, the sight was something that made Twil very uncomfortable. Multiple stormtroopers had their rifles trained on the various species that were working the mine. All of them were in chains. Imperial slaves.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” A firm, female voice called out.

The three could see an older woman, small in stature, wearing an ISB uniform, clutching an Imperial datapad, walk towards them.

“Hi there, you must be Doc Barris.” Twil greeted the woman cheerfully.

“I am Doctor Barris, ISB. Who are you?” She asked again, clearly getting agitated.

As Twil began to introduce himself, giving the same made up story as before, Zanroy approached a pile of rubble on the far end of the pit. Whatever it was that was calling to him, it was there.

Suddenly, a loud explosion could be heard throughout the pit and beyond. Startled, everyone looked up to see that a nearby AT-AT had been destroyed by some sort of explosive weapon. And the remnants were starting to topple directly into the pit.

A large missile had just torn through the body of a nearby AT-AT. As Rath looked in the direction that the missile had come from, he could see a bizarre cybernetically enhanced human woman laughing, as she held aloft a very large missile launcher.

“Twil, get out of there, now!” He shouted over comms.

A large chunk of the AT-AT had fallen into the pit, crushing two stormtroopers. The impact also caused the mine to start collapsing in on itself. In a panic, the troopers began running back up the scaffolding to solid ground.

The impact also caused the rubble that Zanroy had been approaching to dislodge, knocking loose a green crystal. he wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but Zanroy knew this was the item he had been searching for. He quickly grabbed it, before following the troopers up the scaffolding.

Meanwhile, Draven had seen that the slaves were left to fend for themselves. Most were too terrified to even move. Acting quickly he blasted their chains, and rallied them, shouting, “Follow me to freedom!”

This just left Twil and Doc Barris left in the pit. More and more debris had come crashing down, and yet Twil couldn’t get the officer to respond. She was apparently in shock.

Physically grabbing her, he rushed up the scaffolding and reached the ground level, just before the entire AT-AT came crashing down into the pit, covering it completely.

“Twil, we gotta get out of here!” Rath yelled, pointing across the way towards the cyborg attacker.

Twil looked to see that the cybernetic woman was accompanied by an army of the strange troopers. The same ones that followed the hooded figure that they had encountered years ago.

Not needing any more encouragement than that, the crew began to run towards the Sovereign, with Doc Barris and a handful of slaves in tow.

“Get me out of here!” Barris yelled to Twil, still in a daze.

“Where?” Twil asked.

“I don’t care, just get me off this planet!” She yelled back.

Twil knew that leaving with an Imperial officer on board without following procedure would normally never be allowed, and they certainly wouldn’t have gotten away with taking the slaves, but apparently the chaos caused by the attack was the perfect cover. No one batted an eye as they boarded the ship.

Once aboard, Barris was still clearly in a daze. Taking advantage of this fact, Draven hid the newly freed slaves in the cargo hold, and locked the door, so she’d be none the wiser.

Meanwhile, Twil and Rath worked their fastest to get the ship ready. Not long after, they launched themselves out of Yavin IV’s atmosphere. Somehow escaping the notice of even the orbiting TIE’s and Star Destroyers.