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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 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 |