Edge of Astorian Space
Private Starship Uncharted Desires
"Nature abhors a vacuum, cox'n, that's what I always say."
"Oh, is it now? What old holo did you steal that from, captain?"
"I will have you know, Logan, that particular piece of wisdom came straight from my dear old grandfather, Force take his pirate soul."
"I'm sure."
Drake Logan knew that phrase wasn't from Captain Wexler's bantha of a grandfather, but he had to admit it was a catchy little piece of word work. And it did fit their current situation rather well. The Republic had a longstanding tradition of spice use, and with use came restriction and regulation, and with laws came lawbreakers eager to take up the slack. And thus the Uncharted Desires, a private yacht with a bit more cargo space and a few more weapons than might be legal in more respectable starports, found itself making its way through space just inside the sovereign territory of the Interstellar Republic but just outside the scope of its legal jurisdiction with half a hull of hard spice and half a hull of Ionian shimmer-gems. It wasn't honest work but it was steady, and the cuts made Logan enough that he could soon begin considering the acquisition of his own ship and setting off for himself.
Something on the navigation console started beeping rather alarmingly. Logan swiveled around, forgetting Wexler and whatever it was he was saying, and focused his eyes on the subspace indicator. Something was coming.
"Captain, hyperspace signature, two signatures, forming up on our left." As the last words tumbled out, a pair of ships flashed into existence on a fast burn for an intercept course with the Uncharted Desires. While Logan worked on getting a solid reading, Wexler enhanced the image on the viewports - a pair of old corvettes resolved into visibility, marked with an all too familiar symbol.
"Pirates!" Wexler shouted in alarm. "Logan, get us out of here! Ready weapons and raise the shields!"
The bridge crew worked furiously to carry out the orders, but the pirates had come ready for the fight the Uncharted Desires was just realizing she was in. Bolts of brilliant scarlet flashed out and caught the unshielded vessel midships. On the bridge, lights sparked and flickered as key power lines were severed and auxiliaries worked to suddenly pick up the strain.
"Power's at half," a Duro reported from across the bridge. "A handful of weapons are still working, returning fire now." Red bolts jumped from both ships now, but the pirates' were more plentiful and better aimed. Throughout, Logan worked furiously on getting the craft's bantha-slow civilian navicomputer to calculate a course.
"Wexler." A sneering Pauan appeared on the comscreen. "Your debts to Kovo are being called in. Surrender your cargo and prepare to be boarded."
"I'll pay Kovo when we damn well agreed!" Wexler hurled defiance back at the screen. "You go to hell, Trok!" Wexler looked to Logan. "Get us out of here."
Logan took a deep breath, hit the final button on the computer, and then tenderly pushed the hyperdrive level to maximum. The engines of the Uncharted Desires trembled, burst into bright life, and pushed the ship into the nonexistence of hyperspace.
On the bridge of his ship, the pirate lord Trok Mulga scowled. "Track them," he spat at his own navigator."
A sniveling Twilek spoke up a moment later. "Their course puts them outside Republic space, sir. Their vector was erratic, but we will have their final destination soon."
Unknown World
One ship had entered hyperspace.
Two pieces of a ship were flung almost contemptuously from that mysterious realm towards an unknown green-and-blue marble of a planet. The front half, trailing fire from rooms whose blastdoors had closed on the other side of the tear, hurtled down as the surviving bridge crew battled the will of the Force to right themselves and end their descent.
Captain Wexler slumped next to his seat, blood trickling from an uncountable number of small wounds acquired when the light panel above him had exploded downward in a spay of lethal particles. Four other bodies were motionless on the floor. The survivors continued to man their consoles, out of a devotion to their own self-preservation. If this was not done exactly as it needed to be done, they would all die.
Slowly, using whatever means they could and some they had to invent, the surviving bridge crew guided the front half of the Uncharted Desires from a fatal dive to a merely painful descent. The half-ship slammed through the atmosphere and plowed a long and painful trench into the dirt. And then suddenly it was over, and the Uncharted Desires had made her last landing.
“Alright, we’re down.” Logan finally broke the silence by shoving Wexer’s body aside and putting himself into the slightly bloodstained captain’s seat. “I’m assuming command-“
“Under what right?!” A pilot shouted from where he stood, nursing a nasty cut in his arm.
“Under the right of we’ve still got a Force-damned job to do,” Logan cut off further protests with a sharp retort. “The other half of this ship is going to land somewhere on this world, and I aim to find it, find a way off of here, and make good on whatever survived the journey. Anyone else who’s interested in salvaging something from this clusterfuck can come with me.”
Above him, the flamed-wreathed cargo hold of the Uncharted Desires plummeted into the ground, leaving a streak of smoke. The spice had mostly burned up, but the shimmer-gems remained, casting a faint light from the hull where rays of sunlight reflected off their brilliant clarity.
