"The Assault on Station 19"
by Chun Li - Escort Pilot
Lorgal - Bodyguard and Secretary
Alekzander - Captain of the Altdorf
and the Pirate Commandoes

Location: Dirge's space station - Davidian system
Date: Selene 28, 5 ABY

***

The Altdorf was waiting in space, five minutes from the space station. Li was in her fighter, going over her startup sequence. She had checked everything a couple of days before and now she was about to launch. Two minutes later she left the bay of the Corellian Corvette taking up station about half a klick from the larger ship. "I'm ready to go," she said over the comm.

"So are we," came the reply from the ship, "in five seconds." Li counted and engaged the hyperdrive on the count of five. They would have to travel five minutes.

***Five minutes later***

Both ships came out of hyperspace nicely together. Li immediately raced towards the station using one of the lanes she had scouted, shields on full and scanners as well to get as much data as possible in case there had been any changes. But her lane seemed clear.

"Altdorf, come left course 0-5-4/4-4," she said, "I'll take the shield generators."

"Of course," came Alekzander's reply.

Li continued while she saw that the people on the station were slow to react as the shields were still not on. Some fire from weapons platforms started to erupt, but those heavy turbolasers were not made to deal with fighters. Li followed her plan and fired four concussion missiles towards the top shield generators. Those blew quickly enough.

"Altdorf," she said, "top shields are down. Proceed with landing."

"Roger that, Li. Keep them busy while Lorgal and his boys land."

While the Altdorf moved in, still shooting at the weapons platforms to go after Dirge, Li started firing at the turbolasers, using portions of the station as covering. She moved along the superstructure of the station and took out the turbolasers. With that done, she started orbiting, in case Dirge moved away with a shuttle or something.

The Corellian Corvette moved into position just above the station's landing platforms. Three puffs of escaping atmosphere signaled where the specially modified pirate ship's drop pods had launched from. Within second the small gray spheroids hit the durasteel deckplates and unfolded like great steel flowers. Inside were a single massive figure carrying an E-web repeating blaster and several pirates in lightweight environmental suits.

"Alekzander, landing force deployed and moving towards target," same Lorgal's sibilant voice.

"Copy that, Lorgal, We'll stay in position while Li is eliminating the weapons platforms and drone fighters."

"Copy, out."

The station had been designed by the Old Republic as a communications relay and monitoring station for the miners on the large red gas giant that floated in the backdrop. There were three primary modules that would have to be neutralized before they could move onto the manager's room that Dirge had probably ensconced himself in. The classic diamond design used for nearly every small station built that long ago would aid in their sweep, Lorgal could split his team.

"Joansky, Nelidervich, Meyermanov, you're with me. Horash, Duitski, Kamonliv, Kelivoshtski, you take the left. Remember, shoot to kill." Lorgal stopped and grinned, quite visible even behind the shield facemask of his suit. "Unless you want to shoot for pain, either way is good for me." The pirates grinned back.

The barabel took his team forward while Horash's team moved to breach the left side module. Joansky, the pirate's demolitions expert, ran up to the airlock and slapped a limpet charge onto the metal. There was a dull whump and the doors slid open. "Maglocked my ass," the little pyromaniac chuckled. The inner door was taken care of in a similar manner and then the team was inside.

This first module was the maintenance shop. It was dark and even through the environmental suit's filters the team could smell rust and rot. The various machines that had been used before the station had been abandoned lay discard and forgotten. It was as if the large module had simple been lost to time. No one had probably been through here in decades, except that has Lorgal and his men moved forward, blaster up and at the ready, they found footprints in the gathered dust.

Two of Lorgal's claws flicked out and his team nodded. They had trained extensively onboard the Altdorf and knew what to expect from their hulking leader. Nel and Meyer moved to the right flank while staying low and behind cover. Lorgal and Joansky took the left. The team swept forward, senses alert for anything out of the ordinary.

A rank odor passed through Lorgal's filters and into his sensitive nostrils. Predatory instincts bought against cold determination and willpower as his senses were heightened and his enemies pinpointed. Now he was on the hunt, and soon his prey would be brought low. The scent was automatically ran across the many thousand the barbabel's mind had catalogued as potential food and within seconds he recognized it... Bothan.

He raised a hand to stop his team and focus their attention on him. He pointed to behind a large metal press where he could now make out three dark outlines. That was what most people didn't realized about stealth and hiding in the shadows. Never wear black... ever. All it succeeds into doing is making yourself darker than the surrounding shadows and giving yourself a shape. Lorgal's out pirate team were wearing charcoal enviro suits with dark grey splotches. Three claws shot up and the team nodded.

Skulking was already difficult to do, especially with your enemies expecting you and laying in ambush. Add an E-web repeating blaster complete with modified backpack fusion battery and you've got yourself a challenge. Lorgal, however, managed to pull it off as he unlimbered the massive blaster and steadied it on the top of a lathe. A stream of red blaster bolts tore through the bothans who had been trying to ambush the pirates. Lorgal's team joined in the fun and soon the furry aliens were no more than smoking gobbets of blackened flesh. The pirate's laughter at the dead Bothans was cut short by a rain of green blaster bolts that began to rain down from a platform that had gone unnoticed in the fun. "Nel," Lorgal said to the gangly human who was the pirate's marksman.

Nelidervich nodded and unlimbered the light Ares KRA-184 rifle from his back. It was an old fashioned slugthrower, but it could blow a Stormtrooper in half and still have enough left over to take out his buddy too. Nel rolled behind a metal desk and brought the rifle to his shoulder. Lorgal waited until he got a thumbs-up from the sniper before standing up and returning fire with his own repeating blaster. The storm halted as the Bothan on the gun platform dove for cover. It was too late for him, though, and Nel's rifle sang its deadly song. The team moved forward as the body fell through the darkness to the hard deck.

"Horash, report."

"We really stirred up a bee's nest here. Apparently this is where they decided to set up living quarters. We're outnumbered at least 20 to 1. Everything's under control." Lorgal's idea to send his two heavy gunners into the living quarters had paid off. The pirates had probably set up a pair of death corridors and any enemy that stepped into it would be quickly shredded.

"Roger that. We only got a couple of idiots that didn't know what they were doing. Moving onto the command center."

"Copy, we'll meet you there once we're done having fun."

Lorgal commed a quick status report to Alekzander, who was orbiting the station keeping an eye on Li as she ducked and dodged fire from the gun platforms. Alekzander copied and announced that he would be landing the Altdorf in to land. Lorgal acknowledged then nodded to Meyer to open the door.

Three minutes later the pirates were standing in the control center of the station. Several smoking bodies laid in various positions of surprise, two of them cut completely in half. The air was so thick was ozone that it could be smelled even through the filters of the team's suits. The station had apparently had a short burst of wealth, as the door that led to the manager's living quarters were made of thick wood.

Lorgal, trying to be polite, walked up and knocked on the door.

"Don't come in here," a whiney voice squeaked. "I've got thirty heavily armed men and this is the only entrance. If you open that door you'll die a gruesome death.

Lorgal, again trying to be polite, kicked open the door. The force of the blow shattered the wood into splinters, which rained down upon two stunned looking humans, and an equally stunned looking Bothan, standing behind a large conference table. The sight of the massive barabel holding the repeating rifle and the heavily armed team behind him caused the two bodyguards to seriously rethink their values. A solution must have come to them quickly because they looked at Dirge, looked at Lorgal, then looked at Dirge one more time before snatching up the little aliens and chucking him across the table. Then they both dropped their weapons and put their hands in the air.

"Cover them," Lorgal said as he picked Dirge up by his neck. Several shots rang out and Lorgal looked down to see the tiny hold-out blaster in the Bothan's hands and a small blackened hole in his enviro-suit. The thought that a blaster so small could possibly break through his hardened scales was almost too much for the barabel and he started to laugh in Dirge's face.

Dirge, being a survivalist by nature, did the smart thing and passed out.

Lorgal tossed him to the ground with a contemptuous sneer and then advanced onto the two bodyguards who surrendered. He put a claw and each of their shoulder and smiled. "You two would make some goods pirates." The humans smiled back as Lorgal tore both their throats out. "Too bad I don't like turncoats."

"Lorgal, we've cleaned up in the habitat module. The only thing moving around here is the things that are twitching cause they're dead or dying."

"Good, we got the little fucker we were here for." Lorgal switched freqs. "Alekzander, we have what we came here for. Call Li and let her know she can come in and take custody if she wants."

***

"Li," came the gruff voice of the Altdorf's captain. "Lorgal has what we came for, you can land if you want."

"Okay, I'm coming in," Li said, moving towards the station while still looking out. She had destroyed everything that shot at her, but that didn't mean she had taken out everything. And the Altdorf could take a lot more punishment then Fa'rong could. But nothing happened and she landed safely in the large bay, next to a lambda class shuttle. It seemed that the men from Altdorf had disabled it easily.

She climbed out of the assault gunboat and asked one of the people that stayed with the Altdorf where Lorgal was. She was directed towards the main control center of the station. Five minutes later she arrived there. "And," she asked, "did you get him?"

Lorgal and his team of pirate commandos were puffing away on several cigars. It was their first mission together and they hadn't lost anyone. The big barabel raised an eyebrow ridge at Li's question before picking up the squirming bundle at his feet. Dirge had been more than securely tied with wire rope and a piece of duct tape had been slapped across his mouth.

"Good," Li said, "then we can go home now." And I get my 20.000, she didn't add. It was bad for business to start about money so quickly after a job. She would mention it as soon as they were back on Chimaeria.

***

Laszlo didn't want to do this job. He had argued against it and had had a blaster placed to his forehead. It was either do the job... or die. No other options.

As he squatted behind Fa'rong, Li's assault craft, he contemplated what would have happened if he had taken that other route. His mind was set though, he would do what they asked. And now, hidden deep within Fa'rong's electrical system, was a small metal sphere that would cause a catastrophic electrical failure as Li left the station. The result would be her left drifting in space without life support or any way of contacting help. Her death would look like an accident. A casualty of the battle here, which had been recorded by several drones and would be doctored later to show an errant missile striking the Fa'rong.

That accident would not only tie up the loose ends, but it would also be sending a message to the right people.

The team moved entered the bay and Li went to her fighter while the others went to the corvette. Some time later both ships were out. The corvette would go back to Rylaa with Dirge, while Li would go to Commenor to clean up Dirge's organisation. She also had a personal score to settle with Fenn about a certain drug.

"Just put the money on my account," Li said over the comm, "and maybe I'll see you around."

"Perhaps," Lorgal replied cryptically. The Altdorf flashed into hyperspace and was gone.

Li watched them go before she went on her course and engaged the hyperdrive. Deep in her fighter the sphere sensed this and detonated, shorting out all the electronics, including Li's nervous system. She slumped in her seat, unconscious.

"What the Hell Happened?"
by Chun Li - Escort Pilot

Location: Davidian System
Date: Selene 28, 5 ABY

***

Something was beeping... it had been doing this for the past minute or so, but so far it had not generated any reaction. Li was still unconscious, but the beeping started to get through. Slowly she came around. Also the memories came back, the battle and then a simple trip in hyperspace. As she opened her eyes she noticed that she wasn't in hyperspace. In fact, she could still see the planet where they had found the station.

The beeping got louder and Li looked around to see that her life support unit was almost out. That meant she had been unconscious for about 3 to 4 hours. She had to take another life support unit and swap them out, but when she tried to move she found out she was paralysed on her left side. Not knowing what was going on she managed to get a unit from the storage room with her right hand, but changing them with only one hand was not easy.

Suddenly the beeping stopped and Li knew she it had run out. Now she had about two to three minutes to change the unit before the air in her helmet was to bad to use and she would go unconscious again but this time she wouldn't wake up again, killed by carbon dioxide poisoning. She moved as quickly as she could with only one hand. It took three minutes and she was getting really dizzy from oxygen deprivation by the time she was finished. Now the immediate threat of dying was averted, she could concentrate on all the other threats.

She was still in a small fighter moving away from a station with only three life support units left and it seemed that she didn't have any propulsion. With her right hand she called up a diagnostic of the damage and it seemed that her hyperdrive motivator had blown, taking with it the engines. Clearly they hadn't failed both at the same time as she was in a slow spin. It didn't give her any problems moving around, but it did start to get annoying, specially since the inertial dampeners were also offline.

That was not good. Now she had to try to get her engines, or at least one, back online. Further there was some damage to the navigation computer, but that was not really a problem as she hadn't any thoughts about going in hyperspace at the moment so she could do without the computer at the moment. First she had to stop the spin, then the engines and then she could see what to do. The spin was easy or it should have been if she could have used her left hand. Putting out the landing gear with the emergency system would start a set of circuits that would try to get the craft as stable as possible. These circuits anticipated craft damage and pilot injuries and stabilising the ship was very important at that time.

But the button to push was on the left side and she couldn't use her left arm at the moment. It took her about two minutes to reach out with her right hand. The movements coupled with the motion of the craft made her really nauseous and she had to sit still for five minutes when she had finally managed to stop the spin. This brought her attention on another problem which was the direction she was moving in. The spin had stopped but the ship still had forward motion and the stabilisation had left the ship pointed towards the gas giant the station was orbiting. Some engine power would be very nice at the moment but she didn't have any.

That was the next problem on her list, getting the engines back online. She tried to start them but they wouldn't. A diagnostic program showed that the electric systems of one of the engines was totally fried and caused a short circuit. This had drained the batteries of power to do the start-up. She managed to cut that engine out of the loop and engaged the battery she still had in the fighter, the one with the emergency hyperdrive unit. Since it wasn't connected to the rest of the systems under normal operations, it still worked and suddenly Li heard the hum of the engine starting. She made a mental note to add a small engine to the back-up system. That way she didn't have to rely on her normal engines in an emergency.

Now she had propulsion again she had better options. Since they were far in the Outer Rim she wouldn't be able to get somewhere on one engine and a backup hyperdrive motivator. She would have to get back to the station to do some repairs, refuel and then see what she could do. Also she needed medical attention for herself, but the station would normally be able to provide it as well. A station that size would have a medical bay and probably some two-onebee droids as well.

Slowly because she still had only one hand she turned back to the station. At least they hadn't destroyed it and that meant she could use it to get back to health and to repair her ship. The lambda class shuttle she had seen there was very nice as it would give her spare parts. The ships were close enough that most of the parts could be swapped between the craft. Slowly Li made it back to the station, landing in the bay she had only left about 4 hours ago. Luckily the fighter was made to be able to land with minimal pilot support.

Once the fighter was safely on the deck of the station Li tried to get out, another difficult exercise with only one arm. And her left leg also didn't function properly although she could stand on it. The first order of business was to find medical attention. It took her almost one hour before she had found it and she was exhausted by that time. She had trouble standing on her left leg but she couldn't use a crutch at that side as she still couldn't use her arm. As she entered she spotted a couple of onebee droids standing in standby against one of the walls. She activated one of them.

"What can I do for you," the droid asked.

"I can't use my left arm and I have problems in my left leg as well," Li said.

The droid had her sit down and did a full examination while asking questions about the reason for her injuries.

"What's wrong with me," Li asked.

"You seem to have some nerve damage," the droid said, "probably from the surge you got. I can give you about 80% mobility back in that arm."

"Not enough," Li immediately said.

"Sorry, but with the facilities on this station I can't do much more," the droid said, "and even this will take quite some time."

There was nothing she could do about that, but as soon as she was back on Chimaeria she would search for a neurologist to repair it fully. "Okay, go ahead," she said.

"Healing: Getting Started"
by Chun Li - Escort Pilot

Location: Station 19, Davidian system
Date: Selene 28, 5 ABY

***

Li saw the two-onebee droid enter the room. It had gotten her almost full movement back in her leg, but her arm still was a problem. And without the arm, she couldn't repair her ship and get out of here. The droid checked the machine that was connected to her arm and disconnected it. "That was it for today, Miss Li," it said, "tomorrow at the same time."

"I'll be there," Li said, although she'd rather be somewhere else. The droid had explained what the machine did, but she didn't really understand. At least the pain had gone already.

She left the medbay and walked back to her fighter, still parked next to the lambda class shuttle in the primary bay. Yesterday she had found an R2 droid that she had managed to activate and now it was doing some work on her fighter. It couldn't do everything, but it could make a start. It was an older model, having been dormant for over three years, but after an update of it's memory it could work on assault gunboats. As she entered it chirped at her. She looked on her datapad to see what it wanted to say. Luckily it had the ability to transmit requests directly on datapads.

"Thank you, axon," she said when she saw that he had a full damage report ready. The droid was called R2-X1, which she had shortened to axon. The droid beeped again.

"We'll have to wait until my arm is fixed," Li said, sitting down on a crate, "you can't access most of the systems and neither can I at the moment. You also have the list of things we can take from that lambda?"

The list appeared on the datapad. It looked like she would be able to repair most of the systems with the components taken from the lambda class shuttle and what she couldn't take from the shuttle she could take from the 3 TIE bombers they had found in another bay. The little droid chirped a bit more and Li looked on her datapad again. Two of the TIE bombers were loaded with concussion missiles and the third with proton torpedoes, all the latest models. That meant that Li would be able to reload her missile pods.

"Let's go back to my quarters," Li said to the little droid.

Together they walked through the empty station. While some portions weren't habitable, Li had found a room that was quite nice. Some droids were running around to keep the station operational and Li had ordered them to seal of the non-important parts. While the droids themselves had no problem getting there, the parts where most living creatures could come were now seriously restricted. But it kept the resources needed to run the station to a minimum and Li didn't need all the space anyway.

They were quickly at her quarters and while they were furnished a bit more extravagant then she would have liked, but for now it would have to do. She didn't know how long she would have to stay here, but it would be longer then she wanted. Having nice quarters would be a good thing. Before she left she would try to get a full inventory of the station so she could always come back for stuff is she needed it. The droids could keep the station operational so long. Given that Dirge didn't have a full crew complement for the station they had done so anyway. She would add a couple of things to discourage smugglers from moving in and the remote location would also do a lot, but if they were really determined she couldn't hold them out.

In her quarters she quickly undressed and went to bed. The R2 unit would wake her if something would be wrong. It didn't take her long to fall asleep.