Reading Room
StarWars FanFiction
POV: Freedom's End (III)
By Daniel "Drake" Sutherland Copyright © Daniel Sutherland 2000-2001.
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III

[Wardroom, STRKCARR Wolf's Lair]

Drake laughed and took another sip of his wine. At first, he hadn't thought that it tasted very good, although he was slowly starting to wonder why he'd thought that. The formal part of the dinner had ended some time before, and now came the fun part - the part known only as "fines". Here members of the mess were called upon to explain their actions by their fellows. If the accused was found guilty, then he or she was "fined" - usually a round of drinks or something similar - but if they were found innocent, or if their defence was an especially good or amusing one, then the accuser would be fined. It was all good, lighthearted, fun, although Drake was somewhat surprised that few of the pilots had as yet been called to account. To his surprise, in fact, the navigator of the Wolf's Lair, Lieutenant Vaiweehanen, had had to explain himself following an incident during the ship's last shore leave. The normally serious Twi'lek had come as close to blushing as Drake had ever seen him, and the young pilot chuckled again at the memory. Commander Wumb banged his gavel.

"Lieutenant Hanniuska," he said, with a nod at the engineer responsible for Wolfshead Squadron's fighters. The beautiful young woman stood, shaking her shoulders and evidently uncomfortable wearing the mess uniform - No doubt she'd rather be in grimy coveralls tinkering with a fighter, poor girl, thought Drake with a grin - but she had a wicked gleam in her eye. The young man caught this, and his heartrate began to accelerate.

"Thank you, sir," Lieutenant Mar Hanniuska said with a nod and a smile. "I'd like to call upon Lieutenant Sutherland to stand and explain why he was-" She stopped speaking as one of the stewards had entered the room and was whispering in the Executive Officer's ear. The Sullustan looked up with his big black eyes, then turned and whispered to the captain, who sat next to him. She nodded, and he banged his gavel.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but it will have to wait until another time. For now," he declared as he stood, "I'm calling an early comfort break and adjournment. The captain and I are needed on the bridge." Everyone present stood in silence as Commander Wumb and Colonel Gen'yaa strode out, and then conversation began in earnest. There was some speculation as to what was so urgent as to pull the XO and CO away, but not too much. Almost everyone had had at least a few drinks over the course of the evening, no battle stations had been called, and no-one was prepared to let work get in the way of a good time, for now at least. As the assembled group began to move into the ante-room adjoining the dining room, which was where the bar was, Drake flashed Hanniuska a winning smile.

"Better luck next time, Mar," he said, when they were close enough to talk. She returned his smile, baring her teeth.

"You'd better believe it, boy," she retorted. "I'll have you publicly embarrassed for that one yet."

"Not a chance," the Wolfshead pilot answered her cockily. "You saw what happened when you just tried to. Next time will be no different." Hanniuska regarded him with a raised eyebrow.

"Think so, huh? We'll see." And with that she merged into the crowd, leaving Drake to smile smugly to himself.

"What was all that about?" Raiven asked, materialising at his elbow.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing," his wingmate answered, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about, anyway." This brought a laugh from Raiven.

"You're calling me 'pretty'? Whatever it is, it has got you worried, hasn't it? Don't worry, I'll get it out of you eventually." At that it was Drake's turn to laugh.

"No hope of that," he replied. "It's a secret between myself and Lieutenant Hanniuska, and she won't breathe a word of it to anybody, unless it's in a public forum, where she can get more mileage out of it. So don't bother trying to get the juice out of her on the sly. And," he added as an afterthought, "don't try and get Arpin to do anything, either. Otherwise you might find one more trash receptacle on board the Lair." Drake grinned mischeviously, baring his teeth.

"Or one more bar mat at the Bomb Shelter," Raiven countered, with a wicked smile of his own. The two pilots laughed together and headed for the line at the bar.

[Imperial Detention Facility ORS1178, Hekram III]

Thunk! Thunk!

The sound of rock chunks hitting the floor resolved itself into a dreary continuous monotone, a regular pattern that defined the existence of the prisoners as they used low powered laser cutters to extract minerals for the Empire. The mineral crystals were sharp, and easily and often lacerated their chilled hands, but the pain from that was much less than what the Imperials would do if they thought you wouldn't work, the prisoner thought grimly. He wiped the blood from his hands on his coveralls and pretended to work while he closely watched one of the other prisoners on the other side of the particular cavern they were working in. The other man was working well enough, but his attention seemed elsewhere, and it was obvious to the prisoner that he was distracted. The others working around the man didn't seem to notice, but the prisoner had once stayed alive only through being observant, and old habits died hard, or not at all, even in Imperial prison facilities.

It was five minutes later when it happened.

From somewhere the other man produced what looked like a rope with some sort of crude grapnel attached. Silently, he swung the grapnel and threw it straight up, where it caught on a rock overhang near the ceiling. The prisoner could not make out, from where he was, what lay beyond the overhang, but he was pretty sure that it had to be a tunnel, or some other way out. The escapee obviously had this planned - making that rope and grapnel would have been a time consuming task, not something dreamed up and executed in two days, so he must've had a pre-planned escape route. The prisoner's eyes widened fractionally.

And I'll be damned. Looks like he's getting away with it, too. Good luck, son, he thought, as he bent his head back down to his own work. No way I'm going to give him away by looking at him now and having one of the Imps notice me.

The prisoner winced as he heard a sudden crack - the loud collision of rock on rock.

The escapee looked down, knowing that the slip he'd just made with his foot would now be a fatal one. His need for secrecy gone, he tried to scramble up the crudely fashioned rope as fast as his hands and feet would carry him.

There was a loud shout as brown-clad Imperials began running from all directions. The prisoners below the escapee had all dropped to their knees, cowering in terror, as the Imperials opened fire.

The escapee's body quickly fell from the rope and landed with a sickening thud, but its sound was drowned out by a deep rumble which gained in intensity as an entire section of the cavern wall, including the overhang, crumbled away, burying the escapee, the prisoners surrounding him, and a couple of Imperials who had rushed forward after he was shot.

Many of the prisoners began to scream, but the head Imperial stopped this with a single blaster shot - aimed carefully at the ground in front of him, the prisoner noticed.

The lead Imperial motioned to the two men standing beside him, and they moved forward to clear some of the rubble. The officer looked around at the surrounding prisoners.

"Help!" he barked harshly, an impatient flick of his blaster emphasising the consequences of tardiness or disobedience.

The prisoners rushed forward, for once eager in their assigned task. Their friends - the only friends they had - were trapped under the fallen rock, and if they could possibly help save them without being killed themselves, then they would.

Before long, the bodies were exposed. The escapee had been killed outright by the blasterfire in any case, the Imperials waved the prisoners back menacingly as they checked the other fallen bodies.

"Our men are still alive, sir," one reported.

"All of the prisoners except two are alive as well," the other grated to his superior. The latter regarded the scene for a moment.

"Very well. Our men will be taken to the infirmary. The prisoners were aiding an escape attempt and will be dealt with accordingly." The two Imperials nodded and carried their comrades' bodies away a short distance as others arrived to take them away to the infirmary. Then they rejoined their officer, and the three raised their blasters.

The prisoner looked on from his position behind the Imperials in horror. Surely not even the Imps would do this, he thought incredulously. But it seemed to be true. Unconsciously, he clenched his fists, although his conscious mind told him that to do anything would mean an instant, and violent, death.

One of the other prisoners was not so clear headed. With a blood curdling cry, he sprinted forward, intent on tackling the Imperial officer and forcing his nose back through his skull.

He was halfway across the open space when the officer turned and calmly fired, dropping the man instantly to the floor. Then he nodded, and the three opened fire with their weapons, ruby red bolts bringing a quick death to the prone forms on the cold cavern floor.

[Bridge, New Republic Strike Carrier Wolf's Lair]

Colonel Gen'yaa stepped on to the bridge, Commander Wumb half a step behind. Both were still in their mess uniforms, the Officer of the Watch noted, and the colonel, at least, did not look happy that her Mess Dinner had been interrupted.

"Captain on the bridge," the OOW called, and the bridge personnel stopped their tasks momentarily until the expected, brusque, "Carry on." As the crew resumed their duties, the captain of the Wolf's Lair approached the officer currently responsible for the ship.

"Allright, Lieutenant," she said with a perfunctory nod. "What's going on?"

"Ma'am, a half hour or so ago we detected an unknown convoy jumping into the system," Lieutenant Freese reported. "I immediately launched the Ready Five fighters. They inspected the convoy without incident, but one pilot noticed that his computer seemed to have a glitch - the IFF reading on the lead freighter kept changing from Imperial to neutral and back again. That led him to a closer visual inspection as he ran diagnostics, and he noticed odd bulges in the midsection, as well as what looked like doors.

"At this point his diagnostic finished and came back clean - it was then that eight TIE fighters launched from the freighters, and the eight transports escorting them also broke and attacked. Our fighters destroyed them and then disabled the freighters. I've already launched boarding transports to inspect and seize the cargoes aboard, and the fighters are flying cover." Colonel Gen'yaa digested this with good grace and nodded.

"Very well. Inform Lieutenant Colonel Stauber that I want six fighters on Ready Alert status right now. Two of each class. Inform me immediately of any developments, I'll be in my quarters for the next fifteen minutes. And I want to know the moment those transports get back on board," she ordered. "Make sure there's a security detail down in the hangar when they land, too, ready to take any prisoners to the brig."

"Yes, ma'am," the young lieutenant acknowledged. The colonel and her XO nodded, and both turned and left the bridge as Lieutenant Freese began issuing orders.

[Wardroom bar, Wolf's Lair]

Lieutenant Colonel Michael "Vyper" Stauber, the commanding officer of Wolfshead Squadron, straightened as he terminated the intercom connection.

"I hate to break up the party before it gets totally out of hand," he called, raising a hand for silence, "but some of us have work to do."

The conversation died down instantly and Vyper continued.

"A bit of a situation has arisen, although it shouldn't be anything dangerous," he said. "The captain has ordered that we put six fighters on Ready Alert status yesterday, as the Ready Five craft are already out there. So, Raiven, Spook, Arachnoid, Parody, Groz, and Moose, you're all the lucky six volunteers. Go and get suited up and on the flight deck as soon as you can manage it." The six pilots began to file out in silence, but not before Drake had given Raiven and Spook a nudge.

"Don't worry, lads, I'll have a cold one for each of you," he said with a smug voice. Both shot him frosty looks in return as they walked out. The young man shook his head as the conversation resumed and glanced at the woman next to him.

"Strange dinner, wouldn't you say, Fox?"

"Yep," Foxfire agreed with a sip of her drink. "Not the strangest I've seen, though. When you've been in the service for a while, you see, you see a lot of strange things happen. Like the time back in Preying Mantis Squadron when we…"

Drake's groan could be almost be heard from the bridge, as could Foxfire's laughter.