The Spice Mines of Kessel

[Beth Andromina]

In the dark expanse of lonely space above the spice laced asteroid, four formations of distinct starfighters dropped out of hyperspace. First came the My’til snubfighters, their blue ensign upon a while field marking them firmly within the Hapan Royal Navy. Or at least a cadet branch of that elusive and hidden empire. This vanguard streamed through kilometers of space, spread out firmly into a cordon that screened the next three formations. Next came the X-Wings, the classic workhorse of the Rebel Alliance, painted in familiar grey and blue. Their ensign showed the glowing crescent moon of Carida, marking them as a mixed Imperial and Rebel Flight crew, or more particularly the elite fighter squadron Templar. 

 

Next came the E-wings, a new model of craft, and one heavily plagued with technical woes that had persisted in the last decade of development. These were painted similarly to the Templars, grey and light blue, representing the dark cliffs and barren sky of Precopia. Though the insignia that slashed across their wings marked them as firm royalists of the Taipani Princedoms. The twin crowns on a pale field of fleur-de-lis. And lastly came the Javelin fighterbombers, their dark, heavy-burdened wings bearing the phoenix of the Rebel Alliance in a bright pale gold. 

 

But all the pilots, either Hapan, Taipan, or Rebel, were left shocked by what they saw. Or to be more precise, what they did not see. No Star Destroyers lay before that asteroid. No great massed fleet, no armada, not even a picket ship. Had Rebel intelligence failed even this most simple task? 

 

Comm chatter erupted from one end of the squadron to the next until they were quieted by Beth’s hissed orders. 

 

“Keep an eye out, slow advance, this could be a trap. Templars we are going to begin our close inspection of the planet surface. Sith forces could simply not be on station yet. Comms dark, Sensors dark. Lets not trip this trap yet.” 

 

And so with a push of a foot against the rudder pedal, the X-wing, followed by her squadron began its long run to Kessel’s surface. Before long, a blossoming blip of fire and smoke in her forward viewscreen told her that something had stirred up the locals. 

 

“Sensors on, X-Foils into attack positions.” 

 

And instantly the display board behind the rudder yoke blared to life, and the low whistle from her astromech told her that there was an active dogfight ahead. One that apparently, the locals had just lost handily to the Mandalorians Rebel Command had dispatched. And so the X-wings would follow in their wake. 

 

“Dimitri, get me a lock on that other IPV. Lets give the bucketheads some cover.”

 

Defang the planet. Clear the way for the heavy fighterbombers. 

 

It was just like the long practise runs on Nar Shaddaa. Except this was no practise, and those weren't drone ships. The beeping of her torpedo lock became a constant thrum and she let loose a pair of brilliant white torpedoes that snatched the life out of the local militia IPV with an explosion of energy, burning fuel, and flailing bodies. 

 

But still no sign of the Sith.

[Beth Andromina]

The high pitched alarm that blared momentarily over the communication headset that was buried in Beth’s ear caused her to wince and she looked at the display panel with a practised eye. 

 

“Imps!” Came the voice of her wingmate and friend Kailia. That word, Beth knew, was purely instinctive on the Twi’leks’ end, but it still caused her to bite her lip before she could respond in some anti rebel tirade. They were still a mixed unit, and the phraseology of the unit still reflected that. And Kailia was right, these were Sith/Imperial ships that were escorting a group of transports out of the darkness of hyperspace. But to Beth, ‘Imperial’ meant so much more. It was a philosophy, it had meaning, it had tradition. Something that the criminals in the Sith Empire knew nothing about. They had built their new empire on a bedrock of terrorism, mass death, and the destruction of Coruscant. Look at what they had done to precious Carida. The very thought of it made her blood boil.

 

And now they were here to take spice that could be used to enslave the galaxy. She flipped to an all squadron's frequency, dialing the squadron commanders from all wings. 

 

“Aérien and Sukhoi-” She addressed the agile My’tils and venerable E-Wings first. “-block any attempt at those transports getting to ground.” The X wing’s yoke vibrated under her gloves and the entire craft slipped sideways for a moment before she was able to regain control. “Tau…” 

 

But her voice had trailed off as the the X-Wing twitched again, throwing her against the sidewall of the cockpit. A matching screech from her Astromech brought her eyes to her S-foil. And there like a barnacle or a mynock was a massive droid, hanging off the wing. Her mind raced for a solution and a glance at the display board told her that trying to spin the droid off or any crazy maneuver would likely just separate the entire S-Foil from the Xwing. 

 

“Dimitri, keep your head low.”  

 

The droid whistled in return as the X-wing jerked violently again as the droid pulled on an aileron pitching the nose of the starfighter down towards the rapidly approaching planetary surface. She cursed and triggered the comm again to her own squadron. But already she knew what the result would be. The X-wing was acting sluggish to her attempts and the entire display board was lighting up a dark crimson red. That damned monster was tearing the starfighter apart! 

 

There would be no soft glide to the ground. She swallowed the bile that shot up into her throat at the thought of an EV in the thin air of Kessel. Then instinctively ran her hand down her chest, checking her flightstraps and the very light plastoid armour that she wore over the orange flightsuit. She checked the blaster carbine that was in its holster on her flightchair then grabbed the control yoke with both hands to stop the turbulence as they hit the low atmosphere. But there was not much she could do. She spared a glance at the evil looking droid, then clicked on her comms. 

 

“Templar one going to ground. EV. See you in the mess lads.” 

 

She didn’t wait to hear the acknowledgements. 

 

“Dimitri, fly another three seconds in straight glide, then eject too. Okay?” 

 

The mournful whistle told her his response, and she pulled the lever beside her seat. 

 

The ejection seat fired right after the micro thrusters in the cockpit’s windscreen fired. Launching the young pilot free of her failing X-Wing before the small boosters in the bottom of the seat took over, slowing her fall as the distant Xwing turned down towards the ground some kilometer below them. She would be on the ground in another thirty seconds. On the dismal surface of Kessel. 

 

“Spast it.”

[Beth Andromina]

The light atmosphere of Kessel rushed past her helmet in a constant roar and Beth was glad for the small reserves of air that were captured in the tank attached to her left thigh. It wasn’t enough for 24 hours of life on the surface, but it was enough to wait for the evacuation shuttle. Or, more likely, getting enslaved by whatever the Sith would bring with those damned shuttles. She visually checked that the E-22 blaster carbine was still strapped into its harness beside her then her eyes sought after the disintegrating X-wing in the distance. 

 

“Kriffing hell I-” 

 

There appeared to be two objects rocketing up towards her ejection seat. She could not make them out specifically, but the pale sunlight glinted off their exteriors enough to tell her that something was in fact coming straight towards her, from the droid that had taken off her S-Foils. 

 

She was just reaching for the pull line of the blaster carbine when the first blue tinged bolt smacked into the seats padding next to her helmet, spraying her with little chunks of impact foam. The next three bolts span past the seat entirely, diffusing into the pale atmosphere behind her falling ejection seat. And Beth pulled the carbine up from its straps and slapped the slide release with a gloved hand, arming the blaster carbine as she brought the iron sights into alignment with the weaving orbs. 

 

This was certainly outside her training purview, and shooting from an ejector seat at two small droids would be hard, but they were closing the distance and when the first dodged into her sight picture she depressed the trigger. Sending a burst of three bright crimson bolts towards the first little droid, she then adjusted her aim to the second, letting it settle for a millisecond before shooting at it as well.

 

But those little bots had not been idle and a single blast of energy grazed along the side of her face, numbing her cheek and filling her eyes with tears of pain. She furiously blinked them away as the altimeter on her wrist ticked towards zero.   

 

For R9-DT, or as his master had dubbed him in her tireless enthusiasm, ‘Dimitri,’ the story was equally terrifying. Though as an Astromech he was particularly programmed to feel fear, the sight of a giant droid with literal claws jumping at him was enough to give his circuits a taste of it. The metal behemoth spoke to Dimitri and the words he spoke was enough to develop a bead of hate in the little droid. Though he only spoke in binary, he thought his tone carried. 

 

“I do say how dare you. I would never!” 

 

And the claws dug into his chassis, dragging the larger droid along with him, though the power of his rocket boosters couldn’t save them both. Only slow their descent. But Dimitri had no such ambitions. He was a droid of the Rebellion, he had honour to uphold. Even if that meant his own destruction. He cut power to his boosters before ejecting his shock probe. And proceeded to dump half of his battery reserves in an effort to electrocute the other droid. As they plummeted with all the grace of a meteorite towards the ground. 

 

It was doubtful that it would work, but it was all Dimitri could do. And of that he was proud.

[Beth Andromina]

As the altimeter ticked down to the surface of Kessel, Rose desperately kicked at the side of her ejection seat to slowly spin herself around to meet the second incoming threat. Each kick rotated the chair a little as a few more rounds from the droids stun gun rocketed over her head. Two kicks, three, and the ejection seat shifted on its micro rocket engines spinning her around to face the little darting droid. She brought up the E-22 blaster carbine and squeezed three more rounds in a solid burst at the drone. Though its last round blazed into her leg at where the orange jumpsuit met her imperial issue boots. 

 

Pain jabbed up her leg in a spasm that turned completely numb in the moments after, with a twitch she knew that she could still use the leg, but only marginally. And she growled a curse into the rushing wind. This was not how it was supposed to have gone, and she could begin to feel worry creep into the back of her mind. What would capture be like? Or would they just execute her for being a terrorist? But the alarm on her altimeter tore her away from her thoughts, and she refocused down the sights of her carbine. They were now brutally close to the surface and the rockets on her chair chugged into overdrive to ease her descent. But how had Dimitri fared? Did he make it out? She couldn’t see. But she hoped that he had.

 

As for Dimitri, he died. It was not the beautiful and serene death of old age, surrounded by his robot friends as he might have hoped. but it was honourable. The blaster bolts blew through his thin durasteel frame and dome, detonating his central core in a spectacular gout of flame and circuitry. Burning away forever the little droid who hated his given name. And in that dusted circuitry, spinning in an endless carbonized loop as it burned out, was the equation for gravity and velocity. Perhaps Dimitri would have smiled if he had the ability. Perhaps he would have also dreaded impacting on the rock hard surface of Kessel. But as the X-wing detonated below them so his burnt chassis fell as well. 

 

((2))

[Beth Andromina]

As her trusty astromech was blown to pieces in the distance, Beth kept her blaster carbine tucked firmly into the crook of her shoulder. But the extreme turbulence from the little rocket motors in the ejection seat giving their last push against the gravity of Kessel kept her sight picture jumping about. The small drone kept getting eclipsed by the front sight post and then jumping back up. She cursed softly, and blinked furiously against the stinging tears in her eyes that kept forming from the mix of rushing ice cold air and the residual effects of the grazing stun blast. 

 

The drone disappeared behind the sight again and when she had readjusted her aim again it was much bigger. It was coming straight for her. 

 

A suicide attack? She glanced down at the rocky surface and then back up. They were still at a distance that she would surely break her legs and pelvis from a jump so she had little choice of what to do next. It would hurt, and maybe even kill her. But what else could she do. 

 

She let the air escape her lungs in a long hiss and grimaced as the drone smacked into her chest. It impacted harshly and she could feel the plastoid armour on her chest give a resentful ‘crack’ that reverberated through her chest and drove the last of the wind out of her lungs. She shifted against the ejection seat and the rocket engines below her strained to keep the seat upright. The pain was immense and she couldn’t tell if her ribs were broken, it was possible of course, but she couldn’t let the pain register for long. She needed to react before the drone could do it again. And so she hooked her left arm around the head sized drone and held on fast, feeling the heat of the micro-repulsor engines burn against her armoured flightsuit. 

 

She gasped desperately for air against her life support systems and placed the muzzle of the carbine against the drones midsection. She was not a superior being, she was just a human praying to the force that she didn't die today. And while her opponent rode her astromechs desecrated corpse to the surface, she held down the trigger. 

 

((3))

[Beth Andromina]

Beth let out a yelp of pain as the molten metal from the interior of the drone she was holding splattered across her face. Micro capacitors melted to slag burned furrows in the soft flash under her chin and across her left cheek. Yet again bringing a sting of tears to her eyes and she let out a stream of soft curses as she threw the useless drone away from her. She put a black gloved hand against the burning wounds and let out a sharp cry of pain that did not help in the slightest other than to give her something to distract her with. 

 

It was after that cry that the ejection seat finally made landfall. She let it fully settle on the rocky terrain before she slapped the release on her buckled straps and struggled to her feet. She instantly was brought down by the stunned leg and landed in a kneeling position, swiveling her head to look for any other actionable threat. There was none and so she slowly limped her way to the ruined Xwing and the pile of destroyed droid that was Xar and Dimitri. A glance told her that something had dragged itself off into the rocky hillside from the impact site, but there was little she could do about that. Most of its remains were still in the destroyed pile of astromech and security droid. 

 

The threat was handled, and Dimitri had done his duty. She saluted the rubble and limped back to her ejection seat. 

 

So she lit a flare and awaited evac. 

[Beth Andromina]

Beth slapped at her thigh, willing feeling to return, then immediately regretting it as it did so. The feeling of needles pricking all around the wound site made her gasp against her mouthpiece. Felling was coming back and she could put weight on the leg, but she wasn't much in for sprinting around in a firefight. Her eyes traced the starfighter battle in the open skies as best as she could as the flare burned down to nothing in her hand but she let out a gasp as one of the Sith shuttles veered towards her position. 

 

She dropped the sputtering bright red flare and duckedi n against the dying fire of the crashed X-wing. It was hot, but the lack of proper oxygenation had left the fire a sputtering mess. Enough to confuse scanners, but not much more. 

 

She slapped the ejection button on the side of her rifle and brought another energy magazine up from her belt to replace it. As the shuttle touched down she thumbed her comm link to her squadron encryption. 

 

“Templars, Templar one.” 

 

Static then a mic click.

 

“Getting a ground team on my position, if available, break for CAS.” 

 

“Copy, routing to Sukoi. Stay safe Beth!” 

 

Came the scared voice of her old wingmate, who was no doubt thinking desperately of a way to rescue Beth. But for now, Bethany would need to fend for herself. She centered the sights of the E-22 on the opening shuttle doors of the Sith craft and depressed the trigger at the distant sith soldiers. Sending a wave of crimson death from the reciprocating barrels of the old imperial blaster rifle. 

[Beth Andromina]

The small force of rebel alliance marines, escorted by the remaining starfighters and CAS began their cleanup of downed pilots, dead mandalorians, dead black sun, and dead Sith. THe bodies of the rebel allied mandalorians were collected and loaded into the transports, being given a place of honour due to their status of “Heroes of the Rebellion.” 

 

The Iron Knights would ride no longer. But their crypt would be a monolith to the sacrifices of the enfants perdus. Those few Crusaders who turned from their once dark path and forged the light of a new rebellion. 

 

Beth and the Templars escorted them back to Nar Shaddaa as the Rebel Marines secured the planet. 

 

[Beth Andromina]

“Dimitri....” The now fourth of her droids to be called by that name whistled away imperviously behind her cockpit. Feeding lines of data into the small holo display that burned in dull orange luminescence above her right hand. “Okay D. Watch for more behind that asteroid.” She flipped comm channels with a click of her right thumb. Forcing the mic that hovered an inch away from her face to broadcast over Alliance Sig 2. “Templar One making approach.”

 

“Templar two in formation.” 

 

The two X-Wings began their run from behind the dorsal engine of their carrier towards the sith fighter screen-

 

“Andromina.” A voice cut throug the simulation as the holo display froze. She caught a moment of nausea from the sudden lurch of the sim pod settling back down. “Guests in service hall two. Waiting.” She sighed and pulled off the helmet and pushed up the sim’s cockpit and helped Dimitri out of his socket. Then together they made their way to where the newest assignees had been sent. 

 

She grinned and extended her hand to each of them in turn. Her accent betrayed her Imperial Training. 

 

“I am Lieutenant Andromina of Templar Squadron. We have been assigned to recon and prepare for the invasion of Mon Calamari. If you will walk with me, we can hit the briefing room. I will need to know your names and abilities so I can best assign you however.” 

 

[Beth Andromina]

Beth wrinkled her nose at the Large wolf like man when he spoke of unifying the galactic alliance. Like the Imperial Remnant needed the cancer that had been the GA military. But those decisions came from far up the chain of command, and now the Imperial Remnant had been renamed and reformed and she was now forced to deal with the ‘cream of the crop’ of the galactic alliance on the daily. Well at least they had slime good commanders such as Slaughter and d’Outremer. But she would have much preferred to keep wearing the black instead of this spasted orange. But her thoughts did not matter. There was a galaxy to save, then after they restored the Imperial Throne, they could deal with the consequences. Hopefully they had all seen the failings of Democracy as well as she had. 

 

“Glad we could have you Howlster. Hopefully you weren’t too put out by the horrifying defeat of the New Republic and Galactic Alliance. We need every grizzled veteran we can get for this fight.” She winked, then motioned for the both of them to follow her. She addressed the Jensaarai’s concerns next.

 

“We have the manpower for the event, though you will be the forward vanguard of the attack. The rest of the fleet is coming from Nar Shaddaa as we speak. Troop ships will be coming into the gravity well two hours after infiltrators. You Will be inserted by civilian means to scout the area and assess weaknesses. Starliner Ghesesset will be your in transport. We have a scouting vessel on the outlier of the system. If you run into trouble or wish to call it off…” She pointed to a series of Comm packs. “Those are your communication packages. It is certainly dangerous. Are you willing?” 

[Beth Andromina]

“We simply cannot guarantee any good outcomes outside of two hours. Though this is isolated from the Sith Main fleet detachments, we need you to get to or get as close as you can to the ground based shipyards. Cause a little chaos as needed and then our marines land and relieve you.”

 

She let her gaze flitter up to the ceiling where far overhead the Rebel Fleet was emerging from hyperspace.

 

“Or you can insert alongside the rest of the army as needed. I don’t want you taking extemporaneous risks with your lives. The decision is yours.”

[Beth Andromina]

Where in the seven hells was that spasted song coming from? Where had she heard it before? One of those old repetitive GA recruit ads they spammed all over the ‘net as their spasted republic fell to another internecine war? She couldn’t decide, but let her eyes drift up until she found the source of the song. A Mon Cal, thin and willowy, in the garb of the newest generation of Jedi Knights. Beth grinned and stood, adjusting her orange flightsuit as she walked towards the singing Mon Cal. There was a life filling the room from her, and though Beth suspected it was some kind of Jedi mind meld, she was not offended. 

 

“So you bring us hope and life.”

 

Beth extended a hand in the traditional human greeting. 

 

“Beth Andromina. I am always glad to see a Jedi Knight.” And she was, though her accent betrayed her as one of the Imperial holdouts in the rebel alliance, she did like the look of the girl. So she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Been a bit tired only seeing Imperial Knights. They kinda creep me out.” 

 

Her datapad vibrated in the triple ring of an action order. And she grimaced. 

[Beth Andromina]

Beth spared a glance to her datapad. Trualis was getting hit by a small Sith strike force. What was there? What could possibly be worth the time and hyperdrive fuel for the Sith Order to even try to go there? There were artisans yes, but she could not think of anything other than a few ballerinas that she had ever even seen from Trualis. But they were calling for help and they were listed under Tripwire. So the Rebel Alliance would send a small team to slow them down, maybe evacuate some innocents. Maybe frag some Sith Lords. She sighed and looked back to the Mon Cal.

 

“Well if you were not opposed to a fight, it looks like one of the worlds in the outer rim is screaming on all channels that the Sith are attacking them. We were about to head on a counterstrike mission against their asset storage on Geonosis but this takes priority.” 

 

She pulled up her flight manifesto and then pointed to the flight commanders that were starting to run into the room. “Leena, join us aboard the carrier Orchomenos. There are ten Lambda shuttles aboard, if it comes to it, you may accompany some of the commandos down to surface and maybe bag a few Sith. I don’t envy you that at all though.” 

 

She turned to the rest of the fighter command teams. They were the same that had come to Kessel not six months before. With a few additions.

 

“Tau and Epsilon.” She addressed the black fatigued Javelin fighterbomber team leads. “Your two squadrons will engage medium vessels and support craft. If they have anything bigger than a bulk cruiser we are not engaging it. Slash and run if so.” 

 

She turned her eyes to the light blue uniforms of the Tapani Pilots, their angular helmets making them as E-Wing fighter jockeys. And the gold lining on some of their uniforms indicated that at least one or two of them were minor royalty from the Princedoms. “Aérien and Fosh you will be supporting Tau and Epsilon. Keep anything off of them you can.”

 

She looked at the white stirling uniforms of the dour Hapans. Whose My’til fighters would join her own in antifighter role. “Sukhoi and Tula, you will be with us.”

 

She looked back at Leena. “And may the force be with us.”