The New Imperium Peace With A Price Day Three Typeria 0145 hours Commander Arv Rizza sat calmly in his high-backed chair in the center of the bridge as the MIRAGON exited hyperspace. The grey sphere of Typeria floated motionless up ahead, with tiny dots surrounding it, signifying spacecraft of some sort. "Look sharp, everyone!" the Shistavanen Rizza growled as the MIRAGON's crew settled into their positions. "Those ships may very well be hostile." He looked towards a group of young men and aliens monitoring the passive sensor array readouts. "Anything yet?" "We're cross-referencing our data as we get it with that datalinked to us from SLIPS Command just before we left. We're seeing some definite similarities, sir." The young man, Lieutenant Alberd, turned back to the sensor screen, studying it intently. "What's our nearest contact?" Rizza managed to prevent the nervousness he felt from coming out in his voice. The ships orbiting Typeria were slowly increasing in size as the MIRAGON drew inexorably closer. "We have a group of Tie Fighters approaching us at our six o' clock," one ensign replied. "They're at one-point-four kilometers and closing." "ETA?" Rizza asked. "Fifty-five seconds." "All right everyone, careful now. We got Ties coming up our tailpipe," Rizza announced to his crew. Then, glancing at his wrist chronometer, he said: "How much longer until we can pull inside Typeria's gravity well?" Once inside the gravity well, the MIRAGON would be very very difficult to distinguish from Typeria with anything but active sensing. "Two minutes at current speed, sir," the same ensign stated. "How long at top speed?" "Minute fifteen, Commander." Rizza turned to his intercom unit next to the captain's chair. "Engines, full ahead." "Full ahead, aye," was the reply. Rizza felt the MIRAGON begin to accelerate. "The Ties will be on us in ten seconds!" Lieutenant Alberd reported. Rizza frowned, a difficult task for a Shistavanen Wolfman. "Stay calm. They haven't seen us yet." The flight of four Tie Fighters flew directly over the MIRAGON in perfect Diamond formation. They pilots never saw the scout corvette on their sensors; they didn't catch sight of it even when they were only twenty meters away. They never noticed the four quad laser cannons that tracked them for the entire length of their fly-by. On the MIRAGON's bridge, the next few moments passed in relative silence. The sensor team worked feverishly in conjunction with the main computer to identify all sixty-seven ships so far sighted. Arv Rizza stared through the forward viewscreen at a strange ship of about equal size which they were about to pass two hundred meters below the bow of. The ship resembled a Corellian Corvette, except it was bigger, boxier, and had two engine nacelles with sublight drives hanging from stubby wings off its centerline. The whole contraption fairly bristled with laser cannons. Rizza guessed it would be about a match for a Corellian Gunship; destroying the MIRAGON probably would have been easy for it if the ship knew that the scout corvette even existed. "We're in Typeria's gravity well," someone reported. Rizza lowly growled his affirmation. "Commander," Lieutenant Alberd called out. "Two Frigates, the IMPERIUM and the 57-C, are approaching quickly! ETA is thirty seconds." Rizza studied the spear shaped ships, each approximately five hundred meters long, that were approaching quickly. The ships looked tough and mean, and they definitely were fast, judging by their rate of closure. "They can't have seen us yet," Rizza said. "Not while we're in the gravity well." Rizza was right. The two impressive ships ended us flying right over the bow of the MIRAGON without stopping, then continuing to fly right down into the Typerian atmosphere. "Atmospheric-capable," Rizza mumbled. "Those must be deadly in planetary assaults." "Commander," Lieutenant Alberd seemed to be sounding more frantic every minute. "We're currently on a collision course with some sort of modified Star Destroyer, the SEBRING. Please advise." Rizza used his sharp eyes to closely inspect every aspect of the tremendous ship of his bow. It had been an Imperial Star Destroyer, but it had been modified to the extent that it had to be considered a completely different class of ship. The aged hull of an Imperial I-class destroyer, criss-crossed with carbon scoring from near misses, seemed to have been welded to a boxy skyscraper where the bridge would have been. At the top of the skyscraper, which in reality was not much taller than the original Star Destroyer's conning tower, was a gravity well projector. And in front of the projector were the bridge windows. Additional laser and turbolaser turrets had been welded on all over the ship, giving the SEBRING a jagged silhouette in the twilight of the dark side of Typeria. "Take us as far below the SEBRING as is possible," Rizza ordered. "It looks quite dangerous to me." The MIRAGON moved silently down and then bobbed back up after it had surpassed the SEBRING by a significant distance. The scout corvette was now passing through complete darkness, hugging tight to the gravity well on the side of Typeria opposite the sun. The ship was constantly juking back and forth as it tried to avoid ships that weren't even there, as far as anyone's eyes could say. And the recon run ended. "You picked up a lot of good information today, people," Rizza complimented his crew as the MIRAGON left Typeria's gravity well. "Good job." "Wait, Commander!" Lieutenant Alberd shouted. "We have two corvettes and a frigate, along with a number of fighters, moving to cut off our hyperspace vector!" Another ensign shouted. "Multiple fighters - Tie Bombers - coming in behind us! They'll be in missile range in thirty seconds!" "Get us out of here now!" Rizza shouted. "We have fighters coming in from the front and bombers coming in from behind!" a deck officer reported. "In forty-five seconds, those ships will cut off our exit vector!" Lieutenant Alberd looked like he was about to cry. "Stay calm!" Rizza roared, commanding the confusion to stop. When everything was silent, except for the din of the alarms, Rizza began issuing orders. "Guns, train all lasers rearward to blast any missiles those bombers launch! Fill the space ahead of us with as much turbolaser fire as you can! Missileers, empty all ten torps into the lead ship trying to cut off our exit vector!" His orders were followed by a chorus of "aye-ayes", and the sound of lasers spitting fire into the void. There was a series of "cha-chunks" as missiles were ejected from the tube in the MIRAGON's nose, and blue streaks rushed off towards the lead Imperium Corvette. The laser cannons illuminated the silhouette of the incoming ships as they sought out the incoming missiles. Twin flashes lit up the MIRAGON's stern as they found their mark, detonating two torpedoes just seconds before they would have hit. Three Tie Interceptors fell in succession to the MIRAGON's single turbolaser, which spat out gouts of red energy at a consistent rate. Finally, the ten proton torpedoes reached their target, the Imperium Corvette designated 128-B. Seven torpedoes smashed against the corvette's surprisingly strong shields before they collapsed. Three more raced towards the gaping hole the others had opened. One wasn't fast fast enough, and the corvette's defensive laser cannons caught it, blowing it in half. The other two PT-8 torpedoes hit the mark, though. The first one smashed and bent a thin quadanium armor plate, cracking it beyond repair. The second one collided with the same plate - somehow managing to slip through - and detonated inside the corvette's port missile bay. The chain reaction that followed tore Corvette 128-B asunder. Cheers erupted on the bridge of the MIRAGON as the ship, finding that its escape route was clear, leapt to hyperspace and was gone. The MIRAGON's actions at Typeria would mean more orders for the ship to be built by the Mon Calamari shipwrights than had ever been anticipated; not even in the designers' wildest dreams. Coruscant 0215 hours Leia's usually crystal-clear dreams were hazy and inconsistent at best that night. Her mind was cluttered with thoughts: worries and hopes for what would happen in the near future. Only time would tell, and Leia wished she could get some sleep so that morning would come faster. But she couldn't stop thinking about how, at this very moment, that scout corvette was probably finishing their survey of Typeria. What had they found? Leia hoped that it was all a big mistake, but something inside her said that the Typerian situation was only going to get worse. Leia wasn't sure if that something was just her political experience, or if it might be the tiny bit of Jedi that lived within her. So that was how she came to be sitting on the edge of her and Han's bed at two in the morning, holding a deactivated lightsaber, passing it from palm to palm. Han was sleeping soundly enough that Leia almost felt jealous. But of course, her sleeping soundly would only come from her giving up politics, and she wasn't quite ready to do that yet. Outside the window, the cityscape seemed unusually quiet and serene. A gravcar or speeder would pass by the window every few dozen seconds, the mechanical hum of its engine slowly growing from and then falling back into silence. Of in the distance, the dull roar of a huge construction droid was just barely audible. Leia set the lightsaber on the end table next to her bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin as she lay back down. She shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on the night sounds, letting them lull her closer and closer to sleep... ...until the comlink on the dresser began to beep. Leia was instantly awake, hoping that it would be Admiral Ackbar or General Rieekan or Kube Madre - or anyone else that might bear news about the Typerian crisis. "I'll get it," she said to Han, even though her husband still snored fitfully. Leia picked the comlink up off the dresser and opened it up. "President." the steely voice she heard emanate from the comlink's speaker as soon as she answered was not accompanied by a face in the viewscreen above it. The screen remained dark. "Who is this?" Leia said, cautiously. "I am a member of the New Imperium, and I bear a warning from our Prime Minister, Mattan Balao." "Balao," Leia breathed. She already hated the man for what he stood for. "Where are you?" "That is not your concern." "And what is?" Leia was beginning to get irritated at the way this man spoke to her. "Your concern is the warning I shall give you." Leia's voice barely concealed her anger. "No one's stopping you. Speak." The steely voice said: "Do NOT send ships to Typeria again. This is your only warning." Leia's eyes narrowed. "What if I choose not to listen to your warning?" "Then the New Imperium will be forced to kill your entire family right here on Coruscant. You will have no defense." "And if we're not all on Coruscant...?" Leia was referring to her twin children, training at the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV. "Your children, Jacen and Jaina, will be orphaned," the voice said, much to Leia's surprise. "Do not think we don't know where all your family is." "Our security is too tight," Leia felt her face turning red with fury. "You'd never get a bomb through." The voice laughed coldly. "Then how did we get one so close to you tonight?" "What?" Leia cried, loud enough to wake Han up. The connection had already been severed, though. "Leia? What happened?" Han rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he stood up. "Who was that?" Leia turned around and looked at him. "A New Imperium goon. It sounded like an assassination warning." Han took his wife into his arms. Leia continued talking. "He said that there was a bomb nearby right now." "I call security," Han said, reaching for a comlink. "Those NI goons aren't going to touch my family!" He was too late in grabbing the comlink, though. The building Leia was facing, across the street through the window, was suddenly replaced by a rapidly expanding fireball. Han pulled his wife to the floor just before the rush of superheated air blew out the window, sending molten shards of glass through the space where Leia had been standing only an instant before. The shock wave was in the form of an actual wave in the ground. The floor of the room tilted almost two feet towards the street as the shock wave bent the building. Using all his strength to pull his wife over and around the furniture that was now falling out the window, Han managed to get Leia out of the room and into the hallway beyond the door. Smoke clouded the once-spacious hallway, whose walls had been crushed closer together by the blast. "Anakin!" Leia shouted. "Where's Anakin?" "Stay put!" Han replied. "I'll get him!" Despite her husband's orders, Leia ran with Han to their youngest son's room, down the hall and on the left. Remarkably enough, Anakin was unhurt. Han and Leia found him hanging onto his doorframe to avoid falling out the window, which has been melted from a rectangle to roughly an elliptical shape by the heat of the blast. Han gathered the sobbing boy into his arms and carried him out of the room. "At least we're all okay," Leia said as her ears began to stop ringing. But in the deepest recesses of her mind, those that no one but Han and Luke and herself had ever known, Leia thought: SLIPS Command 0545 hours The sun rose blood red over Coruscant that morning. The familiar night constellations slowly faded into nothingness as the sky was first turned purple, then red, then orange-yellow. Coruscant was touched with the first stellar rays of heat from a nearby star, and another day began. Of course, cooped up in the confining space of SLIPS Command, General Barth Lomaw rarely got to see the sunrise. In reality, he was lucky to see the sun even once a week. As the day started, even before his customary cup of coffee was finished, Lomaw knew that today would be no exception. He bent over Bilks's shoulder, trying to see what the stocky young man was studying so intently. It didn't take him long to figure it out. "Another report from thirty-one nineteen?" Lomaw asked, even though he already knew. "Yup," Bilks replied. "Looks like they're fortifying their position, sir." Indeed they were. The thirty-two new contacts brought the total number of ships - which Lomaw now knew from the MIRAGON's recon run were hostile - to ninety-nine. "That's a fleet-sized buildup," Lomaw said. Bilks nodded in reply, his fatigue becoming evident. Lomaw looked down at Bilks, who was barely even an adult at twenty-two standard years of age. "Tell you what, kid. I'm gonna let you rest until oh-nine hundred hours. After that you get up and help out the other static searchers in getting these ships identified. Got it?" "Thanks, sir." Bilks sounded very grateful. He climbed into his bunk and promptly fell asleep without even bothering to remove his boots. Lomaw turned back to the rest of the crew that would pull the day shift. He clapped his hands together and shouted: "Okay crew! We got thirty-two new ships at Typeria! All of you get in gear, this is important! Good luck!" The difficult work began. Pilthari 1300 hours General Kenlamb Sha'hazar ignored how silly it felt to be bowing to a comlink. "Madame President," he said. "This is certainly a pleasant surprise." The woman smiled. "Thank you, General. You truly make me wish I had some good news to tell you." Sha'hazar frowned slightly. "It's about Typeria, isn't it?" Leia nodded. "I see you've been briefed about it already?" "Yes, ma'am. Councilor Madre called me yesterday. I believe it was in the afternoon by Coruscant Galactic Time. He sent me a very interesting and informative data packet." "Good." President Organa's warm smile could not hide her true feelings of anticipation from the Omwati. "In that case, you can move out sooner than I expected." Sha'hazar was mildly shocked. "We're moving out already? This is certainly a surprise." "The New Imperium has attacked Coruscant with a series of terrorist bombings," President Organa-Solo explained. "One of them nearly claimed my life." "I see," Sha'hazar said, surprise evident on his face. "So I should prepare my people for combat?" "Not necessarily, General," Leia said. "I want to avoid a war at any cost. My orders to you are for you to mobilize your fleet and divide it into small groups - no more than ten ships per group. Send these groups to Typeria one by one. If the New Imperium doesn't feel too threatened by our arrival, then fighting might be averted." "I expect it would be correct to send a small but powerful courier group into the system about five minutes before the the next group to scout everything out?" Sha'hazar did not mean this as a question, but as a way of informing the President of what he was going to do. Leia understood this. "That will be more than acceptable, General," she said. "And may the Force be with you." "Thank you," Sha'hazar said as the connection was severed. He looked up and frowned, deep in thought. He knew in his heart of hearts that whatever they did, war with the New Imperium would be impossible to avoid if he entered the Typerian system. And he feared that the war would come sooner rather than later. Pilthari 2000 hours "And that's everything," Sha'hazar finished the briefing to all the captains of his fleet via a voice-only communication network. "Now to announce the ships that will be in the courier group. If the captains of these ships would come over here once they are called?" He imagined that he saw a nod from everyone, then continued. "The ships that will be in the courier group are as follows: the cruiser HOME ONE," he imagined that he saw the surprise on his lover Marin's face. "The Nebulon-B Frigates CYCLONE and TURBULENT. The B2 Frigate INDIGO BLUE. The Corellian Gunships STAND OFF, KRE'FEY, MARLIN, KESTREL, and RENOUNCE. And finally, the picket GREYHOUND. Would the captain's of those ships please get to the SCIMITAR as soon as possible? All other ships, I will send you the data transmission notifying you of your group. That is all." The meeting with the courier team's captains went smoothly. General Sha'hazar told them that they were to first broadcast a prerecorded message of peace, then wait for a response. If no response was given, they would simply back off from the planet until they reached a moderate courier position before stopping and waiting for the other ships to arrive. If they were fired upon, they would return fire at Code Yellow Protocol until the New Imperium ceased firing. If they were fired at for more than one minute straight, or if they were outnumbered by more than four to one, they would launch A- and E-Wings only and return fire at full counterforce protocol until the New Imperium stopped firing or until they were no longer outnumbered by more than four to one. The K- and B-Wing bombers were under no circumstances to be launched. "You're all good men and women," Sha'hazar finished up his speech. "You're some of the best in my fleet. I don't want to lose any of you. You'll have ten minutes out there alone before the next group arrives, one minute more before the third group's arrival. Spend that time concentrating on staying alive. Understood?" A short chorus of "Yes sir!"s followed. "All right then. Dismissed." The captains began to filter out of the room. Sha'hazar gave Marin the confident smile she always said looked good on him. She kissed him lightly on the mouth and said: "Don't worry. I'll be careful." Sha'hazar's smile dimmed somewhat as he said: "I hope for both of our sakes that you will be." SLIPS Command 2130 hours Barth Lomaw watched as Bilks tried to make sense of the sounds his commander had given him to hear. "You're right, General," the young man said. "Ten ships are breaking off from the Third's formation." "What kinds of ships, Bilks?" Lomaw said. "This is quite interesting." Bilks shut his eyes as he listened. He spoke his thoughts aloud so the General would know where he was going. "Small ship. The reverberations indicate a rounded hull. But its not quite flowing right. There must be protrusions in the hull of this ship, like antennae. General - its a picket." "Good work, Bilks," Lomaw patted the man on his back. "What about the next one?" Bilks smiled as he listened to the next track. "I've heard this one before. Unmistakable - it's the HOME ONE." "Interesting." "These next two are identical," Bilks said. "Long, thin. Multiple engines, might be eight. No there are definitely seven engines. Sounds like Nebbie Frigates to me." Before Lomaw could commend the young man, he continued. "Wow! We've got five near-identical readings here. Four engines - probably Calamari Mark Nines. They're fast - the engines are at full power. In all likelihood, we've got five Corellian Gunships." "And the last one?" Lomaw prompted. "Sounds a whole lot like the Nebbie's, but its smaller, faster. Same huge engine array, but on a smaller ship. This one's a fast mover. Probable twin hull design...its a B2 Frigate for sure, General." "Nice job, Bilks." Lomaw turned and started to pace back and forth across the room. "The only only question is why?" "General Lomaw!" Bilks cried. "The picket just went to hyperspace. Wait - the gunships are squaring up...they're gone! Now the three frigates - they're leaving one after the other..." Barth Lomaw got to Bilks's station just in time to see the ship that had been tagged as the HOME ONE disappear off the charts and into hyperspace. He turned to a female Bothan and ordered: "Get the information on these ten ships from Bilks here. Calculate, given their hyperspace path, where they might be headed." "Yes sir." The Bothan walked over to Bilks and he began to show her what Lomaw had been talking about. Of course, General Barth Lomaw was fairly sure already of the ten ships' destination was. There was not a doubt in his mind that they were headed for Typeria. ===================================================================== THE NEW IMPERIUM: PART ONE: PEACE WITH A PRICE story by Greg Schutz send questions\comments to: crazy8@wnclink.com This is only DAY THREE of this story. It is not over yet - this story will have ten days. Feel free to post this story wherever you so desire, as long as it is posted in its entirety. ===================================================================== DISCLAIMER: I, Greg Schutz, hereby state this: that my work, The New Imperium: Peace With A Price, is not breaking any current copyright laws; that I am not using this work to collect money for possession; and that I recognize that this work is based on characters and\or situations that are copyright protected by Lucasfilms LTD. This story is for entertainment purposes only.