"Now!" Tan'ya gave the order, and tugged Dratfat towards her with the force. He was large and heavy, but Tan'ya still had to be careful not to pull too hard and injure him. The Captain fell backwards onto his bottom, putting his hand out to stabilize himself just as the House Guards took out the deck sweepers.
...
The air of the deck oscillated with glowing rings of energy as her men opened up. In the first wave of stunner rounds, most of the bridge crew went down. Of the eight who had been present, six were instantly stunned unconscious without a chance to respond. The deck sweepers had a wide arc of fire, spraying out a huge quantity of charged particles to temporarily scrambled and override the target's nervous system. Even if they didn't hit the head perfectly, they had the effect of numbing limbs and extremities caught in those widening rings of crackling force.
With only a fraction of a second to respond, one of the remaining bridge crew tripped as he tried to get out of his chair, falling to the deck in a painful stagger and was helpless to avoid a follow up blast that hit him directly in the face. The only still standing Nemoidian staggered back, dropping the hot drink that he'd been carrying and desperately tried to part his uniform robes to grab at either a communicator or a blaster concealed at his hip. He didn't have the time, and was immediately brought down by overlapping fields of fire just as it looked like he was bringing up what he was reaching for.
Captain Dratfat gaped, and tried to rise to his feet only for the Colonel to come and shove his face down into the deck. "Don't move!" He yelled, putting his knee on the man's back. "Keep your hands spread!"
It wasn't hard to force him into a pair of cuffs. With him secured, Tan'ya's guards spread across the deck and cuffed all the remaining unconscious officers, before moving them to the center of the room and searching them for any concealed blasters or comms devices.
"Only one of them was carrying a blaster." A guard commented, shaking his head as though disappointed.
"It'll only take one of them to ruin this entire mission!" Seith snapped at him. "A single communicator could set off the droid defenses! A single blaster could kill you!" He turned to face his men. "That was sloppy, people! Very sloppy. They almost had a full second to respond! No use in overlapping fire for a single target." He looked around the room, before naming each man and assigning them a target for the next bridge; comms, gunnery, scanners, etc. With each man now knowing his role and having a clear target, hopefully they'd claim the next bridge even more smoothly. First though there were a few loose ends that had to be tied up here.
"Get him up." Tan'ya ordered the men who were pinning Dratfat down.
"What are you doing?" He asked her as he was lifted to his knees. "This is- Stop!"
Tan'ya ignored his cries, and started searching through the man's pockets. His robe was voluminous, but underneath it he had a much more practical vest with a variety of different items strapped to it, including his code cylinder and comm device. With some help from her men, Tan'ya quickly unstrapped him from his jacket, and left him with just his robes. Plugging the code cylinder into the ship's main console, she brought up the commander's overview screen and sighed in relief that no alerts had been sent out automatically.
With a few typed keys, she sent a message to engineers at the rear of the ship to present themselves for customer inspection at the entrance to the engineering deck.
"Colonel, would you go take care of them?" She asked him.
He took half the men and strode away, and Tan'ya tracked his progress through the ship's interior.
"Why are you doing this?" Dratfat demanded. "When the Federation finds out you've stolen my ship-"
"Captain, the lives of your captured crew depend on you." Tan'ya replied, dropping any pretense of childishness, before turning to regard him. "So let's not waste time. In order to avoid suspicion you are going to order your subordinates to allow me and my men to inspect the remaining ships. I'm going to leave some of my House Guard here with you to make sure you don't try anything foolish."
Dratfat looked like he was going to refuse for a second, until one of the guards switched on their vibro-bayonet, and held it close to his belly.
"Ever see a man spill his guts before?" He switched it off and slapped the back of the Captain's head. "Listen to the Princess, now."
"Thank you, Sergeant Forne, that's enough." Tan'ya held up a hand to forestall any further encouragement. The last thing she needed was for the captain to be obviously injured when he was issuing his orders. "Do you understand, Captain?"
He looked at her for a long moment, as if searching for the willpower to resist, before finally something seemed to break inside him and he lowered his head. Searching his mind in the Force, Tan'ya didn't find any deception, though there was a knot of worry aimed at that Captain from earlier, Sugrath.
"What has you so worried about Sugrath?"
Dratfat looked up at Tan'ya surprised, and she felt his mind racing to figure out how she knew his thoughts. "Sugrath's crew are all armed, not like mine. I'm worried that they might try something stupid and get us all killed. He was always aiming for a promotion, and he followed every regulation to the letter."
That was worrisome. Tan'ya supposed Sugrath would now be confined to his quarters, but if all his crew were armed with blaster's there was a chance for their attempt on that ship's bridge to go wrong. Plus, the Captain was clearly suspicious of Tan'ya's intentions. Technically, their contract with the Trade Federation required them to give forty eight hours notice on a ship inspection, but Dratfat had been willing to arrange it in just twelve because the Colonel asked him as a personal favor. Most likely Dratfat was willing because he knew about Serenno refitting the old Hammerheads, and was eager to try and convince her Father not to discontinue their contract when the time came.
Thinking it through, Tan'ya almost felt guilty. This Trade Federation Captain was acting more like a restaurant owner in a fast food franchise than an Officer in a professional military. At least Sugrath was acting like the captain of a warship, though in this case it seemed like he was stuck with a poor superior. Right now, Sugrath wasn't her problem. His bridge crew was.
After Colonel Seith returned with the engineers, all the Nemoidians were confined in crew quarters with the bulkheads sealed after her men had swept it for communicators. Then Dratfat was uncuffed and his uniform returned to him, so he could order the next ship to allow Tan'ya access. His performance wasn't inspiring, nor was it obviously suspicious, and Tan'ya detected no hidden messages in his words or deceptions in his thoughts.
Taking the second ship went even smoother than the first. Having given each of the eight House Guard who entered the bridge a clear target, the first burst of stunners took all of the Officer's down in an instant. Seeing that, the Captain of the second ship's hands shook uncontrollably, and he started sweating helplessly. Tan'ya plucked the man's command cylinder from quivering hands. Even more than Dratfat, he felt less like an officer and more like a store manager faced with an armed robbery. Once again, Tan'ya left four of her bodyguards behind to control the bridge crew.
Finally there was the last ship, the only one she'd personally visited before today and the one with the most potential to go wrong.
With Sugrath confined to his quarters, the Comms Officer would be the one in command, Lieutenant Prifrath. He greeted them at the entrance to the ship by himself, and felt like an angry stormcloud in the Force. His mind kept turning to Sugrath confined to his quarters, and he seemed particularly upset by this. Strapped to his hip on the exterior of his robe was a small handheld blaster.
"I was told there were thirty of you." He said, looking past Tan'ya's head.
"They were needed back at the Palace!" Tan'ya explained, mind racing to find an excuse. "My Mother decided she wanted to go on a daytrip, and we're a little short staffed, so I sent some men back to escort her. After all, I can't think of anywhere I'd be safer than aboard one of our defense ships!"
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Don't forget to throw some power stones ;)
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