( 30 BBY )
Tan'ya sat at the helm of her dropship, checking over her gear in final preparation. She wore the black plastoids of the House Guard, sized to fit her, though the vacuum sealed body glove beneath it was a little loose on her. Like her men, she had a line of rope coiled up, along with a set of simple carabiners to attach to any narrow surface.
It was hardly designed for void warfare, but a quick click could attach her or one of her men to a grill, or a pole, or anything really that might prevent them from being ejected into space. It would be hard to fumble the line into place if the suction was already happening, but with just a few seconds of forewarning it could easily save lives.
She closed her eyes and breathed in and out, steadying herself. In the distance, she could feel Master Sturn's mind doing the same. They waited together, separated by hundreds of kilometers of open space, but so closely attuned in the Force that she could practically hear his pulse. In the distance, closing in towards them were the three enemy ships. The vessels were a buzz of activity, the pirates confident and eager. They only had a hint of nervousness to them, the chance to make money overpowering their fear of the coming engagement.
It was only a matter of time until the pirate fleet decided to confront them. With the obvious advantage the three enemy ships had in weaponry, Tan'ya was certain that the best chance for their ambush working would be as the enemy rounded Serenno itself. By taking shelter behind the moon, Serenno's fleet forced the enemy to close the distance towards them.
Only when the first Corona began to round the corner of the planet did she accelerate her dropship. Simultaneously, Master Sturn did the same. He banked left and right, avoiding the worst of the enemy's blaster fire, but missiles still flickered on impact with the ship's shields. She felt the sweat dripping down his pale skin, and saw the droplet run over what seemed like the edge of a tattoo, just poking over the collar on the back of Sturn's neck.
As Sturn was closing in on the enemy, he rolled the entire dropship like it was a much nimbler craft, before almost fully reversing its directions and using their own afterburners to rapidly decelerate. As they passed over his ship, Tan'ya felt more as she saw the enemy vessel growing larger in her viewscreen.
These crucial seconds were the only chance their dropship had to match speed with the Corona, and lock onto its hull with a magnetic clamp. They were above the enemy, so Tan'ya couldn't see the results of the maneuver, but she felt the relief and jubilation as she rolled and banked, timing her actions perfectly in an identical maneuver to what she saw Sturn pull.
When the clamp made contact with the enemy hold, there was a lurch, and they stopped so suddenly Tan'ya felt the air leave her in a rush. Half a second later, she realized she was still alive and breathed out a sigh of relief. "We're in!" She yelled back to her men, and from the troops behind her came a roar of approval.
Tan'ya reached for her belt, retrieving the ancient Sith lightsaber before lighting it, illuminating the dropship in baleful red light. As loath as she was to appropriate it again from Father's vault, she needed to be armed for the boarding action, and her training saber wasn't going to cut it.
Tan'ya came over to where two of her men grunted and heaved, lifting up the hatch from the bottom of the ship, exposing the enemy hull. Once again peering with her mind's eye, Tan'ya did her best to make sure she wasn't about to cut her way through anything dangerous like a plasma vent or an engine coupling, before driving the blade of her lightsaber into the ship's durasteel outer plate.
For a moment, the only illumination in the room was the burning red of her lightsaber, its glow reflecting in the glassy black eyes of her men's eye lenses. No one spoke a word, until the glowing hot circle was cut into the enemy ship. With the Force, Tan'ya pushed the circular hole down into the enemy ship, before dropping in behind it.
Her stomach turned, as she went from the gravity of the drop ship to the gravity of the Corona, falling onto her back, before rolling to her feet. She looked about her, lightsaber raised and at the ready for any blaster bolts that might come towards her, but none came. An alarm was blaring inside the enemy ship, and no doubt there would be defenders here soon to force them out, but her men had precious seconds to scramble through the hole behind her.
Tan'ya had cut through into what seemed like a mess hall. The room was full of chairs and desks, and there was a kitchen visible at one end with no one in it. Tables and benches filled the room, all bolted to the floor to prevent it from tumbling around as the ship maneuvered.
A warning in the Force told Tan'ya of the pirates closing in towards them. Teams of aliens, armed with vibro-cutlasses and packing an assortment of blasters. They weren't moving professionally, but all rushing as an enthusiastic group towards them.
"Sileal, cover that entrance. Hostiles incoming, thirty seconds." Tan'ya pointed at where she knew they would come from, and the sergeant and his team immediately did as ordered. Moving like an efficient machine, a group of five marines positioned themselves at the doorway, grenades primed in their hands. "Mirrun, cover this entrance." Tan'ya indicated a different door. "The rest of you are with me."
At the exact moment the enemy pirates were coming to the mess hall's entrance, Sileal's team opened the door, grenades already thumping to the ground in the midst of an unprepared enemy.
Tan'ya winced at the cold, stomach turning sensation of each mind winking out in the Force. Some of the pirates survived the initial onslaught, wounded but still alive, and crying in agony. It wasn't the first time she'd felt such a thing, but she still wasn't used to it yet. Chiding herself for her weakness, Tan'ya led a dozen of her men through the kitchen, where she used the Force to rip a sink from its mount to gain access to the thin wall behind it. A few quick strokes from her lightsaber, and she cut an alternate exit into the hall that ran alongside the kitchen.
The pirates who had survived the contact from Sileal's team had pulled back into cover, and were just bringing forward detonators of their own to try and flush their human foes out into the open, when suddenly blaster shots started to smash into them from the side. Caught in a pincer between Sileal's defensive position and Tan'ya's flanking maneuver, they had no choice but to flee back the way they came towards the armory.
One of them threw a grenade behind him as he ran, trying to slow her troops, but Tan'ya caught the grenade mid air, and shot it over the man's head into the midst of the retreating aliens. It struck a weequay so hard in the back of his head that several spines broke off and he fell limp to the ground, before the device exploded.
The surviving, shaken, panicking pirates were destined to be run down by the invading marines. With their short barreled, automatic blasters - this Galaxy's equivalent to a submachine gun - two Serrenoan point men closed in, blasting from the hip, not needing to aim at this distance. They made quick work of what remained of the enemy, and in just a few moments their beachhead into the enemy ship was secured.
"Your Highness!" One of the men said, from his accent, a Coruscanti. "This ship's powering its hyperdrive!"
Tan'ya didn't know how he knew that, maybe he detected a difference in the ship's background hum, but it only took her a moment to verify. The Captain of the ship was thinking triumphantly about the ransom her father would pay once he had her prisoner, and on the ship's bridge men were rushing about their stations, minds ringing with preparations for a hyperspace jump.
Tan'ya quickly sent an order to the crew of the drop ship. "Lieutenant, disembark the rest of the men, asap."
Quickly, all remaining members of Tan'ya's team boarded the enemy ship, and secured themselves to the walls with climbing harnesses attached to their combat rigs.
"Dropship, C-3 is about to accelerate to hyperspace, detach now."
There was a shocked pause from the other end. "Your Highness, we can't leave-"
"That's an order, Lieutenant. Confirm my last."
"Confirmed, Your Highness."
The dropship detached, and there was a sudden sharp decompression. All the air in the mess and the surrounding halls was vented into space. The bodies of the defeated pirates were gruesomely sucked out into the void, bones breaking where they collided into each other and the edges of the hole. The power of the vacuum jostled at the House Guard secured outside the mess, but because they were all attached with their climbing lines, no one suffered more than a few bruises.
Once the pressure had subsided and the mess hall was exposed to nothing but vacuum, the House Guard carefully unclipped themselves and moved forward in synchronized, careful steps, never being detached from a wall at any point.
The next room over, more pirates were gathering, blasters aimed at the door to cut down Tan'ya and any of her men that came through the door. She almost felt sympathy for them when she cut a hole in the door, and immediately the room they were in began to vent.
The ancient lightsaber itself was only barely kept under Tan'ya's control with a supreme effort in the Force, being right over the high pressure area where the gasses were rushing out.
When Tan'ya cut the final piece of the door away, there was no one left inside to fire on her. They'd all heard the alarms blaring and fled to the armory to find pressurized suits.
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Apparently, chapters write themselves faster when Power Stones are involved. Who knew? Feel free to test the theory go ahead, toss a few my way.
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