Lightly defended indeed.
Ranko tugged on the corner of her Imperial dress tunic, hating the fit and the grey color, but acknowledging the necessity if they were to succeed in this scheme.
Her brother's audacity amazed her. Using her small freighter as bait, they had ambushed twelve of the Empire's customs ships, taken them without a sound as his Marauder filled the local bands with jamming even as troops hidden in her cargo bay had spilled aboard the surprised vessel, then time after time vanishing into space, executing the raids in already dangerous zones widely separated so the ships' losses would be dismissed, in areas where the brief fights could not be witnessed.
He assured her the Empire sometimes lost twelve customs ships a week in some of the more turbulent systems, especially close to Hutt space, where criminals and their activities grew far more blatant.
Corvettes, even Corellian ones, were more than enough deterrent to the type of pirate who could destroy a customs ship barely larger than the light freighters they harassed. And having both been on the other side of this, both Jedi knew the types of defensive security on the convoy ships wasn't up to repelling what the twins were now attempting - precisely because this kind of raid hadn't occurred during the years, even the declining years, of the Old Republic.
The Hutts were mostly concerned with smuggling, slavery, and loan sharking because those were things they could do safely, with the Republic, and now the Empire, turning a well-bribed eye away from them.
Open piracy was another matter. At least it was on this scale.
Her two Dreadnoughts (that sounded so odd, HER Dreadnoughts) had met up with the convoy, supposedly to escort them through a sector of dirty space where, they told the freighters, a group of malcontents had been sighted by sector patrols, and were now a danger until they could be rooted out. The convoy had accepted their presence gladly, without protest.
It was all so easy it felt dishonest. Um, it WAS dishonest. But it worked.
The main spring was in place, now all the trap needed was the trigger. And that was already here in the form of Ranma's Marauder, claiming to be a customs patrol (with codes lifted from the captured patrol ships), having just stopped them short of a nebula for a routine inspection of their cargo.
The little craft they'd captured, filled with their own troops in Imperial uniform, were already on their way to each ship in the convoy. Overstuffed with armed men, they could take the transports easily. Then it was her job to cow the escorting corvettes under her guns so they gave up and surrendered.
If they did that, the whole convoy could be taken and simply vanish. The whole shipment was likely to be written off as a hyperspace mishap and forgotten while they dropped the crews onto a forgotten colony world where they could integrate into a native population so primitive they relied on black powder weapons and heated wood and plaster houses with methane gas.
A hard life, but better than death or prison.
If anything got away to tell of this, the Empire would hunt them more diligently than they'd ever run after a lone Jedi. It was a terrible risk to everyone involved in this operation, and if discovered could lead to the end of their cause before it had really begun. But since the Emperor had deactivated the Holonet, there was no hyperspace communications. Something would actually have to get away in order for word of this attack to escape.
Ranko sweated, fingering her uniform collar uncomfortably.
Unlike handheld blasters, turbolasers could not be set to stun. It required ion guns to disable a ship without destroying parts of it. Her brother's fleet presently had no ion guns, no tractor beams, and should these freighters try to escape there was little she could do except blow any who attempted it to pieces. She hoped that it didn't come to that.
See other episodes by Lionheart
(Posted Wed, 04 Jun 2003 22:29)
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