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Back on Tirahnna, K-LOK entered the Great Room with urgency and blurted out the following before Lord Rexor could even speak: “MASTER, THE VARMIN SPIES HAVE LOCATED TIRAHN AND THE STOLEN ENGAGER ON A PLANET CALLED KREIGA AND ARE HEADING BACK TOWARDS WHEREVER LORD KALORE IS HIDING. ONE OF THEIR SHIPS IS ATTEMPTING TO LAUNCH A TRACKING DEVICE BUT OTHERS ARE IN PURSUIT OF A BOTHAN CRAFT CARRYING A CODED MESSAGE FOR THE WHILLS CONCERNING THE SLAYER. THE VARMINS HAVE ASKED FOR SITH ASSISTANCE IN STOPPING THAT CRAFT. YOUR ORDERS, SIR?” In the Central Processing Room the MD-13 had stopped investigating the coded tone signal and now turned all of its attention towards an awaited tracking transmission once the Viktalen shielded parasite tracker lodged into one of Engager’s engines. Lord Rexor jumped off his Levitating Throne and ordered that every completed Graven Black Raven be launched on an intercept mission to destroy the Bothan craft before it could reach Elysia. Graven Industries reported that only twenty of the Ravens were ready for launch, the other thirty fresh off the assembly lines. Lord Rexor didn’t care and ordered every Sith star fighter into the air. Graven rolled out all fifty Ravens and powered them up for flight. Factory test pilots were ordered into combat and suited up. They studied the Raven’s systems as ordnance engineers loaded fresh Nexia missiles and charged the mini T-Packs hoping that the Raven craft were ready. This took twenty minutes, and by now the Bothan Foxxer was approaching the Outer Rim. From the balcony of the Great Room Lord Rexor shouted command after command to Graven’s boss Hexor until at last he could see the Ravens in the distance slowly rise into the sky. That ship, no matter how insignificant the information she carries, must NOT reach Elysia. I will NOT have another war mission jeopardized by those meddling Bothans. That ship MUST be destroyed at all cost! Bruxus spotted the pursuing Cou-vats on his scanners and deployed drift mines from the Foxxer’s cargo hold. Several of the pursuing Cou-vats hit the mines and exploded in erupting fireballs. The strange snail-shaped Cou-vats were only lightly armed but could knock out the Foxxer’s exposed ion plasma thrust-fan engines located on either side of the swordfish-shaped starship. Bruxus was out-running them, but then his forward scanners picked up fifty Sith Black Ravens approaching the Outer Rim markers! The Sith craft are heavily armored and armed with powerful guns and missiles. I don’t have a chance against them… unless, of course- the Splinter probe com carrier! As the Cou-vats approached from behind and the Ravens from the front, Bruxus put the Foxxer on auto-pilot as he downloaded the data from the encoded disc to the Splinter probe which quickly flash copied false information into twenty-three out of twenty-four banded hypercom units contained in smaller solid-fuel driven carriers for wide dispersement. Only one hypercom unit held Tirahn’s secret. The Bothans used these in an emergency to send out secret messages. It took a minute or two, but at last the launch console lit up inside the Foxxer as Bruxus looked into space staring at the fifty brilliant flashes of light ahead of him as each Raven launched a Nexia at the Foxxer. The pursuing Cou-vats were on his tail too by now as the Foxxer had slowed and the Varmin pilots began hitting the Foxxer with bursts of pulsed laser fire. The long streaks from the Nexias came into view as the missiles sped toward their target. Bruxus waited until the Cou-vats had swarmed him and then he launched the Splinter. The advancing Ravens thought the Foxxer had launched a missile, but were perplexed as it headed straight in line, not locking onto any of their ships. “A mis-fire, reported the lead Raven test pilot, let it go”. The Nexias all locked onto the Foxxer as Bruxus last thought was of Boorma. He would soon join her in death. Just then the Nexias hit and obliterated the Foxxer plus all of the pursuing Cou-vats around her. Many of the shocked Varmins looked up to see that some of the Nexias techtrallic self-homing systems had locked onto them instead while the Foxxer’s violent explosion tore into the rest of them. So Bruxus did not die in vain… The Ravens reported the destruction of the Foxxer and the Varmins as they turned back towards Tirahnna. Boss Hexor of Graven Industries made the com call himself. Lord Rexor was pleased. All was going according to plan and soon he would discover where Lord Kalore was hiding. This was all too good to be true. The death of a world and the capture of the two Sith traitors who would die a slow painful death as Tyrenga meat. Lord Rexor himself would personally chop off Tirahn’s hair before tossing her into the Pit. All of Tirahnna would celebrate this day forever. Inside the D.A.S. Engager Tirahn was unaware that her ship was being closely followed by the Varmins best star fighter the All-Seeing Eye. It was a large ball-shaped craft with a large circular viewpoint up front and a long tubular winged thruster engine trailing the body which forked at the end. On each side of its spherical body were two powerful turbo pulser cannon outstretched like long lethal arms. Below the large view port was a launch tube pre-armed with a Sith Viktalen engine parasite. The All-Seeing Eye was slowly trying to get into the longest range possible to shoot the parasite into the Engager’s starboard engine thruster unnoticed, but the Sith craft was too fast. The Varmin pilot would have to directly engage the Sith ship which was much deadlier. But the Varmin was greedy for Rim credits, and pushed the throttles wide open for a quick attack and launch. Suddenly, the Engager’s warning alarms sounded as the Varmin craft came racing from behind. Tirahn panicked and let loose the Engager’s rear decoys as the targeting sensors aboard the All-Seeing Eye had locked onto her ship. The odd craft opened up with twin heavy turbo pulsers, hitting the decoys as Tirahn launched a Sledgehammer missile that self-actuated its homing system, turning in a wide arc back towards the Varmin star fighter. The Varmin closed to within visual range and quickly manually launched the parasite, which lodged in the starboard engine thruster and started transmitting. The Varmin pilot then dove his star fighter and turned back towards the Outer Rim. But now, the Sledgehammer was gaining on him. The auto-rotating twin turbo pulsers turned backwards and fired a continuous burst of fire as the Sledgehammer’s improved techtrallic self-homing system switched over to evasive actions. It was closing, but the fire barrage was too much and the missile was destroyed with an impact that jolted the Varmin craft. The Varmin looked down at his weapon status grid and saw that the guns were almost fully depleted with just a few more bursts left. But at least he had survived to claim his Rim credits. Or so he thought. Tirahn was discouraged when the first Sledgehammer had been destroyed and was about to turn back and engage the Varmin ship when her launch tube went hot and a second Sledgehammer launched automatically. Linking to the Engager’s targeting system the first missile’s destruction triggered an auto launch sequence and now a second Sledgehammer was firmly locked onto the Varmin craft and was pursuing with blistering speed, rapidly depleting its fuel supply as it tried to compensate for lost range. The Varmin pilot stopped gloating and stared in disbelief at his scanning console. Another missile was coming in fast and was locked onto his ship. He swung around to visually engage, but then the guns fell silent as the last few rounds were spent. The missile was now image-locked onto the forward view port and impacted with force, producing a brilliant blast of burning debris. Tirahn breathed a sigh of relief. Sensors could detect no tracking devices on her ship so she quickly used the voice-activated hyperdrive light jump system and raced back to Kytana unaware of the transmitting stealth parasite in her starboard engine thruster. On Tirahnna, the MD-13 had picked up the faint intermittent signal and kept track of its progress… when all of a sudden the transmission ended. The Engager’s light jump had jolted the parasite lodged into the thruster nozzle when the ship hit hyperspace and forced it to break transmission as it dug deeper into the thruster, inching towards the engine core. The MD-13 then picked up its resumed signal from relayed Sith SSPs ( Sector Spy Probes) in uncharted space where no planets were known to exist. The MD-13 then plotted a course for the unknown world starting from the Outer Rim markers to the origin of the first tracking transmission and then converting the continued parasite tracking transmissions into navi-processor co-ordinates. The MD-13 would have to wait for the Engager to land before making a final destination report to Lord Rexor. Meanwhile, the Splinter continued to race towards Elysia at great speed, its vital information held by one hypercom unit along with twenty three decoy units that could be dispersed to twenty three separate locations. This capability would be needed shortly.
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