The Awakening

The hall stood empty save for a dozen individuals in dark cloaks. Silent sentinels stood guard around the twelve seated in a circular pattern. An empty throne stood at one end of the spherical chamber, raised above the platform where the twelve stood their ground. The doors opened to reveal a similarly but more simply clad individual approaching the thirteen chairs.

"Acolyte, you stand before the Emperor. Your training has come to an end. Herein begins your service to the true Galactic Emperor."

The figure knelt before the empty throne and lowered his hood revealing a gaunt, pale face with dark patches for eyes as if he had not slept in days. A full set of silvery white hair cropped his otherwise white skin. Some of the twelve hissed in distaste. Near-Human he may have been, but the acolyte who had overcome his last trials this day was an alien nonetheless.

"Mettius Herron, you have been found worthy."

The Umbaran youth was no more in his twenties, for years he had trained in the dark side of the force. In secret, trained and indoctrinated by the Inquisitors from Prakith, tested by the Dark Jedi agents of the Emperor and his apprentice, Darth Vader. While the famous individuals may have never remembered his face and name, he remembered being witness to their presence. Darth Sidious and Darth Vader had blessed him with their presence. He had even been noticed by the Dark Lords of the Sith themselves at one point, though they would hardly remember.

"I, Mettius Herron, hereby swear my eternal fealty as a Dark Side Adept, in the service to the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious!"

"We, the Emperor's eternal servants, hereby hear your oath!"

The doors on the other side opened to the youthful figure of the clone body of the Emperor. The Twelve knelt before their Lord and Master, Mettius Herron knelt lower, so much so he felt his ribs begin to crush before the strength of his raised right knee. The pain was a welcome feeling as was the pressure to keep his head down low.

"Rise, my young acolyte. From this day forth, you shall be my agent. Prove yourself worthy of your status and power, and be rewarded when the Galaxy is reforged in my image. Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. You shall join your brothers to become the instrument of our vengeance against the Jedi and the Galaxy!"

"Your will be done, my Lord and Master, my Emperor!"

Several Months Later
Roche Asteroid Field
Modified Carrack Class Cruiser The Void Reaver

“Captain, all hands report ready.”

The bridge of the Carrack class Cruiser had seen better days. Smoke from narcotics as well as incense filled the crowded chamber as half dozen men with mismatched clothes sat at their stations. Behind them, on a command chair clearly ripped out from a different ship, sat an Umbaran man who definitely did not belong. While the unshaven scruffy look of the men at this man’s command definitely looked the part and fit in with the general décor of the bridge, the Umbaran wore a finely tailored tunic of coal grey with dull golden collar and cuff designs embroidered into the silken fabric. He had his grey-white hair combed neatly back showing off his wide forehead and his dark sunken eyes appeared as if he suffered from insomnia much like the rest of his race. Bored blue-grey eyes peered down at the first mate as he clasped his silver chalice filled half way with crimson wine.

“Very well, now I guess it is the waiting game, Mr. Moregun.”

The pair did not even hide their Imperial accents. The first mate was dressed more like an armoured soldier ready for war. Clad in medium armour for his torso, his legs were protected only by light paddings and an equally light padded skirt open at the front to allow for excellent mobility. His arms were hardly protected but his forearms were covered with a long skirt of his gauntlets. A blaster pistol and a miniature flechette launcher were holstered at his waists while two short vibroblades crossed at his back. A giant specimen of a human male, he was just short of seven feet tall and had difficulty around the smaller blast doors of the vessel. Nonetheless, as the ship’s chief enforcer and leader of boarding actions, there was no finer a first mate.

It only took several minutes before the sensors began to light up and the crew was onto the task at hand. While a normal Carrack had a crew complement of over a thousand individuals, the Void Reaver, or affectionately shortened by the crew to “Reaver” sported only half that number, of whom nearly two hundred of them were boarders. The energy of the reactor that had been freed up from no longer needing the compartmentalised life support of these areas had been rerouted into providing the energy for five military grade quad-laser cannons. The Reaver had thus managed to accommodate not only the ten heavy turbolasers, five tractor beams and twenty ion cannons; they also had technically refitted the twenty laser cannons into five quad-turrets to deal with starfighters if necessary. Furthermore, five I-7 Howlrunners were docked in fighter racks outside on the neck of the cruiser’s hull, covered and protected from glancing shots with welded together armour shields that could be removed if required.

Such an impressive platform of firepower was marred only by the sorry state of maintenance. Their line of work was not a profitable engagement and they could not ask for the previous owner of the vessel to help supply and maintain the ship. Military grade goods were hard to come by and what they had earned thus far on the ship’s coffers had been used to cover for the painful experience they had in the early days of their business against starfighter escorts.

The Action VI transport they had found was a juicy prey indeed. Fresh from the spaceport of Nickel One, it presumably was packed full of Verpine export products. An easy prey by any account, the nature of the asteroid field made escape into hyperspace impossible while the interference of the asteroids made long distant communications difficult at best. As a result, a loss of communications due to jamming was unlikely to raise suspicion.

“Mr. Moregun, where are your manners? Fly our colours.”

“Aye, captain. Display colours!”

Armour plating on all sides of the vessel, save aft where the engines were, slid away to reveal the ebon death’s head with crimson fangs. Blue stars hauntingly peered out from the empty eye sockets. The faster Carrack quickly approached the transport ship.

Roche Asteroid Field
The Void Reaver

It all happened so quickly the Umbaran almost spilled the rest of his wine. One moment, they were swooping down on their defenceless prey, the next moment that very same Action VI transport had retracted some of their own armour plating to reveal hidden cannons. The initial volley took them more by surprise than damaged them and from his lofty seat, the Umbaran captain looked down in mild surprise but the same bored frown on his features.

His eyes did widen in the closest the crew had seen in weeks of what would equate to surprised terror, when the sides of the sleek Action VI opened up to reveal not one, not two, but six torpedo tubes.

“Have the quads shoot those warheads down! Tractor beams to target the warheads to fly at a given trajectory!! Turbolasers and Ion Cannons to target their engines and weapons systems!!! And by the bloody void, take evasive action!!!!”

The pirates did not need a repeat of the commands. Even before their captain had screamed the last commands, they had implemented everything and they were flying straight to the back of the Action VI. The Sublight engines damaged their forward shields ever so slightly but some adjustments in the energy disposition fixed that issue.

The torpedo tubes were dealt with in short order once the shields had gone down. For all their money invested in weapons, they had invested precious little in their shield generators and their reactors. The weapons were not even military grade and they had stored too much onto their hulls, the reactor was having a difficult time actually feeding all of them. Some of the turrets just sputtered and died on their own accord as if out of ammunitions while the engines began to flicker in places.

Less than a minute of concentrated fire and the transport was dead in space. The Reaver hovered over to one of the airlocks and attached itself onto the smaller transport’s hull.

“Mr. Moregun, if you will not mind.”

The first mate made a vicious smile as he made his way out of the bridge. As the second in command, Aggot Moregun was the man who commanded the two hundred odd cut throats. Together, they were in charge of doing the dirty business of boarding, commandeering and looting their targets.

Murdering anyone who got in the way. Well, they also murdered anyone who looked at them funny…and the ones who they didn’t like the look of…

Any ship that resisted their assault met the same fate. Women would be tortured and raped. Men would be killed or maimed. As a universal matter of the crew, the sentence was decimation. One in ten surviving crew members after surrender was always executed in cold blood unless they surrendered before boarding. The Umbaran Captain’s policy for the crew did not extend to passengers or guests of the ships they assaulted. If they were women, they were more likely raped anyways and the Captain did not discourage the deed. Their fingers and ears were just as likely to be lopped off with their jewellery. But none of the passengers were to be killed under any circumstances after surrender. Sure, some collateral damage was tolerated, but executions were uncalled for.

Anything of value that was not welded to the bulkheads were torn out and stolen. Jewellery often came with the original owner’s body part as well. The sorting through of the goods they collected was left to the capable hands of the Quartermaster, Andera Bonette. A jittery Neimodian who was left alone in such a degenerate ship thanks to his close nature with the captain himself. Many in the crew was surprised anyone, even an alien would name a male Andera. Bonette was good with numbers and he was an excellent judge of value in inanimate objects. No one doubted his abilities on the ship and even better, none of them believed he was brave enough to cheat them on their shares.

Mettius Herron, the newest pirate captain and commander of the Void Reaver, sat back and relaxed as he used the armourcams of his crews’ to monitor the progress of the raid. As an inherent businessman, he abhorred violence…but no one believed him nowadays.