STS. LOG-016. (Patreon)

LOG-016.The blast shutters slammed down across the Persecutor's bridge with a metallic roar, one after the other locking into place as durasteel plates sealed off the transparisteel viewports, preserving him and his screw from the vacuum of space."Shutters are confirmed sealed, captain! We're locked in!"Malek didn't answer the report from one of the lower crew pits. Instead, he simply held his position in the center of the command platform, back straight and eyes fixed ahead, almost as though he could still see the battle through the metal.But at this point, he didn't need to, did he? Because the firing had stopped. That, more than anything else, was the confirmation he needed of what was to come.The ring of ships that had once kept their distance, now surrounding them in near silence, had every opportunity to finish the battle. And yet there were no turbolasers, no missiles, no ion blasts to speak of.He could feel practically it in the deck plates. The tension filling the air as he keyed into his vessel's internal comms network with a single hand, words coming out in a low growl."...Attention, all decks."His voice echoed across the bridge, crisp and measured, just as it was no doubt echoing throughout every other inch of the hull."This is your captain. Regrettably, the Persecutor has been disabled, and I have strong reason to believe we are about to be boarded. Allow me to repeat myself. Enemy forces are likely en route as I speak. Defensive positions are to be held at all critical junctions. This ship is not to be surrendered. No quarter is to be given. For the Empire."He clicked off the line and turned away from the console, walking with slow, deliberate steps across the bridge as the crew worked around him in varying degrees of panic.The comms officer looked pale. The tactical stations were fluctuating between red and outright black on several screens. One of the junior sensor techs was hunched over her console, murmuring something under her breath and tapping through several unresponsive buttons. They were all relatively fresh graduates, clearly unsuited for something like this.For just a moment, Malek wished he still had his old clone bridge officers, before shoving the thought aside as his second in command, commander Drel (at least one man he could count on), stepped up behind him. The clone soldier was sweating, slightly. The dampness around his collar said as much."What do we do now, sir? The fleet's not firing any more. They've surrounded us as well. No backup, no signal out. We're-""Not dead yet." Malek cut him off sharply. "But…we have lost. Anyone who can't see that has no place on this deck."There was a collective pause from everyone present at that, even as the captain took one more step forward, lowering his voice just enough that the bridge crew had to strain to hear it."Whoever is leading that fleet isn't a pirate. And they aren't some malfunctioning droid either. This was far too coordinated, and I...got damn well played because of it. As it stands, we're very likely not dealing with a broken relic of the war. There's an enemy admiral at work here."He turned, sweeping his gaze across the crew pit."Which means that it is of even higher imperative that the Persecutor not fall into their hands."The silence that followed, to his steadily building consternation, wasn't that of obedience, but dread. At least up until a single voice broke out from the left side."Sir, please..." Children. Kriffing children. Though what was he supposed to expect from a bunch of glorified trainees riding on the wings of nepotism?Smothering a scowl, Malek turned to find one of the officers (one lieutenant Voss to be specific) on her feet, cap off and eyes wide, trembling just enough to be noticeable. "I...I'm not dying for this ship, sir. I-I joined the fleet to serve the people of the Empire, not to get executed by droids. We should surrender. Please. We're-"He drew his blaster, a quiet click filling the silence as the charge primed. "You will die for this ship because you serve the Empire, girl."Malek raised it slowly, leaving the barrel pointed straight at her forehead. The crew didn't move as Voss's breath hitched, though she didn't plead again as his finger began to squeeze-"Captain!" The comms officer called out sharply.He didn't lower the blaster, though he did pull his finger off of the trigger."...Yes?""We're being hailed, sir! From one of the Munificents. What...what are your orders?"The entire bridge seemed to freeze, Malek's arm remaining raised for a second longer…and then, reluctantly, he lowered the weapon, though he settled on avoiding holstering it, at least for the moment."Put it through. Let's hear what this Separatist bastard has to say."—I stared at the holographic image of the old man doubtlessly in charge of my target, remaining still even as he visibly recoiled at the sight of me."Greetings, captain. I am fleet commander Spyder, and on behalf of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I offer you the chance to parlay."His moustache quivered in what I could only presume was anger. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Kalani nod as the dozen or so sheathipede shuttles we'd deployed (each one filled to the brim with BX commando droids) to head to the bridge continued to make their way under the cover of an ever shifting swarm of Vultures.The quartet of C-9979 landing craft currently sauntering up to different parts of the capital ship also probably took up a fair bit of attention."...Parlay? PARLAY!? I'LL HAVE NO PARLAY WITH A STARS DAMNED SEPARATIST WAR MACHINE!"Tilting my head at the visibly ageing man's puffed up face, I nodded and raised my voice slightly."Understood. Attention all bridge members of the now disabled Victory class Imperial star destroyer. I propose an unconditional surrender. If you disagree with your captain's assessment, this is now the time to engage in a mutiny. If you are united, I wish you luck in the battle ahead. Know that those that assist in the capture of your vessel and its captain will be treated most favourably compared to those who don't..."Said captain visibly twitched at my words, a disbelieving chuckle escaping his throat as he prepared to presumably hurl another set of insults at me-"KRIFF THIS!"-only to be forced to duck as a female voice screamed, the sound of a blaster firing off quickly escalating into an entire brawl as the bridge (what was visible of it, at least) descended into chaos.The comm link cut out right as a pair of similarly uniformed men rammed into each other, one of them trying to reach for the admiral while the other attempted to stop him.…Rather convenient, that. I hadn't really been expecting it to work-"An intriguing strategy, I would not have considered using the Imperials' own desire to persist against them."I turned to regard my fellow super tactical droid for a long moment, before waving a hand nonchalantly."A fear, and thus attempted avoidance, of death is a core biological trait that can be found amongst most organic species. People, as it turns out, tend to not want to die."Turning to stare back at the slightly drifting Victory, I allowed my hands to link together behind my back."Status of the commandos? I calculate that the mutiny will not succeed without assistance."Kalani's optics almost seemed to gleam in the dim light of Guardian's bridge as he gestured towards a specific point of the disabled hulk."Breaching is currently in progress."—The Persecutor's bridge had officially devolved into an active combat zone, as blaster bolts slammed into consoles, scorched deck plating, and the occasional crewmember foolish enough to raise their head at the wrong moment.Half the crew had taken cover behind their stations, naturally. Returning fire in short, panicked bursts. The other half was advancing between columns and guardrails, firing back just as desperately.Several bodies already littered the command pit. One had fallen across the navigation console, a clean bolt having cored through him from behind, fingers still twitching against a slowly blackening screen. Another was slumped near the holotable, eyes wide, smoke curling from the inside of his cap.Malek felt numb.He stood at the center of it all, blaster still in hand, but no longer raised. Just watching in the way that someone might watch their own house burn down, perhaps after locking the doors from the inside."Suppressing! Suppressing-MOVE!" Someone screamed from below as another volley cracked across the pit.Behind him, the blast doors shuddered under repeated impacts. Shouting echoed from the other side, clone voices, raised in confusion and rage. Orders were being given, boots were moving fast as the exterior security team realised what was happening.They were trying to force their way in, good soldiers that they were. They wouldn't succeed.Lieutenant Voss had made it to the panel in time, the controls scarred by glancing fire, but still intact. She'd been covered by two of her fellow mutinous officers, both laying down wild arcs of return fire while she punched in the emergency override with shaking hands.The doors had sealed just as the helmet of the old ARC trooper Malek had had the pleasure of serving with throughout most of the war came into view, his hand raised in a futile attempt to order them to stop.Now they were alone.Cut off from the rest of the ship. Locked inside the nerve center of a dying vessel, surrounded by enemies from both without and within, Malek exhaled through his nose.More fire. More screams. Someone fell from the upper catwalk, hitting the deck hard with a crunch of flesh and a half formed curse. Another officer threw down his standard issue blaster pistol and tried to run, only to be gunned down mid step by someone crouched near the comms station.And then, all at once, the firefight paused, because the ceiling had just rattled.Not from stray fire, but rather from a sound, a deep, bassy, and close sound. Too close. A muffled detonation, somewhere above them, followed by a long, dragging screech of metal being torn asunder.Malek's head turned as Drel, still crouched near the side rail with blood coating his right hand, slowly stood and looked up at the ceiling above the bridge's rear wall, then turned to Malek with dawning horror."…The maintenance shafts." He warned with a voice so low that it may as well have been a whisper. "The dorsal vent shafts, has to be…they're-"Another blast cut him off, louder this time. Closer.The lights flickered as what little dust existed within the bridge rained down from the panel seams above them. One of the few loyal junior officers stared up, mouth open.Then the ceiling groaned.Malek's jaw clenched as he quickly lifted his blaster again, just in time to hear the sound of metal being peeled.—Lieutenant Ryn Voss had never really wanted to be an officer. That part was important.Not because it excused anything of course, or made what she was about to do any less treasonous, but because it explained the sheer speed of it.Her mother had served in the Republic's makeshift navy, long before the war. She'd been working logistics, planetary route mapping and various other minor clearance work. It was nothing glamorous, but it was respectable. Service with a smile. She'd talked about it constantly when Voss was a child. How the Republic had stood for justice, for peace, for structure.How, if the right people stayed in power, the galaxy could be civil again.And then the war happened. And then the Empire happened.And then Voss, top of her academy class in communications, got her commission sealed by the same admiralty board that had since ordered the planetary bombardment of several neutral worlds. There hadn't been a choice, not really.You don't say no when someone offers your family a position under a regime that disappears your fellow graduates for less.So she'd saluted. She'd served. She'd done the job, glad that she was at least working at some backwater system fighting off little more than pirates, it had been far easier to lie to herself that way, after all.And now here she was, kneeling behind a dead ensign's console, fingers white knuckled around a half spent blaster pistol, watching as two junior officers bled out against the forward rail after covering her mad dash to the blast door controls.Captain Malek was still yelling. That part hadn't changed. Someone was still firing in the lower pit. The bridge still smelled like scorched plastoid and ozone.She didn't want to die here.But more than that…she didn't want to serve here.Not like this. Not for this. She was a soldier of the Galactic Republic, damn it all! Not the Empire currently feeding and growing off of its corpse!Another blast sounded from above, interrupting her thoughts. It was louder this time, likely owing to the fact that its source was getting further into the ship.For just an instant, a single beat of silence passed. Then the ceiling screamed with the shriek of plasma cutters biting into deck plating, and she realised with a sudden, cold clarity that the boarders Malek had warned of were here, cutting into their vessel's bridge from above. There was a flicker of motion across the vent access. Then another. Then-The bridge cracked open.It wasn't anything like the holofilms. There was no dramatic explosion, no heroic leap. Just a single hole, clean and perfectly round, burned through the ceiling near the command platform. A pair of blackened feet dropped through it with mechanical ease, followed by a slender, dark plated form.And then another.And another.She recognised the shapes immediately. Everyone who'd seen the war footage did.BX series commando droids.They moved faster than she could track, dispersing with a brutal efficiency that almost reminded her of some of the clone veterans aboard the ship. One dropped into the crew pit. Another landed near the nav console. A third levelled its weapon from the upper platform and fired a blue stun bolt into the chest of a screaming technician before he could even turn.Voss froze for less than a second...then she stood, arms raised, blaster still in hand, but angled away from the watching machines.And with deliberate, shaking fingers, she opened it, ejected the power cell, and let both fall to the deck."I'm done!" She declared as loudly as she could, stepping forward and praying that she hadn't made a mistake in trusting a bunch of war droids to understand the concept of mercy.A fellow mutineer near the far stairwell hesitated, then followed suit, throwing his weapon down and kneeling."I'm done too!"Good, there was momentum now."Stand down!" She called over the chaos, voice raw. "They've taken the bridge, stand down!"Someone tried to shoot anyway. She was fairly certain the blaster had been aimed at the side of her head, but a stun bolt dropped them instantly.Another screamed and fled behind the holotable. Two more followed her lead, dropping their own blasters and raising their hands.The shouting quickly faded. Malek's voice, still barking from somewhere near the command dais, was cut off by the heavy thump of a stun shot landing square against something no doubt expensive.A droid with markings making it stand out from the rest stepped towards her a second later, its carbine levelled but seemingly as relaxed as a machine could get, optics tracking the remaining crew."Remain where you are. Assistance will arrive shortly."The sound of the security team beginning to cut their way through the doors outside drew the attention of the commando, who gestured several of its fellows forward.Voss didn't move, and she didn't speak as half of the breaching team moved to begin restraining the survivors or guard the entrance, while the other half took up positions at vacant control consoles and stations.She just knelt among the smoke and silence and thought, very quietly, how strange it was that it had been the Separatists, of all people, who ended up making her feel like less of a traitor to her own Republic.