Raider II-class Corvette Excidium
The Caperion System

On the deck of the Excidium, flagship of the House fleet, acting commander Captain Malice responded to the hailing frequency coming from the VT-49 Decimator Vae Victus. “This is Malice,” he said into his comlink. “I await your orders, Lord Jorm.”

“Whoa! Easy with the Lordship-stuff,” the Kiffar replied in staged shock, “It’s just Jorm.”

Malice hesitated for only a second before answering. He rarely communicated with the Force Users of House Excidium, but on occasion it did happen. And with the security encryption on the equipment, it was virtually impossible for anyone else to tap into the frequency. The message had to be coming from the House, which meant he really was speaking to one of the Lords of the House.

“Forgive me, Just Jorm,” he apologized with a tone of amusement. “What are your orders?”

“An updated Status Report would be nice.”

“Unchanged,” he replied, his voice sharp with military precision and efficiency. “The strike force is ready. We are awaiting orders to make the jump.”

“Engage,” came a third voice from aboard the Marauder-class Corvette Dagger.

“Pardon?” Malice asked, so surprised that he momentarily forgot whom he was speaking to.

“You heard me, Captain,” the casual voice of Alara Deathbane, Aedile of House Excidium, on the other end commanded. “It is go-time.”

“As you command, Lady Alara,” he answered. “We will make the micro-jump in sixty seconds.”

---

VT-49 Decimator Vae Victus
The Caperion System

Buckles snapped shut and belts pulled taut, blades sung against sheaths and energy cells clicked into sockets. A dozen hardy men and grizzled women readied for action, along with the same number of fresh-faced recruits who fought to appear calm. Four more people sat in the lounge of Vae Victus and watched the hustle and bustle, an island of calm on the edge of a storm in the making. If all went well, these four would never have to break a sweat on this trip, and it showed in their lighter equipment. A clock displayed over the table counted down the seconds and turned red.

“Jump in thirty,” one of the table’s occupants shouted into the room. The busy noise abated as the soldiers buckled down. Those who sat closest to the transparisteel bubble making up one wall of the lounge peeked out. Twelve specks of light flickered and sped away, followed by something significantly bigger. The countdown went on with merciless, slow regularity. When it finally reached zero, the stars outside stretched into stripes and gave way for the mottled grey-blue tunnel of hyperspace travel for but a moment before returning and collapsing back into hard, white pinpoints. Vae Victus returned to realspace at the edge of a battlefield.

Before the backdrop of icy Balaeron and off the starboard bow, orange and green needles darted between grey hulls whom themselves danced in a chaotic choreography. To port, an Action-IV-class transport trimmed with red accents tried to get away from the commotion and the thick green bolts that the triangular Excidium spat at it from above, stripping away the shields. A single line of crystallizing gases shot from the Raider-II-class corvette and connected with the transport, ensnaring the ship in a spiderweb of lightning. A moment later, the intercom came to life.

“Ion pulse warhead successfully deployed. Target is immobile. Boarding is a go as soon as we dock. Good hunting, raiders!” The voice belonging to Vae Victus’ commanding Lieutenant faded out, leaving place for the cheers and guffaws of its armed and armored passengers until their Sergeant, a veteran named Skinner, shut them up. Moments later they had organized into three groups and took positions.

The ship’s airlock connected to the Pearl of Nardash and off they went, guns blazing. The four people at the table got up and followed the soldiers in their desecrated Stormtrooper gear at a more sedate speed. A Human with salt-and-pepper hair and an engineer’s toolbelt turned to his bronze-skinned companion. “Doesn’t it irk you to go with them? With that ink, I’d have thought you at the forefront,” he commented the tattoo on the other man’s forearm.

Jorm Na’trej smiled a little wider at the comment. “Gotta let the young birds learn to fly, or however that proverb goes. I’m just here in case the amateurs don’t get it right. Same as you, old greaser.” The engineer chuckled. “True enough, boss. I’ll go and have a look at the engine room then. Here’s hope they haven’t shot up something vital,” he said and went on his way. Jorm and the other two, an experienced pilot a navigator, set out to join the bridge team. A few corpses littered their path, but most of the bridge crew actually still lived - with their hands folded on their heads, carefully supervised under eight barrels and twice as many hard eyes. “Smooth shipping,” Jorm not-quite-asked the Sergeant in command. The veteran nodded and continued to give one of the captured crewmen instructions. “Now you will slowly enter the hyperspace coordinates I’m going to dictate you and...” A spear of light pierced the star-spangled darkness before the Pearl, coming from the bright, white dot that was Caperion at this distance.

Static crackled in the bridge’s speakers and drowned in three monotone, brazen blasts of thunder and fury. Jorm absently noted a record of real thunder playing under the blasts, then he recognized the new arrival - and everything else became secondary.

“Dreadnaught!” The warning was all he got out before the mood on the Pearl shifted dramatically and drove warning signals up his spine. The Meraxian closest to him suddenly lurched at Jorm, a blade appearing in his hand from seemingly nowhere. “For the Emperor,” he shouted. Jorm didn’t bother with his gun. A step, snap-hiss, an angry hum, and the Meraxian fell to the floor in pieces. Other crewmen attacked their guards and were shot or clubbed down with extreme prejudice. A moment of silence hit the bridge as the last crewman fell.

“Well,” Jorm broke it, “don’t think they meant our Emperor.”

Sergeant Skinner started to speak, but the navigator cleared his throat and interrupted. “Boss? I don’t think that’s good.”

He pointed at a station labelled Communications. All the monitors were flashing red and displaying a targeting reticule. “Fraaaa... escape pods!” Jorm’s abbreviated order set the bridge moving. Skinner barked orders while Jorm grabbed the pilot by the arm and pointed at the Dreadnought, which whipped around and came their way. “Pull up this wreck’s bow! Get the hull between the bailout bullets and those guns!” Not waiting for confirmation, he cut into the operation’s general communication channel which he’d had no need for until now. “This is Na’trej. Assuming direct control.” He took a breath and let his message sink in for a moment. His people knew he was here mainly as observer, but that he could take over in a dire emergency.

That he did it told them more than words. “Excidium, come up behind the Pearl and ready the airlocks, we’ll come over in pods and use her hulk as cover. Vae Victus, grab who you can and launch. You’ve got fifteen seconds. No sitting around and getting shot. Raiders, the Sarge already told you the plan. Pickup at stern high. Go!” He glanced out of the bridge’s viewport one last time. The Dreadnaught just slipped below the lower window frame, but massive pillars of hard light streaking towards and narrowly missing the Pearl bore witness of the warship’s continued presence. Jorm filed out with his soldiers, abandoning the transport to the Meraxian gunners.

The bridge escape pod was meant for six. Eleven crowded into it, chancing everything on the shortness of the trip. Jorm personally took the controls. He overrode the boost sequence and nudged the pod from its berth with a burst of its limited maneuvering thrusters, then pointed the small craft’s spherical nose at Excidium, half a kilometer distant. Satisfied with the course, he hit the boosters for a moment. The pod shot away just as the Pearl began to tear apart. She didn’t blow up in a singular explosion - she had too much inert mass between the Dreadnaught’s onslaught and her fuel tanks. She disappeared the same war a log of wood disappears in an unshielded wood chipper - from end to end, in a splintering mess.

Only a quarter of a meter long and jagged, a piece of hull plating tumbled through space with the speed a localized explosion had imparted on it, as did a hundred others, both bigger and smaller. This specific fragment was special only in a single way. It hit something. Glancing off the escape pod’s unarmored hull, the fragment left a cut half a meter long and a few fingers wide which immediately started venting a mixture of gases that up to this point had been busy sustaining life. On the inside, orders were balked and half heard in the rush of rapidly thinning air. Jorm held his breath and shut it all out - the screams, the ruffling, the pop in his ears and the cold creeping in.

The Force was in him, keeping his body heat even and slowing the rate at which his cells started to swell and pop in the nascent vacuum. He half registered the soldiers trying to clog the tear with parts of their gear and armor, the hiss of the reserve tanks spilling atmosphere to replace the one vanishing. He forced it all into a dark corner of his mind, his pain and theirs, fear and despair, and slammed a mental door on it. Unnaturally calm hands and otherworldly perception unified to flip, brake, and dock the pod to one of Excidium’s forward airlocks. The hatches forced open, and the Kiffar tapped into his powers to pick up every body and shove them into the waiting arms of the corvette’s crew with a wave of his hands. Jorm left last, still calm beyond reason, and jettisoned the damaged pod. “Take care of them” he tasked their rescuers, and sprinted off towards the command deck. He reached it just in time to see the stars turn into lines and yield to hyperspace again. From all the eyes that caught his hasty entrance, only two pairs remained.

They watched patiently while Jorm caught his breath and snorted out half-frozen blood. “Relinquishing direct control,” he finally said, addressing the cloaked figure with ice blue eyes. The other pair, purple in a horned red face, turned away and busied themselves with the ship they oversaw.

Braecen Kaeth graced his subordinate with a slight nod. “You called it fast. We didn’t even have the Dreadnaught’s allegiance figured out when you sounded the retreat.”

Jorm’s grin got incredibly skewed, an expression as close to a scoff as it ever got. “You don’t grow my age in this line of work if you’re not ready to beat it, y’know?”

“And that experience is exactly why the mission included an override option for you,” the Quaestor replied. Jorm took a seat at the edge of the command deck to inspect his arms, completely covered in decompression bruises, and dabbed away a trickle of blood from his nose. A flicker of concentration set his body upon healing the extensive, yet light damage. “How many made it?”

The Devaronian Captain, a man who had taken the name ‘Malice’ to go with his new occupation, returned and answered for Braecen. “The engine room team made it out sound and whole. Their escape pod launched closest to us,” he reported. “Three people from the freight team made it back to Vae Victus before she took off. She escaped safely. The rest got shot down in their pod.”

Not even Jorm could suppress a frown. “And your team... early triage gives them fifty-fifty odds. Vacuum exposure is hell. You must be hardened in some way to be so fit after that trip,” the Captain concluded. Jorm ignored the man’s thinly veiled interest, seeking to understand the bigger picture instead.

“What about that Dreadnaught? It bounced right on top of us. I guess the Pearl’s crew got a signal out, but we didn't expect such a rapid reaction when we planned this.”

Braecen’s eyes wandered towards the viewport, observing the stars return, shift, and disappear again as the Excidium maneuvered to break its track. “It was the Thunderstrike, as expected. She just was a lot faster. Either the Meraxians always keep their hyperdrives spooled up and coordinates updated when they expect a somewhat important delivery like the Pearl’s purified ores, or they were tipped off,” he mused. “Both options will be thoroughly checked. What confuses me more is that they actually destroyed their own ship instead of risking our success. This kind of scorched earth approach is outright fanatical.”

“That’s the right word, boss,” Jorm supplied. “Those crewmen attacked us with little more’n bare hands as soon as they heard that warhorn. Guess Adoniram crews his ships only with folks he’s sure won’t quit.”

Braecen grimaced. “It appears that way. We must adapt to the Meraxian practices as we must adapt to all others. Where they are thunder and fury, we will be lightning and guile,” he solemnly vowed.

“Yeah, I’m sold, boss,” Jorm replied, “but right now I’m sweat and pain.” He inspected his already fading bruises. “I’ll go get a shower and catch you later. Then we’ll scheme and plot so we don’t come out empty handed again.”

He took his leave. When he finally got to turn on the hot water and washed away the grime and aches, he left his mind to clear, his demons to fall quiet, until only one thought remained. Fool me once, shame on me. Now I’ll be the one doing the fooling.

---

Marauder-class Corvette Dagger
Ulress, The Caperion System

“Un-fwec-ing believable,” the Captain swore in disbelief. The order to support the Excidium had been given, but her ship was unable to make the jump to hyperspace. Without the support of the Dagger and Specter Squadron, they had soundly lost the day. She rounded on the Navigation Officer with fire in her eyes. “What happened?”

“I-I-I’m not s-s-sure, M-m-ma’am,” he stuttered in response.

Captain Palafox drew her service revolver that hung from her right hip, lined up the barrel, and pulled the trigger. Bang! The slug thrower’s aim proved true and took the man in the temple. The proximity of the shot had enough force to throw him from his seat at his station. “You are relieved of duty, Lieutenant.”

The hailing frequency of the Excidium alerted Kara that Alara was hailing her. She nodded to the Communications Officer, “Bring it up, Lieutenant. It’s time to pay the piper.” The holo-display at the front of the bridge came up to display the Aedile, Alara Deathbane. “My apologies, Lady Deathbane. We had a malfunction in Navigation, the faulty part has since been removed.”

“I see,” she lied coolly. “Perhaps the Executor should have me aboard your vessel for the next attempt.”

“Next, Ma’am?” the Captain asked.

Kara had never seen the House resort to open piracy during the tenure of the previous Executor of House Excidium. She had hoped it was a misinformation campaign to hide their true target: a resource, a piece of lore, or a very important person. When Blade Ta’var had offered her the job, she had said they would only attack military targets – no civilians would be harmed in their actions.

“Is there going to be a problem, Captain?” A cold voice cooed from over her shoulder. The Mystic, Levi Zetta, approached from the edge of the bridge. Unlike other Kiffar, he had pale skin and messy, unkempt light brown hair. He cut an impressive figure in his black uniform with a grey overcoat as he stepped into the light.

“No, My Lord,” she quickly conceded. “I was just unaware that this sort of business had become common under new leadership.”

“With the destruction of Cocytus, we are surviving by doing whatever we have to do whenever we have to do it,” his voice carried a righteous tone. Levi had not joined the House until after the destruction of their previous home world, but he had taken to the cause all the same.

“W-what if I had a different suggestion?” Kara Palafox asked desperately. “A target that will be exactly where we want it, when we want… and that we have all the information for.”

Levi nodded. He liked lateral thinking. There were many ways to skin a nerf. No single way was considered the only way. “What do you have in mind, Captain?”

Alara chuckled over the holo-transmission. “I know exactly what she has in mind. Quite the audacious thought, Captain.”

Levi looked from Alara’s transmitted image to the Captain awaiting a response. “And that is?”

“We hit Imperium,” she said matter-of-factly.

Congratulations to Jorm Na'trej for receiving first place in Operation Sleeping Dragon: The Empty Chalice! We utilized his storyline along with other implementations from other entries to create this fiction piece. Stay tuned for our next mission in Operation Sleeping Dragon entitled Starving Gods! The competition will be set up in the next week or so depending on its approval date.