Blazing a Trail

[TGE Naval Officer]

The star destroyer Nightmare cruised through space, its ion engines powering the monolothic craft through the void of the Viridia system.

Commodore Thylus Drahm squinted in the relative darkness of his command bridge, as he examined a holographic situation map of the two planets closest to the scout group. The entire task force had engaged passive sensors only, and engineering sections had been instructed to reduce available power to nonessential systems for the duration. This was a stealth mission, and it would perhaps be compromised if they were detected.

"Lieutenant, are the drobe droids ready for launch?" his question was directed to the human in his thirties standing at the Operations console, six meters below in the crew pit. He had stony facial features and a neutral gaze, never seeming to show any undue emotion or voice any opinion which had not been requested.

Which was why he would never make it past the rank of Lieutenant.

His lack of passion aside, he turned away from the crewman whose shoulder he leaned over, and looked up at the flag officer on the command deck.

"Sir, coordinates have been locked into the probot capsules for all planets in this system. The task force has signaled us; they stand ready to launch."

"Excellent," replied Commodore Drahm, who turned away from the Lieutenant in the crew pit and headed for the small refresher station built into a panel on the bridge. He took a look at the choices available to him, and decided to avoid the synthcaff today. The galley droids seemed to harbor a vendetta against him, for some reason. Or perhaps the Imperial Navy simply did not put enough of a budget into caff; the workhorse of the galaxy's armed forces.

He walked away from the refresher panel with a cup of Ardellian hot tea, which rested atop a white saucer. He returned to the station just atop the Crew Pit, and, upon the pressing of a button, signaled the rest of the task force. Shortly afterwords, the translucent blue images of six Captains in the Imperial Navy hummed into existance on the bridge of the star destroyer.

"Captains, launch the droids."


In the void of space, outside of the protective armored hulls of the stealthy star cruisers, hundreds of capsules were jettisoned. Attitude jets fired, aligning the capsules appropriately with the courses issued to them by their motherships. The capsules sped off, hundreds of small ion engines firing in a spectacle of light and fury.

[TGE Naval Officer]

Simultaneously, in the Melnak Sector.

"This is a fine place you have here," commented Flag Captain Thydius Morahn. His gaze passed from girl to girl, as he examined each voluptuous...was that one a true brunette? Only one way to find out.....

He strode towards the woman, and with a brisk yank, separated her from her toupee. He adjusted the Cigarra in his mouth, then looked on at her figure. He couldn't see why she'd have chosen to wear such a blatantly ugly hairpiece.

"Not bad, Lew," he called to the Pimp in the other room.

"Say, sister, what's your name? His question was directed to the prostitute.

"Yer'hin'ha," she responded with a different, although still human, accent, subdued fire in her eyes. She would do it, but by the Gods, she was never going to like it. They walked together to a room which appeared to have beared the brunt of the Galactic Civil War all by its lonesome; he half-expected the conform-bed to have solidified, for if looks were any indication, it was probably older than Odan-Urr.

He lay down on the bed anyhow, as it was better than standing up. When "Yer'hin'ha" gave him an inquisitive look, he pointed at the part he wanted paid attention to. She knelt, her mouth opened, wailing a shrill, high-pitched sound.

BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!! BEEP!!

He lashed out, smashing the snooze button- and presumably, the alarm, too-, with his fist. Annoyed, he mumbled for a few seconds about the inadequacies of Imperial sleeping pills and lack of shore leave, then visited the refresher and donned his Captain's uniform. Today, it was his job to save the galaxy again...or something to that effect.

"Good morning, Captain," said Commander Vladt, his Executive Officer, as he walked into the bridge.

"Rahn, until I get my caff, consider me indisposed. That includes vocalizations...which probably includes me talking right now...Rahn, do me a favor and shut up for two minutes."

"Shutting up, sir," Commander Rahn Vladt let a smirk escape. He enjoyed discombobulating his Commanding Officer...when he was in the mood to be discombobulated, that is.

"So Rahn," the Captain started as he balanced the caff filler in one hand, and his caff mug in the other. "Anything appear on the big board that I should know about?" He sipped at the mug as he traveled to the large holographic situation map.

"Everything is in the green, Captain. We go to passive-stealth mode in five minutes, and five minutes after that, we drop out of hyperspace along with the rest of the scout group, dispatch the droids, make sure everything appears green, and go merrily on our way."

Thydius put an arm on Rahn's shoulder. "Rahn, you're a genius. Let's just hope that your two-bit plan doesn't get us all killed."

The Executive Officer bowed, and that same familiar smirk appeared yet again. "Thank you sir, I try."

The time passed quietly after that. As the ship entered passive-stealth mode, all shipwide active scanners were deactivated, and passive scanners were activated. There were announcements from the intercom to the effect that all personal holotransceivers traffic was disallowed momentarily. The refresher units shut off, and the lights dimmed, while the gun turrets and warhead clusters powered on. Five minutes more and the ominous tunnel of hyperspace became regular space. The Bilbringi System

A few moments later, a message was received from the crew pit. "Sir, the scout group is signaling: they have dispatched their probe droids."

"Likewise, launch our probe droids, and signal the scout group to await confirmation that the droids have landed and begun sending data."

"Aye, sir."

[TGE Naval Officer]

Simultaneously, in the Iczer Sector.

Commodore Asceris Braniet rested back into his seat onboard the Star Destroyer Death Advocate. It had been close to a day since the expeditionary group departed from Balmorra loaded with probe droids, scanners tweaked to the pinnacle of perfection. He could only assume that they would soon be arriving at their destination.

"Sir, we have entered the Iczer sector." A young man called out to the Commodore, his face not leaving the controls. Only his well pressed uniform was visible to the man he was addressing. "Currently approaching Verdanth at a trajectory of 34.3267."

Braniet cleared his throat and stood to approach the view port, looking at the small star in the distance. "Have we detected long range sensor sweeps?" His gloved hands rested upon the rail in front of him.

"No, sir. Shall I prepare the droids for launch?" The young Lieutenant finally turned around, his face looking very similar to Admiral Zorin Hexes', his hair blonde and thin, his eyes like two ice-cold pools of blue water.

"Yes... relay the message to the rest of the group immediately. As soon as the droids are prepared, they are to be released and a course for Yablari is to be set." The Commodore stepped away from the view port and walked back to his chair, glancing at a few details that were available about each planet. Verdanth was a jungle planet, making it the prime suspect in the sector for any kind of enemy operations base to be erected. "Keep sensor sweeps at minimal. We don not wish to be alert any of our neighbors. Understood?"

"Yes sir, as you wish." Lieutenant Kayles Hexes turned around at the controls, taking up his assigned tasks and relaying messages via encrypted channels. He personally thought it unwise that the Commodore shunned the use of holo-projectors for communication, but he assumed that the man must have his reasons.

[TGE Naval Officer]

The darkness of space lent the small group excellent cover. As Lieutenant Kayles finished the last of his confirmations, the darkness was shattered but for a brief instance. Like a mass of spores swept into the winds, all of the ships in the small group launched forth their probes. A passing ship would have easily thought that a quarter of the crew had jettisoned in escape pods... but what had been sent off into the far reaches of the Iczer Sector was not a fleeing stream of crew members abandoning their ship.

They had sent forth mechanical heralds of the Empire's glorious might. The probe droids adjusted their trajectory according to their chosen destinations, and then vanished in small broken trails of light. Within a few minutes they were no longer visible on sensors. "Commodore," the young Lieutenant’s voice broke the silence, "all ships have successfully launched probes. Our course has been altered, upon your order, to bring us into probing proximity of Barab I."

"Very well." Commodore Braniet ran his gloved right hand along his chin, considering the statistics that Intelligence had given him. Barab I was home world to a race of skilled trackers... Barabels, as they were called. The droids would be easily found if they landed in areas with flourishing wildlife. "Have the probe droids' directives altered. They are to avoid contact with humanoid life forms at all costs." It's unlikely that The Sith Empire would make any sort of attempt to disguise a base there, in any case.

"Yes... Commodore Braniet." The Lieutenant's eyes were laced with insult as he resumed his duties. He could easily have orchestrated this entire search in half the time, and with a much higher level of efficiency. Perchance there would be a promotion in store for him soon.

[TGE Naval Officer]

Imperial Warship Guild-class Nightmare_
Registry 4CM-004-87-3782_
Commodore Thylus Drahm_
Admiral's Log_

04-14-82 of our Emperor's calendar.

It has been six days since our Scout Group departed the Viridia system with negligable search results from the probe droids. The supply ship Thasius arrived early to-day to replenish our supplies of short-term consumables and additional arakyd units. As of several hours ago, we have arrived in the Oplovis sector. Hopefully our mission here will be productive.


There was a rapping at the door, and Commodore Thylus Drahm lowered his cup of Ithorian Green tea to respond.

"Enter."

The door swished open vertically, and Lieutenant Velas stared half dumbfounded at the announcer button.

"Is it broken?" The Kandor asked, scratching at his arm as his albino skin adjusted to the ambient lighting of the room.

"No, Lieutenant Velas, it is not broken. I simply prefer to remove all superfluous gadgetry from my command chambers. You have a report for me?"

"Yes, Commodore. Scout group reports it has launched the probe droids. Observation is relaying the status of the group, you can observe them on flag-channel Theta."

"Thank you, Velas. Dismissed."

With that, the Kandor spun on his heel and returned to the bridge. Commodore Drahm programmed the necessary settings into his desk holo-unit, and in an instant a display flickered to life, consisting of four view cubes, each representing a perspective view from the lead probe droid's hyperspace capsule. Drahm's eyes meandered to the view cube in the bottom right hand corner, and he suddenly felt very melancholy.

"At least we'll have gathered scientific data on the Codru-Ji," he muttered.