Wild Space

Coming towards them was a blackened, scarred behemoth. It had the classic triangular shape of a star destroyer but Sparrow could tell the proportions were wrong.

“Ships computer has identified it as a Centurion Class Cruiser.” Said the sensor operator. “But the last one was recorded to have left the service over 2500 years ago!”

It certainly looked that old, Sparrow thought, and like it had been stored in a star for that long.

“How?” He asked the synths.

“Remember how the survivors left the battle group seeking aid? Well, Trey and Quat figured it was worth the effort to fuel up an interceptor and follow the course and heading the surviving ship took. They found it just a few systems away, orbiting a planet. Apparently, there was some kind of huge radiation flare that literally cooked everyone inside in an instant. The heat caused systems to shut down and the ship was captured by the planets gravity. It has circled that planet ever since.”

Sparrow relayed the information to the rest of them. Boba was a little irritated. “Do you mean to tell me you found an entire Sith battle group AND an old republic Battlecruiser?”

“Well,” Sparrow said bashfully, “technically, my people did.”

“I see now why you needed extra people, that thing takes a crew of thousands.” Said the clone Captain.

“Great. Do you think we can man it well enough to get this cloner group taken care of?”

“As long as we don’t run into any modern star destroyers I can’t imagine we will have too much trouble.” The Captain chuckled.

“Don’t tempt fate Captain,” Sparrow returned deadpan, “I have certainly had a bad couple of weeks.”

“I think with that big girl here we will transfer the flag and send my little cruiser on home.”

“Or just park it in a hanger bay on that monster.” Sparrow offered.

“The hanger bays are full, remember, the surviving crew of the whole group we’re salvaging went aboard.”

“Great, I hope we at least have room for the smaller ships.”

“We can eject fighters from the bays, someone can pick them up later.”

That ended up being what they did. They launched enough fighters by remote to open space to park their smaller ships and left them orbiting a nearby planet.

They transferred everyone to the Centurion, thankful that the droids had already removed evidence of the previous crew. Once they had only minimal crew left on the cruiser it headed away to go back to the clones base.

Sparrow had heard the story while they were transferring cargo and stores. The clones, more than experienced in tracking down CIS bases and hideouts, had salvaged a huge CIS base after the shutdown and grabbed not one, but two of their giant supply ships. They had then, over several years of painstaking, dangerous work, combined the two into one elongated sphere. That was their base and their home. Over the years they had salvaged, stolen, or simply seized various other ships of different types from different civilizations. At this point they had a population of thousands between newly minted clones from the few tanks they had stolen, and a “fleet” of over 100 ships.

The problem was that they were no match for the imperial remnant, so they had to park their base in out of the way systems and lived a sort of hand to mouth existence when it came to supplies.

Chess, the clone captain, and his riduur Rook Kast had been working out a plan with Jith, along with some possible smuggler help from Boba, to get a sort of supply chain set up for them. Personally, he was happy to see it, these clones seemed like good, Mandalorian people.

Seeing an opportunity he pulled Sabine aside for a minute.

“Can you get ahold of Bo for me again?” He asked her once they were alone.

“Why?”

“What in the corellian hell would I do with my 8 man, 3 synth crew to run a damn star destroyer?”

“I’m pretty sure they call this a battle cruiser.” She grinned.

“I’m pretty sure they could call it a kayak and it would still just make for a bigger bullseye on my back. I thought if I gave it to Bo she could fix it up and make it the Mandalorian flagship or something.”

“Wait! You are going to GIVE her a battle cruiser, the equivalent to a modern star destroyer, with no strings attached?”

“What strings would I even be able to attach? I suppose I could swap it for one of those gauntlets, those things are Wizard!”

Sabine burst out laughing right in his face.

“I tell you what, I will contact her and discuss it with her.”

“Thanks Sabine. If she doesn’t want it maybe your Mom will. I would give it to Jith but all that would do is bring the remnant down on the culvert.”

“what about the clones?”

“Same problem, too big a target out here in the wilds. I could take it where I plan on going with the legion, but it would just be a waste.”

“And where’s that?” she asked him.

He was just about to tell her, having decided to trust her with the info, when Omni yelled out in his head and across the ships public address system.

“Sparrow, we got a problem! Two pirate corsairs just popped into the system and they’re turning and burning to get back out!”

“Crap! Of course they are. Fire every ion cannon this bucket has until we stop them, we can’t let word get out.”

As Sparrow ran for his interceptor and called for his legionnaires the Crusader proved that it may be an old warrior but it still had punch, an absolute barrage of ion cannon fire blanketed the space around the corsairs, in seconds both had gone dark.

Sparrow met not only the combat oriented legionnaires, but also the mando strike team in the hanger. As he ran up the ramp into his ship he hollered, “Come on folks, before they get anything reset.”

He saw the clones manning a few drop ships as he headed inside the interceptor.

Once he reached the cockpit Deux extended a tendril into the control system and the engines immediately started up. He hollered back and told them to close the ramp when everyone was aboard. As soon as the light turned green Deux was lifting them and spinning them around to head out after the corsairs.

He was surprised to see Kai sitting down in the co-pilots seat.

“I’m Domi’s ride right now and also a qualified pilot. Miley is in the back with the first aid supplies.” Domi extended into the controls and Deux pulled back. Obviously the synth planned on being in the boarding party.

Sparrow headed to the back and asked if everyone’s armor was rated for open space. Two of the strike team weren’t, so they headed into the cockpit and the doors were sealed. The rest of them rigged their suits for vacuum as they reached the pirate ship.

Deux was their secret weapon, and he was coiled up on Sparrow’s forearm when he jumped from the interceptor to the top of the corsair. He headed straight for the hatch into the sealed part of the ship and when he reached it Deux dove into the controls.

A few seconds later Deux reported they were still trying to reset the main power generators and there didn’t seem to be any alerts about the legion boarders yet. Sparrow used the manual controls to open this side of the airlock and they all moved inside.

By the time the crew got the power reset two minutes later half of them had been either stunned or killed. They had worked their way to both the bridge and the brig area and were set up for a breach.

The pirate Captain ordered the ship to jump away but by the time he issued the order Deux was fully in control. Nothing the pirates did had any effect other than to distract them so when the bridge door flew open and the boarders came in fighting they were caught by surprise.

Stun blasts quickly turned to kill shots, which then degraded to vibroblades and hand to hand as they worked their way across the bridge. The mando’s were, as their people always seemed to be, a cut above the motley pirate crew but the legionnaires were legitimate monsters. Not one pirate lasted more than three passes with a legionnaire and that one was the Captain, who must have been some kind of swordsman because he took a stance and saluted with his blade when he saw Sparrow coming.

Two swipes later his head rolled onto the deck. Training was great but it didn’t replace blinding speed. Plus, Talwin had been a bit of a sword nerd as well and he had dueled with beskads with Sparrow for years.

Once the bridge was taken the remainder of the ship was swept for holdouts. The second half of the team had quickly secured the brig area. All the prisoners were let out and replaced with the stunned crewmen.

“What am I going to do with yet another ship!” Sparrow said in frustration.

“Two!” Akira cheerfully informed him, “I just talked to Mom, her, Ahsoka, and Sabine jumped a dropship and rode along to the other one, it’s ours now too!”

A check of the pirates computers, and some questioning of the survivors, revealed that this system happened to be a favorite meeting spot, and that was why they had jumped in. As soon as he heard that Sparrow had the synths unlock the fighters they had jettisoned and loaded them aboard the pirates. For some reason both corsairs had come in empty of them.

After that they agreed on a meeting spot in open space and jumped the fleet.

The first thing Sparrow did when they met up in open space was hand off one of the corsairs to Jith. She may not have wanted to tangle with the remnants of the empire but she was more than willing to go head to head with pirate clans.

The other ship he offered to Chess, but he said they already had enough ships, including several corsairs. He did request some of the smaller ships from the battle cruisers hangers though.

Boba was also interested in some smaller ships and had no interest in the corsair. He probably had some indirect dealings with the pirates anyway so it could have gotten awkward.

Luckily, the clones and mercs that were recruited for the battlegroup salvage job had formed a pretty tight team by now and they were more than happy to accept a corsair and its attached fighters as payment.

Now that he was back down to two ships to deal with, although admittedly one was rather big, he felt a bit lighter at heart.

Sabine found him a short while later and pulled him into a briefing room where Chess and his Wife, Jith and Caleb, and his whole team was waiting.

“I sure hope this is good news and not bad.” He said.

“Who wants to join the hidden house of Mandalore?” She asked the room.