An unexpected visit

A continuation of the "new" story that began with the last post

“Attention crew of the Aggressor, this is the Captain. You’re probably all wondering why you had to dress up today. Well, I’ll tell you why. Commander Seidel is arriving in three – zero minuets. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know, but for whatever reason, his shuttle is under a top secret classification. When I give the order, I want all nonessential personnel to report to Shuttle bay Alpha Hotel Sierra. Form up by rank, and let’s give the commander a warm welcome.”

Commander Seidel was a very good friend of mine, we had gone to the Academy on Coruscant together, and most of my crew had met him as well. Although his rank was “Commander”, he was actually an Army commander, not a member of the Imperial Navy. His rank was roughly comparable to that of a Navy Rear Admiral or Vice Admiral.

“Wait…” Corporal Guendson began, “We’re…picking up something on an approach vector.” “Get me whatever visual you can,” said Lieutenant Priore, already walking to the slightly sunken navigation “pit”. “Sir,” yelled a young ensign, tearing his headphones off and wheeling around from his screen, “there’s more than one. I read at least three objects approaching our current position at mark 44.78 around the planet, speed…” he paused, “mach 10, sir!” This was unexpected. “Raise shields” I said, “size estimate?” “About the size of a Lambda – class each,” replied the ensign, “But they’re traveling far too fast to not engage hyperdrives.” “Sir!”, yelled the lead communications officer, Junior Lieutenant Vahr “They have no Imperial identification, not even mandatory civilian I.D. tags.”

“Are they Rebels?” I asked. “Possibly,” replied Vahr, “but what’s driving them so fast without jumping to hyperspace?” “I don’t know. Open a hailing channel and instruct energy control to drain the main drive’s power. Divert it to the shields.” “Aye,” he said, tapping on a built – in data pad. “Channel open.” “This is Captain Golon of the Imperial Star Destroyer Aggressor to the three craft approaching our position. We have you on our scanners now. Please identify yourselves immediately.” There was about 4 seconds of tense silence, followed by a brief burst of static. I waited a few seconds more. “I repeat, please identify yourselves at once.” I flipped of the microphone, “Lieutenant Priore, make ready all batteries. Hold fire until I order.” “Aye,” he said, “all batteries charging.” I would try every means possible to establish contact, but if they refused to reply, and continued on their attack vector, I would be forced to blast them out of existence, not that any of the energy from the ship's 20 turbolaser arrays had gotten to my head.

To Be Continued...