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Prologue: The Vapor Room

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There were only three men in the Vapor Room when the old man walked in the first night, two off duty cloud car pilots and a collections examiner from level two. Bespin's winters were notoriously cold, and the open air walkways leading to the bar were a bit inhospitable at 0400. all three men looked up as the old man walked in, wrapped tightly in a dark brown travelling cloak with the hood pulled low over his grizzled face. The Ughnaut behind the bar squealed something at him, and he grunted something equally intelligible back, but apparently the diminutive barkeep understood because a moment later there was a steaming cup of blue liquid in front of him.

Wex Skipper had had a few too many, and was in a rowdy mood. he nudged his fellow pilot and gestured at the old man and his steaming cup. "They say that all the old folks around here got good stories of the old days. I ain't got no good stories from my own days, so why not share some of yours, traveler?" The old man grunted, looking blearily from beneath his hood at the younger drunkard. His gravelly voice cut through the cold air like a vibroblade as he asked, "You ever heard of Black Wing, kid?"
"Black Wing? That an Imperial squadron?"
"Nah. Mercs. They was little known outside the deep core until the Imps hired 'em for a big job. Just small time pilots who used names from the old High Speech for callsigns."
"So what did the Empire hire them for?"
"An escort mission. They provided security for the Empire's freighters through known Rebel territory. Extremest Rebs. They'd ion gun the TIE fighters and use a gravity well to send 'em driftin' toward the sun. Stole a Lambda shuttle and rigged it to hyperspace jump into a Star Destroyer. That sorta thing. Definitely not Mon Mothma's men."
The collections examiner glanced over, his curiosity piqued. "So they did security in non-Imp ships and flew under the Rebel's radar?"
"Not exactly. See, at first, they'd just do regular security, keep the pirates and the Rebs away by lookin' mean in their all black ships. Couple Y-wings, an old Arc fighter, and some V-wings. Ten in all, they looked pretty fierce in their matte black Clone Wars era fighters. They had just picked up a rookie, a gruff Mando in a customized Jedi Starfighter, so there were six of them at the time. Aether, Sai, Delah, Tower, and Ken, with the rookie Char."
"You said those callsigns were some kinda old speech?"
"The High Speech. Used to be a big deal to the nobles in the deep core. Most words have multiple meanings depending upon the context, but that rookie's name, Char, just has one meaning. But I'm gettin' ahead of myself. Now, what made these guys famous was what the cantina goers and rumor mongers at the time referred to as the Oovo Skirmish, or just the Skirmish. 'Twas quite the battle, thirty or so insurgents in their shiny new Incom fighters versus these six old Clone Wars heaps, but the Wing was seasoned vets of dogfights, while these dogs in their Incom ships just relied upon numbers to win. Their mistake. They got the drop on 'em, comin' outta the magnetic signature of one of the bigger asteroids hot on their sticks, spittin' blaster fire and proton torps toward the big CT-3290 frigate in the center of the loose ring of Wing pilots. one of 'em got a luck shot off and caught that lone Arc across the heat synch on the left wing and then their were six. But the fight didn' end there. the Wing was riled now, ya see...."
Written by my husband, because I never manage his account.

Prologue: [link]
Chapter 1: [link]
Chapter 2: [link]
Segue 2: [link]
Chapter 3: [link]
Segue 3: [link]
Chapter 4: [link]
© 2011 - 2024 Fish-with-a-Knife
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