Star Wars - The Stele Chronicles Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Stunt

  The Bordali

  The Vengeance

  The Origin of the Empire

  The Shuttle

  The Imperial Navy

  Basic Training

  Back to the Vengeance

  Pilot Training

  Cockpit Instrumentation Checkout

  Cockpit Information Displays

  Combat Checkout List

  Energy Management

  Picket Duty

  Imperial Technical Specification

  The Stele Chronicles

  Prologue

  …elsewhere, battles have been fought. The great Death Star—destroyed. The Rebel Alliance—with Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca the Wookiee—has celebrated its first major victory against the Empire.

  The Emperor and his chief vassal, Lord Darth Vader, plot to expand the Empire’s power and to wipe out the Rebels. In the Hoth system, the Empire strikes back. Discovering the Rebels’ base on the ice planet, the Empire attacks in force and the Rebels are forced to evacuate.

  But the Galaxy is vast, and news sometimes travels slowly. Even slower are the winds of conquest which blow from the center of civilization to the outer edges of what is known as the Rim.

  In the Taroon system, two small worlds engage in a decades-long conquest. Few people bother to recite the original causes of the war. It simply exists, ravaging the cities and the countryside. The economies of both Kuan and Bordal are in ruins, their people living under martial law. Systems like Taroon are ripe for conquest; ready to welcome the iron hand of the Empire…

  Contents

  Kuan & Bordal

  Caught in a decades-long war, Maarek Stele hides from agents of the enemy while running from local authorities.

  The Stunt

  The Bordali

  The Empire

  Now a prisoner of the Empire, Maarek Stele finds employment aboard the Star Destroyer, Vengeance, and eventually becomes a TIE pilot.

  The Vengeance

  The Origin of the Empire

  The Shuttle

  The Imperial Navy

  TIE Fighter Training

  Maarek learns to become a pilot in the Imperial Navy.

  Basic Training

  Back to the Vengeance

  Pilot Training

  Cockpit Instrumentation Checkout

  Cockpit Information Displays

  Cockpit Checkout List and Energy Management

  Picket Duty

  Imperial Technical Specifications

  The Stunt

  The swoop flew low over the ravaged landscape, hugging the shattered rooftops. Small tornadoes of dust and debris sprang up to mark its passage. The pilot did not notice the destruction, the rooftops, or the dust. He had seen it all before. His eyes were riveted ahead, his hands gripped the sticks, and his mouth clenched tight. The swoop flew toward an eerie landscape of high-rise buildings — once a great metropolitan center. Now, after nearly twenty years of interplanetary warfare, they were (mostly) empty shells. The swoop sped toward them.

  At the last instant, the pilot twisted the sticks to the side and worked the pedal controls. The swoop twisted and turned, snaked its way through the maze of twisted girders and blown-out windows. A blaster shot rang out—close—but the pilot continued his weaving course without hesitation. There were always snipers, but they only added to the excitement.

  Up ahead, the pièce de résistance, the ultimate flythrough. The pilot’s eyes narrowed, searching for the opening. There it was! The great doors, partially torn from their mountings, hung to the side like the wings of some tortured moth. Beyond, the cavernous interior—empty, dark, and dead.

  He angled downward, flattening his approach at the last minute, and blasted past the broken wings, through the great opening that only just accommodated the swoop… into the building. He hadn’t counted on the sudden change of illumination—the darkness. Blinded, he kept the swoop on a steady course. He had less than two seconds before he’d have to maneuver again. One and… Too late. He’d have to begin his turn. He pulled hard against the counter force of the sticks, jerking his swoop in an impossible loop. He’d rehearsed this in his mind so many times. He could do it!

  The G forces slammed him against the seat, and the sticks jerked and tried to pull free—to follow the path of least resistance—but he kept his grip on the swoop, willing it around, imagining the walls and ceiling—feeling their presence in his mind. If he slammed into one of them…

  He could see again, but it hardly mattered now. The swoop was inverted and he hung on with his knees, not trusting the safety belt. The swoop hit the ceiling of the cavernous room—not too hard—then bounced slightly with a scraping sound that echoed over the engine roar. There were bright sparks that died quickly, and great chunks of ceiling that fell in slow motion toward the floor below.

  The pilot held his breath and pushed forward on the sticks, then twisted hard to the side. The swoop steadied, twisted in the air, and was headed once again for the great doorway it had come through. He had done it! He had executed a near-perfect stunt. Far away, he knew, the collected voices of the audience would be gasping and yelling. He had only to make it through the doorway and he was home free.

  Suddenly, a miscalculation—very slight—as the swoop edged through the great opening. Something was wrong with the stabilizer nozzles—probably damaged in the collision with the ceiling. The swoop hit the side of the entrance with a sickening crunch, careened sideways a moment, then began to spin. The pilot did not panic. By instinct, he corrected the spin and let the swoop slide sideways toward the wall of a nearby building. Then he accelerated, poured emergency power into the swoop’s oversized engines, turning near disaster into a showy direction change. The swoop shot out between the buildings again and back over the ravaged rooftops of the dead city. Nobody watching it fly would have guessed the extent of the damage it had suffered. It held a steady course.

  As he approached the staging area for the swoop competition, the pilot saw the cycling lights ahead and knew they were being raided. The local authorities had better things to do, but they still cracked down on the illegal swoop rings at regular intervals. Instinct took over and he sent the swoop into a fast dive and turn, wondering if anyone had even witnessed his stunt. Or were they all running, dodging, escaping, or worse—being loaded into the hoverwagons and carted away to reclamation sites? And worst of all, he knew he would never collect his winnings. That stunt would certainly have pulled in a lot of cash.

  He pulled the sticks hard and headed away, hugging the deck to avoid being spotted.

  The Hangar

  Back in the small hangar where he kept the swoop, Maarek Stele surveyed the damage. Without the winnings from the stunt competition, he would have a hard time making repairs. He could pound out and straighten the hull easily enough, but a few servos and some adjustors had been flattened, and replacing them from the black market would be costly.

  There was a double knock on the hangar door. He recognized the cadence. It was a friend. Maarek walked to the door, stepping carefully over several half-finished assemblies, peered through the peephole to confirm that it wasn’t a trap, and spied Pargo offering a rude gesture toward the peeper. Laughing, Maarek opened the door to let his friend inside.

  Though only an inch or two taller than Maarek, Pargo must certainly have outweighed his friend by half again. Not fat. No. Just naturally big. And strong. Pargo could easily out-muscle anyone he met. Any human, anyway. He walked inside quickly and Maarek closed and latched the door behind him.

  “So you got away,” Maarek offered by way of greeting.

  “Was out stunting, just lik
e you,” Pargo answered. Indeed, Pargo was still wearing long boots and coveralls—typical swoop gear.

  Maarek scowled. “Waste of time,” he said. “I would’a won easy, I was powered.”

  Pargo glanced at Maarek’s swoop. “Yeah, maybe. But at least my swoop’s still in one piece.”

  Maarek said nothing. Pargo was right.

  Pargo pointed at the front of the swoop. “Hey! What’s that?”

  Maarek just shrugged.

  Pargo fingered a small device bristling with wires and gleaming connectors. He grinned and said, “One of your strange gadgets, I bet.”

  “Just a modified gyro-servo sensor array I was testing.”

  Pargo laughed. “Well, there’s nothing to gyro-servo now. Why don’t you flash down to the Maze. I hear there’s been some strangers nosing for info. We could maybe buzz on them. Have a little fun.”

  “Probably Bordali spies. To hell with them. To hell with all Bordal. For that matter, to hell with the whole war.”

  “These guys might know somethin’,” suggested Pargo. “You know. About…” A fierce, almost feral look from Maarek made Pargo hesitate. “So you comin’?” he asked after a moment.

  The look evaporated, became something akin to resignation, “Yeah,” Maarek answered. “I’ll meet you there. I gotta see my mom, bring her some stuff.”

  Pargo left then, after arranging to meet Maarek at the Maze in three hours. After a last careful survey of the damaged swoop, which had not miraculously repaired itself, Maarek showered, changed, secured the door and walked off into the night.

  The Hidden Room

  An hour later, Maarek was walking up a steep flight of stairs in a very lonely, very hidden part of the old city. Small creatures scuttled underfoot as he climbed and he could sense the eyes peering through small holes in the walls. He never much liked it here.

  At the top of the stairs, he gave a complex knock—it was a code based on the date and some astrophysical calculations. Even someone who followed him and listened would not be able to duplicate that special knock.

  The door opened instantly and Maarek walked inside.

  The contrast between the dark, half burned-out stairway and this room couldn’t have been greater. The room was well lit, clean, and furnished with fine furniture. On the walls, old tapestries shared space with scientific holos of stars of all kinds. Some of the holos were covered with scribbles and indecipherable writing.

  Maarek’s mother stood near the door. She was a beautiful woman nearing forty. Her dark hair was pulled up and tied in a casual-looking knot held by a large clasp. She wore a simple, utilitarian beige tunic belted at the waist. Her feet were bare.

  “You always seem to know when I’m here.” Maarek commented, noticing how quickly his mother was at the door.

  “The walls have eyes,” answered Marina Stele. “And the eyes have mouths.” She was smiling, but after a moment the smile disappeared. “We need to talk.”

  She turned and walked through a doorway into another room as well-furnished as the first. Heavy curtains covered the windows and behind the curtains, Maarek knew, there was another covering to prevent any light at all from leaking out into the street. During the twenty-year war blackouts were standard on Kuan, but this room was sealed practically air tight.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  Maarek sat. He chose a stiff, hard chair that seemed to fit the formality of his mother’s tone of voice. He waited while she fixed some local tarine tea in the adjoining kitchen. She took her time, carefully scraping the leaves, arranging them according to custom in the cup, then adding the water. He watched through the open doorway. But he did not get up and join her, nor offer to help. He knew his mother wanted him to wait, to sweat it out.

  “You’re on the holos, you know,” she said at last, placing his teacup on a small table to his right.

  Maarek’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “That stunt you pulled. The raid was broadcast and your stunt was part of the coverage.” She sat on a low chair facing him and began to blow on her tea.

  “Fireballs! That’s beam,” he exclaimed, reverting to street talk. But Marina Stele only frowned.

  “They had your name…” she began.

  “So? I always use a…”

  “Your real name,” she interrupted.

  Maarek said nothing, but he understood. His real name was all-too-well known, and both he and his mother were prime Bordali targets. It was one thing to be linked with illegal swoop gangs. That was a minor offense, and the local military authorities would do only a half-hearted job of pursuing a swoop criminal. But to be related to the famous scientist, Kerek Stele, was something else altogether. Ever since his father’s abduction by Bordali agents, he and his mother had been keeping low, though truth to tell, Maarek took too many chances. But capturing Kerek’s family would give the Bordali a powerful threat to hold over him. The Bordali would need something to make him cooperate. Ordinary methods would almost certainly not work.

  They sat talking for some time. Maarek insisted that the publicity from the swoop episode would not cause them any problems. However, Marina disagreed and insisted it was time for both of them to move on, to find another place to hide. Maarek was just about to tell her she was too cautious for maybe the twentieth time, when there were several loud squeaks from the other room and Maarek’s mother leapt to her feet. Too late. A blistering beam of energy hit the outside door just as Maarek followed his mother into the room to investigate. The door glowed for a second, the metal core began to melt, then the whole thing vaporized. Behind it, partially obscured among the fumes and smoke, was a man dressed all in black. In his hand, the heavy blaster glowed.

  Quickly, before Maarek had even grasped the situation, Marina was shooting. From somewhere, she had obtained a small one-or two-shot blaster and already the man behind the door was falling backward. Maarek noticed that his mother’s hair was loose around her shoulders.

  “This way,” Marina gasped, grabbing Maarek’s arm and dragging him toward the back of the apartment. Maarek followed, feeling helpless and wishing he had a blaster, too.

  His mother pulled him into a closet at the back of the building. It seemed a silly thing to do, but suddenly the floor of the closet gave way and they dropped quickly and for some time. When they landed Marina yelled, “Kick it!” and pointed to the wall. He could hear some commotion going on above them and it didn’t seem the time to argue with his mother, so Maarek lifted his booted foot and pounded the wall with all his strength. A large section of the wall fell away and he could see the dark alley beyond. They ran.

  The Bordali

  A low, patchy fog blew through the damp streets, and the only light came from one or two of Kuan’s moons. They listened a moment to the sounds of yelling back inside the building. Out on the street it was quiet and, without a word, Marina began running to the left, pulling Maarek along behind her. Her bare feet made hardly a sound on the rough pavement, but Maarek’s boots were not so silent and their slaps against the ground seemed each like small concussion missiles detonating in the alley.

  Marina rounded the next corner. Maarek was a few strides behind, catching up quickly. He had no clear idea where she was heading and so just followed without thought, his senses casting about behind, fearing pursuit. And so he nearly crashed into her as he came around the corner. She was standing rock still, and he was just able to slow his charging gait before he knocked her down. Then he, too, stopped short. There were six of them, all with blasters drawn, all dressed in black.

  The black shapes quickly fanned out around them. Marina threw her small blaster on the ground and held out her hands. Maarek shouldered in front of his mother and stood ready to take on the whole lot of them, but Marina whispered. “Give it up, son, if you fight them, they will kill you and take me anyway. They won’t kill us if we give up. They want us alive.”