Oremin: The Hidden Empire

"No, previous studies showed the altorax armour to use a rare alloy composed primarily of a metal found only on one planet in the Eleyanos sector. The imperial research yards attempted to bypass the missing components only to find the armour two inefficient." The head researcher regarded Roc with a cautious eye.

"Well, do you happen to have an idea?" Roc pondered the question and the consequences.

"I dont think we can make an armour that will absorb turbo laser fire and missile detonations, only one or the other. Fortunatly the people up stairs only wants it to absorb energy weapons discharge. Now, it would be simple enough to do if turbos where just pure energy. This isn't so we have to deal with the matter part of the turbo discharge. I sugest that we make an armour plate unit that has a layer of resonant material. This layer would have a disassociative effect on the turbo blast causing the kinetic energy to be bled away leaving ony the non kinetic energy to deal with. That can be delt with by using high energy transfere material which we could tap to power our own systems. Of course each plate would need gas channels and a pumping system that would pull the gas away from the armour to a reservoir." The project leader mused over it.

"I'll have to speak to my superiors before I issue funding for such an impressive project. Your dismissed till fourteen hundred hours."

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"No, no, no. We can't baffle the engines to mask their output. The nessacary amount of baffling would create a pressure build up that would take the engines out in a massive explosion." Fel slumped in his seat. Every suggestion he had made had been rejected.

"Well in that case, we'll have to fit a second engine system to the ship. One that gives off no obvious emissions." Fel dissapeared into deep thought.

"The only type of movement that doesn't involve moving parts is a charge in an electric field." his mind wandered frantically as if putting together differing ideas to create one solid formulation.

IC: Irev looked over the revised mathematical formula, making sure to check and double-check his team’s work. The formula looked sound, but then again, so did the last one and that had been a disaster.

“Ready to give it another go, Professor?” Roviditian asked with an amused tone.

Irev would have glared daggers at the old Admiral if not for the fact that he was technically in charge and Kasr’s friend to boot. Instead he managed a polite, if forced, smile. “Setbacks are to be expected in this line of work,” he said. “I expect that this test will go much smoother.”

Roviditian crossed his arms. “We shall see. Begin the test.”

Irev nodded and activated the recorder. “Commence test Alpha-One-One, second trial run of the sensor flare. Observers are Professor Tomex Irev and Admiral Jer Roviditian. Performing the test is Professor Kilry Vasia and Doctor Vel Nisad.”

Again the modified shuttle flew up to the estimated range of the sensor flare. Likewise the recon TIE continued to run every active system.

The shuttle stopped and Professor Vasia’s voice sounded over the com, sounding a little less confident than Irev would have preferred. “All systems ready. Activating the sensor flare now.”

Irev braced himself for the worse, but instead got nothing. The TIE continued to broadcast and the shuttle seemed summarily unaffected. With a little annoyance, Irev hit the com button. “Professor Vasia, report!”

He waited for a moment, but dead silence was all he got. “Vasia, Nisad, respond!”

Roviditian realized what was going on a split-second before Irev. “Looks as though your sensor flare actually works, Professor. Too bad it’s more of a help to the enemy than us. I think Kasr wanted you too short out the systems on the enemy ship. Back to the drawing board, eh?”

Irev gritted his teeth for just a second before he turned it into an amused smile. “We’re on the right track, Admiral. All the flare needs now is some more fine-tuning.”

Little points of light, tugs and workers too far away for Kasr to make out any detail, could be seen skittering all around the massive structure. Currently only a portion of the front skeletal frame could be made out, but it was an image that made Kasr’s heart stir nonetheless. He could see in his minds eye how magnificent his flagship would be upon the final completion.

Of course, even though it would like an SSD it wouldn’t be a true SSD, not with the modifications Kasr planned on installing. It was simply another carefully crafted illusion that Kasr planned to take advantage of. In the Empire’s glory days, the mere sight of an SSD could quell any potential rebellion. Even now, the SSD was a glorious and awe-inspiring sight.

His Silent Shade would take advantage of that without actually having the power to back it up. All his enemies would see, if they saw anything at all, would be the massive shape of the SSD. With the stealth capabilities he had planned and the jammers from the deception cloak, any ship would be hard pressed to get a reliable reading. By Kasr’s estimation the Silent Shade would only have the comparable power of about two Star Destroyers as opposed to the roughly four Star Destroyer equivalent of a genuine SSD. It was unfortunate, but necessary, to scale back the weapon’s systems in order to make the type of ship Kasr had in mind. Why, the stealth engines alone would be taking up a good deal of the superstructure.

“Were ready doctor.” Fel looked out at his baby with a smile. It had taken the team a long time to get the mathematics to look right. It was still touch and go as to whether something as small as the natural magnetic field could be manipulated. Yet the scientists had constructed the small-scale engine.

“Start program simulation alpha one.” The techs nodded as they began running the simulation. Outside nothing seemed to happen as electricity began to weave its way around the complex coils.

“Anything yet?” The chief simulation operator looked up from his perch over one of his underling’s shoulders.

“Not yet sir, either the field modulation is out of alignment or we just aren’t registering any effect yet.” Fel cursed as he looked over the massive board of mathematics. Field equations solved with long finite element equations and tensor matrices. His hand slashed at the board in swift strikes as he rewrote equations going over the mathematics again and again.

“Ok, reconfigure the program and save it as alpha two.” The techs worked for several hours as they reconfigured the system for the new data. Finally they were ready and again Fel watched the device waiting and hoping. He noticed the low level hum before anyone else, though that only began to further his excitement.

“Registering a force of a Newton per square meter.” Fel let out a sigh; he had hoped it would be more than negligible. Then the deck started to vibrate more than expected.

“Whats happening?” Fel braked as he reached for the railing to balance on.

“Sir, the program has gone into positive feed back loop. The coils are drawing more and more power.” Fel looked out of the window with awe as the stars started to shift.

“Override now.” The lights flickered and then went out only to be replaced by the red emergency lighting as the back up generators kicked in.

“Main computer is down, I can’t do a thing.” The station began to speed up, the hull creaked and moaned as the drive began to speed up until the test bed warped under the stress and broke sending the station rolling uncontrollably.

“One of the research stations has lost power to and is currently on a collision course with the Oremin planet. ETA to impact is twenty minutes.”

“Rescue shuttles have been launched.”

“Deception cloak has been readjusted to compensate for the gap.”

“No sign of enemy ships.”

“Star Destroyers Kismet, Tsunami, and Majestic have been dispatched to slow the fall with their tractor beams.”

“All mining personnel have been ordered to evacuate from the estimated impact zone.”

“All other buildings report that their systems are stable.”

IC: The three Star Destroyers moved in as fast as their sublight engines would allow, each one arriving a little after the other. Normally the combined might of three Star Destroyers would be nothing to sneer at, but due to Oremin’s intense gravity the three mighty ships only served to slow the fall of the large research station. No other ship of appreciable power would be able to arrive in time to stop the research station from plummeting to its doom.

A few precious minutes had been bought, nothing more.

Scattered escape pods shot out form the station. Tugs launched from the Star Destroyers struggled to pull in as many pods as possible. Those that weren’t as fortunate plummeted down to Oremin, their fate sealed. Nothing could survive on the Oremin planet without specialized equipment; the gravity was just too intense.

The pilots in the rescue shuttles were utterly fearless, some of the best in Oremin. Instead of the normal lambda-class shuttles, they were piloting the sleek gamma-class assault shuttles. The ships cut through space before maneuvering to match the slowly spinning station and attaching themselves to docking ports or to key spots on the hull. The few that didn’t have the luxury of a docking hatch immediately started to burn their way in.

The backup generator was doing its job, providing just enough power to support life and keep the artificial gravity stable. It wouldn’t last however, and the rescue teams knew it. Their time was short, the closer the station got to the impact zone, the more likely the backup generator would short out and quit.

There were eight teams in all. Four to evacuate the personnel still trapped on the station, two to download all essential information form the station’s computers, and two to provide backup. The rescue troopers that made up each team rushed towards their respective destinations with the utmost haste.

Long, leering shadows draped over the large, ornate palace of Eelaka the Hutt. A pair of rodians stood guard, vigilantly scanning the night for possible intruders within their domain. With their blaster rifles cradled in their arms, they paced periodically talking softly in their native language as the night wore thin.

Ten figures detached from a deep dune shadow, seeming to glide across the sand. These forms moved with purposeful grace towards the huge blast door that the guards stood in front of. Like a choreographed dance, the ten divided into groups of five and veered in different directions. One group of five continued to move like ghosts toward the two rodians.

The soft cough of silenced slugthrowers propelling their small, deadly masses could barely be made out from the gentle breeze that caressed the Tatooine sands. The two rodians jerked violently as the slugs found their marks. Forcing the two guards to the ground, their life instantly slipped away as they both possessed matching injuries: two small holes in the head and one in the chest.

Without breaking stide, the five forms slid up against the wall, under the scanning cameras. One fo the forms slid up against the blast door console and methodically began to unattach the panel bindings. Without a word spoken, the figure began to rip a few of the wire guts out and began crossing circuitry on the massive door.

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The second set of five rushed quickly to a much smaller door on the side. A lone guard sat back against the wall with only the ember of a spiced cigarette visible in the darkened shadow he choose to dwell in. Four ofthe figures halted their quiet progress as tehy approached the guard's position, with one of the forms continuing on, but with his pace reduced significantly. A few seconds later, the form was right next to the smoking guard. In a rapid movement, a flash of steel flashed under within the shadow right next to the sentry. The cigarette plopped out of the guard's mouth, as the life slipped from him due to the large gaping wound across his neck. Once again, the four others moved and rejoined their fifth. One among them duplicated the movements of the one at the front door and began systematically taking off the entry panel and began working the wires. A few moments later, they all had their slugthrowers cradled and lined up single file right beside the door....

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Another set of five figures detached from the same dune as teh previous ten before them. The shadowy forms kept an easy ten feet apart between each of them. They, like the ones before them, came up to the front blast door and pressed themselves against the wall, lining themselves up in a train-like fashion. These forms not only carried the compact slugthrowers like the other two groups, but slung at their side were massive energy weapons. The forms said nothing, but waited patiently with the others...

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TATOOINE, THIRTY MILES SOUTH OF MOS EISLEY/0200 HOURS

Colonel Samuel Kregin stood watching the progress of the three small five-man squads. Eerily hued red screens showed each trooper's perpective through helmet mounted night cameras. Within the specially designed shuttle that rested anonymously in the desert sands, he and four others found watched the operation with great interest. The back bay area was chock full of complex arrays of controls and equipment. The Colonel was actually quite proud of its innovative design, fully capable of supporting nearly any sort of special operation from within the confines of a single shuttle.

Thoughtfully, he stroked his chin and spoke grimly, "Romeo Squad, Saint Squad and Tailor Squad...you are clear for entry on my mark..."

Kregin looked down at a Sergeant sititng there at a console and asked, "They patched you in to Eileka's databse, did you wipe all the information?"

The Sergeant looked up and answered, "Yes sir...and all of their back-ups as well."

Grimly, the Colonel nodded and looked down at another soldier at a similiar console, "Sergeant Kramer...lights out."

The young signals expert looked up and nodded expressionlessly. Twisting a dial in frornt of him, a readout went from 100 to 0..."

Kregin then stated flatly, "Go!"

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Both the side door and the front door roared open at the same time that all of the lights in Eelaka's palace winked out. The ten forms in the front poured into the darkened palace at the same time that the five from others slinked into the side opening.

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Colonel Kregin knew his place was here in the Control Shuttle, but he was itching to be out there with his men. He eyed each red camera display with intense scrutiny, looking for anything that might help his men. He watched as they made their way through the palace hallways, dressed in their completely black Stormtrooper Commando armor. One of the monitors came to life as a group of palace guardsmen came to see if their were intruders accompanying their suddne power failure. A series of muffled coughs of silenced slugthrowers sounded over the audio portion. Six armed guards fell to the ground. The soldiers stepped over them and proceeded on...

The small group of five were galloping rapidly down a set of wide stairs, shooting any creature in their path. They had not slowed from a jogging pace since they first entered the building. Eventually, they got to the bottom of the stairs among a series of cages. These cages did not house any sort of animals, but instead beings: humans, twi'leks, etc. A call from the far cage yelled out in a feminine voice, "Hello? Is someone there?"

Swiftly, three of the five formed a defensive posture and the other two scooted towards the shout. One peered inot the cage and saw a dirty teenage human girl standing against the bars. The figure said softly, "Ma'am, are you Jesika Doljian?"

"Yes! Yes! Are you here to help me?"

The figure answered from behind his black helmet expressionlessly, "Ma'am, put your finger on this device...right now."

The girl looked at him hesitantly and then complied, pressing her index finger on the slender disc. A second later, the figure gave a nod to the figure next to him and said simply to the girl, "Miss Doljian, we are here to get you out of here. do not say a word, keep your head down and do exactly as we say, do you understand?"

Jesika nodded meekly.

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Letting out a sigh of relief upon the report of finding the girl, Kregin spoke up again, "Romeo Squad has the package. Romeo Squad, make your egress with the package. Tailor and Saint squads, continue to objective."

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The ten forms continued their 'march of death' deep within the confines of Eelaka's palace, killing any creature that they came upon. Eventually, the ten came to their desired location, the 'throne room'. Two of the forms broke from the ten and went up to the large, ornate door before them. They each took out a maleable substance and began to form it around the edges of the anitquated door. In just a few seconds they were done and retreating back to their companions.

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With the explosives set on the 'throne room', Colonel Samuel Kregin gave the order, "Tailor and Saint Squads, enter on my mark. Leave no survivors. Egress immediately upon completion....go!"

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A thunderous BOOM sounded as a pillow of smoke and debris burst inward to the throne room. Almost immediately, the two squads entered the room, some of them fanning out to the sides, some coming up the middle. Silenced slugthrower bursts cut through the debris followed immediately by screms of agony and death. Guards, slaves, visitors and anything else in the room were dispatched in a matter of seconds. The massive form of Eelaka pounded a button with an angry roar causing a high ptiched siren to began throughout the palace. A massive form stepped towards the Hutt and tossed a thermal detonator at Eelaka's tail. In a menacing voice, the soldier said, "You should have forgotten you ever heard of Oremin..."

The soldiers quickly filed out of the room, with a massive explosion ripping away behind them, scattering debris of all sorts towards their backs...

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Colonel Kregin had counted on the palace being alerted to their presence. He stated flatly in response to the alarm, "All squads. Objectives completed. Egress to Landing Zone. You are silence and weapons free..."

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Upon that command, many of the soldiers rushing out slung their slugthrowers and hefted their respective light repeating blasters and blaster carbines. They were now virtually running out of the palace, again sending volleys of red blaster bolts towards any figure that dared to show themselves. A minute later, the ten were crossing the desert sands towards their Landing Zone.

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The shuttle lifted off the sand, spinning in mid air as it did so. Low to the ground, the shuttle crossed the distance to a pre-designated site. It hovered slightly at the spot and slowly sank to the sand, with its engines still roaring. The fifteen stormtrooper commandos and their "package" named Jesika ran up the ramp, into the shuttle. Just as the last person began to jog up the plank, the ramp began to close and the shuttle began to lift off.

Colonel Kregin came over their communications circuit, "All fifteen accounted for....woot!"

A chorus of, "Woot!" followed that statment.

The Colonel keyed the shuttle communicator and ordered, "VSD Nemesis, this is Sandman. Mission accomplished. Proceed with orbital bombardment of target 'E'."

After a slight delay, a crisp response came, "Sandman, this is VSD Nemesis. Roger, will comply..."

“Damn it!” Roviditian cursed. “There’s going to be hell to pay once Kasr gets to the bottom of this mess! Losing an entire research station is unacceptable!”

“More reports coming in, sir,” Vizx said, calmly ignoring his captain’s bad mood. “Teams Alpha through Delta have recovered 80 percent of the principal scientists trapped on the station, team Epsilon has downloaded 75 percent of the computer core, and team Zeta has transferred an estimated 50 percent of still functioning experimental hardware to safety with the help of teams Eta and Theta.”

“Tell them to hurry it up,” Roviditian ordered irritably. “We’re already working on borrowed time.”

Almost as if to taunt Roviditian, the entire bridge was rocked violently, knocking all those standing to the floor. Vizx, being one of those people who had been thrown down, quickly picked himself up and checked the readouts. “Two of the Tsunami’s tractor beams have given out! Oremin Control’s new ETA to collision is nine minutes!”

The bridge was shaken again, but this time Vizx was ready for it and managed to remain standing. “The station hull integrity is being compromised by the stresses, we just sheared off a portion of the hull with our tractors! Attempting to relock!”

Moments later the assault shuttles detached themselves from the doomed station and headed back to base. The recovery operation had been partially successful, but considering the circumstances and the amount of time they had had to work with it would be considered an accomplishment rather than a failure.

The station, meanwhile, continued to plummet towards the planet, picking up more speed the closer it got. As it hit the atmosphere, its sides began to glow red and small sections started to break off. Even though the station was moving at an incredible speed, the whole action seemed to be in slow motion due to its size.

Once it finally impacted, the already weakened station collapsed in on itself before erupting in a brilliant fireball. The force of the explosion sent dust and debris into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. There seemed to be a mournful silence as the station continued its death throes. This was by far the worst loss in Oremin’s history.

***

“Ok people, let’s get this show on the road. Activate the resonator unit and bring it to full power.” Roc continued to look upon the massive piece of special armor and the adjacent turbo laser cannon.

“Resonator is at one twenty eight mega hertz, sensors are detecting the disassociative effect.” Roc allowed a smile to creep over his face as he looked at the now distorted piece of oddly shaped armor.

“Create the charge differential over the absorption lattice.” The crewers worked diligently as they ran the complex matrix programs that would cause the armor to work properly.

“Armor is online and the gunnery crew reports they have target acquisition and the cannon is charged.” Roc pulled a pair of goggles out of his pocket and placed it over his eyes.

“Fire.” The tip of the cannon glowed slightly, streams of gas jutted out as the barrel recoiled into the cannons housing. A bright green beam escaped from the focal lens slamming into the distorted area around the armor and disappeared.

“Report.” Barked Roc as he let the goggles drop away.

“Sensors report that the armor is almost at critical failure and we only accumulated one point zero three percent of the blasts electrical energy.” Roc smiled, most would think the experiment a failure. To Roc it was a first step in the right direction.

Through all of this data two inevitable conclusions were formed. One, Fel was the one responsible for the development of the engine. Two, the disaster aboard the research station would have been all but unpreventable despite the fact that Fel had rushed through the safety procedures. This second bit of information saved Fel a prompt execution.

The engine team was moved to one the research stations furthest away from the planet Oremin. As a further precaution to avoid any more ‘accidents’ a safety director was assigned to the team and the Star Destroyer Tsunami was stationed to patrol by the area, just in case.

After a slight derailment, Oremin seemed to be back on track.

The last report that Kasr picked up was unexpected, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless. One of his scouts had found what looked to be a suitable system for Oremin to acquire in its search for more manpower and materials.

He read on in interest:

Captain Nique Holsied to GARK-

As per your suggestion, I have investigated the Laro System. The results are very intriguing. The government that the Empire set up between the three colony worlds has collapsed and now the planets are waging a multi-pronged civil war. If the records I obtained are correct, this war has been running since a little over a year after the Battle of Endor. I believe the Laro System will be a good place to start for a number of reasons.

1) Many of the factions still follow traditional Imperial edicts and many of the officers and leaders in this civil war are former Imperials themselves. Integrating them into Oremin will not be difficult.

2) The former Imperial capital world for the Laro System, Laro Prime, still maintains the modest shipyard and factories set up by the Empire when they first took over. The other two planets, since the beginning of the civil war, have constructed shipyards of their own to defend themselves. All of them are still building off of traditional Imperial designs.

3) With all the chaos of the system, you should be able to slip in with very little trouble. Also, it appears as if the Laro system has become lost in the greater galactic conflict. You should be able to make your move without interference.

I shall continue to gather intelligence on Laro unless otherwise ordered.

Kasr allowed himself to grin as he set down Holsied’s report. Laro would indeed make a good first step, and, unlike the Empire, he would see to it that the New Republic would not be able to step in with claims of freedom to take it away from him. No, he had a much more efficient method in mind than simply terrorizing the populace with random massacres.