It had started so perfectly.<i>“This is Night Caller, systems ready to go.”. </i>He had gotten clearance to leave the shipyards above Belderone seconds later. The droid automation had gone through the standard checklist, every system seemed to be operating at peak efficiency. It was a strange sensation, no one on the bridge, not even droids. All the automation was wired into the ships computers.<i>“Computer, head us out at a heading of 268 mark 2.”</i>. He sat there, on the captains seat in the middle of the bridge while…. Nothing happened. No response from the computer, no readback of his command, but more importantly, the slow hum of the engines did nothing. Worse than that… the hum seemed to die down.<br/><br/>For the shipyard specialists it was an even worse day. They watched in silence from a promenade deck inside the shipyard. The lights on the Corvette had flickered, once… twice… till they all flopped out. The engines blasted a final whine into space before they too blinked out. The tether hooks of the shipyard had already disengaged, the corvette was slowly drifting. The shipyard floating in orbit around the planet, but the gravity well of said planet apparently had a different pull on the corvette than on the shipyard itself. The techs watched as the corvette impacted against one of the tether hooks, sparks flying, sirens blaring in the shipyard, emergency protocols starting up.<br/><br/>Inside the corvette there was complete silence. Well… silence… while swearing and cursing the commodore had decided to make his way to the cargo bay. But he didn’t get far. The bridge door was closed and there was no power to make it open up. After swearing and banging on it uselessly. He had torn off the panel to get access to the manual controls. The hiss of air escaping as he shoved the lever downwards meant that he could open the door by force. But it required a lot of force. And behind that door… a dark corridor, with no possible illuminated route towards the cargo bay. He couldn’t do this without any sort of light.<br/><br/>They found him, three hours later.<br/><br/><br/><br/>It took a day. A day of dressing down commanding officers, a day of swearing, a day where he demoted three people who had been working on this project, a day where he had brought in his own version of the ISB (<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=http%3A%2F%2Fstarwars.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FImperial_Security_Bureau%2FLegends&amp;hash=c5aa1d83bbe55b568ec28071a6345872" href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Security_Bureau/Legends" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Imperial Security Bureau</a>). The engineers soon found the problem. The droid automation was faulty at points. Apparently the original engineers had cut a few corners with installing it. They had bought up several second hand items from a guy named Erologo. Those second hand switches had caused a power surge, which was followed by a complete loss of power after they burned through.<br/><br/>His intelligence operation found that Erologo was still on Chandaar. There was an inclination that he had been working for the Rebel Alliance too. One of his intel operatives assured him that this man might have tried to sabotage the overhaul of the<i>Night Caller</i>. Dankorin wasn’t sure. Probably a scrounger trying to make a few quick bucks. Without any idea what sort of shit he had gotten himself into now. The few contacts his operatives had on Chandaar had quickly located Erologo though, apparently amorous with the owner of some Skipper.<br/><br/>The commodore had been livid, that first day. What kind of potmess, all because of a few broken up switches. How the hell could this have happened? He wanted Erologo brought to justice, wanted his neck! He would move up the operation to take the system to Imperial control, all because of this slight!<br/><br/><br/><br/>But first, the test run. 24 hours after the first try, again on the bridge. Alone. He stood this time, didn’t want to jinx the operation by being in exactly the same spot as before. “Take us out heading two-six-eight mark three, computer. At a quarter power.”. The slow hum increased as the ship manoeuvred itself free of the shipyard. A few minor course corrections later and he was at the hyperspace buoy that marked the edge of the systems gravity well. He had already given the computer the assignment to plot a heading to the Chandaar system. “Jump to lightspeed, destination Chandaar”. With a flash the<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FieDL6iEshXM%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&amp;hash=0b272c014cae77de92d1c30db00ff8e2" href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ieDL6iEshXM/maxresdefault.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">view</a>through the port in front of him changed.<br/><br/>It was a relatively short jump. When the tunnel of starlines dissipated he saw the burning sun of the Chandaar system.<i>Just a pass through the system Jack, can’t risk this new piece of equipment… no matter how angry you are, you can use the full power of the fleet for this engagement.</i>He kept repeating to himself.<i>Just a pass through the system.</i>Already the computers kicked in his preprogrammed run to the other side of the Chandaar system where he’d jump out again. Sensors on full, to record everything they saw. The Corvette was the most powerful ship around. All small stuff entering and leaving the system. There was one though hanging dead in space. Very close to his entry vector.<br/><br/>His eyes were on the design of the Skipper. A bit outré on this side of the galaxy. They were made somewhere south of the core. It seemed well kept. How many of those were there anyway? How much of a chance? Perhaps it had failed on the same switches as this beast of a ship. Seconds later he was headed towards it.<br/><br/>A tractor beam was the first alert Phaes computers picked up. The way smaller Skipper caught in that web of transmitters from the<i>Night Caller</i>. A voice on the radio. “Skipper Clovis, power down your engines and weapons. Stand by to receive inspection.”. All the weapons on the capital ship hovering over here were fully charged. Already a small detachment of ancient fighters was taking off from the surface. She would see the corvette slowly manoeuvring, interposing itself between the Skipper and the approaching fighters. They were just minutes away. But could the old<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fateofthegalaxy.net%2Fsites%2Fwww.fateofthegalaxy.net%2Ffiles%2Fnurz14_0.jpg&amp;hash=9d5548487bbcf01f170910440a1336b7" href="https://www.fateofthegalaxy.net/sites/www.fateofthegalaxy.net/files/nurz14_0.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Z-95 headhunters, </a>the predecessor of the X-Wing accomplish anything against the ship that had caught her? There were just six of them.<br/><br/>Jack was grinning at the screen in front of him. The Chandaar protection brigade wasn’t quick to respond, or at least, wasn’t quick to the rescue. His computers calculated the Headhunters were just on half throttle as they came towards him. They were probably scanning the upgraded<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=http%3A%2F%2Fstarwars.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FCR90_corvette&amp;hash=6df27c44b138494c3001b244df44a8a8" href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/CR90_corvette" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Corvette</a>and knew by now that he brandished a lot more than the standard eight turbolasers (four single turrents, two double). All turrets now had quad lasers, 24 turbolaser cannons in total. Combine that with a couple of ion guns and four rocket launchers… the headhunters would be scrap metal if they got anywhere near the six clicks he needed to launch those rockets.<br/><br/>Already his tractor beam was slowly pulling the small skipper towards the opening of the redesignated cargo bay. The sleek little thing would fit perfectly next to the shuttle. It had been a hunch, to take her in like this. She was surely related to Erologo.<br/><br/>Finally, something happened. A sweet voice, female voice, came up on the com. There was no mention of female company in his security reports. He wondered for a second.<i>Are you part of the transport? I’m still waiting for word back from the freighter on their offer. </i>He punched a button on the console in front of him. “ST140, dispatch ten droids to the hanger. Secure the Skipper.”. Then he hit another button, this time opening up a comline to the sultry voice. “Skipper Clovis, this is Imperial Corvette Night Caller. Prepare to be boarded.”. That would certainly catch the attention of the Headhunters, shouting out his allegiance on an open com frequency.<br/><br/>As soon as the last word left his lips a vicious blue light pierced the space between the vessels. A barrage of Ion fire from the cannons. All power in the little Skipper would die down within seconds after being hit. Unless she would try to raise shields… though with the tractor beam in place, he could basically shoot at the vessel until even the shields would succumb to the ionisation.<br/><br/>As he ordered the computer to go to lightspeed as soon as the Skipper was inside the hangar, he saw the Headhunters take a large turn towards the planet. They wouldn’t even engage.<br/><br/>A minute or two later the turbolift door in the hangar opened. Just as the Skipper was forcibly set down by the internal tractors.<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fvignette.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fstarwars%2Fimages%2Fc%2Fcd%2FBattle_Droid.png%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20160910192832&amp;hash=e5d5af784962e10d5618bc75a3d7d7bf" href="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/c/cd/Battle_Droid.png/revision/latest?cb=20160910192832" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Ten battle droids</a>were waiting for him as he approached the Skipper. If she would look out though, there was something odd. Most hangars would bustle with activity. The ten droids… and the man in a black uniform were the only ones there. If she had any experience with Imperial ranks… he wasn’t showing any. The uniform wasn’t standard fleet issue either, more for a fighterpilot.