Introduction: For those of you who didnt know about the RDA and Raigen's pirate affilliations i wrote this to where you really didnt need to know much. This story is as much about my personal life as it is about Raigen. Especially the intamite parts. Yes there are intamite parts.

Raigen looked up to the vast expanse of the galaxy before him. It was dark, cold, but beautiful. It was a slight comfort to his loneliness. The world he knew was gone, he had deserted the empire for his dreams of glory; dreams that were crushed by Thrawn and his never ending quest for conquest. He was left with a mere shell of a body, mostly prosthetics and bioengineered body parts. His troops, his Alliance, his dreams were gone, and now he was alone in a headhunter heading for the outer rim.

The events of the past couple of weeks flashed through his mind, the grandeur of the alliance returning to its home planet, the joy of the people ready to be freed, the confidence his fellow soldiers had when they walked into the capital. The invasion plans Raigen's father had started years ago, the plans his father was killed for devising, the plans Raigen had finished had finally seemed to be coming to fruition.

Raigen looked down toward his left leg, a mechanical mess, his biological one destroyed, replaced, and destroyed again. He tried to put his mind off the pain as he aproached the orbiting fuel depot above Chanis VI, a backwater moon orbiting an uninhabitable gas giant. It reminded him of his glory days, when he was alone, and his mistakes didn't cause the early end of billions of people. Chanis glowed like water during a sunrise as light shone around the curve of the planet. The beauty was enough to distract Raigen for another minute as he began final aproach.

Star Destroyers shadowed the landscape casting night upon the snow as the RDA forces made their retreat. The ones who made it out of the city were either wounded, carrying dead, or being pursued by Thrawn's stormtroopers.  Brothers fought brothers as the imperials gunned down the scum of the galaxy, the unwanted, the jaded, and the abandoned who had come to the Aliance for meaning in their decadent lives. Raigen and his personal company
head north on fuel transport trains, leaving the burning city behind.

Raigen docked the z'ceptor with the depot with precision as he was trained. For some reason his mind drifted to his first mission, how his actions resulted in the death of a wingman. And now, his actions had brought about the demise of his friends, his lover, his aliance, and the millions of Lorelians who were burned up in the bombardment of the planet by Thrawn's fleet.  Raigen sighed and focused his prosthetic eyes on the HUD. Fuel was at 10% and rising.

The Imperial Army advanced on their position, dozens of walkers and infantry in the thousands with landing crafts descending behind them. The survivors had held up in a factory north of the capital. There were less than a hundred of them. Those that could still walk took cover and prepared to fight to the death.

Raigen slumped back into the easy chair of the headhunter cockpit and tried to clear his mind. His HUD screen flickered and Raigen's heart dropped as her face appeared on the screen. Her eyes were blue like the Chanis sunrise, her hair golden brown, coming down past her shoulders. Her face was cut and bruised and there was a news reporter in the adjacent frame.

"The Imperial Army has released this picture of prisoner Tara Challon, Former Marshal for the Red Dragon Association and confirmed higher echelon of the Black Hand Pirate group. She is schedualed for public execution on the planet of Etti IV for Piracy, Conspirasy, Treason, Murder, and a laundry list of minor infractions. Imperial Army Generals have placed her in the control of the CSA due to a prior agreement involving a trade of information on the RDA for the rights to persecution for all RDA higher officials. Some say this is an attempt to capture long wanted smuggler and criminal Raigen Tei-Yehn, who was confirmed as being a key leader in the terrorist organization and..."

The hyperdrive of the z-ceptor kicked on as the fighter tore through the solar system. Tears rolled down Raigen's cheeks as the screen flickered off. "Shes alive"

A feeling of nausea and disgust overcame Raigen as he came out of hyperspace. He leaned over his datapad and tried to avoid his boots as the rations he had during the flight splattered between his legs. The Lucrehulk class battleship LandLord loomed in the distance, guarding Etti IV like a sphinx. Squadrons of IRD fighters would soon converge on him like moths to a flame as he made his way toward the planet. He had no plan of action, no skeleton of a plan to build off, only hope that somehow an opportunity to free Tara would present itself. That hope, however, was dwindling along with his makeshift star-fighter. Lights in the cramped cockpit flickered and the two incom fission engines sputtered as the ugly used up the last of its life in the previous hyperspace jump. Raigen cursed.

Commander Manz Kil-Halif directed his bridge with clearness and consistency. Although, consistency meant equal reprimands for everyone. The ship was run tight, and for good reason...he was not the commanding officer of the LandLord, but rather, acting commander in Captain Jaal Payob's leave. The Imperial Adviser had beckoned Payob to his office on Mandoor and Manz was left in charge of space traffic control and extra-planetary security while he was gone. He took his job seriously, although he missed his days in the Picket Fleet and long to go back to hunting down the slime of the galaxy. Kil-Halif looked over the screen showing authorized and unauthorized landings on Etti IV. In recent months, the numbers of improper landing and docking procedures had spiked with the influx of smugglers and criminals from the core worlds. Any tightening of the imperial grip resulted in an influx of ne'er-do-well refugees looking to escape imperial prosecution. The increase in traffic was simply more than the system could handle, resulting in errors in landing procedures and more and more smugglers trafficking through the corporate sector.


To Be continued