His name was Sygal. The Empire had not known his likes since the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn. He was an alien, despised by the Empire during its most powerful years. They had noted his immense intellectual capabilities, tried to duplicate his strategies used in the defense of his home planet, but they failed. He would reveal nothing to them, for they had killed his people.
In an attempt to control him, they implanted a small, computer chip into his brain. But his mental powers were to great, and it only gave him further abilities. Emperor Palpatine himself had noted a small force potential, but had kept it secret from everyone. It had, however, had a negative effect on his speach and thought process. He now compiled everything as a droid would, sometimes speaking in fragments.
With the arrival of the Rebel Alliance, the Empire now viewed him as a threat. If he were to escape, he would surely be their demise. He was sent to the ice planet Hoth, put into deep stasis, to be awakened again when the Emperor deemed it appropiate.
But that day never came. The Empire was defeated. The Emperor was killed. And Sygal was discovered by neither the Rebel Alliance nor the miriad of others who had explored the vast wastelands of Hoth.
But now, nearly 35 years after he had first been captured, he awoke.
The first thoughts that went through his head were of confusion. Slowly, he became oriented and remembered his past. It seemed only seconds since the droid had injected him with the medication. He glanced over his shoulder. That same droid still stood, a silent guard, watching the coffin-like container holding Sygal.
For a brief moment, Sygal was afraid it would attempt to force him back into stasis. But its power cells had been dead for years. He rose up slowly, a sharp pain shooting through his body from all these years of sleep. He walked over to an empty rations packet, one of the many strewn about.
He brushed off the empty package. The Imperial Sign was revealed to Sygal. It sparked memories of what had been done to him long ago. Rage boiled within him. If any entrail was left of that ruling body, he was determined to utterly destroy it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The freighter "Stygia Hopper" blasted through the Hoth Asteroid Belt at a dizzying speed. Its pilot, retired Tie Figher Commander Payl, guided the ship as if it was an interceptor. He ducked in and out of the asteroids, the large white mass of Hoth looming ever closer.
Payl had been involved with some of Jabba the Hutt's surviving partners. When one of them died and left his estate to Payl, he started his own business. The first thing he did was the securing of an old freighter. It was a stripped down freighter, used in the days of the old Republic. He had since heavily modified it, incorporating a YT-1300 into the front, and a landing rack capable of fitting two A-wing class fighters in the top groove between the two cargo containers. One side was now living quarters; the other was still cargo area. This was the first ship he commanded, and the ship he still commanded, called the "Stygia Hopper".
More ships were to follow - from small transports to Nebulon B Escort Frigates, and even a Dreadnaught. He was scouting this area for his newly established company, Stygia Shipping. Hoth seemed a good place to start; it was undesirable, out of the way, and unihabited. His plan involved using the old Rebel base there as main loading and recieving area.
It would take several days to locate the base. . . he had only sketchy maps of the area and no advanced equipment. He hadn't come alone; several of his guard droids accompanied him for protection against the wampas.
Payl Flew in to the location where his best map showed the old base. He ran a low level scan, but detected no signs of life in the surrounding area, other than a couple of tauntauns feeding on lichen. Payl spotted a small crater, created by the explosion of an Imperial Walker here years before. As he looked harder, he could see a white lump, the body of the walker covered in snow. Not only would the body make a good temporary base, but the Rebel Base had to be somewhere nearby. He flew down and landed in the center of the crater, and hopped out with a small, portable crawlway bundled in his arms. He connected the two vehicles together, and got back inside the Hopper to start circulating are between them.
- - - - - - - - - - -
An observation station still remained from the time when Sygal had been brought here. Most of the forces had been pulled to accompany on the Rebel Base raid, but a few remained stationed behind. The ones that left never returned, perhaps killed in battle or just deciding not to go back to the boring atmosphere. Now the loyal troopers remained here, destined to live out the rest of their lives on a freezing ice ball, never knowing what had become of their Empire.
For the few remaining, however, it was about to get a lot less boring. "Sir, uh, this will sound strange, but Sygals life signs are increasing."
"How? He is supposed to be in permanent stasis."
"I'm not sure, but there's something else. A ship just arrived, and it landed not far from where he was located. Stygal apperas to be headed towards the ship."
"We've got to stop him. Send all of our men and droids after him."
7 stormtroopers left the station, accompanied by 10 assault droids. They headed towards the "Stygia Hopper" with arms at ready.
- - - - - - - - - -
Payl ventured inside the abandoned Walker. After all these years, frost had formed inside the body, crystallizing the dead stormtroopers. He kicked one and it shattered into a thousand pieces. He bent down and pulled up the blaster rifle to take it back to the charger on his ship. Just then there was a loud "clank" at the main door of the Walker. At first he thought it was just his imagination, but it came again not long afterwards.
"I wonder who could be on this desolate planet?" he thought to himself. He crept towards the door, empty blaster in hand. He could hear a faint voice outside, "Help me, please!" He ran back to his ship and looked out a viewport to see a strange alien clinging to the leg of the walker.
"Hey! Get in here!"
Sygal turned and ran towards him. "I offer thanks for you're graciousness. I assumed I was to die outside of here." Sygal paused, and then said, "I will spare you the effort and tell you my name and how I came to be on this planet. I am called Sygal. I belong to an extinct race. The Empire wiped us out when I refused to help them. I have been on this planet in stasis for years. With the arrival of the Alliance, the iron fist of the Imperial Rule saw me as a threat to them, for I have shown considerable talent in strategic planning."
"Hmm. Thats interesting. My name is Payl, and I used to be in service to the Empire. They are all but gone now, and the few that remain would never commit such an atrocity. They need all the allies they can get. I am here on my own, scouting the area for a possible base. Not for the Empire, if thats what you're wondering. Just my own private shipping company. I brought several guard droids with me, in the event of a wampa attack."
But Sygal wasn't paying attention any more. He mumbled something unintelligible. "What was that?" asked Payl. "Please repeat the number of droids accompanying you."
"Oh, 5 guards, a couple worker droids."
"Get in the great metal body. Assemble the droids. There is a small dilemna.. A cadre of troopers is on its way."
- - - - - - - - - -
"We've discovered the ship. However, it is connected to a downed Imperial Walker. If they have fortified it, we will find it very hard to gain entrance." That was the report from Reynold, the troop leader.
"Are you sure they are inside?"
"Affirmative. The snow has been turned to ice where the ship melted it and the air froze it again. It is very recent. There are still footprints leading up to the walker."
"We discovered a flaw in the Walker design, though few ever found out about it. On the bottom, a small access panel can be kicked in. If you can reach it, you can ambush them from the back power core room. Be careful, though, it may have leaked."
"Yes, sir. They won't expect us there." Reynold motioned his men on towards the rear of the walker.
- - - - - - - - - - -
"If my memory is functioning correctly," said Sygal, "rumors were circulating aobout the prototype Death Star plans when I was taken away. What were the results of that experiment?"
"Not too good. There was a design flaw in the first one. One man, Luke Skywalker, destroyed the entire battlestation from the seat of his outdated X-wing. Admiral Tarkin himself was aboard the station when it was destroyed. The second Death Star was destroyed by Wedge Antilles, an excellent pilot, if I may say so, and Lando Calrissian. He's run quite a few gambling establishments over the years; I don't know how he got such a respectable part."
"Flaws. Memories resurfacing." Somewhere in the back of Sygal's mind, a small piece of information came to his attention. It was just something he had seen at a terminal; some technicians were discussing it, but now he remembered clearly what it was. "Compiling. Sorting information. You appear to have awakened a memory vital to my life. . . In what manner was this machine destroyed?"
"A speeder flew in and tangled the legs with a towcable. Another was supposedly destroyed by Skywalker, when he cut out an access panel and threw an explosive charge into the power core room."
"That is not a prospective piece of information." Sygal's eyes widened. "We must leave, now. The access panel can be broken in, allowing the troopers to enter through the power room. Unless you are willing to sacrifice one of your droids. . . Do you have any spare blaster packs?"
"Yes. Why?" Payl looked at him with a flicker of doubt.
"It was discovered that by placing two spare blaster packs together, one could create a powerful explosion. If one of your droids is willing to detonate the core, we can escape into the safety of your ship. We would be required to leave immediately."
Payl hesitated a moment, then said, "It would have been nice to keep this shelter, but you can use my light repair droid. He's only about a thousand IC's, and hasn't done that much on my ship."
Payl called the droid in, and told it what it was to do. The droid took the power cells and moved to the back of the Walker. Payl and Sygal ran towards the ship to get the shields up and try to initiate a cold start. It would take at least an hour; the ship was old and the systems were jerry-rigged, not a very efficient match. Shields could be run, at low power, using battery power for several minutes, but repulsor lifts would drain it in seconds. They settled in and watched out the viewports just in time to see the last trooper enter the open hatch.
The shields were initialized at extremely low power, and Sygal retracted the landing skids. "What are you doing?" Payl asked him.
"The violent removal of your landing skids is desirable? I may have a more profitable solution. If we can reroute power from all systems competely into the engine, we may be able to let off a short thrust burst while using the lower shields as a sled to push us out of the range of the explosion."
The idea sounded extermely dangerous. What if the shields failed, even for a second? The ship would be ripped to shreds. But it was just as risky staying hear, next to and Imperial Walker that was about to explode. "I'll have to do all that manually. I'll be back in the switch room. You reroute all shield power to the bottom of the ship."
Payl felt the ship rise slowly, then stop. He was flipping switches and pushing buttons, frantically transferring power to the engine burners. He heard Sygal yelling down the corridor, "10 seconds until detonation."
Payl yelled back, "Go, go, go! Initialize engine thrusters, full throttle. And hold on to something!" Payl grabbed the walls and braced his legs against the wall. The engines flared brightly and roared, and the ship lurched forward, sliding along on the ice created by the friction melting the snow, which was immediately frozen. Payl looked back to see that the engines had melted the front of the walker closed.
Seconds later, the Walker blew up in a huge fireball, shards of metal raining down everywhere. The ship's engines faded out, but it continued to glide for a short distance before finally coming to a stop. "Shall I continue reactor initialization?" Sygal asked him from the front.
"Uh, yeah. Keep it going. I'm going to try to get life support back online. If you get cold, there are Environment suits in that little door."
Payl began to change the settings, attempting to get the batteries to power the life support for a short time while he adapted one of the power droids to use as a temporary, low power reactor. He looked out the viewport at the wreckage of the walker, and hoped there weren't more Imperials out there.
End Chapter One
Next week: Chapt. 2 – Choosing Sides
Sygal and Payl fight the remaining Imperials. Payl's fleet arrives, followed closely by an Imperial Task Force. Sygal leads them in a fight, capturing a Victory II Star Destoyer. The New Republic shows up shortly after the battle. When Payl denies that he knows where they are, the Alliance commander opens fire on them. Once again, Sygal leads the weary freighters to victory, suffering heavy losses, but capturing a fighter transport.
Sygal now views the Alliance as his enemy, as they attackd him with no reason. He allies with an Imperial warlord on the fringe, and creates a merging of the two fleets.
