Chapter 41

Year 4, Day 191, Deep Space, Star Wars Universe

His Imperial Majesty's Starship (HIMS) Lacerate was a Bayonet class light cruiser of the Imperial Starfleet. The two hundred meter long vessel had been designed as a long range commerce protection unit. It had enough fire-power that no pirate ship, or indeed pirate fleet, would dare attack it, not with it's eight turbolaser batteries ready to rain death upon anyone foolish enough to try it. It also came equipped with a pair of high power tractor beams for customs work; a small battery of railguns, and a trio of heavy laser cannons for anti-fighter work.

The Lacerate shared the iconic dagger-shaped hull of its larger cousins in the Imperial Starfleet, giving it the ability to direct all it's fire in a massive forward punch. In almost any other universe it would be seen as deadly threat, but to the inhabitants of the Star Wars universe it was a small fry, lacking any fighter compliment, only having a single shuttle, it's armour was shields and armour were paper thin compared to any 'real' warship in that universe, after all it massed 'only' ten million kilograms and change when fully loaded.

It was that fact that drew Alexander's attention, it was the biggest vessel he could be reasonably expected to transit under ideal conditions, and if the Captain of the Lacerate had known what was about to befall his proud vessel he might have had a chance. Unfortunately, at least for him, he didn't have a clue.

***

Year 4, Day 191, Cargo Bay HIMS Lacerate, Deep Space, Star Wars Universe

The cargo bay Alexander had chosen for his target was almost empty, just a bare handful of crates and containers. It was the largest space he could find on the designs he's purchased months ago from a 'slicer' on Nar Shaddaa, along with plans and planned routes of as many Imperial Ships he could find. It had been disturbing how easy it was get the information, but Alexander put it down to money talking and the fact the rebellion to restore the republic was at least a decade away from forming.

Alexander was the first to recover from the transit effect, most of the others having undergone it only a few times previously, and those transits had been much quicker. The jump from Terra Prime to the SWU usually taking less time than a blink, but with such a large cargo it had taken several seconds. Alexander could see a few people retching and he winced. He knew from personal experience throwing up inside your helmet was decidedly unpleasant.

Quickly scanning the room Alexander spotted a pair of techs standing open mouthed staring at the sight of over a hundred people in clone trooper armour who had just appeared out of thin air. Not giving them time to react Alexander put his enhanced reflexes to good use, pulling a pair of vibroblades off his harness and throwing them in one smooth move. One of the techs, a brown haired woman, was hit in the neck, blood spraying everywhere as she flopped lifelessly to the floor, the other, a young man with blonde hair, wasn't as lucky, the blade impacting him in the chest puncturing his lung.

Tommo Williams, one of their few medics, raced to the side of the quickly started trying to keep him alive. Alexander didn't enjoy killing people who were just doing their jobs, but he couldn't risk them sounding the alarm, nor could he risk a stunner that would trip the internal weapons alert.

Turning away from the sight Alexander looked for Clayworth, quickly spotting the older man by the hand painted Royal Marines insignia on his chest plate, and started issuing orders. "Colour Sergeant, split me off three four man squads, and detail another two to guard the non-combatants, the rest of you are to storm the ship once I give the order. Stunners only unless you meet heavy resistance."

Clayworth started barking orders and within a few moments, the four man details were assembled in front of Alexander.

"Right, I'm going to be transiting us into the bridge, life support, and engineering, in that order, I'll be leaving a squad of you behind at each." Alex said pulling a pulse grenade off his harness, "Make sure your visors are set to filter mode, it's going to get bright and loud. Any questions?"

Seeing none Alexander nodded firmly and made the first jump.

***

The thirteen men appeared on the bridge and Alexander lazily threw the grenade into the air. It drifted up softly before detonating in a pulse of sound and light. The bridge crew didn't even have a chance to register the fact that they were being boarded.

The bridge of the Lacerate looked just like the movies, only much smaller as befitting the size of the ship itself.

Alexander pointed to the leader of one of the squads, a corporal, discernible only by the extra blue ring on his shoulder. "Barricade the doors, secure the captives, and don't touch anything, leave that to the techies."

"Aye Sir!" The corporal said, and started issuing orders.

Alexander turned away and began another jump.

***

Thirty minutes later Alexander sat slumped in the captain's chair on the main bridge, feeling exhausted. At least he had time for a breather. His soldiers were split between guarding the technical teams and searching for any holdouts. All in all his first act of piracy had gone well. Only one of his men had been injured, when one of the few stormtroopers on the ship had managed to get a shot off, and even that hadn't been serious.

"What are we doing with the captives?" Clayworth was asking. Like Alexander he had taken his helmet off.

"How many do we have" Alexander asked idly.

"One hundred forty two living" Clayworth replied, "five dead, a handful injured, none serious"

Alexander nodded, "Good, I didn't want to turn this into a bloodbath. For the moment, keep them in the cargo bay, restrained." He paused for a moment, "I'll leave the details of that up to you, personally I'd strip them down to their smalls and cuff them, but you've got more experience than me at that stuff."

Clayworth frowned and asked, "And long term?"

Alexander sighed, "I'm not sure, the way I see it we've got two options, dump them in the escape pods and send a message letting the Imp Fleet know where we are. There are obvious downsides to that, not the least it would make repeating this a lot harder."

Clayworth nodded, "Not to mention the butterflies from the Imperials knowing about teleportation"

Alexander laughed, "Since when did you start thinking about butterflies? Hell since when did you know what they were other than flying insects."

Clayworth grinned sardonically, "Since Matt started sending me those Alternate History novels you like so much."

Alexander grinned and shook his head before sobering, "Option two, take them with us, and after we've finished up on Earth 29 we offer them a choice, service with us, the people of E29, or exile on a technically advanced world where they can't cause many problems"

Clayworth nodded thoughtfully, "You want my opinion?"

Alexander blinked, "Of course, always"

"You didn't earlier today" Clayworth said with a slight smile.

Alexander shook his head, "I'm sorry about that mate, but time was of the essence."

Clayworth grinned, "Don't be sorry lad, you're finally taking command, and that's a good thing"

Alexander shook his head again, "Maybe, but I shouldn't have been such a dick about it. Anyway what do you recommend?"

"I say option two, keep them with us. We could use them, and well, like you said, letting them go could cause a lot of problems later on in this universe" Clayworth said.

Alexander nodded, "Agreed."

The conversation drifted to other matters for a bit before one of the techs, Hoshi Yoshida, working on the bridge called out Alexander's name.

"What have you got?" Alex asked as he moved down into the pit of the bridge itself.

"I've got access to the navigational computer" Hoshi said, "I can get us to the coordinates you supplied earlier anytime you want."

Alexander nodded, he'd ordered LVIOS to scan for the nearest 'jump point' as he'd started to think of the places in space with the optimal conditions for a large transit. "ETA?"

"About three hours at flank speed" Hoshi replied.

"Make it so" Alexander said with a huge grin.