LOTF: Collision/Chapter 11

Hans walked into the control room of the Brotherhood HQ fully armed, ready to fulfill a life's worth of vendettas and fulfill the mission Barak had given him. The memory wasn't fading this time; it was ever-present in Hans' mind, urging him to pull the trigger. But Hans wasn't going to kill Dylan quite yet.

"Well, well, well. You've done well for yourself, haven't you?" Dylan confidently observed, smirking as Hans approached. "You've come so far since we met on that ship, you just another member of a group of fugitives herded by a Jedi, me, a crime lord hiding away on a ship built with highly classified Republic technology. Now... I'm a crime lord hiding away on a satellite built with highly classified Republic technology, and you're another member of a group of fugitives being herded by Jedi. So, you've come all this way to meet me. What do you want?" Dylan asked, shifting forward in his seat. Hans' finger tensed on the trigger.

"I want revenge for my mother. Justice for my father, and for all the people whose lives you've ruined. I want to protect the people whose lives you haven't ruined yet. I want the Brotherhood cleansed from the galaxy."

"Oh, boo-hoo." Dylan taunted. "You're nothing. Just a pest that's lived too long. Tell you what— I'll give you this chance now to go. There's a shuttle on the floor directly under this one, access code is 1201."

"No thanks." Hans answered, pulling the trigger. The green blast rang out towards Dylan and was promptly absorbed by a blue personal shield that formed around him. Dylan wasn't even fazed.

"Really? You would've shot me?" Dylan asked, disappointed and angry as he stood up, crossing his arms. Wordlessly, Hans pulled out his scattergun, which elicited actual fear in Dylan's eyes before Hans fired again. Unlike a regular blaster, the scattergun didn't fire plasma but actual projectiles, and so the shots breached the shield with no resistance, and were met by only a small amount more by Dylan's body. Surprised by his death, Dylan used his last few moments to look at the blood quickly turning his robes purple and at his own gloved hands, finally meeting his mortality. Then he looked back at Hans, and gave a weak smile.

"Y—y—you.. fool." He chuckled, and collapsed in front of the seat.

After those final words, Hans kept his weapons ready for any sign of a contingency or retaliation, but when nothing presented itself, he made his way over to the chair to take over the space station. He sat down, and several screens appeared ahead of him, displaying several statuses of the station. Shields low, turrets taking heavy casualties, the droid starfighters from the station depleted, data being sliced, backup engines ready, hailings from Anarto II incoming.

"Welcome, Hans Cerrano." A robotic female voice greeted him.

"How do you know me?" Hans asked.

"Your identity was input by the creator as a user with Paradus level access."

"How much access is that, exactly?"

"You can control all of the station's systems from here." The interface informed him.

Looking at the hailings and gazing through the windows at the planet below thoughtfully, Hans had an idea. "Does that include Eclipse Protocol?"

"Affirmative."

...

Praxon, Esvald, and Nova watched the Brotherhood HQ suddenly began to transform, unfolding itself to create a wide, circular black screen as hidden engines began to fire with a green light as they thrusted the station at a new angle to Anarto II, casting a beginning to cast a shadow over the planet.

"What the hell are they doing?" Esvald asked. He turned aggressively to Praxon, who was shocked by what he was seeing.

"Eclipse protocol," He muttered, having heard the tales Hans and Ranulph told of the Brotherhood superweapon. At the bottom of the station, a long laser cannon began to extend, faintly glowing purple but gaining strength and intensity by the second.

"Mistress Nova, if I may," Esvald suggested, "We could cripple the weapon now in one swift blow."

"That's a terrible idea!" Praxon objected. "We don't know what destabilizing it might do."

"Look at the state of our fleet." Nova said, interrupting Praxon. "It can hardly hurt us more. All we might do is remove a superlaser from the possession of a group of loose cannons. Prepare to target the laser."

"Nova!" Praxon yelled, stepping towards the Hutt.

"ENOUGH OF YOU!" The Hutt shouted. "ONE MORE WORD, AND I WILL HAVE YOU SHOT. YOU ARE NOTHING, YOU UNGRATEFUL VERMIN! I WILL NOT LET MY BUSINESSES DIE FOR YOURS."

Stunned and greatly aware of the threat, Praxon back down as armed Gamorrean guards closed in on him, raising their weapons. They took no action against him, for Nova still wanted him around until the end of the battle, but Praxon knew his minutes were counting down.

"DX, I need a tactical analysis. Can I take these people?" He scanned them with his robot eye.

"Odds are too low to endorse action." The response came. "Data extraction is currently at ninety percent. Stall if you can."

"I can't."

DX didn't reply, which disturbed Praxon greatly. The only time that ever happened was when he was performing a calculation whose results he couldn't process. For now, Praxon let a deep breath in and out, and chose to bide his time, watching the station glow as the Nebula fleet began to shift targets.

...

Decien viciously pursued Ganner through the terminals in the Brotherhood communications center, diving through screens and slashing computers apart as Ganner fell back, taking cuts from the glass and burns from Decien as Linora and Taran watched helplessly.

"Given in! You know nothing of true power!" Decien exclaimed.

"If you do, why haven't you won?" Ganner responded. Steadily, Ganner stood at the front of the room and held his ground as Decien attacked, the two furiously exchanging blows in a heated, noisy clash until suddenly the room turned dark, causing them both to stop for a moment in surprise. Ganner and Decien both turned to the window to see that the sun had been blotted out by the black station, which began to slowly glow violet.

"What?" Decien gasped.

"Well, how about it." Taran chuckled. "Eclipse protocol. The Brotherhood wins again."

Nervously, Deicen looked around quickly for a solution, but finding none, steeled himself and turned his lightsaber off.

"What are you doing?" Taran asked.

"Nothing." Decien answered. As he spoke, Ganner moved to attack him, but Decien simply stuck out his hand and paralyzed him. "We don't die here." he confidently told Ganner. Still, the glow began to change the color of the entire sky, a brilliant purple, almost crystalline.

"Are you sure?" Linora asked.

...

In orbit around Anarto II, the station's superlaser charged up with a low as a menagerie of ships attacked the weapon to no avail. The light had become so bright now that it overpowered the shadow cast on Anarto and the ships above it, all taking on the color of the weapon they sought to protect or destroy as it reached its activation point. The hum steadily rose in pitch, and the desperate bombardments continued, useless as before.

On the bridge of the Brotherhood HQ, Hans Novastar observed a live feed of the Anarto II base, where shuttles belonging to high ranking officials such as Cyana and Moras had already departed for the other side of the planet, hoping to escape the blast and make their way offworld.

Eclipse protocol is ready. The station stated.

"Do it."

The plasma of the laser collected for just a second at the tip of the laser like a drop of water condensing before it falls. The hum quickly became a high shriek, and the light so strong many of the pilots who had been near the weapon when it primed itself were immediately blinded even before it fired. At last, in an instant, the laser surged outwards towards the surface of Anarto II in an eruption so violent that the release of energy let out a shockwave from the superlaser itself, sending all the surrounding vessels hurtling wildly. The laser reached Anarto II in less than a blink, turning the whole planet the same blinding purple. However, when the laser reached Anarto II, it did not impact the surface. The laser collided with a hidden planetary shield, enveloping the entire side of the planet that faced the station in the purple light but protecting it as the energy pushed its way around like fire against a more physical shield. At last, the station's power was exhausted, and the attack ended, with Anarto II unharmed.

"Oh, Hans." Dylan's menacing voice boomed through the room. "Did you really think you had a chance?"