Subject: [Fanfic] The Four Horsemen
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 06:18:15 GMT
From: Col.Falkenhorst <metalnavy@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.vs.starwars


Star Wars vs. Star Trek:

The Four Horsemen

A fanfic by Ray Koons (aka Col. Falkenhorst)

Starring Col. Falkenhorst as Sergeant Falkenhorst!
Also starring several denizens of The Warzone Message Board!

No money is being made on this story, and no copyright infringement is
intended. 

(6th December, 2000)

	Another flight of X-Wings roared overhead, their laser cannons 
spitting death.  An AT-AT lay burning, it’s head blown off by a well 
placed concussion missile.  Sergeant Falkenhorst ducked back into his 
slit trench as something exploded nearby.  Down the trench was the 
remainder of his squad.  The fighting on Bastion had been especially 
hard, taking his men one by one.  The entire planet was a charnel 
house.  The Republic’s long campaign against the Imperial Remnant was 
finally winding down, with the Starfleet escaping to parts unknown 
under Admiral Sheppard, and Republic forces landing on most of the 
remaining Imperial worlds.  Shouts and blaster fire pulled him back to 
the present.
	"Here they come, Sarge," said Pvt. Bob Lawson, ramming another 
powerpack into his E-11.
	"Kill the motherfuckers," said Falk, drawing a bead on one of the 
advancing Republic soldiers and burning him down.  Bob opened fire, 
taking aimed shots at the attackers.  Wade "Striker" Lupton pulled a 
thermal detonator off his belt, flicked the arming switch and whipped 
it towards the enemy soldiers.
	"Fire in the hole!" he called.  Falkenhorst and his men ducked as 
a bright flash lit the darkened landscape, and through the blast, he 
could hear screams of agony from the enemy troops.  He fired again, 
finishing a wounded man off with a shot to the head.  His elation at 
their demise was short lived.  Over the battle frequencies, he heard 
the soldiers of the units holding the flanks screaming and dying as 
they were overrun.  A few stormtroopers and groundpounders made it to 
Falk’s position, but they were pursued by hovertanks.  Heavy fire began 
concentrating on their position, and it started looking grim.
	Blast after blast slammed into the earth above Falkenhorst’s 
head, driving him deeper into the soggy dirt to avoid them.  A man 
screamed in agony as his head was blown off by a heavy blaster bolt.  
Then another man was shot through the heart, spurting blood all over 
the remaining soldiers.  The 3rd member of the Falk’s squad, Pvt. 
Rommel, could be heard praying over the din of battle.  Falkenhorst 
heard a roaring noise, and recognized it as the sound of a Y-Wing 
accelerating into an attack run.  He heard the roar of an incoming 
proton torpedo, and then the world exploded in a dazzling flash...

	Sargeant Falkenhorst opened his eyes.  He was not surprised to 
find that he was in hell.  All around him, the cries of the Damned 
echoed through the murky darkness.  He noticed that Striker, Bob, and 
Striker were standing next to him, similarly surprised. Suddenly flames 
leapt up and terrible demons appeared out of the gloom, prancing around 
and chanting unholy incantations.  Then, Satan appeared.
	He was clothed in a flowing black cloak, and clutched a razor 
sharp pitchfork in one hand.  Sargeant Falkenhorst noticed  the end of 
a pointed tail peeking out from under his cloak.  Satan spoke.  His 
voice was horrible to hear, as if he were breathing fire as his insides 
were torn apart.
	"Bow before the lord of darkness!" he said.  Falkenhorst felt 
queasy with fear of this horrible monster and instinctively fell to his 
knees.
	"I want something, and you will get it for me;" said the Devil, 
looking at Falkenhorst.
	"W-what is it that you want?" asked Falkenhorst, overcoming his 
terror enough to muster a response.
	"There is one who can open a gateway for me to cross into the 
mortal world; said Satan, beginning to pace around the prostate forms 
of Falkenhorst and his men.  You will bring her to the designated spot 
where this is to occur."

	"How are we to know where to find her, or what to do?" asked 
Falkenhorst.
	"Do not worry about that.  I will let you know when the time 
comes." said Satan, stopping his pacing and looking each of the 
stormtroopers in the eye. And remember this, mortals... fail me, and 
your souls are mine.  Bring me the one, and the rewards will be 
unimaginable...

	With that Satan waved his hand and the 3 troopers vanished. Since 
they were mortals, he could exert his influence to bring them here, but 
likewise, he could not cross into the mortal world unless there was 
someone on the other side to bring him there.  He knew that the one 
could do it, if the circumstances were correct.  It was now just a 
matter of time...

	Falkenhorst found himself floating in the air in a darkened room.  
Then gravity took effect, and he slammed into the floor, his blood 
stained armor protecting him from injury.  Instinctively he readied his 
blaster, and noticed his men doing the same.  Then he saw two glowing 
red eyes hovering across from him in the darkness. Satan’s face 
appeared floating in the air before the 4 disoriented stormtroopers. It 
was transparent, and appeared to flicker in and out of existence.  His 
voice came to them, but it sounded weak and far away.
	"You are in a maintenance locker adjacent to the engine room of 
the ship carrying the one." said Satan.
	"You will secure it and stop the ship.  After that, I will 
instruct you further." he said as he vanished.  Falkenhorst took a 
moment to collect himself.
	"Ok, guys, let’s do this.  Don’t kill any of these people, since 
we will need them to operate the equipment.  Striker, get ready with a 
flashbang." he said.
	Falkenhorst held his blaster ready in one hand as he felt for the 
door controls in the darkness.  His thumb rested on the button, and 
Striker held a flashbang in his hand, poised to whip it into the room.
	Falk hit the button and aimed his blaster through the door as 
striker whipped the grenade.  He saw several strangely clothed crewmen 
look up in surprise, and then the grenade went off.  The stormtroopers’ 
helmet filters shielded their eyes from the blast, and they charged 
into the room.  Falkenhorst brought the barrel of his carbine down on a 
crewman’s head, knocking him to the deck unconscious.
	Stormtrooper Private Rommel was a crack shot.  He demonstrated 
this by blowing off one of the pajama clad men’s hands as he reached 
for some kind of weapon. A quick kick to the face sent him sprawling on 
the floor.  Falkenhorst KO’d another crewman with the butt of his E-11.  
He sensed something behind him and turned around, just in time to block 
a punch from a dark skinned woman with a fucked up forhead.
	She said something in an alien language and swung another punch.  
He snagged her arm in midswing, his stormtrooper training taking over 
as he used her momentum against her.  He twisted his body around, 
flipping her head over heels into the edge of a table in the middle of 
the room.  There was a sickening crunching noise as her spine shattered 
just above her midsection.
	"Ouch." muttered Striker, feeling a brief flash of sympathy for 
the poor bitch. That would take awhile in the bacta tank.  He was 
brought back to business as he broke the last crewman’s nose, sending 
him to sing with the birdies.
	Falkenhorst shot the door controls, and a large blast door 
obligingly slid closed. The 4 stormtroopers laid out the unconscious 
starfleeters in a row against the far wall, except for the alien woman, 
who Falk ordered to be left alone.  They tied up the crewers with wires 
ripped from several consoles, and then Falkenhorst began typing at one 
of the computer stations.  He knew he had only minutes before somebody 
found out what had happened, and he needed to work quick.  He booted up 
the console and blinking text appeared:  "USS Voyager, NCC-74656".  The 
security was easily bypassed by Falkenhorst’s illegal hacking skills, 
and soon the pulsing reactor unit in the center of the room had idled 
down and shut off.  Falkenhorst worked furiously, emplacing codes and 
transferring vital system control to his station.  As soon as he 
established full control of the ship, he called Bob over.
	"Bob, watch this station, and familiarize yourself with these 
systems.  I have some things to find out."

	As he walked over to where Rommel and Striker were watching the 
prisoners, a voice came from somewhere.
	"Bridge to engineering, Lt. Torres, what the hell’s going on down 
there?"
	"Shit," said Falkenhorst.  He and his men looked around to see 
where the increasingly worried sounding voice was coming from.  Falk 
traced it back to the odd arrowhead insignia pinned to the shirt of the 
alien lady he had paralyzed.  He took it off her and looked at it, 
starting to laugh as the voice demanded to know why the ship was not 
responding to control input.  He tapped it and it beeped.
	"Hello? who’s down there!" said the voice.
	"Piss off."  said Falkenhorst.  The voice became angry as he 
tossed the communicator on the floor and stomped it with his boot.  It 
didn’t shut up.  Striker and Rommel laughed as Falk unholstered his DL-
44 and blew the annoying thing to pieces.
	The face of Satan appeared in the air, looking at Falkenhorst.
	"You have served well.  Now it is your task to bring the ship 
here, to these coordinates." he said.
	"What coordinates, Lucifer?" asked Falkenhorst.  Bob called him 
over.
	"Look sir, they’re on the screen!"  Sure enough, a set of 
coordinates was scrolling across the screen.  Falkenhorst turned around 
to say something more to Satan, but the prince of darkness had vanished 
again.
	"Enter those coordinates and get the ship moving again.  You 
heard Satan, If we do this job for him, he might grant us 3 wishes or 
something."
	"Satan is the deceiver of nations;" Rommel muttered.  "We 
shouldn’t trust him."
	"Well," said Falk.  "Like it or not, we owe him our lives.  He 
saved us from that reb torpedo."
	"I still don’t like this;" said Rommel.
	"Yeah," muttered Falk as he pulled a syringe full of Bacta from 
his medkit.  He stuck it in the alien lady’s arm and pressed the 
plunger.  He got Striker to help him, and they laid her carefully out 
flat on the floor.  Bob finished keying in commands, and the warp core 
began pulsing again.  The ship leapt into warp on  a heading that would 
take them to the coordinates that Satan had provided them.  Falkenhorst 
sat next to Bob and they began reading the specs and operating manuals 
for the Voyager while Rommel and Striker interrogated the prisoners.  
Every so often, the irritating voice would come over the one of the 
communicators, and the Imperials would take turns insulting the 
Starfleet man on the other end.  Once they were interrupted by banging 
on the blast doors, and the computer had started blabbing some warning 
about someone trying to phaser their way in.
	That was brought to a screaming halt when Falkenhorst typed in a 
sequence of commands, releasing mustard gas into all the corridors that 
led to the engine room.  He watched on the security camera feed as the 
5 redshirts in the hall died horribly as the mustard gas destroyed 
their lungs.
	"They must serve some shitty food on this ship;" remarked Striker 
when he saw the grisly sight.
	"Ha ha!" said Bob.  "Almost as bad as those nerf burgers at 
Duncan’s Dive back in Mos Espa!
	That silenced Striker’s laughter immediately.  He looked at Bob 
suspiciously, his hand inching towards his blaster.
	Falk saw this and decided he’d better say something before this 
got out of hand.
	"Uh, did I miss something?" he asked.
	"You fucking faggot.  I should have known you were one of them," 
said Striker.
	"Woah, woah, why is he a faggot? What’s with this hostility?" 
said Falk, trying to calm the situation.  Rommel spoke up from the 
other side of the room.
	"Sir, the Duncan’s Dive was a Gay bar in a seedier section of Mos 
Espa." he said.
	"Sweet mercy of the white Christ!" exclaimed Falkenhorst, drawing 
his DL-44 for the second time that day and pointing it right between 
Bob’s eyes.
	He tried to conceal the loathing in his voice as he spoke.  He 
failed miserably. "You’ve got some pretty tall explaining to do, 
soldier, or you’ll soon find yourself performing EVA without a vac 
suit!" he said.
	Bob leaned against a console and spoke nonchalantly, as if 
unconcerned by the gaping bore of the blaster hovering just inches from 
his helmet.
	"It was five years ago, when the Imperial offensive in the outer 
rim was heating up.  The Rebs had just been routed at Kappa Tauri, and 
Admiral Kenneth von Lowe’s fleet was engaged in mopping up operations 
in the nearby systems.  We dropped in on Tatooine and took out a small 
rebel supply depot.  It was a cakewalk." Said Bob.
	"Yeah, so why were you in that shithole?" asked Falk.
	"Well, we were given 24 hours of R&R by old Admiral Kenny, after 
which we were supposed to reembark and rejoin the main fleet for the 
landings on Actius 7. Anyway, our squad found it’s way into Mos Espa, 
after "borrowing" some speeders from a few locals.  We visited the 
podraces and the brothels, all that nice shit;" he said.
	"Then we decided to go for a drink.  We thought it would be easy 
to find a tavern, but some Sith forsaken Hutt crime lord had closed 
them all down. Except one."
	"The Duncan’s dive." said Falkenhorst, lowering his blaster.
	"You got it.  Needless to say, we trashed the joint.  We beat the 
shit out of those nancies, and burnt the place to the ground."
	"Heh heh." said Striker, clicking the safety back on.  "Know 
what, Lawson, you’re an ok guy."
	"Yeah.  Said Falk, holstering his blaster.  A light blinked on 
the console.
	"We’ve got 5 hours until we reach our destination;" said Bob, 
examining the readouts.
	"Ok, let’s get this joint in order.  Striker, find out where the 
medbay is on this damn ship and get their doctor to come up here and 
fix that chick.  I think she’s the engineer." said Falk.  "Bob, find 
the files on the bridge crew.  Who are we dealing with?"
	Bob began typing and soon was looking at records.  Falk turned 
around and began pacing.  "Satan!"  he called.  No answer.  "Satan, get 
your lousy ass out where I can see you.  I have something to ask you."  
he said.
	A grumbling was heard, and Satan appeared in the same ghostly 
form he had taken on earlier.  "What is it, Insolent one?" he asked.
	"Who are we supposed to deliver to the planet?  Asked 
Falkenhorst.
	"The one must not come to any harm.  Her name is Janeway." said 
Satan.  "Do not fail me." Then he vanished.
	Falk considered that for a moment.  Then he turned to Bob.  "Get 
me the files on this bitch.  Who are we dealing with?"  Bob began 
typing, and soon a profile popped up. Falk leaned over and read it.  
This Janeway was none less than the captain of the ship!
	"Damn odd of them, to let women captain their ships.  She must 
have slept her way aboard." muttered Falkenhorst as he read the rest of 
the profile.
	That drew some laughter from Striker, who had somebody on a comm 
screen looking distressed.  Falk took interest, and walked over.  A 
balding, cynical looking man was standing there, arguing with Striker.  
Falkenhorst recognized the woman standing next to the doctor as 
Janeway.
	Falk motioned Striker out of the way.
	"Hey, kriffheads, listen up.  Send your doctor down here now. 
You’re engineer is suffering from, ahh, spinal trauma."  Rommel 
snickered in the background as he examined the innards of a control 
panel.
	"Who are you?! What right do you have to take over my ship!?!?" 
Ranted Janeway.  Falkenhorst hated her already.
	"Listen, whore, cut the crap.  If you’re doctor doesn’t get his 
ass down here STAT, some of these other scumbags are going to die." 
Falk jerked his head at Striker. Striker pulled one of the bound 
prisoners to his feet and dragged him into the camera pickup.  Falk 
drew his DL-44 and blew a steaming hole in the man’s head.  He twirled 
the blaster pistol theatrically on his finger, sliding it smoothly back 
into it’s holster.  Striker held the limp, bloody corpse up for all to 
see, before tossing it like a rag onto the floor. Janeway’s face was 
pale, and she looked like she was going to scream or cry or some other 
pathetic crap. Falk just cut the channel.
	 "Secure this shit," he said to Striker, kicking the corpse.He 
walked over and laid out his E-11 on the ops table and fieldstripped 
it.  As he was cleaning and inspecting it for damage, Bob spoke up. 
"Falk, looks like the doc’s here." he said.  Bob glanced up, and saw 
the doctor standing outside the door on a screen hooked up to a video 
monitor.
	"Let him in, but put up forcefields around that whole corridor.  
I don’t want ‘em trying anything sneaky.}Falk just cut the channel.  
"Secure this shit," he said to Striker, kicking the copse.He walked 
over and laid out his E-11 on the ops table and fieldstripped it.  As 
he was cleaning and inspecting it for damage, Bob spoke up.
	"Falk, looks like the doc’s here." he said.  Bob glanced up, and 
saw the doctor standing outside the door on a screen hooked up to a 
video monitor.
	"Let him in, but put up forcefields around that whole corridor.  
I don’t want ‘em trying anything sneaky."
	Bob did as ordered, and the blast door ground open.  Striker met 
him at the door.
	"First rule: no bullshit, or you die, along with some of your 
friends;" he said.  Falk finished with his gun, and stood up, slinging 
it over his shoulder on it’s strap.  He pointed to the engineer, who he 
now knew was named Torres.
	"Get to work, doc.  We need this bitch to run this shit bucket of 
a ship."
	The Doctor got to work, examining her.  He shook his head in 
dismay.
	"She has suffered a fractured spine!  I need to get her to 
sickbay immediately!"  he said.  Bob looked at Falk, who nodded.
	"Take her, and remember no tricks or we’ll blow this ship to shit 
and past." Said Striker, pulling out a thermal detonator and gesturing 
towards the warp core.  The Doc said nothing, but carefully removed 
Engineer Torres from the engine room.  When the blast doors were safely 
closed once more, Bob called Falkenhorst over.
	"Sir, that doctor isn’t human!  He’s some kind of hologram!" he 
said, pointing to the schematics of the EMH program he had called up on 
the terminal.
	"Damn," said Falkenhorst.  Then his eyes brightened with an idea.
	"Computer!" he said.
	"Working," replied the cloyingly courteous voice of the ship’s 
computer.
	"Assign EMH shutdown protocols verbal code Falkenhorst Delta 
Tango."
	"EMH shutdown protocols confirmed." said the computer.
	"Further orders, computer.  Erase EMH Morality protocols.  Once 
you’ve done that, embed new protocol, Falkenhorst-Alpha."
	"Specify function of protocol Falkenhorst-Alpha."
	"Direct verbal command and control of EMH unit, my voiceprint 
only."
	"Changes confirmed;" said the computer cheerfully.  Falkenhorst 
snickered to himself.  He could have some fun with this yet.  


Part 2

	Bob slid the USS Voyager out of warp drive in orbit over a desolate 
planet.  The small ship’s sensors bathed the world in their radiations, and the 
returns flickered across a certain viewscreen.  Falkenhorst had been playing 
around with the replicator, and after several tries, had produced a stogie.  Bob 
was mildly annoyed by the second hand that he was getting as Falk leaned over to 
see what the screen said.

	"Looks like a real shithole;" said Falkenhorst as the readings told him of 
high concentrations of toxins and other unsavory substances on the planet. 
Satan’s face appeared in the air.  "You will transport the one to the planet’s 
surface, where my devotees will take care of the rest.  You will find 
coordinates." he said.  Sure enough, sets of numbers began running across the 
screen.

	"Tap into their transporter units, and get that woman off this ship.  The 
sooner we’re done with this, the better." said Falkenhorst.

	On the bridge, Capt. Janeway was conferring with her officers as to how to 
take back the ship when suddenly she felt the familiar effect of a transporter 
beam.  She tried to escape, but she began to dematerialize... 

	A shimmering light appeared in a subterranean cavern deep below the 
surface of the planet below.  Janeway materialized in the dark room.  She looked 
around, trying to get her bearings.  She heard a skittering sound, and then she 
saw them.  Sets of small, beady eyes that glowed red in the darkness.  She was 
almost blinded as a torch erupted into flames.  She was horrified at the sight 
that appeared before her. A dozen short, ugly trolls stood around her, some 
brandishing curved scimitars, while a few held primitive slugthrowers.  One 
pointed his sword at her chest.

	"You come." it said in a squeaky, nasal voice that reminded her of a 
ferengi. Janeway knew she had no other options.  She followed the trolls through 
the dank, dimly lit corridors until they came to a large hall.  It was filled 
various sleazy looking creatures, most of whom began leering at her and calling 
out in their native tongues.  She was brought before a throne and forced to her 
knees.

	On the throne sat The One Whose Name Must Never Be Spoken.  He was short 
and a bit overweight, with a shallow, unhealthy look to him.  The unspeakable 
evil powers he wielded had twisted and warped his body, and sucked the last 
traces of sanity from his mind.  He no longer controlled the evil, it controlled 
him.  To those who had known him before he descended into his netherworld of 
evil and insanity, he had been known as Timothy Jones.  Now, he spoke.  His 
voice was torturous to Janeway’s ears.

	"At last;" he croaked, "I have you!  Come to me, my sweetling..."

	"Never sicko!" she said, and spit in his face.  His evil, scarred visage 
cranked up in an evil sneer.

	"I’ll show you, wench!"  He pressed a button on the arm of his chair and 
spoke. "Beam the rest of the bridge crew to this location!"  he said. 

	In the engine room, Falk watched Satan vanish again.  Bob turned to him.

	"I have them locked on, Sarge." he said.  Falk paused, and then turned to 
Bob.

	"Beam a camera probe down with them, I want to see what kind of operation 
Satan has going on here." he said.

	"Ok." said Bob.  He promptly energized. 

	Janeway cringed as her bridge crew materialized in the chamber.  TOWNMNBS 
laughed evilly and gestured to several trolls standing around the throne.  They 
began beating Janeway’s bridge crew, while several other trolls forced her to 
watch. Unbeknownst to them, however, a millimeter wide surveilance probe hovered 
on it’s antigravs, slowly scanning it’s surroundings and tightbeaming the visual 
feed back to the Voyager in orbit.

	Falkenhorst watched in disgust at the scene that was unfolding.  The other 
stormies gathered around to get a peek at the screen.

	"Damn, those critters are UGLY!" said Striker.

	"Who’s that nasty old man on the throne?  Oh sweet Christ! He’s molesting 
that captain Janeway chick!"

	"Emperor’s ghost!  That’s NASTY!!!" said Falkenhorst, coughing.  He spit 
the smoldering but of his stogie onto the chest of one of the restrained 
starfleeters.  The man wailed in pain as the hot ember burned through his 
uniform and began cooking his skin. Their eyes were drawn back to the screen as 
the old guy hit a button on the arm of his throne.  His mouth began moving, but 
no sound came out.  Then, suddenly, they heard what he was saying.  Falkenhorst 
whirled around, his E-11 leveled at the face of Satan.

	"...have served me well" Satan was saying.

	"What the kriff?!! said Falk.  Satan stopped, and the man on the screen 
began gesturing to several trolls.  He looked mad.  Then the face of Satan 
vanished.  Falk turned to Bob.

	"Play back the visual of that man.  Enhance his face. Computer, replay 
Main Engineering audio surveilance records from the time we began recieving 
probe telemetry."

	"Working." said the computer.

	They listened as Satan began speaking, his filtered words nonetheless 
articulated perfectly with the moving lips of the wicked old troll on the 
screen.

	"What a mindfuck!" said Falk.

	"Let’s get this fucker," said Striker.  Suddenly the ship shook.  Bob 
spoke up.

	"Shields at 83%, planetary weapons are targeting us."

	"Return fire.  Use that Isokinetic Cannon jobbie." (Author’s note: This 
assumes the Voyager kept the powerful energy gun they got from the Entharans in 
"Retrospect") he said.  Bob began keying commands.  The Voyager rotated in space 
and began spitting blue bolts at the planet’s surface.  The powerful Isokinetic 
bolts hammered straight through the heavy armor that protected the trolls’ 
weapons emplacements, obliterating them in seconds.  A few more rounds laid open 
a section of the tunnel complex. Falkenhorst looked at Bob.

	"Isolate and clear the corridors from here to the shuttle bay. Striker, 
get your guns and come with me.  We’re going to go down there and mop the floor 
with that troll bitch’s face."

	Bob began working, and Falkenhorst and Striker stepped out of the engine 
room, trotting down the deserted corridors to the shuttle bay.  They passed 
several starfleeters who had been stunned knock out gas, and they saw armed 
groups of starfleet redshirts watching them from the other side of the 
forcefields.  They would have to deal with them when they got back, thought 
Falk.

	He and Striker got in a shuttle.  Falkenhorst quickly familiarized himself 
with the controls, and Bob opened the bay doors from engineering.  The small 
ship hovered up off the deck and rocketed out into open space as Falk applied 
full thrusters.  They descended through the atmosphere toward the smoking 
craters the Voyager’s weapons had blasted in the ground.  Falk set the shuttle 
down near a collapsed tunnel entrance.  They secured the ship and got out, 
running forward.

	This section of the tunnels had been closed off by emergency blast doors, 
but Falk and Striker were protected from the hostile atmosphere by their 
Stormtrooper armor. They came to one of the emergency doors and blew it open, 
advancing through the wrecked corridors.  A few trolls tried to stop them, but 
they were easily blasted aside as the two Stormtroopers advanced towards the 
central chamber.  The rest of the trolls milled around within their underground 
labyrinth, trying to bypass junctions that had been collapsed by the shockwaves 
from the Isokinetic rounds.  A huge blast door loomed ahead.  Falk clicked his 
helmet mike on, opening a channel to Bob on the Voyager.

	"Bob, Beam out as many of those crewers as you can.  We’re going in."

	"Aye, sir, commencing beamouts." said Bob.

	"Let’s do this," said Falk.  Striker placed 3 thermal detonators on the 
door and set them to go in 20 seconds.  The massive expenditure of munitions was 
rectified by the fact that he could easily replicate more when they returned to 
the ship. They retreated down the corridor as a blast wave rolled past, carrying 
twisted scraps of the armored door. They rounded the corner and darted through 
the still glowing doorway into Timothy Jones’ lair.  Trolls were everywhere, 
some already dead, while others coughed their lungs onto the floor as they were 
destroyed by the corrosive atmosphere. Incredibly, TOWNMNBS was still alive.  He 
was grasping weakly at the control panel of his throne as he struggled for 
breath.  Falkenhorst walked up to him as Striker methodically finished off the 
struggling trolls on the floor.  Falkenhorst stuck the barrel of his E-11 under 
TJ’s chin and spoke five words to the doomed troll: "Don’t kriff with the 
Empire."  Curiously, the troll rasped a wicked laugh as falkenhorst blew his 
head off of his body in a spray of superheated gasses and shredded tissues.  
Falk noticed his gnarled fingers slipping away from a button, where an amber 
safety cover had been opened.  Then Falkenhorst noticed a blinking LED display 
on the panel.  It read 00:27 and was ticking down.  Realization dawned on Falk.  
He turned to Striker.

	"Let’s go!  This place is rigged to blow!"

	"Shit!" said Striker.  The two stormies sprinted through the wrecked 
corridors. The shuttle was sitting where they had left it.  They dove in, Falk 
scrambling towards the controls and quickly preflighting the ship.  They roared 
skyward at full throttle.  Below, the timer reached zero, and fissile elements 
reached critical mass. The Trolls’ underground city ceased to exist as it was 
consumed in the expanding blast wave of the five thousand megaton demolition 
nuke buried beneath it.  Thousands of square miles of the planet’s surface were 
obliterated, turning the planet into an even worse hell.

	An unholy light filled the cockpit of the shuttle, and Falk and Striker 
held on tight as the ship was buffeted by the tremendous shockwave.  The hull 
creaked and groaned, and the air in the cockpit seemed to grow noticeably 
warmer.  The ship held together though.  They somehow managed to ride it out, 
and powered for orbit.  



Part 3
	It was 5 days after the nuking of the Troll’s underground complex, and the  
USS Voyager still orbited the hellworld.  The four Imperials had dosed the  crew 
with knockout gas and confined them to their quarters.  Bob was on the  bridge, 
working on the weapons console, while loud rock music blared over  the speakers.  
Rommel was on an open comm line from engineering, and they  were comparing notes 
on the workings of the ship’s systems.  This tub was  primitive compared to 
Imperial vessels, but since their only way home had  been destroyed by Timothy 
Jones’ final act of vengeance, they were SOL in  that matter.
	Meanwhile, Falk and Striker were standing in sickbay.  The Holodoc was  
standing before the prone form of 7 of 9, who was suspended in a stasis  field.  
He glanced at his tricorder and then adjusted some controls on a  panel at the 
base of the stasis unit.
	"Well," said Falkenhorst, chewing impatiently on a stogie, "Can you do 
it?"
	"Yes, but it will take time to adjust and calibrate the nanoprobes  
properly.  Once that is done, we will be able to use them for the purposes  you 
specified."
	"Good.  Proceed.  I want the first batch ready by tomorrow morning." said  
Falkenhorst.  He motioned to Striker, and they walked out into the deserted  
corridor.
	"That holodude is sure helpful, since you made him your bitch;" said  
Striker.
	"Yes," replied Falkenhorst as they boarded a turbolift.  "Their computer  
systems are ridiculously easy to manipulate."
	"Do you think your plan will work?" asked Striker.
	"I’ll have Doc test it out on a few of them first.  If that works, we will  
proceed with the plan." said Falkenhorst.  He had been up several nights  
straight since they had wiped out the trolls, sitting in Capt. Lameway’s  
office, swigging a flask of Correlian brandy and poring over reams of  
scientific documents.  Bob had finally found him passed out over a sheet of  
calculations and had made sure he had gotten enough sleep.  When he had  woken 
up, he had presented his plan and instructions to the Doctor, whose  program 
Falk had "Modified" to do his bidding, no matter how unethical or  evil.
	His plan involved using nanoprobes replicated from the former Borg chick, 
7  of 9, to control the crew of the ship.  The Doctor had begun reprogramming  
them, so that when a subject was injected with them, they would multiply and  
render him susceptible to suggestion.  The subjects could then be  manipulated 
by computer codes, and be made to accept any authority.  It  would provide 
Falkenhorst and his men a labor base of lackeys among anyone  who they took 
prisoner, thus allowing them to solve any manpower needs  easily.  The 
nanoprobes could also be used to compel a person to reveal the  truth under 
interrogation.  Yes, Striker knew that his commander had  developed a truly 
devious plan.
	The 2 Stormtroopers got off the turbolift and walked down a corridor.   
Falkenhorst stopped by a set of double doors.  They opened, and they entered  a 
room.  Yellow lines ran along the walls, over a background of black.
	"What is this room?" Asked Striker.
	"The computer says it’s called a ‘holodeck’." said Falk.
	"Cool, sir.  Does it make holograms like the doctor?"
	"Yes Wade.  Look.  Computer, run program Falkenhorst Alpha!"  Wade was  
briefly disoriented as his surroundings shifted, and then he found himself  
standing on the Overbridge of the Death Star.
	"Holy shit!" he exclaimed.  Falkenhorst just smiled and walked over to a  
console.  A viewscreen came on, showing a tranquil world floating in the  void.  
Falkenhorst pressed a button and spoke.  "Commence primary ignition!"
	Striker noticed the deck begin to vibrate beneath his feet, and suddenly  
the Death Star’s superlaser streaked out, smashing the planet to atoms.
	"Emperor’s ghost!  That was Fucking awesome, sir!"
	"Yes," said Falkenhorst.  "This holodeck is capable of recreating almost  
any people, environments, or situations so realistically as to be  
indistinguishable from reality."
	"What did they use it for?" asked Striker.  Falk laughed.
	"Recreation." Said Falk.
	"HA HA HA HA!!! what a bunch of idiots.  This place would be the perfect  
training simulator!"  Said Striker.
	"Yes, and from now on, we will put it to it’s proper use.  Have some fun  
for awhile, I’ve got things to do." said Falkenhorst.  The doors closed  behind 
him, and Striker turned back to the Overbridge.  This would be fun  indeed...

	The next morning, Falkenhorst woke up bright and early.  He grabbed a cup  
of coffee from the replicator in the quarters he had taken over, and headed  
down to  sickbay.  The Doctor was there, working away on a computer console.    
Falk strolled in, observing the prone form of 7 of 9 in the stasis  chamber.  He 
walked over to the doctor.
	"How's it coming, doc?" he asked.
	The doctor hit a few more keys and then sat back.  "It's done, sir.  I 
have  completed programming the nanoprobes to your specs."
	"Excellent.  Replicate a batch and test them on that engineer."  Said 
Falk,  lighting a stogie and pulling up a swivel chair.  The doctor walked over 
to  a replicator and keyed in a few commands.  Shortly several hypo cartriges  
appeared.  The doctor put them in his pocket, except for one, which he  loaded 
into his hypospray.  He walked over to the biobed on which Engineer  Torres 
rested, recovering from her back injuries.  Falk kicked off a desk,  rolling 
across the floor and coming to a stop next to the bed.  The doctor  injected her 
with the nanoprobes and stood back.
	"They should take effect immediately." He said.
	"Wake her." Said Falkenhorst.
	The doctor injected stimulant into the sleeping engineer, and she began to  
groan and twitch.  Her eyes opened, and she spoke.
	"What...;" she said.  Falk just smirked.  "Touch your nose," he said.   
Obediently, she reached up and touched her nose.
	"Blink your eyes." He instructed.  She blinked her eyes.
	"The command algorithms work excellently.  She responds immediately;" said  
Falkenhorst.
	"Yes.  Said the Doctor.  "The subjects will answer directly to you or any  
of your colleagues, and in your absence, will follow their officers or any  who 
are appointed over them." he confirmed.
	"Very good," said Falkenhorst.  "From now on, Doc, you are responsible for  
coming up with new and devious weapons for me.  Now, administer the  nanoprobes 
to the rest of the crew.  I want to have this ship underway by  noon." he said 
as he turned to walk out of the sickbay.

	Striker and Rommel were playing a game of Sabbac on the ready room table  
when Falkenhorst walked in.  The pot was fairly large, and included various  
miscellaneous items.  Falkenhorst hit a button on a comm panel.
	"Bob, get your ass to ready room one, RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!  I have a 
meeting  to conduct."  Striker and Rommel put away the Sabbac deck and split the 
pot.    Then they turned to look at Falk.  Just then Bob ran in, wearing  
sunglasses, shorts, and a Hawiian shirt.  Falk drew a puff on his stogie and  
blew the smoke in a ring.
	"Do I want to know?" he said sarcastically.
	"Nice place called Waikiki," said Bob.  "You should see the women in that  
place..."
	"Playing in the holodeck, eh?" said Striker.
	"Hell yes, I visited Hawii, on some planet called Earth."
	"Very well," said Falkenhorst, pressing several buttons on a wall console.   
A screen lit up, showing a galaxy.  Roughly 1/4 of it was marked with stars  and 
borders, while the other 3/4 were pretty much black.  A small tract  beginning 
on the opposite of the explored side was visible, and at the  coreward end of it 
was a glowing red dot.  Falkenhorst produced a pointer  and laid it on the dot.
	"We are here." he said.  "The people who ran this ship before we  
‘liberated’ it were headed back here;" He pointed toward a blue area in the  
explored region.  "Apparently some alien shithead tossed them across the  galaxy 
from their little feifdom called the Federation.  There are various  other 
powers neighboring this Federation, notably the ‘Klingons’ ‘Romulans’  
‘Cardassians’ and several others.  Interestingly, the federation is  populated 
mostly by humans.  However, we will not be concerned with their  primitives 
asses for some time yet, as the drives of this damn ship are too  slow to get us 
there before we die of old age."
	"Ha ha, what a bunch of savages!" said Striker.
	"Don’t get hasty.  There are several other major powers that we will have  
to look out for.  One is the Dominion, which operates vast military forces  
composed of clones.  They are on the far side of this galaxy, so we can put  
them on the back burner for now.  Then there are the Borg, who are the most  
dangerous threat in this galaxy.  They "assimilate" victims into their hive  
mind.  They can adapt to various weapons, and posess transwarp drive.  That  is 
the only drive technology even approaching the speed of hyperdrive in  this 
galaxy." he said.
	"So what will we do?" asked Rommel.
	"First off," said Falkenhorst, considering the map,  "We must acquire a  
transwarp drive from the Borg.  After that, we will begin forming a fleet  
composed of captured and coerced ships and their crews.  We will be able to  
gradually take over facilities and population centers with our nanoprobe  
technology, until we have sufficient resources to conquer this pitiful  shithole 
galaxy." said Sargeant Falkenhorst.
	"Towards that end," said Falk, "I hereby commission this vessel the ISS  
Vengeance.  This ship is the instrument with which we will begin our  conquest 
of this galaxy, and forge here the Empire that the rebs took away  from us! He 
said.  Striker, Bob, and Rommel pounded on the table, clapping  and cheering.  
Falkenhorst pushed another button, and a logo popped up on  the screen.  It was 
a stylized silver eagle, with a grinning skull  superimposed over it’s body.  It 
grasped a sword and a shackle in it’s  claws.
	"This shall be the standard of our new Empire," said Falkenhorst, pointing  
to the eagle.  "The eagle symbolizes our coming ascendancy to greatness, the  
sword represents our might and determination, and the shackle reminds our  
enemies of their destiny." he said.
	"Hell Yeah!"
	"Now, let’s get down to business...  


 Part 4
	After lunch, Falkenhorst and his men walked out onto the bridge of the ISS 
Vengeance.  The old starfleet crew was at their posts, but they were now wearing 
military issue boots and grey uniforms.  They all had sidearms.  Specifically 
colored pauldrons on their shoulders denoted their section.  Falkenhorst took a 
seat in the command chair, and the others went to their various places of 
interest.  Falkenhorst punched up an external camera feed.  Outside, an EVA team 
was putting the finishing touches of a massive eagle emblem on the forward 
dorsal hull of the ship.
	"Begin long range scans.  Find me the smallest Borg vessel you can." he 
said.
	The crewer with pointed ears began scanning.
	"Sir, I have located a borg vessel, class 14 scout, approximately 1 hour 
from our position at warp 5." he said.
	"Very good.  Lay in a course and engage, warp 7."
	"Aye." said the crewer at the helm.  Falkenhorst wasn’t worried about fuel 
expenditures.  They would simply use these ingenious transporter systems to 
replenish their supplies from the tanks of the borg ship they were about to 
capture.  He was surprised that the previous crew had not done this. 
	Forty minutes later, a lone Borg scoutship was cruising sedately through a 
nondescript star system.  It was crewed by 40 drones, and minimally armed.  
Because of it’s advanced scouting designation, it was equipped with a transwarp 
drive to make it’s mission easier.  In 20th century street parlance, it was 
about to be jumped for it’s Nikes.
	The ISS Vengeance dropped out of warp directly behind it, blazing away 
with phasers.  The scout managed to get it’s shields up, but not before taking 
damage.  It tried to transmit to the collective, but found it’s connection 
severed by the intense subspace jamming being generated by the enemy.  The 
Vengeance came about, dumping a spread of photon torpedoes from it’s launchers.  
The warheads streaked in, hammering down the shields of the Borg vessel.  
Despite the borg’s infamous adaptability, it only got them so far against 
superior firepower.  The phasers lashed out again, blasting the scout’s weapons 
into useless slag.  It’s power systems began fluctuating, and it stopped as it’s 
autorepair systems were overwhelmed by the damage.  The Vengeance dropped it’s 
shields and tractored the scoutship.  Then, 3 assault teams were beamed over. 
Falkenhorst and his men had found a simple solution to counter the Borg’s 
personal shields.  The assault crewers were not armed with energy weapons, but 
simple, replicated AK- 47s, the specs for which had been found in the ship’s 
records.  They would easily deal with the drones’ lack of KE shields.
	The assault teams fanned out through the borg vessel, firing bursts of 
special steel jacketed 7.62 mm rounds into the Borg as they tried to stop the 
invaders.  The slugs laughed at the Borg energy shields and blasted cyborg 
parts, flesh and anything else in their way to so much pulp.  The ship was 
secure in less than 10 minutes, with only 1 casualty among the boarders.
	Immediately, an engineering team was dispatched to the captured ship.  
They got right to work removing the Borg transwarp systems and disassembling 
them.  They were beamed piecemal into one of the Vengeance’s cargo holds.  The 
transporter crews were also busy, beaming antimatter from the borg vessel’s 
storage units into the Vengeance’s empty ones.  Within half an hour, the 
boarders had what they wanted. The last team out rigged the ship to blow, by 
setting a bomb on the containment unit of the last full antimatter pod on the 
ship.  They were beamed over, and the Vengeance leapt to warp as the small 
vessel was ripped apart by a massive thermonuclear blast. 
	Two weeks later, the Vengeance was floating in an asteroid field.  It’s 
systems were powered down for stealth, and in engineering, something was going 
down.
	"Ok, what’s the feed rate on that conduit?" asked Torres. Rommel looked at 
the tricorder he was holding, and gave her the answer.
	"Just adjust this, and... Got it!" she said.  Bob looked up from his 
console.
	"The diagnostics are all green.  We should be able to power this baby up 
any time." He said.
	"Excellent." said Rommel.  He turned to Bob.
	"We must report to Falkenhorst at once." he said.   The two men walked out 
of engineering.  They reported to Falkenhorst in his ready room.
	"Sir, the transwarp drive checks out." said Rommel.
	"What are it’s specs?" asked Falkenhorst.
	"The drive is capable of propelling us at a speed of 86 light years per 
hour.  At that rate, we could cross this galaxy in 48 days."
	"Very good.  Not as fast as hyperdrive, to be sure, but it’s a start." 
said Falkenhorst.
	"Now, our first objective is to begin building our fleet. According to the 
logs of this vessel, there is a race called the "Kazon", roughly 30,000 
lightyears from here, which posesses ships which will be suitable for our use.  
He hit a button and the image of a Kazon Predator came up on the screen.  It was 
utterly massive, even larger than an Imperator class Star Destroyer.
	"This is the Kazon Predator class vessel;" said Falkenhorst.
	"These vessels are ridiculously underarmed and ill-maintained by their 
owners;" he said.  "It should be no problem to capture these ships and outfit 
them to our standards."
	"Agreed." said Bob.
	"Yep." said Rommel.
	"Good.  Bob, get with engineer Torres and begin replicating another 
transwarp drive.  We’ll also want to replicate components for Isokinetic cannons 
and other systems, so that we can begin outfitting the ship as soon as we secure 
it." he said.
	"Okay." said Bob.  Falkenhorst and Rommel then walked out on the bridge.
	"Power up all systems and lay in a course for Kazon space, best Transwarp 
speed." he said.
	Rommel spoke up.  "What will our ETA be?" he asked.
	"14 days." said Tuvok.
	"Very good, that’s more than enough time to get those damn components 
replicated." said Falkenhorst, sitting back in the Captain’s chair and sparking 
up a stogie. The Vengeance leapt into transwarp drive.    


Part 5

	Two weeks later, the Vengeance dropped out of Transwarp near the fringes 
of Kazon space.  On the small ship's bridge, Guns 'n Roses was blaring from the 
speakers. Falk was reclining in the command chair, dozing, as the butt of his 
cigar burned closer and closer to his lips.  Over the last 2 weeks of their 
journey, he had been discovering the joys of earth's 20th century.  He had spent 
hours in the holodeck, firing assault rifles, riding in tanks, and driving fast 
cars.  Yes, this Federation had an illustrious history, but only if you counted 
out the last 250 years or so.  It seemed that when these humans had reached 
space they became a bunch of communistic pansies for some reason.  Falk had 
guessed that the rulers were so incompetent that they had to resort to 
controlling the masses with brainwashing to maintain order.  A democracy 
consisting of hundreds of billions of citizens of extremely different 
backgrounds spread over 8,000 lightyears was bound to collapse under it's own 
weight.
	Their technology just wasn't up to the task of supporting such a society. 
Slow drives and communications contributed to the apartness that worked against 
democracy. So the Federation kept it's real power securely within starfleet, and 
brainwashed the citizens into thinking they had some say in things.  However, 
their control of the media made that extremely easy, since all the 
communications in the federation were handled by starfleet, which was a direct 
arm of the government.  The people knew just what their masters in San Francisco 
and Paris wanted them to know.
	In order for democracy to work, thought Falk's subconscious, the scale 
must either be small or made small.  The Empire, on the other hand, with it's 
strong central authority, galaxy spanning communications and drive systems, was 
much more efficient. And even then, democratic government did not work, as the 
Republic had found out. Only when faced with a dire threat such as the empire 
was the Republic strong.
	Imperial style fascism was diametrically opposed to the federation's style 
of government and philosophy, though, and they would find that out soon 
enOUCH!!!!!
	Falkenhorst sprang out of the Captain's chair as the smoldering ember of 
the cigar singed his lip.
	"GOD DAMN IT!!!" he yelled.  Some crewers hid their laughter, while others 
just went about their duties.  Falk calmed himself and turned to the helmsman.
	"When will we reach our destination?" he asked.
	"Exiting transwarp in 2 minutes, sir." said Lt. Paris.
	"Good." Said Falkenhorst.  He tapped a button on the comm console.
	"Rommel, make sure the Isokinetic cannon is ready.  We're going into 
battle soon."
	Before they had left, their course had been designated for an outlying 
Kazon world.  However, it was on the border between two sects, which at last 
report, had been skirmishing with one another.  It had been considered likely 
that there would be warships in the area, and so a good hunting ground.
	The Vengeance dropped out of Transwarp on the fringes of the system.  The 
star was an old, dimming ember that would soon decay past the point at which 
life could survive on the two planets that orbited it.  Scanner beams poked out, 
and returns came back.  Tuvok looked up from his panel and made his report to 
Falkenhorst.
	"Sir, sensors report 1 Predator class vessel orbiting the second planet, 
with 5 smaller craft in attendance."
	"Go to condition one.  Prime all weapons."
	Sirens began blaring and red lights began flashing in the background.
	"Helm, take us in, and position us for a run against those escorts.  Main 
cannon, fire on the Predator at your opportunity."  Below decks, Rommel and 
several crewers prepared the Isokinetic Cannon for firing.  This monster could 
slap down the shields of the predator with 1 shot, and they wanted to be ready.
	The Vengeance screamed in from above the orbital plane of the system, 
catching the escorts napping.  Photon torpedoes anhilated 2 of them before the 
others responded. They peeled off and gave chase, but were kept at bay by the 
Vengeance's aft phasers.  The ship turned, and for a few seconds, the Predator 
crossed Rommel's firing arc.  The cannon fired, spitting a glowing blue shot at 
the ponderous Kazon vessel.  The round blew through the shields, smashing 
through the outer hull and laying waste to a considerable section of the ship's 
bow before exiting clear out the other side.  The huge predator began to heel 
over, the damage having upset it's gyrostablizers.  It's gunners fired back, but 
Tom Paris threw the Vengeance over into a rolling turn that brought it onto the 
tail of one of the escorts.  Rommel blew it to hell.  The Isokinetic Round tore 
the ship apart like a .22 taking out a dragonfly.
	The remaining two escorts closed in, their fire whipping past and 
impacting on the Vengeance's rear shields.  Paris cut the throttles, and the 
incompetent pilots of the two escorts allowed their ships to shoot past before 
realizing their mistake. The throttles were pushed back to full, and the 
Vengeance shot after the two ships.  A spread of torpedoes flashed after one 
while the phasers riddled the other.  The Vengeance turned about as the spread 
impacted the last escort, spreading it and it's crew across space in a brilliant 
display of plasma and wreckage.  The Big Kazon warship had decided to bug out, 
but Falkenhorst ordered maximum subspace jamming.  Then the Vengeance swooped 
in, firing another shot from it's Isokinetic Cannon.  The round slashed through 
the ship, causing relatively little co-lateral damage, but severing several 
power trunks.  Lights flickered all over it's hull, and it stopped dead in 
space.
	"Sir, enemy vessel is without power and drifting!" said a crewman.
	"Excellent, bring us alongside and beam over the boarding parties."  Said 
Falkenhorst.  Immediately, 50 Phaser-Armed boarders were beamed over to the 
drifting enemy ship.  A group of 10 materialized on the enemy bridge, proceeding 
to stun the crew there for the loss of only one of their own.  20 materialized 
in the engine room of the ship, and promptly engaged the crew in brutal combat.  
The other 10 were beamed to the ship's secondary command center, which was 
seized with no trouble.   The fighting was intense in the engine room, as the 
enemy crew took cover among the huge machinery and fought to the death.  
Meanwhile, canisters of knockout gas were beamed to strategic locations around 
the Kazon ship, taking care of the remaining crew.  Then, the boarders from 
secondary command moved to reinforce their comrades in the engine compartments. 
After 20 more minutes of fierce combat, the last of the enemy were rooted out.  
A total of 9 boarders had lost their lives in the action, but those losses would 
be more than made up for by the conversion of the Kazon crew to the 
Stormtroopers' designs.

	2 Hours later, Falk and Bob took a shuttle over to the Kazon ship.  They 
were met in the hangar bay by several crewmen armed with E-11s.  The imperials 
had replicated an arsenal, using their weapons as patterns.    Now that the ship 
was in Imperial hands, they were taking no chances.  Falkenhorst spoke to one of 
the crewmen.
	"Show us to the cargo holds."
	"Immediately, sir." said the crewer, unquestioningly loyal. The man led 
his superiors through the strange corridors of the alien ship.  At one point 
they had to detour because a damaged section had been sealed off.  Several 
repair droids were working near the damaged area.  They had been Rommel's idea.  
He had tinkered around in the holodeck designing and programming them, and 50 of 
them had been replicated during the 30,000 lightyear transwarp voyage.  Now they 
had been beamed over to the newly captured ship, and were assisting with 
repairs.  They reached the cargo bay of the Predator.  It was truly immense.  
Over in one corner, a group of at least 4,000 Kazons were confined behind a 
forcefield.  They were guarded by 20 guards with E-11s.  Several guards had set 
up 4 MG-42s, the feared German machineguns with a 500 RPM cyclic firing rate.  
Falkenhorst wished for E-Webs, but they didn't have the specs for those. Even if 
the prisoners could somehow disable the forcefield, they would pay dearly for 
their foolishness.  At regular intervals, a guard would speak into a comm unit, 
and a small section of the shield would drop long enough for one of the 
prisoners to be beamed out. Falkenhorst watched as the current prisoner 
materialized on the other side of the hold, where 4 guards already had their 
blasters leveled at him.
	The doctor walked up and injected the prisoner with a dose of Nanoprobes. 
His eyes glazed over for a second, and then he seemed to regain his wits.  A 
medical technician led the now unresisting Kazon over to a station, where 
calibrations and tests were performed.   Falk and Bob walked over to the doctor.  
He had several tanks full of nanoprobes, with which he was converting the Kazon 
crew.
	"How goes it, doc?" Asked Falkenhorst.
	"Excellent, sir.  I would recommend, however, that these crewmen be given 
a full battery of medical analyses and nutritional supplements.  They are not 
exactly the cream of the crop." he said.
	"Not to mention that they fucking stink!" said Bob.
	"Yes doc, these shitheads do smell, come to think of it.  You will add 
'shower twice daily' to their subconscious programming."
	"As you wish, sir." said the Doctor.  Falkenhorst lit a stogie as he and 
Bob headed for the turbolift.  Next stop, the bridge.

	They got off the lift on the bridge of the Kazon ship.   Crewmen and 
technicians milled around, working on various tasks.  Rommel turned around from 
his work at a console.
	"Sir, we have contained most of the damage I inflicted on this piece of 
shit with my Isokinetic Cannon." he reported.
	"Very good, Rommel.  You just earned your week's pay.  When can we get 
this tub underway?  I don't want to be hanging around here too long.  Some of 
their friends might come looking for em."
	"Well, my boys belowdecks say that they can have the warp engines online 
within a half hour, but don't expect anything fancy.  She'll do about warp 5, 
and no fighting until we can fix those power nodes and control compcores." he 
said.
	"Good, just do your best.  We have to get this ship somewhere where we can 
finish fixing it." Said Falkenhorst.

	One half hour later, the Vengeance and the captured Kazon vessel departed 
at warp speeds.  Approximately 5 hours after that, a Kazon cargo vessel entered 
the system to resupply the Predator and it's escorts.  When all it found was 
debris and no sign of the Predator, it immediately reoriented itself and jumped 
back to warp speed. The Kazon leaders would want to know about this...

	1 week later, 2 ships exited a nebula.  One was larger than the other, and 
had been painted battle gray like it's smaller consort.  A proud Eagle of Death 
spread it's wings across it's bow.  In black ten meter letters beneath the eagle 
were stenciled the words "ISS WARHAMMER".  The ship bristled with newly 
installed weaponry and shielding. Twenty Isokinetic cannons poked out of their 
armored gunports on each side of the ship. Numerous phaser emplacements dotted 
the hull of the ship, and deep within it 's engine spaces, 4 new high 
performance fusion generators provided added power.  Ten new shield generators 
accounted for most of that, but the remainder went into the boosted SIF.  Ten 
more torpedo launchers had also been added, to give the vessel greater firing 
arcs.  A Kazon captain commanded the ship, but all of them had been converted 
into good Imperials by the Doctor's nanoprobes.  The Vengeance's replicators had 
been working nonstop to produce the machinery for the upgrades, and now it was 
time to test them out.
	The two ships oriented themselves towards a distant star and engaged their 
transwarp drives.

	2 Hours later, Kazon world Darvus 2.

	Darvus 2 was a fairly arid world, covered mostly in deserts, but with 
several large lakes accounting for 7 percent of the planet's surface.  It was 
home to aproximately three hundred million Kazon.  Most of these were clustered 
in cities on the shores of the lakes. These settlements were not really cities 
persay, but sprawling slums and villages.  The only thing that made the world 
attractive was the massive Antimatter production facility in high orbit over the 
world.
	Falkenhorst had little doubt that the quantities of antimatter aboard that 
station would be more than enough to wreck the planet below.  This atack would 
have to be planned carefully.  He ordered condition one as his ships approached.
	The Vengeance and Warhammer dropped out of Transwarp on the fringes of the 
system, and began active scans.  2 Predators were in the system, one docked with 
the antimatter Facility, and the other waiting to take on fuel.  Several smaller 
vessels were also present, but these posed little real threat.  The 2 Imperial 
vessels Made another short Transwarp jump, with the Warhammer appearing in the 
midst of the escort ships.  It unleashed a flurry of phaser blasts, disabling 
several of the ships and scattering the rest.
	Lt. Paris rolled and jinked the Vengeance, avoiding a volley of phaser 
fire from the docked Predator.  The deck shuddered as Rommel let loose with the 
Isokinetic Cannon, sending a powerful bolt smashing through the enemy ship's aft 
shields.  The ship was wracked by internal explosions as the round laid waste to 
it's generator rooms and power distribution network.  It went dark as it's 
generators were blown offline by the secondary blasts rolling through the aft 
section of the ship.
	The other Predator had turned to engage the Warhammer, but the latter 
fired a salvo of Isokinetic Rounds into it, sending it spinning away, burning.  
The Vengeance dealt with the remaining escorts.  The Warhammer tractored the 
wrecked Predator into a safe orbit, while the Vengeance beamed canisters of 
knockout gas onto the station and the other ship.  Soon boarding parties were 
securing their objectives and locking up the enemy crewers until they could be 
converted.  The Empire was growing...    


Part 6
        It had been two days since the attack on Darvus 2.  The Warhammer and 
Vengeance hung in orbit near the captured Antimatter facility.  One of the 
damaged Predators was pulled up beneath the Warhammer, and swarms of repair 
droids and EVA suited crewmen flitted between the two.  Workers with laser 
torches were busy cutting open the Predator’s hull, to make room for the weapons 
that would be installed.  Droids and technicians worked within the ship as well, 
repairing the damaged engine rooms and installing new power trunks for the 
weapons batteries.  The crew of the ship was being processed aboard the 
Warhammer, and assigned repair jobs on their ship.
        Meanwhile, the Vengeance had begun firing wide angle stun blasts from 
it’s phasers at the shantytown directly below it, and soon teams had beamed down 
to begin converting the local population.

        Falkenhorst and Bob had special plans for the other Predator they had 
captured, however.  Massive replicator units were being built aboard the 
Warhammer, which would in turn be installed in the other Predator.  The plan was 
to downsize the ship’s crew, and use the ship’s huge internal volume to house 
the industrial replicators, antimatter storage, and specialized maintenance 
facilities.  The ship would carry a huge droid complement, and allow the fleet 
to extend it’s operating range.  The ship would serve as  a mobile repair yard 
and replenishment base for the armada as it made it’s way from world to world, 
conquering and subjugating.
        Several small Kazon vessels had entered the system since the Imeperial 
ships had moved in, and they had been promptly disabled and taken over.  These 
had become the nucleus of the planet’s defense force.

        3 weeks passed, and the 2 ships were outfitted.  Their dead personell 
were replaced by manpower from the planet.  The nanoprobes were unique in that 
they allowed an individual to be "Programmed" for a specific task.  Thus, an 
ordinary civilian could be programmed to be a soldier, by uploading the 
necessary files to the nanoprobes via computer transfer.  The nanoprobes would 
then ingrain those instructions in the brain of the individual, and regulate 
body function to optimize their physique according to their designated task.
        Falkenhorst, Bob, Striker and Rommel were sitting around the Conference 
table on the ISS Vengeance.  Beyond the viewports, the 3 massive Predators of 
the fleet could be seen loading their last crew and materials aboard from the 
station.  The Warhammer would be accompanying the Vengeance, along with the 
other new Predator, the Mournblade.  The mobile repair yard ship, which had been 
named Consolidator, would be doing a little travelling while they were gone.  
The target for the Consolidator was a nearby system which was dominated by a 
vast asteroid belt.  It was there that the main Imperial operation would be 
located.  With the abundance of raw materials, the Consolidator would be able to 
begin replicating thousands of construction droids and components for even 
larger production facilities.  It was planned that eventually new ship designs 
would enter production once proper facilities had been constructed, but for now, 
the fleet would consist of captured local vessels.
        Falkenhorst spoke.
        "We are going on a raiding mission.  The ISS Warhammer ISS Mournblade 
will accompany us on this mission.  Basically, we’re going to rake a haul of as 
many ships as we can to augment our fleet.  Any questions?"  he said.
        "No.  Let’s get cooking." said Bob.
        "Another thing," said Falkenhorst.  "We’re going to capture as many 
Predators as we can from these blokes.  We won’t have any large scale capital 
ship construction for some time yet, so we are going to need everything we can 
get."
        "Yes," said Rommel.  "I have my design teams working on some wicked 
designs, though.  Give it a year or two, and we’ll be fielding some fairly 
advanced units."
        "Excellent," said Falkenhorst.
        The meeting continued for another half hour.  When it was done, 
Falkenhorst ordered the fleet to prepare to move out.
        He called up a map on the main viewscreen.  His wandering eye perused 
among several potential targets, finally alighting on one.  He punched a few 
keys, sending the coordinates to the helm.
        "Helm, load  those coordinates into the navcomp and signal the fleet to 
do the same.  We’re going hunting." he ordered.
        "Aye sir.  The navcomp has completed it’s calculations." said Lt. Paris.
        "Engage Transwarp." said Falkenhorst.
        The 3 ships stretched and vanished in flickering points of light as 
their powerful drives hurled them towards their destination.


 Part 7
      2 weeks later, the 3 ships returned.  Falkenhorst was satisfied with  
himself as he observed the ships captured on his raid.  No less than 7  
Predators hung in orbit with the fleet.  6 smaller vessels which had  belonged 
to people who called themselves “Vidiians” had also been captured.  Their crews 
had been affected by a horrible illness they called the Phage.  Falkenhorst had 
taken pity on the poor creatures and ordered his boarding  troops, fully clothed 
in NBC suits, to space them.  A few had been kept  alive long enough for tissue 
samples to be taken.  These would find their  way back to the Imperial research 
labs where scientists would attempt to  create bioweapons from them.
      The interiors of the Vidiian ships had then been decompressed, and  
astromech droids had been beamed aboard.  They cleaned out every inch of the  
ships, using lasers to blast every surface and kill any germs which  remained.
      The Consolidator had been hard at work while they were gone.  Falkenhorst  
decided to take a shuttle over to the system where the new facility was  taking 
shape.  He went to the Vengeance’s shuttlebay and had a pilot report  for duty.  
The small ship carried the de-facto ‘Emperor’ out of the  Vengeance’s 
shuttlebay.  It oriented itself towards a distant point, and  disappeared into 
warp drive.  Since the shuttle had not been equipped with  transwarp, the 
journey was slightly longer.  The pilot brought the shuttle  out of warp on the 
outskirts of the system.
      A vast asteroid field ringed the system, not only in the horizontal plane,  
but all around, forming a sphere several million kilometers thick.  It would  be 
suicide for any ship to fly through that, let alone a small shuttle.  However, 
the consoldiator had taken care of that.  The pilot got a fix on a  guidance 
beacon and guided the shuttle towards a certain spot in the wall of  spinning, 
tumbling rocks.  As they drew closer, Falkenhorst could see that a  hole was 
being cleared in the shield of asteroids surrounding the system.
      Hundreds of small droidships which had been replicated in the  
Consolidator’s huge facilities were flitting back and forth, using tractor  
beams to move the asteroids away.  Eventually the hole would be large enough  
for large capital ships to move through, but for now, only smaller ships  could 
enter.  The Consolidator itself had made it’s way through the wall of  
asteroids, but had suffered a few close scrapes as it’s shields had been  
impacted by asteroids.  The shuttle swooped in, making good speed through  the 
tunnel.
      As they emerged from the tunnel, they passed 3 asteroids, which 
Falkenhorst  judged to be roughly 100 Km. in diameter.  Even as he watched, a 
massive  swarm of droidships was engaged in tractoring another of the huge 
asteroids  into position.  As per the plans laid out by the teams working under  
Rommel’s supervision back on the Vengeance, 5 of the massive asteroids would  be 
emplaced around the entrance to the system.  They would then be hollowed  out 
and transformed into fortresses, equipped with innumerable heavy weapons  
batteries and unending stores of warheads and supplies.  It would be suicide  
for any but the heaviest warships to attempt to pass those defenses.
      The shuttle began it’s run in-system, passing no less than 28 planets, and  
more than 600 moons.  These orbited 2 stars which orbited each other in turn  at 
the center of the system.  The 6th through 14th planets had habitable  
biospheres, and labor crews had already been transported down to them to  begin 
establishing bases.  The Darvus system’s support ships had been  stretched to 
the limit of their endurance, ferrying loads of troops and  workers from the 
planet to expand the labor base in the fortress-system.
      Falkenhorst knew that they would need more manpower soon in order to  
continue expanding at that rate. They were beginning to scrape the bottom of  
the barrel in the Darvus system as it was.  As the shuttle moved toward the  7th 
planet, several small attack ships approached and took up an escorting  
formation.  The ships were armed with twin pulse disruptors and powered by  
small fusion reactors.  They had speed and agility comparable to a TIE  fighter, 
and were controlled by an onboard droid brain.  They had hardpoints  under their 
swept wings to which various types of missiles could be affixed,  but at the 
cost of speed and maneuverability.
      Another product of Rommel’s R&D staff, thought Falkenhorst.  He would have  
to make sure to zone several thousand acres on the planet below for Rommel’s  
private estate.  As they entered orbit over the 7th planet, another of the  vast 
100 km asteroids came into view over the horizon.  This one was much  farther 
along than the others.  Even from this distance, Falkenhorst could  see the 
large construction projects in progress on the pitted face of the  rocky 
planetoid.  The shuttle came in and landed in a hangar in a completed  area of 
the battlestation.  Falkenhorst stepped out of the shuttle.  A Kazon  officer 
walked up.  Falkenhorst noted that his freakish hairdo had been  shaved off, and 
replaced with a crew cut.  He wore a green-gray officers  uniform, and a 
Commodore’s shoulderboards.  The red insignia of the engineer  corps was affixed 
to the left breast of his uniform.  He saluted smartly, in  the new manner which 
Falkenhorst had prescribed for the reborn Imperial  military: Body at full 
attention, right arm at a 90 degree angle flush with  the body, hand level with 
face, fingers together.
      “Welcome aboard the ‘Tarkin’, sir!” he said.  Falkenhorst had ordered that  
the defense platforms be named after famous Imperial officers.
      “Thank you, Commodore.  Take me to the command center.” ordered  
Falkenhorst.
      “At once, sir!” said the Kazon officer.  Falkenhorst smirked behind his  
back.  Those nanoprobes sure did the trick.  He would have to make sure to  
reward the Doctor in some way.  Even though the medical officer was just a  
hologram, Falkenhorst couldn’t help but think of him as human.  The doctor  was 
absolutely ruthless, and Falk almost shivered to think of what would  happen 
when he got ahold of those samples of the Phage.
      The Commodore led him to a turbolift, which they boarded.  It began to  
move.  After nearly 5 minutes, the car finally made it through the vast  expanse 
of tubes which had been cut from the hangar levels on the equator to  the 
command center, deep in the core.  The lift doors opened and  Falkenhorst 
stepped out onto the bustling command deck.  The turbolift exit  was located on 
a raised platform in the center of the room, while about 10  meters below a vast 
command center spread out for 100 meters.  Offices with  tinted windows lined 
the upper levels, and the walls were covered in  holoscreens and access doors.  
Crewers of all descriptions and departments  hurried about their duties, 
overseeing the work crews that were converting  the asteroid into a fortress.  
Falkenhorst turned to the Commodore.
      “Tell me the specs of this fortress,” he said.
      “Well, sir, we are installing 8 antimatter reactors within a 25 km. radius  
of the center of the fortress, and space is being cleared for fuel storage,  
magazines, and crew levels.  The barracks aboard the station will be able to  
house 50,000 troops, while the operational complement of the station will be  
approximately 200,000.”
      “Doesn’t the station need more crewmen to operate efficiently?” asked  
Falkenhorst.
      “Usually, yes, but in this case, we are using our replicator technology to  
take care of that.”  The Commodore moved to a console and punched a few  
buttons.  The view on one of the screens switched to show a massive shaft  being 
cut somewhere deep in the bowels of the asteroid.  Hundreds of mining  droids 
equipped with replicators moved about, cutting into the rock and  converting the 
materials into usable substances, which they were using to  build the 
foundations and hookups for data and power trunks, and mountings  to stabilize 
the massive computer that was taking shape.
      “This shaft will house one of the 3 primary compcores of the station;” 
said  the Commodore.  “A further 5 dedicated battlecomps will be emplaced 
deeper,  and more heavily shielded.”  They will handle the weapons, and the 
other  computers will control vital functions of the stations.  Additionally, 
more  than 5 million maintenance droids will be operating at all times, keeping  
this place in shape.”
      “Impressive.” said Falkenhorst.  “What about weapons?” he asked.
      “Well, first I’ll cover defenses.  The station will be equipped with 100  
extremely powerful shield generators, powered by independent reactors.  Numerous 
secondary and tertiary systems will be installed later which will  make the 
station impervious to nearly any assault.  The outer armor belt is  1 kilometer 
thick, while the interior is reinforced by massive structural  integrity 
forcefields.  The main armament consists of more than 10,000 heavy  isokinetic 
batteries.  The weapons mounted in these are capable of producing  1.5 gigatons 
per shot, and each battery is comprised of 10 guns.  Thus,  each battery will 
produce 15 gigatons per salvo, and the refire rate is  approximately 3 seconds.  
A further 20,000 medium isokinetic batteries, of  the type mounted aboard our 
warships, supplement the primary armament.  They  are rated at 500 Megatons per 
shot.  These batteries will throw 5 gigaton  salvoes.  Light armaments include 
more than 20,000 Type 12 phaser  emplacements, modeled after the specs from the 
Vengeance.”    “We have also  created a new torpedo, based on the Federation 
design, capable of producing  an 800 MT explosion.  It is specially designed to 
be used against starships,  and is equipped with a penetrator warhead and a 
delayed fuse.  It also makes  use of magnetic fields to channel the explosion 
into a 45 degree forward  cone.  Tests indicate that it can breach 15 meter 
armor belts.  The fortress  will be equipped with full maintenance facilities 
for starships up to 5  kilometers in length, and hangars to accomodate 100 wings 
of fighters.”
      “Excellent.  What timeframe are we looking at here?” asked Falkenhorst.
      “Well, it will take at least 4 months to fully complete the system  
defenses.  2 months after that to produce enough munitions and antimatter  
stocks to supply them.  3 months further to produce the fighters.  By that  
time, we will have enough facilities online to begin laying keels for ships  up 
to light cruiser range. 1 month after that, we should be done seeding the  
asteroid field with mines.  1 year from now, we will be able to start  building 
dreadnoughts and command ships.”
      Falkenhorst smiled.  When his men were done, this system would be a  
death-trap for any enemy foolish enough to attempt an attack.  Additionally,  it 
would be the beating heart of the new Empire he and his men were forging  in 
this new galaxy.  He turned to the railing of the command deck, looking  over 
the panorama of hundreds of crewers going about their duties.  Duties  
prescribed by him.  He was ruler, and enjoying it.    


Part 8
	Falkenhorst strode into the ops center of the Command fortress Grand Moff 
Tarkin, a fresh cigar between his teeth.  The subjugation of the Myleans was 
over with FINALLY, and he had come home to his beloved Annika.  It had taken 
awhile, but he had finally gotten far enough with her that she was comfortable 
with him calling her by her birth name.  He walked past rows of consoles and 
workstations, crewmen snapping to attention and saluting him.  He walked up a 
flight of stairs along the periphery, and entered the command level offices.  
Droids trundled past on business, along with crewers and officers from all 
departments and branches, performing all sorts of official duties.
	Falkenhorst walked down the upper level concourse, which curved around the 
outer walls of the command center, leading to the offices on the right and 
looking out over the command center on the left. (If one was to walk counter-
clockwise)  He enjoyed a birds-eye view of his minions laboring away at their 
consoles below, and impulsively coughed and spit a fat hocker over the rail.  He 
walked away laughing as somebody started cursing violently down below.  
Falkenhorst came to a set of double doors marked CONFERENCE A in blood red 
lettering.  2 Guardsmen in shining black composite armor stood sentinel outside.  
The overhead lights glinted menacingly off of the wicked looking plasma rifles 
they held.  Falkenhorst keyed in his access code on the door panel, and the 2 
doors swished open.
	Heavy metal music was coming from the speaker system at moderately low 
volume.  He recognized the band as Metallica, from the Earth’s 20th century.  
Around a conference table in the center of the room sat Bob, Rommel, and 
Striker. Bob had 2 beautiful Mylean women on his lap, and he seemed to be paying 
more attention to them than the Technical Section officer who was explaining a 
diagram on a wall screen. Rommel was listening intently, and Striker had a 
handgun laid out on a cloth, fieldstripping the weapon while paying full 
attention to the speaker.  Falkenhorst walked silently around the table, coming 
to a stop behind Bob.  Falkenhorst unclipped a smallish black device from his 
belt.  He held up the small unit, which resembled a TV remote, and began 
pressing buttons.  Immediately, Bob’s two love slaves became catanonic, slumping 
and drooling, babbling incoherently.  They lost control of their faculties and 
solied themselves all over Bob, who was rapidly becoming angry and confused as 
to what was going on.
	The device in Falkenhorst’s hand was a Controller, which was used by 
members of the Imperial Elite to manipulate their subjects by means of the 
nanoprobes infesting their bodies.   Normally, the nanoprobes’ programming made 
an infested individual completely susceptible to the whim of the programmed 
overlord, but the controller gave the user direct control over  a subject’s 
vital functions.  Thus, when the signal went out from Falkenhorst’s unit, the 
nanoprobes in the two women’s brains shut down all but the basic essential body 
functions.  They were, in effect, turned off.
	Bob turned around, looking to see what Striker and Rommel had started 
laughing at.  When he saw Falkenhorst, the look of vengeful nastiness slid off 
his face and puddled on the floor, along with other liquids that were dripping 
down his legs.
	“Uhh, Falk... What a surprise...” said Bob.
	“Oh, pardon me;” said Falkenhorst.  “I haven’t *dampened* your spirits, 
have I?”
	“That wasn’t funny, you fucker.” said Bob.
	“Well, next time remember to leave these wenches in bed, eh?” said 
Falkenhorst, smirking.  He punched another button, and the two women began 
regaining consciousness.  Falkenhorst told Bob to go and take them home, and 
come back with some clean clothes.  When he had returned, the meeting got down 
to business. Falkenhorst swiveled his chair around to face the technical section 
officer.
	“Please brief us on the status of the new terror weapon;” he said.  
Several weeks ago, Falkenhorst had issued orders for a new battlefield weapon 
that would be so powerful and awe-inspiring that enemies would give up without a 
fight, making conquests easier.  The Techie nodded, and began his briefing.
	“We have been working on a design for some time now, sir,and after 
coordinating with the doctor on issues of psychology, along with interviewing 
hundreds of imperial soldiers, a final design has been produced.” he said.  The 
man pushed a button and a schematic appeared on the screen.  It was a massive 
tank.
	“This is what we are calling the XT-100.” said the Scientist.  “X for 
experimental, T for Terror.” he explained.  Falkenhorst was beginning to like 
this.
	“What are the specs of this vehicle?” he asked.
	“It is 20 meters wide, with 3 meter wide treads.” said the scientist.  “It 
is 45 meters long, and 15 meters high.  It carries twin cannon in a double 
turret atop the superstructure.  One is a plasma cannon, and the other is a 280 
millimeter railgun.  The plasma weapon is good for clearing buildings and 
concentrations of enemy infantry or civilians, and the railgun will anhilate any 
armored vehicle or protected target we know of. Remote controlled autoblasters 
are mounted on the hull for antipersonell work.  The vehicle’s top speed is 50 
Kph, and it is powered by four turbine engines.  Power is generated onboard.  
Facilities are available to produce spares, reloads, and crew commodities.  The 
Armor of this vehicle is no less than 200 milimeters thick, and is layered to 
provide maximum protection against all known forms of weaponry short of starship 
level batteries.”
	“Sounds good;” said Falkenhorst.  How soon can we put these bastards into 
production?” he asked.
	“As soon as we can allocate facilities and materials, sir!  However, with 
no major hostilities in progress at the moment, I recommend minimal production 
quotas be set until a need arises for the vehicles.”
	“Agreed.  However, I want to keep a substantial reserve of stock materials 
stashed away in the event of massive conflict with the Borg.  We will need lots 
of tough, heavily armed and armored vehicles to overcome their massive numerical 
superiority.”  Said Falkenhorst.  The Borg threat had kept Falk up nights, 
hoping and praying to the Sith that they would not attack, at least until he 
could build up his fleets enough to hold them off. That was the main reason that 
the heavy plasma cannons had been mounted aboard the Battlecruisers.  
Falkenhorst had ordered an in depth tactical estimate by Technical section, and 
the results had been both hopeful and alarming.  The Borg were expected to adapt 
to the Isokinetic cannons, at least partially, rendering them only 1/2 as 
effective.  However, they would be almost unable to adapt to the sheer amounts 
of energy released by plasma weapons.  Falkenhorst had acted upon that, and the 
new batch of battlecruisers being built in the yard had weapons mounts that 
could be easily refitted to accomodate plasma cannons.  They had more powerful, 
dedicated generators, and were also incorporating refined armor characteristics 
and redundant shielding.
	The meeting had ended, and Falkenhorst went back to his office.  He knew 
full well that epic battles laid ahead, grand campaigns of conquest.  He fell 
asleep to the Imperial March.    


Part 9

2 Days later, Command Platform “Grand Moff Tarkin”, The Fortress.

	Falkenhorst was sitting in a reclining chair in his massive office aboard 
the Grand Moff Tarkin. Work crews still swarmed over the huge asteroid fort by 
the thousands, working to meet the construction deadlines for the massive battle 
station. He had ordered a few droids into this section near the command center, 
and they had built his personal luxury suite, along with his office and other 
rooms that he had specified. He tapped the ashes from his cigar as he studied 
the huge galactic map on one wall, pondering the next move of his fleet. A chime 
sounded at the door.
	“Enter!” said Falkenhorst.
	The armored blast doors slid open and Bob walked in, wearing the uniform 
of an Imperial Admiral. He tossed a display pad onto Falk’s desk. Falkenhorst 
picked it up and began reading. “Looks like the 7 Predators we captured are in 
good order, hmm, another week and they’re ready. Good. The Vidiian ships, week 
and a half.” Falk gazed at the specs. The Vidiian ships, being bigger than the 
Vengeance, were being armed with 6 Isokinetic cannons each, along with the 
normal complement of troops, fighters, and torpedoes. Their sublight engines 
were being modified, though, to increase their maneuverability. Redundant shield 
generators were slated for installation, and their weapons power output had been 
boosted by nearly 30 percent.
	“Excellent;” said Falkenhorst.
	“Yes, once we have those ships operational, our task of conquering these 
local shitheads becomes that much easier.” said Bob.
	“And what of the ships we disabled in the latest attack?” asked Falk.
	“We managed to salvage 7 of them, sir. The others are being stripped for 
parts and put into storage. When we get some extra yard space, we’ll convert 
them into troop transports or bulk haulers or somesuch.”
	“Good. And their escorts?”
	“They are qued to be outfitted by the Consolidator within the week for 
planetary defense of Darvus 2, we managed to salvage 5 of them.” The drone 
fighters had claimed too many of the weak craft, along with the ungodly 
firepower of the Imperial vessels.
	Falkenhorst considered that, and then changed the subject.  “Bob, when the 
ships are all outfitted, I have an assignment for you. According to the data 
obtained from the Vengeance’s computers, a race called the Krenim exists here.” 
He hit a button and the Krenim Empire lit up on the screen. “Several weeks 
journey from here by transwarp. We need to steal one of their warships. They 
employ “Chronaton Torpedoes” which are impervious to shields. As you know, these 
weapons would be very useful in our coming conquest of this galaxy, Bob. I want 
you to take an assault force and capture one of their ships intact.”
	“Ok.” said Bob. “I’ll begin laying plans immediately.”
	Falkenhorst smiled as Bob walked out. Falk punched up an external camera 
feed and watched his minions labor at constructing the defensive works of the 
fortress. He put his feet up on his desk and lit another stogie. Life was good.

	Bob sat in the passenger seat of a shuttlecraft. The Kazon pilot next to 
him calmly went about his work, piloting the ship away from the Tarkin toward 
the 9th planet, where the major shipyards were only just starting to take shape. 
The Captured Predators were lined up side by side in a row, tethered together 
with chains. Repair droids and suited technicians swarmed over them. The 
Mournblade was out at the Darvus system, along with the Vengeance. That left him 
the Warhammer and 2 of the new Predators that were just now receiving their 
final tuneups. He had decided on names for his 2 new ships: Dagger and Auger.

	2 Days later, the fleet was prepared leave. The massive Imperial Cruisers 
cast off their moorings and slipped out of their berths on maneuvering jets.  
Once they were clear of the hodgepodge of tethered ships, their helmsmen lit up 
their sublight drives, kicking the huge vessels into an accelerating trajectory 
that would take them across the system to the entrance in the asteroid field. 
After an hour of steady acceleration, the 3 ships reached the asteroid field. 
They passed the guns of the Battlemoons arrayed around the entrance of the 
system. Bob ordered full impulse power, and the 3 ships surged ahead, passing 
through the asteroid gate in a few minutes. Once they were clear of the system, 
Bob turned to the helmsman.
	“Enter our coordinates and secure for transwarp.”
	“Coordinates entered, sir. Auger and Dagger comply.”
	“Excellent. Commence.”
	Deep within the bowels of the huge ship’s engine rooms, klaxons began 
blaring and crewmen raced to their jump stations. Due to the vast amounts of 
energy consumed by the transwarp drive, the reaction in the core had to be 
intensified to near critical levels. Therefore it was vital that the engine 
systems be closely monitored so as to prevent any accidents.
	“Primary Ignition in ten seconds!” shouted the chief engineer. He stood at 
a console upon which various switches and controls were located. A screen on one 
corner scrolled advisories from the helm station as to what would be required of 
the engineering crew.
	“Fuel feed rate stabilized at 97 Percent capacity!” shouted a lieutenant.
	“Power levels approaching maximum safe limits!” said another. The clock on 
the engineer’s console ticked down and he pulled a set of levers down their 
tracks to the stops. The pitch of the generators changed, sending slightly 
different vibrations through the deck plates.
	“Power levels stabilizing.” said the engineer. The chief slid a set of red 
protective covers over the transwarp controls.

	On the bridge, green lights flashed across the helm board. The helmsman 
entered the necessary commands, and the ISS Warhammer leapt into Transwarp 
drive.

	3 Krenim patrol vessels were making the rounds near one of their outer 
colony worlds near the Zahl border. They had just passed the outermost planet of 
the system and were ready to head back when suddenly 3 huge warships dropped out 
of their FTL drives virtually right on top of them. The 3 warships were roughly 
cylindrical, and bristled with heavy weapons. Their power levels registered 
higher than anything the Krenim had by several orders of magnitude. They were 
painted battle gray, and stenciled across the bows of each of the titanic 
vessels was a menacing Battle-Eagle. A transmission came through from what 
appeared to be the flagship.
	“Krenim vessels. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. You have 30 seconds 
to comply. Failure to follow instructions will result in your termination. That 
is all.”
	The Krenim commander was taken aback by all the events of the previous 
minute. He ordered action stations, and prepared for battle. He was confident 
that the superior Chronaton torpedoes his ships carried would make short work of 
these enemies. The bigger they were, the harder they would fall. His musings 
were cut off, however, as the 3 ships executed a turn, presenting their port 
sides to his ships. He asked his tactical officer for an analysis, but got none 
as the 3 ships ripped off a wall of fire from their main batteries. The vast 
salvo streaked straight for his ship, and he cringed in anticipation of death. 
However, the volley just barely missed, hammering down the shields of the ships 
to either side and blowing them to scrap. Then the 3 ships abruptly turned and 
engaged their drives, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared.
	The Krenim Captain breathed a sigh of relief. Just then his sensor officer 
spoke up.
	“Sir! Multiple sensor contacts! Directly ahead!”
	“What? Onscreen!” ordered the Captain.
	The viewscreen flickered as the view was magnified. Swarms of cranked wing 
fighters roared in towards his patrol ship.
	“Full evasive! Weapons free!” he shouted.
	The Imperial fighter drones raced in, spitting long stuttering bursts from 
their powerful laser cannons. The Krenim ship twisted and dodged, but it was hit 
by bursts of fire every few seconds as the swarm of ships flanked it and began 
attacking from all angles. It’s phasers claimed several fighters, but suddenly 
the Krenim ship was bracketed by a series of heavy explosions. Another flight of 
fighters released their loads of antimatter bombs, adding more fire to the orgy 
of explosions and energy that was battering down the defenses of the Krenim 
ship. The shields finally flared and collapsed, and the ship was strafed several 
times by the nimble little fighters, disabling it’s engines and weapons.
	Then, inevitably, the 3 huge Cruisers reappeared, and soon the Krenim 
patrol vessel was being reeled in by the Warhammer’s powerful tractor beams...