Madlands

33. The Voidrunner

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Pallis consumed the viewport as the Voidrunner pushed up through Cereda's stratosphere and as the apostate, Djarin, manned the navigations of his ship. A day ago, he wouldn't have imagined letting him inside his vessel, let alone joining him on a mission.

He had reappeared right when he was thought departed, approaching Paz first and alone in the early morning. At least he recognized Paz's position of second-leadership within the Tribe.

The subject of the last standing member of the Ranger Four was probably the only thing that could have compelled him to hear out Djarin's call to arms. The story of how Djarin had gotten his intel left a lot to be desired—an enigmatic source that they couldn't reach for more details. But that mattered less than the fact that the Ranger who had protected the covert and saved most of the moon was now in the hands of their mutual enemy.

It had then been the two of them who approached the Armourer together, readily gaining her consent.

The harder part came next—planning a rushed and near-blind mission. They kept the team small—the two of them plus three more—Rowan, Nox, and Sheen. Rowan and Nox would stay with the ship after docking.

It was not an ideal briefing situation. They had no opportunity for advanced recon, little time to devise their strategy, only outdated intel (though they were lucky to have anything at all—Djarin somehow had the old plans for Lorimar station, back when it was a Ministry fuelling stop, stored within his ship's library), and they would be infiltrating a literal prison.

They'd faced worse, though, and did have several things to their advantage—the element of surprise, the use of his ship (which could pose as a Ministry vessel and could out-gun any class of Tie or Interceptor due to his many upgrades), Sheen's surveillance scanshield, an Empire crew that was likely feeling invulnerable, and the fact that they are Mandalorians, guided by the Darksabre, no less.

It would be a worthy and well-fought battle, no matter the outcome.

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Mando called out their current position and updated the estimated time until they would ping as incoming on the station's radar. He knew that his four former Tribe-mates were not there for him, but they were there with him, and that was all that mattered.

Their plan was simple and would likely change the moment they got inside the station, but it would have to do.

They would approach on thrusters only, as would a desperate Ministry ship that was hurting for fuel and had no idea that they shouldn't be there. A Plug-6 heavy fighter was a credible vessel for Ministry ownership, as it was popular with smugglers across the galaxy. The Razor Crest was too rare and too known to the Empire. He'd used the cheat-sheet Grey had made for him to assign the Voidrunner a plausible transponder code for a starfighter in the Madlands. They would use the fact that they couldn't send any outgoing communications to their benefit, and would reply to any messages from the station—as hostile as they may be—only with standard breaker-code lights signalling "In distress: low fuel."

If the Ministry was still considered any kind of ally, the hope was that the limping vessel, seemingly running on fumes, would be reluctantly directed to a hangar bay. When they'd drifted in close enough to be out of firing range, they'd make a last second dive to an external docking airlock on the lower-levels. This would keep the Voidrunner more free to break away from the station when it needed to, would put the infiltration team closer to where they were guessing the holding cells had been installed (in the large, flexible areas where the fuel had formerly been stowed), and it should delay their greeting party by a couple of minutes.

After that, their goal would be to get a mid-level officer isolated, not fatally injured, and in self-preservation mode. It was almost pointless to plan too much detail after that point, but getting the cell doors open and locating Grey were the obvious priorities—along with getting back to the ship at the end.

He was possibly the last person that Grey wanted to see, so Mando hoped that freedom from an Empire prison would be enough motivation to go with him, if only temporarily.

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Ministry vessel, this is no longer a fuelling station, repeat, not a fuelling station. Break off your approach.

The air in the cockpit was tense and quiet. Rowan ran the light-signal sequence again, and then again. They drifted closer to the station. Lorimar was ice-white and would have been near-blinding—filling the starboard viewport and throwing half of the station into stark silhouette against it—but their visors had adjusted for its intense glare.

The station rotated slowly in its orbit, as if quietly contemplating its unexpected visitor. Rowan ran the sequence again.

... Ministry vessel, follow the signals and approach hangar Four-Gamma. Power down on landing and stay inside your vessel. Repeat, do not open your gates or hatches.

Paz fired the port thruster just enough to get them headed in the direction of the mandated bay. They'd need to be less than twenty or even ten meters from the station to be too close for the surface cannons that they could see lining its outer hull. Hangar Four-Gamma was, luckily, not completely opposite the dock they'd identified as their preferred entry point. They would only have to swing down five levels and a quarter way around the circumference of the station.

One-hundred metres.

...

Seventy-five.

Mando calmly relayed their closing approach as the ship lined-up with the bay. They could see, through the force-field, a half-squadron of Troopers already flanking the landing pad.

Fifty... Thirty-five...

Close enough to see one of the Troopers check his weapon.

Twenty. Paz, now!

The Voidrunner plummeted, and Mando was lifted out of his seat before being slammed back down as the ship reached its intended drop and switched to its sideways sweep. He grabbed the console, knowing what would come next, right before Paz blasted the starboard thruster and sent them in a tight one-eighty-degree spin to bring the rear hatch in line with the airlock. He felt the ship's docking clamps angrily snatch the station before they were yanked in to close the gap of the final few metres.

The comms were spewing a stream of angry corrections and admonitions to the idiot Ministry crew before Rowan simply shut them off.

This part they knew well. Nox fried the station's airlock doors with a magno-pulse before she dragged them aside. Mando took front position while Paz and Sheen fell in behind; this was his mission. Rowan wished them swift honour, and the infiltration crew stepped into the station—muscles taut, formation tight, and weapons hot.

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