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Empire Reforged
Chapter 52: Trapwire
Location: Sector V-6, Outer Onderon Belt
Date: BBY 6 – Day 17 of Operation Apex
The Silver Lance glided through the debris field like a scalpel through flesh — silent, sleek, and watching.
Lucan stood over the primary tactical display, arms folded, eyes locked on the holographic projection of their patrol corridor. The route was deliberately asymmetric — no clear return vector, no patrol repetition, no signal broadcasting. Every few hours, their movement deviated by calculated offsets.
Darran called it "a madman's loop."
Lucan called it hunting in silence.
"This is sweep point seven," Milar said from weapons. "Still clean. No radiation spikes, no heat ghosts."
Veya stepped up beside Lucan, datapad in hand. "If they're here, they're watching, not shooting."
Lucan nodded. "Then we keep doing nothing. And let them get curious."
He'd deployed the freighter Aster Trace— an ISB-masked decoy fitted with heat sinks and hull shields — to simulate a crippled transport twenty clicks out. No active distress beacon. Just enough power bleed to suggest vulnerability.
If the Partisans had the coordination Lucan suspected, they'd act.
And they did.
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Three hours into the operation, the trap triggered.
"Contact. Multiple microbursts on long-range EM band," Darran said. "Short-lived — directional pings. They're scanning the Aster Trace with passive beams."
Lucan responded instantly. "No movement. Hold our signature suppression and rotate forty degrees port. I want our side batteries pointed toward the scan origin."
Veya was already decoding the pattern. "They're too coordinated for a local cell. This is recon protocol. Someone's logging a flight path."
Lucan's jaw tightened. "Prepare counter-ping burst on my mark. When they make their move — we'll make ours."
—
Thirty-two minutes later, two ships emerged from behind the asteroid curtain.
They weren't small.
A retrofit DP20 gunship and a modified Corellian gunboat, both using visual low-reflective coatings and retooled drives to minimize sensor traces.
"They're trying to spoof a standard pirate profile," Veya muttered. "But that gunship's reactor output is tuned for heavy pulse turrets."
Lucan stood tall on the bridge.
"They're going for a kill, not a theft. Target priority is to erase the evidence."
He turned to Milar. "Prepare suppression volleys. No torpedoes. I want both ships disabled."
Veya added quietly, "If they report back before we act, this network goes dark."
"Then let's not give them time."
—
The Silver Lance fired first — and with precision.
Its side batteries hit the Corellian gunboat before it could spin up its shields. Two ion bursts slammed into its spine, freezing control relays and blinding its forward cannon. It drifted on momentum, venting coolant like blood.
The DP20 gunship opened fire a second later, but the Lance's dorsal grid had already shifted. Automated CIWS snapped to life, intercepting incoming bolts and returning high-speed counterfire.
It lasted six minutes.
At the end, one ship was dead in space.
The other had fled — its drive core cracked but still moving. Lucan didn't pursue.
He didn't need to.
Veya approached from comms. "We intercepted a transmission fragment. One word tagged: 'Hexnode' — repeated three times in layered burst format."
Lucan stared at her. "That a callsign?"
"Or a codename."
She handed him the datapad. "This is new. Not in ISB databases. It may be a coordination protocol… or a name."
Lucan studied the word.
"Whoever they are — they're not just a Partisan. They're the spine holding this mess together."
Veya nodded. "And we just lit up their web."
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