[b]Aboard [i]Ancestral Right[/i][/b]

"...and finally, [i]Gamekeep[/i], with all 120 souls," said Lieutenant Mavdi, looking up from his dataslate to the Admiral.

Xen sucked his teeth and shook his head, "Butcher always takes his bill."

The Admiral was quiet for a long moment. He was sprawled lazily across the Captain's Throne in the center of the command bay, legs draped over the left armrest, a goblet of Moff Wyte's wine in his be-ringed hand.

"Hers was higher, though," he said at last, and sipped his wine, "Not that she cares an ounce for her scraping little lackeys. She'd shoot 'em all into space if it got her an audience with the old witch doctor on the throne."

The command staff paid him little attention as they busied themselves with their tasks. The half-sober pontifications of Adamantius Xen were just another fact of life in the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

[i]Ancestral Right[/i] was idling in deep space, the hyperdrive cycling and preparing to fire once more to take them to the Bitter End, the not-so-affectionate nickname rebel deckhands used for Xen's base of operations deep in the Semiramis Asteroid Cluster. Only a handful of the fleet from Uslam clustered around the Right, the others had made other jumps to pre-designated deadzones. It was Xen's practice never to jump directly between a base or stronghold and an engagement, to confound enemy trackers. Since joining the Alliance, Xen had been given jammer systems designed to prevent Imperial hyperspace plotting, but a pirate's instincts are hard to overcome with new toys.

"We're ready to jump sir," said Mavdi.

"Take us home."