The planet Yawn was one of those rare planets of the galaxy with a multitude of different environmental conditions. Typically, planets could be described in a single, simple phrase: a forest planet, a desert planet, an ocean planet, a swamp planet, an ice planet, even a volcanic planet. Yawn, however, was different. It had some oceans, sure, but they were not extensive enough for it to be classified as an ocean planet. It had continents, but they did not conveniently form the shape of a skull when viewed from space; nor did they spell out the secret to eternal youth. The polar regions were cold and icy, but not extensive enough to class the planet as an ice world. The continents themselves were a diverse and multifarious mixture of differing landscapes, from mountains to plains, from swamps to forests to deserts. Atmospheric conditions ranged from mild and pleasant to rain, and snow, and hailstorms of frightening ferocity.
In a galaxy of overwhelmingly homogeneous planets, Yawn was the heterogeneous black sheep. In a galaxy of monochrome worlds, Yawn was in technicolour. In a society of increasingly shortening attention spans, in which a snappy description for a planet was preferred, Yawn required several pages of text to even begin to describe the variety of terrains which covered its surface. In the Galactic Planetary Index, in which most planets were described with a single short sentence—from "Hoff: Ice planet" to "Earth: Mythical world, mostly harmless"—the entry for Yawn was several dry, tedious paragraphs.
Hence the name.
The Yawn Tourism Board had briefly tried to attract visitors to the planet with an advertising campaign which promoted the endless variety to be found there. For some reason, though, their slogan—"Come see the Amazing Technicolour Yawn"—had been a dismal failure. Now the general population of the planet lived a quiet existence with almost no visitors.
On one of the heavily forested—and quite homogeneous—moons of the planet Yawn, the stone and brick towers of ancient and long-abandoned temples reached skyward, thrusting up through the forest canopy like weeds seeking sunlight. Hidden away beneath the thick canopy, sheltered from aerial view within the huge temples themselves, the forces of the Rebel Coalition had made this tiny green satellite of the huge variegated planet their home.
Rebel sentries manned observation towers high above the canopy—although this was more to give them a sense of purpose than anything else. It was extremely unlikely that they would detect an attacking force before it was picked up by the orbital sensor arrays. However, you had to post sentries; that was just the way it was done.
The Serendipity Sparrow set down in a small cleared area beside one of the ancient stone structures. Rebel ground crews bustled around her as the whine of her VTOL engine turbines slowed and died. Then the ramp opened, and Princess Labia Orgasma appeared from the freighter's cargo bay. She wore a flowing purple gown which Mal said had been left behind by a previous guest aboard the Sparrow; it flattered her waist and emphasised her bust. Her hair was elaborately coifed. She looked every inch the regal Princess.
The assembled crowd cheered at the sight of her.
An elderly man ran forward excitedly. He wore a dark tunic, and his silver-lined black cloak fluttered in the air. "Oh Princess," he cried as he threw his arms around her, "thank the Lords of COBOL that you are okay." He hugged her tightly for a second, then released her and stepped back. More formally, he bowed. "When we heard about the destruction of Alderbark, we feared that you had been lost along with the rest of your family. I was so worried that I would never see my beloved Labia again!"
"Um, yes, it is good to see you too, Armada," said Libby. "You have not heard from any other surviving members of my family?"
Commander Armada had served her family for years. He wore a silver emblem high on his tunic, the sign of a small sect which had grown in power after the Jubbly Council had been swept away by the Imperium. Although they were adherents of the Source, they held some strange beliefs—which many considered to be unnatural—about its true nature. They would be dismayed to learn that the only reason they had not been wiped out along with the Jubblies was because their beliefs were completely incorrect and the Stiff considered them to be beneath contempt.
Armada closed his eyes sadly.
"I am sorry, Princess. They are all dead. When we first became aware of the Imperial threat, your father organised the evacuation attempt." He shook his head. "He refused to board a transport until everybody else was safely away—and they just ran out of time."
Libby nodded slowly. "That sounds like Father," she said.
"Only a handful of ships escaped," said Armada. "A couple knew to come here; the rest scattered themselves throughout the galaxy."
Libby closed her eyes for a moment, mourning the death of her planet, and her family. When she opened them, a new resolve gleamed forth.
"Mal," she called.
Mal and Shaggus stepped out from the cargo bay to join her on the ramp. Mal was once more draped in his brown overcoat, and Shaggus wore a simple pale blue tunic. Behind them were Arty Farty and Seepy Weepy.
"This RT unit," said Libby to Armada, "contains information vital to our cause; the complete technical readouts of the Imperial battle station."
Armada gestured, and a couple of technicians hurried forward. They lead the beeping Arty away, and Seepy hurried after her.
"I only hope," continued Libby, "that a detailed analysis will find a weakness we can exploit."
"Come," said Armada. "We have prepared quarters for yourself and your—guests." He indicated the two smugglers.
"Wait," said Libby. "There is another." She pointed back into the ship. "We have an injured man on board. He is sleeping now, but he will require full medical attention."
"And he shall get it," said Armada with a bow.
"Come on," said Mal, as a medic pushed her way through the crowd. "This way." He led the way back into the ship.
The briefing room was packed to capacity, and the air conditioning was struggling to keep up. Technicians, pilots, strategists, caterers, all had crammed themselves into the room to hear the news.
In the centre of the room, a holographic projection of the Devastator Station rotated slowly above the table. Two senior technicians nursed the projector controls; one of them fiddled with a small laser pointer.
"What have you found?" said Commander Armada.
"Well, it wasn't easy to get to the data," said one of the technicians, a large tubby man with a shaved head and a scraggly, greying beard. He looked a little daunting—and yet, somehow, appeared ruggedly handsome in the right light.
"It was in the wrong format," said the other technician, a slender guy with spiky blond hair.
"The Imperials used a program called Macrostation," said the bearded tech. "Rather appropriate, really, because they used it to design a really big station. Uh, yeah."
"But we don't use Macrostation," said the blond tech. "It is a typical example of the bloated infrastructure being foisted upon us by Imperialist dogma. Its command format is so archaic and bewildering as to be utterly discombobulating, and its accessibility vis-a-vis entity handling and automated manipulation is woefully limited. Ergo, its usability as a whole is vastly diminished."
"And it sucks," said the bearded tech.
"Indubitably," said the blond.
"This is fascinating, really," said Armada, "but what have you found?"
"Well, we managed to find a third party tool which could convert from Macrostation..." said the blond.
"...which sucks," interjected the bearded tech.
"...to IndiKad..."
"...which we use..."
"...and that is what we are looking at here," finished the blond. He pointed at the floating Death Tube image with his red pointer.
"Yes," said Armada, "but what have you found?"
"Of course," said the bearded tech, "the conversion wasn't perfect, but once we had the data in IndiKad I was able to write a couple of quick scripts to clean up the worst of the glitches and give us something we could work with. I was particularly proud of the..."
Armada banged his fist down on the table.
Everybody stared at him.
He took a deep, slow breath.
"Gentleman," he said calmly, "have you found a weakness in this battle station or not?" Honestly, he thought, it's like pulling teeth...
"Oh. Well, yes," said the bearded tech.
"We found," said the blond tech, "that if we can get everybody on the Death Tube Station thingy to flush their toilets simultaneously, this should cause a major clogging of several critical sewer systems. There may even be enough back pressure for the results to be, well, messy. Within a week, the Imperials will have to abandon the station due to failing hygiene and bursting bladders, at which point you can move in and capture it at your leisure." He sat back and crossed his arms.
"Unless," said the bearded tech, "they have plumbers."
"True," said the blond tech. "That is the one minor flaw in that plan."
"The one minor flaw?" said Armada in disbelief. "The one minor flaw?"
"So then," said the blond tech, "we took a look at the electrical subsystems."
Armada sighed. This was going to be a long day.
"Ironically," said the bearded tech, "it seems that the one weak point that could be targeted to rapidly destroy the entire station with a single well-placed shot is in their major weapons system."
He looked around the room expectantly. Nobody commented.
The crowd had thinned considerably. Most of those who remained appeared to have fallen asleep.
The blond tech shrugged. "Doesn't look as though they are interested," he said.
"No," agreed the bearded tech. "Do you think they've learned their lesson?"
"What lesson?" asked the blond tech.
"On the dangers of getting a guy like me to give a talk like this," said the bearded tech.
"Oh," said the blond tech. "That lesson. I reckon so."
They looked around the room.
"Should we wake them, do you think?" asked the blond tech. "They seemed to think this was urgent."
"They say that about everything," said the bearded tech. "Nah, I'll just slip this concise summarised report of our findings under Armada's hand here"—he paused as he suited actions to words—"and then we can go get a drink."
"Gravy," said the blond tech.
"Well, I was thinking of something with a little more fizz, myself," said the bearded tech as they walked out the door.
The blond tech giggled.
"Huh what?" snorted Armada as the door banged shut behind them. He blinked around the room at the few remaining sleepy personnel who were blinking back in confusion.
He looked down at the piece of paper under his hand. He tilted his head to read it.
He smiled.
Again, the briefing room was crowded, although this time primarily with fighter pilots.
Commander Armada was seated at the central table. Beside him sat Commander Bekkalu, a tall pale woman with short dark hair.
Armada pointed to the slowly rotating holographic image. "The battle station is heavily shielded, and has firepower greater than half the Rebel fleet. Its defences are designed to defeat a large scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to slip past its shields."
"Excuse me, sir," said Indigo Leader as she stood up, "but what good are small fighters going to be against that?"
"The Imperium does not consider a one-man fighter to be much of a threat, or they would have stronger shielding," said Armada.
"That thing is twenty miles long," said Indigo Leader hotly, "and quite frankly, I suspect the Imperium is probably right!"
"Please," said Commander Armada, "let me finish. The Imperium does not consider a fighter to be much of a threat, but a detailed analysis of the plans of this battle station has uncovered a weak point which we may be able to exploit."
Indigo Leader nodded and sat back down. "Fair enough," she murmured.
"The Death Tube," explained Armada, "is essentially a giant laser cannon. The exterior of the cylinder, to a depth of roughly three quarters of a mile, contains all the living quarters, the meeting rooms, the recreational facilities, and just about everything else one might expect to find in a major city. The surface itself, of course, is studded with defensive gun emplacements, THIGH Fighter launch tubes, and so on.
"The next thousand feet or so consists primarily of energy baffles and internal shielding to protect the inhabitants from the massive energy release when the primary weapon is fired.
"The core of the Death Tube, three miles across and fifteen miles deep, is the barrel of the cannon. It is lined with numerous graviton field generators to contain and focus the energy beam. At the far end of the barrel, this crystal"—he pointed with his small laser pointer—"is our target. It is the nexus of the weapon's energy feed conduits, and serves as the primary focussing emitter for the laser beam. Of course, it is heavily shielded except for a five second window during the primary firing sequence. However, a direct impact from a neutron torpedo should be sufficient to destroy the emitter. The resulting chain reaction will destroy the entire station."
The gathered Rebel forces began to murmur excitedly amongst themselves.
Fuschia Leader stood up. "I don't want to be a killjoy," he said, "but I sense a 'but'."
Armada nodded as Fuschia Leader reseated himself.
"However," he said, "there are two difficulties to consider, and a possible strategic problem to overcome."
Indigo Leader shook her head. "Why is it never easy?" she said aloud to nobody in particular.
"First," said Armada, "the barrel of this station's primary weapon is sealed by these blast doors"—the red dot of his laser pointer moved to one end of the holographic cylinder—"and they only open in the minutes before the station is about to actually fire its weapon. Second, any missile which is not launched precisely down the axis of the barrel will be dragged off course by the graviton field generators down its length."
"Wouldn't that destroy the generators, though?" asked Really Dark Grey With Just A Tinge Of Blue Leader. "And wouldn't that affect their firing capability?"
"A detonation from a neutron torpedo anywhere along the inside of the barrel will destroy perhaps three or four graviton field generators; however, there are a total of twelve hundred of them. Perhaps if we could destroy an entire cluster of fifty or sixty, that might be enough to deflect the beam and throw their targeting off, but such a plan should be considered secondary at best."
"Just a thought," said Really Dark Grey With Just A Tinge Of Blue Leader. He sat down again.
"And the strategic problem?" asked Aqua Leader.
"There is the strong fear that if we launch all our fighters, only to have them cluster around the blast door iris until it opens, the Imperials may recognise the weakness we have discovered; once that happens, our chance to destroy this weapon of mass destruction will be lost."
"So what is the alternative? Holding the launch until the last minute in an effort to arrive at the perfect moment seems a little dangerous."
"Agreed," said Armada. "Therefore, we intend to launch our major offensive against a secondary target. This trench"—he indicated the trench in question with his red laser dot—"runs around the circumference of the station, four miles from its end. This two metre exhaust port leads down to a major reactor. Destroying it with a neutron torpedo should cause a massive explosion in this sector."
"And set off a chain reaction, thereby destroying the station?" asked Indigo leader.
"Unfortunately, no," said Armada. "We thought so at first, but closer analysis reveals that there are several systems in place to prevent such a catastrophic cascade failure."
"Figures," said Indigo Leader.
"However, it is a convincing target, and close enough to our main target that we can alter the thrust of our attack fairly quickly when the timing is right. We believe that the Imperials will believe that we believe destroying the reactor will destroy the station. Or, uh," Armada paused as he replayed that last sentence in his mind, "something like that. Needless to say, the port is ray shielded; only a direct hit with a neutron torpedo will enter the port and destroy the reactor."
"That's impossible, sir," said the young pilot seated next to Lurk. "There's no way we could fly down that trench and then fire a torpedo into that port. It can't be done."
"Of course it can," said Lurk. "Why, I used to bullseye wimp hamsters from my old speeder back home, and they're not much bigger than two metres. It'll be just like Bugger Canyon back home."
"Look, farm-boy," snapped the other pilot, "taking pot-shots at the local rodent population is one thing—any fool can hit a two metre rat sitting out on the desert somewhere. But to get a torpedo to go down that port, it would have to magically rotate as it passed over the hole. I don't think any of our torpedoes are that manoeuvrable, are they?"
"Oh," said Lurk.
"Quite right," said Armada, "but since this is only a diversionary tactic, its actual success is not overly vital to our mission."
"Isn't there another problem?" asked Aqua Leader slowly.
"Sir," interjected a communications officer from the briefing room doorway. Armada held up his hand for silence.
"What problem might that be?" he asked.
"But sir," said the comms officer. Armada raised his hand again and nodded for Aqua Leader to proceed.
"How do we actually find this battle station? They could be anywhere in the galaxy by now. And once we find it, how do we convince them to initiate their firing sequence?"
"Sir," said the comms officer urgently.
"One moment, son," said Armada. He looked at Aqua Leader and nodded. "That is a valid question. We have put our intelligence branch onto the problem and should have a report back by the end of the week."
He looked around the room. "Are there any further...?"
"For fuck's sake," exploded the comms officer in the doorway. "The fucking Death Tube has just dropped into fucking orbit around the planet Yawn; they are thirty fucking minutes away from blowing us out of the fucking sky! Sir."
Armada looked at the livid comms officer. Then he looked back at Aqua Leader. "Uh, yes. Right," he said. "I believe that answers your objection quite nicely."
He gazed around the room for a moment, flustered.
"Don't look at me," muttered Mal Single from his seat in the corner of the room. "There's no way they tracked my ship!"
"Well, people," said Armada, "I guess that means battle stations. Squadron leaders remain behind for final battle plan briefings; the rest of you get to your ships. And remember," he added as the pilots all began to file from the room, "while we're away, Commander Bekkalu's in charge of coordinating from the ground!"
Bekkalu looked up from her seat and waved.