Saga The Hunt for the Executor--Similar to "The Hunt for Red October"--New post 12/2

Notes: Thanks to the following people:

1) Tom Clancy for writing The Hunt for Red October and inspiring this story.
2) RK_Striker_JK_5 for helping me with some of the more manly aspects.
3) Noelie for the medical/practical advice
*****
THE FIRST DAY

Super-Class Star Destroyer Executor

There seemed an unusual chill to the air on the Executor this morning. After an extensive time spent in spacedock, the climate controls were always reset so that it would have only been comfortable to someone born and reared on the ice plains of Hoth.

Admiral Firmus Piett knew, however, that the urge to shiver was not due to the temperature alone. He had felt the cold settle into his bones from the moment that he left his bed this morning and it only seemed to get worse as the hours passed.

After all, there were only a few minutes left before the last official left the Executor and from that moment, it would be only a handful of seconds before the dock controller gave them clear skies. That meant that, roughly speaking, he had ten minutes before the point of no return.

?All systems are functional,? Captain Michel Decher, a dark-haired Alderaanian, reported with the air of a proud father announcing the birth of a healthy child. ?As soon as our shuttle has returned from the station proper, we?ll be on our way.?

?That?s good to hear,? Piett said in complete sincerity. ?Do we have the personnel manifest finalized??

?We do,? Decher confirmed, handing over the appropriate datacard for his perusal. ?It seems almost unnecessary with a skeleton crew on board??

?On the contrary,? Piett interrupted with one of his rare smiles. ?It is on this sort of mission that I prefer to know the name, face and disposition of every person on my ship.?

Decher?s mouth twitched at the reference, since there were very few people in the Imperial Starfleet with enough audacity to refer to Lord Vader?s favorite toy as their own. He did not argue the point, however, since it was generally acknowledged by everyone from bridge security to Vader himself that the Executor had never been run by an officer so faithful as Piett.

?Yes, sir.?

?Don?t look so nervous,? Piett chided. ?It will be a quiet trip with few unpleasantries.?

?Yes, sir,? Decher responded dutifully. ?While we?re on the subject of unpleasantries, Commander Thurn is waiting for you in your quarters.?

He shouldn?t have been surprised by this, since all new missions began with the odious formality of going over both the orders and the procedures with the Intelligence officer. It was, however, customary to maintain some level of privacy and letting Talex Thurn into one?s personal quarters was not the most efficient way of going about that.

?Thank you, Captain Decher,? Piett said without allowing emotion to enter his voice. "You have command of the bridge until my return."

"Yes, sir."

The corridors were rarely empty, even in the dead of ship's night, so the lack of personnel only served to highlight the realization that he might well be utterly alone in this effort. It was the first time he had heard every footfall on the durasteel beneath his boots, but he forced the thoughts of abandonment from his mind.

Thurn was no Jedi. He would not be able to read Piett's mind, but he had trained under the Isards and would know each and every emotion that crossed the Admiral's narrow features. For the first time, therefore, he found himself wishing that he had become an actor instead of an officer. The skills of deception that were a lethal pretense in the presence of the Dark Lord were things that would have been invaluable in this situation.

The quarters that he had taken were midship, inconveniently distant from the bridge, but in a place that he would have not left for anything. Most officers, when assuming command of their own vessel, would have occupied the most spacious quarters. Piett had insisted on remaining in the small room that he had first inhabited as a brevet captain under Admiral Graff.

Many things had changed s

 

Great job, Ishtar! Two of my favorite things: Clancy and Star Wars, all wrapped up conveniently into one fanfiction! I just started re-reading The Hunt for Red October so the story is fresh in my mind. Please put me on the PM list if you make one. I'm looking forward to your next update.

~ The Mormon Jedi

 

Now that was great, Ish. Piett's gone rogue. And he's got one of the most powerful battleships under his command. Whoa.

 

Oh, I gotta see if Piett pulls this off.

Great begining, Ish.

 

This is really good Ish.

Took me awhile after last night to want to come and comment, as none of the seizure stuff is good memory, and all too present in my life if the ex should wish to do something as simple as play baseball, as his ward will call me when the inevitable happens. I got to thinking the last time I took care of this was just a year ago.

But it is excellent and is described just about the way it looks if you are dealing with it from the outside.

 

Tee hee!

I remember you telling me about your plot bunny for this... and how I had no idea what "The Hunt for Red October" was.

Great start! A rogue Piett... this will be very interesting.

 

Oh, I'm excited to read this one! You can PM me updates for this story as I'm sure I will miss plenty of them.

 

great story, keep me updated if you can.

 

This is intriguing! So Piett is defecting to the Rebels with Vader's flagship? Wow, he's got guts, that's for sure! Good luck to him!
If you have a PM list,let me know when this updates!

 

Oh! my...

Wow, wow and triple-wow!

Great idea, Ish.

Now the question is: is Darth Daddy in on the plan, and is the defection of the Lady Ex a taste of more interesting things to come?

PM me when you update.

MTFBWY,

Lauré

 

JediMormon--Thanks, Mormon! You know of my Tom Clancy obsession, of course! I'll definitely keep you posted.

RK_Striker_JK_5--Thanks, Jon. Piett's gone rogue for some very interesting reasons, it will turn out. Yes, he has one of the most powerful battleships of the Imperial fleet under his command, but it's just one ship...

Sara_Kenobi--Sara, hi! Thanks for reading and I hope you like the rest of it.

Noelie--Thanks, Noelie. I do appreciate you patiently going through the particulars of a grand mal with me yesterday, since it's not an easy thing to do. Your help made it, I hope, credible.

Idrelle_Miocovani--Uhoh, Padawanly teehees are always a scary thing! Thanks! It will be very interesting.

Araxie--Glad you're excited for this. I'm excited to be writing it at last.

sdhfs--Thanks, will do.

dm1--He's got guts and hopefully brains! Thanks!

laurethiel1138--LOL, really? Darth Daddy is not in on the plan, which will make this extremely complicated! Thanks!

 

SoPiett becomes a cold-blooded calculator! That's an excellent beginning.
I wonder, though, where's Vader in all of this! Does he approve? Does he even know? Perhaps he is behind. I see you leave the suspense!
Please, keep it up, and if you have a PM list, add me to it!

 

Ooh. Good. I've been waiting for someone to do a Red October-esque fic. Liked Piett's taking care of the Intelligence plant.
Just like that guy from the book, the whole "medical emergency, nice touch.
I'll have to keep an eye on this one!

 

175 men as a skeleton crew on a 12 mile long ship. That's impressive.

Please add me to the PM list

 

Nice. That should be a good story. Can you send me PMs when this story get updated, please?

 

Awesome beginning. So Piett is going to defect- and with Vader's ship too. He's got a lot of guts.

I'd love to be on your PM list if you have one!

 

Darth_Kripp--Well, cold-blooded in the moment of necessity, for the most part. There is a little bit of difference. Vader will be coming into the picture sometime very soon. I'll leave the answers to those questions until the next post. Thanks!

reagan64--Thanks, Reagan. I've been smacked twice by this plot bunny and only one time was my fault. Glad you liked Piett's handling of the Intelligence one. The "medical emergency" had to be adapted, since in the book, Ramius kills the political officer. Here, Piett just puts him in a coma.

AdmiralWesJanson--Well, if you have one person over certain areas of duty, it makes sense. They don't expect to be running into any trouble.

Crazydan--Thanks! Will send.

jedi_princess18--Yes, a lot of guts or something! Thanks!

 

Wow, this is awesome so far.

I love how you've incorporated little details from the novel, like the headings of "The First Day", and the forged operational orders into the fic.

Can I assume we'll see the reasons why Piett is undertaking such a drastic course of action? He's had to have been thinking of this for some tume.

175 men aboard the ship, huh? Just how many of them are in on the plan? I would presume the senior officers are in on it. Maybe some of the senior non-commissioned officers as well. How many more would also be part of it? Obviously the medical personnel are not, or Piett wouldn't have told the lie. (Just like the novel where the doctor is clueless to Captain Ramius' plan.).

Now, when will the Alliance learn of this and send their own fleet out to assist Executor? Will the main Alliance players be canon characters we know, or OC's? It would be interesting to see Luke called to Admiral Ackbar's office to use his Jedi intuition to figure out the latest intelligence they've gotten about Executor's movements?

I'm hoping Piett wasn't so aggrieved at the Empire that he sent a letter to Palpatine, telling him that he's going to take Executor to Alliance space and hand it over to Mon Mothma.

Will some Alliance ship pick up Executor's trail and start chasing her?

What I'm waiting to see is how some of the more challenging differences between the fic and the novel will be handled. Does Executor have a cloaking device that might be the equivalent to Red October's silent drive system? Otherwise, she really can't disappear the way a submarine can. Space isn't like the ocean where she can submerge. Then again, it's also vast, so there's an infinitely larger search area, rather than the more limited confines of the North Atlantic basin.

I cannot wait for the next chapter.

 

Ooh, interesting.

I really like the concept you have here. Piett going over to the Rebellion- and taking the Executor with him. I think a good indication of his plan was when he referred to the ship as "his."

Now I wonder why he's decided to turn. And I haven't read Red October, so I can't even use anything from the book. I quite definitely look forward to the next installments.

If you have a PM list, would you please add me to it? Thanks.

 

As you said, space is vast, so searching for one relatively small ship would be almost impossible. If that ship also shut down all active emissions and running lights, that task becomes infinitely more difficult. However, the Executor may have a cloaking device after all, we don't know yet, do we?

~ The Mormon Jedi

 

Yes, it will be interesting to see some of the parallels and differences between the book and this story. I wonder if merely putting the intelligence officer into a coma will do it,though, unless the stuff Piett gave him would alter his memory or give him amnesia. That was nicely done, by the way.

Can't wait to see more, find out how Vader reacts and how the Alliance reacts. In the book, a great deal of research was done to figure things out, in the movie, they made it look like a hunch out of nowhere. In about two seconds, Ryan worked it out, really now!

 

TJM, I love your sense of humour...

I can see it from here. "Luke, would you just mind telling us why the Ex has gone crazy?"

Or even better, Han going on and saying he'd met the guy at some Welcome-To-The-Academy dinner... And can therefore predict his each and every next move.

Though you must admit, it would make a neat scene to read... Just imagine Palp's confusion and then useless rage at the news his prize ship has gone rogue... Could almost be comical.

Aye, but the wee problem is that the Ex isn't so wee a ship, that she can suddenly dissapear from your transparisteel bays like that... There must be a catch Ish hasn't netioned yet...

MTFBWY,

Lauré

 

What about hyperspace? Can ships be tracked in hyperspace without a tracking beacon?

 

Fun post... I look forward to this plotline.

 

Very good following the book there. It's been a while since I've read it and also a while since I've watched the movie, but I do remember most of the plot line. When I first saw the title, I thought Vader was defecting, but it makes more sense for Piett. It's a very plausible idea. How Piett will hide this from Vader, I haven't a clue.