posted January 01, 2000 05:39 AM               

Admiral Schnapps strode through the corridors of the ISD 2 Devastator, pride of the Vast Imperial navy. The expression on her face was solemn, and she carried in her right hand a dark grey briefcase. From her leftwards lean, it was evident that the case was heavy, and from her white-knuckle grip it seemed that the case's contents were of some considerable importance to her.

Eventually, she came to a door in the section containing officers' living quarters. She pressed the visitor beeper beside the door, and stood back to wait. After several seconds, she looked up and pressed the alarm again. No response. With a furtive look to her left and right, she took an electronic lock pick from her pocket and ran it past the door's sensors a few times. On the third sweep, the door beeped affirmative and the lock clicked off. Schnapps raised her eyebrows in satisfaction, opened the door, and carefully entered.

The room inside was dark. Sensing no danger, Schnapps left her lightsabre on her belt, but nevertheless the Force made her aware that the room was empty. Furrowing her eyebrows in concern, Schnapps called out "Donitz? Don . . .?" but there was no one there to respond. She sighed deeply and exited, being careful to lock the door behind her.

Schnapps turned down the corridor and continued along it, head down and deep in thought. Within a few minutes she had reached another door. She pressed the visitor alarm. No response. She tried again. Again, no response. "This is ridiculous," Schnapps muttered. She reached inside her pocket for the illegal lock pick, and began swiping it against the lock. "I mean, I spent hours perfecting the formula-"

"Sir?" Schnapps spun around to see a young ensign standing in front of her. With a yell of panic, she dropped the lock pick. The ensign took a step backwards. "I mean ma'am," he blurted out quickly. Realising that the lock pick had fallen behind her and was being obscured from his view only because it was jammed against the door by her boot, Schnapps' look of panic increased. The ensign swallowed. "What I mean is, Admiral . . ." Schnapps' eyes bulged out suddenly as she felt the lock pick fall from behind her boot into open view on the floor. By now, the ensign was ice cap white. "Eh, Captain?"

Schnapps rolled her eyes to the upper left as her mind tried to analyse the ensign's unusually panicked behaviour. Testing the ground, she slowly licked her lips and said "Yes? Is there something . . .?"

The ensign appeared a little relieved by the return of his commanding officer's usual restrained demeanour. Nodding to himself, he took a deep breath, looked at the ground for a second, and started again. "I've been looking for you, Ad- Captain Schnapps. Fleet Ad- Fleet Comm- Fleet Admiral NiksaVel asked me to tell you that he'll be missing his appointment with you today."

He stared at Schnapps expectantly, hoping she wouldn't start sweating and going pale like she'd done just a minute before. Instead, her face wrinkled in concentration and her eyes focussed on some point in the middle distance. Eventually, some annoyance clearly discernible in her voice, she made eye contact with him. "Ensign . . ."

He swallowed. "Yes?"

"When did the FA ask you to pass this on?"

The ensign thought for a second. "Well, it would have been maybe two or possibly three hours ago." Her eyes widened in anger. The ensign hurriedly began defending himself. "You were in your office with guards on the door and 'do not disturb under any circumstances' signs everywhere . . . you told the comm officers that you were only to be contacted in case of an attack . . ."

Schnapps closed her eyes and sighed. Of course. She'd been working on the formula. She looked at him again. "What about Vice Admiral Donitz?"

The ensign, who had been trying to regain some Imperial composure, was thrown by the sudden change of topic. "I, ah, I think he went out . . ."

"Out? What do you mean, 'out'?"

"In his TIE, Captain. He was checking out an ion trail."

Schnapps glared at him. "Was he, now? I suppose he didn't leave a message with you as well, did he?" The sarcasm oozing out of her voice could have been collected in a bucket.

"Well, no, not with me, but I think I saw him an hour or so ago talking to another . . ." his voice tailed off.

Schnapps sighed. "Sess? Have you seen or heard from Rear Admiral Sess?"

"Eh, yes, he's on the Mustang I believe, with FA NiksaVel." Schnapps raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Something, something Jedi I believe . . ." his voice trailed off as his eyes fell to the lightsabre hanging from Schnapps' belt which seemed to be dangerously close to her hand. Seeing her knuckles tightening even further on the handle of her case, he continued "I don't enquire about such things."

Schnapps' shoulders sagged and her eyelids fell closed. All the anger and energy gone from her voice, she almost whispered, "Scarecrow? Scarecrow . . . on the Crusader. Athran? No . . . on patrol. Atrus?" She opened her eyes.

The ensign shifted uneasily under her gaze. "Eh, I think he's on Lorn, some kind of conference . . ."

Schnapps waved him silent as her eyes closed again. She opened one eye. "Darkstar?" The ensign shook his head. "Dest . . . Dest . . . Destroyer! Yes! Where's he?"

"He had a meeting with the army, some kind of interdivisional intel program."

Schnapps exhaled. "I don't believe it. I really don't. Are you telling me that there is no-one on board this ship, no-one, in fact, in the whole fleet who isn't either flying around the galaxy or in a meeting?" The ensign shrugged weakly. "Today," muttered Schnapps to herself. "Today of all days, on New Year's Eve, today is the day that everyone chooses to be busy on. How typical." With that, Schnapps shook her head angrily and quick-marched down the corridor.

The ensign stared in amazement at her retreating form. As he was about to leave, a light flashed in the back of his mind. He looked down at his feet and noticed what he'd seen but not registered earlier, what looked like a small circuit board with some controls on one side. He looked back at Schnapps, who he could just about hear muttering "Hours I analysed and tested for, hours."

He bent down and picked up the fallen lock pick. "Admiral . . ." he called out. "Is this yours?" He looked up when he heard the sound of booted feet running away. Schnapps was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Two minutes later, Schnapps walked back into her office, glad that she had dismissed the guards who had been a little too efficient in preventing disturbances. Not bothering to lock the door, she set the case down on her desk and collapsed into the dewback skin chair behind it. "Hours of experimentation, hours of work . . ." With something between a sigh and a growl, she opened the case and extracted, one by one, fifteen bottles from it. There was a light orange liquid filling each of them, with a few bubbles clinging to the sides and a thin sheet of foam at the surface. A hand written label on all the bottles bore the name "Purple Haze". With one eye on the bottles, she typed out a message on the datapad beside her and transmitted it.

She stared at the bottles for a few more seconds. With sudden resolve, she reached inside her desk drawer and took out first a small pile of cigars, and second a bottle opener. She cracked open a bottle, and sipped it slowly.

Ten minutes and half a bottle later, her desk chronometer pinged. She glanced at it. Midnight. Midnight at the start of the New Year, and she was alone in her office with only a stash of homemade cocktails and Rodinian cigars for company. The chronometer finished its midnight chime. "The hell with it," she proclaimed, and downed the rest of the bottle in one.

* * *

Just before 0400 hours, the door pinged. Nothing and no-one moved inside the office. The intercom hissed on. "Schnapps, I got your message, you said the Purple Haze was ready," a sharply accented voice said. There was a pause. After about a minute and another ping, the door opened. The man in the Imperial flight suit in the doorway squinted to adjust his eyes to the darkness within. "Schnapps," he said, "it's Donitz. Schnapps?" He moved further into the room. He could smell it was filled with smoke. "Lights. Low." The lights glowed on, just enough to see by. Schnapps was collapsed, unconscious, on her desk, surrounded by empty Purple haze bottles and cigar stubs. Donitz eventually found a bottle with a few drops of liquid still in it. He turned it upside down and caught the dregs in his mouth. He nodded appreciatively. "Looks like you finally nailed it on the head, Schnapps." He allowed himself a slight smile at her drunken and unconscious state and prised the one remaining bottle out of Schnapps' unresisting hand. He lifted it in the direction of imaginary revellers, and felt some sadness that the Purple Haze was all but gone. "Cheers," he said, mostly to himself. "And happy New Year."

============================================

And now for the recipe!

Take one 500 ml bottle.
Put in two shots of dry gin.
Now add two shots of peach schnapps, Archers for preference.
Fill up half the remainder of the bottle with pure orange juice.
Fill the rest of the bottle with Red Bull or Solstis.

Seal the top.

Shake!

Open, drink, and enjoy

------------------
Admiral/Krath Magician Schnapps
Captain of the Dev

Official Hanger-On

I am Lion, hear me ROAR!

-=IM:AHH XIV=-

posted January 02, 2000 02:05 PM              

***

Armin Bedwir wiped an unnoticeable trace of sweat from his forehead and rose from his YT-2000's cockpit. Turning, he was immediately confronted with the smiling face of his wife. He smiled weakly in return and put a hand on her shoulder. "We're alright now. We just completed the jump to hyperspace." She chuckled. "Don't be silly, of course we're alright. You've gotten out of much closer scrapes with a Star Destroyer before." He nodded appreciatively, thankful for the support. "True. Still, I don't like those things." Bedwir was a hardened man of nearly forty years - one of the few, very lucky, "veteran" rebels. He had served five tours with the Fighter Corps, and amassed a respectable number of kills. Now that the New Republic was established, they no longer had much reason to fear the Empire - unless, of course, they were traveling through this accursed sector still occupied by one of the pathetic remaining remnants of Imperial power. Still, precautions had to be taken, and most rebels knew how to get away from a Star Destroyer when they saw one. Bedwir decided to change the subject. "Is the girl alright?" he piqued. His wife nodded once more. "Of course. Our child is sleeping in our quarters." Bedwir gazed into the sparkling eyes of his wife. "Happy New Years, love. We'll be home soon." They kissed.

***

Bedwir awoke. Something was wrong. He threw the covers from his body, leaving his wife in bed beside him. In known history, this feeling had been called many things: foresight, the sixth sense, and other various synonyms. Those with the power recognized the workings of The Force.
Bedwir ran to the cockpit. Lights blinked and flashed, but everything was in working order. The sensors were clear. He sighed, an inner voice attempting to persuade him that his sensation was just a passing nightmare. What he did not see was the dull red dot on the sensor scope - so far out of range, that even its sensor readings were flickering in and out of existence. But the dot was growing brighter and more steady with each passing second. Bedwir was no longer in the cockpit.

***