How to Commit Grand Theft Gunship with Just Paperwork and a Smile

Caitlin sat at the bar, arms crossed, glowering into her drink. It wasn’t fair. There was a perfectly good Fiery-class gunship just sitting there, all smug and beautiful, practically begging to be liberated from the cold, unfeeling bureaucracy of the Imperium. And what was she doing? Obeying the law. Like some kind of civilian.

It was disgraceful.

Maltz, to his credit, recognized the dangerous gleam in her eye before she even spoke. “Whatever you’re about to say, no.”

“I haven’t said anything yet,” Caitlin huffed.

“And already, I know it’s a bad idea.”

She ignored him and leaned in conspiratorially. “So, you know how the Imperium loves bureaucracy?”

Morwen groaned. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes! They love it so much,” Caitlin continued, “that even its most terrifying military assets are still subject to mountains of paperwork. And in that bureaucracy, a ship can technically be stolen…”

Quinn rubbed his face. “Captain.”

“…but if the right forms are filed in the right order, it can also be transferred.”

There was silence as the crew processed this.

“…Are you suggesting,” Scarred-Snout rumbled, “we steal the ship using paperwork?”

“Not just paperwork,” Caitlin said brightly. “Forgery. Misdirection. A little light bribery. And, of course, the oldest trick in the book: blame someone else entirely.”

Maltz shook his head. “I am absolutely not hacking an Imperial registry system to…”

“No, it’s grand. Listen, we don’t steal it. We just file the right paperwork in the wrong places. Suddenly, that gunship belongs to some classified unit no one’s heard of. The Imperium loses a gunship to its own paperwork, and we gain a heavily armed new friend for Oleb.”

Morwen opened her mouth, then closed it. “You do realize this is the single most insane idea you’ve ever had?”

Caitlin wagged her finger. “Nope. That was the time I convinced an Aslan warlord his ship was haunted so he’d abandon it. This is a close second.”

Scarred-Snout growled in approval. “That was a good plan.”

“It was a good plan,” Caitlin agreed.

Maltz looked between them. “We are all going to die.”

“Not if this plan works,” Caitlin chirped.

***
Two days later, the scheme unfolded like a perfectly choreographed act of bureaucratic vandalism.

Maltz, grumbling, intercepted the ship’s registry, updating the Fiery’s official status to in-transit for reclassification. Quinn, with unsettling efficiency, drafted a requisition order so mind-numbingly dense with administrative jargon that no sane official would dare question it. Morwen forged a paper trail leading back to an obscure, long-decommissioned intelligence unit; so if anyone came looking, they’d be chasing ghosts. Scarred-Snout loomed menacingly, just in case.

And Caitlin? Caitlin walked straight into the shipyard’s control office, dropped the stack of forged documents onto the desk, and said, “I’m here to take possession of the Fiery class gunned escort docked in bay 42.” She squinted at her hand. “ISCN... 027-TOB7-251139."

The bored Imperial functionary barely looked up. “You’ll need form A9-7B for that.”

Caitlin slid a freshly printed A9-7B across the desk.

“…And authorization from Sector Command.”

Another form.

“…And a transfer approval from Naval Logistics.”

A third.

The functionary sighed. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

Caitlin smiled innocently. “First time, actually.”

Ten minutes later, the Fiery’s docking clamps were released, and Caitlin, officially now the commanding officer of a ship that absolutely did not belong to her, led her crew aboard.

As the engines roared to life and the ship lifted off the pad, somewhere deep in the bowels of Imperial bureaucracy a clerk yawned, stamped a transfer order he didn’t read, and guaranteed no one would notice the theft until at least the next quinquennial budget review.

Caitlin guided the ship toward the jump point, smug as a cat with feathers in its mouth and no intention of explaining.

“See?” she said. “Totally above board. Can’t wait to see Oleb’s face.”

Maltz buried his face in his hands. “I hate that this worked.”

“You hate it because it worked,” Caitlin corrected.

It was, all things considered, their greatest heist yet.