Luxury Liner Hijacked, Passengers Killed

K'vath System, Mid Rim — The luxury liner Ithorian Peace has been found, abandoned by pirates who are believed to have hijacked the ship and killed all of its 857 passengers and 105 crew. The liner had earlier been reported missing after it failed to arrive at its destination, the resort moon of Alakatha. It was discovered adrift in the K'vath System by New Republic security forces who detected its distress signal. The liner's cargo—and its passengers' possessions—had been stolen, in the most gruesome act of piracy in recent memory.

Security footage recovered from the Ithorian Peace and obtained by The Coruscant Journal show pirates with automatic rifles disabling guards on each deck, roughly simultaneously, and then forcing their way onto the bridge. Once there, they re-routed deadly, vaporized coolant through the ship's ventilation systems, killing all passengers and crew. It is estimated that the pirates made off with 10,000,000 or more credits in stolen cargo, possessions, and fuel.

Chief of State Ponc Gavrisom's office issued a statement condemning the piracy, and promising justice. Senator Sir Reuke Cambrist (Brentaal), who chairs the New Republic's Commerce Council and whose cousin—Lady Estella Ur'Tsyne, a wealthy baroness—was confirmed among the dead on the Ithorian Peace, referred to the hijacking as a "heinous act."

"This is a deplorable affront to free commerce," he told The Coruscant Journal, "The freedom of movement, unmolested, from sector to sector is a fundamental necessity of commerce. I daresay it's time the New Republic showed these pirates the same compassion and mercy that they've shown us. Whether this means arming or training the crews of merchant vessels, or perhaps expanding the New Republic Security Forces, is a question the Commerce Council will discuss this week. One thing will be certain by the week's end—this brazen defiance of interstellar trade law, this heinous act, will not stand."

"Also, the death of my relative is a pity," he added.

The plunder of the Ithorian Peace was believed to have been perpetrated by the Lucian Alliance, an amalgamation of pirates under their mysterious leader—"Netan"—responsible for numerous acts of piracy over the past several months (although none as prominent or unprecedented as this). The murder of all onboard is anticipated to discourage an interstellar tourism industry that had just begun to rebound with the signing of the Pellaeon/Gavrisom Treaty, which ended the decades old war between the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant.