Into the Chaos -- Author's note.

Welcome to the third chapter of my story 'Into the Chaos'. A Sci-fi story that just happens to take place in the Unknown Regions of the Star Wars universe just after the Great Galactic War, almost 4000 years before the events of the movies.

As I said, this is the third chapter and if you haven't read the previous ones, I recommend that you do that first.

Disclaimer: I do not own or hold any rights to any Star Wars licenses, including the star ships used in this story.

Some warnings:

This is an erotic sci-fi adventure, meaning that there will be both sex and violence, but I don't mix the two.

This story is posted on the Literotica website and the author does not give permission for it to be reposted or reprinted anywhere else without consent.

P.S. The series is self-edited, so any mistakes are mine, though I now have a proofreader, that can catch missing words ect. Thanks to Jessejames932006 for doing that.

P.P.S. While you're here anyway, please rate the chapter and leave a comment :)

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Chapter 3 -- Into the Unknown

Duchess, Centauri 21

"No battle plan can anticipate all contingencies. There are always unexpected factors including those stemming from the opponent's initiative.

A battle must thus become a balance between plan and improvisation, between error and correction."

From the Holy Book of War

I had a feeling of relief, as we got out of the gas giants' gravity well and entered hyperspace on route to the refuelling base, effectively taking us out of reach of most real space dangers. It also meant that at least some of the crewmembers could stand down and get some rest, a meal and even a shower.

True to my word, I had left the Class VI freighter on the pirate base and given the stranded pirates the directions to the moon base as well as food enough to reach it, so they could send for help or get away, depending on their plans.

The route to the asteroid base was straight forward, though it involved no less than five hyperspace jumps...mostly because we weren't really in a hurry, and I preferred to keep it safe instead of fast. As an added benefit, it gave me time to go over the data, we had taken from the three Sith's rooms.

Since I was off duty anyway, I had decided to read it in my bed, so I settled in with a cup of tea and had barely started to read, when the chimes announced that somebody was at the door.

"Enter!"

The door opened and Shakka walked in. "Hello, sir. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." I said as the automatic door closed behind her. "What's up?"

"I've problems sleeping. Can I sleep here? You make me feel secure." She smiled, but there was a nervousness in it. "I won't disturb you, I just need some sleep."

Smiling back, I gesture to the other side of the bed. "Go ahead. There's certainly room enough."

"Thank you." She said, looking relieved.

"No problem."

Without saying more, she took off her clothes and lay down on the bed, dressed only in black briefs and a black top, looking insanely sexy.

The thought of seduction flashed through my mind, but I discarded it. She had come here to sleep and I wanted to read the notes we had found.

"Sleep well."

"Thank you." She eyed the reading pad. "Have a good read."

I nodded, turned my attention to the pad and started to read.

For the next many hours, I shifted through written communications, transcripts of verbal communication, plans and personal notes, trying to make sense of the jigsaw puzzle of connecting information to get a glimpse of the overall situation.

It wasn't pleasant reading, despite it being mostly rumours and hearsay, and when I had been through it all, I leaned my head against the bulkhead.

Apparently, Darth Malgus, one of the strongest Sith Lords, had been so dissatisfied with the treaty the Empire had made with the Republic, that he had taken a part of the Sith Fleet and led them into the Unknown Regions.

That move had been copied by several others doing the same, but thankfully, their fleets were much smaller. One of them was Darth Arkol and he was the one Mahaw and his two companions had chosen to follow. Apparently, both Darth Arkol and Lord Mahaw weren't on the list of Darth Malgus' list of favourite people and unlike many others, Lord Mahaw hadn't dared to join Darth Malgus. The disagreement, if you can call it that, between the Sith was their view on non-humans. Darth Malgus didn't discriminate and besides using non-human mercenaries as shock-troops, he had even had a Twi'Lek lover for years, while Lord Mahaw disliked them and Darth Arkol hated anybody that wasn't human.

I sighed as I revaluated my information. Mahaw had not been a renegade Sith, but neither had he been working for the Empire. In the time-honoured tradition of the Sith, he had followed a powerful Darth, and as a former member of the Imperial Reclamation Service, he and his two companions had been under orders from Darth Arkol to find Sith Artifacts and Ancient Super Weapons using any means possible. Both were things Darth Arkol needed to be able to take on the much larger fleet of Darth Malgus and ultimately Darth Malgus himself.

In Mahaw's case, 'any means possible' had meant acquiring a Fury and two Kolareth-Class Imperial Transports from an Imperial base and going undercover as a pirate to do so, as that enabled him to search through old IRS bases while the loot would go towards funding Darth Arkol's war efforts.

"You look tense." I suddenly heard Shakka say from the side. Looking over, I discovered that she had awoken, while I had been reading and thinking.

"I am. Discovering that there're several Sith fleets in the Chaos will do that to any naval officer."

"Are they around here?" She asked calmly.

"Not as far as I know."

"Then why worry about them?"

"Because we might run into them." I heard myself and chuckled. "Yes, I know it's highly unlikely, but that doesn't make it impossible."

She smiled her dazzling smile. "Are you as prepared for them as you can be?"

I thought it over and nodded slowly. "Yes. I've studied them a lot."

Reaching out with a hand, she let it slide over my dick. "Then put down the pad. Some sex would relieve your tension."

My eyes took in her sexy body and the firm bobbles of flesh that were her buttocks were very tempting as she lay there on her stomach. "You make a very good point."

Shakka sent me a sensual smile and pulled down my briefs. "I thought so too." Her warm hand closed around my stiffening dick. "I've slept like a stone and have had some very erotic dreams."

She wriggled closer and without warning took the head of my now stiff dick into her mouth, causing me to gasp as she gently sucked, while her tongue played on the head, and her warm hand slowly stroked the shaft.

Shivers of pleasure ran through me and I reached down to let my fingers dance lightly on the top of her lekku, causing her to shiver and moan. Testing, I ran my fingers over different parts of the lekku and it seemed like where the lekku erupted from the head was extra sensitive, at least going from the sounds she made, so I paid that area some extra attention, without forgetting the rest.

Groaning, Shakka slid her wet full lips over the head of my dick, with her tongue licking the tip, while one hand had sneaked under my legs to play with my balls and the other stroked the shaft, sliding along its length, her hands twisting slightly along with stroking long strokes.

She clearly wasn't in a hurry and I leaned my head back against the bulkhead again, relaxing as we pleasured each other.

We stayed in that position for some time, with her using her hand and mouth on my dick, while I caressed her lekku, both of us moaning with pleasure.

Then Shakka removed her mouth from my dick and sat up, removing her black top to reveal her perky red breasts, declaring. "I'm too horny to keep doing this."

Nodding, I quickly removed my T-shirt, followed by my briefs.

Shakka had just removed her briefs as well when she suddenly asked. "Have you had sex with a Twi'Lek before?"

I shook my head. "No... to be honest I've never even met any non-Chiss before starting this journey."

"Then how did you know my lekku was so sensitive?" She asked, puzzlement in her voice.

"The description in the database made them sound as if they were as sensitive as testicles on a male." I explained as I stretched out on the bed again. "So, I just treated them as sensitive breasts."

"Good thinking. It was fantastic." Shakka said as she dropped to hands and knees and crawled to my legs, where she straddled them and lowered her head, her mouth engulfed the head of my dick again, tongue swirling. It was heavenly, but short, as she stopped just as suddenly as she had started. Then she slowly, deliberately, moved up my body. She hadn't lifted her upper body as she did it and used a hand to keep my dick upright, so the head of my dick slid over her silken skin, making me groan.

Shakka kept moving until her pussy was hovering over my dick and then leaned down to kiss me.

The feel of her soft lips against mine felt fantastic, especially since she rubbed the tip of my dick back and forth across her soft feathery lips, wetting it and then nestling it into the entrance to her depths as she lowered herself a little bit more.

With my dick in the right position, she removed the hand and used it to ruffle my hair as she kissed me. "I'm sorry for jumping you like this, but..."

A kiss on those lovely full lips silenced her. "Shyyy. If I had anything against it, I would have objected." Moving my hands to her hips, I grabbed them and suddenly pressed down, while my hips thrust upwards, impaling her on my dick. Moaning as her warm and wet pussy closed around my dick.

"OH FUCK YES!" She moaned loudly, as her butt touched my thighs. With a shiver, she leaned forward, balancing on her knees and her hands, leaning over me until her red breasts were hanging almost in my face.

She moaned as she started to lift and lower her hips, sliding me in and out of her pussy. I lifted my hands to her big soft breasts, capturing them both as they swung back and forth in front of me. I squeezed her nipples, pinching them a little. Her pussy contracted around my dick in response, making it even tighter, and there was a look of extreme pleasure on her face.

"This is sooo good." Shakka moaned as she lifted herself up and down my cock in rhythmic strokes that gradually got faster and faster. Her moans synchronising with the sound of her butt slapping against my thighs, to create a delightful melody that echoed in the room.

Moving my hands up her body, I eventually reached her head again and began caressing the base of her lekku again, while enjoying the sight of her tits bouncing up and down right in front of my face, her nipples drawing circles in the air with each bounce, and the way her incredibly hot wet pussy stroked along my shaft.

Shakka groaned and leaned down to kiss me again, while her hips went back and forth, grinding her clitoris against me.

I returned the kiss, groaning as her soft lips parted so our tongues could touch. The gentle feeling sending small shivers through my body.

Apparently, it worked the same way on her because a moment later she slammed her hips down and came, howling her pleasure into my mouth, her body jerking and shuddering as she struggled to try and keep riding me.

Reaching out, I dragged her into a hug, holding her close and kissing her as the orgasm faded.

Bending my legs in preparation, I held her tight, moving a hand to the base of her lekku at the same time. As soon as I sensed she was going to say something, I whispered, "My turn." and thrust into her, going all the way to the bottom in one stroke.

Her eyelids flew open, and she looked at me in green-eyed shock as I pulled out and slammed up into her again and again, hitting her clitoris with my pelvic bone and caressing the base of her lekku with the hand that wasn't holding her in place.

Closing her eyes again, she moaned as shivers began taking over her body. "Great Stars! I'm coming again!"

That was the plan, so I just continued to thrust into her tight, wet pussy, moaning as it pulsed around my dick, squeezing it each time I pulled out, only to open slightly, as I slammed it back in.

With desperate strength, she grabbed my head and kissed me hard, squalling into my mouth as she came again, her body orgasming around my cock.

Like before, I waited until the climax had faded, but the I surprised her by rolling over, so she was under me and started fucking her again. Shakka gasped as I did so and ran her hands down my back, while locking her ankles behind my back.

Quivering with pleasure, I knew that I couldn't take much more before coming, so I picked up the speed, pounding her in a fast, but steady pace, revelling in the sliding feeling and the delicious resistance of her pussy with each and every thrust.

Her green eyes bored into mine. "Come with me."

I nodded and Shakka screamed once again as she came. The sound of her ecstasy and the squeeze her clenching pussy put on my thrusting shaft sent me over the edge a moment later, groaning as I erupted in her. She squeezed me with both arms and legs as she screamed in response to the feeling of me coming in her.

Her ankles released their hold of me and for a few minutes we just lay there, regaining our breath, before I got my senses together and moved off her, rolling to lay next to her on the bed.

"Shit, you are amazing," I told her, a smile on my face as I admired her fantastic, haphazardly splayed red body with its amazing curves.

"Likewise." She said, returning the smile.

If she wanted to say more, that was stopped as the intercom came alive and Resa's voice said. "I'm sorry to wake you up, Doctor, but you're needed in the infirmary."

"I'll be there shortly."

"Thank you." There was a slight pause, then Resa continued. "Commander, please remember to get some sleep."

Chuckling, I said. "I will, Resa."

"Thank you, sir."

The intercom clicked off again, which for some reason caused both Shakka and I to laugh.

"I wonder how she knew." I asked rhetorically, causing Shakka to look at me in surprise. "Because I told her that I went here to sleep... and besides, she's connected to the ship's systems, so she'll know where everybody is at any time."

"Good point."

"I hope so." She said with a grin and stood from the bed. "Can I use your shower?"

"Of course."

"Good. I need a quick shower." She said, still smiling, and walked to the bathroom. Even as spent as I was, I still had to admire her ass all the way until the door closed behind her. It truly was a piece of art.

Then I stared at the ceiling, and with practiced ease brought my thoughts back to the current situation.

All in all, it was a mess. The Chiss Ascendancy might be allied with the Empire, but that didn't automatically mean that we were safe from the various Sith Lords, who might or might not honour the agreement. Especially not a Darth that hated non-humans.

No matter what, having a Sith fleet near the Chiss Ascendancy was bad news and from what I could see from the documents, there were now at least three different Sith Lords in the Chaos with fleets of various sizes.

The inborn aggressiveness of the Sith meant that a Sith Fleet wouldn't just sit in a star system somewhere, protecting an Imperial base. They would conquer planets to either expand the Empire's control into this section of the galaxy or, if they were at odds with the Sith Empire, carve out a small Empire of their own.

The first option wasn't that bad, but the second would sooner or later bring them into conflict with the Chiss Ascendancy and with my people's policy of never attacking first, the Sith would have a colossal advantage at the outbreak of any war.

It was also the most likely option, as all three Darth's seemed to be at odds with the Sith Empire, making each one of them a danger to the Chiss Ascendency, though Darth Malgus seemed like the lesser threat despite having the greatest fleet.

Unfortunately, the data didn't say much about where any of the fleets were, except that Darth Malgus had gone rimward from Muulinist, which was at the galactic north in regard to the Chiss Ascendancy. However, that was two years ago, and his fleet could be almost anywhere by now. On the bright side, both Alpha Viga and Centauri 21 were rimward from Muulinist and to my knowledge, the CDEF haven't encountered any Imperial forces.

Darth Arkol had travelled towards the galactic south, before entering the Chaos, making it likely that any Sith we encountered in this area would belong to his faction. As one of the smaller factions it was almost certain that he would try to build a power base, which meant taking over already populated systems, so he could repair his ships and perhaps even build new ones.

The last Darth was largely an unknown, as Mahaw didn't mention his name or destination, only that his fleet was the smallest of the three.

Unfortunately, they were real fleets, with real warships. A far cry from the collection of ships we had.

The Foray-class Chariot was by far our largest warship, but the D5 Mantis-class Hunter's Gambit packed a serious punch as did the Fury-class Interceptor Rising Star.

Jackpot, the Lethisk-class armed freighter, wasn't really a warship, but a beefed-up freighter. It was tough, well-armed and manoeuvrable, but it lacked the military grade armor and shield of the other ships.

The Sho-class transport Roadrunner and the Wanderer-class freighter Barracuda were relatively big ships, but none of them were warships and both held a lot of people. Ideally, I should leave them in another system with a guard when we went in for the Asteroid Base, but this wasn't an ideal situation and the best I could do was to leave them in the outskirts of the system along with Jackpot and Hunters Gambit for protection.

With all the former slaves in the larger ships, along with the shuttles and dropships, I intended to use the two well-armed Kolareth-class as oversized gunships, as they were equipped with twin light turbolasers as well as a point defence system.

The last ship was the Duchess, which was one of the best ships in the group. Despite being a luxury yacht, the Duchess not only had weaponry, armor, and shields to match a Fury-class, but it also had four Aurek Strikefighters in its hangar.

I knew the Aurek's design was as old as the Foray-class, but after taking a closer look at it, I was impressed. Fast and manoeuvrable, it had better armor and shields than most modern fighters, but where the Aurek really shined was its weapons: Not only was it equipped with two heavy laser cannons, where most other starfighters had light or medium laser cannons, but it also had a pair of torpedo launchers with a magazine of six Photon torpedoes, enabling it to deliver quite a punch to larger targets.

According to Resa, the Aureks were also every mechanic's dream, as everything was placed so refuelling, rearming and maintenance was as easy as possible. That was the reason why they were chosen for the Duchess since they required less time and energy to keep in working condition.

Their only drawback was that the fuselage was cast as just six pieces, so if there was any damage to the fuselage, it takes a good amount of time to repair it.

Most hull materials used in warships were cast and grew harder as well as more temperature resistant as they solidified. That made them perfect for their purpose, but also notoriously hard to repair. It was for that reason that most spaceships, even smaller ones, had their hulls constructed from many smaller plates, as that made it easier and cheaper to simply replace any damaged parts. Having only six cast pieces would severely cut down production time, but as Resa had pointed out, made repairs to the fuselage a long and costly affair.

All in all, the forces at my disposal now were vastly better than what I left Alpha Viga with, and with that, the hope of rescuing the last Chiss from Sharon the Red had become a lot better than before. Of course, if we were to go up against regular navy ships, we wouldn't stand a chance, but against a few pirate ships, we should be able to win without too much trouble.

Still, no plan ever survives meeting the enemy, so we would just have to do our best.

The door to the bathroom opened again and Shakka came into the room, her round breasts bouncing with each step she took, as she walked over to retrieve her clothes.

"You know, you really should take Resa to bed if you're tense. That'll help a lot." She suddenly said, surprising me.

"What?" I blinked a few times. "But she's a droid!"

"Yes, but she's also in the body of a human replica droid and a pleasure model that wants to be treated as a woman." Shakka said as she dressed. "She even has some updates, that allow her to enjoy sex as much as anybody else."

"Seriously? How can that even be done?"

She shrugged lightly. "I don't know exactly, but she has an organic processor that can do that. At least that's what she told me."

That had to be that 'organic neural sensory processor' Resa had told me about, I decided for myself and suddenly remembered that Resa had said that she would show me how it worked later and that it would take time to show me. With this new information I realised that she most likely had meant for us to have sex.

With the primitive droids I had grown up with in the Chiss Ascendancy that was a strange thought, like having sex with a suit of power armor, but like so many other things the technology out here was different and that took some getting used to.

On the other hand, a week ago I couldn't imagine having sex with a non-Chiss and that had proven to be just as good, if not better, than sex with a Chiss, so perhaps it was worth a try.

"I'll think about it." I promised.

"Do that... and remember to get some sleep." She smiled and walked out the door.

I did as both Shakka and Resa had said and lay down to sleep.

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Surprise at Epsilon Eta

Epsilon Eta System

"The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon,

From the Holy Book of War

Astrologically, the asteroid was called Epsilon Eta 2440-M-3 since it was in the Epsilon Eta system. It was also a M-type asteroid, meaning that it consisted of Iron-nickel besides stone. Once the dark asteroid had been mined for the raw materials, but once the easily accessible ore had been exhausted, the miners had moved on.

Later it had been discovered by the Empire who could see other uses for the ten kilometre long and six kilometres wide asteroid. They had transformed the mining tunnels and voids into living areas, a small repair station and a fuel depot, but had abandoned it some three hundred years ago. Of course, as with all other Imperial bases, it was also equipped with sensors, but as those were the originals, they weren't that good.

According to Gunner Kansen and the rest of Sharon the Red's former slaves, the Asteroid Base relied more on remaining hidden than on weaponry defence, so the entrance was only guarded with two well-hidden Quad-Turbolasers towers. Enough to vaporise any nosy explorer if taken by surprise, but not really what you would call a formidable defence. It did have several launchers for capital ship missiles, but the missiles themselves had been sold off after Sharon the Red had taken the base, as she had judged that there was no use for them out here in the Chaos.

All in all, there wasn't any reason for the unease I felt as soon as we entered the system, but I had learned to trust my instinct and ordered all ships into the highest level of readiness, which included launching both the four Aureks and the droid starfighters. As an afterthought, I also ordered the droid starfighters to protect the Aureks, creating four groups consisting of one Aurek and four starfighters.

"Sir," said Keller from behind. "Long range scanners are picking up two large ships heading out of the system as well as an even larger one holding its position. I'll put it on the display now."

A moment later, the tactical hologram shifted and showed what the Engineer had just said.

The two large ships had a course that would take them closer to us than the large ship, but as I watched, the two ships went into hyperspace and disappeared.

"I'll be fizzled!" said Keller suddenly, surprise in his voice. "Those two were Gage-class transports!"

"As in Imperial Gage-class transports?" Asked Samko startled.

"Yes..." Answered Keller. "But what they're doing out here is anyone's guess."

"The asteroid base is a former Imperial refuelling base." I said slowly, thinking as I spoke. "This system might be one of the few in the area they have the coordinates and a tested route for."

"Good point, sir." Said Keller and looked at his station again. "But that leaves me wondering what the last ship is. I hope it's not a cruiser or a dreadnought."

"Did you get their hyperspace vector?"

One of the drawbacks with using hyperspace was that it is just a super-fast way of flying. That meant that a ship could only enter hyperspace in the direction it was flying, called its vector, when the hyperdrive was activated and sometimes it was possible to deduct where a target had gone from reading the vector and extrapolating it from a map.

"Yes, sir, and the best bet for their destination is the Elino system." A star map showed up on the screen. "Unfortunately, the Elino system is barren with only four planets, so I'm guessing that it wasn't their final destination."

I nodded and turned my attention to the sensor display. According to our current readings, the unknown ship was more than seven hundred meters long and to my knowledge, there weren't many ships that size. The exceptions were usually Imperial capital warships like the Harrower-class Dreadnought or the S-Class cruisers, as the Galactic Republic tended to use smaller ships than the Empire.

However, I couldn't see a single reason for any Imperial capital ships to be out here. Especially not without a screening force of smaller ships. Granted, the Gage-class were stronger than most pirate ships, and, according to the specs, carried a wing of fighters, but they were still transports and if they were transporting something really valuable, they would have had a couple of frigates as escorts.

"I agree." I said and then asked. "Any chance that they have detected us yet?"

"There's always a chance, but I doubt it, sir." Came the answer from the Engineer. "The Duchess has top of the line sensors, so that we can see them, doesn't mean that they can see us and we're small targets."

"Thanks. Warn me if we approach what you would call 'detection range'."

"Yes, sir."

On the display, the numbers changed as our own passive scanners got a better image of the remaining ship, determining the length to be about 760 meters.

"Well, if these readings are right, it's another transport of some sort, or perhaps a light cruiser, sir." Said Keller from his station. "It doesn't emit enough energy for a full-scale cruiser."

The image of a ship suddenly appeared on the viewscreen, as Resa said. "This one is the only ship in the database that fits the length then. It's a Lictor-class dungeon ship."

The ships data showed up under the image and I quickly read it.

Originally built by the Mandalorians during the Mandalorian Wars some three hundred years ago, the Lictor-Class Dungeon ship was basically a mobile prison, capable of holding up to 8000 prisoners.

The crew size was about 900 persons, not including the up to 400 security wardens.

It had reasonable shields and armor for a transport and with three Turbolasers, six Laser cannons and two Tractor Beam Projectors, it had enough firepower to scare off most pirates.

The design was so good, that the ship continued to be produced by Rendili StarDrive after the war ended and had been sold to a lot of different factions.

I sighed as I looked up from the screen again. Basically, the ship could belong to everybody with the money to buy it, making it impossible to determine its origin right now.

The question was why it was still in the system. Of course, we were in the Chaos, where calculating a hyperspace jump may take hours, sometimes even days, but astrogators normally started calculating the way out as the first thing on reaching any given star system.

The obvious answer was that they were waiting for someone and that made staying in the system somewhat risky for us. Not that the Lictor-class ship in itself was a serious danger to us, but the ones it was waiting for might be. On the other hand, with the Lictor being a prison ship, there was a good chance that the ships it was waiting for were passenger ships, as those were the ones with the life support systems to transport large amounts of people.

"I think they're waiting for someone." I said loudly. "Let's wait and see of anybody shows up."

As always, waiting was boring and I was going through the stats for the Lictor-class for what felt like the tenth time, when Tavune suddenly called "Mass alert! Two medium-sized ships are coming out of Hyperspace!"

I just had time to look at the screen, as two ships dropped into real space almost on top of us.

They must had come expecting trouble, because almost as soon as they arrived, they fired lasers at the Barracuda, obviously assuming that the Wanderer-class was the most dangerous ship. The shields flared but held.

"Return fire!" I ordered and looked at the tactical hologram. As usual the computer had named the two ships Hostile 1 and Hostile 2. "Aureks 1 and 2, take Hostile 1 and get a photon torpedo in on their shields. Aurek 3 and 4, one torpedo to Hostile 2."

"Yes, sir." They replied and a second later, the four Aureks were off towards their targets along with their sixteen droid fighters.

"Ion cannons as soon as possible!" I ordered, as Resa called up the ships to the view screen as soon as the scanners had done their job. "These are Kiltirin-class dungeon ship, meaning that they're prison ships as well."

"I think they're slavers." Said Resa. "I just caught a signal from the two Kiltirin-class to the Lictor-class and they were warning the Lictor in Zygerrian."

The information would have to wait as at the same time, the shields on the two Kiltirin-class ships flared as the photon torpedoes from the Aureks hit them, followed a moment later by laser fire, causing them to overload. Then the former pirate ships took over, pouring Ion shots into the two ships.

The combat wasn't totally one-sided as the prison ships fired again, causing the shields on the Barracuda to overload and disappear. A salvo of laser fire followed one of the Aureks, who had to do some impressive evasive manoeuvres to avoid being hit. The protective droids weren't as lucky and the lasers caught two of the Droid fighters, blowing them into pieces.

The shields on the two ships suddenly came back to life, meaning that they had some highly skilled engineers onboard, that had somehow managed to reroute the power to the shields.

The Ion barrage from the former pirate ships hit again, making the shields disappear once more and the four Aureks dashed in, blowing up four turbo lasers, before they darted away.

This time the engineers didn't have time to get the shield back up before the next Ion salvo arrived, shutting down one of the ships, while the other lost their drive for just a second. The next salvo shut the second down as well.

Two more salvos hit the ships before I stopped it. There was no longer any chance that they could restart their engine for the next half hour or so.

I looked at Resa. "You're sure they were talking Zygerrian?"

"Yes, sir." She replied.

That changed the situation. Aside from the Hutts, the Zygerrians were the main slave-traders in the galaxy and had built a small empire from the profit of slavery, meaning that almost every Zygerrian was involved in the slave trade somehow.

It also meant, that it was more than likely, that the ships were slave ships and not prison ships.

Looking at the display, I saw that the Lictor-class had started to move. First in the direction of the battle, but as soon as the two Kiltirin-class lost power, they changed course.

"Aureks, Hunter's Gambit, Rising Star and the two transports follow the Duchess, the rest stay here and guard these ships. Captain Meistrin, have Lieutenant Yaki and the marines board those Kiltirin before they can get their power back."

"Yes, sir." Came the answer back in chorus.

"Mister Tavune." I called, "give me a channel with only the Aureks, Hunters Gambit, Rising Star and the Imperial transports."

"Yes, sir." There was a short pause. "Channel four, sir."

Switching channel to channel four, I said. "Alright people. That Lictor-class is a Zygerrian, and I suspect that it's filled with slaves, so try not to hit it too hard with anything else than Ion cannons. Aureks, go in from 30 degrees north. That will keep you out of the cover fire from the Turbolasers. According to the specs, the point defence system on the Lictor isn't that good, so go in as close to the hull as you can and aim at its weapons."

"Yes, sir."

"The rest go in, using evasive flight patterns."

"Yes, sir."

Normally, commanders don't explain the tactics to the rest, but we had the time and many of our crew were former slaves that didn't knew me as a commander.

Closing the connection, I looked at Elise. "Lieutenant Samko, go to evasive flying, but get us within shooting range of that Lictor."

"Yes, sir." She said with a smile.

Satisfied, I leaned back in the seat, reached into the Force, and used it to boost the skills of everybody under my command.

It was about time, because a few moments later, we reached extreme range for both the turbolasers and the extended range lasers, but despite my boost, only two shots hit and was absorbed by the shields.

On the positive side, the return fire was even less successful as it hit nothing at all.

"It's charging the hyperdrive!" called Keller suddenly. "We need to be fast."

"Go to full speed but keep up the evasive flying." I ordered all the ships. "As soon as you can, target the engines." Evasive flying meant that it would take a little longer to get there, but there was no reason to risk our ships more than we already did.

We continued to exchange salvos as we flew closer and by the third time, there was a small explosion as one of the Lictors turbolasers blew up. A moment later, the Duchess' turbolasers slammed into the engine section, overloading the shield there and blowing even more parts off.

"Nice shooting, people." I said over the commlink. "Keep it up but take care not to hit the fighters."

It was more than just an idle warning because a moment later, the four Aureks came swooping in along with their droids, strafing the slave ship with their heavy lasers and Ion cannons.

Individually, the Aureks and the droid-fighters weren't a threat to a ship as large and well protected as the Lictor, but together they were an entirely other matter, as they had eight heavy lasers, twelve ion cannons and twenty-four lasers between them.

Their attack might not shut the Lictor down, but it could cause a lot of damage, and where they flew cannon towers blew up and armor plating flew into space in their wake.

Then, without warning and with parts falling off, the Lictor-class suddenly went into hyperspace, disappearing from our sensors in a split second.

There was silence on the bridge for a second and with a sigh, I let go of the Force. "Now, that was disappointing."

"That's putting it mildly." Samko said. "I thought we had it."

I nodded and looked at Keller. "Do you have the vector they left on?"

"One moment, sir." He said and checked the scanner reading. "Yes. It should be on your screen now."

A star map appeared on my viewscreen with the Lictors last known vector on it and to my amazement, the Lictor's vector didn't lead to one of the nearby systems, but past the Centauri 21 system and into an area that was unknown to the computer, making it an extremely long jump. Something everybody in the Chaos tried to avoid, since the risk of miscalculating a jump grew rapidly as the jumps got longer.

"Well," said Lieutenant Samko. "They made sure that nobody would follow them."

"I agree. It might be a secure route, but only if you have the exact coordinates... Keller, do an active scan and see if we have missed anything. If not, we're on our way back to the rest."

"Yes, sir."

While he was occupied with that, I called up the Kiltirin-class on the screen. At 150 meters in length, it was a smaller version of the Lictor-class, but it could still hold 1250 prisoners or slaves.

As a slightly newer and smaller model, it had a Rank 2 hyperdrive and was armed with three turbolasers and six laser cannons, that doubled as point-defence, making it well armed for a freighter-type ship of its size.

The scans didn't find anything that shouldn't be there, and we were almost back at the rest of the 'fleet', when Lieutenant Yaki reported that despite heavy resistance from the crews, one of the ships had been taken by boarders, at the cost of two killed and five wounded marines.

The crew of the other ship was still holding out, having blocked the corridor a few turns from the breached airlock the marines had used to gain entrance into the ship. Basically, the marines were caught in a small, but secure, area, being unable to move forward due to the heavy fire they encountered.

Boarding actions were notoriously bloody business, as it was a lot of close-range fighting and most of the time, the defending crew held most of the advantages, as they knew the ship's layout and could block the passageways leading to the vital parts of the ships.

Not that it would help them in the long run, as we could just keep firing the Ion weapons into the ship, keeping the engine offline, but in this case where there were prisoners that we wanted to free, which prevented us from outright destroying the ship, it could take a long time.

That some systems and civilizations considered slave trading a form of piracy didn't help either. As an attack on the economy, piracy was severely punished, frequently with long prison sentences or death, which meant that most pirates or slave traders would resist capture with a ferocity born from desperation.

It was one of the many cases, where a force-user could make a huge difference and boarding actions was a scenario I had trained numerous times and even executed twice against pirates in Chiss space.

Looking at Elise, I said. "Lieutenant Samko, get us up to them, I'm going in to help."

"Yes, sir."

"Mister Tavune, tell the Lieutenant that I'm on my way."

"Yes, Sir."

------------------------------

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in my armor inside the ship. Fortunately, Lieutenant Yaki had chosen to use one of the pirate's universal airlocks, which made entrance to the ship much easier than it otherwise would have been. Originally made for search and rescue, an universal airlock was basically an external airlock that could be attached to a ship, so that an airlock could be forced open without exposing the interior of the ship to vacuum. It was also commonly used by pirates, and we had more than a few of them from the pirates at Centauri 21.

A few meters to my right the corridor took a turn and there were a few Dark Angels carefully observing the corridor, while the rest of the Angels were waiting here, along with a squad of marines under the command of Lieutenant Yaki.

"Alright, Yaki." I said over the comm. "What's the situation?"

"Sorry, sir, but they have a couple of blaster repeaters sat up behind a barricade." She said, sounding both irritated and embarrassed at the same time, "I can't think of a way to get past that without losing so many people that we can't take the rest of the ship. At least not with the equipment we have here now."

I accepted that with a nod. "You're quite right, lieutenant, but let's get moving." I looked around. "Squads at ready position, we move at my word only."

"Yes, sir."

The troops took their positions and I walked to the corner, picking a smoke grenade from my belt and threw it into the corridor.

Immediately, several blasters started to shoot, but after a few minutes, the fire lessened when the Zygerrians realised that nothing was coming through, so I threw a new one and leaned back as blaster fire hit the end wall.

I raised a shield around me and used the next minute forming a ball of concentrated Force energy and when the blaster fire died down, I took a quick step into corridor and fired off a Force Burst. The blue and green ball of Force energy flew down the hall with impossible speed expanding until it filled the corridor, blasting barriers, opponents and mounted weapons out of the way, flinging them through the air like leaves in a storm.

Igniting my lightfoil, I followed the blast, shouting "Now! Go!"

The Force Burst had also cleared the corridor from smoke and the only trace of a barricade I could see was a few mangled bodies and the remains of several smashed weapons. A pattern that repeated itself several times down the corridor as the blast had carried the metal barricade with it, adding to the carnage of the blast, leaving battered and mostly unconscious Zygerrians in its wake.

The few conscious Zygerrians were swiftly overpowered, disarmed, put in handcuffs, and left for the support squads as we quickly moved on, going through the levels of the ship like a tornado, nearing the bridge with every turn and staircase.

The next obstacle we met was a closed blast-door, but one of the techs disabled to lock in under two minutes and when she was done, I used the force to open it.

I just had time to see eight Zygerrians in their light armors crouching behind a makeshift wall and the barrel of a repeating blaster, before the weapon opened fire. I managed to parry many of the shots while my shield took most of the rest, but a few glancing blows still hit me, smashing the left shoulder plate.

Hurriedly, I stepped to the side to get into cover like the rest of the marines. The repeating blaster simply shot faster than I could parry and staying in the hallway would get me killed. Reaching out with the Force, I took hold of two dead pirates, lifted them up in an upright position and moved them into the hallway.

The repeating blaster opened up again, but as the two floating corpses too most of the hits, I peeked around the corner just long enough to locate the blaster, before I threw the two dead Zygerrians against it. The bodies crashed into the tripod at full speed, making both the blaster and the person operating it topple over.

Still using the Force, I took hold of a Zygerrian and slammed it into the blaster hard enough to break it and knock him out.

A second before I asked for their surrender, a person jumped out from the side, swinging a staff at me. Instinctively, I parried it and then dodged to the side, as the other end of the staff poked at my legs. It gave me a good look at the staff, and both ends glittered with electricity, meaning that it was a shock staff, which was one of the few weapons Master Brin had warned me about.

Developed as an anti-lightsaber weapon, shock staves were often covered in a lightsaber, and therefore also lightfoil, resistant material, allowing the wielder to parry without the weapon taking damage. The energy at the ends of the staff would discharge on a hit, delivering a charge strong enough to stun even the largest fighter, while a prolonged exposure at ten seconds or more could paralyse or kill people.

The shock staff whirled in the air as he went the attack, forcing me to parry again and again, pressing on and not giving me time to use any Force powers.

That was a smart way of fighting a force-user, and it didn't take me long to realize that the staff-wielder was better with a staff than I was with a lightfoil. Not that sheer technical skill always meant that you won a combat, but at least it gave you a better chance.

Moving with purpose, I sidestepped another attack, which made his follow-up attack hit the bulkhead before it reached me. The staff was guarding the chest area, so with a quick slash I hit him in the thigh with the lightfoil, cutting through the armor and opening a wound that made him stumble just a little. The moment was just enough for me to flick the lightfoil upwards, cutting into the fingers of his right hand and making him lose the grip on the staff with that hand.

Seeing my opening, I ran him through with the foil, but he managed to strike me at the same time, the point of his staff hitting my already damaged shoulder plate, sending it flying as a searing pain shot through my body from the electricity.

I staggered to keep my balance as two more staff wielding Zygerrians moved towards me, only to be cut down by blaster fire from Lieutenant Yaki and the marines.

"Are you hurt, sir?" She asked worriedly, as she hurried to my side.

"Just jolted by electricity. I'll be fine in a moment."

"Good. The bridge is right over there, sir." She pointed to a blast door, where a tech marine was already working on the lock.

With a nod, I stretched a few times to get the stiffness from the electric jolt out of the body, and walked over to the tech. "Just tell me when you're done."

"Yes, sir."

Thankfully, disengaging the lock took a good deal of time and by the time the tech stepped away, I couldn't feel the jolt anymore.

When everybody was in cover, I used the force to open the blast door and activated the speakers in my suit. "Surrender and you will be treated fairly. Resist and you will die."

The answer was a spread salvo of blaster fire coming our way without hitting anything.

With a sigh, I threw a smoke grenade into the bridge and waited a little before I followed it with another Force blast. This time I used a much smaller blast as I didn't want to damage the equipment on the bridge.

Then I ignited the lightfoil and stepped into view of the bridge.

A Zygerrian quickly lifted his weapon towards me, but before he could pull the trigger, I caught him with the force and threw him into a bulkhead, knocking him out and letting him fall to the floor.

"Surrender or die." I repeated.

The assembled Zygerrians looked from me to the now unconscious crew member and back again, and one threw down his weapon. That was followed by one more and before long all the Zygerrians had surrendered.

----------------------------------------------

"Remember to duck." Shakka said with humour in her voice half an hour later, when I was sitting bare-chested on a chair in the infirmary on the Duchess where she could treat my shoulder.

"Trust me, I was trying." I said with a chuckle, but that was cut off by me grimacing as a healing-pack was pressed against my shoulder. It stung for a few seconds, but then a soothing feeling spread in my shoulder and subsequently to the rest of my body.

"Try harder next time." She said shortly and looked around at the other patients before she gave me a quick kiss on the top of my head, whispering. "I know I'll have to share, but I don't want to lose you."

Surprised, I looked up, but she just sent me a wink and said, "There's nothing seriously wrong with your shoulder, so you can go again, sir."

"Thank you, Doctor Shakka." I said as I stood from the chair and took the shirt on again. "How're the wounded marines doing?"

"They'll live." She replied. "No lost limbs, so it'll only take time before they're well again. They're sleeping right now."

"Good to hear. I'll come back when they're awake."

"Do that, sir."

I nodded and walked to the bridge so I could use the comm to get an update on the situation.

True to form, Yaki had a verbal report ready for me when I reached the bridge. Of course, having led the attack on the other Kiltirin-class ship, she had first-hand knowledge of the task and her report was short and to the point.

They hadn't been able to talk with any of the prisoners or slaves yet as the internal security systems on the ships had gassed them with a knock-out gas as soon as the ship was attacked, and the medics best guess was that they would be out for at least two days. Strangely it seemed that the two thousand three hundred prisoners were all humans or near-humans.

Another problem was that the crew or the security system had wiped the computers for any navigational data and locked the information about the prisoners.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." I said when she was finished. "Could you please find out how much food there is on board?"

"Hold one, sir. I'll ask the prize crew." She did and a moment later she said. "It's a guess, but about three weeks."

That meant that we needed to restock on food before we could even think of transporting them anywhere. In other words, we needed to go to Alpha Viga as soon as possible, unless the Asteroid Base have food for at least some weeks.

I weighted the pros and cons of taking the Asteroid Base for some time and decided that it was worth a try. Especially, if we could use the same tactics as with the moon base on Centauri 21.

I don't like using the same tactics repeatedly as sooner or later people would come up with a counter to it, but in this case, it was doable as we held all the advantages and I could use the Sith ruse, which tended to scare the crap out of the pirates.

"All right," I told her. "That means that we need to take the asteroid base and get some food there. Get ready, Lieutenant. We're going to use the same ruse as on Centauri 21. Let's hope they get fooled again."

She nodded with a smile. "That was fast, sir."

"I know, but apparently, the Empire has the route to this system and the Lictor might not have been waiting for the two Kiltirins. It might as well have been waiting for an Imperial task force, so the faster we get it done the better."

The smile disappeared as she became all business. "Right, sir. I'll brief the troops."

"Thank you."

She saluted and walked out.

--------------------------

The next six hours were filled with hectic activity. The two Kiltirin-class dungeon ships had been crewed with the Aurek pilots, an astrogator and some spacehands, to go along with a half-squad of marines on each.

The Sith ruse had worked just as well on the Asteroid Base as it had on the Moon Base, which I attributed to the Sith's reputation of ruthlessness, and we had taken the asteroid without any problems. Unfortunately, beside fuel and food, and four large hyper-capable shuttles, there wasn't much to come for at the base and the crew consisted of only forty people along with one hundred-and-twenty slaves.

So, we refuelled and restocked with food, leaving enough for the crew to survive at least five months and transferred the captured Zygerrians to the base's holding cells. I didn't want them on the ships, and they didn't have any of the codes to the ship's computers, so that was the best solution I could come up with.

I also spent some time talking with the freed slaves, determining that all except four were ordinary people caught by the pirates, while the remaining four were hard-core criminals convicted into slavery for various crimes, so they got a prison cell next to the Zygerrians.

Despite claiming otherwise, none of the pirates had been pressed into service, so we locked them into a room along with some rations and set the time lock so it would automatically open a couple of days later.

The last problem of the day was also the most serious. I had offered the freed slaves a ship, so they could go home or come along with us as they pleased, but they all elected to come with us, instead of facing the danger of space travel in the Chaos alone.

That made me look up the four shuttles in the database and I discovered that they were Star-class shuttles, though it would be more correct to call them passenger freighters. Originally built by Hoersch-Kessel Driveworks, the 44-meter-long ships were solidly built, could transport 40 passengers along with 700 metric tons of cargo, had a Rank 2 Hyperdrive and came equipped with two turreted auto-blasters for self-defence, though the pirates had swapped them with quad lasers. On the downside, they were slow in real space and flew like a brick in the atmosphere.

With their combination of passenger and cargo transport, they were almost perfect shuttles for the pirates, which was why they were here, as the pirates used them to ferry goods and slaves to their destination.

Now they were like a gift to us. With the number of people we had freed, our ships were almost filled to what the life support could sustain and one-hundred-and-fifteen additional people would take us over that limit by twenty-six persons.

After thinking it through, I decided to leave the D-5 Mantis here and take the four shuttles with us instead. With one of its foils gone from the combat damage in Alpha Viga along with the missile launcher, it was a lot less useful than it used to be and it might as well stay here for the pirates, while we took off with the four shuttles.

Consequently, I had Keller disable the remaining Turbo Laser on the Mantis, while others wiped the log, so nobody could discover where we had been.

The Star-class only needed a crew of four, with two extra gunners, and with the people we had, finding sixteen spacers and eight gunners weren't really a problem, so after placing the freed slaves in the new ships, along with some marines just in case anybody got funny ideas, we took off towards Centauri 21, so we could get back on track to the Debra system and the pirate base there.

*********************************

Gravity ripple

Duchess, Hyperspace

It is strange, but true, that the most important turning-points of life

often come at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected ways.

Vice Admiral Zedais, CEDF

Two days later, I was sitting in the commander's chair, quietly talking with Lieutenant Samko, when a feeling of dread washed over me.

Looking up, I studied the starfield outside the window. Unlike most people, I liked to watch the stars whip past the ship in hyperspace, finding the kaleidoscopic and swirling patterns of light strangely soothing. This time I saw something different in the pattern, as there was a concentration of swirls in front of the ship, coming rapidly closer.

I hurriedly pressed the all-ship comm switch.

"Emergency exit! Gravity ripple!" I ordered, thankful that all the ships had hyper-transceivers, enabling us to talk while in hyperspace as long as we were following the same route at the same speed.

Stars explode in supernova's, planets and entire solar systems collide, while rogue planets zip through space. All events, that sent material through the universe, resulting in a potential deadly gravity wave in hyperspace.

In the pilot seat, Lieutenant Samko opened a quick release cover and pressed a red button, but in the few fractions of a second that took, the wave hit us, throwing the ship through hyperspace like a leaf to the wind.

Then the emergency exit kicked in and with a suddenness that made the whole world lurch, we were thrown back into realspace as our reactor shut down, plunging the ship into darkness. The emergency light switched on automatically, but a moment later that too went out, leaving only the luminescent paint to light the bridge.

"Fuck!" Cursed Keller and ran out of the open door, shouting "I'll try to restart the reactor."

Nodding to myself, I looked out of the viewscreen, but there was only darkness. I almost accepted that until I realised that there were no clear stars, just blurred points of light against a pitch darkness.

That was so unusual that I couldn't even remember hearing about it before. Pushing the thought away, I turned to more practical matters.

"Anybody hurt?"

There was a chorus of negatives and in the dim light of the luminescent paint I could see that everybody was at their station and moving... except one. Resa was slumped in the chair like an unconscious person or a droid that had suddenly and unexpectedly been shut down.

"Lieutenant Samko." I said, picking the one most familiar with the tech. "See if you can do anything for Resa."

"Yes, sir." The pilot answered and rushed to the slumped droid.

To my irritation, there wasn't much else I could do and I used the time to talk with Tavune, who seemed more than a little flustered by the situation. Considering his young age and lack of military training, that wasn't surprising and talking with him seemed to calm him.

Eventually, Keller came walking back. "The reactor is up and running, sir." He told us immediately, as he walked over to his console and pressed a key. A moment later the bridge it up as al the consoles came online. "There!"

There was silence on the bridge as everybody checked their control panels and Lieutenant Samko threw herself back into the pilots seat to do the same, before doing a course change, turning the ship. Then her voice broke the silence. "Maximum Zoom!"

I looked up at the screen just in time to see one of our Military Transports ram a much larger ship, exploding at impact, instantly killing everybody inside it.

"Oh my god!" Tavune exclaimed horrified.

I agreed, but the living always had priority and the large ship that had made the Imperial Military transport explode was potentially a big problem. "Zoom out." I ordered.

The ship that the Imperial Military Transport had rammed, was a massive battlecruiser, much larger than even the Chariot and while it had the command tower and wedge-shaped hull of most imperial ships, the front half of the ship was divided horizontally into two main sections, with a central gap separating the dorsal and ventral parts.

I recognized it from the history classes at the Naval Academy as an old Imperial Interdictor-class battlecruiser, as it was the only large warship, I could think off that used that particular over and under split of the main hull.

It had also taken a lot of damage, as it had gaping holes in the armor and several of the laser towers had been blown away, all clear signs of combat damage.

The screen kept zooming out, bringing more ships into view. Most of them showing signs of combat damage and none of them had lights of any kind on their surface. That made me look on the tactical hologram in front of the commander's chair and while it did show the ships, the drive signatures were missing and only the mass had been detected. It dawned on me, that it was a massive collection of dead ships, lit by the distant light of a small, planet less star. Besides the group just in front of us, there were many other ships, creating a ring as they orbited the star.

"What is that?!" wondered Tavune, causing me to look away from the hologram. "That, Mister Tavune, looks like the remains of a once proud Imperial Battlegroup, but our people are more important. Get hold of the ships that don't have a drive signature and hear if they're okay."

"Yes, sir." Said the young man and went back to work.

"Engineer Keller, please see what you can do for Resa. She's out cold."

"Yes, sir." Keller said and walked over to Resa, while I looked at the sensors. Initially, the Duchess had been the only ship on the screen with a running reactor, but as I watched more and more of our ships lit up on the sensors, indicating that their reactors had been restarted. The drives were an entirely other matter and Chariot, Hunter's Gambit and the two Kiltirin-class dungeon ships didn't show a drive signature, indicating that they were in trouble.

Looking at the dead ships, I wondered why they were still here, but there could almost only be one reason for that, based on how the ships and Resa had reacted. I turned to look at Lieutenant Samko. "Is that white dwarf really a pulsar?"

She changed something on her instruments and when she turned to look at me again, she was pale. "You're right, sir. It's a pulsar and we're extremely lucky that you warned us in time. Otherwise, we would have exited near one of the magnetic poles, ending up like Transport 2 or the ships over there."

Several of the crew gulped at that. The radiation emitted by pulsars could and would disrupt all electronics on a ship and it was what had inspired the Ion cannons. Coming out of hyperspace at the pole end of a pulsar, was like taking the ship into a giant Ion cannon the size of a moon, that just kept firing.

The fleet wouldn't have had a chance, as all electronics would have failed at the same time, including life support systems, engines, personal spacesuits, and every other item that was normally used to ensure survival in space.

To make it worse most ship interior doors, unlike blast-doors, were designed so that they opened automatically in case of a power-out to avoid trapping people inside and with the damage many of these ships had taken, some of them would have had the atmosphere sucked out of them in seconds, killing the crew instantly.

It was still a better fate than the rest. Without any power and no means of moving out of the electro-magnetic field in time to restart the systems, a slow death was certain as the crew ran out of air. At least for our people in the Military Transport, death had come swiftly.

"Sir!" called Tavune with a shaky voice. "The Chariot, Roadrunner and Hunter's Gambit report that their Ion drives are down. Chariot and Hunters Gambit expect to be able to restart them soon, but the crew on Road Runner is still checking its systems. The Star-class freighters and the two Kiltirin-class ships have their drives shut down as well but remain in place and are confident that they'll get them up and running again soon. The rest have reported in with only minor damage, but Transport 1 hasn't answered and is drifting without power. It's totally dark."

Swiftly, Lieutenant Samko checked her instruments. "Sir, according to the course it has now, Transport 1 entered real space in the middle of a minor emission beam from the pulsar and is drifting into the bigger ones!"

Looking at the sensors, I noticed that the position of the dead fleet was deceiving. They might have exited hyperspace at the pole end of the pulsar and gotten killed, but the forward momentum of their movement had taken them away from the pole end after a while and now they were just floating around the star, caught by the gravity well.

The two Military Transports had reacted too slowly, and the small delay meant that they had exited hyperspace closer to the pulsar than we had, and had their electronics knocked out. Transport 1 was just luckier, or the pilot had reacted just a bit faster, because instead of being in the middle of it, they were right on the edge.

"Battle stations, everyone. Lieutenant Samko, get the ship as close to Transport 1 as possible, without entering the emission beam."

"Yes, sir!" She fell silent, as she used the sensor outputs only to navigate the Duchess closer to Transport 1.

I waited patiently, thinking about possible solutions to the problem, while we crept closer and finally, I could see the Military Transport with the naked eye through the windows of the bridge, getting larger by the second. Then we stopped.

"This is as close as I can get, sir." Lieutenant Samko said. "We're right at the edge of the beam."

I stood up from the commander's chair and walked through the hologram between the two seats in front of me to get as close as possible to the transport.

"What's the strength of the emission field?"

"Twenty-nine million gauss." Said Paul Keller softly from behind me, adding. "Enough to disrupt a tractor beam."

Most super strong magnetic fields were, so I wasn't surprised, but it did rule out the possibility of using tractor beams to get the ship closer to us.

"Do we have any form of wire long enough to reach the transport from here?"

"No." Came the short answer. "We might be able to find something in the wrecks, but we don't have time to search them."

"Does anyone have a bright idea of how to save them?"

There was silence on the bridge, before Lieutenant Samko whispered a 'no', followed by the rest.

That left me with only one option.

"Tavune, ask Chariot if their tractor beams are still working."

"Yes, sir!" He replied and moments later, he said. "They're working, but they don't have the range and as Engineer Keller said, they can't be used in such a strong field."

"Tell them to stand ready with the tractor beams." I ordered and turned my attention back to the Transport.

Focusing my thoughts, I extended my hand as I reached out with the Force, using it to grab a hold in the ship the same way I had done with the APC on Alpha Viga. The transport was both heavier and much further away, but the principles were the same.

Thankfully, we were in space with little to no gravity, so I didn't need to lift it. I 'just' had to apply enough pressure to first stop the transport from drifting and then drag it in my direction.

I could feel the mass resisting for a long moment, but then, like a stone being dragged across ice, it started to move. Slowly at first but going faster and faster as I kept the pressure up, until the powered-down transport had reached a velocity that would take it out of the emission beam in a matter of minutes. Then I released the Force, letting the shuttle drift along towards the Chariot.

"Signal the Chariot to catch that transport with a tractor beam, so they can connect an airlock, and check to see if any of the people in there require medical attention." I ordered, as I turned.

The crewmembers were looking at me open-mouthed, but quickly caught themselves.

Walking back to my chair, I said "That was some skilled piloting, Lieutenant Samko. Now, get us back to the other ships."

"Yes, sir!"

"Engineer Keller, how's Resa?"

"Just drained for energy, but she'll be fine once she has recharged." He reported as I sat down in my seat again. "By the way, you're most likely right about the ships out there being an old Imperial Battlegroup, sir." He glanced at his display. "According to the scanners, most of these are old model Interdictor-class cruisers and even older Derriphan-class battleships, with a few Herald-class shuttles in between."

He paused, consulted the scanners again and then added. "These are three or four hundred years old by the look of it... I might be mistaken, but I think this battlegroup was some of the survivors from the Battle of Rakata Prime. That is exactly the type of ships rumoured to be used in that battle and with more than fifty Interdictors out there, I can't think of any other battle that fits the bill."

I nodded thoughtfully. The Battle of Rakata Prime was legendary, as it was one of the few times the Galactic Republic had clashed with the Sith Empire in the Unknown Regions of space... or the Chaos as it was known to those of us living here. Usually, they avoided it, since it was almost impossible to coordinate fleet jumps due to the unpredictable nature of the region, making it extremely risky for both sides.

The Battle of Rakata Prime was, for some reason unknown to me, an exception and as far as I could recall, it took place in the timeframe Keller had mentioned. The information about the battle itself was sparse, but most agreed that the Sith have had an enormous shipyard there. One that the Republic had to destroy to win the war and the Sith had to defend it to avoid losing.

Consequently, the scale of it had been enormous, with enormous amounts of ships on both sides being involved in the combat.

In the end, the Galactic Republic had won, causing the surviving Sith Forces to scatter and it looked like at least some of the Sith forces had run into some unforeseen trouble on the route away from the battle.

"The long-range scanners detect even larger ships drifting on the other side of the fleet in front of us and over there are some newer ships." Keller indicated a bunch of ships to the side of the old battlegroup on the view screen. "According to the computer, there's a couple of Delta-class carriers over here, along with an Epsilon-class repair vessel, two Gage-Class transports, four Terminus- Class destroyers and some ships the sensors don't recognize. To be honest, it looks like another battlegroup. It's just newer and much smaller in numbers than the other... and besides those ships, the long-range scanners detect a few thousand other derelicts out there, but the interference is too great to tell what type they are."

"Sir!" Interrupted Tavune. "We're being hailed by the Last Chance!" There was a short pause and then he added. "Along with Cool Cat and the Rendaran dropship!"

My heart fell for a moment. Until now, I had thought that the other ships and their more than five hundred Chiss passengers were safe in the Alpha Viga system, but apparently, they had run into the same gravity ripple as we had. On the bright side, they were still alive. "On screen."

"Yes, sir. The communication system on the Rendaran is damaged and they cannot send, only receive." Said Tavune, while his hands danced over the controls. A moment later, the screen split in two, showing pilot Tlath from the Dynamic-class freighter and Captain Bobba from the Heraklon-class freighter.

"Hello Sir," said Tlath immediately, his face showing relief. "I'm sorry you got caught in the gravity ripple as well, but I'm glad to see you!"

Captain Bobba just nodded and said, "Hello, sir."

Behind him, I noticed Junior Lieutenant Hizz'sez'esu (Seze) standing, smiling the same smile of relief as pilot Tlath sported.

"Nice to see you too. Now, what is the situation?"

"Bad, sir." Grumbled Captain Bobba. "The hyperdrives on the ships are completely shut down and the emergency exit damaged the life support system on Last Chance."

"How bad?" I asked with a sinking feeling in my stomach. With four-hundred and fifty passengers on board, it would be a disaster if the life support failed, as we didn't have room to that many people on the other ships.

"The main system suffered a power spike that fried the system. The backup system kicked on, but that too is damaged. The engineer estimate that it'll fail within a week."

I muted the microphone and looked over at Keller. "Can we repair it?"

"I can try, but it's not likely to happen. Not out here and not within a week." He stated and suddenly looked speculative. "We might be able to use the life support systems from one of the Star-class shuttles as spare parts, but it will depend on the system type and what kind of damage it has taken."

I nodded to him, unmuted the microphone and said, "We'll find a solution, Captain. Anything else?"

Tlath nodded and explained that his Astrogator had discovered, that we were in a box system without a planet to create a hole in the flux, effectively trapping us here, as the flux acted as a conductor for the emission from the pulsar, in effect creating a shield that would short our any ships trying to pass through it.

With that in consideration, it was a miracle that any of our ships had working reactors, life-support, engines, and shields, but that had to be due to circumstances. As far as I could tell, the gravity ripple had thrown us far off course and directly into this system, where we had dropped out from hyperspace milliseconds before the automatic systems could kick in. That meant that the passage through the flux had happened extremely fast, thus limiting the damage to the systems, and enabling us to restart both reactor and engines before we drifted into the emission from the star.

"Thank you, Pilot Tlath." I said when he was done. "We have detected some giant ships on the long-range scanners. Have you taken a closer look at those?"

"Yes, sir. They are just as dead as the others, but even older... Many of them are so old we can't find a reference to them in the database. One moment, sir. I'll send you the visuals."

Several giant ships showed up on the monitor, with the largest of them being as big as some space stations.

"We can debate that later," I said. "Now all of you might as well join us here, while we find a solution for all this."

"Yes, sir!" Tlath said and switched off the screen, leaving me with Captain Bobba, who was saying "If we ever find one."

"Captain Bobba." I said firmly. "We're in a problematic situation but being negative doesn't help. Now, please join us so we can find a way out of this together."

He nodded just a little. "I will do so, sir."

"Thank you."

As the connection closed, I said to Tavune. "Comm, please inform the other ships about Last Chance and the rest."

"Yes, sir."

Leaning back in the seat, I waited patiently while the people on the Chariot worked to save the crew of Transport 1, using the time to look at the scanner reading on the Chariot, since their drive was down. It looked like the old ship had taken some serious damage from the emergency exit and when Captain Meistrin called to report that Transport 1 was operational again and the crew unharmed, if a bit shaken by the experience, I asked. "Captain, what is the status of your drives?"

"I'm sorry, sir." said Captain Meistrin, her facial expression showing that she knew she was the bearer of bad news. "But most of the hyperdrive field guides are dislocated and the null quantum field generators on both the primary as well as the secondary hyperdrives are completely shut."

"Oh shit." Mumbled Keller behind me.

The reason for that became evident a moment later when Captain Meistrin continued. "According to Master Engineer Gacith, we need a new null quantum field generator before we can use the hyperdrive again."

"Do we have a spare?"

She shook her head. "No, sir. I'm sorry."

"Captain Meistrin," I said softly. "Do you have any powers, that can create a gravity ripple in hyperspace?"

She blinked a few times in surprise. "No, sir."

"Did you unload a null quantum field generator before we left the Centauri 21 System?"

"No, sir."

"In that case, the current situation is none of your fault and you can stop apologising for something out of your control." I paused for a moment to turn and ask. "Engineer Keller, can we get a null quantum field generator from the floating junkyard in front of us?"

"It might be possible, sir, but I think it's unlikely." He answered with a slight shake of his head. "The Foray was made by Republic Fleet Systems, using their own hyperspace engines, which are completely different from the ones the Imperial shipyards use." He thought for a moment. "On the other hand, there's a lot of ships out there and we might be lucky that one of them is a Foray with a working field generator or at least a ship with a similar hyperdrive configuration, so we can jury-rig something, but it's a long shot, and it will take some time... some weeks at the very least."

"How long will it take to get an estimate on time and chance of success?"

"A couple of days, sir. It will take some time to scan the ships out there,"

"Well, the life support system on Last Chance has priority, please get on that right away, but in the meantime, I'll get the other ships to scan as many ships as possible. That should save some time later."

"Yes, sir." He nodded and walked out of the cockpit, heading towards the engineer section.

I didn't have time to collect my thoughts, because at the same moment Tavune said, "Incoming call from the Roadrunner."

"On screen."

A second later, the youthful, but worried, face of Ensign Mivito showed up. "Hello, sir. I'm afraid I have bad news."

"Fried hyperdrive or life support?" I asked. As the Sho-class Transport was just a larger local version of the Heraklon-class transport, I guessed they had suffered the same kind of damage.

"Both, sir. The primary and secondary Hyperdrive is gone. The same with the primary life support system, but the secondary kicked in seamlessly and holds just fine."

That was a relief. With almost six-hundred passengers on board, Roadrunner held the most people of all the ships and a failure in its life support would be even worse than on the Last Chance.

"Very well, Captain Mivito. Keep an eye on that life support. We're working on a solution here."

"Thank you, LC."

The screen switched off again and I sat in silence for a moment, scenarios running through my head, but in the end, we either had to repair the damaged ships or find another way to keep people alive, and both depended on how long we could feed people. A task that wasn't as easy as it seemed, as there was only food for three months on each of the two Kiltirin-class dungeon ships and twenty-two hundred people consumed a lot of food. Added to that was the almost fifteen hundred freed slaves in the other ships along with the five hundred Chiss from Alpha Viga, and the troopers we had brought along with us, bringing the number to more than four thousand.

I sighed. The number of people we had freed or rescued in less than a month was insane and now, as the commanding officer, I had the duty to get them out of here. Not an easy task with so many of the ships with room to carry people out of commission.

"Mister Tavune. Open a channel to all Captains."

It took a few seconds, but then he said, "There you go sir."

I took a breath and then said. "Alright people, we're in a bad situation, but not an impossible one. Our first priority is to fix the life support system on the Last chance. The engineers are already on that. Second is food. We have a limited supply right now, so rationing is going into effect starting right now. Third and least, we need to know where we are. Please have your astrogators see if they can discover where we are. I know the electromagnetic radiation disrupts the sensors, but we need to know our location." I stopped talking, but felt that I needed to say more, so I added. "I will promise you that we'll get out of this mess one way or another, so let's get to work."

I nodded to Tavune, who closed the channel again. "Tavune, could you give me a list of the ships and the damage they have taken?"

"Yes, sir. It'll take a few minutes."

"That's fine."

Samko coughed nervously. "Exactly how do you intend to get out of this situation with everybody alive, sir?"

"We'll think of something, Samko." I said reassuringly. As a former an ozyly-esehembo or Skywalkers, I had been trained to use the Force to find a route through hyperspace, but we needed to find a way out of the box system first and that was not going to be easy. "With all the ships out there we're going to have plenty of spare parts."

She nodded with a weak smile and turned her attention back to her instruments again.

A list of our ships appeared on my screen, followed by Tavune saying. "Here you go, sir."

"Thank you, Mister Tavune." I answered and settled down to look at the list. It wasn't a happy reading. In addition to the problems with life supports, Roadrunner, Cool Cat, both Rendaran Attack shuttles and Last Chance had their Hyperdrives destroyed, along with their shield generators, while all drives on the two Kiltirin-class were ruined, making them unable to go anywhere.

Not only did that mean that almost half the ships couldn't enter hyperspace, but those ships carried three thousand six hundred people and if we couldn't find a way to solve that problem, a lot of people were going to die.

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