Chapter 4 -- In unknown space

Duchess, Unknown System

"The general who wins the battle study before the battle is fought."

The general who loses do not."

From the Holy Book of War

Possibilities

For the most part, the rest of the day was remarkably peaceful, as the engineers went over our ships to check everything while Master Engineer Gacith and Engineer Keller worked on solving the problem with repairing the life support system on Last Chance.

At some point, I would have to talk with the people onboard the two slave-ships, but as they were still out cold, that would have to wait and as usual, I spent the time doing research. This time on the Imperial Battlegroups in the graveyard outside.

As a naval officer, I had spent a lot of time going over past battles and I knew most of the older ships from those battles. The age of the ships also meant that most of the statistics were common knowledge and the database on the Duchess had extensive files on them, while the data on the newer ships had to be imported from the database on the Fury.

Normally, I study in my office, but Duchess had a small pool in the lounge of the passenger area, and I took advantage of that, as I relaxed in the warm water with the data on the wall screen. It wasn't exactly how it was normally done, but it had been a hectic time and I enjoyed feeling as the warm water eased some of the tension out of my body.

I knew the composition of the Imperial battle group had been standard in its day, but to me, it was an odd mix of ships. Despite its unusual look with the split hull, the Interdictor-class was a well-designed warship and probably the best overall warship of the period, though it was underarmed for its size and in need of a serious armor and shield upgrade compared to modern ships. It was also famous or infamous for being equipped with gravity well projectors, and according to the database, it had a complement of 48 Sith starfighters, along with three thousand troops, and it took a crew of more than five thousand people to operate it.

The thought stopped me for a moment before I mumbled a heartfelt "Hallelujah!"

"Excuse me, sir?" Said Resa from the other side of the room, where she was relaxing, partly hidden by one of the room's large plants. "I didn't quite get that."

"Never mind, Resa." I chuckled. Like Keller had said, the android had just needed a recharge to get back on her feet, which was a relief. With the loss of the transport with everybody inside it, we had already lost enough people. "I just realized that the ships here had once carried people and since at least some of the food used on navy spaceships are dry-freezed and made to last indefinitely, we can salvage it from the ships out there, solving our food problem."

"Good idea, sir. I'll make an estimate on the food stocks of the nearest ships."

"Thank you."

She fell silent and I got back to the ships.

While the large Interdictor-class most likely carried the most food, they were last on my list as a source of food. There were rumours and stories about powerful Force users haunting the place where they were killed and an Imperial battlegroup of that size, would almost certainly have been commanded by a Sith Lord.

All in all, I had no intention of entering a potentially lethal place, if I could avoid it. At the very least I would have to check it out with force senses before sending anyone in there.

Aside from the Interdictors, there were the Derriphan-class battleships, which was a well-armed frigate. Being an even older design than the rest, it came from a time where shields weren't as effective as they are now and for that reason, the designers had decided to not bother with shields at all, instead fitting the ship with thicker armor.

While that might have been a good choice centuries ago, it was rather suicidal even 300 years ago and the Sith would be the only ones to use ships like that. With its missile launchers it was still able to pack quite a punch and the heavy armor could take quite a beating, but the return fire would cause massive casualties among the crew and unless you had people to spare, it was a bad choice for modern naval combat.

That brought me to the newer ships, which were relatively unknown to me, due to the sheer distance from the Empire to Chiss space.

Fortunately, some of them were in the Fury's database, which had enabled us to identify the twelve smaller unknown ships as being Drake-class Frigates, which was basically the Imperial counterpart to the Chiss Frigate.

With a length of 265 meters, the wedge-shaped Frigate was compact, rugged and a little longer than the Phoenix that had fought with us at Alpha Viga and like the Phoenix, the builders had managed to cram six starfighters and the same number of scouts into it.

It had room for two hundred passengers and a crew of a hundred persons, but as usual, that was without gunners and flight crew.

The Drake-class Frigates were also well armed and armored, making me wonder why I had never heard about it before. Then again, with the vastness of the Empire, they could have scores of ship types that never reached the Unknown Regions.

I was starting on the next ship class, the Delta-class carrier, when I heard Elise Samko ask, "Is there room for one more?"

Looking over, I discovered that she was standing at the entrance, wearing a towel. Apparently, she had gotten the same idea as I had.

With a smile, I nodded. "Yes, if you don't mind looking at ship data on the screen."

"Oh, the Imperial fleet out there?" She said, as she walked over to the pool, where she dropped the towel and walked down the steps towards me. "The newer one, I mean."

Instead of answering right away, I enjoyed the view of her well-shaped body, as she slowly descended into the water.

Almost automatically I reached into the Force and read her emotions. She was curious about the ships, but mostly horny, and she enjoyed the way I looked at her.

"Yes." I finally said. "The knowledge might come in handy."

Elise settled down next to me and looked up at the screen, where the Delta-class carrier was shown in all its glory. "Yes... though those are some big ships." She blinked as a number caught her eyes. "A crew of nine hundred! That's a lot!"

"What do you mean by 'a lot'?" I said absently, looking at how the water ran down the naked skin of her shoulder. "That's rather common for a warship that size."

"Oh... Compared to a commercial vessel, it seems... insanely over-crewed. I never really thought about it, but why does it take so many people to staff military vessels?"

Tearing my eyes away from her skin, I looked at the screen, which gave me two surprises. The first one was that the ship did indeed have a crew of nine hundred. The second surprise was the ship's configuration. I had expected it to be a starfighter carrier, but instead it was a heavy transport with two dozen Interceptors for protection, besides the ten medium turbolasers and various other weapon systems.

With a cargo capacity of nine thousand metric tons and room for three thousand three hundred troops, it really was a superheavy troop transport, designed to transport two battalions along with all their support equipment, like artillery, walkers, barracks and whatever else they needed.

"Nine hundred is surprisingly few people for a ship that big and on military ships, gunners and flight crew are not included in crew numbers." I said slowly, studying the warship, as my hand almost by itself reached out to caress her neck. "If you had a large freighter, how would you crew it? How many people?"

"Seven." She answered without hesitation. "For a four-hundred-meter long Rimma-class heavy freighter, you'll need two pilots, a captain, an engineer, an astrogator and two spacers. That's all, so I don't know how you get to nine hundred."

"Well, if you want to know how many people it really takes to fly it, start with the grand total. That's nine hundred regular crew, a hundred gunners and a flight crew of about a hundred."

"So, eleven hundred." Samko stated.

I nodded. "Yes. Now deduct twenty percent of that from the regular crew. That's the percentage of the crew that administers or tends to the rest of the crew... Pursers, doctors, stewards, chefs and so on."

Elise smiled and tilted her head a bit, giving me better access to her neck. "Okay, ten percent is one hundred and ten, so twenty percent is two hundred and twenty..." She paused for a moment as my hand trailed her neck up to her ear, gently teasing her earlobe. In return, she moved a hand under the water to caress my leg. "Eight hundred and eighty left."

"Good. Now deduct the flight crew."

"Seven hundred and eighty left."

"Unlike civilian ships, many warships don't stand down, have constant watches on systems civilian ships don't have and there have to be enough people for three watches of eight hours per day." My hand moved down her neck as I spoke, gently sliding over her warm wet skin. "Also, since they're made to go to war, they're overstaffed in case of casualties. So, you have to divide the number by six."

Elise exhaled with another shiver. "Can't do math right now. Too turned on."

"We're down to about hundred and thirty jobs." I said with a smile as my hand reached her breasts, caressing first one and then the other.

"That's not bad." She shivered under my touch, before she reached out and dragged me into a kiss, whispering. "We can talk about this later, Thalen. To be honest, I'm scared to the bone and afraid that we're going to die here."

I opened my mouth to reassure her, but a quick kiss silenced me. "Don't say anything. I want to feel alive; I want to be held and kissed, and I want to feel you inside me."

She kissed me again, this time hungrily, opening her mouth to let our tongues duel.

My hands found her firm breasts almost by themselves and while they overflowed my hands, they didn't spill over. Elise grunted lustily into my mouth as my fingers found her nipples and gently squeezed them.

A moment later one of her hands found my stiff dick and gently stroked it, before grabbing it more firmly and ran her fingers around the head, sending shivers of pleasure through my body.

She broke the kiss with a gasp. "Let's move to the sofa."

I nodded shortly and released my hold of her.

Elise smiled and stood to walk out of the water, snatching her towel as she walked by. I followed a second later, saying "Resa, lock the door to the passenger's lounge and dim the viewports."

"Yes, sir." Said Resa from her seat, making Elise stop and snap her head in that direction, clearly surprised by the android's presence in the room.

"Sorry to surprise you, Lieutenant Samko." Said Resa. "Is my presence here a problem?"

Elise shook her head. "No, just a surprise."

"Should I leave?"

"No, it's all right. Just don't record this in any way."

"Yes, sir."

Elise turned towards me, but at that time I had caught up with her and just as she turned, I took her into my arms again, kissing her deeply, as I ran my hands down her back.

Moaning into my mouth, she returned the gesture, lifting her leg to place it on the sofa at the same time. That made my cock slip in between her legs and with a moan, she began rocking her hips back and forth, making my dick slide over her lips with each move.

"Mmmmm." She moaned into my mouth, breaking the kiss. "Feels fantastic."

I had to agree. Her soft breast pressed pleasantly against my chest and the soft wet lips of her pussy slid along the length of my dick, adding to my arousal.

Elise leaned back just a little and changed the angle of her hips at the same time, making my dick go into her wet, slick opening.

"Ohhh... shit." she gasped, as I placed my hands on her lower back, helping hold her balance while her hips continued their motion, driving her pussy back and forth on my hard dick. Since it was a position I had never tried before, I was somewhat at a loss of what to do, so I just stood there, letting her do the work.

It also gave me the chance to look at her face. She was smiling and her green eyes were somehow brighter than they were before. Then she closed them as her pumping hips picked up the speed and a moment later, she came with a small shriek and a shudder. The wave of pleasure running through her made her leg collapse under her, making her fall to the sofa, dragging me along with her so we both ended up on the sofa with me between her long legs.

Since I was already there, I moved downwards, kissing the smooth skin on her firm breasts before running my tongue over and around her nipples a few times, causing her to moan. Satisfied with the response, I continued my travel downwards, running my tongue over her stomach until I reached the small patch of hair over her pussy, where I paused. For some reason I couldn't remember it from last time, but the hair was just as red as on her head, almost glowing against the white skin.

Moving further, I extended my tongue and flicked the top of the clitoris. Elise moaned pleasurably and then gasped as I closed my lips around the sensitive organ and sucked, while my lips massaged it.

Her hands found my head, but instead of pressing my head into her groin as I had expected, she pushed my head away from her pussy.

"Thalen, you're amazing with that tongue, but I need some dick... badly." She sent me another lustful grin. "Well, as you know, I prefer dick and pussy at the same time, but there's only you and me here."

An idea flashed through my head. Shakka had told me that Resa could enjoy sex due to the 'organic neural sensory processor' and she was here. The thought of having sex with an Android was still strange, but I had used sex toys with women before and an android that could enjoy sex was strictly speaking the most advanced sex toy in the universe.

"How do you feel about using toys?" I asked, causing her to look surprised for a moment before the smile widened a bit. "I love it."

"Good." Looking at Resa, I asked. "Resa, would you like to join us?"

"I would love to, if the Lieutenant agrees to it as well." Resa said in her melodic voice and stood.

Elise hesitated for a moment, enough time for me to extend my tongue and flick the tip on her clitoris again. She shuddered and moaned a "Yes!" and then after a short pause. "Just join us, Resa."

Since she had let go of my head, I used the opportunity to lick my way from the top of the pussy to the bottom following the outside of her lower lips. Next, I went back up, licking the inside of the pussy lips and the area between them.

The sound of bare feet approaching made me look up with my tongue still busy with Elise. It was the first time I had seen Resa naked and while I knew her body was designed to be a 'hospitality droid', and thus an idealized version of a human female, seeing it was something else.

She had silky smooth skin, perfectly formed breasts and a narrow waist that flared out to generous hips and long legs. It was almost the same way Shakka was built, just a little more extreme. In fact, she was so alluring and perfect it seemed unreal, which of course it was to some degree, as she was designed to look like that instead of being born that way.

"I heard that you like pussy." She said softly to Elise, placed a leg on each side of her head and lowered her hips to Elise's mouth. "Then you can feast on this."

I watched in fascination as Elise started to lick, bringing expressions of pleasure to the androids face. The thought of an android being able to feel pleasure was still very new and strange, but Resa sure looked like she enjoyed it a lot.

Elise wriggled her hips and lifted her legs, reminding me that I wasn't just a spectator, so I got to my knees, positioned my hips in just the right position before I grabbed my stiff dick and dragged it up and down her wet slit a few times. That made her shake and sent shivers of pleasure through my body as the head of my dick went into her channel.

"Oh fuck!" Elise mumbled into Resa's pussy as I slowly penetrated her. Then Resa surprised me again by reaching out and taking hold of Elise's legs, dragging them to her and making Elise's hips angle up more, which in turn made my dick glide directly over her G-spot.

I nodded my thanks to Resa and began to thrust into Elise's soft body, while I used my free hands to fondle her breasts, enjoying the feel of their firmness. A thought hit and I moved my hands to Resa's perfect tits, doing the same with them. I had expected the android's breasts to feel different, but whomever had designed her had done a fantastic job and both her skin and breasts felt completely natural. Her moan when I caught the stiff nipples and squeezed gently also sounded genuine, and just as heartfelt as Elise's groans.

Shaking my head slightly, I placed my hands on her hips and picked up the speed, driving deep into her with every stroke.

Her groans intensified and it didn't take long before her pussy started spasming around my dick and a few seconds later the climax spread through the rest of her body, making her scream and squirm under us.

I kept fucking her through her ecstasy, enjoying the feeling of her orgasmic body around me, only slowing down when her orgasm had faded.

That was the moment when Resa came with a loud moan, her back arching as shivers ran through her body, and her hips shook as they whipped back and forth on Elise's tongue.

I shook my head slightly. That 'organic neural sensory processor' truly was a work of art and wonder!

I forced myself to stop comparing Resa to biological females and just enjoyed the experience. Not that it was hard to do with my dick buried in Elise's trembling pussy, so I retracted from Elise.

"I have an idea. Do a 69 with Elise on top."

"Good idea." Said Resa and leaned down to place her head between Elise's legs, before she rolled onto her back, dragging the redhead on top of her.

As soon as they were in position, Resa placed her mouth on Elise's clitoris, causing the redhead to groan. "Shit, she's good!"

With a smile, I took hold of her hips and slid my hard cock into her drenched pussy, pressing it all the way to the bottom in one long stroke, feeling her inner muscles clasp me in rippling waves.

"Oh!" She moaned. "Do that again!"

I pulled halfway out and went back in, filling her completely. She groaned loudly and buried her head between the android's legs, while I started to fuck her with long and slow strokes to hold my own orgasm in check and give Resa time to use her tongue.

It also gave me time to caress her back and ass with my hands, as I went in and out of her in a gentle rhythm, never quite leaving her body and pushing back in as far as I could go.

It did take some time before Elise came once more, but when she did it was with an intensity that made her whole body shake as she howled, pressing her head against Resa's thigh to mute the sound. Sensing that she couldn't take much more, I held my cock still as her inner muscles gripped me rhythmically, waves of tightness rippling along my shaft.

"That... was... epic!" Elise finally managed to say when her ecstasy had faded and rolled onto the sofa, breathing hard.

Resa looked at me with what can only be described as a speculative look. "Can I try that as well?"

"Fine with me." I answered and looked at the redhead. "Elise?"

"Just don't lick me." She said with a grimace. "I'm way too sensitive for that right now."

"Deal." Answered the android with a chuckle and placed herself on top of Elisa, presenting her shapely behind to me.

Feeling a bit insecure about what was going to happen, but too horny to not do it, I did the same to her as to Elise, slipping my hard cock in between the wet lips of her pussy and pushed forward. She was tight and there was some very pleasant resistance as my dick slid home, but all in all, she felt like a biological woman and a very receptive one at that, moaning as my dick penetrated her while Elise played with her tongue on her clitoris.

Resa turned her head to look over her shoulder at me. "Could you take me a little faster..." She shivered and paused as Elise did something. "... and harder than you took the Lieutenant?" She broke off with a moan, but then continued. "I would like that a lot."

"Sure." I managed to respond as I took hold of her flaring hips and started pounding her, watching my dick slide in and out of her. It not only looked natural, but the way her pussy clenched around my dick felt completely natural as well.

That I could feel Elise's hair against my balls like a soft brush each time I pushed into Resa only made the experience even more arousing and I could feel a tell-tale tingling staring deep within me. "I'm going to come soon!"

"Yes please!" Groaned Resa. "Come along with me!"

I grunted as I rammed my cock into her again and again, totally immersed in the feeling of thrusting into her tight wet pussy and the way it felt around my dick, as I raced towards my orgasm. I felt my balls tighten and knew I had gone past the point of no return, so I just kept going and a few seconds later I twitched in ecstasy as my throbbing cock erupted inside her.

Resa tensed and gave a soft cry as she came as well, her whole body shaking while her inner muscles milked my dick.

For a moment, there wasn't a sound to be heard in the lounge, but then Elise removed her mouth from Resa's clitoris and said. "Thalen, as soon as we have relaxed a little, I'm going to suck your dick until it's hard again, because that just made me even more horny!"

I pulled my dick out of Resa and let myself fall beside her on the sofa. "Deal."

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

Several hours later, I was sitting in my cabin, taking a second look at the Imperial ships. The breakdown of the crew situation I had made with Elise Samko had given me an idea.

With one hundred and thirty jobs on the Delta-class carrier, we could, at least on the surface of it, crew it with about two hundred people, working twelve-hour shifts.

However, there were lots of jobs, that weren't needed to be fully staffed at all times, no matter what military doctrine said. Reactors was one of them. Incredibly stable, they didn't need more than one engineer unless the ship was involved in combat.

That brought me to what at least in the Chiss Navy was called a skeleton crew, which was the minimum number of personnel needed to operate a ship at its most simple operating requirements, which in other words was flying from one place to another.

Looking at the data on the screen, my brain worked on the situation, recalculating the number of crew needed to form a skeleton crew for each of the known ship types. Despite what Elise had said, warships were more complicated than commercial ships, resulting in a larger crew, but it was nowhere near the size needed to make them fully operational warships.

The Delta-class carrier could be flown with a skeleton crew of only fifty and with the captain doubling as a pilot, that even included an eight-hour pilot rotation.

The Epsilon-class repair ship was a type of ship I haven't encountered before, because CEDF didn't have them as part of the regular navy, but if you sent a task force into the Unknown Regions of space, giving them a chance to get repaired was good planning.

Like the Delta-class the listed crew was deceptively large, but most of it was repair personnel, engineers, droid controllers, and the like, while the crew needed to fly the ship was fifteen. Being a navy ship, the Epsilon-class was well armed, which meant about a hundred gunners, but they weren't needed just to fly the ship.

Almost identical to the Terminus-Class Destroyer, the Gage-class transports were heavily armoured, but lightly armed, military transport ships, designed to deliver its cargo at the destination intact. They also only required a crew of one hundred and twenty, which meant a skeleton crew of around twenty-four.

The two unknown ship types baffled me a bit. The computer had suggested that they were variants of the Drake-class Frigate.

That might be true, but if so, they were giant versions of the frigate, as the two largest of them was almost a kilometre long, while the six smaller versions were seven hundred meters long each.

That made the largest of the unknown ship types even larger than a Harrower-Class Dreadnought, the typical Sith command ship during the latest war.

However, while the design was different from a Harrower, there were several similarities between the two classes, aside from the wedge shape that most Imperial ships had.

One of those similarities was that none of the two classes didn't have the command tower most other capital Imperial ships have. A design choice I applauded, since having the most important part of the ship in the most obvious place, didn't really make sense, no matter how good the armor and shielding was.

Another thing they had in common, was that their point defence systems were rather hard to see with the naked eye. Either that or the unknown ship types didn't have a point defence, which was highly unlikely. Unfortunately, that made it hard to see how many lasers it had, which again made it impossible to calculate a reasonable crew number, but an educated guess would be around nine hundred people for the bigger ship and six hundred for the smaller one, not counting the gunners and flight support.

Of course, a skeleton crew would be a lot less, but until we got some better data, it was really nothing but an educated guess.

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

Engineer Keller showed up before dinner and just from the look of disappointment on his face, I could guess the result of the test they had run.

"I'm sorry, sir." Said the engineer with a sigh. "The Master Engineer and I have been through everything and no matter how we do it, it simply doesn't work." He signed again. "If we could disengage it and had the spare parts, it wouldn't have been a problem, but jury-rigging the system while it's running is simply too dangerous. We'll end up frying the system and kill everybody." He tilted his head a bit. "Have you looked at the list of ships out there?"

"Not the one from the scans, no. Why do you ask?"

"Because it looks like there's a Republic Battlegroup out there as well," he said. "Complete with forty Hammerhead-Class cruisers and twenty-five Foray-class Blockade Runners. Unfortunately, they look just as beat up as the old Imperial battlegroup." He paused, but then added. "To be honest, sir, the list of ships out there is insane. There're ships from just about every space going civilisation you can think of going back of thousands of years, including the Republic, Sith, Mon Calamari, and even a few Mandalorians."

I felt a shiver run down my spine. If there was an obvious way out of here, someone would have escaped and returned later to plunder the site. The collected worth of the ships in here, even if only used as spare parts, would be enough to make thousands of people rich beyond their wildest dreams and the fact that it hadn't happened spoke volumes about the difficulties we were in.

It was not something I would say openly, so instead I said. "Well, that means that there might be a functioning null quantum field generator there. Unfortunately, that is not the most pressing problem. Do the parts from the republic battlegroup fit Last Chance's life-support?"

The engineer shrugged his shoulders. "To be honest, I don't know, sir. They're from the same area, but that is more than three hundred years ago, and the Heraklon-class was built by a relatively small company in the core-worlds. I'll have to investigate it, which again will take some time... Which I don't think we have." He paused for a moment, but then continued. "To make matters worse, I have just talked with the engineering team and the hyperdrives on the two prison or slave ships suffered the same kind of damage as Chariot and as they were built by Mandal Motors and Rendili StarDrive, the chances of finding spare parts out here are non-existent."

"I feared that much." I said, leaning back in the seat with thoughts whirling in my head. The whole situation was fucked up. Even if the Republic battlegroup had been relatively unharmed, we didn't have the time to find and start enough suitable ships to save people from dying. That left the new Imperial Battlegroup as the only way to keep everybody alive until we found a way out of here, and that by itself posed a huge problem, as the Empire naturally took a dim view of people using their warships.

Not only would it mark us as Enemies of the Empire, but there was a good chance that I would get exiled from the Chiss Ascendancy for risking breaking the alliance with the Sith Empire by stealing a whole Imperial battle group just to save some non-Chiss from dying. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do about that, as I just couldn't stand aside and let those people die when I had the ability to save them.

The five hundred Chiss that were here with me were better off, since I, as the commanding officer, would get the harsher punishment, but they would likely get demoted or have to spend some time in jail.

To make it worse, the old Republic ships that were here, were simply not designed to carry more than three hundred people each, meaning that it would take fifteen Hammerhead-class cruisers to carry all of us, and judging from the state of the old Imperial Battle group, there simply weren't that many functional ships.

That meant using the Imperial ships. They were our only ticket out of here, or at least to survival, but when we got out of here the Empire would want their property back and the trick would be to load the freed slaves off the ships and then deliver the ships to the Empire, as a good ally would do.

Sadly, with three Sith Lords and their fleets in the region, it also became a guessing game about which Sith Lord to deliver the ships to. If I delivered them to a Sith Lord and that Lord lost in the Sith power plays, making someone else Emperor, there was an even chance that the new Emperor would be angry at the Chiss Ascendancy for delivering the ships to the wrong Sith Lord.

Taking the guise of a mercenary unit would lessen the chance of the Chiss Ascendancy getting into problems with the Sith, which was the most important part. I could survive getting exiled, but the Ascendancy couldn't afford to break the alliance with the Sith Empire.

Again, all these problems demanded that we found a way out of here and the Imperial Battle group was the key, as it would allow us to survive long enough to figure out how to do that.

"So, we go to plan B." I said slowly.

He looked surprised. "You have a plan B?"

"Yes. On screen, please."

The wall screen in the office snapped on, showing the newer ship-classes and I pointed at the area as I said. "The new battlegroup over here is not only outside the Ion field, but they also look reasonably undamaged." His eyes slowly grew wider as I continued. "We'll repair and restart one or more of them, move everybody off the Last Chance and into the new ships, followed by the people from the damaged ships."

"You're going to steal a capital Imperial warship?" He asked, a mixture of disbelief and hope painted on his face.

"Strictly speaking, we're not stealing." I said calmly. "The ships are dead, so we're salvaging them, and not only will it enable us to save the people on the Last Chance, it's also our only way out of here with everybody unless we find a way to repair the Chariots hyperdrive."

Keller looked speculative. "Well, sir... salvaging an Imperial Warship makes sense, even if it is considered theft of Imperial property, but it's better than a slow death here."

"Exactly, so go get ready to take a closer look at them."

"Yes, sir!"

"Good. While you do that, I'll go check on the two Kiltirin-class ships and the people there."

Keller nodded and stood from the chair. "See you later, sir."

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

Freeing slaves

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something

you want done because he wants to do it."

Vice Admiral Zedais, CEDF

While the engineers made ready, I had Lieutenant Samko fly the Duchess to Kiltirin 2, where the crew had reported that some of the prisoners were finally coming out of their coma.

The prize captain, a Chiss named Hez'iman'cemu (Siman) greeted me at the airlock, looking relieved as he saluted. "Welcome onboard, sir."

"Thank you, Captain Siman. Any problems with the newly awakened people?"

"No, sir, but to be honest, I don't know how to treat them. Are they prisoners or free?"

"Free, but they need to stay in their cells for now, while we're working on a solution. I would also like to talk with some of them now."

"Yes, sir. I'll take you to what I think are the leaders. This way."

The cell he led me and my two Black Dragons bodyguards to, was a small two-man cell and as he had said in the report, the persons inside were indeed awake, so I asked the Black Dragons to stay outside the cell and walked inside.

One of them was a giant of a man, easily two-meters tall, with wide shoulders and huge arms. He was also bald and dark skinned. The other was just as big and bald, but with blue eyes and a light complexion.

They both turned towards me as I entered the small cell. "Hello gentlemen. I'm Thalen from the Dragon Defence Force. Could I have your names, please?"

For a moment, they just looked at me, but as I didn't look away or say more, the dark-skinned one said. "Arthur Waydar... Sir."

The light skinned one raised his eyebrows at that, but then said. "Caskey Titlow. Sir."

"Nice to meet you. You're obviously former military, so I would like your rank and service branch." I showed my teeth in a little smile. "The Zygerrians locked that part of the computer as we took the ship and we're still working on slicing it."

"Senior Mechanic, Imperial Navy." Said the dark-skinned Arthur Waydar, while Caskey Titlow said. "Gunnery Sergeant, Republic Marines."

That one of them came from the Empire and the other from the Republic made me pause for a moment, but then I asked. "How did the two of you end up in the same cell?"

"A string of bad luck." Said Arthur Waydar with a slight smile, but then turned serious. "It's a long story and not that interesting."

"I would like to hear it anyway." I said, leaning against the doorframe as I used a force power to determine if he spoke the truth or not.

With a slight sigh, the giant explained that he had done service on a Harrower-class Dreadnought that had been involved in a battle against the Republic Navy in what was later known as the First Battle of Bothawui. It was meant to be one of the first attacks on the Mid Rim, but the Republic had anticipated the attack and when the Sith fleet had arrived, the Republic Navy was waiting for them.

The Imperial Fleet was caught completely off-guard and the ship Waydar had been on was pummelled by enemy fire until the crew was forced to evacuate the dying ship via escape pods.

They weren't the only ones to do so and when the Imperial Fleet was obliterated, they were taken as prisoners of war.

When the Republic Fleet left the system again, they were taken along to the Republic to join a prison camp, where they stayed for the rest of the war.

When peace came with the Treaty of Coruscant, they were finally returned to the Empire, only to be court-martialled for leaving their ships without orders to do so. The higher-ranking officers from the fleet, who were everybody above the rank of Lieutenant, had been sentenced to death and the rest had been sentenced to slavery.

After that, Arthur Waydar had worked in the Duranium refinery at the Nodia Prime labour camp for about two years, but as the mine yielded less and less ore, he and the other slaves had been loaded into a Zygerrians ship and flown away to an unknown destination. Then there was the hiss of gas being released and everything went black.

After the Senior Mechanic had finished his tale, Caskey Titlow took over, explaining that he had been taken prisoner of war during a battle in the Outer Rim, when his ship had damaged so bad, that they had to use the escape pods.

The Imperial Navy had collected the pods and sent the survivors off to a slave camp and later to production facilities, both at the Nodia Prime labour camp. That's where he had later met Arthur Waydar and after a while, the two had become friends.

"Excuse me, but the story out here is that the Empire execute prisoners of war?"

"I'm sure some do." Said Arthur Waydar with a shrug. "But mostly it's Republic propaganda. Killing those who surrender or get caught just makes the enemy fight to the last man."

I nodded slowly. "Is everybody here from the Nodia Prime labour camp?"

"Yes." He said shortly and then asked. "What happens now?"

"That depends on a lot of things but let me start off by saying that the only reason that you're still in this ship is that we don't have anywhere else to place you." I said and explained the situation to them.

"So," said Caskey Titlow in a resigned tone when I was done. "We're in a broken ship in a box system with no way out at the moment?"

"Yes, that's about it." I admitted. "We'll get out. It's just a matter of time."

Arthur Waydar studied me for a moment and then said. "You're confident about it. Aren't you worried that we'll run out of food?"

"I was in the beginning, but with the number of wrecks in this system to get ship food from, it'll take years before we run out." I said truthfully and changed the subject. "Captain Siman seems to think that you're the leaders of the former prisoners on this ship. Is that correct?"

They exchanged glances and then nodded. "I guess we're the closest thing to leaders here. Why do you ask?"

"Command structure. When I need the people here to do something, I want to know who can make it happen." I said with a shrug. "What about the other ship? Since you're all from the same facility, I assume that you know who's on board which ship."

"Roughly, yes." Replied Caskey Titlow. "All the men are in this ship, while all the women are on the other ship."

"Any idea who leads the women?"

Again, they exchanged glances, but then Arthur Waydar said. "That would be Betty Nagos, sir. She's a Pantoran and a former Operations Officer on the Hammerhead cruiser Lightning Strike..." He hesitated for a moment, but then added. "... and my wife."

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

Twenty minutes later, we stepped onto Kiltirin 1 and went directly to the cell that held Betty Nagos, accompanied by the ship's prize captain, Lieutenant Jay Barlee. Captain Barlee was a middle-aged human male and had been one of the slaves we had liberated from Mahaw.

"How long is it since the two of you talked?" I asked Arthur Waydar as we walked.

"A couple of weeks." He said with a sigh. "They separated us about two months ago, but we could talk through the fence."

I gave him a short nod and then asked. "Captain Barlee, who's in the cell with Betty Nagos?"

"Nobody." He answered immediately. "For some reason some of the two person cells are only occupied by a single person."

We were almost by the cell, so I stopped and looked at the dark-skinned giant. "Senior Mechanic Waydar. I suddenly remembered that I haven't had any food since breakfast, and I think I will go to the mess and eat some there. That will take about an hour. After that I would like both you and your wife to join me on the Duchess."

Looking at Caskey Titlow, I continued. "Gunnery Sergeant Titlow. Would you please join me in the mess? I would like to hear some more about the worlds where the republic people come from, while the Senior Mechanic spends some quality time with his wife."

I could feel the amusement in him, as he saluted me. "I would be delighted to, sir."

"Very well." I looked at the captain. "Captain Barlee, please switch off any surveillance equipment in the cell."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Lead the way to the mess, please." I glanced at Waydar. "One hour, Senior Mechanic."

He nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."

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

Gunnery Sergeant Titlow and I spent an hour slowly eating, while he explained that most of the republic prisoners came from worlds that had been devastated by war. I didn't know most of the worlds he mentioned and the few that I did know of was due to the space battles that had been fought in the sky above them.

One thing that surprised me, mostly because I had never thought about it before, was that some of the planets in question haven't been devastated on purpose. It was simply the result of the battles fought on their surface, as a planet could be conquered, freed and re-conquered several times during the thirty years the Great Galactic War had taken, causing destruction as artillery fire and orbital bombardments ruined the ecosystem and made the planet uninhabitable.

Then I had asked what a Gunnery Sergeant did, since it wasn't a rank I was familiar with, and he had just finished explaining, that a Gunnery Sergeant in the Galactic Republic Army was the one responsible for logistics and training, when Resa and Shakka came walking into the mess, flanked by two Black Dragons. Dressed in uniform, they still looked gorgeous, and I noticed Titlow's eyes widen as he saw them.

If they noticed, they ignored it as Resa said. "Sir, we have a problem. I broke through their encryption and according to the files, the two thousand people here are just a small part of a deal between the Sith and the Zygerrians. The total number is about forty thousand people, with eleven thousand in this first shipment alone and then three more shipments within the next year."

"If they were transporting eleven thousand people, they needed the Lictor Class dungeon ship in addition to the two Kiltirin-class ships." I said with a sigh. "It was full."

"Most likely, sir."

"Anything about their destination?"

She shook her head. "No, sir and the navigational data is not encrypted, it was wiped from the system, with no way of getting it back."

"I see." I looked at the Black Dragon to her right. "Corporal Hadeta, please assign some marines to go through the crew's personal belongings on both ships and see if there's any hints of their destination."

The young corporal, whose Chiss name was Cuqh'adet'agem, answered with a "Yes, sir." and walked out of hearing distance.

"Shit." Mumbled Titlow under his breath.

"What is it, Gunnery Sergeant?"

"We all got lovers, friends, family or kids on that ship." He said with a sigh. "A lot of people are going to be heartbroken about this."

There wasn't really anything I could say to that, so I just nodded and turned my attention towards Shakka, who stood next to Resa and clearly needed to say something.

"Yes, Doctor Shakka?" I said, as I looked over at the beautiful red-skinned Twi'Lek.

"I've run the tests and forty percent of the passengers here need to be treated for various diseases." Said Shakka calmly. "Nothing dangerous, but it'll take about a week before we can let them mingle with the rest."

"Do you need any help, or do you have it covered?"

"I got it covered, sir."

"Good. Then we just need Arthur Waydar and Betty Nagos to finish talking, and we can move on to scanning the ships."

"Excuse me, sir." Said Titov. "What ships are we talking about?"

"The ones, that are going to take us out of here." I said calmly. "I'll explain when we're back on the Duchess."

"Yes, sir."

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

A closer look

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

From the Holy Book of War

One thing was reading the statistics, another thing was seeing the ships in real life and as we came nearer the ships I was planning to seize, the real size of them became evident. The Delta-Class Carrier was twice the length of Chariot, but the long slender shape was dwarfed by the massiveness of the largest of the unknown ships.

At a thousand meters in length, two hundred meters in height and four hundred and fifty meters in width, it was even bigger than an Interdictor-class cruiser, but there was solidness and a sleekness to the design that I really liked.

Unfortunately, we still didn't know exactly what kind of damage the various ships had taken and that was why we needed to make a close scan of all the ships from the battlegroup. Having that data would enable us to find the ones with the least damage and have the engineers repair them.

"Excuse me, sir." Said a voice from my left. Normally Resa sat there, but today that seat was occupied by a Sullustan, a short, bald humanoid with almond-shaped black eyes, two flaps of jowls around the cheeks and large, round ears. An astrogator by profession, Jander San was a cheerful person, who was liked by most people, which was probably what had made him a spokesperson.

That was also the reason that he was here today, as he could explain the situation to the former slaves from Centauri 21 later. Behind him stood Caskey Titlow, Arthur Waydar and Betty Nagos. The last had turned out to be a good-looking Pantoran that looked somewhat small compared to her giant of a husband. They were here so they could explain things to the people on the two prison ships later.

"Yes, Astrogator Jander?"

"As far as I can see, sir, the only realistic choice here are the Gage-class transports, so why're we scanning the rest?"

"The Gage transports are meant for transporting goods and according to the database, their life support systems do not have redundancy in the passenger areas." I explained, noticing that the former Imperial Senior Mechanic nodded at my words. "I see you agree, Waydar."

"Yes, sir." The giant said. "There is a subclass of the Gage-class that are meant for transporting persons, but those are rare. Most ordinary Gage-class don't have life support for more than six hundred people."

"Exactly the problem and I want to be sure that we have the life support we need to keep everybody alive. Then we can think of leaving this place."

Jander San smiled wryly. "Providing that we can get out of the box at all."

"We'll find a way." I said firmly. "It might take a while, but we'll get away."

"I hope you're right, sir." He looked at the screen, showing the Imperial ships. "And if none of the Gage transports are working?" He chuckled at his own question. "Sorry, for sounding like a pessimist, sir, but not everybody is sure that we can get out of here and those are the type of questions I will be asked later."

"That is why we're scanning all the ships." I explained. "If the Gage-class transports aren't working, we'll have to salvage a bigger ship or several smaller ones and for that I'll need your help. You see, while the engineers are working on getting the ships repaired and restarted, all of the non-navy personnel are going to get a short education as spacers, gunners or technicians. The same goes for those who have the education but have been away from it for a while." I gestured at the ships outside the window. "We need crews and right now most of the people here are just passengers. That cannot continue. If we're to get out of here, we need to work as a unit and for that we need people with usable skills. People that cannot learn to be spacers, can learn to cook or any of the many different jobs needed to run a spaceship."

"That shouldn't be a problem, sir." Betty Nagos firmly. "Most of us are more than happy to have escaped from the slavers and are willing to do almost any job as long as it keeps us free."

"Good, because we will need it."

Jander San looked thoughtful for a moment. "What if some of them refuse?"

"In all likelihood, we can find another job for them." I made my voice cold as I continued. "If they still refuse to work, they're welcome to have a shuttle and make their own way home, along with anybody else who refuses to work."

The big eyes blinked a few times, but then he slowly nodded. "That sounds reasonable. What will happen once we get back to civilization?"

"I do have a plan for that, but not one I'm willing to share at the present," I said. "I will tell you though, that I plan on giving each and everybody a share of the loot we took from the pirates, so they have a chance of getting back on their feet again. Otherwise, there's little point in freeing people." I paused, looking from one to another, and then added. "Just remind people that it's not going to be easy, and it will most likely take a while."

The Sullustan bowed slightly in his seat. "That almost goes without saying. I shall pass that information on."

"We'll do the same." Promised Caskey Titlow.

"Thank you." I said and nodded in the direction of the viewscreen showing the two larger ship types. "By the way, do any of you recognize the ship type out there?"

They shook their heads and Waydar said. "It must be some new designs, because I've never seen them before.

"Thank you."

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

"Sir." Called Tavune from his station a while later. "Engineer Keller is calling us."

"On screen."

A moment later, the human engineer showed up, smiling widely. "Sir, I finally realized what the biggest of the unknown ships are!"

"Do tell."

"The Harrower-class Dreadnought is made by Taerab Starship Manufacturing, but we spotted a builder's sign, saying Dromund Kalakar Shipyard and that is the shipyard responsible for the other ships in this section. I think this is their version of the Harrower."

"Very nice, Engineer Keller." I said slowly, as I digested what he had said. "Would you kindly explain to me, how you found a builder's sign on the outside of a ship?"

"Oh." The smile disappeared, being replaced by an apologetic look. "The scanners didn't pick up any damage on the outside, so we took the shuttle into the hangar and did the scans from the inside as well, sir."

Since my order was to scan the Imperial ships without landing, they technically haven't done anything wrong, but it was on the edge and from the look on his face, he knew that.

"Very well, Engineer Keller. I will look forward to your report later."

"Yes, sir, but there's two things you need to know right now, sir." He paused and the smile crept back on his face. "From the way the hangar is designed, this ship has a high level of automatization and, perhaps more importantly, it hasn't taken any combat damage at all, sir."

I managed to keep the surprise out of my face. "None at all?"

"No, sir. As I said, we flew into the hangar bay just to be sure and the only signs of damage we have managed to find is stress damage from being ejected from hyperspace and even that is minimal. I think these ships haven't been in combat at all, but simply got caught during hyperspace travel and thrown into range of the pulsar."

I nodded slowly at his excitement. "I hope you're right." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tavune signalling me. "Keep up the good work, Engineer Keller. Others are calling."

"Yes, sir."

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

During the next hour I kept getting calls from the other small ships and it seemed like Engineer Keller's assessment was right. Some of the ships from Dromund Kalakar Shipyard had no damage and looked almost new, while others hadn't been that lucky.

It looked like a meteor shower had hit the ships in the port side of the group and beside the initial damage from the rocks, the force of the hits had thrown them into each other, causing severe damage.

The four Terminus-Class destroyers were a lost cause, as they were damaged beyond repair, along with one of the two Delta-Class carriers and half of the Drake-class corvettes, while there was hope for the second carrier and the two Gage-Class transports, though those had taken a beating as well.

The two largest of the unknown ships were unharmed and the same could be said of four of the second largest, while the remaining two were severely damaged, but the result was still more than satisfying. I had hoped to find just one ship that could be restarted, but at the present we potentially had six capital ships and six support ships to choose between. Of course, we still needed to see if their reactors were still working, but the odds for finding some that worked were significantly better than before.

Turning towards representatives for the former slaves, I said. "I want you to inform your people about the need for spacers of all sorts and I want a short list with the skills they have, no-matter how irrelevant they think those skills might be, and I want both as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

Standing up, I nodded to Lieutenant Samko. "I need to go plan this. Lieutenant, you have command... oh and I would like to see Engineer Keller as soon as he returns."

"Yes, sir."

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

Information (Missing SS)

"When one treats people with benevolence, justice, and righteousness,

and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind

and all will be happy to serve their leader."

From the Holy Book of War

I spent the next few hours looking through our inventory and planning how to convert our passengers to valuable members of the crew, but wasn't even near finishing, when a smiling Engineer Keller came into my office. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes." I gestured at the chair in front of the desk. "Have a seat."

I waited until he had sat down and then calmly asked. "Engineer Keller, how long were you in Imperial service?"

He paled but caught himself quickly. "What do you mean, sir?"

"You have more knowledge about Imperial Ships than an ordinary engineer would have... even one working for a renegade Sith like Mahaw... That made me look at the logs and it seems like you arrived along with Mahaw." Smiling a bit, I added. "Relax, Keller. I just want to know if I have an expert or a gifted amateur on my hands. There're plenty of former Imperials here."

He took a deep breath. "I was educated on the Imperial Shipyard at Dromund Kalakar and graduated with honours as an engineer and ship designer, with a lesser degree in Naval History."

"Any family back at Dromund Kalakar?"

"My parents and my sister, Marie... No partner and no kids."

"What rank did you have in the Imperial Navy?"

"Master Engineer." He said proudly.

"Good to know." I tilted my head a bit. "But it also means that you have to know what those two unknown ship types are."

"Yes, sir." He admitted with a sigh. "And sorry for not telling the truth, but if I had, you would have asked me questions I wasn't prepared to answer." He paused for a moment and then said. "It's two Dragon-class Dreadnoughts and four Wyvern-Class cruisers. They're experimental ships from Dromund Kalakar, which is why they don't show up in the databases and why you've never heard about them."

As Keller had said, I haven't heard about the two classes before, but as the Drake-class Frigates had proven, the Empire could have lots of new ship types that was unknown to me. "Well, first of all, I thought that the Harrower-class was the only dreadnoughts the Empire has, and secondly, what're they doing out here?"

"You'll need a bit of background knowledge for this, sir."

I nodded at that, and he started. "The imperial shipyards are in constant competition with each other and make their own versions of other shipyards specialities to get the lucrative orders from the Empire. Always ambitious, the leadership of Dromund Kalakar decided to make their own versions of some of Taerab Starship Manufacturing ships, the Harrower-class Dreadnought, and the S-class Cruiser, which by extension also mean the BSX-5 Dreadnought."

"Why those?" I asked curiously. It was the first time I had the chance to get some insight of how the Sith Empire worked regarding ship making and it was fascinating compared to the centralized way the Chiss Ascendency worked.

"Well, the Harrower is the backbone of the Imperial Navy, so if they could get just some of those orders, it would be a source of pride for the leadership." Keller explained. "The S-class Cruiser is the workhorse of the navy along with the Terminus class destroyer, but the design and engineering of the S-class is getting old. It's also slow and the difference in speed was becoming a problem when it flew alongside the newer ship types. It's just not fast enough."

I nodded. Both in real-space and when taking a hyperspace jump, the speed of any combat group is limited to the speed of the slowest ship, meaning that the S-class cruiser would slow down any fleet or battlegroup it was part of.

"Taerab Starship Manufacturing are aware of this and have made a new version." He said and pointed in the direction of the screen. "Could you call up the BSX-5 Dreadnought on the screen, sir?"

With a slight nod, I called up the ship. It turned out to be a smaller version of the Harrower-class.

"Despite calling it a Dreadnought," said Keller as he looked at the screen. "This is Taerab Starship Manufacturing's version of the S-class cruiser. Basically, it's a Harrower scaled down to a length of six hundred meters, with most of the trooper quarters eliminated, but almost the same weapon load as the old S-Class." He looked at me again. "That meant that Dromund Kalakar's new version of the cruiser had to be better than both the S-class and the BSX-5 Dreadnought, while the Dreadnought 'just' had to be better than the Harrower."

"It's still a tall order." I commented.

"It was. The Harrower is without any doubt one of the most well-engineered ships, the Empire has ever built." Agreed Keller with a nod and continued. "That is why it was used as a base for the new ships. The result was the Wyvern-Class cruiser as the new version of the S-Class and the Dragon-class Dreadnought for the new Harrower-class. Both have the same tested and tried automation as the Terminus-class destroyer, lowering the number of crew needed. For that, more power was needed from the reactor. Fortunately, lowering the crew number also gave us more internal space to work with and the reactors on both ships are bigger and generate a lot more power than the originals. Aside from that, the technology used, as well as most of the armament, are identical to that of the Harrower and the BSX-5."

Feeling that I had gotten enough of the background story, I asked. "So, what exactly are the stats on the Dragon class?"

"Extraordinary." Keller said with a smile. "I can't remember everything from the top of my head, but it has a rank two hyperdrive, with a rank twelve backup, and it's extremely fast and manoeuvrable both in real-space and in atmosphere." He stopped to think for a moment and then continued. "Like the Harrower, it can carry an entire brigade of seven thousand troopers, along with their support. That means forty-eight Manka-class walkers, thirty or so self-propelled artillery pieces, along with speeder bikes and about ten Venitran-Class Imperial Assault Shuttles."

I thought about it and asked. "Let me guess: It has a decent complement of starfighters, and every ship in the battlegroup can do landfall?"

His eyes widened. "Yes. How did you know, sir?"

"Because, from what I've heard so far, along with the composition of ships, the Battlegroup out there is designed to go to remote planets with small populations, fight off the planetary defence, land an entire brigade from each Dragon-class along with whatever the other ships can hold, and then go back to orbit to provide covering fire or precision orbital bombardment, while the troopers conquer the planet."

The Engineer nodded slowly as he looked at me. "That's impressive, sir, because that's exactly what the designers aimed for."

"So, what about the Wyvern-class Battle Cruiser?"

He smiled a bit. "As I said before, Taerab scaled down the Harrower for the BSX-5, with a smaller starfighter complement and thicker armor, so we did the same with Wyvern-class. However, since we started out with a Dragon-class, which is a hundred meters longer than a Harrower, we managed to keep the ability to carry two battalions, along with their weapons, armors, and support equipment."

I raised my eyebrows a little. Keller had used 'we' and 'us' several times during the explanation and if he had been part of the design team that had made these ships, we were even more fortunate to have him than I had originally thought. Knowledge of the new ship types aside, it was only the best and brightest engineers that were chosen for such teams. I had a hundred questions about that, but that was for another time.

"So, four thousand troops on each Wyvern-class?"

"Yes, sir. Unfortunately, the cost of automation, along with updated engines, armor, shields, and weaponry meant that the ships became slightly more expensive than the Harrower and the BSX5 respectively, and that was one of the reasons why they're out here."

I chuckled. "You better explain that while you're at it."

"Yes, sir." He said without hesitation. "As the Empire prepared for the attack on Coruscant three years ago, the First Defence Fleet at the Dromund system recalled all units that were away on extended missions in case the Republic made a counterattack. The Dromund Kalakar Shipyards did the same, including their Second Experimental Battlegroup, who was doing test and evaluation in the Unknown Regions under Admiral Vost Hennat. He was to determine if the added cost of the ships were worth it."

I smiled slightly. "I guess the Second Experimental Battlegroup is the one floating outside?"

He nodded. "Yes, sir. Dromund Kalakar shipyards have their own units for live testing and evaluation of new ship types. That is typically done by a member of the regular Navy once these types had cleared all other tests, but before the ships are delivered. Nobody wants to deliver bad performing ships to a Sith Lord."

I nodded. It was a good strategy, since angering a Sith Lord was bad for your health. At least according to the rumours. "Thank you. Could you give me some details on those ships?"

"Yes, sir. Except for the Epsilon-class Repair Vessel, the Battlegroup consisted entirely of experimental versions. All the capital ships have the same basic engine configuration on both Ion- and Hyperdrives, and it was a test for a more starfighter intensive deployment of naval forces, without changing the standard battle group size."

I resisted the temptation to sigh. The Empire had been building warships for a very long time, but for some reason they loved multirole ships and the Dragon-class Dreadnought sounded like it suffered from a heavy attack of multirole fever. Multirole ships have their place, but the problem was that they're rarely as good in any given role as ships purpose-built for one role only.

The troop-carrying capacity was a good example. Being able to transport a brigade was nice, but outside the narrow scenario where the ship was sent to conquer remote planets, all those troops had to be bored to tears. Especially if the ship was on a regular fleet assignment. Also, while the troopers were in the ship, it was an entire brigade that couldn't be used elsewhere.

The Battlecarrier aspect made more sense, but the more starfighter oriented build sounded like a shift in Imperial tactics or at least an attempt to create one, and I wasn't sure that it would have gone over as well as Keller seemed to think. Since experience in military organisations are paid for in blood, those organisations tended to be extremely conservative, and it would take a major loss somewhere to create a shift in tactics at that level.

"Anyway," continued the engineer, bringing my attention back to him. "The Delta-class Carriers use the same hull as the older versions but share the engine configuration with the Dragon and Wyvern classes, which makes them faster in both real space and hyperspace. The same goes for the two Gage-class transports, which means that the whole battlegroup have a hyperspace rating of 2."

"Nice." I commented.

"Yes, sir, we thought so too." He scratched his head. "Anyway, the Second Experimental Battlegroup never made it back to Dromund Kalakar and despite several attempts of finding it, its location has been a mystery ever since." He grimaced. "The lack of a complete test was a big factor in why the Empire didn't order any of the new ship types. The project was put on hold, and when the peace treaty was signed, I was transferred to Vaiken Spacedock."

"We'll talk more about the ships later, but how did you end up with Mahaw's crew?"

He sighed. "Shortly after I arrived at Vaiken Spacedock, I was showing an apprentice how to do engine maintenance on a Fury-class Interceptor, when Lord Mahaw and his cronies took it and flew away." He sighed. "The apprentice tried to flee in an escape pod, but they killed him and made me a slave. Trust me, sir, when I say that the last couple of years haven't been fun."

I nodded and reached into a drawer to take one of the two boxes I had placed in there as preparation for this meeting. "Would you please remove your rank insignia?"

He sighed and removed the Engineer insignia from the shoulders and front of his uniform.

I waited until he had placed them on the table before I slid the box across the table to him. "Here. They should fit better."

Looking surprised, he took the box and slowly opened it. Then his eyes widened as he saw the Chief Engineer shoulder and breast insignia. Roughly equivalent to the rank of a captain, the Chief Engineer was the highest rank an Engineer could have in just about any navy.

"Rank is, or at least should be, based on skills and experience, Chief Engineer Keller." I said softly. "It's about time you get the rank you have earned as the best and most experienced ship engineer we have."

"Thank you, sir." He said with a broken voice and was silent for a moment before he said. "May I ask which ship you plan on taking?" He suddenly grimaced. "Oh, a fair warning, sir. While flying back, I looked at the scan data and while the Gage-classes out there are of the PA or 'planetary assault' version and can carry eight thousand troops each, it looks like whatever hit them, has smashed the section housing the cargo hold life-support and we'll not be able to repair that anytime soon."

That made me raise my eyebrows. "Besides the ability to carry troops, what's the difference between a PA-version and the ordinary Gage-class?"

"Oh, sorry, sir. I keep forgetting that the experimental versions are not in the database. For the Planetary Assault version, we eliminated some of the long-range weapons along with the Ion-cannons but upgraded the close-range and point-defence weapons to a point where it could double as an anti-starfighter platform like the Keizar-Volvec Bulk Cruiser."

I didn't know the ship he was talking about, but it seemed like the Empire's love affair with multi-role ships just kept on rolling. The problem with that was that it wasn't always practical or smart. In this case it was only really useful after the troops had been deployed, because a transport ship with eight thousand troops on board wasn't exactly what most sane commanders would place in the front line against enemy star fighters.

"I'll take a closer look at them later." I promised. "What about the Delta-class carrier?"

"Well, as I said, this battlegroup was a test for a more starfighter intensive deployment of naval forces so, unlike the normal Delta-class carriers, the experimental ones had their cargo holds redesigned, so they could carry fighters instead of the normal cargo, and a..."

"Wait a moment." I interrupted. "In the Chiss Navy, the job of a carrier is to carry fighter craft to a battle, and I have to confess that I thought that the Imperial Navy did the same."

"Oh... well, in the Imperial Navy carriers carry equipment and supplies, not fighters. That's the job of the capital ships, which is why the Harrower carry eight squadrons of starfighters, three Squadrons of bombers and three squadrons of scouts, while the BSX-5 carries five squadrons of fighters and two squadrons of bombers, along with two scout squadrons." He smiled. "As the Dragon and Wyvern classes are supposed to be better than the others, the Dragon carries ten squadrons of starfighters, and the Wyvern carries six. The number of bombers remain the same, but since there're less shuttles, there was room for more scouts, so the Dragons have five squadrons, and the Wyverns have four."

I shook my head. That was twenty squadrons of star fighters for the Dragons, with an equal number from the four Wyverns. With twelve craft for each squadron, that brought the total number of starfighters up to almost five hundred. At least in theory, but I doubted that they had a full complement of fighters for a test mission.

However, the number of roles for one ship was becoming ridiculous. As it was right now, the Dragon-class was a battleship, a troop transport and a starfighter carrier all rolled into one, and aside from the exact role of conquering remote planets that they had been built for, I couldn't find many scenarios where that was a good idea. Especially not when sending a small group of ships, like the Wyvern-class, supported by one of the new Delta-class carriers, and a Gage PA -- Class transporter would do the same and give the commander more versatility, firepower and starfighters.

Since the Dragon-class was basically just a beefed-up Harrower, the same considerations also applied to that class and as that ship had been built in large numbers, I had no doubt, that the multirole had been decided by Sith and not by the Imperial Navy. It sounded like the abilities of the ship had been determined by a committee of people with little experience in large scale warfare. It didn't make it a bad ship, as the success of the Harrower had shown, but it did make it a slightly confused one.

"Back to the Delta-class carrier. How many starfighters does it carry?"

A ghost of a smile appeared on Keller's face. "It's designed to carry an entire wing, which is twelve squadrons of starfighters, along with six squadrons of bombers and six squadrons of scouts, for a total of two hundred-and-eighty-eight starfighters." He was silent for a moment and then added. "If they went with the standard configuration for tests, it'll have half the full complement of fighters, no bombers, and a lot of scouts, but there's no way to know for certain until we count them."

I smiled back, nodding slightly. To me, carrying that amount of starfighters was exactly what a designated starfighter carrying vessel should do, making the Delta-class Carrier the first ship that wasn't supposed to fit multiple roles and thus the first capital ship in the battle group that really made sense.

"Sounds good, so we'll get back to that later." I thought for a moment. "So, what ship would you recommend?"

"The Dragon-class Dreadnought, sir." He said immediately. "It's a good ship and surprisingly light on crew."

"How many people is 'surprisingly light'?"

"A little over a thousand, sir, but that includes the pilots, gunners and support personnel for the fighter wing." He answered. "I guess, the Wyvern-class cruiser is even better, with a crew requirement of nine hundred everything included."

"Well, that certainly puts them within the realm of possibilities." I stood up. "First of all, we'll need to start one of the ships as soon as possible and get the people off Last Chance. I just hope one of them will start."

The Chief Engineer snorted as he stood up as well. "They'll start, sir. Most people think that warships take a lot of upkeep, but these ships are designed for long range deployment, where they're away from their home bases for years at a time, and they're not that big just to carry more weapons. All of them have large onboard machine shops and fabricators that can make almost anything. Minor combat damage as well as normal wear and tear, is easily fixed and they carry spare parts for those things that can't be easily repaired. It's for that reason that Imperial regulation says that at least one third of their cargo capacity must be reserved for spare parts. That means that each cruiser carries eight thousand metric tons of spare parts." He chuckled. "Having a repair ship here as well just makes it easier."

I haven't known the part about the cargo, but it made sense. Even better, it meant that the four cruisers carried thirty-two thousand tons of spare parts, with even more in the rest. I shook my head to clear it. "What about major combat damage?"

"That will usually require a shipyard to repair." He admitted. "The ships are solidly built and well armored, with the best shielding you can get, but they're not invincible."

"Nice to know, Chief Engineer. " I said. "Now go get them started as fast as you can safely do it. Then we can choose which ones to take later."

"No worries, sir. If the hulls are as intact as they seem to be, we can get them running in three days. It's just a matter of manpower."

"Good to hear. Now I need to get back to work and you need to go make a plan on how to start a ship as fast as possible without blowing the reactor. Please talk it over with Senior Mechanic Waydar. As far as I understood from our talk, there's a lot of former imperial service personnel among the former slaves. Draft the ones you need." I hesitated for a moment and then said, "I assume that you're going to start with the Epsilon-class?"

He nodded. "Yes, sir. It's the only ship that're large enough to handle that many people, while still being small enough to fill with air relatively fast."

"Exactly my thoughts... Hmm... when you're done with the first, start up as many of the other ships as you can. We can determine which ones to take, when we know which ones are working."

"Yes, sir." He saluted and left the office, while I leaned back in the seat and placed my legs on the table, with the feet dangling over the edge.

If we could get the ships in the experimental battle group we could end up with an impressive fleet, one that was worthy of the name 'fleet', but that didn't mean much if we couldn't find a way out here. Fortunately, the Force wasn't disturbed by the myriad of realspace hazards or lack of position.

Closing my eyes, I felt the rhythm of my breathing slow down as I focused on sensing the flow of the Force around me. Then I followed that flow outwards, searching for the high intensity flows that indicated a possible route through hyperspace.

Normally when I do that, the possible routes light up like a glittering spherical spiderweb, but this time I found nothing at all, as the electromagnetic flux around the system made navigation or hypering out of it impossible.

As the navigators had said, the flux made the system into a box system just like the Debra system, where Sharon the Reds base was located. The major difference was that this system didn't have a large planet or gas giant to make a hole in the flux and thus getting out was close to impossible.

There wasn't going to be a force-powered quick fix to the problem, and I was about to retract my senses when something dark caught my attention and I focussed my Force senses on the point of origin. It was hard to pinpoint, but it seemed to emanate from a trio of Interdictor-class cruisers in the old Sith battlegroup.

I considered examining it closer but decided against it. Whatever it was, it had to be powerful since I could detect it at this distance, and I had no desire to go up against the Force ghost of some legendary Sith lord. If we really needed something from the Sith battlegroup we would just have to stay as far away from those three Interdictor-class cruisers as possible.

Leaving the trance, I activated the system map and placed a ring around their location, marking it as off-limits. Thinking it over for a moment, I deleted the ring and made a new and larger one. There was no reason to take any chances, with all the problems we already had.

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

With a sigh, I stretched and walked into the bedroom to change clothes before I headed towards the training room. For most of my life so far, the use of personal weapons had been secondary to something else. As a Skywalker, my primary objective had been controlling the force and navigating the stars. Later it had been learning to become a naval officer with everything that encompassed.

However, the combat with both the Sith on Alpha Viga and the shock staff wielding Zygerrian at Epsilon Eta had shown me that I needed training if I were to survive any encounter with an opponent of that calibre, and since I had been sitting down for too long and needed to move my body, I might as well do some fencing practice.

To my pleasant surprise, I wasn't alone in the gym. Doctor Shakka was there, supervising a group of women as they went through a series of exercises on the machines. One of them was a purple Twi'Lek I couldn't remember having seen before. The three treadmills were occupied by a trio of extremely good-looking white-haired and pale skinned Human women that looked so much alike, that they almost had to be triplets, while a blue-skinned female was working the cross-trainer. First, I thought that she was a Chiss, but she didn't have the all-red Chiss eyes. Instead, she had golden eyes and long pinkish hair. The last occupant was a green skinned female with purple eyes and ditto hair, who was busy on the weight machines.

For a moment, I wondered why Shakka, and the women were here, but then remembered that some of the people from the pirate base had been placed on the Duchess, so Shakka could treat their wounds, and this had to be some of the females. That also explained why they were so good looking, as the pirates had reserved the most beautiful women for their own entertainment.

Not wanting to disturb, I nodded politely to Shakka, walked to the training mats, and did a quick warm-up, before I took the training sword and started going through the basic exercises, concentrating on the flow of movements rather than on the attack and defence moves.

I was halfway through the first part, when Shakka came over, wearing a smile on her beautiful face. "Hey, Thalen. Iska would like to know if you need a sparring partner."

"Hey, Shakka and, yes, that would be nice." I said with a nod. Thankfully, Shakka had remembered not to use ranks, while we were out of uniform.

She sent me another smile and waved the purple-skinned Twi'Lek over.

Like Shakka, Iska moved seductively, as she walked over to the equipment locker and took a training sword. There had to be something about the way female Twi'Lek were built that made them walk like that. I decided, as I watched her hips sway seductively.

Iska, as Shakka had called her, turned around and walked over to us, full breasts moving gently under the loose-fitting training clothes.

I forced my eyes up to hers and nodded a greeting as she stepped onto the training mat.

"Thalen, this is Iska and Iska, this is Thalen." Presented Shakka and then stepped away. "And I'll go work with the others." She sent Iska a stern glance. "Remember that you're still not a hundred percent healed, Iska. Don't go wild."

"Yes, Doctor." Iska said with a smile and took a stance with the training sword ready. "Shall we?"

With a nod, I held up my own training sword. "Yes."

Despite her promise, the purple-skinned Twi'Lek gave me quite a fight. Her combat style was different from what I had encountered before, with lots of athletic moves and sweeping slashes, and in the beginning, I was too busy defending to make any meaningful attacks, but after a while I spotted some patterns in her attack and moved to exploit them.

That caught her by surprise and after she had been on the defensive for a while, I caught her with two quick attacks on her left leg and right arm, while her counter-attack caught my right leg.

Panting, we both stepped back.

"Good fight." Iska gasped, breathing heavily, which in my ears sounded extremely sexy.

"Yes, it was." I agreed as I tried to catch my breath. "I certainly got the training I was looking for."

"Likewise." She said with a smile.

Shakka came over, carrying bottles of water for us. "Here. You need this."

"Thank you." I said and looked around. The group of women were all having a break and were standing near us, drinking water.

Seeing my curiosity, Shakka introduced us. "Ladies, this is Thalen. Thalen, this is Fama Sul." She gestured in the direction of the green-skinned female. "She's a Mirialan and a pilot on a heavy freighter... or rather, she was, before running into Mahaw and his crew. Next is Choe Tran..." The blue-skinned and pinkish haired woman nodded with a smile to me. "... she's a Pantoran and a ship engineer. The three ladies by the treadmills are Tristana, Elanore, and Anna from Eshan."

Shakka looked apologetic at the. "I'm sorry, but I can't remember your professions."

One of them smiled slightly. "We're warriors... Our people usually are."

A long-forgotten memory suddenly surfaced. Echani, as the people of Eshan were called, was famous for being some of the best martial artists in the galaxy and if the rumour was correct, they were the ones that had invented vibro-weapons like the vibro-sword and vibro-rapier.

Martial Arts was a deeply integrated part of their culture as every Echani child was taught how to fight and no-matter what profession they chose later in life, most of them would continue to train the Martial Arts for the rest of their lives.

I nodded to the one that had spoken. "That is true, but do you have a profession?"

She regarded me for a moment and then said. "I was a captain of the escort vessel Firedancer. Elanore was my pilot, and Anna was the co-pilot as well as the navigator. We were escorting two freighters, when we were ambushed by a Hammerhead cruiser and several smaller craft as we left hyperspace." She shrugged lightly. "We never really had a chance as their ion cannons took down our shields and engine. We tried to fight off their boarding party but were overwhelmed by their Sith."

For a moment, I wondered why their names hadn't shown up on the list Yaki had made, but then remembered, that Yaki had only noted down those capable of doing something and the three Echani had most likely been in the infirmary back then.

On the other hand, it was more than likely, that I had found the original crew of the Mantis D-5, because that was the only one of Mahaw's ships that qualified as an escort vessel.

"Was the Mantis your own ship?" I asked, following my guess.

Elanore and Anna looked surprised at the question, but Tristana tilted her head slightly as she looked at me, seemingly satisfied with the question. "No. It belonged to the shipping company."

The blue-skinned Choe Tan chuckled. "Can you guess which ship I served on as well?

Since the Pantoran didn't seem like the military type, I said "The Lethisk-class armed freighter called the Jackpot?"

The chuckle turned into a laugh. "Correct."

Iska smiled. "I was a captain as well, but which ship did I Captain?"

I thought while I drank some of the water. She sounded sure that I couldn't guess it, but there weren't that many options left. "I think you were the captain of the Hammerhead-class cruiser, before Mahaw captured it."

Iska looked at me in total disbelief for a moment. "You're right... But how did you guess?"

"Limited ships." I explained. "Tristana captained the Mantis, so that was out. The same with the Dynamic-class freighter since Elise Samko captained that one. Choe Tan would have mentioned it, if the two of you were on the same ship, and the former captains of the Duchess were all male. It also couldn't be the Fury, because the Sith do not allow non-humans in their fleet unless they're Sith and you don't really strike me as one."

That brought a round of chuckles and I paused for a moment. "That only leaves the Hammerhead, because I've just experienced you in a fight and there's no way you'll be satisfied with a lightly armed transport like Roadrunner, Ranger or Barracuda."

The smile on the women's faces grew wider, as they nodded.

Shakka tilted her head a bit. "And you're not surprised that a Twi'Lek was the captain of a capital ship?"

I looked at her in surprise. "No. Is there anything about Twi'Leks I don't know about that makes them unable to command a capital ship?"

"No", she admitted. "But the rest of the universe tend to look at us as only good for entertainment."

I shrugged. "I guess that is a misconception born by the good looks, but as proven here beauty and skills is not mutually exclusive." I looked from one to another. "Your race are almost certainly the reasons why Mahaw and his people didn't press you into service, while your beauty made you suitable as entertainers. Skills didn't even enter that consideration."

"And with these wise words." Declared Shakka. "The break is over, ladies. Back to training."

Tristana looked at me. "You're sparring with Iska today, but can we spar another day?"

In all likelihood, she would win any vibro-blade match we had, but training with a superior opponent also gave me the opportunity to learn something new, so I nodded as I drank the rest of the water. "Only if you promise to teach m..."

The big wall screen in the gym suddenly changed from a tranquil forest picture to that of Tavune looking directly into the camera, with Resa in the background, causing me to stop speaking.

"Sir." Said Tavune with a broken voice as soon as he saw me. "The life support on Last Chance stopped working about five minutes ago. The engineers are working on restarting it."

"Very well, Mister Tavune." I said calmly, but there were ice-cold shivers running down my spine. If they couldn't restart it, the people in there only had six hours left before the oxygen level would lower to a point where people would start to faint and then die. I pushed the thought away. Now was not the time to panic.

Half the picture changed, as Resa called up the schematics of the Heraklon-class transport. "Sir, if we use the shuttles, we should be able to get at least some of our people off the ship and unto the Star-class freighters."

"One moment, Resa." I ordered, as I studied the diagram on the screen, thoughts racing in my head, before they focused on the airlocks. Suddenly I knew what to do and a quick estimate even showed that it would work. "Tavune, blur my background and give me captains Meistrin, Mivito, Zwul and Bobba on the screen, please."

With a slight hesitation, the four captains appeared on my screen, with Bobba looking pale, but collected.

"All right people, the life support on Last Chance has just failed and the engineers are days away from starting the reactor on the Epsilon-class." I said when they had all appeared. They looked horrified but before they had the chance to say anything, I continued. "They need time and that's exactly what we're going to give them. Captain Bobba, clear the area around your airlocks and place some guards there. I want them secure, so that people don't try to storm them. Captain Meistrin, get Chariot closer to Last Chance and grab it with tractor beams. Then I want you to put an emergency airlock between the two ships and override the automatic lock, so you can open the locks completely, enabling the two ships to share air. You better station some Black Dragons at the airlock as well."

They nodded and I turned my attention to the rest. "Captain Zwul, you do the same with Barracuda, but on the other side of the Last chance. This will take both your systems over the recommended levels, but we need time, and this is the only way to get it. Your engineers will most likely have to find a way to increase the airflow between the ships, but that shouldn't be a problem. You'll all need to station someone at the airlocks, ready to shut them if they rupture. Captain Mivito, I know that Roadrunner is on the secondary life support system, but I want you to ready airlocks in case one of the others breaks down."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Choe Tran signal to me, so I told the computer to mute me and looked at the blue-skinned and pinkish haired ship engineer. "Yes?"

"Sir, you could ask Chariot and Barracuda to remove the automatic switch between the primary and secondary life support." She hurriedly said. "That will enable them to run both simultaneously."

"Brilliant idea!" I said and unmuted the comm, before relaying what Choe Tran had said to the captains.

They smiled and nodded, so I finished off by saying. "Captain Bobba, please tell your passengers about the plan, so they don't panic." I nodded to them. "You got your orders. Get moving, so our people don't die."

"Yes, sir!"

They disappeared from the screen and were replaced by Resa and Tavune.

"Resa, how much time will it give us?" I asked her. "I did a quick estimate of four days, but an exact calculation would be nice."

She for silent for a few seconds, the LED in her temple shining blue. Then she smiled. "Four days with the regular life support running, twelve days with both the primary and secondary running on both Chariot and Barracuda."

"Thank you."

I closed the comm with a sigh of relief and turned towards Choe Tran again, bowing slightly. "Thank you, Engineer Tran. That advice might save hundreds of people."

"You're welcome." She mumbled.

I nodded to the rest. "Sorry, but it seems like I'm needed elsewhere. I'll see you later."

They said their goodbyes, but by then I was already on my way to the bridge.

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

Moving the three ships and establishing an airlock between them was a race against time and it was especially frustrating, because I couldn't do anything, except wait and watch.

Fortunately, it went faster than I had feared and four hours later I breathed a sigh of relief, as the captains reported, that the emergency airlocks were established and the fail-saves that prevented the inner and outer door from being opened at the same time, had been disconnected. Together, that allowed air to be circulated between the ships, keeping everybody alive, while the engineers worked on the Epsilon-class Repair ship.

Disaster avoided for now, I leaned back in the commander seat with a sigh of relief, but a moment later the intercom signalled an incoming call.

"Yes?"

The image of Shakka showed up. "Hello Commander. It's been a while since we had time to talk. Can Iska and I join you for dinner sometime soon?"

The last few times we had dinner, it had ended up with some spectacular sex, so I really didn't mind, but I needed to know exactly what she meant. "Both of you?"

A smile appeared on her face and there was a gleam in her golden yellow eyes, when she said. "Everybody needs to eat from time to time and it might make you feel less tense."

"That is true." I replied with a chuckle. "How about the day after tomorrow?"

"See you there, sir."

Still chuckling, I shook my head. Since I had started this journey the xenophobia that most of my people suffered from had been rapidly diminished.

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