Into the Chaos -- Author's note.

Welcome to the eighth 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 eighth 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 :)

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

Chapter 8 -- Finishing touches

Dreadnought Majestic, Snare system, the Labyrinth nebula. Year 2 ATC/ 3651 BBY

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people."

"who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

Holodrama

Dreadnought Majestic

I did have plans for a repeat of the first movie watching, but as it turned out the duty schedule didn't cooperate, and Elise Samko, Yaki and Titlow couldn't make it. So instead, I had invited XO Betty Nagos and her spouse Senior Mechanic Arthur Waydar.

However, since the movie was ready the same day as one of my dinner parties for the officers, I had invited Captain Jalmia Tarrick of the Hammerhead-class Banshee,

First Officer John Larstrin of the Wyvern-class Hawk and Tactical Officer Ramzed Hel of the Hammerhead-class Kilit, in addition to Chief Engineer Keller. The last was mostly there because he was still recovering and Shakka had flat out forbidden him to leave Majestic until he was fully healed, and she didn't trust him not to work if he was alone, so she came along as well.

Keller and Shakka were the first to arrive, with Shakka pushing Keller's repulsor chair, the Chief Engineer looking somewhat grumpy about having to sit in a medical chair. They were followed by Nagos and Waydar, who arrived hand in hand. As always when I saw them, I was struck by how different they were. Betty Nagos was a slim blue-skinned Pantoran that looked very small when standing next to her dark-skinned giant of a husband.

The next to arrive was Ramzed Hel. A tall, almost lanky, human male with dark hair, an easy smile, and clothes in bright green and blue colours. A welcome change from the rather dull uniforms I was used to seeing people in. He was followed a few moments later by John Larstrin, another human male who was a few shades lighter in skin tone and at least ten centimetres shorter than Ramzed.

The last one to arrive was Jalmia Tarrick, yet another human, but a female this time. Dark haired and dressed in a dark-green knee-length dress, she looked both good and very different from the sharp-witted naval officer that had done very well in any test I had put her through.

The setup was the same, with a dinner that was served while we saw the movie, so we didn't have to use titles, and I gave an explanation about it before we started.

"Yeah," chuckled Shakka, as both Betty Nagos and Waydar nodded at the explanation. "You're nodding now, but I bet you that you mess up before the night is over."

"No bet." Said Waydar, smiling his white smile. "I know you're right."

"It was worth a try." Commented Shakka, as the door opened and the server-droid came in with the appetizer. "Dinner is served, sirs."

"All right!" Said Betty Nagos enthusiastically. "Movie time!"

I nodded with a smile and as soon as everybody had gotten their food, I asked the computer to play the movie.

It started with a quick recap of the last episode, telling the story so far and then the second new thing showed up, which was a title screen where the name 'Dragon's Quest' appeared against a sparkling field of stars, followed by the episode name 'Centauri 21' written in a smaller font under it, before both titles exploded in a fiery conflagration. A few seconds later, that was replaced with us arriving at Centauri 21 and went right into Elise Samko talking Captain Bobba into surrendering the Last Chance in return for removing the slave-chip from him and his crew, and a chance to get his ship back.

The preparations to take on the pirates were neatly explained as having happened during our hyperspace trip and the taking of the pirate base went exactly like it happened, as it showed me in the prepared Sith disguise using an illusion to get the pirates to surrender, threatening to drop an asteroid on their base if they didn't comply.

"By the way, s... Thalen." asked Ramzed as he placed his glass on the table, the movement making his bright blue and green clothes contrast violently with the white tablecloth. "What would you have done if they had refused to surrender?"

"Dropped a small asteroid on the moon and asked them again." I answered dryly. "The tremors from the impact should have persuaded them to surrender. If it didn't, we would have to land and make a ground attack."

Waydar grimaced. "A ground assault against a fortified position is rarely a good idea."

"Agreed." I said, "Which was why I was trying to avoid it."

"Oh... That's me." Blurted Shakka suddenly, interrupting us.

Looking at the screen, I saw the Fury-class landing in the grand cave that served as a hangar. The pirates were lining up as they had been ordered to, and one of them had dragged Shakka along.

Like the first scene with Samko, the red Twi'Lek was wearing more clothes than I remembered, but she managed to make the doctor outfit she was wearing look sexy. Or rather the animators had managed it, and the movie followed her as she was escorted into the Fury, while the remaining troopers took the rest of the base.

The scene shifted to us coming out of the Fury and I had to admit to myself that we looked extremely badass, as theme music started playing while the ramp lowered to reveal me in my black armor, flanked by a squad of Black Dragons. A sight that caused the pirates on the screen to swallow nervously, as we marched towards them.

I suddenly remembered something and looked over at Waydar. "You didn't!"

He grinned, but before he could answer Nagos asked. "He didn't what?"

"When I was trying out the new armor, your genius husband here mentioned that since I was now in a holovid, I ought to have my own theme melody. Majestic, run the movie back thirty seconds and play it."

"Yes, sir"

The theme music started faintly the moment the ramp started lowering and increased in volume as the viewer was able to see more and more until it reached a crescendo as we started walking down the ramp towards the pirates.

"I might have mentioned something to that effect to the animator team," admitted Waydar, trying not to laugh openly. "But I hadn't expected them to follow my suggestion... It looks and sounds good, though."

"It works." Stated Jalmia with a smile. "I mean, I wasn't there but the scene still gave me the chills."

Capitulating, I sighed and turned my attention back to the screen, where I had left the freeing of the prisoners to Yaki to go search the rest of the base, and the animators had focussed on Yaki and the Black Dragons, as they freed some of the slaves, taking time to talk with each one, explaining that they were there to free them, but couldn't free all of them at once, until they knew if any of them would be a danger.

Then the scene cut to the short, but intense, fight with the animal shaped droids in Lord Mahaw's quarters, leading directly to where we were informed that a capital ship had arrived in the system and was heading towards the base.

Somewhat to my surprise, the animators had kept at least some of the conversation we had at that point, which made it as clear as transparisteel to everybody watching, that we, as a Chiss crew on a rescue mission, didn't need to stay and fight. We could just as easily have taken our ships, along with the freed Chiss, and hypered back to Alpha Viga, leaving the prisoners, slaves and plunder to Sharon the Red, but instead we chose to stay and fight for the prisoners.

I hadn't even considered that piece of information important, but by the looks of Betty Nagos, Waydar, Jalmia Tarrick and the rest, they were impressed by it, so I quietly decided that the animators knew what they were doing.

What followed was a tension-filled scramble to get some of the ships away, install the fighter-droids in the Fury and get the hardware ready, while the Black Dragons freed more prisoners.

"This is surprisingly exciting!" Declared Betty Nagos. "I've only heard a few stories and rumours, not the real thing." She looked at me. "This follows the real story, right?"

"Oh yes." I answered with a nod. "It's exactly as I remember it."

"Good." The XO said with a satisfied nod.

Waydar nodded in agreement, but didn't say anything, as the scene became a montage of Master Engineer Garcith hurrying to install the fighter droids and their control unit on the Fury, Samko franticly programming the Mimic Decoys and the rest getting the ships ready for combat under the direction of Meistrin, before finally taking off.

However, unlike what I expected, the scene didn't shift to space, but stayed at the base, showing how some of the freed prisoners and slaves, at the insistence of a wounded Captain Zu Iska, had prepared to resist Sharon the Red's pirates in case we lost the space battle.

Since it was new to me, I paid close attention as Iska had a heated debate with a Chiss Sergeant from the guarding troops, who refused to hand out weapons to the freed prisoners until they had heard that we had lost. Even sitting in an infirmary bed, Iska looked fierce as she argued with the sergeant, but as the Sergeant steadily refused to go against orders, Iska had gracefully accepted it and started to plan the defence of the base instead.

As most of the scene took place in the infirmary, the other patients were visible in the background from time to time, causing Keller to gulp as one background showed a sleeping or unconscious Fama Sul being attended to by a medical droid.

"Shakka, how bad was she hurt?" He asked in a low voice.

"Bad enough." Answered the Doctor with a sigh. "But you'll have to ask her if you want to know more. I don't give out patient details to anybody else." She paused and then added. "But if you want some personal advice... don't ask and be patient. Gravely wounded people don't like to talk about it and if they want to, they'll start themselves."

He nodded slightly as he glanced around. "Fair."

On the screen, the scene had shifted to an outside view of a Foray-class Blockade Runner flying through an asteroid field, followed by a scene with us ambushing it, while staying out of the range of its lasers. The mimic decoys and sliced transponder codes making it seem like there were a lot more Mantis and Furys than there really were.

"Smart move." Commented Jalmia Tarrick. "But wouldn't the lack of mass show up on the gravitronics?"

"Not in an asteroid field." Answered Ramzed and swallowed the food he had been chewing. "Too many objects to sort through and too much interference from the Ultrachrome, which I guess is why Thalen chose to fight there."

They looked over at me, making me nod. "Yes... at least that was one of the reasons. Being able to dodge behind a large rock if shot at was another reason."

There were some chuckles at the table, but they stopped as my animation started the negotiation with Sharon the Red, which ended with the complete surrender from the pirates as I promised them a ship to get home in.

"Better than they deserve." Mumbled Keller, obviously still affected by the sight of Fama Sul, making me nod. "Yes, but I wanted the ship intact and that was the only way I could think of to make them do it."

"Fair... oh, and by the way, that projection trick is really something."

I shrugged. "That one is just an illusion. I wouldn't be able to do it if they hadn't accepted the call we made, but on the bright side it saved us from at least two combats and that is always good."

"Agreed." Nodded John Larstrin.

The scene continued with us taking the ship and ferrying the pirates to the surface, with the exception of Chef Winston who stubbornly refused to leave. In the end the prize crew under the command of Ensign Mivito decided to let her be and carried on their mission, while the Dynamic-class freighter and one of the dropships went into hyperspace, heading back to Alpha Viga.

I took the opportunity to pause the movie, so the droid could remove the plates and serve the main course before I asked the computer to restart the movie again.

The first scene was the sudden appearance of Dark Maiden, Mahaw's Raiders last ship, along with an old Class VI Bulk freighter. That ended the peace and the screen exploded in ion and turbo laser fire as the battle commenced. Like the other combat scenes we had seen, this one was both intense and exciting, shifting between various ships to pinpoint critical moments.

To my amusement, the battle brought people to the edge of their seat and kept them there during the whole combat, only relaxing when the combat was over.

The scene shifted to the base, where the message about the victory in space caused people to cheer and celebrate. Some were dancing around, others were hugging, tears of happiness running down their chins.

I was slightly stunned by the sight. Being focused on winning the battle and then caught up in the practical details of the aftermath of the combat and having to catch Sharon the Red's transports, I haven't really thought about the people on the base, or rather the immediate effect the victory had on them. Since we for obvious reasons couldn't be present at both places at once, being there when the news of a victory reached people simply didn't happen for a naval officer involved in the actual combat and it was heart-warming to see.

"You know," said Jalmia Tarrick slowly and thoughtfully while running a hand through her black hair. "When you see these scenes in vids, they often look overdramatized and somewhat fake but seeing this makes me rethink a few of them."

Both Ramzed and John Larstrin nodded in agreement, with Larstrin saying. "Yes, I remember a few of them as well. Unless perfectly executed, they usually fall flat."

"Well, that one hit exactly right." Said Betty Nagos and looked at me, looking like she was about to ask a question, but then chuckled instead. "Never mind, you weren't there."

"It's still a hundred percent what happened." Said Keller with a slight grimace. "One of the engineers helped them process the security data from the base."

That made me blink in surprise. "We still have that?"

"Yes." He said with a nod. "Tavune uploaded it to Duchess' memory bank before wiping the memory of the security system on the base before we left."

I nodded slightly. We had wanted to make sure nobody knew more about us that they had to and wiping the database had ensured that.

On the screen the scene had shifted to the capture of Sharon the Red's two Sho-class transports, but after that thrilling combat, that was undramatic as we were able to meet them at the hyperspace exit and ambush them with Ion-cannons, eventually flying them back to Centauri Delta.

Master Engineer Gacith and his engineers went over the Sho-class transports and Chief Engineer Poul Keller was introduced to the viewer.

"I didn't look like that!" Protested the Engineer, as he saw himself on the screen. "My hair looks all messed up!"

I sent him a grin. "Sorry, Keller, but you looked exactly like that, dishevelled hair and all. They even got the jumpsuit right."

That shut him down, though he grumbled as the scene continued and I was sure that whatever meds Shakka had given him were starting to wear off.

The next part was interesting, as it showed what had happened while I slept after the long flight back.

While the ships were fixed, Meistrin, Samko and Yaki organized the rest, emptying the cargo hold of the bulk freighter so we could leave it for the pirates without also leaving them valuables that would allow them to get new ships later.

It also showed the gratitude of the freed prisoners as they had time to get a bath, new clothes and even some decent food. To my surprise, the last part was organized by Chef Winston, and now it was my turn to ask if that was true.

Shakka nodded in response. "Yes. Elise Samko and Yaki were trying to organize it, when Mivito pointed out that there was an experienced chef on board the Foray that could do it. So, Chef Winston took over and did a better job than any of us had ever dreamed of."

We turned our attention back to the screen just in time to see the introduction of Master Gunner Kansen and with that, the information that Sharon the Red had Chiss among her prisoners and our decision to go rescue them. That was followed by the introduction of Resa on board the Phantom-class Yacht and finally us saying goodbye to those of the free prisoners that had elected to take one of the Sho-class transports to the nearest safe area.

To my amusement, the animators had included the scene where Yaki and I were standing outside the cave complex in the setting sun, looking at the Sho-class transport as its repulsors lifted it off the ground. Yaki took off her helmet first and on the screen, she shook her head a bit to loosen the black hair, the animation of her looking ridiculous good as the hair fell into place, the animation quietly asking. "Do you think they'll make it?

The animation of me followed suit a moment later, and while I remembered how good it was to feel the wind against my skin, the animation-team had gone a few extra steps as the viewpoint shifted from the close-up of Yaki to a full body picture of me, in what could only be described as a 'hero pose.'

The black armor gleamed dully in the faint light of the setting sun, the hilts of my lightfoils and handgun glinting momentarily in the light, the wind making my hair weave and the long black cape billow gently behind me, as I watched the transport becoming smaller against the twilight sky.

The picture changed to a close-up, where I looked way better than when I look in the mirror, and the setting sun reflected in my eyes as my animation answered Yaki."Yes. We've taken out most of the pirates in this area. With a bit of luck, they should reach their goal in a week or so."

I swallowed a sigh. While I did agree to have the animators tell the story of how we got here, I hadn't expected them to create a cross between a holodrama and a freaking propaganda vid, but that was exactly what they had done, and they had even done a stellar job at that. The storytelling was well-paced, the action exciting and the animators had succeeded in keeping the characteristics of all the higher-ranking officers, while simultaneously making them seem just as competent as in real life.

The closing scene of the movie was my speech to those who had elected to join us, which the animators had elected to use almost in its entirety, but the music that underscored it, along with the close-ups of the people listening, make it seem a lot grander than I remembered it.

"That was fantastic." said Ramzed Hel when the end-credits appeared on the screen. "I've heard stories about this, but seeing it, even as an animation, is really something else."

Waydar nodded. "I agree... and you might not think much about it but trust me: For people that know about the Sith, it's a huge comfort to know and see that you not only have beaten them before, but that you can use the Force yourself."

Ramzed chuckled. "Not to mention, that if you ever want to retire as a naval officer, you could have a career as a holodrama hero. That scene outside the cave was epic."

That statement made the rest of them nod in unison, with me not really knowing what to say.

Fortunately, Keller used the pause to say. "Aside from that, it's exciting to see how fast the fleet grew. I know that it all boils down to life support, but it's still fun. I mean at the time, we were running out of people to crew those ships."

"It's been a problem ever since." I said dryly. "And if you don't believe me, ask Commander Samko. She swears I'm giving her grey hair from having to juggle so many positions on so many ships with so few people."

"If you don't mind me asking, do we have enough people to crew all the ships we have repaired?" asked Larstrin curiously.

I shook my head. "No, we'll have to leave all but one of the Forey-class Blockade Runners behind in order to take some Cargo King Super Freighters with us. Even with a skeleton crew the Forey takes three times as much crew as one of the Super Freighters, so by only taking one of the Forey's with us, we can take three freighters... along with two Rock-Class Super Heavy freighters."

"Why?" Asked Jalmia Tarrick. "I thought we had enough cargo space and while I can't remember the stats of those ships from the top of my head, I know that the Rock-class can move a lot of goods."

I silently agreed with her. Being the larger of the two ship-types, they could carry no less than three hundred thousand tons of cargo. I had thought that three Cargo King Super Freighters would be enough to transport everything we had found, but according to Keller, the three Super Freighters were filled with useful materials, while the two Rock-class Heavy Freighters had been almost empty when we found them.

"That depends on what we run into." Said Betty Nagos and explained that if we encountered Darth Malgus or a similar large force, we might be forced to give the ships back to the Empire. Having the MX5's and the five freighters allowed us to keep most of the cargo and have life support enough to transport everybody out.

"Won't they recognize the MX's?" Asked Tarrick with a slight frown.

"No." Smiled Keller. "The MX5-series was a secret experiment, and they don't show up in any of the ordinary databases the Empire has on their ships." He paused and added. "Though it might be smart to rename them just to be on the safe side. You can't easily search for something you don't know the name of."

"Oh, that makes sense." Said Ramzed and leaned slightly forward to look at me. "Thalen, do you have any thoughts on what kind of strategy you would use if we ever encountered the Empire? I mean a large fleet like Darth Malgus' fleet."

I nodded with a chuckle. "Yes. I plan on running away, going into hyperspace as fast as possible." Some of the others laughed, but Larstrin looked surprised so I continued. "Look, I don't pick fights I cannot win, and any major Imperial fleet would have a lot of Harrower-class Dreadnoughts, a class that has just as much firepower as a Dragon-class. Yes, the Dragon is superior to the Harrower in many other ways, but the Empire has superior numbers and they will rip us apart. Sure, we'll take some of them along with us, but in a straight up fight, we'll die." I thought for a moment. "I want you to look up the 'Tingel Arm campaign' when you get back to the Kilit and make a comparison between the situation the republic fleet was in at the time and the one we will be in, when we get out of here."

"Yes, s... Thalen." He said with a slight sigh.

"You knew it would happen." Chuckled Larstrin.

I smiled a bit. Whenever I had dinner with younger officers, who tended to ask interesting questions, I had a habit of handing out assignments that would teach the officer the point he or she had been asking about.

It was a technique I had picked up from having done them countless times myself at the Chiss Naval Academy, and I had found them extremely educational. Fortunately, so did most of the officers I had handed assignments to, and I had no plans on stopping. It wasn't the first time Ramzed was here for a dinner and it wasn't the first time I had given him an assignment. Last time it had been on another battle and his thoughts about it had been surprisingly good.

"Why's the cargo so important by the way?" asked Tarrick. "I mean, it's not like we've found anything hugely valuable."

"That is correct, but we have a lot of it." I said with a smile. "When we reach civilization again, our people need some money to start their new life and that is what the cargo is here for. I plan on selling or trading it to give the crew, including all of you, a better start on a new life, but four thousand people is a lot of people, so we need a lot of cargo."

"Ah." Chuckled Shakka. "I just hope we find a peaceful planet then."

"That is going to be the biggest hurdle." I admitted. "This area of the galaxy is by and large lawless as soon as you leave the patrol-zones of the larger, more populous, planets."

Betty Nagos nodded at that. "According to Captain Iska, who used to escort convoys between Ligmor, Kintal and Zagrass in the Kintal sector, even a Hammerhead-class cruiser isn't enough to discourage pirates and the like."

It was the truth, but not all the truth. At least not in my opinion. The problem was that the Hammerhead-class cruiser was a cruiser in name only and most likely old surplus from somewhere else in the galaxy. It was even an old model, being roughly equivalent to a modern frigate, as it only carried two turbolasers and a lot of lasers. That made sense when dealing with pirates, but a modern Hammerhead-class cruiser as those used in the latest war had twenty light and ten medium turbo lasers, aside from the ten laser cannons for defence.

For a pirate, or anybody else going up against a Hammerhead, there was a world of difference. If Lord Mahaw had shown up in a modern Hammerhead, the battle against him would have been a completely different story and one that had a good chance of ending with us retreating or dying.

"Well," I said. "Commander Samko has mentioned a few peaceful planets, so they have to be out there somewhere, and I just want to be ready if we happen to find them." I thought for a moment. "Anyway, there's something going wrong with the communication if any of you don't know this, and it's something we need to fix as soon as possible. The crew needs to know what we're doing and why we're doing it. Not in every detail, but at least in general."

"You're right and I'll fix it tomorrow." Promised Betty Nagos.

"Oh, can we backtrack a bit?" Asked Waydar and continued when I nodded. "What was that about renaming the MX5s?"

Keller chuckled. "Thalen and I agreed that renaming them would lessen the chance of anyone hearing the name knowing what they really are, but we simply haven't gotten around to do it, so if any of you can come up with a good name for the class, let us know."

Ramzed looked thoughtful. "Does it have to keep with the current theme of Dragon types? I mean Dragons, Wyverns and Drakes are all different versions of a greater class known as dragons."

Keller looked at me. "What's your opinion?"

"We might as well keep the theme." I told him. "But I would have to insist on a one-word name... No Kell Dragons or Star Dragons, please."

I had asked the Majestic about names of dragon types, but most of those in the database had names like the ones I had just mentioned.

That caused some frowns on the people around the table as they thought, and I used the pause to eat some more of the delicious food.

"This is not easy." Chuckled Betty Nagos after a moment of silence. "Have you asked the computer?"

Nodding, I swallowed the bite I had been chewing on. "Yes... and there's a long list of dragon-like creatures, but very few of them are in one word and most of them sound awkward when used as a ship class."

"Yes, I was running Nightdragon-class, Penna Dragon class and several others in my head and they didn't really work." She sighed and looked around at the other guests. "Any ideas?"

Most of the others shook their heads, leaving Jalmia Tarrick as the only one that looked thoughtfully into the air. The human woman blinked a few times as she suddenly discovered that everybody in the room was looking at her. "Oh, sorry. On my home world we have several legends about dragons, and one of them involved a dragon called Fafnir, which I think would be a good name for a class of warships... I just can't remember if Fafnir was the name of the dragon type or the name of the dragon itself."

"Majestic." Said Keller. "What kind of dragon is a Fafnir?"

"Subject not found, sir." The computer replied after a moment. "Do you want to extend the search to include non-dragons?"

"Yes... is there a type of ship called a Fafnir class?"

"Not according to my data." The computer answered.

"Thank you." Said Keller and looked at us. "Well, at least the name is not taken."

"Fafnir-class." Said Ramzed slowly, trying the word and nodded. "It does roll off the tongue quite nicely."

I tried it myself and agreed. "Yes, it does."

A smile spread on Keller's face. "So, the MX5-class will become the Fafnir-class?"

I looked around at the others, seeing smiles and nods, causing me to nod as well. "Yes, they will. At least unless Captain Tristana is set against it... it is her ship after all."

"She'll love it." Predicted Keller and was about to say more when he was interrupted by an urgent call from the bridge.

"On screen." I commanded and the screen blinked as Iska's face suddenly appeared. "Commodore, a ship just dropped out of hyperspace, right in the middle of one of the giant emission beams from the pulsar." The screen changed, to show Iska as a picture-in-picture, while the main picture showed a yacht slowly tumbling towards some other ships. Streamlined and sleek, it might once have been a beautiful ship, but it looked like somebody had used the ship for target practice. There were large gaps in the armor from enemy fire and while it looked like the ship may once have had several laser turrets, those were mostly scrap by now.

"I'll be there in a moment. Thalen out." I told Iska and stood from the table as the screen switched off. "Sorry about the abrupt ending, people, but I'm afraid that I'll have to call this short." I glanced over at the three visiting officers. "Those interested can join me on the bridge."

"Except for the Chief Engineer." Said Shakka firmly. "He belongs back in the infirmary."

"Yes, doctor." I nodded.

Keller looked like he was about to object, but one look at Shakka's face made him close his mouth again. As sweet as Shakka was under normal circumstances, only a fool messed with her medical opinions and Keller wasn't a fool.

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

Unexpected visitors

Dreadnought Majestic

" There's always going to be the circumstances you can't plan for."

From the Holy Book of War

The wardroom was located close to the bridge and it didn't take long for us to get there.

"What do we have, Mister Tavune?" I asked as I walked past him to look at the screens.

"It's a Nova-class yacht." Tavune answered immediately as the stats from the database rolled over the screen. "... and it's in trouble!"

I nodded slightly at that. With the direction the Yacht was moving in, it didn't take a nav-computer to figure out that the yacht would hit at least one of the other ships, before we had a chance to rescue those inside, but unless they hit it straight on, there was a chance that someone would survive.

"Tavune, get me Captain Culgoo on Nautilus. All other ships stay right where they are, ready to maneuverer!" I ordered and looked at a screen as Captain Culgoo showed up. A middle-aged human, he had dark hair with white, as well as a carefully groomed moustache that almost hid a thin upper lip.

"Captain Culgoo, can you get one of the hooks on the Nova-Class yacht that just dropped out of hyperspace and into an emission beam?"

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

It wasn't the first time we had tried to pull something out of an emission beam, and the engineers on the Nautilus had developed a launcher that could catch a good-sized ship, which could then be dragged away using an extremely strong, thin wire.

"Do it." I ordered. "And take care. That Nova-class yacht looks like it was running from something and that something might drop out of hyperspace any time now."

The smile disappeared as he nodded. "Yes, sir."

I switched off the channel and looked at the screen, while Iska ordered everybody to stay in formation. Still tumbling uncontrolled, the Nova-class yacht had reached the first ship and as I watched, the entire engine section was destroyed in a collision with a large ore hauler. While it looked bad, it was a stroke of luck for those inside it, as a direct, bow first, impact would have smashed the front section of the ship and likely killed a lot more people, instead the impact lowered the speed and sent the Nova-class yacht tumbling away, parts from the destroyed engine trailing it.

"Mass alert!" Called Tavune suddenly. "Two more freighters!"

The two newcomers weren't as lucky as the Nova-class yacht, as one of them exited hyperspace directly in front of yet another ore hauler. Even if the engines had still been running, and they weren't, I doubted they would have had time to make evasive manoeuvres to avoid hitting anything and a second later the ship struck the ore hauler with enough speed to disintegrate the newcomer and split the ore hauler in two.

"Ouch." Said Iska with a grimace and glanced at the screen, where the other newcomer was flying into the cloud of debris from the destroyed ore hauler. "Without shields that Dynamic-class freighter is done for."

I glanced over at the screen showing the stats and discovered that Iska had been spot on with the identification. The ships that had dropped from hyperspace were indeed Dynamic-class freighters like the one Elise Samko had captained when I had met her on Alpha Viga. According to the database it was a relatively rare, but popular, ship here in the Chaos, since it had larger living quarters for the crew than most other ships of its size.

As I looked back on the view screen, Iska's prediction for the future of the XS-freighter had proven true. The hundreds of small pieces of metal ore and hull fragments hammered the hull of the XS freighter and while the armor deflected most of them, the hull was still pierced countless times, leaking air into space.

"I'm glad I'm not in one of those." Mumbled Iska, making me nod in agreement. That the fragments were able to get into the hull, didn't mean that they were able to get out again, causing the fragments to ricochet around inside the ship, destroying everything on their way, and making the inside of those ships a living nightmare.

Pushing the thought aside, I looked at the screen following the Nova-class yacht as it drifted away from the ship it had collided with, slowly tumbling around its own axis.

"Mass alert to the right! Frigate-size." called Tavune once more, sounding surprised that even more ships were dropping into the system.

This time it was a warship of some sort, most likely a modified freighter. At almost two hundred meters in length, it looked to be heavily armored, but lightly armed and it didn't fare much better than the other ships as it rammed into one of the Interdictor-class cruisers. It might have been equipped with thick armor, but the interdictor-class was almost twice as large with eight times the mass and the modified fighter broke in two, as the Interdictor folded around it. To make it worse, the impact propelled both ships into another emission beam, where they collided with yet another ship, smashing the modified freighter as it was squashed between the two larger ships.

Watching the spectacle unfolding on the screen I understood how incredibly lucky we had all been when we arrived here. If we hadn't done an emergency exit at the time we did, it could have been our ships that had been smashed against one of the much larger ones already here, and not 'just' one of the Kolareth-class military transports.

That alone had been bad enough, but it could just as easily have been a catastrophe like what I was looking at right now, as the chance of finding anyone alive on that Hammerhead was close to zero.

"Two XS freighters AND a modified medium freighter." Said Iska with a shake of her head. "What or who in the world is that yacht transporting?"

"Well, if they were chasing it, it must be something valuable enough for them to go after it, which is not the same as saying that the cargo is valuable for everybody. The cargo could be culturally significant, only valuable to a certain group of people." I said thoughtfully. "No matter what, all of them took the Hyperspace jump using the same vector, and almost at the same time. Either in a pursuit situation or a coordinated jump."

"Either way, it didn't work out well for them." Commented Iska. "Another question, and a big one at that, is if they're friends or foes to each other. Hmmm... Comm, get some close up of that yacht. Are there any markings on it?"

"No, sir." Came the answer from the comm section. "It's completely bare."

"Well, it was worth a try." I said, studying the close-ups as Tavune routed them to the main view screen. "Nice yacht, by the way."

"Yes, it looks good, sir." Agreed Iska. "But then again, it was made by Alderaan Royal Engineers, so it's difficult to be surprised about that."

I swallowed a snort. My extensive research on non-Chiss ships had focused on military ships and despite a lot of studying my knowledge of civilian or commercial ships or shipbuilders was still seriously lacking. I did know the most famous ones, like Kuat Drive Yards (KDY) and Corellian Engineering Corporation (CEC), but there were so many shipbuilders in the world that it was almost impossible to know them all, and I had never heard about Alderaan Royal Engineers, though it obviously was famous for building good looking ships.

"Let's hope it's also solid enough for us to get the survivors out of it, before it collapses on them."

"Yes, sir." The purple Twi'Lek replied. "Fortunately, Alderaan Royal Engineers makes extremely durable ships, so there might be a chance the crew still lives."

"Good, let's get the survivors out of the ship. Then we can try to figure out why three... pirate ships, I guess they are or were... were willing to follow that Nova-class yacht."

Iska nodded. "A trio of ships, with two XS-freighters and a modified freighter are usually either pirates, privateers or members of some sort of private enterprise. They might be low-level Mercenaries. There's no way to know at the moment."

"Lieutenant Karnos." I called as I raised my voice a little. "Give me an educated guess. Privates, privateers, low-level mercenaries or something else?"

"Mercenaries or pirates acting in the same manner." The tactical officer said after a small pause. "Judging from the marks on the yacht, they were trying to destroy it and not just stop it." She thought for a moment. "I think this was a straight 'find-and-destroy' mission."

"Lieutenant Ramzed?" I asked.

He took a moment to think it over. "It's hard to say, sir, but I'm leaning in the same direction as Lieutenant Karnos."

"May I add something, sir?" asked Tavune and continued after seeing my nod. "The close-up of the XS freighters showed an Ion cannon on each, but it is almost impossible to say if they used it on the yacht or what effect it had if they did. However, there is one interesting picture." He pressed a few keys and a close-up of an XS-freighter showed on the view screen. "This is the left side of the ship and it looks like that dual laser there ..." He drew a circle around a destroyed weapon. "... is damaged beyond repair. However, aside from that, the rest of the last three ships don't show any combat damage, so unless there was a fourth ship that took the blunt of the Nova's lasers, they didn't hit anything hard enough to break through the shields." He called up the general outline of the Nova. "That yacht is rather heavily armed, with four heavy lasers and two normal lasers, but the heavy lasers can only cover the front firing arcs, with the normal lasers covering the rear. I think that Nova was running as fast as it could, sir. Otherwise, we ought to see a lot more damage on the three other ships."

"Good points, all of you. Thank you." I said and looked at the screen again, thoughts running in my head.

"Excuse me, sir." Said Ramzed after some silence. "But what do you think?"

"Well, you all gave some good guesses, but there's a chance that all of you might be jumping to conclusions." I said with a chuckle. "We have absolutely no evidence that the Nova on one hand and the two freighters and the Hammerhead on the other hand are enemies." I nodded in the direction of the screen showing the Nova. "With four heavy lasers, that yacht is an even better choice as a pirate ship than the XS's. I'm guessing they all have Rank 2 hyperdrives, so if they're working together there's a chance that their prey or target will arrive later. Depending on the differences in hyper engines and the length of the jump, that could take anywhere from hours to days." I gestured at the screens. "So, for now we'll see if there's anyone alive on the Nova and try to read its database, but I want a constant watch on all ships and the engines on stand-by mode, ready to manoeuvre away from any incoming ships to avoid collisions. We will know more once the Nautilus gets a hook in the yacht and we can investigate it."

"Yes, sir."

Looking over at the guests, I gave them a smile. "Officers, it was a pleasant evening, but now you better get back to your own ships."

Ramzed, Larstrin and Jalmia Tarrick saluted. "Yes, sir."

After they had left the bridge, I turned to look at the Nova-class Yacht again, this time diving into the Force and sending out my senses to the ship, searching for any possible hint of the dark side, but finding nothing. On the bright side, there were still people alive on the ship, their life force shining dim, but steady.

I turned my force senses to the other ships, but they showed no signs of life. We would still investigate them, but with people still alive on the Nova, that was where the focus had to be.

Activating a channel to the Nautilus, I informed the captain about it, and then turned towards Resa. "How much air do you think is left in the Nova?"

"Since they're still alive, I'll assume that the blast doors worked." She said with a smile and turned toward the comm section. "Tavune, is the Nova leaking air?"

He checked his read-outs. "A little, but not enough to indicate a breach of the bridge or crew-quarters. Every other section of the ship is open to space one way or another."

The blue LED in the android's temple blinked as she turned her head towards me. "If that remains true, they have about seven hours. With a crew of four, that is... but any passengers pushing the number of living beings beyond that, will lower that time frame."

"Thank you." I said absently as I looked at the screen. The people in the Nova were in luck. The yacht was still inside an emission beam, but the change of direction from the collision had sent the yacht on a course that took them ever closer to the edge, making it easier for the Nautilus to get a hook in them.

"Astrogator, how long until the Nova will have left the emission beam?"

"Four hours." Jandar San told me.

That meant that even if everything went wrong with the hook, we would still have time to save the people inside, provided they weren't seriously wounded. Using the hook would just make it faster.

I swallowed a yawn. It had been a long day and one that wasn't over yet. However, with Nautilus in charge of the operation, I had nothing to do for now, so I might as well relax for a few hours.

"Captain, if you need me, I'll be in my quarters."

"Yes, sir."

I turned to walk towards the cabin, when Resa said. "Oh, by the way, sir. I've sent you something that you might find interesting. If you could look at it at some point, I would be very grateful."

I smiled and nodded. "When I have the time, I'll do it."

"Thank you, sir."

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

I did plan on sleeping, but my mind kept trying to figure out if the Nova-class yacht was in league with the other ships or not, so instead I accessed the database and looked up some of major shipbuilders in the galaxy, spending some time skimming through articles about Kuat Drive Yards, Corellian Engineering Corporation, Core Galaxy Systems, Rendili Hyperworks and StarDrive, and Republic Sienar Systems.

As they were the one responsible for most of the ships we have found here, it was interesting reading, but ultimately it was the ships themselves that were important and not their builders. At least in a tactical sense. The engineers who had to repair the ships would think otherwise, as many spare parts depended on the type developed by the shipbuilders. It was for that reason that Keller had chosen a reactor from a Hammerhead to use in the Interdictor, as the parts were the same, making the connections much easier.

Useful as it was, reading about the various shipbuilders eventually became boring and I leaned back in the seat to relax, perhaps even get a power nap.

I almost made it, but then the intercom warned me of an incoming call from Captain Culgoo on Nautilus, inviting me to a group conference.

I accepted and a moment later, I was looking at Yaki, Iska and Captain Culgoo, the latter wasting no time and quickly explaining that the Nautilus had placed a hook in the Nova-class and dragged it out of the emission beam from the pulsar. At that point Yaki took over and explained that the Marines had boarded the yacht via one of the airlocks and had found three people alive, but severely wounded. All three had been transported to the Majestic and were currently under guard in the infirmary, after having been scanned for just about everything.

"The word 'people' is rather vague, Commander Yaki. Can you be more specific?" I asked.

"They're humans or at least close to it, sir."

I swallowed a laugh. "I meant, are they passengers or crew, and was it a pirate ship or not?"

"I don't know yet, sir." Yaki said, looking thoughtful. "We can't access their database as long as the ship doesn't have power and none of the three are capable of talking right now. There were a lot of dead people in that ship, mostly due to the ion field taking the inertial compensators out and frankly it's a mess."

I nodded. The inertial compensators made sure that people inside a spacecraft weren't subject to outside powers like g-forces. Without them, most people would die from the rapid acceleration, deceleration or any other maneuverer a spacecraft could make, and there was a good chance that the sheer force of the engine-first collision had killed the rest of the crew.

"In addition to that," continued Yaki. "Despite having a relatively large cargo hold for a yacht, the ship carried no cargo that we could find." She smiled a little. "We might find more once the engineers have taken the ship apart, but for now, I have to say that they didn't carry anything noteworthy in terms of valuables."

"And the people?" Asked Iska. "Not the survivors. I mean the dead ones... did anyone of those seem like a reasonable target for an attack?"

Yaki shook her head. "On the surface of it, they looked quite ordinary. The crew did have a sort of uniform, but it was basically just the same kind of jumpsuit most spacers use anyway, so I don't even know if it can be called a uniform at all."

"So basically, we're no wiser than we were before." I thought for a moment. "Keep the wounded under guard, Commander. If they wake up unexpectedly, I want them transferred to a secure cell until I can talk with them."

"Yes, sir."

"Captain Culgoo, excellent job at getting a hook in the yacht. I look forward to seeing if the engineers find anything at all in that yacht."

He smiled, making the thin moustache move. "It might take a few days, sir, but we'll get there."

I nodded. "Good. Well, you all know how to do your jobs, so I'll just look forward to seeing what happens."

"Yes, sir."

That marked the end of the conversation, so I said my goodbyes and switched the channel off, before I leaned back in the seat again, shaking my head. Aside from the noble action of saving three people, we weren't much wiser now, so I guess that we would just have to wait patiently and see if another ship dropped in the box system.

Remembering what Resa had said when I left the bridge, I discovered that she had indeed sent me a message, so I opened it and started to read.

As I had expected, it was another ship design, which made it number four from her, with the first being the Dragonclaw. The second and third had been suggestions for two different kinds of bombers, both of which I had rejected. Not because of design errors, but they would take a lot of work and resources for too small a gain.

I started reading, hoping it wasn't yet another bomber. It wasn't. In short, it was the blueprints for another starfighter, but this one was built from all the pieces that weren't used in the Dragonclaw.

Unlike when she spoke, Resa was usually straight to the point in writing and this time it was no different.

Basically, she had taken the hull from the Aurek starfighter, since we had a lot of those as spare parts due to the way the Aureks were constructed, and constructed two new wings, each with a twin ion engine from a Sith Interceptor. However, unlike the variable-geometry wings on the original Aurek, these much larger wings were swivel-mounted, which in theory provided vectored-thrust control to the craft and gave it unmatched manoeuvrability, compared to any other craft in the database.

I stopped reading for a moment and thought it over. Using the twin-ion engines from the Sith fighter was a stroke of genius, since they were small, but powerful, and we had a lot of those. They had been too small for the Dragonclaw, but by using one in each wing in addition to the engine the Aurek already had would not only enable the craft to carry a greater payload without lowering the top speed and manoeuvrability, and since the Aureks hyperdrive was incorporated into the same unit, it would also give the new craft the ability to go into hyperspace.

So far it sounded promising, so I jumped over all the calculations proving that it was doable and went straight to the weapon payload, blinking in surprise as I saw the list.

The craft had the heavy lasers from the Aureks mounted in the wings, along with the ion missile launcher from a Sith bomber. Knowing we would have problems getting proton torpedoes out here, she had eliminated the launcher from the hull of the Aurek and installed the two rapid-fire lasers from the Sith fighter there instead.

All in all, the craft had two heavy lasers, two rapid-fire lasers and two ion-missile launchers. Granted, due to their age the rapid-fire lasers were slightly less powerful than the newer weapons in the Dragonclaw, and the missiles had a lesser yield than the proton torpedoes. The same went for the heavy lasers from the Aureks, but the thing all the weapons had in common was that we had them, and their ammunition, in abundance from taking apart so many Sith fighters, ditto bombers and Aureks, and they weren't so much weaker than their more modern equivalents that they were useless.

As before, I skimmed the next few parts showing the calculations, and from my experience with the Dragonclaw, I had expected Resa to have at least one prototype built already, but in her writings Resa explained that the stumbling block was the control systems. With the Dragonclaw she had been able to tweak the existing control systems, but the swivel-mounted wings required more programming before it was useable and after using most of the scanner parts in the Dragonclaw, we had to use the fabricators to produce more parts before she could make a prototype.

As far as I remembered, we had found five-hundred-and-forty-four intact Aureks and by my last calculations, we only needed three-hundred-and-seventy to bring us to a full complement of fighters, meaning that we had a surplus of hundred-and-seventy intact Aureks, along with all the spare parts and an additional fifty damaged fighters.

We had also looted all the nearby Interdictors for Sith Interceptors and their spare parts in order to build the Dragonclaws, so we ought to have enough and even if we didn't, there were plenty more where they came from. In other words, we had enough Aureks, weapons and twin ion engines to build and test this new craft.

So, we could build it, making the single remaining question rather easy: Should we?

It was a question I pondered for a while since it wasn't as straightforward as one might think. The Aurek was a strikefighter, designed to be excellent against enemy capital ships and mediocre against enemy fighters. The M7 Nightsinger and the Dragonclaw were both Interceptors, excellent at hunting down enemy fighters and smaller ships, but not that good against capital ships.

Resa's new craft sounded more like what was known as a snubfighter in the Republic. A well balanced starfighter, that was good, but not excellent, against almost all possible targets, be it other starfighters, capital ships or ground-based installations. As far as I remembered, snubfighters were also equipped with a hyperdrive, just like the new craft.

There was little doubt in my mind that it was better than both the MK VI and the S13 SuperSting. Fast and nimble, but with minimal armor and shields, and no hyperdrive, both of those were really scouts no matter how the Imperial Navy chose to use them.

What it came down to was exactly how fast and nimble this craft was. From the calculations it looked to be even faster and nimbler than a SuperSting, while hitting a lot harder, but while everything looked good, it wasn't built or tested yet, making that the top priority.

Glancing at the clock, I stood from the seat. Resa would be off duty in half an hour. "Majestic, tell Resa I would like a word with her when her shift is over."

"Yes, sir."

Despite being a droid, Resa looked nervous when she came into my office half an hour later. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes." I gestured at the wall screen, where the schematics of the new fighter was shown. "This is a very good idea, and I would like you to build three prototypes for testing." She lit up in a smile and looked like she was about to say something, but I stopped her. "One moment... IF you can get the control program to work and IF they pass the test, then we discuss if we should build them... But I have to say that I'm in favour of them because you have used the parts we didn't use for the Dragonclaw, combined with the surplus Aureks. However, I will insist that you load the data into the simulator as fast as possible after building the prototype."

"Yes, sir." Resa replied with a grin.

"Just remember, that all urgent projects have priority in regard to the engineers and the fabricators... oh and I need to know how many of these new crafts you can make with the current spare parts."

"Ninety-five." Resa answered immediately. "That's all the ion missile launchers we have at the moment."

"Get more." I ordered. "I want you to be able to make one-hundred and forty-four with some extra ion missile launchers as spare parts."

"Twelve wings with twelve fighters in each." She said with a nod.

"Yes... IF the craft performs as well as you promise." I stated with a smile. "So, get the system control software right, build those prototypes first and then we'll see. Hmm... What are you going to call this new craft?"

"Well, since the first ones were names Dragonclaws, I'm considering calling these Dragonfangs."

That made me chuckle. "Well, that certainly fits the dragon theme... and it'll sound good along with the Dragonclaws... If you can get the prototypes to work."

"Yes, sir. I'll get on it immediately." She said and practically ran out of the room.

Chuckling at her eagerness, I stood and stretched, discovering how tired I really was, and I had just decided to go to bed, when the door chimed.

"Come." I said with a sigh.

Obediently, the doors opened, and Iska walked inside, wearing a smile on her beautiful face. "Just out of curiosity, sir. What did you tell Resa? I don't think I've ever seen her this happy before. She was even giggling."

I chuckled and gestured in the direction of the wall screens showing the new fighter. "That if her new fighter design was as good as she thought it would be, I would give her permission to build them."

Iska smiled. "Yes, that would make her happy. Is it good?"

"That remains to be proven, so I guess she ran off to talk with the engineers." I said and yawned. "Iska, I'm tired to the bone and was on my way to bed. If you're tired as well and want to cuddle, come along. Otherwise, I'll have to ask you to leave."

She looked surprised for a moment, but then smiled. "Cuddling sounds good and I am tired."

"Good." I said as I walked into the bedroom, narrowly avoiding stepping on one of the panther droids that was laying on the floor, looking like any other big cat, and began to undress.

"You know," said Iska from behind. "I thought you were sexy the first time I saw you. Seeing and hearing you deal with a crisis made you even sexier, but with all the training you get here, you just keep getting sexier."

"Well, thanks." I replied with a grin and turned my head to look at her. Somehow, she had already gotten out of her uniform and was standing only dressed in her undies. The mere sight of her sculpted body making my dick twitch. "You're superhot yourself, and under most other circumstances, I would have opted for some relaxing sex, but honestly I'm so tired I just want to fall asleep with you in my arms."

Iska looked a little surprised, but pleasantly so, as we always tried to sleep in separate rooms. Not only due to emergencies, but also because none of my relationships were public knowledge and sleeping in separate beds did a lot to make it less obvious. "Sounds like a good idea to me."

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

The bridge was unusually quiet as the clock ticked down. If the destroyed ships had been hunting a ship with a slower Rank 3 Hyperdrive, it should arrive within the next fifteen minutes or so, depending on how fast the other ships had been in calculating the jump vector.

Unlike last time where we had been caught by surprise, this time I had stationed ships in regular intervals, with their tractor beam projectors at the ready. The greatest problem was that the people we had rescued were still out cold, so we didn't know what to expect, but with the distance between the ships, it was highly unlikely that any ship would hit us.

"Mass alert!" Called Tavune. "Sector 13. Frigate size."

A moment later, a two hundred meters long freighter entered the system close to Hawk, tumbling through space without power.

"That is one wounded ship." Remarked Iska, making me nod. The Nova-class had been in a bad shape when it arrived, but this was even worse. Armor plating was missing too many places to count, and the hull was penetrated in at least seven places. That was just the big holes I could actually see, and there might be many more. The ship didn't even leak air, indicating that it was some time since the damage had happened and the air had already leaked out.

"The database can't give me a class," said Tavune from the scan section. "But it's a locally built converted freighter that has gotten additional armor and weapons, like the last freighter from yesterday. The scanners count eight weapon placements, most likely lasers or heavy lasers. The ship also has a hangar, but it's impossible to see if there's anything inside it."

"Thank you." I said, not taking my eyes off the screen where both Hawk and Falcon were racing to catch the freighter before it could enter one of the emission beams or crash into one of the many wrecks out there.

A tractor beam was projected from the Falcon and caught hold of one of the engines, but instead of stopping the freighter, the engine just tore off the ship.

I felt myself itching to give orders but didn't. The captains of those ships knew what they were doing and deserved my trust.

A few moments later my trust was justified as three tractor beams left the Hawk and connected with three different places on the hull, effectively stopping the freighter before it could ram one of the wrecked Interdictors.

I released a breath I didn't know I had been holding. Now, the rescue teams needed to enter the ship as fast as possible. With all the holes in the hull, there couldn't be much air left inside, and there was a limit to how long any possible survivors could keep on living.

Taking a deep breath, I sent out my force senses and detected people alive inside the ship. None of them were Dark Side users, which was a relief since it saved me from the moral dilemma of deciding to save a potential Sith or not, but the distance was too far for me to detect the actual number of people.

The scene on the screen shifted and it took me a moment to realize that Tavune had routed the signal from Hawk to the screen, showing much more detail than before.

As I watched a boarding craft leave the cruiser and raced towards the wounded freighter, giving me time to study the freighter. "Tavune, can you give me an image of the engines?"

The engine section suddenly showed on the screen. "Yes, sir."

I grimaced as I saw the tangled mess that had once been three big engines.

"That engineer deserves a medal for getting that ship into hyper." Remarked Iska. "That has to be the worst engine damage I've ever seen."

"Most of it is superficial, sir." Said Resa quietly. "It looks bad, but the damage doesn't extend to the vital systems. Impossible as it looks, those engines are still working. Well, the two that're left on the hull anyway."

"Well, if that is the case, I guess that is the only system still working on that ship." Iska said and gestured at a scanner output. "The scanners on the Hawk detect one hundred and twenty-one hull breaches in various places, with most of them being in the aft end of the ship."

"Shoot at the engine, stop the ship." I said with a sigh. It was one of the many pirate tactics I had read about. It wasn't the best tactic, since there was a chance of blowing up the reactor, making the ship explode, but it was one to use in case threats and ion weapons didn't work.

The purple Twi'Lek nodded. "Yes, sir."

Looking at the screen showing the whole ship, I discovered that the rescue team had already connected the emergency airlock and were well on their way inside. Looking over at Tavune at the scan section, I said. "Tavune, if that ship shows signs of collapsing, tell Captain Zwul immediately."

"Yes, sir."

Fortunately, the ship didn't collapse and during the next hours we followed the situation, as the rescue teams found twenty-five people in the wreck and got them to the shuttles, which flew them to safety, before going back in for more.

"How did they manage to cram that many people into that freighter?" Asked Iska rhetorically as she looked at the screen. "I mean, those're just the survivors. There must be plenty of casualties on that ship as well."

"I guess it was originally a passenger freighter, like the Star-class shuttles." I answered. "Resa, can you find a similar size passenger freighter in the database?"

A moment later a ship appeared on the screen. At one-hundred-and-seventy-five meters in length, it could carry two hundred passengers in cabins and twelve thousand metric tons of cargo. "Like that, sir?"

"Yes. Thank you." I said as I studied the schematics. Despite it being shorter than the freighter on the screen, the general layout of the two ships were similar to a degree where they might have been produced by the same company. Looking at the name of the producer, I saw that it was yet another ship from Hoersch-Kessel Driveworks, just like the much smaller Star-class shuttles currently parked in the hangars of Glorious.

"So, going from this," Iska said slowly. "The added ten percent in size equals out with the extra armor and weaponry, so the two ships should be able to transport the same number of passengers and cargo."

"That's a pretty good guess, sir." Said Resa. "And I hope it wasn't full, because that means that only ten percent of those on the ship survived... at least so far."

I nodded. "So, we wait and hope."

"While time is running out." Added Iska.

"Not fast, sir." Said Resa. "It'll depend on whether the interior doors opened when they lost power or not. If there was vacuum in the hallways before they entered hyperspace, the interior doors would have locked automatically. That should give them some extra time."

The next three hours went painstakingly slow, as we watched the count for the rescued people slowly keep going up. First to thirty persons, then forty, fifty and sixty, before it finally settled on sixty-seven.

"That is better." Remarked Resa after the count had been at sixty-seven for ten minutes.

I didn't have a chance to answer her, because at the same time, Tavune called. "Commodore, Captain Zwul is calling."

"On screen."

A moment later, the Chiss captain showed up on the main viewer. "Commodore, we might have a problem. The bridge was a slaughterhouse. None of the people in there survived and the only survivors were found in the passenger cabins midship. However, sixty-three of the people we saved were wearing slave collars but there is no equipment to put them on, so there's a good chance that they were already slaves when they boarded the ship, and since they were found in the passenger cabins, they weren't crew and most likely belonged to whomever had the cabins."

"You're right. That is a problem, but not an unfixable one. First of all, we need to figure out what kind of slaves they are. Some of them might be convicted into slavery, in which case we can't let them run around freely. What race are they?"

"Everybody on the ship were either humans or so close that I can't see the difference."

"Well, if slavery is legal on the planet they were taken from, they haven't really done anything wrong." I said slowly.

Captain Iska nodded. "May I make a suggestion, sir?"

"Certainly."

"We cannot punish people that are not breaking their own laws, but we can free everybody and then find out what exactly the laws about mistreating people are on their planet."

"Except, that slaves almost by definition aren't people but property." I said with a sigh. "Look, we're moving into a moral and ethical grey zone here and we need time to think it over. At least I do. However, unless proven otherwise, any slaves arriving on the ship are going to be free sooner or later. If anybody objects, I'll have a talk with them."

"Yes, sir. The next problem is the ship's cargo." A list showed up on the screen. "I don't know where they were going, but my guess is that they were going to buy something expensive."

I skimmed over the list. There were three metric tons of gold, two tons of Platinum and smaller amounts of other metals. "Well, it looks expensive, but I have no idea how much this is worth."

"According to Commander Samko, the value of the cargo is between forty and sixty million credits, depending on when and where it is sold."

"What did she say the price of gold was?" I asked.

"Between ten and fifteen credits per gram." Zwul answered immediately. "So, each metric ton of gold is worth anywhere from ten to fifteen million credits, or about the same as a new Hammerhead-class cruiser with a complete starfighter complement."

That was a lot of money. Enough for four pirate ships to take a chance on a risky hyperjump... if that was what happened. It also put the sixteen thousand tons of gold we had in the cargo hold into perspective. It looked like the crew would be very well off once we found a place where they could start a new life.

The only thing that surprised me, was the prize of the Hammerhead. Considering it's armament and everything else, I had expected it to be more expensive. Granted, a metric ton was a lot of gold, but compared to the size of an entire solar system, it was a very small fraction of what could normally be mined in a system.

"Captain Zwul, what is your opinion of their technology level?"

He rubbed his chin in thought. "It is somewhat weird, sir. The modified freighter seemed to be built within the last century, but while the core is quite solid, the modifications are more ...hm... primitive than the rest. The same goes for personal weapons. Some are clearly imported and reasonably modern, but according to the engineers the rest are pulse-wave blasters, which was outdated about five hundred years ago. They're most likely locally built, since they carry a stamp from a company named 'Proud Arms', and that name doesn't show up anywhere in the database."

I accepted that with a nod. While not complete in any way, the database on the ships in the fleet had not only the data from the Empire, but also from every ship we had started or brought along with us, representing a considerable amount of data on companies in both Republic and Imperial space.

"Thank you, Captain Zwul. Where are the wounded now?"

"We sent all the former slaves to Majestic and kept the rest here." He answered. "I imagined that you would like to keep them separate until we had resolved this, and they all need medical attention anyway."

"You were right and thank you. I'll go talk with them as soon as possible. What is their condition?"

"Most of them are wounded one way or another from the collision, but they're conscious and speak basic. Currently, they're under guard by the marines."

"Thank you. Anything else I need to know?"

He looked thoughtful and then nodded. "That ship looked like a freighter, but it was most certainly a warship, sir. According to the engineers, it had redundant systems, a serious amount of armor, lots of weapons and a fighter complement of six fighters, though only one fighter is present in the hangar. The estimated crew size is around three hundred and it still had a hundred cabins for passengers or troops." He shrugged lightly. "It's the strangest mix between a civilian and military vessel I have ever seen. One of the former Imperial engineers from the rescue teams swore that if she had encountered one of these just about anywhere else, she would have assumed that it was a pirate vessel. According to her, it has that 'sleeper warship' feel that many really good pirate ships have."

"Thank you, Captain Zwul. I will look into that."

"You're welcome, sir." He said and switched off the connection, while I sighed lightly. The whole situation was getting more complicated by the minute.

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

Four hours later, the situation hadn't become less complicated.

According to the slaves Shakka had treated, the ship's name was Razor's Edge and like the rest of the ships it came from a deeply troubled planet named Yrla. The root of the problem was slavery and geography. Yrla consisted of two great continents and while the people on those two continents were the same, the culture was not. Despite the whole planet coming from the same genetic stock, there were big cultural differences between the two continents. One culture, the Escor, allowed slaves and the other, the Sublar, did not. Something the two cultures had gone to war over several times in the past and still had skirmishes about on regular intervals. That the two cultures both had primitive spaceports and a very rudimentary fleet didn't make it better, as hostilities had continued in space, where they disagreed, and fought over, mining rights in the systems asteroid belts.

As far as the slaves knew, the Escor culture had recently lost a major mining operation to the Sublar and having had enough, they had loaded their best and biggest ship, the Razor's Edge, with some of their valuables from the mining operation and headed for the Outer Rim with the intention of buying a fleet. The Sublar culture had discovered what was going on and had sent their ships after Razor's Edge to stop it.

That had evolved into a full-scale battle, but despite being badly damaged, Razor's Edge had managed to take a hyperspace jump, though they had jumped in a completely different direction than originally planned in an attempt to shake off their pursuers.

Knowing that their hyperdrive was slower than their opponents, they had taken several short jumps, limiting the time the pursuers had to calculate their vectors. Then they had taken a very long jump, the slaves didn't know the end destination, but the ship ran into the same gravity wave as we had done, ending up in the Snare system.

In short, none of the ships were pirates and despite having slaves on board, the Razor's Edge was not a slave ship. It was simply ships from two different sides of a conflict, and now their crews had been dumped into our lap, which was a complication that I really didn't need.

So, for now, I had all the rescued crews placed in isolation with no access to the ship's net, while they slowly recovered from their wounds.

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

Taking some time off

Dreadnought Glorious.

"All work and no play make Jack a dull boy."

Universal proverb

For a commanding officer, one of the advantages of visiting another ship incognito, is that you are not as recognizable as on your own ship and thus can relax a bit more. Before 'the movie' had been shown, I had been able to go unrecognised just by slipping into civilian clothing. However, after two shows and with both episodes in the databases of all the ships in the fleet, available for all to see, that was not the case anymore. Especially not when in company with Iska, Shakka or Resa, as we had been shown in the same scenes a lot. Iska and Resa because they were usually on the bridge with me, while Shakka, along with Tavune, was used by the animators as 'civilians' that could ask questions whenever the animation team thought they needed to explain something.

Fortunately, due to the small differences between the animation and the real me, people I didn't work with on a regular basis had more trouble recognizing me out of uniform, and with that in mind, I had dressed in civilian clothes, ditched the bodyguard droid in my quarters and hitched a ride on one of the shuttles, bringing me to Glorious, where I headed to the hangar park to get a cup of whatever they had there.

Considering that the hangar park on both ships was the same size and had been built simultaneously, the layout on Glorious' hangar park was different enough from the one on Majestic to give me the feeling of being somewhere else than in my usual setting, which was a relief. Unlike most of the crew, I had spent almost all my time on the Majestic and to be honest, as much as I loved Majestic, the change of scenery was a bliss.

The cafe was also different from Raika's Rest on the Majestic. Called Flying Rose, the cafe didn't have Raika's chocolate coffee, so instead I settled for a normal cup of coffee and one of the deliciously smelling cakes they had at the counter, before I sat down at a table at a spot between four grow towers.

The coffee was good, but it was the cake that took the prize. How their chef had managed to turn the boring consumables on the ship into these moist explosions of flavour was a mystery to me, but I savoured every bite of it, while enjoying the surroundings and thinking about the situation.

Time can go surprisingly fast when you're busy and with the amount of work we had, we had been very busy indeed.

After the accident with one of the first pairs of Interdictors, the engineers dragged it away and fetched another, as they went back to work under the command of a recovered Chief Engineer Keller, who was more embarrassed than anything else about the accident, despite having been in mortal danger.

Repairing any ship that had suffered combat damage is a challenge and these had not only suffered combat damage, but also stress damage from the hyperspace exit, radiation damage from the pulsar and the occasional meteor. Added to that was the fact that we didn't have a real dock to conduct the repairs in. The Kraken and the Squid were excellent repair vessels, but when it comes to replacing, rebuilding, or repairing capital ships, nothing beats a real shipyard or a large space station.

Consequently, Keller made a new plan with a longer time frame. It was a delay of two months in comparison to the original plan, but as the accident had shown, going slow and safe was better than rushing it.

One of the positive sides of the delay was that the engineers had finished their work on the Colossal-class heavy carrier, adding yet another ship to what had become a fleet instead of the collection of random ships we had started with.

Unlike what Chief Engineer had hoped for, the ship wasn't loaded with spare parts for ships, but construction equipment and materials to build a forward base. According to the ship's log that we had restored, thirty-four years ago the ship was meant to go to the Molin system near the Outer Rim and build a base that the Empire could use for their strike against the Republic. It never made it and the damage it had taken indicated that it had run afoul of the same gravity ripple as we did and ended up drifting in space here with no power and no way to restart the reactor, killing everybody inside the ship as the air ran out.

Now it had been named Nautilus, and was being restored by a group of engineers, assisted by agricultural specialists, that were installing hydroponic fields as well as a park like on the other capital ships, enabling the crew to survive if we were to run into another pulsar.

Like Kraken, I had made it a dual captain ship, with Master Engineer Gacith as the head of the engineers and, at the Master Engineers request, a middle-aged human male named Lieutenant Julian Culgo as the ship's captain.

Overseen by a small group of engineers, the Aurek Starfighters we had taken from the Republic battlegroup had been restored by the flight support crews and the pilots, during the months a third of the engineers had worked in the faulty Interdictor. Then they were distributed among the Dreadnoughts, Cruisers, and the Delta-class carrier, along with the Stings and Nightsingers we had rescued from the two smashed Wyvern-class cruisers and the ruined Delta-class carrier.

Resa's Dragonclaw had turned out to be a lot better than anyone expected, including me. After the changes suggested by the now Lieutenant Maxwell had been implemented, simulations showed a five percent decrease in efficiency against capital ships, but an increase in effectiveness against smaller ships of a whooping twenty-two percent, making it a good trade.

After the engineers had made a few other changes, the Dragonclaw had passed all tests to the complete satisfaction of both the engineers and the pilots, the Sith Interceptors and bombers were flown to the two Dreadnoughts where they, along with most of the now surplus Supremacy-class, were taken apart and used to create the new starfighters.

It went slow at first, but as the flight crews and the engineers were getting done with the Aureks, more and more people could work on the Dragonclaws and now they finished two a day on each Dreadnought. More than enough to have Dragonclaws on every ship that needed them, as well as bringing the starfighter department up to full strength. In fact, we had a lot more starfighters than we had pilots, but at least the equipment was there now and then we would see what the future would bring.

The repairs on three of the six MX5-Class Cruisers were also progressing according to plan, but that was mostly due to their lack of any major damage. Engineer Keller had examined the ships Mandalorian Davaab-type fighters as well as their support craft, but they were too different from anything else we had in the fleet to fit in anywhere, so in the end we dumped them to give room for a complement of Dragonclaws and Aurek Starfighters.

Those who hadn't been busy with repairing or building ships, had used most of their time to either train or loot the other ships for usable stuff, with one notable exception. While conducting an exercise, Senior Captain Meistrin had taken some of the second Squadron back to the Pius Dea ships and spent almost a week carefully going through the ships one by one.

They didn't find much, except for more songsteel blades and a few boxes of gems, as it seemed like the galleon the Chief Engineer found was the only one carrying treasure. The rest was mostly useless junk, as the technology had developed a lot in the thousands of years that had gone by, since they arrived here at the Snare system.

In the meantime, the other search parties had fared much better. Organized by XO Betty Nagos, they had gone through most of the newer civilian freighters in the graveyard and found thousands of tons of useful stuff. Granted, with the sector we were in, most of it was related to medicine, agriculture, or mining, with some items designed for space stations thrown in for good measure, and the Vegetable Production System in the hangar parks on the capitol ships now had a lot of new varieties of crops to be grown and eaten, much to the delight of the crews. The same could be said about all the personal items they had found and placed in the shops, enabling people to buy something for the credits they had earned.

As expected, G4-S10 had been declared intelligent and had received the promised paint job and promotion to crew member, using the name Gaslo, and Resa had even come up with a system that allowed both Gaslo and future droids to use their earned credits to buy upgrades, instead of the things people bought.

Beside my normal work, my days had been filled with learning new Force Powers and fighting styles from the Jedi Holocron and teaching officers along with Elise Samko. We also spent a lot of time making, and executing training scenarios for everybody, as well as inspecting the training every week and going over the training results.

The last part took more time than I had expected when I started out, but with the inexperienced people we had, it was needed. Especially the officers since their attitude would be reflected by the people under their command. Some were better than others, but all were improving, especially after I had a private talk with a few of those who tended to micromanage everything.

It was natural for those who were used to leading a small number of people, but for high-ranking officers in a fleet with several hundred people under their command, micromanagement was a killer. Not only was it too time consuming, but it was also hugely disrespectful to the people being managed.

One of the things that helped a lot was the dinners I held with the officers from other ships. It had started out as just being the captains, but with two dinners a week, I had gone through the captains in a month and had shifted to inviting six random officers instead. That had worked out nicely and I got to know the officers in the fleet a lot better than before, which was according to plan. No matter what the lower ranking crew thought, well-educated and skilled officers were the backbone of any fleet, due to the simple fact that if the officer corps were good, they would educate the rest. Of course the opposite was also true, and a bad officer could ruin an entire crew in a surprisingly short time.

Now the first stage of the education was over, and I was quite satisfied with the result. For the first time we had people enough to man most of the weapons and spacers enough to crew the ships with enough people to make them functional warships with some exceptions: The Hammerhead- and MX5-class cruisers as well as the Nautilus only had skeleton crews, as I had decided that getting the Interdictor in fighting shape was more important.

As most of the ships we had arrived in were damaged beyond repair due to their drives having been blown out, they had been emptied and their computers wiped, before they were placed in orbit around the pulsar with the rest of the wrecks, while Duchess was flown into Majestic's hangar. Both Jackpot and Rising Star were placed on Glorious, while the single surviving Imperial Kolareth-Class transport that had brought us here, joined the rest of the Kolareth-Class in the hangars.

With the smaller ships not needing crew anymore and many of the gunner positions filled with droids acting under a humanoid gunner, we even had pilots enough for two fighter wings along with a wing of scouts on every dreadnought and cruiser, ensuring that once we got out of here, we weren't flying blind.

Even the problem with the last few people that haven't gotten the talent to be spacers had been solved. It was Betty Nagos that had taken a good long look at their skills and discovered that while all of them were horrible spacers and soldiers, most of them could all either sing or play an instrument.

Consequently, she had organized the musicians into two bands and gave them the job of playing music on each major ship at least once a week. Overjoyed, the two bands had thrown themselves into the job with an energy that was vastly greater than what they had shown previously. They had even created a routine, where the musically talented people could join them on stage for a song or two. Something the crew really liked despite, or perhaps because of, the difference in music styles between the various cultures.

The rest either staffed the nursery on Majestic and Glorious along with several of the cooks, that Chef Winston with regret had determined simply weren't cut out for kitchen work, or positions that I hadn't thought of, since I wasn't used to ships that didn't return to port for months or years.

One of these jobs partly solved two problems at once, one of which was the creation of a Spa on each of the ten capital ships, where the crew could come in for a hair-cut, manicure, massage or anything else in regard to personal hygiene. Run by a couple of humanoids, these Spa-places were staffed with some of the DD Series Hospitality Droids the ships had.

Resa had told me that there were a hundred on each capital ship, but later discoveries had changed that number. There were indeed about a hundred on each Dreadnought and cruiser, but the destroyers and the carriers only had fifty, while the Gage-class transports had a hundred and fifty each. Presumably, because they were supposed to carry a lot of troops.

Some of those on the destroyers, Delta-class carriers and the Gage-class transports had been crushed when the ships they were on were pummelled by meteors and other collisions, but all in all, we had nine hundred and fifty-two functioning Humanoid Replica Droids, which was a lot more than we really needed. Not only were we under-crewed, but despite the screwed ratio between the genders, most people seemed to be able to find partners among the crew without having to visit one of the Hospitality Droids to satisfy their physical needs.

That left us with a lot of droids without a job to do and to make matters worse, their usefulness was rather limited, as their construction wasn't that great, which I guessed was a result of the Imperial Navy buying the cheapest ones possible in order to keep costs down. Their artificial musculature and lightweight metal skeletons weren't designed for anything harder than having sex, and their rather slow heuristic processors gave them a worse reaction time than even the newest fighter pilot, as they simply weren't designed to do that job.

However, they did excel in making people feel good, and as each Spa had between ten and fifteen Hospitality Droids that had gotten a software update to suit their new jobs, that took care of almost a hundred of them.

The various park cafés had received four each to help with cooking and serving, and Shakka had suggested that the service minded programming made excellent caretakers for patients, so the infirmaries on the ships had received five each, along with an upgrade that allowed them to take care of patients. That had worked out perfectly, as it freed the limited numbers of medics to focus on the medical side and let the DD's take care of the patients' comfort.

Despite her protests, I had also assigned a droid to Elise Samko to help her arrange schedules and other administrative tasks. A job that the DD's were more than capable of handling. As her droid had gotten a combined Butler and Housekeeping upgrade, it also took care of cleaning and straightening her room, and after some time she had admitted that having a droid had helped a lot on her workload, making her job less stressful.

Because of her experiences, several other officers had requested a droid as well and twenty-seven more droids had been upgraded with the same Butler and Housekeeping program and assigned to various officers, though some had preferred regular administration droids instead of the human-like DD series.

I had suggested the same for Chef Winston, but she had firmly rejected the offer, preferring to rely on her old servant droids instead, and suggested that at least some of the droids be reprogrammed as Nanny droids.

That proved to be an excellent idea, as the warm synth skin of the HRD's made the children feel comfortable, so yet another twenty were upgraded to Nanny droids, though I wouldn't have thought that such an upgrade was possible out here in the middle of nowhere, but apparently the droid repair centre on the Kraken held all sorts of updates for droids and not just the ones most used in the navy.

When I had asked Keller about it, he had explained that the updates weren't bought one by one, but as a part of a large package, containing all sorts of upgrades, from bartender, military protocol and other smaller programs to large upgrades like reactor maintenance. However, not all droids could handle all upgrades, as it was a matter of chassis, memory space and processor power, and since I didn't know much about it, I just left it to the droid controllers and the engineers to figure out.

Four DD droids, two of each gender, had been assigned to each of the two music groups as dancers and organizers.

That still left a lot of droids in reserve, so they were switched off and put in storage until they were needed.

With most of the freed prisoners being former spacers, one area where we lagged behind was troopers. Even with the Black Dragons, the Chiss Marines, and the new ones from the freed prisoners, we only had two hundred and fifty. On the bright side, with Lieutenants Seze and Titlow to train them and all the equipment on the various ships, the troopers we did have were well-trained and well-equipped. Aside from that...

The feel of my intercom buzzing interrupted my thoughts and with a sigh, I stood and walked away from the table, so I didn't disturb the other guests at the café.

"Yes?" I said, taking care not to talk too loudly.

"Hello, sir. Chief Engineer Keller here." He paused for a moment. "I thought that you would like to know, that we got the new reactor on the Interdictor up and running."

"Excellent news, Chief Engineer. Good job."

"Thank you, sir." He replied with satisfaction in his voice. "Now that the automatic systems are running, we can close the hole again, so the future crew can start familiarising themselves with the ship."

"Good to hear. You better contact Commander Samko, so she can pick a crew for it."

"Will do, sir." He paused and then added. "Oh, according to Master Engineer Gacith, they're done with the first MX5 and he would like you to take a look at it... in person that is." He chuckled. "I think he's rather proud of what they have accomplished."

"I'll visit it later today." I promised.

We said our good-byes, but before I could go back to my table and the cake, the comm buzzed again. This time it was Tavune, who wished to report that after a month of almost constant scanning, the scan techs were done scanning every ship they could point the sensors at.

I had ordered them to do it both because of the chat about superweapons I had with Lieutenants Tavune and Karnos, but also after the surprise we had gotten with the two different types of Interdictor-class cruisers. We were well on the way to leave this system and I didn't want to leave any possible super weapons behind. Not that I wanted it myself, but the least I could do was to blow it up, so that nobody else found it and used it. The last thing the galaxy needed was some megalomaniac freak with a weapon powerful enough to blow up entire planets.

"We didn't find any superweapons, sir, but we did find some weird looking ships." Tavune said. "Over in quadrant 4c, there are two capital ships about the size of a Dragon-class dreadnought along with a frigate size ship, but none of them are in the database and when I showed it to Chief Engineer Keller, he didn't know what they were either."

That piqued my interest. Ships unknown to Keller were few and far in between. "Are they inside the ion emission from the pulsar?"

"One of the capital ships is hovering on the edge, the two others are out of the emission beams."

"Please wait a moment."

Closing my eyes, I dived into the force as I sent out my Force Senses, focussing on quadrant 4c and the unknown ship-types there, but there wasn't any darkness lingering there, like there was on some of the Interceptor-class cruisers.

Retracting my senses, I returned to the conversation. "Have Captain Iska send out some scouts and make a deep scan of the ships. If the scans are clear, have the Marines check out the ships."

"Yes, sir."

After that I closed the comm and walked back to my seat and the cake, hoping that I wasn't disturbed any more for the next couple of hours.

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

Somewhat to my pleasant surprise, nobody called on the intercom for a while and I was almost finished with the cake, when a soft voice asked. "Is this seat taken?"

Looking up, I saw Captain Meistrin standing next to the table, dressed in civilian clothes just like me.

"No, no. Sit down." I said with a smile. "I'll have to say that the cakes here are better than the ones on Majestic... oh... And since I'm eating, dinner rules apply."

That caused her to chuckle and sit down. "Well, it's been a while since we had the time to just sit and chat."

I nodded in agreement as I thought it over and then shook my head with a snort. "Yeah... about a year ago on Centauri 21. Time flies." I tilted my head as I looked at her. "How're you doing?"

The question caused her to smile widely. "Well, considering I'm having the terrible burden of living my dream of being in command of a capital warship, I would say I'm fine... but to be honest, it's better now that the Interdictors are almost finished."

"Well, that is a notion common for everybody here." I said with a chuckle. "And that includes me... I look forward to seeing real stars again and not just blurred dim specks of light that could be almost anything."

Meistrin tilted her head a bit as she studied me. "How're you doing, Thalen? Not as Commodore Thalen, because you have done a fantastic job keeping the morale up and the fleet together, but just as you."

I pondered that for a moment before answering. "I've been better, to be honest. There's a lot of things going on and with the help of Resa, I'm mostly on top of things, but it's hard to keep up." I shrugged. "It'll get better when we get out of here."

"Are you sure?" She asked softly, genuine care in her voice. "I mean, you went from Lieutenant Commander which're generally only in command of a single ship, to be a fleet commander with all that entails."

I nodded. "Yes, I'm sure. It's not like the responsibilities have multiplied, the stakes are just higher. On the bonus side, I have a lot more people to rely on and those people have proven to be really good at their jobs."

That made her chuckle. "Good point and I'm happy to hear that the job isn't killing you slowly." The smile widened a bit. "And to be honest you look to be in an even better shape than usual for a commander."

I returned the smile. "I've been doing a lot of physical training. It makes me tired enough to sleep without thinking about things I cannot change anyway."

Meistrin nodded. "Yes, I've done that too and I encourage my officers to do that as well. It really helps a lot and I'm happy whenever I see the training area being occupied."

"Well, to be honest it helps that there isn't a lot to do in down-time here." I said with a chuckle. "Training, playing games, using the simulator, listening to music, reading or having sex seems to be the most popular pastimes." I paused as a thought hit me and asked. "By the way, there are several pregnant women and a lot of couples on Majestic and other ships I have visited. How's the situation here?"

That made her snort. "The same. I can't remember exactly how many pregnant women we have here, but somewhere between fifteen and twenty. All of them are from the former prisoners that we liberated since their contraceptives have stopped working, we don't have new ones, and people will be people."

"Well, it's not from lack of searching." I said with a sigh. "It's just bad luck I guess." I thought for a moment. "I still think allowing people to have relationships is one of the things that has prevented suicides out of despair here."

"I have to agree with that." Said Meistrin with a nod. "There's at least two people in my crew that I know off, that have benefitted from a relationship." She studied me for a moment, hesitating a little before asking. "How about you, Thalen? Any relationships?"

I swallowed a smile. Most other cultures would have found such a question highly offensive, at least when directed at a superior officer, but Chiss military culture was somewhat different in that aspect. A thousand years of almost constant war against various enemies here in The Chaos had taught us that people made better judgments when their basic needs were satisfied, so their entire mental focus could be directed at the military situation at hand.

Not that the same model was ideal for other, less rational and more emotional races, but it was the model I had chosen to follow before we ended up here and with the help of Betty Nagos and others, it had worked out quite well so far.

It also made her question about as neutral as asking if I got enough to eat or slept enough.

"Yes, they keep me grounded, not to mention sane." I admitted. "What about you?"

She sighed. "Unfortunately, the crew on my ship haven't made any moves towards me, so I haven't had any action for a year."

That surprised me. While not a beauty like Yaki, Meistrin was still a good-looking woman, and I would have thought that at least some of the Chiss on the ship would have made a move on her. They clearly haven't and there was, at least in my mind, several reasons for that. One was that Meistrin was a very good captain, that commanded a lot of respect. In Chiss society that would have made her even more attractive to most men, but unfortunately many of the men that would normally have tried their luck, were in relationships with one or more of the many good-looking former prisoners, or one of the other Chiss in the fleet. To make it worse, that respect and ability made men from other races unlikely to try their luck... at least from what Elise Samko and Betty Nagos had told me, when we had a talk about the various relationships in the fleet and what made people come together.

"Here's an idea." I told her. "There's music night on the Hawk tonight, so go visit for the fun of it."

Meistrin sighed. "I don't feel good about leaving the ship while in space."

That made me laugh. "Meistrin, we're in a box system in a nebula. Name a situation that your First Officer can't handle, please."

To her credit, she took time to think about the question before she shook her head. "I can't."

"Good, because if you could, you would need a new and better First Officer." I said dryly, which caused her to laugh and nod. "True. I didn't think of it that way."

"So, what's holding you back?"

"Nothing." She said slowly, clearly thinking as she spoke. Then she smiled a little. "Well, sir, by the same logic you could be going as well."

"Are you saying that you'll be going if I'm going as well?"

She nodded with a grin. "Yes, I think so."

"Deal." I said, making her widen her eyes slightly in surprise. "Really?"

"Sure. I need to find out when I can have a meeting with Master Engineer Gacith, but otherwise I haven't anything planned for today... which is why I'm here and not on Majestic in the first place."

"Fair." She laughed and looked down at her clothes. "Well, I guess I better get into something more festive then."

"Well, we're going to listen to music and dance a little." I said with a chuckle. "It doesn't require being too nicely dressed."

"Okay. Find out when your meeting can happen, then I'll arrange transport while you do that."

"Sounds like a plan."

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

That was the start of a fun evening, as very few non-Chiss recognized us in civilian clothes, allowing us to just dance, talk with people and have fun.

One of the people that did recognize us was Captain Zwul, who looked surprised when he saw us, and discreetly hurried to the table where Meistrin and I were sitting. Fortunately, he had the brains not to salute as he reached the table.

"Good evening, sirs." He said in Cheunh, the Chiss language, and a voice too low for anybody else to hear. "And welcome on board the Hawk."

"Thank you, Captain Zwul, and don't worry. Nothing is wrong and we're just here to have a fun evening." I replied in the same language. "But you're more than welcome to sit here... and please drop the titles... someone will overhear us at some point."

"Yes, s... Thalen." He replied and sat down. Then he chuckled. "This is quite a surprise."

"A good surprise, I hope." Meistrin chuckled.

"Well, now it is." He said honestly. "You had me worried for a moment there."

The arrival of a server droid interrupted us for a moment to hand us some soft drinks and then walked off again.

"Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss alcohol." Said Zwul with a little smile as he took his glass and glanced over at me, the smile turning into a grin. "Yes, I know that mixing space and alcohol is a bad idea, but still."

That made me chuckle. "I know what you mean, but there're some people that can't hold their drinks and I don't want people to do a drunken spacewalk without a suit."

Meistrin laughed. "Yeah, that would ruin any buzz." She looked at her glass. "Well, at least we have Nectar."

Drinking from my glass, I nodded. Nectar was the liquid drug of choice for many military forces in the galaxy and had been so for centuries, being used instead of alcohol whenever there was a party since it enhanced mood and gave a mild euphoria. It was also non-addictive, didn't affect people's judgement and caused no long-term harm, simply inducing pleasant sensations in most humanoids for a short time. Typically, between thirty and sixty minutes depending on bodyweight and racial resistance.

The beauty of it was that as a liquid, it could be mixed into any drink, but beyond the first glass the effect wasn't dependent on the amount taken and it was impossible to overdose on it, so people could drink ten glasses with Nectar in it without getting more effect than a person who drank one glass.

Despite all these benefits, there was a small chance that people could get so used to the feeling of euphoria it gave, that they felt slightly depressed when not affected, so it wasn't served in any of the Hangar Park cafes, being strictly reserved for the music parties.

Placing the empty glass on the table, I smiled to myself as I felt the mild drug hit my system, spreading a feeling of warmth in my body.

"Hey, it even tasted good." Chuckled Meistrin. "The bartender is clearly better than the one at the Phoenix."

Zwul nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Mess Sergeant Nemutu was a good chef, but a lousy bartender." He was silent for a moment. "I wonder how it goes back in the Alpha Viga system."

"According to plan." I suggested. "My guess is that the refinery is up and running, and that they have a patrol force in the system to ward off more pirates."

"Sounds reasonable." Nodded Meistrin and looked at me. "Do you ever miss home, Thalen?"

"Rarely." I admitted. "My focus has been on keeping people alive and making our situation better, not on what is happening at home." I chuckled. "I'm sure the Ascendency is doing just fine without us."

"You're right." Said Meistrin and then looked over at the musicians as a new number started. I didn't recognize it, but it did have a good rhythm. "Do you want to dance, Thalen?"

"Yes, but I think that Naval courtesy demands that the captain of the vessel have the first dance." I said, looking pointedly at Zwul.

The expression on Zwul's face showed that he had completely forgotten that little bit of Chiss naval tradition, but he did react quickly and jumped to his feet, giving her a sweeping bow. "May I have the pleasure, my lady?"

Giggling, Meistrin stood up. "Certainly, good sir."

They walked onto the dancefloor and I leaned back in the seat with my drink in my hand, observing the festivities. There was no doubt in my mind that the people here were having fun, enjoying the break from their daily lives and going dancing and listening to music.

"Hello there." Said a broad-shouldered human woman with extremely short hair, as she stopped right in front of me. "Don't be sitting there all alone. Come dance!"

With that she took my hand and practically dragged me onto the dance floor, smiling as she said. "I'm Anitama."

"Nice to meet you." I replied, purposefully avoiding using my name as I spun her around before catching her again. "It's a nice party."

"Yes, it is." She tilted her head a bit. "I haven't seen you here before. Which ship are you from?"

"Majestic." I told her truthfully.

"Lucky you." She sighed. "I mean, the Hawk is a fantastic ship, but the Dragon-class dreadnoughts are just incredible."

"Yeah, they're pretty good, but the Wyvern-class is fast, well-armored and armed, and more importantly, they're not as big a target as the dreadnoughts." I said with a chuckle and swung her around again.

"Good point." She said laughingly, her brown eyes sparkling with merriment. "And this is the strangest conversation I've ever had while dancing, but it's fun."

"It is." I agreed, as I put an arm around her waist and turned to the rhythm of the dance in a move born from hours of dance lessons at the Academy. The ability to dance was considered a skill that every officer had to learn and as such, there were lessons in dancing every year. Usually, a couple of months before graduation, so the students were ready for the graduation party.

Anitama followed me cheerfully and skilfully until the song ended, being replaced by a slow dance. Then she sent me a smile. "That was fun, but now you'll have to excuse me."

I accepted that with a slight bow. "Of course, but I do hope for at least one more dance this evening."

Smiling widely, she nodded. "You can bet on that."

Then she turned around and walked away, while I walked back to my seat. Somewhat to my surprise, Zwul and Meistrin haven't returned and when I looked at the dancefloor, I discovered that they were still dancing with each other.

Chuckling to myself, I ordered another drink. I had just meant for Meistrin to have a fun evening, but if she and Zwul ended up in bed together, it wouldn't hurt anyone. At least not as long as they were just having fun together.

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

Two hours later, I was once again sitting alone at the table, as Meistrin and Zwul were dancing. In general, they had been sitting by the table for one song and then danced for the next two songs. A rhythm that fit with every third song being a slow one, so they danced one faster and one slower song.

"What?! Still alone?" I heard Anitama's voice say and as I looked over, she had taken the seat on the other side of the table.

"More like 'alone again.'" I said with a grin. "My table mates are dancing."

"Oh." She thought it over for a moment. "Why aren't you?"

"Well, I could say that I was waiting for you, but in reality, I like just sitting here, listening to music while watching people." I told her. "What about you? Are you enjoying yourself?"

"A lot." She stated. "Despite the fact that most men here are already taken."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, that seems to be a general problem."

"That and the fact that I'm not exactly built like a Twi'Lek." She said in a good-humoured voice as she gestured at her body. "This body is built for a power-armor, not a dancehall, and I think it's intimidating for some men."

Looking at her, I had to agree. At least about the 'being built for powerarmor' part. She did have a somewhat narrow waist, but that was due to her having broad shoulders, a wide chest with a large bosom and wide hips. As I had discovered when she had dragged me to the dancefloor, she had strong arms and I had no doubt that the rest of her was just as strong.

Still, there was something sexy about her and it wasn't connected to her strength or the way she was built.

"Nothing wrong with being built for powerarmor." I said with a slight smile.

She widened her eyes a bit. "Seriously?"

I nodded. "Yes. Don't get fooled into thinking that males only want females that're built like Twi'Leks or holodrama actresses. Sure, many men like that look, but not all men."

Her lips parted in a smile. "What about you? What do you like?"

"I'm not quite sure." I said slowly and truthfully. "A pretty face on an interesting person in a nice body goes a long way... but there also needs to be something extra. Something sexy and I'm not exactly sure about what makes a woman sexy in my eyes." I paused to drink from my glass. "What makes a man sexy?"

"I assume that you mean aside from a pretty face and a nice body?" Anitama asked, making me nod.

"That is a good question." She said thoughtfully. "As you said, the ability to be interesting goes a long way, but there needs to be a spark. Something special. Some of the other Marines like a man that're even stronger than they are, but that's not really sexy for me." She chuckled. "Many would say competence, but it doesn't really apply here, since most people in the fleet are competent."

Looking at her, I suddenly realized what made her sexy. It was the cheerfulness and the humour. The way she had been smiling while dancing and in general how she enjoyed life.

Still smiling she looked at me. "Why don't we stop talking about what makes a person sexy and go examine it instead?"

"Are you asking me to go have some carefree sex?" I asked just to be sure I didn't misunderstand her intent.

She nodded. "Yes. My cabin is free."

"Good thing that I do find you sexy." I said as I stood.

"Likewise." She answered as she stood as well. "This way."

"One moment. I need to tell my table mates that I'm going to go."

She nodded. "I'll wait here."

Explaining that I was leaving the party took very little time and fortunately, they didn't seem too sorry that I would leave it to themselves, so I walked back to Anitama, who was still standing next to the table. When she saw me walking toward her, she turned around and started to walk, giving me an excellent view of her meaty ass. Despite being somewhat bigger than my usual lovers, she really was a sexy woman and I smiled to myself as I followed her into the passageway and then into a lift.

"Come here." She mumbled and pulled me closer, our lips meeting in a kiss. For a woman as imposing as she was, the kiss couldn't have been more sweet and tender, but unfortunately, it was cut off as the lift stopped.

"Wow." She said with a chuckle, as we walked out of the lift. "Judging from that kiss, this is going to be good."

"Agreed."

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

As it turned out, Anitama's cabin was small but cosy, as she had decorated the room with various artwork. Most of it looked like they had come from the ships we had been searching, and I took a moment to study them. She did seem to have a weakness for colourful landscape paintings, as the majority of them showed that, being a mix of forests, beaches and gardens.

Turning around I saw an even better sight, as Anitama was busy taking her clothes off. Big without fat, she really was solid built, I determined and then swallowed something as she straightened and squared her shoulders. Where Iska, Shakka and Samko had rather big breasts for their frame, Anitama's were huge. Too big to be perky, they reached halfway down her chest without sagging, the large dark red nipples pointing slightly upwards.

"Your turn." She stated with a smile.

I got out of my clothes in record time, making her lick her lips and say, "You look a lot better with your clothes off than I expected. Working out a lot?"

"Yeah. It's not like there's much to do out here when you have downtime." I said and reached out for her. She came into my arms willingly, and we kissed again. This time letting our hands explore each other.

It didn't take long for her to find my stiff cock, caressing it as we kissed, while I was a bit spoiled for choice. In the end I took the easy way out and found her breasts, fondling those huge soft pillows, my fingers playing with the stiff nipples from time to time, while my other hand found her ass, groping the meaty buttocks.

Feeling the need rage inside me, I ran my hand down her skin until my fingers encountered her pubic hair. Without breaking the kiss, Anitama spread her legs, allowing me to slide my fingers in between them to play with the lips of her pussy. She was already wet and as I slipped a finger in between the moist lips, she broke our kiss to moan loudly. I wetted another finger and then let them slide up and down between the inner and outer lips, giving the clitoris a solid workover as it was caught between the fingers.

"Fuck!" Mumbled Anitama as a shiver ran through her, and the hand on my dick stopped caressing and started stroking it instead.

Using my hand on her ass to make her come along, I took a few steps backwards and sat on the edge of the room's table and lowered my head, so I could use my mouth on her breasts.

I kissed, and licked all around her breasts for several minutes, while still playing with my fingers on her pussy, before I went for the nipple.

"Yes!" Anitama hissed as my lips closed around a stiff nipple, sucking it into my mouth and playfully rolled my tongue around it, while my fingers stopped playing with her lips and instead dived into her wet pussy, enjoying the feeling of it clutching my fingers. She was tighter than I had expected, causing me a bit of trouble before I was able to reach her G-spot, giving it a rub.

"Oh, fuck, that's good." She moaned, her hand stroking me faster than before. I changed tactics by moving the fingers in and out of her, making sure that my fingertips didn't leave the G-Spot. "Fucking nice! Keep going. KEEP GOING!"

The last came out as a shout and a moment later an orgasm crashed through her body and I just had the time and presence of mind to strengthen my grip around her. Unfortunately, she weighed too much for me to hold with one arm, so I pushed off the table I was sitting on, using my body and arm to guide her body so she fell on the bed instead of the floor.

I stood still for a moment, enjoying the sight of her laying there, the huge breasts jiggling as tremors from the orgasm ran through her, causing her surprisingly flat stomach to shiver, and the sight of her dripping pussy between the thick thighs.

It looked tasty, calling out to me, so I took a step forward as I went down on my knees, placed a hand on each of her thighs and put my mouth on her soaked pussy.

Anitama stiffened as I started licking her, but a moment later her hands found my head, and with a loud groan, she gently pressed my head against her crotch.

She tasted as good as I had imagined, sweet, tangy and just a little spicy, and I enjoyed the taste as I sucked her clitoris into my mouth and drew circles on it with my tongue.

"Oh shit!" She gasped. "So good!"

I removed my mouth from her long enough to say. "Then you're going to love this."

Making my tongue hard, I began licking her clitoris with increasing pressure, enjoying her groans and moans. Moving my hands upwards on her thighs, I used the tip of two fingers to reach in between the lips of her pussy and massaged the opening, teasing her as I continued to lick her clitoris.

With a moan, she lifted her legs and grabbed them with her hands, giving me more room to work and I took advantage of that by moving one hand to the top of her pussy, teasing the clitoris with my thumb, while licking the rest of her pussy.

Then I started focusing on her opening, carefully licking all the way around the hole, savouring the feel and taste of her, before I started to go deeper inside her, feeling the muscles of her pussy jerking as I licked the inner walls.

"Fuck!" She groaned. "Nobody can lick pussy like a Chiss!"

The last part turned into a yelp, as my tongue found her G-spot and licked it as hard and fast as I could, moving my tongue from side to side over it, while my thumb continued to rub her clitoris.

Her inner muscles began to spasm around my tongue, her body shuddering and shivering.

"Too much! I'm commmming!" She screamed and then did just that. The bed shook from how hard she bucked and my face was splashed by her juices, as jolt after jolt of pleasure ran through her body. Her legs fell down on the bed as her hands lost their grip, narrowly missing me on their way down.

Removing my head and tongue from her pussy, I looked up between the massive peaks of her breasts, that framed a face smiling in ecstasy under closed eyes.

Drying her juices off my face, I got up from the floor and sat in the room's only chair, waiting for her to regain her senses.

It only took a few minutes before Anitama opened her eyes and looked at me. "Jezz, that was intense." Using her arms, she sat up. "Lean back and spread your legs."

With a smile, I did as she said and with a smooth motion, she was on her knees between my legs, taking a good hold of my dick with one hand before dropping her head down and taking my cock into her mouth.

I sighed happily, as she bobbed up and down on my cock, slurping and drooling in a perfectly sloppy blowjob. Then she surprised me by letting go of my dick with her hand and using only her mouth for a while, before she crawled a little closer and used both hands to wrap her massive breasts around my cock and used them to slide my dick up and down, while using her mouth on the head.

I moaned as I watched the spectacle in front of me. Not only did she have a fantastic mouth, but the feel and sight of her huge breasts around my dick heightened my lust.

Anitama took her sweet time pleasuring me, but eventually she removed her mouth and breasts from my dick, stood and sent me a smile. "Now, I want to fuck you, but you need to warn me before coming."

I nodded. "That is fair."

"Yeah, I would hope so." She said with a grin and moved forward to place a leg on each side of the chair, before she took hold of my dick with a hand and guided it to the entrance of her wet pussy. Wriggling her ass a little, she pressed down, forcing my dick into her tight pussy.

We both groaned as she impaled herself on my dick, sliding all the way down until she was sitting in my lap with my dick buried inside her. Her position also placed her tits right in front of my face and it was an invitation I had no intention of declining. I squeezed and caressed them, while using my lips and tongue to tease her nipples, even biting them lightly from time to time.

Anitama loved it, throwing her head back and gradually increasing the gentle back and forth motion of her hips that made my dick slide in and out of her tight pussy.

Her breathing became harder and each breath was a moan and she picked up the speed until her hips moved in a blur for a few seconds. Then she grabbed my head with both hands and forced it away from her breasts so she could kiss me, screaming an orgasm into my mouth as she did so.

Then she sat still on top of me, kissing me as the aftershocks of the orgasm sent shivers through her body, causing her to moan as she moved on my cock.

Breaking the kiss, she sent me a smile and without a word began to move up and down, taking my dick almost all the way out of her pussy before sitting down again, breast bouncing with every move.

Spreading my legs just a little, I gave her ass room to go a bit further down and she widened her eyes as my dick bottomed out in her, causing her to squeal and moan at the same time. She didn't slow down though, bouncing up and down, the walls of her pussy gripping my dick in a pleasant embrace, as she looked down on me with an expression of pure pleasure on her face, and I could feel my orgasm begin to build.

"Not long." I warned her in a moan, as I felt my dick grow slightly in preparation.

"Coming!" She screamed as another hard orgasm hit her, making her flail on top of me, and it took a lot of self-control to not come along with her, as her pussy clenched and released rhythmically around me. Thankfully, she was sitting still instead of bouncing up and down, which helped a lot.

"Sit still." I groaned. "Otherwise, I'm going to come."

"Do you have an implant and does it still work?" She panted.

"Yes and yes."

"Good." She groaned and slowly lifted herself. "I don't want to get pregnant like some others."

"No, chance." I groaned as she let herself go down again.

"Suck my tits." She moaned and leaned slightly forward, gently hitting my face with those soft, yet firm, breasts.

Closing my mouth around a stiff nipple again, I sucked, biting lightly as my tongue danced on the tip.

"Yesssss." Anitama groaned and moved faster, bringing me closer to an orgasm with every move. Close as I was, it didn't take long before I boiled over.

"Frak!" I exclaimed around the nipple as my orgasm hit with a jolt, spraying her tight pussy with my semen. It didn't stop her movements and she continued to ride me as I filled her.

Her tight, powerful muscles milked me for every drop I had, coaxing every last bit out as she herself was soon taken by a powerful climax.

"Yes! Fucking Yes!" She screamed, her pussy trembling as a stream of her juices hit our joined sexes.

Letting go of her nipple, I looked up, intending to kiss her, but instead she collapsed on top of me with her head on my shoulder, breathing heavily.

We sat like that for a while, until she kissed my neck. "That was fantastic."

I nodded in agreement. "Yes, it was."

Anitama suddenly chuckled. "I hope my squad is still at the party or I'll never hear the end of this. I was rather loud."

"Hmm... I feel like I should say that I'm sorry, but I'm not."

The chuckle turned into a soft laugh. "Good."

Sitting up, she reached onto the table and took a piece of cloth. The movement pressed a huge breast against my face, so I gave it a lick.

"Hey!" She grinned. "No more. When not turned on, that tickles!"

"Really?" I gave the breast a lick more, almost causing her to jump off. "Stop it!"

With a smile, I leaned back in the chair, watching her as she pressed the cloth against her pussy, so she could stand up without our juices spilling all over the floor, and staggered over to the bed on wobbly legs.

"Shit." She complained with yet another grin as she let herself fall onto the bed. "That was epic! I can't remember when I haven't been able to walk afterwards."

"Bad memory?" I asked with a grin and dodged a pillow she threw at me.

"No. It was a compliment, you ... knucklehead." She chuckled and easily caught the pillow as I threw it back and she placed it behind her head.

"You're a cheat, you know." I said as I picked up my clothes from the floor. "At first glance, you don't look like you're in good shape, but you really are... Not to mention, that the shape you're in is rather good looking and tempting."

"Thank you." Anitama said with a smile, watching as I put on my pants. "And to be honest the same can be said about you."

I was about to answer her, then someone banged on the door and a male voice said "Sarge?"

With a sigh, she raised her voice. "Yes, corporal Hayes?"

"Sorry to interrupt your fun, but we need some help here."

"Oh, for fucks sake." Anitama grumbled and stood up, quickly dressed in briefs and waved me out of the way.

Buttoning my shirt, I walked into the corner where I couldn't be seen from the door, causing her to send me a quick smile, as she opened the door enough to look out. "What's up, Hayes?"

"We were rearranging the storage as you said, but some of the crates are in the wrong hold and you need to sign them off before we can move them."

"Alright. Go down there and wait for me. I'll be right there."

"Yes, sergeant."

There was the sound of someone walking away as she closed the door and looked at me. "I would have loved another round in an hour or so, but unfortunately, I don't think we have the time."

"You're most likely right." I said, putting on my shoes before I walked over to give her a kiss. "Some other day or do you prefer not to repeat our encounter?"

She blinked in surprise a few times and then grinned. "As long as you're not looking for a relationship, I'm game for a repeat, though it will require that you come to the Hawk from the Majestic."

"That should not be a problem." I said and when she looked thoughtfully at me, I added. "I pilot a shuttle."

"Oh." She said with a smile and gave me a quick hug. "See you then."

Getting the cue, I walked towards the door but stopped as she laughingly said. "Ehh.. I just realised that I never got your name."

Grinning, I turned around. "That's because I rarely give my name for a reason that will be obvious in a moment." I paused and then said. "I'm Thalen."

That caused her to laugh. "Like the Commodore?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Okay, I get why you rarely tell people your name." She thought for a moment. "Any other name I can call you? Using Thalen just seems weird."

"I've been called Al from time to time when I was younger." I said after thinking it over. Ale (Pronounced Al) was really my given name that, like most Chiss names, was rarely used, but it was better than anything I could think of while watching her breasts bounce as she was dressing as fast as she could.

"All right. See you later, Al."

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

Despite my promise to Keller, it took me a few days before I could arrange a meeting on the former MX5s, now known as a Fafnir cruiser. Like the Majestic's hanger had been the first time I had visited it, the hangar of the Fafnir was spotless, but where the Majestic had it's fighter craft hanging from top racks, the Fafnir had row after row of Aureks and Dragonclaws locked down in their assigned places, ready to be deployed.

With a small nod to myself, I walked down the ramp of the Shark, followed by Tristana and the two panther-droids, in the direction of Master Engineer Gacith, who was waiting for us along with Engineer Choe Tran, the blue-skinned and pinkish haired female Pantoran that had been aboard Duchess when we had entered the box-system.

"Hello, sir." The Master Engineer said with a smile and a salute. "And welcome to the Buzzard. Allow me to introduce you to my right hand, Engineer Choe Tran. She has done most of the work here."

"Thank you, Master Engineer Gacith." I replied and nodded to the Twi'Lek Engineer. Like most Twi'Leks, she was a good-looking woman, though she wasn't as strikingly beautiful as Iska or Shakka. "Nice to meet you again, Engineer Tran."

"Commodore. Captain." She greeted, looking a bit nervous.

"So far, I will say that you have done an excellent job here." I said with a smile. "I look forward to seeing the rest of the ship."

Being surrounded by non-Chiss all the time, some of their behaviour had rubbed off on us and one of the most notable ones was smiling. Simply put, the Chiss in the fleet tended to smile a lot more than we were used to and neither Gacith nor I were exceptions to that.

Gacith nodded. "The ship is quite impressive, though the starfighters are not of our doing. This was just the first of the Fafnirs they decided to place the new starfighters. The rest will be filled as the pilots and engineers are done building them."

Looking over at the rows of starfighters, I asked. "How many of each type does the ship have?"

"Five wings of Aureks and five wings of Dragonclaws." Said Engineer Tran. "There's still room for two bomber wings, but as we don't have any bombers, that space is left unused. Aside from that we have some shuttles and not much else."

That brought the number of starfighters up to one hundred and twenty, or about the same as a Harrower-class dreadnought, which was a very respectable number for any capital ship.

"Well, that's the consequence of being scavengers." I said, "If we ever find any respectable bombers, we'll put that space into good use."

"Yes, sir." Said the Pantoran.

"Now, let's take a tour of the ship." Said Engineer Gacith and gestured towards the front end of the harbour. "Starting with something really special."

Since he didn't elaborate, I guessed he wanted it to be a surprise, so I didn't ask about it as we walked through the main hangar, using my time to study the setup and the mechanical clamps that held the starfighters in place.

"Engineer Tran, how much did you have to modify the hangar setup?"

The Pantoran smiled. "Surprisingly little. The Aureks have the same size landing gear as the original Davaab starfighters and fit right in. The Dragonclaws required a little more modification, but all in all, it went smoothly." She gestured at one of the Aureks. "The same for the power and fuel lines. Since the Imperial engineers had used a converter to fit the power lines to a Davaab, we simply removed that, making it fit the Dragonclaw's Imperial made engine. For the Aureks, we had to make a converter, but to be honest, it was rather straightforward."

Before I could comment on that, Master Engineer Gacith stopped next to a series of three large doors that looked somewhat like the backend of a missile tube. "Here we are, sirs."

"And what're we looking at, Master Engineer?" Asked Tristana curiously.

"Well, at first we thought they were three large missile tubes, but as it turned out, they're launch tubes for a type of large Mandalorian sensor probe none of us have ever seen before." He explained. "Naturally, we asked Chief Engineer Keller about them and according to him, it was an old, but effective, type of sensor probe." He shrugged lightly. "Newer probes are much smaller, but as you know, Mandalorians tend to stick with what works."

I nodded at that. Many of the Mandalorian designs were centuries old and more often than not, taken from people the Mandalorians had defeated, but whose fighting ability or technology had impressed them.

"We considered removing them," Added Engineer Tran. "But that is simply not possible with the timeframe we have."

"Do we even have some of those probes?" Asked Tristana.

Tran nodded her head, making the pink hair wave. "Yes. We found almost fifty of them in storage and even tried one out, but they're not as good as the other and three hundred years newer probes we have."

I tuned them out, looking at the launchers. If they worked as all other launchers I had encountered, they worked by using repulsor fields to accelerate the payload to a very high speed when in the tube, limiting the size of the engine and the amount of fuel needed, as the payload would continue at the same speed until the engine engaged. It was the principle I had used at Alpha Viga to get the missiles close to the Hammerhead undetected, as small, unpowered objects were notoriously hard to detect. Mostly because the computers normally registered them as rocks or other common space debris, and filtered them out before the information reached the scan-tech.

"What's the internal dimension of the launch tubes?" I asked, interrupting their conversation. "Or perhaps more precise, can we fit a starfighter into the tubes?"

The two engineers looked surprised at first, but then thoughtful, as Tran took a small datapad and typed something into it, waited and then looked up with a satisfied smile. "The Dragonclaw will fit into the tube. It might be a bit longer than a Super Sting, but it's not as wide. It will require a specialised launch pad, but it's doable."

"Do it then." I ordered, making her say, "Yes, sir." and note it down in the datapad.

Tristana looked at me. "I get that you want to launch Dragonclaws, the question is why."

"There are six tubes on each Fafnir, right?" I asked Gacith, who nodded. "Yes, sir. Three on each side."

Looking at Tristana again, I said. "That is eighteen Dragonclaws that can be launched without having to light their engines, which will make them almost impossible to detect, especially if they're using passive sensors only."

"Ohhh." She said as she got the idea, the silvery eyes sparkling with interest. "Invisible scouts!"

"Partly at least. At some point they'll have to activate their engines in order to return, but until then they'll be incredibly hard to detect."

"I like it, sir!" The Echani said with a grin.

"We will make it happen, sir." Promised Gacith. "Ready for the next surprise?"

"If I was, it wouldn't really be a surprise." I said with a chuckle. "But do lead on."

Ten minutes and three decks later, he stopped near the raw material holds for the fabricators and pointed at a section that looked different from the rest of the hold. "There. I know you can only see the material difference and that is due to this section not being part of the original Imperial built ship."

I nodded slowly, causing him to continue. "That is a solid fuel converter. A Mandalorian invention that is somewhat similar to the waste recyclers on the rest of our ships, but this one takes solid material and converts it into usable fuel." He shrugged lightly. "Granted, it takes a lot of material to make that fuel, and it cannot convert low energy materials like rocks, but just by using a low-quality metal, it can more than double the range of a ship, and it makes it possible to refuel a ship by harvesting metal rich asteroids or by landing on a habitable planet and feeding it organic material."

Being a group of roaming clans that travelled the galaxy looking for fights, it made sense the Mandalorians had invented something like the solid fuel converter, but how they had managed to keep it secret for so long still puzzled me.

Tristana must have felt the same, because she frowned. "If that invention is three hundred years old, how come it's not more widely used... especially here in the Chaos where there can be far between fuel sources?"

"I frankly don't know," he said honestly. "But one guess is that reactors have become much more efficient over the last centuries, lessening the need for them. I mean, most of our ships have enough fuel for two or more years, so it's not like we desperately need fuel. It's just a nice thing to have in an emergency."

He had a good point, as the only ship in the fleet with fuel for less than two years was the DeltaX-class carrier. "Can you make one of those?"

He nodded. "Yes. As I said, there're a lot of similarities to our waste recyclers and it's not like three-hundred-year-old technology is hard to replicate... with the exception of gravity well projectors."

"Good. Then have one made and installed on the Delta-class carrier." I ordered. "It's not urgent, but it's still the ship in the fleet with the shortest range."

"Yes, sir. It'll take a bit of time, but we'll get it done."

"With all the fuel we have taken from the other ships, lack of fuel is unlikely to be a problem and to be honest, it's most likely never going to be used, but let's try it."

"Yes, sir." He said with a smile. "Shall we continue the tour?"

"Yes, let's do that."

An hour later I was impressed with the design of the Fafnir. Unlike most Imperial ships, the Fafnir was built for space combat alone and it showed. There were no over-sized troop quarters, no extra kitchens or everything else that came with having a battalion of soldiers onboard.

Due to that, I was slightly surprised when the engineers showed us a large room that had been converted into a park, like the hangar-parks on the other ships. However, Gacith explained that the park was the result of the engineers merging a small hangar for the Mandalorian Basilisk wardroids with a storage room for the large sensor-probes for the launch-system we had seen earlier. Like the vast open space on the Dreadnaughts, this park still had some metal pillars going between the deck and the overhead, but they blended well with the green tubes and once all the greenery had grown out, it would be just as pleasant as on the other ships.

The ship's weapon layout was just about perfect, as the engineers had exchanged the old and much less powerful quad turbolaser batteries with the harder hitting modern dual turbolaser batteries. They might be a little slower firing but were better at penetrating enemy shields and armor, and both the twenty-six dual turbolasers batteries and the eight ion cannons were placed so their firing arcs covered everything. The twenty-eight quad laser turret batteries gave the cruiser excellent performance against smaller ships, while the missile launchers enabled it to take on even the largest of ships. It even had two tractor-beam projectors to catch whatever ships the other weapons had taken down.

It became even better when Engineer Tran explained that most of the weapons and sensors had been upgraded with spare parts from the newer wrecks, bringing the ship up to the same standards as the newer battlegroup. In short, it was an awesome warship without the multirole 'sickness' that plagued the other Imperial ships we had found.

That didn't mean that the rest of the ship was perfect, though. The utilitarian interior style was very similar to the visuals I had seen from the other Mandalorian ships. There were no panels covering the neatly arranged power cables in the somewhat cramped hallways, and while that made repairs easier, especially in combat, it wasn't a look I found pleasing. In addition, the crew cabins were smaller, and I guessed that it was designed that way to make room for the large hangar bay.

Another place I found lacking was the bridge, where the age of the ship showed. The instrumentation was old, there was no holoprojector for tactical display and the read-outs were just as old fashioned as the instrumentation. In addition, the layout was just not as good as the newer ships. At least not from a command ship point of view, but for a ship built solely for attack it was more than serviceable.

"What do you think about the ship?" I asked Tristana in a low voice. "Any good?"

She sent me a bright smile. "Are you kidding me, sir? This ship is awesome!"

"Better than the Wyvern-class you have now?"

The female Echani pondered that question for a moment before she said. "Better in general, no. The Wyvern-class is top of the line when it comes to cruisers, at least in my opinion. However, as a warship without additional passengers in the form of a battalion of soldiers, I like the Fafnir better. There're less distractions and it's built to go in and get things done. For me, there's a pureness in that that is immensely compelling." She tilted her head as she looked at me. "Wait a minute, you want me to command it instead of a Wyvern, don't you, sir?"

It was for that exact reason I had brought her along and there was no reason to lie about it, so I nodded. "Yes. This fits your style of combat better than a Wyvern and while any fleet is supposed to act in unison, it would be nice to just let you and your sisters loose once in a while."

"What? My sisters?"

I chuckled at her stunned facial expression. "Elanore and Anna scored almost as high as you did in the tactical scenarios and while I did promise you that the three of you would serve on the same ship, the numbers suggest that you're equally good when commanding a ship each."

The stunned expression was slowly replaced with one of understanding. "Oh, that was the reason for last week's scenarios. It wasn't just to test our separate skills but to see how we worked together."

"Yes, and the three of you pretty much aced it." I looked around on the bridge. "I hope the three of you will agree to command a pack of Fafnirs."

That made her laugh. "Agree?! I love the thought and Elanore and Anna are going to be ecstatic... at least if a pack is the same three ship unit that you arranged the Drakes into."

"It is." I confirmed, adding "Normally a pack of cruisers would have three packs of frigates to support it, but we simply don't have that many frigate size ships. On the positive side, the Fafnir carries enough fighters to protect itself and with twenty-eight Quad Laser Turret Batteries, any attacking starfighters will have a hard time getting close."

The smile on her face didn't diminish. "I'm okay with that, and so will Elanore and Anna."

"Good, then I'll arrange things with Commander Samko."

She nodded and looked over at Master Engineer Gacith and Engineer Choe Tran who were standing at the side of the bridge, out of hearing range. Then she returned her silvery eyes to me. "Can I make a few changes, like getting panels for the corridors and the like?"

"It's your ship." I said simply. "Make the changes you want, but I hope that we're ready to get out of here soon, so don't make changes that can't be done within a few weeks."

"Thank you." She smiled and glanced over at the two engineers again before whispering. "How long have the two of them been together?"

That made me raise my eyebrows. "I didn't even know that they are a couple."

"They are." She said, certainty in her voice. "They might not have said so, but their body language tells another story."

"Well, as long as they keep their private relationship separated from their working relationship, I really can't complain."

"Yes, I noticed that you Chiss are exceptionally good at that." Tristana chuckled. "I wonder if it's an inborn trait."

"Training is more likely." I answered. "Most of the Chiss here are seasoned professionals on their second or third assignment, and they're used to it by now."

"Well, apparently that includes Master Engineer Gacith."

"That and the fact that he has family, a nephew to be precise, aboard Majestic." I said dryly. "Though to be honest, I don't think he has a life-partner back in Chiss territory, as some of the others have... though long-time relationships are notoriously hard to maintain while being in the Navy."

"Hmmm quick question, sir. What do we do if a romance ends in a bad break-up?"

"Transfer all involved to separate ships." I said without hesitation.

"Not just one of them?"

"No. It takes at least two, or in several cases, three, so all have to be transferred. Betty Nagos has written down a few exceptions, like if the transfer is being used by one of the involved people to pressure the other, but otherwise it's the way to do it."

She thought about that or a moment and then nodded. "I see your point."

"Good. Now let's go back to the Majestic and talk with Commander Samko. We need to crew these ships." I remembered something and gestured at the engineers. "Have you installed the circuit for droid-gunners here?"

"Yes, sir." Confirmed Tran.

"Good... and if I haven't mentioned it before, the engineers have done an exceptionally good job here. Thank you."

They saluted. "You're welcome, sir."

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

As usual, flying the Shark between the ships was a pleasure and I was approaching the Majestic, when I was overtaken by a fighter. At first glance it looked like an Aurek, but then I discovered that it had two wide wings with an engine in each, instead of the thin variable-geometry wings of the original Aurek. The fighter suddenly swirled a wing and spun around in space, before taking off in another direction with incredible speed in a display of extreme manoeuvrability.

"Commodore," I suddenly heard over the comm. "Pilot Maxwell here. Could I persuade you to just stay on your current heading for a moment, sir?"

I hesitated for a moment. Unscheduled shows were notoriously dangerous, but I was also curious, so activating the channel, I answered. "This time only, Pilot Maxwell."

"Thank you, sir." The reply came back, and a little while later the new craft crossed the front of the Shark, but while the wings with the twin ion engines pointed past the Shark, the center hull pointed straight at me, making it clear that if he had intended to fire the lasers at me, they would have been right on target.

The wings suddenly straightened, and Maxwell must have hit full thrust because the fighter passed the Shark again and while it was at a safe distance, there was no doubt in my mind that if it had been a combat situation, the full load of two heavy lasers, two rapid-fire lasers and two ion-missiles would have slammed right into the front of the Shark.

The craft disappeared from my view, but I could see it on the scanners, where it spiralled along the rear of the Shark, still moving so fast that an anti-starfighter battery would have had trouble keeping up with it, much less getting a target lock.

"Enough, Pilot Maxwell." I told him over the comm. "You've made your point."

"Yes, sir... and thank you for playing along, sir."

"You're welcome and it was a pleasure to see the craft in action. Thalen out."

Resa was standing in the Fleet Commander's hangar when I landed the Shark and even from a distance I could see the wide smile on her face.

"I know, it's a...." I said as I walked down the ramp, but then stopped talking when I realized that she wasn't looking at me. Instead, she was staring into space, with a smile plastered on her face, looking like she had suddenly and unexpectedly run out of power, but with the blue LED on the temple blinking in regular intervals, that clearly wasn't the case.

"Resa!" I called and gently poked her nose, causing her to blink. "What is wrong?"

She looked at me in total surprise. "H-how did you get here? You were flying!"

"I flew in while you were staring into the darkness." I told her. "Did you get the check-up from the engineers?"

"Yes!" She said insistently. "There is nothing wrong!"

"Resa," I said gently. "You were staring into space for about a minute without any recollection of it. There is something wrong."

She stood still for a moment and then nodded. "According to my self-diagnosis program, 73 seconds is totally missing." She shook her head with a sigh. "I need a check-up. This is not good."

"No, it's not." I agreed. "Go there now."

"I will... in a moment." She looked at me. "What did you think about the Dragonfang?"

"It's brilliant. Do you have all the kinks out of the system?"

"Almost, but there are a few remaining." She admitted. "The control-system isn't quite there yet, there's a glitch in the aiming system for the ion-missiles, due to the difference in Imperial and Republic programming, and the swivel-mount for the wings needs some reinforcement." She shrugged. "Aside from that, they're good to go into production and the stats are already loaded into the simulator."

"Do the reinforcement on the swivel-mount and start producing them." I told her. "But only after you have had a check-up."

That made her smile. "Yes, sir. I'll do that right away."

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

"The small ship is an advanced shuttle, but the capital ones are some of the most cutting-edge ships I've ever seen." Declared Chief Engineer Keller a week later when he, Senior Mechanic Waydar, Master Engineer Gacith, Resa and I were sitting in my office, looking at the scans on the unknown ships Tavune had found earlier. "We don't know much about the shuttle yet, as Commander Yaki is securing it as we speak, and we haven't had an engineering team to look at it yet."

While Resa was getting a thorough check-up that found nothing, an engineering team had spent the better part of a week going over the capital ships after Commander Yaki had given the all-clear, but it still baffled them. What they did know was that the capital ships were extremely advanced, with a completely different hyperdrive and fuel system than what had been seen earlier.

Even the turbolasers had a slightly different construction, being more advanced than even the newest weapons on board our ships.

The capital ships consisted of a large, four-pointed star shaped frontal module and a rear engine module connected by a central spine. As most capital ships, they were heavily armed, with seventeen turbolasers spread around the hull, but without any point-defence system whatsoever. Instead, they had hangars for both starfighters and drop ships, and I guessed that they relied on the starfighters for protection against other fighters.

Besides the advanced Turbolasers, they had a battery of what at first glance looked like missile launchers, but on closer examination the team had discovered that instead of missiles, the launchers fired well-armored boarding pods filled with battle droids, meaning that after the turbolasers had taken out the enemy shields, the pods could drill through the hull and release battle droids into the enemy ship, overwhelming the defenders and take over the ship.

Strangely, it looked like the ships were completely controlled by droids, despite that the smaller ships were built to be controlled by humanoids, and each capital ship had several assembly lines for droid manufacturing and maintenance. Presumably to be able to keep enough droids for the boarding pods.

"Yes, they're extremely advanced." Said Master Engineer Gacith, thoughtfully scratching his head. "Especially the fuel arrangement." He pointed at the schematics. "Look here, sir. That is not really a fuel system as we know it. They're more like big capacitors that collect energy from those clusters right here." He pointed at several on the ship. "Unless I'm mistaken, this ship runs on a hybrid of standard fuel and the solar energy collected by these clusters."

That made me raise my eyebrows. Fuel and other consumables were always an issue when dealing with a fleet and it sounded like this advanced ship had solved the problem. At least partly since there were cases where there simply wasn't sunlight to absorb.

"Is this something we can recreate?" I asked.

Keller chuckled and snorted at the same time. "Most likely, though it would most likely take a decade or so to reverse engineer it. As far as the scans detect, it doesn't take any special materials to build it. Unlike the hyper-drive, which is quite simply too advanced to reverse engineer, as it uses rare materials we don't have and don't know where to find. I'll bet almost anything that these ships have a hyperspace rating of 1 or less."

I could feel my eyebrows raise in surprise. While modern warships were exceedingly fast compared to freighters, most of them had a hyperspace rating of 2. I had never even heard of a capital ship with a hyperspace rating less than that, making these ships extremely fast.

"Plus." Said Waydar and highlighted some lines on the outside of the ship. "These lines contain high levels of Hibridium, interspaced with Stygium crystals, which made Chief Engineer Keller suggest that it could be some kind of cloaking device, but again, we're not really sure."

"In some ways," said Keller slowly. "The design reminds me of a Hammerhead-Class cruiser, with the big well-armed front housing the bridge and the main weapons, connected to the engine with a weaker spine."

That caught my interest. "When you say weaker, do you mean they have a weak spot?"

He nodded and pointed at the spine. "Right by the hangars there. Hangars are mostly empty space for the fighters and dropships, and the lack of internal structure there, makes that section a lot weaker than the rest." He shrugged. "However, like the Hammerhead-class these ships look like they're designed to be used in close formation and with their front towards the enemy, so under normal circumstances, that's not really a problem, but if strike fighters break through their fighter screen, it could be a disaster for them, and..."

A loud crash interrupted us, as Resa suddenly stood, sending the chair she had been sitting on into the wall, the blue LED on her temple blinking so fast that it was more like a lamp. My instincts screamed danger to me and I both drew and ignited a lightsaber as she drew her blaster in a fluid motion and fired a shot at me. The lightsabre flashed as I parried the blaster bolt, sending it back into her. She staggered as the bolt hit and I used the distraction to cleave the blaster with the lightsaber.

With a scream, she threw herself at me, but I caught her with telekinesis just before she reached me and lifted her into the air, holding her there. Two blaster bolts left the panther droids and slammed into her, damaging her further, before I could order them to stand down. She went limp, but her arms and legs were still twitching.

"What the fuck!" Keller exclaimed, horrified. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." I said calmly. "But I'm going to find out. Can you do something?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment and then shook her head. "No, you're the owner, and thus the only one with a chance of getting an answer out of her."

I blinked a few times as I remembered that Keller was right. I had accepted ownership way back on Centauri 21, but so much had happened since then that it felt like a lifetime ago.

"Resa. What is going on?"

"We need to destroy those ships." I heard her say, but instead of coming through her mouth, it was coming from the speakers of the wall screen. "Now."

"Can you tell me why?"

"That ship is not dead, sir! I can hear something coming from it... like a distant alluring song... and the droid brain on the other ship is responding." Her voice sounded strained. "The droid brains on those ships are alive and are waking up... Living beings are the enemy to them ... they want you and the rest of the fleet dead."

"Go into shut-down mode." I ordered.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that, sir." She said, still sounding strained. "Somehow the Command Droid on that ship has remotely hacked my body through the organic neural sensory processor, and I can't control it."

That was both good and bad. Good, because Resa was the only droid equipped with an organic neural sensory processor, which was the part that allowed her to enjoy sex, and bad because I had no idea how to immobilize her while we dealt with the situation. Mostly because there was a real chance that the Ion blast I have used to disable droids in the past would wipe her memory.

Still holding her with telekinesis, I walked the few meters to the door to the bridge and opened it. "Captain Iska!"

She looked up from the screen. "Yes, sir!?"

"We're under attack. The two unknown capital ships in Quadrant 4c are droid ships that consider living beings the enemy. They also contain advanced technology that has enabled the droids to take control of Resa's body remotely and if they get into our systems, they might be able to control the droids that man our weapons if we give them a chance to power up. I want them destroyed right now."

"Yes, sir." She turned and glanced at the readouts. "Helm, move us into a position where we can hit with as many energy weapons as possible. Guns, I want every available gun to fire on the two capital ships. Now."

To Master Gunner Kansen's credit, he didn't waste a moment in relaying the order, adding "Fire as they bear. This is not a drill."

Iska sent an all-ship message, telling the rest of the fleet to move into range of the unknown capital ships and fire on them with all they got.

It only took a few minutes to get Majestic into range and moments later, the six Heavy Turbolasers sent their bolts off, hitting the unknown ship in the side. As Majestic continued to move forwards, that was followed shortly by the other Turbolasers and Ion-cannons, and it didn't take long before Glorious' Heavy Turbolasers joined the fray, followed by the rest of its Turbolasers as they came into range.

"Sir, you need to disable my body before they overload it!" Resa suddenly said, again using the speakers.

"I'm afraid that I might wipe your droid-brain by accident." I admitted.

"No worries, sir." She answered. "My memory is backed up every time I recharge."

"Separation!" Called Tavune from his station. "Forty boarding pods heading our way."

"Lasers and point-defence, focus on the pods. EW, synchronise with the cruisers." Iska ordered. I silently agreed with her. With our shields still up, there wasn't much chance for any pod or missile to reach the hull of our ships, but we were up against unknown and extremely advanced tech, and the counter measures were prudent.

"Yes, sir." Said Lieutenant Karnos.

With a sigh, I let go of Resa's body and hit it with an Ion blast as she hit the deck, making her lay completely still.

"Master Gacith, have someone take care of Resa." I ordered. "Chief Engineer Keller, plot the weak spot into the targeting computer and send it to the fleet as a whole."

Keller nodded, ran to a console, and started typing, while I walked onto the bridge.

"Captain Iska. The ships have a weak section in their spines, so we hit that until they break apart. Then we obliterate the front sections of both ships completely, but do NOT fire at the shuttle. We have a team inside it." I ordered. "Advise the other ships."

"Yes, sir."

A moment later, Keller looked up from the console. "Done, sir."

Turning, I looked at the ships on the viewscreen, saw the fire shift from the front section to the spines and nodded. "Good."

I turned back to Keller. "Those ships were built by humanoids, right?"

"I think so, sir." He said with a small nod. "They have a bridge, and a droid controlled ship doesn't need one."

"My thoughts exactly."

Our heavy weapons continued to fire at the capital ships, while the lasers and point defence weapons of the entire battlegroup focused on the pods, creating a shimmering field of colour and light between us and the hostile ships, as beams from hundreds of weapons criss-crossed against the dark background.

One by one, the pods blew up, but it took at least six or seven shots to take out a single pod, making them a lot more resistant than any starfighter.

"Don't bother with rockets." I heard Iska order. "Those pods will shrug them off."

"Yes, sir!"

Since they were able to fire pods, I had expected the unknown ships to raise shields, but apparently their main reactors weren't up and running yet and less than a minute later the ships broke apart, as their spines disintegrated. The fire shifted to the front sections, which was hit by countless shots from turbolasers and Ion-cannons.

I called Yaki. "Commander, have your people exited the smaller ship?"

"No, sir." She answered immediately. "We can't get away without being hit by the salvos from the battlegroup."

"Stay there then. That shuttle is not droid-controlled, is it?"

"No, sir. It was crewed by humans and was transporting what looks like some kind of heavy infantry."

Considering that Resa had said that the droids were out to kill all living beings, the presence of humans near them was strange, but also a question for later.

"One moment, sir. I'll send a visual." Said Yaki before I had the chance to say anything.

A moment later a picture of a dead humanoid in golden-yellow armor showed up on one of the screens. Strangely archaic, it consisted of a breastplate, shoulder- and shin-guards, while the hips were protected by a short piece of segmented armor, that reached to the mid of the thigh. The humanoid wasn't wearing a helmet and the face resembled that of a human male. The lack of a helmet was also most likely what had killed him, as I had no problem recognizing the signs of sudden decompression.

"There're four of them, sir." Said Yaki and moved the camera, so I could see them. That also showed a huge hole in the after end of the cabin and through it, I could clearly see turbolaser bolts flying past, while the fire from the point defence drew a web of fire across the space.

"Okay. Sit tight, Commander."

"I have a theory, sir." Said Chief Engineer Keller, as he walked up to me. "I think the Ion-emission from the pulsar has wiped the control droid, making it go back to its core programming."

I nodded. "That would explain why it was possible for them to have the smaller ship crewed by humans."

"I hate to think of somebody creating a droid warship, with the aim of killing off living beings." Said Captain Iska with a shiver, making me chuckle and say, "How is that different from creating any other weapon with the intent of killing living beings, Captain?"

"I don't know, sir." She admitted. "It just feels different."

I shrugged. "The universe is full of lunatics. The Pius Dea exterminated trillions of non-humans just because they weren't humans. Then we have the Jedi and the Sith. After the Great Hyperspace War a thousand years ago, the republic exterminated all Sith they could find. That didn't work out and the Sith came back resulting in the Great Sith War."

I was aware that the guns on the ship had started shooting again but ignored it. They could easily destroy two stationary ships without me looking over their shoulders.

"That was followed by the Mandalorian War and Jedi Civil War, which ended with the battle of Rakata Prime, again with a massive cost of lives lost. Three hundred and fifty years later brings us up to the present, where the galaxy at large has just entered peace after almost thirty years of war, with trillions of lives lost. To make it worse, there are thousands of smaller wars we don't even know about and won't know about for years. "

I turned and looked at the plot. The pods had been eliminated, but the last four of them had been dangerously close to the ship before they were taken out, and it had taken the firepower of the entire battle group to take out just forty of those heavily armored pods.

The front end of the two capital ships were still there but were being smashed to bits by the turbo lasers from the battlegroup.

"I think those ships out there were created by an unknown race to combat another unknown race and that it went terribly wrong. Droids or organics doesn't matter, as it doesn't change the basic concept that the galaxy is a dangerous place to live in, and to survive, you must be able and willing to defend yourself or to be defended by someone else. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever lunatic fate has decided to throw your way."

"Amen to that." Said Captain Iska seriously.

Keller nodded, but then asked. "When we're done turning the front end of those ships into so much dust and debris, can we fly out and see if something of the fuel system and capacitors are still there? I really want to take a closer look at them to supplement what we already have from the scans."

"Do that, but when you're done, they will get destroyed as well. Oh, and if that fuel system is as good as you say, try to reverse engineer it when you have the time, but current projects always have priority."

"As I said, sir, that might take years, perhaps even a decade."

"I didn't set a deadline." I told him with a smile. "I know you're itching to get a closer look at it... well, go take that closer look, as soon as the Black Dragons have given you the all-clear signal."

He saluted with a huge smile on his face. "Yes, sir." And walked out of the bridge.

Iska chuckled. "That's the face of one who just got a new pet project."

"Yes," I said with a nod. "But the interdictors will be finished soon and when we get out of here, the Chief Engineer will suddenly have a lot less to do. He also has a corps of hundreds of engineers and plenty of droids to do any of the routine maintenance. He'll need a puzzle to keep him busy."

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

"We have a problem, sir." Said Yaki some hours later, as she placed a staff-like weapon on my office table. At first sight, it looked like a bladeless spear, but when I took a closer look, I discovered a few familiar buttons on it. That caused me to look closer at the spears end, where I discovered a blade emitter, making the weapon a lightsaber spear or a lightsaber pike, depending on the terminology used.

However, the problem wasn't really a single weapon, but the fact that one of the Black Dragons stood behind her, holding three more spears, two long and a short one, looking to be of the same design.

Next to her stood two more Black Dragons, each holding two of the golden-yellow helmets I had seen on the visuals Yaki had sent me from the strange shuttle. There were slight differences in the helmets, but the general design was exactly the same.

The problem was that such general designs almost always meant that there was an organization behind it, making requirements for how the armor and weapons should look like. In this case it was even worse as it took a force user to make light weapons and the only case where it would make sense to have light weapons as the main weapon, was if the wielder was a force user.

Put together there was a real chance that there was an unknown organization of force users out here in The Chaos. An organization that had access to extremely advanced droid controlled capital ships, equipped with assembly lines for wardroids.

"Did you find any shields as well?"

Yaki looked surprised. "Yes. Two of them. How did you know?"

"Any short lightblade is not efficient at parrying blaster bolts and a spear or a pike is just a short blade on a long stick, so if you want to survive an encounter with blaster armed foes either use a force shield, carry a shield or both." I explained. "And it's easier to carry a shield, than maintaining a force shield." Rubbing my forehead, I asked. "Any logos?"

"Yes, sir." Answered Yaki and ordered the computer to show a picture on the wall screen. A moment later, a picture of the shuttle's tail showed up, clearly showing a golden-yellow logo that looked like an inverted flanged spire or spear. "I asked the computer to identify it, but it drew a blank. It's nothing anyone has ever seen before."

"Or survived to tell others about." I added with a sigh.

"That's a possibility as well." She nodded and took a deep breath. "Look at this, sir." She placed a piece of material with something written on it. "It's the instructions from the shuttle's emergency rations."

I had expected it to be written in a cryptic alien language, but to my surprise it was written in Galactic Basic Standard, which was the most used system of writing in the galaxy.

"Well, at least they aren't aliens." I commented, while my mind raced. "Judging from the capital ships and the armor, my guess is that they're an off-shot of the Sith that fled the Galaxy four hundred years ago after the Great Sith War, but there's really no way to tell, and the shield and lightsaber spear combo seems a little too defensive for Sith. It could just as easily be Jedi or something third."

"No matter what, this is bad." Sighed Yaki.

I nodded in agreement. As Chief Engineer Keller had pointed out, the capital ships had been designed to be used in formation, suggesting that this organization had a lot of them and considering the time it had taken six of the most modern capital ships to smash just two, I hoped that we never ran into any of them when they had their shields up, functioning weapons and the ability to fire off more than the forty pods we had faced.

The warrior's combination of a spear-like weapon with a shield and heavy armor was also typical for units that fought in formation, though I had never heard of any force-using unit that did that. As I had told Yaki, it was a defensive formation, designed to protect the warriors from mostly frontal assaults. However, if combined with other types of units, the shield formation could be used to keep the force users safe to use the Force, while other units attacked. Units like the wardroids on the capital ships or other types of force-users.

Looking at the Black Dragon holding the weapons, my eyes stopped at the short weapon. "I need to take a look at the short spear."

She handed it to me, and I examined it carefully. About a metre long this one had a blade emitter at both ends and two sets of control buttons.

"Majestic, do you have any records of a lightsaber staff or double-bladed lightsaber?"

"Yes, sir." The computer answered immediately. "According to the database, the double-bladed lightsaber was invented by the Dark Lord of the Sith, Exar Kun, three hundred and forty-four years ago. Exar Kun was a master duellist and slew numerous people with his weapon, Jedi and Sith alike. The length of the blades is believed to have extended more than a metre from each emitter, making it an extremely long weapon."

"Thank you." I said and examined the weapon with my Force senses. Somewhat to my surprise, it didn't give off any feeling of being corrupted by the dark side, so I picked it up. It was surprisingly light, making me look at Yaki. "Have you had the material analysed?"

She nodded. "Yes. According to the scanners, all the weapons are made of, or coated with, Phrik. A material that resembles Mandalorian Steel in that it's both blaster and lightsaber resistant. It's very rare and very expensive, which I guess is the reason that the armor and shields are made from Dura-armor, like most military armor. The electro-staves we recovered from the Zygerrians in the Epsilon Eta system were covered in the same material."

I nodded and opened the small power-cell compartment in the weapon, as I said. "That's another problem..." I took the power-cell out. "The only reason anyone has to use lightsaber resistant materials in a weapon, is if you expect to go up against other light weapons at some point." One of the troopers handed me a new power-cell, which I inserted in the slot. It fit perfectly. "Meaning, that there's a chance that the ships and troopers here are meant to go against either the Sith or the Republic at some point."

"That'll take a large fleet and a lot of troopers." Yaki stated, while I closed the compartment again. "Which is not the same as saying that it can't be done."

"If they have the ships and troopers and are willing to wait until hostilities break out again, they can lean back and watch the Sith and the Republic weaken each other until either one side or both are too weak to resist an attack from a new front." I said and held the weapon out in front of me. "Then they can strike, rolling over the unsuspecting enemies like a thunderstorm." I activated the weapon and as expected, a glowing blade grew from each end of the staff with a hum, extending about a meter from the hilt. However, as with every other lightsaber that had passed through the barrier, it only took a few seconds before the blade started to flicker and give off a strange keening sound. I switched it off again. "At least that is what I would have done."

"I think that's the way most commanding officers would do it." Yaki agreed, nodding at the weapon. "Are you going to fix those weapons as well?"

Shaking my head, I said. "No. They don't fit my fighting style and those who're trained with the use of a staff, like the three Echani, already have some of the electrostaffs from the Epsilon Eta system. Let's put them into storage for now."

"Yes, sir."

"But you were right, Yaki." I told her. "We do have a problem. When we get out of here, we planned on finding a place for the former prisoners to settle down. I didn't think that finding somewhere in the Republic was a good idea before this, as I believe the war will start again. However, now that there might be yet another force out there, planning to start yet another war, I'm even more sure that settling them down somewhere in the Outer Rim is a bad idea."

"Shit." Mumbled Yaki, but then nodded. "I have to agree, sir."

"Fortunately, that's neither here nor now, so we have time to think it over, but we have at least one candidate planet right here in the Chaos for them."

"Oh? Where is that?"

"Debra system, where Sharon the Red is." I told her with a chuckle.

"Not another freaking box system!" She said with distaste in her voice.

"Well, according to Master Gunner Kansen, this box system has a moon that allows passage in and out of it. Even better, it's located in a nebula, making it extremely hard to find if you don't know it's there, and we're going there anyway."

"You have a point." Admitted Yaki with a sigh. "But that means that we most likely need to go to Nodia Prime first. According to Lieutenant Titlow and Senior Mechanic Arthur Waydar they only travelled for a few days before we encountered them in the Epsilon Eta system, so the Nodia System must be close."

"Majestic, show a star map with the area around the Nodia system."

There was silence for a few long seconds, before the computer replied. "There's no system called Nodia in the database."

"Security measures combined with the Unknown Regions." I said with a sigh. "And even if it exists on another map, it most likely has another name." I looked at Yaki. "When Resa is fixed, I'll put her and the programmers to work on the database on the two Kiltirin-class dungeon ships. I know their systems were wiped, but the scanner data might contain some clues about the system." I thought for a moment. "Get together with her and see if you can't find some newer local ships. We'll need their star maps once we get out of here."

"Yes, sir." She said, struggling not to yawn, but then widened her eyes. "Sorry, sir, but did you say that Resa needed to be fixed?"

"Yes." I said and explained what had happened, including that Resa was currently in the workshop, having her damage attended to by the droid techs.

"I'm glad she's going to be all right ... and it certainly explained why you fired at those ships, sir." Yaki said. "You don't usually do that without having been attacked first."

"It might not have been with turbolasers, but they most certainly tried to attack us." I said and noticed that she was trying not to yawn again. "Sorry for keeping you here for so long, Commander. Go and get some sleep."

"I will, sir." She said with a salute. "Sleep well."

"You, too."

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

Almost there

Interdictor-class cruiserOsprey, Snare system, the Labyrinth nebula

"Problem-solving is essential to engineering."

"Saying from the Engineering school

Chief Engineer Keller reminded me of a proud father showing off his child as he showed me around on the repaired and improved Interdictor-class cruiser, passionately telling me about everything the engineers had done with the ship, including a park and an organic air scrubber.

The biggest improvement was the command tower at the end of the tour. As I had suggested a long time ago, it was about half the size it used to be and the command bridge had been moved from the top of the tower to the bottom, and more armor had been added.

They had also looted every weapon system they could from the destroyed MX5 Fafnirs, as the weapons on those were superior in every way to those on the Interdictor.

As a result, the slow-firing old laser turrets had been changed into turrets equipped with quad lasers, making them much more efficient against almost everything, and the turbolasers were now Dual Turbolasers Batteries, giving the ship considerably more firepower than the original.

The Sith fighters had been exchanged with Dragonclaws and it even had a wing of scouts, though most of the fighters didn't have a pilot yet.

It had taken a bit of time to find a captain for the Interdictor-class cruiser, but I finally settled on Lieutenant Mivito. Not only had he been an Ensign for several years, meaning that he had gone through the basis of officer school, but he had also done extremely well in the tactical course, which was why I originally had assigned him to the Drake-class frigate Chaser. It had been a good choice, as he had the frigate running at peak efficiency in a little under a month, and the crew had been just as happy with their captain as I had been.

Consequently, I had reassigned the whole crew to the interdictor-class cruiser and replaced the crew of the Chaser with a new crew under Lieutenant Sazow. One of the freed slaves that had been with us since Centauri 21 and who had piloted one of the Aureks during the engagement at Epsilon Eta.

"I like the changes you have made." I told the Chief Engineer. "But then again it would be strange if I didn't, considering at least some of them are what I suggested months ago."

"Well, they made sense, sir." Said Keller with a smile. "There're other changes, but they're not as obvious... Like making the hangar exit wider and taller so the star fighters have easier access, or giving the command tower its own armor belt. All-in-all, I'm rather satisfied with how it turned out."

"And what is the status of the gravity well projectors?"

"All the diagnoses we have run say that they'll work, but we haven't tested them yet." He signed. "To be honest, there's no way of telling if they work and more importantly, for how long, which is why I have a recommendation."

"Oh. Do tell."

"Let's not test them until we have everything ready, sir." He said hesitantly. "To be honest we don't quite know how they work and there's no way we can be sure that everything will work perfectly after hundreds of years here. If they only work for a short amount of time, I will rather use that time to get people out instead of on a test."

I considered it for a moment. Keller had a point and as he had said numerous times, the technology used was one we didn't have time to understand. Not even with the blueprints for the ship at hand. At least not if we wanted to get out of here relatively soon. On the positive side, we did have two interdictors and with all systems in the green, it was unlikely that none of them worked.

"Chief Engineer, when you first did the calculations, you were convinced that one ship was enough. Is that still the case?"

"Yes, sir." He replied immediately. "Each ship has four gravity-well projectors and that will make a hole in the Flux large enough for even a dreadnought to go through."

I nodded slowly. Testing the equipment was standard procedure, but this was most certainly not a standard situation and it called for different solutions. My fear was the same as his: That the interdictors only worked for a limited amount of time, catching some of the ships inside the Flux as the hole collapsed.

"All right. We don't test them now." I finally said. "We line every ship up, ready to go and then we start up the Osprey, with the other interdictor ready to take over or assist if needed. If the projectors only work for a limited time, that should give us time enough to get even Osprey out."

"I agree, sir." Keller said, looking relieved. "Give us a week to run the final diagnosis and fine tune a few things, then we're ready."

I nodded again. The delay from the collapse of one of the first interdictors had given the other project time to finish, and almost everything else was done, creating an odd peace after months of hard work. "One week it is then... hmmm ... By the way, I did get your report on the collapse, but I'm not an engineer, so could you quickly explain what happened? Without all too much tech talk, please."

He nodded. "Simply put, it was a combination of a lot of different things. Most importantly, that the material strength had degraded a lot more than on other ships we had scanned, making us believe that that particular ship had been in one of the ion emission beams a lot longer than the rest. Calculations show that the ship would have had to have been caught in a beam for almost one hundred and forty-five years to reach that level of degradation."

"That's a lot!" I commented, remembering someone telling me that the average time any ship was caught in the Ion emissions from the pulsars were less than a year.

"Yes, sir... that the Interdictor cruisers have their hangars at the split didn't help. With the weaking of the material strength, micro fractures occurred all over the ship's internal structure, while leaving the hull looking like nothing was out of the ordinary. " He grimaced. "Then we came along and ripped a hole in the side of the ship to get the extra reactor inside, weaking it even more. The accidental activation of the gravity generator was just icing on the cake. The ship would have collapsed sooner or later anyway."

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but he stopped me by raising a hand. "I know the obvious question, sir, and no, the Osprey cannot collapse like that. We went over that ship with every type of scanner we have without finding any problems..." He paused and hesitated for a few seconds before continuing. "... the same can't be said about the other Interdictors. The one we have in reserve is questionable at best, and we had to discard plans for ripping at least two others for spare parts, as the materials had degraded too much."

I chuckled. "Yes, that was the obvious question, but what I intended to ask, was if the engineers had done the same with the Hammerheads."

"Sorry, sir." He laughed quietly. "We did the same with the Hammerheads, sir, and they checked out as well." He frowned. "Oh, by the way, there's something rather strange about the Interdictor-class cruisers."

"Oh... Like what?"

"When a class of ships are built, there are usually small differences between ships, due to the fact that they're built by people. The difference isn't big enough to be visible with the naked eye, but when you scan the ships like we have done, it is at least detectable, like when we scanned the Hammerheads."

"Which, judging from what you're saying, is not the case of the Interdictor-class cruisers?"

"Exactly, sir. They're all precisely alike." He paused, searching for words. "They remind me of the model I have of the Dragon-class Dreadnought, I had the fabricators make for me. I mean, I only have one, but I could order the fabricators to make me ten more, and they would make ten that were exactly alike. That's the sense I have of these ships. I don't know how, but they 'feel' like they have been mass produced."

"Well, if the Empire had a production facility capable of basically printing an Interdictor-class cruiser," I said slowly. "That would certainly explain the Battle of Rakata Prime."

Keller's eyes widened. "I never thought about that!"

"You couldn't, since you've just discovered it." I said, "but if, and admittedly that is a big if, the Empire had such a facility there, the Republic had no choice but to attack it, even if they had to travel into the Chaos to get there. Otherwise, the Empire could have continued to pump out warships at a rate the Republic couldn't match. On the other hand, the Empire had to throw everything into defending it, because they would have felt that losing that facility would spell their doom."

"Which it did." Keller said.

"Only because they chose to defend it." I said slowly, thinking as I spoke. "The information on that battle is sketchy at best and directly misleading at worst. However, judging from how the Empire fell apart afterwards, I guess that they lost their leaders in the battle. If they had left a much smaller force to defend that facility and instead used the opportunity to strike at the Republic's key shipbuilding facilities, I actually think they would have been better off in the end." I shrugged. "However, there's still a lot I don't know about that battle and most likely never will know, so that is just speculation."

"Yes, but that is what makes it so much fun, sir." Chuckled Keller. "It's a puzzle and I love puzzles... Just like trying to figure out how the fuel system from those unknown ships works... not that I've really had time to look into that one yet."

"Well, if it was straight forward everybody would have such a fuel system by now."

"True that." Said Keller. "But I would still like to know where those ships came from."

"So would I." My conversation with Yaki about the potential new enemy suddenly popped into my head. "By the way, Chief Engineer, do you have any engineers needing something to do?"

That made him laugh. "You have yet another project, sir? I thought that Resa's new fighter was enough."

That made me raise my eyebrows. "You were involved in that?"

He shook his head. "Not really, but I know pretty much everything the engineers are doing, so I double- and triple checked the calculations for the craft just to see if they had gotten everything right. There were a few weak points, but they're fixed now, and I have to say that while the Dragonclaw is a very good craft, this one is even better. Her other skills aside, Resa is an extremely good ship designer, I'm just not sure that there's room in the fleet for this many fighter types."

"Well, if the new craft works out, it'll replace the Aurek, so there won't be more fighter types than before." I said calmly.

"You'll get more designs from her." He predicted with a smile. "Where others have used their salary to acquire things for themselves or their cabins, Resa has bought upgrades for herself in engineering, starship architecture, control systems, drives, weaponry and armor."

"Good. Resa has a talent for designing good ships. It just needs to be guided a little, so we'll get what we need and not just what she thinks is fun." I smiled a little. "Any ships you need?"

He grinned. "With this collection, not really, sir." Then he looked thoughtful. "Scratch that. I might have something for her."

"Oh? What is that?"

He tapped the ever-present datapad and a moment later, the holoprojector on the bridge came to life, showing a Kolareth-class Imperial Transport. "We have a lot of Kolareths and to be honest, the design isn't the best. Despite being twenty-two metres long, the interior is only designed to hold seven VIP passengers along with one hundred-and-fifty tons of cargo, and the weapon loadout only includes light turbolasers, which makes them an easy target for starfighters, despite their heavy armor and shielding." He looked over at me. "I would like for her to see if she can modify the existing transports to hold more passengers and add some lasers while she's at it."

"Deal. Write it down and send it to her. However, she can't touch them before the modifications have been approved. I don't want a bunch of half-rebuilt transports in the hangar in case we need to use them." He nodded with a grin and I continued. "However, back to the project I was talking about. Did Yaki tell you what she found?"

"No, sir."

I nodded and explained what Yaki had found as well as the possible consequences of it, making him go pale. "That is not good, sir!"

"Oh, I agree. So, I suggested settling the freed prisoners on a hard-to-find planet... Like Sharron the Red's planet in the Debra system, though it doesn't have to be that one."

"Sounds like a reasonable idea," said the Engineer after having considered it for a few moments. "So, what do you need from me, sir?"

"Are there any civil engineers among you people?"

"Oh yes. Several of the Chiss and a couple of humans were civil engineers." He frowned. "As far as I remember, there's also a couple of gunners that're educated as architects, just in case you want to build something."

I chuckled. "Partly. I want some plans ready in case we need them."

He nodded and took his datapad. "What exactly do you need?"

"Civilian houses. We can't stay in the ships all the time, so we need some buildings on the ground of whatever planet we find. Not to mention, that if people continue to pair up like they are now, we'll soon have a lot more kids."

"Yes, I've noticed that. One of my Engineers is pregnant."

"Exactly. Now if we select the Debra system, Sharon the Red already has at least eight thousand prisoners and we're just under five thousand, bringing the total to thirteen thousand people. Yes, we're going to the Nodia system to take a look, but we don't know if there're still prisoners in the camp there."

He nodded, so I continued. "Since we don't know what we'll need yet, I want a plan for three villages with room for around six thousand people. One with a focus on agriculture, the other with a focus on production and the last should be a mix of the two." I thought for a moment and then continued. "I want them to be practical and pretty, perhaps even idyllic, at the same time, and they must fit into the landscape. I want beautiful buildings built with local materials, parks with trees for shade, waterways snaking between buildings, and spaceports for freighters and transports."

The Engineer nodded. "Along with civil buildings like kindergartens, hospitals, theatre and the like?"

"Exactly." I smiled. "I'm a spacer, and any architect or civil engineer will know better about what a village needs than I do."

"Good point and the civil engineers can figure out how long it will take to build a village. Do you want it to be modular, so they can be easily expanded... just in case there's still people on Nodia?"

"That would be for the best," I admitted. "Just remember, that we've found a lot of construction droids they can use, as well as Nautilus. As a fabricator ship, that will speed construction up a lot."

Keller thought for a moment. "I have an idea, sir. Those who want to can design a village, then the other architects look it over and give feedback. The plan is changed if needed and then the other architects do the same. When we're satisfied with the plan, we hand it over to the civil engineers, who can then give constructive criticism and only when everybody is satisfied, will the plan be considered done."

"That might work, but the command group has final approval in this, and please remember to tell the architects that the villages have to be idyllic. Some of these people have been prisoners for more than a decade and deserve something nice to live in and look at."

Keller nodded. "No worries, sir. Not only do I agree with you, but for them, it's going to be the greatest opportunity they'll ever get."

"Good. I have to get back to Majestic now, but I expect those ships to be ready in a week."

"They'll be ready, sir."

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

Back again

Dreadnought Majestic

"As a general rule, the most successful leader is the one who has the best information."

From the Holy Book of War

"Commodore." Called Tavune when I walked onto the bridge of the Majestic. "I got something for you, sir."

As usual he was sitting at his station with Karnos by his side, so I changed direction and walked over to him. "Yes, Mister Tavune?"

"We created a composite map from the star maps Commander Yaki brought us and take a look on this." He pressed a few keys and a star map showed up, showing the area around Epsilon Eta system. A solar system a few jumps away lit up. "The highlighted system does not exist on the Imperial maps. On the local maps, it's named Noctis 5 and is an exact match to the scanner data from the two Kiltirin-class ships." He zoomed in on the system. "In other words, Noctis 5 and Nodia are the same system."

Looking at the system, I nodded. With a planet a little too close to the sun and large asteroid belts, it fit the description I had been given perfectly. "There're no other candidates within two jumps of Epsilon Eta?"

"Yes, but this system is the only one where the correlation between the system and the scanner data exceeds ninety percent. The others are in the low eighties." He pressed the controls, causing the map to zoom out and four other planets were highlighted in red. "These planets weren't on the imperial maps either, but as I have already said, I think we got the right planet."

I looked from the map and over at him. "Oh, I agree. The question is if the other systems also contain Imperial prisons." His eyes widened as I continued. "We're getting out in a week and before that the two of you need to check the two maps against each other and mark all systems that appear on the local maps, but not on the imperial ones. If the local maps show that they have a habitable planet, we'll need to scout them before we leave this sector."

He nodded with a smile. "Yes, sir.", echoed a moment later by Karnos.

"Commodore." Called Betty Nagos, making me look at her. "Yes?"

"Sorry to bother you with this, but it's time to talk with our unexpected visitors. Everybody is out of the infirmary by now and they're getting impatient."

I sighed inwardly. I really didn't want to deal with a political problem so close to us getting out, but there was no way around it. "Are they locked into the same cell, as I requested?"

She nodded. "Yes, and we had to use sleep gas two times to break up fights in the beginning, but they have calmed down now. At least enough to not initiate any fights. They're still blaming each other for being here and unlike what you hoped for, the groups are not really talking."

I snorted. It had been an experiment to see how much they hated each other and apparently there was a lot of animosity between the two groups.

"Fine. I'll go have a chat with them." I looked over at Iska. "Captain Iska and Resa, you follow me."

They looked surprised but nodded. "Yes, sir."

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

There were seven persons in the cell, three from the Nova-class yacht and thus the Sublars, and four from the slave-holding Escor culture and thus the Razor's Edge.

The difference wasn't clear in the way they looked, as they looked rather similar to me, with slightly slanted eyes and light brown to black hair, but it was clear from the way they had grouped themselves, with four Escors on one side of the room and three Sublars on the other side.

They looked quite surprised when I came in, flanked by Resa and Iska and followed by two marines, and I suspected we had interrupted yet another shouting match.

"Sorry for interrupting your entertainment, but my XO insisted that you wanted to talk with me." I looked from one group to the other. "Now I'm here, so what do you have to say?"

They immediately started talking all at once, some of them starting to talk louder and louder in order to get heard.

"Shut up!" Ordered one of the Black Dragons, the speakers turned up enough to drown out anybody else in the room.

It worked, as the seven people in the cell quiet down, and I looked at them. "If you can't act like civilised people, you will stay in this cell until you have learned. Is that clear?"

Some said yes, others just nodded. For a moment I was tempted to ask again, but for now I let it be.

"So far we have three people from a yacht that has been used for piracy..."

"We're NOT pirates." Blurted a young man, sounding angry that I would suggest something like that. "We were trying to prevent an enemy ship from escaping."

"Oh. So, the Sublars and the Escors have declared war against each other?"

He paused and blinked. "No, but we're enemies!"

I held up a hand to silence him and looked at the four Escors. "Do you agree with that?"

"No. There's tension between our countries, but not an outright war." A middle-aged woman said, triumph in her voice. "They're just pirates."

"Stop lying, both of you." I said firmly, as I looked at the woman. "You say they're pirates to get them into trouble, but you think of them as enemies in a war." I looked at the male Sublar. "And you know perfectly well that attacking another ship with the intention of stopping it and taking its cargo without a declaration of war, is piracy. You're both trying to play politics, and I don't have the patience to listen to it. Now, could somebody tell me exactly what happened and what brought you here, before I lose what little patience I have left, and leave you in here for another week?"

The middle-aged woman shrugged. "We were getting tired of the constant threats from the Sublars, so we decided to buy some warships in order to defend ourselves against them, but they attacked our ship."

"Where would you buy those warships?" I asked.

"The Terminus-system."

Aside from being Elise Samko's place of birth, Terminus was a system located at the extreme end of the Galaxy's south and was one of the last stops on the Hyperspace Lane known as the Corellian Trade Spine, one of the oldest, longest and most used hyper-routes in the galaxy. To make it better, it was also one of the stops on another newly discovered hyper-route, making the system an excellent place to trade in ships and other goods, despite its somewhat remote location. It was also easily reachable, since as soon as you hit the Corellian Trade Spine, it was an easy flight to Terminus.

"And if you had gotten those ships, would the Escors have used them to attack the Sublars? And don't lie."

"No." she said without hesitation. Unfortunately for her, before entering the room I had used the Force power that enabled me to detect if a person was knowingly lying to me and she clearly was.

The Sublar looked like he was going to object, but I held up a hand, stopping him. "Stay quiet." Turning my attention back to the Escor woman I glared at her, which for some reason caused her to pale. "I told you not to lie, and you did anyway, which tells me, that you're not taking this seriously. I'll be back in a few weeks and by then I strongly suggest you speak the truth."

I turned to walk out, but the other female Escors, a younger one, suddenly asked. "Did any of our slaves survive?"

That was interesting on several levels. She was actually worried about them, and for some reason they mattered more to her than the gold and other valuables on the Razor's Edge.

"Yes, they did... well, some of them at least." I said with a small shrug, as I turned to look at her. "They're currently undergoing treatment and having their slave tattoos removed. We do not have slaves here and any slaves we find that are not convicted into slavery for a crime, will automatically be freed when they have recovered."

"I strongly protest against this." She said firmly, visibly controlling her feelings, though I couldn't see if it was anger or worry. "These slaves are mine. I bought them legally and you can't just free them. That's robbery!"

"You do have a point." I said as pleasantly as I could, before turning towards Resa. "The bill, please."

With a slight smile, Resa reached into a pocket, took out a small datapad and handed it to me.

"Thank you." I turned towards the woman again. "Dragon Defence Force is a mercenary fleet. That means that we're paid for our work." I handed her the datapad. "Here's the bill for your rescue, to be paid within a week. If you cannot pay, we're willing to accept payment in personal goods or belongings instead, subject to approval of course."

She snatched the datapad out of my hand and glanced at it. Then her eyes became wide, and before I had a chance to say anything, she turned and wordlessly handed it to the other three. Their reaction was interesting. One of them was unfazed, accepting the loss of his slaves with a shrug of the shoulders. The other man paled, cursed under his breath, and mumbled. "That's a lot."

The middle-aged Escor woman snorted and looked at me. "You can't be serious! This is insane!"

"No, Mam. These are the official rates from the Mercenary Guild for the whole operation, divided by the numbers of people able to pay." I explained calmly. "However, as I previously stated, we're willing to accept payment in personal goods or belongings instead, which in your case means your slaves."

That caused a chuckle from the Sublars, who were watching the scene with ill hidden amusement on their faces.

She fumed. "You will regret the day you crossed me!"

"Oh, shut up, Olivia." Said the single Escor male tiredly. "Your little sex toys can't be more valuable than your life."

"Shut up, Martin!" She snarled back at him. "Stay out of my personal life or I will tell people about yours!"

That shut him up and in the silence that followed the younger Escor female asked. "Is there any way I can persuade you to postpone payment until we reach Yrla?"

As I watched her face and body language, I suddenly realised that her earlier outburst was grounded in feelings, meaning that there was a chance that her interest in her slave or slaves was more than just an owner-slave relation.

"It sounds like we need to talk." I told her. "Come with me."

She started to walk towards me but was stopped by the middle-aged woman. "Stay here, Maria. We're not going anywhere."

"You clearly misunderstood me." I told her calmly. "It was not a polite request. It was an order. She can follow by her own free will or I will have her brought to us by a squad of marines."

"I will come instead." She declared and walked towards us.

She didn't make it far. One of the Black Dragon bodyguards stepped in front of me, commanding her to stop and when she didn't stop the Black Dragon simply backhanded the woman, sending her to the floor, where she lay looking dazed and with blood running from her nose.

"Stand down, Marine." Ordered Iska calmly, but there was a fraction of a satisfied smile on her lips.

The little interlude told me a lot about how the Escors viewed themselves compared to others and they clearly thought they were better.

"Lady, before you start to complain, be aware that you were warned several times." I told her in a low voice. "You clearly have a delusional view of what your status is here, so let me inform you about it. Right now, I have two groups in this cell. One being pirates, the other slavers. Both are groups that prey on the weak, which is a behaviour that every person in this fleet despises. So, right now all of you in here are despicable to the rest of the crew. That is your status right now and how well you behave, will determine if that status improves to the better." Looking around at the others, I added. "I sincerely hope you understand this."

They nodded wide-eyed, while some said "Yes, sir."

"Good."

Having said what I needed to say, I turned once more and walked out.

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

"I still have trouble believing the arrogance of that woman, sir." Declared Iska in voice so low the others couldn't hear us as we were walking down the corridor. "Who continues to walk forward after being ordered to stop by a marine in full armor?"

"A person so used to commanding other people that she's totally deaf when orders are directed at her." I answered. "Who would you support if you needed to help one of the two cultures?"

She snorted. "The Sublars... but I'm biassed against slavery, so that is most likely incorrect."

"Unfortunately, I don't think there's a correct answer to that question." I said with a sigh. "At least not one I have found yet. One side takes the other side's orbital mines in a violent take over and sends a force after a ship from the other side takes off to buy defence materials. The other side has slaves and are therefore considered generally unpleasant people. All in all, it's a mess and I have no idea about how to solve it in a way that doesn't result in an even worse war between the two sides."

She was silent as we walked, clearly thinking. Finally, she said. "Neither do it... It's quite a mess... Hmm... what was that about ... Marie, I think they called her?"

"The part about her being more worried about the slaves than the gold?"

"Her name is Marie Munmaki." Inserted Resa. "She's the niece of Olivia Munmaki, the other Escor woman."

Iska nodded to Resa and then looked at me again. "Exactly that."

"I don't know for sure, but I got the feeling that she's emotionally involved with her slaves."

"As well as physically."

"Oh yes." I said as we walked into the lift. "Let's go talk with Shakka. She might know which slaves Marie Munmaki owned."

"That would be Sean and Benny, sir." Said Resa calmly, making me send her a smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, sir. It was entered in the database a few hours ago."

"Let's go have a chat with Sean and Benny then." Determined Iska. "I'm curious to know what they think of her."

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

I had expected Sean and Benny to be extremely good looking, but as it turned out they were just above normal looking sandy-haired and blue-eyed men in their late twenties. Both had been seriously wounded in the crash, with Sean still recovering from a broken leg and arm, while Benny couldn't speak since he was recovering from a broken jaw, aside from two broken legs.

"So, tell me about Marie Munmaki." Said Iska calmly, after the guards had introduced us.

They exchanged glances and after a little nod from Benny, Sean sighed. "This is going to sound really weird coming from a slave... but I really like her. She's fun, smart, treats us well and has a healthy sexual appetite."

"How long have you been with her?"

"Eight -- ten years." He nodded in the direction of the other man. "The same with Benny here. We were bought at the same time."

"Excuse me, but where're you from? On Yrla, I mean." Asked Resa.

"The Outback." Said Sean. "It's a small collection of Islands between Sublar and Escor, and both of them raid us from time to time. Escor for slaves and Sublar for spices."

"A raid for spices?"

He sighed again. "Well, apparently, it's cheaper than trading. It was a bad year for us. First the Sublars raided and took our harvest, then the Escors raided and took half the people ... those they could find at least."

"Okay. Back to Marie. What happened?"

He smiled a little. "She bought us from a slave trader and after a year or so of education, we became her servants... and after about another year, her lovers as well."

"Education?" Prompted Iska.

Sean nodded. "There's not much education on the Islands... So, we needed to learn how to dress, how to speak politely, eat dinner and so on." He thought for a moment. "It wasn't hard if you put your mind to it."

"I've talked with a lot of slaves." Said Iska slowly. "And cruelty is a common theme. Have you ever experienced that?"

He shook his head. "Not on the Mistress' estate, but I know of others that were treated very badly and with a lot of cruelty." He thought for a moment. "Was there a middle-aged man with a scar over the right eye? His name is Martin."

Resa nodded. "Yes."

"He's one of the worst. To him slaves are biological machines and nothing more. If one breaks, it'll be killed and replaced."

"Are all the slaves from the Islands?" Iska wanted to know.

"No, some of them are Escors that have been convicted into slavery... normally because they're so deep into debt that they cannot ever repay it."

I caught sight of Shakka, who was signalling for us to stop and nodded to her before looking at Sean again. "One last question... If you had a choice, if you were a free person, would you be with Marie?"

Sean and Benny exchanged glances again. Then Benny lifted a hand and gave a thumbs up, which made Sean chuckle and nod. "I agree. Yes, if given a choice as free men, both of us would like to be with Marie. As slaves, no thanks. She's wonderful, but nobody is worth the freedom we have just been given. Especially not with her aunt Olivia around. That woman is a pure-breed bitch."

"Thank you." I said and stood. "We'll be leaving before the Doctor kicks us out."

"One moment, sir." Said Sean, looking serious. "I don't know if any of us have said this before, but thanks for saving us out there."

"Well, the praise belongs entirely to the rescue teams, but I shall forward your praises to them."

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

"Well, that was a surprise." Said Iska a while later as we sat down around the table in the office. "Two slaves in love with their owner."

"And there's a good chance that it goes the other way as well." Added Resa with a smile.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't really help with the situation." I said slowly. "If we give the Escors the gold and other valuables back, they'll go buy warships and wage war upon the Sublars, potentially exterminating or enslaving them. However, if we don't give them their gold back, the Sublars will use their better production facilities to build even more warships and declare war on the Escors. A war they will win."

"Is that bad?" Asked Iska softly. "I mean, as far as I see it, the conflict between the two is inevitable and I would rather have the Sublars winning than the Escors."

"To be honest, I don't know." I looked into the air while gathering my thoughts. "What bothers me is that we're in a position where we can actively decide who wins or loses this war. Yes, I know military forces have done that since the dawn of time, but I don't have to like it. I just want to save some people."

Iska looked at me for a moment and then chuckled. "I'm sorry to tell you this, sir, but it's already happening, and it happened before we even arrived here. The Sith is a political organization and by killing some of Darth Arkol's Sith's like you have done, you have weakened his position within the Sith organization, and if I'm not mistaken, that will lessen the likelihood of Darth Arkol going to the top of the organization."

"Hmmm... I haven't thought about it that way." I admitted. "But it makes sense. Especially if you regard a military action as an extension of politics."

She nodded. "Exactly, sir. Wars are started by politicians, fought by the military and ended by politicians... at least most of the time."

Looking into the air again, I thought it over. I had been about to disagree, but Iska was right. Even in the Chiss Ascendency, the military was under control of the ruling families and as far as I knew the Imperial Military was subject to the ever-changing composition of the Sith Dark Council. As usual, the Republic's chain of command was less clear, which had cost them dearly in the latest war, as the Empire had been allowed to take too many crucial systems, before the Republic senate got their brains together, recognized the threat and started to fight back. It was a delay that, along with the Empire having better ships, had caused the Republic to be struggling to catch up for the rest of the war and eventually forced them to sign an unfavourable peace treaty at the end.

"Majestic, I need a map showing the location of the Yrla system in respect to the Nodia system." I ordered and added. "And add the Tetra 7 system as well for reference."

The large screen in the office switched on, showing a star map with the systems highlighted. I felt my eyebrows rise as I studied the Yrla system, or rather its location.

Laying on the edge of a star void, and with a cluster of pulsars and a stellar-mass black hole as its nearest neighbours, Yrla was an extremely isolated system and with the navigational hazards around it, it was highly unlikely that merchants would visit the system.

"Well, at least that explains the lack of new ships, sir." Said Resa. "That has to be the most isolated, yet populated, system I have ever seen."

"Do we have an estimated population size?" Asked Iska.

"No." Said Resa with a shake of her head. "But I can ask the medics to try to find out later."

"Do that." I looked at the star map again. "This might be a wild guess, but I'm pretty sure most of the star ships on Yrla were smashed during this operation. I can't see a system this remote and primitive having many star ships."

"I agree, sir." Said Iska. "Which makes me wonder how they even managed to get astrogators for this trip."

"Well, navigation isn't that hard in a system like that." Said Resa slowly. "I mean, the only way away is through that..." A system was highlighted on the map. "... system right here, and that can be reached with simple system-to-system jumps." She grimaced. "According to what little we have recovered from the computer on the Nova-class yacht, this was also the place where they ambushed Razor's Edge."

"Well, it is the best place to do it." Said Iska.

"I have to disagree. It's a system-to-system jump and if the astrogator was good, they could have exited hyperspace before entering the system and scout the system before entering it." I said slowly, as I looked at the map, thoughts racing in my head. Reaching a conclusion, I nodded to myself and turned towards Resa. "Have the guards bring Marie Munmaki and the highest ranking Sublars to an interview room. One in each room. We will be there shortly."

"Yes, sir." She said automatically, the LED on her temple blinking.

"What's up, sir?" Asked Iksa.

"Unless a merchant has visited Yrla recently, there's no way the Razor's Edge would have the astrogation data to reach Terminus or Tetra 7 from way out there." I explained. "So, either they have the data, have planned a stop somewhere to pick up astrogation data or they have a force-user on board that can do force assisted astrogation, and I want to know which one it is. I also want to know what prompted the Sublars to trust the Escors jump so much, that they were willing to take a blind jump using the same vector."

Iska smiled and stood from her chair. "I love how your mind works, sir. Let's go."

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

Iska, Resa and I were already seated, when the guards brought in the young female Escor and sat her down in front of the table.

Now that I had the time to study her, I could see that she was good looking and the slightly slanted brown eyes created an exotic appearance, though not even close to the other women in my life.

She looked defiantly at us. "Tell your goons to keep their hands of me. I'm not a whore they can grope as they please."

"I highly doubt they were groping you." I said dryly. "It's difficult to feel curves when wearing gauntlets." I glanced at the Black Dragons, reading their name tags. "And you don't really look like their type."

To my amusement she looked offended by that. "Am I not pretty enough?"

"Corporal Hadeta," I said with a smile. "Would you please remove your helmet and answer the young lady?"

Cuqh'adet'agem, as the corporal's Chiss name was, nodded and removed her helmet, allowing her shoulder length hair to fall free, sending the stunned looking Escor a brilliant smile, as she said. "Sorry, lady, but you do look very female and I'm not into women."

The stunned Escor looked at the other Black Dragon, as she removed her helmet as well, revealing a pretty female face. "Well, I do like women from time to time, but if you want me to grope you, at least take me out for dinner or a cup of coffee first."

"You're women!" Marie blurted.

Corporal Hadeta chuckled. "Yes, mam."

"But don't let that fool you." I added. "They can still take you down with one hand tied behind their back." I waited a few seconds and then said. "Now that this is out of the way, I have a few questions I need answered."

"I will answer your questions as soon as you tell me if my slaves are alive or not." The young woman said firmly.

"Both Sean and Benny are alive but have some broken bones and are currently recovering in the infirmary." I said, watching her reaction. "And the only reason I'm telling you this, is because they are quite fond of you."

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Can I see them?"

"I shall ask them later." I promised her. "Just be aware that it is up to them to decide. They're free now."

She nodded and took a deep breath. "Alright. Ask your questions."

"Has Yrla been visited by any ships lately?"

She shook her head. "No. The last visit from the outside was about ten years ago."

"The Razor's Edge was going to the Terminus System, which is quite far away. How were you going to find the route with ten-year-old astrogation data."

She paled a little and considered her answer before she sighed. "We planned on using a Wegweiser. A person with the ability to navigate both the sea and stars."

Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Iska's Lekku twitch in a movement I had learned was surprise, but ignored it as I asked. "Who had that ability on the ship?"

There was another pause. Long enough for me to reach out with my force-senses, but she didn't detect as a force-user.

"Me." she said in a low voice, telling the truth.

"Are you the only one on Yrla that can do that?"

"No, my father could do the same and several others in my family are able to do that as well." She raised her head. "And before you ask why it was me that was selected for the Razor's Edge, it's because I'm better with finding the way in the stars. The others are better on the sea."

"That seems fair, but what caused you to pick that route? I mean, where were you going?"

"Away." She said with a sigh. "We were getting hammered, our fighters destroyed, and we needed to get away in a direction they wouldn't expect. So, I picked the first system I could find a clear route to, and Captain Stevans activated the hyperdrive. However, when we arrived, the Sublars were already there and started to shoot at us, so we did it again with the same result. Third time, Captain Stevans told me to pick a much longer route in the hope that the Sublars didn't have enough fuel to follow us. I did find a route, though it wasn't quite right, but before I had a chance to do any corrections, Captain Stevans activated the hyperdrive. At that time, I was totally exhausted, so the captain bade me go to his ready-room and get some sleep, so I was ready when we arrived." She sighed again. "That is why I was not on the bridge when everything hit the fan."

I accepted that with a nod. "Could you try to find a clear path out of here? We don't need it right now, but could you try?"

Marie nodded and closed her eyes, and I sent out my force-senses again. Now she detected as a force-user, but unlike the few Chiss ozyly-esehembo that could do the same, she wasn't what I would call powerful. Still, it was enough to have the Sight as we called the ability to use Force-assisted astrogation.

Suddenly she became pale and opened her eyes again. "There're no ways away from here?! How can that be?"

"No worry, we have a way out...hmm... Do you happen to know if any of the Sublars have the same ability?"

"They do, but I don't know any details."

Her honesty surprised me. Chiss Skywalkers would rather die than admit to strangers that they had the ability to do astrogation, but then again, Yrla wasn't surrounded by deadly enemies like the Chiss Ascendency.

"By the way," asked Iska. "How big a population does Yrla have?"

"Around four million, I think." Marie answered. "This includes slaves." She grimaced. "Please note that not all Escors favour the slave system. It was originally made only for those convicted into it or unable to pay their debt, but I guess it spiralled out of hand. Still, there's less than a hundred thousand slaves and most Escors don't have slaves. It's only the rich that can afford it."

"Like your family." Stated Iska.

She nodded. "Yes. My family have been merchants and navigators for centuries and we're very well off."

"What would your family think of your relationship with Sean and Benny."

She shrugged. "Nothing, though they will expect me to find new ones once I get tired of them." She hesitated for a moment and then added. "Our family is special due to our navigation ability. At some point, it was discovered that cruel or sadistic people were significantly worse at navigation than those who weren't, so my family did everything in their power to ensure that such tendencies are not encouraged."

Keeping my face expressionless, I thought it over. If they were using roughly the same way of force-assisted astrogation as I did, her explanation made a lot of sense, as users of the dark side, which were notoriously bad at sensing the flow of the light side, which translated into being bad at following the flow of the force to find hyperspace routes. I had no idea how it could influence navigation on a planet, but there had to be similarities enough for it to work.

Iska looked at me. "Anything else you needed to know, sir?"

"Not right now, Captain." I replied and looked at Marie. "I want to thank you for your cooperation, however you're also extremely lucky that we're not bad guys. Any of them would have locked you up and forced you to spend the rest of your life doing astrogation whenever they pleased." She widened her eyes in surprise, and I continued. "I'm not saying this to scare you, but I know of other cultures where the ability to astrogate the Chaos out here is a bigger secret than anything else, and where people who are able to do that would rather die than confess to this ability out of fear of being kidnapped."

"Seriously?" blurted Marie.

"Yes. Seriously." I said calmly as I stood. "Your family's ability is exceedingly rare and as always, rare things are in demand and people without morals will not hesitate to kill a lot of the population of your planet to get access to that ability. For that reason, I will deny ever having heard this and if you're asked, I suggest that you lie and say that you did have an astrogator on board that was killed in the crash."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you, sir. May I ask a question?"

"Sure."

She looked at Iska. "Are you really a Captain, mam?"

"Yes. And it's not the rank, but the title." Iska answered calmly, but I could hear the pride in her voice as she continued. "I'm the captain of this vessel."

"So, you have female soldiers and a female captain. Are there any male soldiers and captains as well?"

I nodded. "Yes. The title of captain is only determined by the skills and competence of the individual. The same goes for the soldiers. The power armor negates some of the muscular advantages most males have, and women are just as good at shooting as men."

"I guess that is not how things are on Yrla." Said Iska.

She shook her head. "It is not. Women are not allowed in the military with the exception of Astrogators and communication specialists."

"Well, that is not the way things are done here, but I'm afraid that's a conversation for another day." I told her. "We have another meeting. Have a nice day."

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

An hour later, Iska and I were back in my office, sitting on the sofa and drinking tea. The Sublar, a man named Jay Knack, had required more persuasion before he started to tell the truth, but eventually we got the story out of him. The Sublar ships had ambushed Razor's Edge and damaged it. When their target had entered hyperspace, they had followed it after their Astrogator had confirmed that the route was a good one. The same had happened two times more, but at the last system, the Razor's Edge's cannons had hit the Nova, causing a part of the bridge to fall down, killing the Astrogator. When the Razor's Edge disappeared into Hyperspace again, the Astrogator on another ship had taken some time to check the vector, and deeming it clear, they had followed. A move that had spelled the doom for them. To make it worse for the Sublars, these four ships were the best and fastest they had, leaving only even older and less capable ships at Yrla.

"What're your thoughts, Iska?" I asked as I placed the cup on the table and leaned back on the sofa.

"It's strange." Said Iska with a sigh. "But despite being a slave owner, I like Marie Munmaki more than I like Jay Knack."

"I have to agree, but that is mainly due to the two people's personalities and not the strength of their culture. Marie Munmaki is likeable, Jay Knack is not."

"I know... hmm... now that we know what happened and how they were able to do astrogation despite not having the astrogation data, what are your plans?"

That made me chuckle. "I don't have any plans that involve the Sublars or the Escors right now. The most important thing right now is to get the fleet out of here, so we can go see if there're still prisoners in the Nodia system."

That made her smile. "So, they can wait?"

"Yes. There's nothing we can do before we're out of here anyway."

"Good point." Iska glanced at her watch. "Jezz, we've spent most of the day on this!"

Looking at the clock, I discovered she was right. Between visiting the Osprey, talking with Keller and interviewing the Sublars and Escors, our shift was done and most of the day had gone. We had even missed dinner.

"I have a suggestion." Said Iska with a slight smile. "How about we get something to eat, call Shakka, Resa or Elise and then spend what is left of the day relaxing in bed?"

"Sounds like an excellent suggestion, except that Resa is currently recharging. Majestic, is Commander Samko or Doctor Shakka off duty now?"

"Doctor Shakka is off duty, but busy in the Infirmary. Commander Samko is off duty." " Answered the computer.

"Nice." Smiled Iska. "If you organize the food, I'll get hold of Elise."

"Deal."

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

Getting out

Dreadnought Majestic, Snare system, the Labyrinth nebula

A leader is responsible for those under his authority. That is the first rule of command.

He is responsible for their safety, their provisions, their knowledge,.

and, ultimately, their lives.

From the Holy Book of War

Six days later, I was standing on the bridge of the Majestic with Captain Iska by my side as we watched the fleet line up near the two Interdictor-class cruisers.

It had taken us a year to get here but finally we were ready to leave the system, and I smiled to myself as I watched the ships maneuverer into position. We had entered the box system with eighteen small ships, stuffed to the limit of what the life supports could handle, but we left with a battlegroup. Granted, all of the ships were short on crew, but after almost a year of intense training, the crew was as well-trained and disciplined as any commander could hope for.

We did have to make some changes and leave some ships behind, including two of the three Foray-class blockade runners we had found. The last had been renamed Chariot to honour the Foray-class we had along with us when we arrived and was added to the fleet instead of the original.

The ships weren't the only thing we brought with us, as they were filled to the brim with spare parts, fuel and food and goods, totalling more than half a million tons, most of it was related to medicine production, agriculture and mining. While not exactly a pirate's dream-haul from the holovids, I hoped that the value of the goods would be a good trade item to offer to whatever planet the freed slaves decided to settle down on.

The one thing I haven't figured out, was what to do with the ships, once we found that place, but that was a puzzle for the future, not now.

When all the ships had taken their assigned places, I looked at Tavune. "Comm, give me the Osprey."

"Yes, sir." Said Tavune with a smile and a moment later, Mivito showed up on the viewscreen.

"Captain Mivito, we are ready to go, so please start up the gravity well projectors on the second Interdictor."

The young Chiss smiled widely. "Yes, sir." He nodded to a crewmember and a moment later, the sensors picked up gravity wells being formed.

Turning my head, I studied the sensor output from the electromagnetic scanners. At first nothing happened, but as the gravity wells grew, they started to bend the electromagnetic waves, and slowly, but surely, a sizable hole was created in the flux.

It also confirmed Chief Engineer Keller calculations: One Interdictor with four working gravity-well projectors would have been enough to get the fleet through.

I shrugged slightly to myself. Better safe than sorry and repairing two Interdictors hadn't taken much longer than repairing one.

"Tavune, the main channel, please." I said and waited a few moments until I heard him confirm. "Alright people, let's get this show on the road. Scouts first, then the frigates and the cruisers, followed by Glorious and Majestic." That would make the screening elements go through first, followed by the battle line, which was the safest way to enter an unknown area. "Start moving, people. The rest of the ships follow in their assigned order, with Osprey as the last ship."

There was a collective "Yes, sir.", and a moment later six scouts flew towards the hole in the flux, followed by two packs of Drake-class Frigates and our single Foray-Class Blockade runner, easily going through.

"Well, it looks like it's working, sir." Remarked Iska with a wide smile, as we watched the four Wyvern-class cruisers follow the frigates through the hole one after the other instead of side by side as the frigates had done.

I glanced over at the sensor output. The gravity wells were rock steady, and the hole was stable. It didn't free me from the feeling that something could easily go wrong, but it was a good start.

Nodding, I looked at Iska. "Yes, Captain. So far, so good."

The transition went smoothly for the three Fafnirs-class cruisers, but then Tavune called. "Sir, the scouts have discovered that there's one more planet in the system than showed on the scanners."

Originally Tavune and Karnos had used the scanners to determine that this system had three planets outside the box, one rock planet and two gas giants, but apparently, they had missed one, which could mean that we weren't where we thought we were. "Details."

"Hold one, sir... Frak!... Rogue planet!" Cursed Tavune, for once sounding flustered, and at the same time a new image showed up on the screen. It was a relay from the scouts and showed a huge rogue planet coming directly at us.

A common navigational hazard in the universe, rogue planets were simply planets that for one reason or another had been ejected from the solar system they had formed in, and unless you were in a space station that couldn't move or had met them in hyperspace, they were usually easy to avoid.

Considering the size of the galaxy and the solar systems in it, rogue planets could survive and continue to be a hyperspace hazard for a very long time, and apparently one of them had been thrown in our direction at this exact time.

Fortunately, we weren't in hyperspace, making the rogue planet easy to dodge in the nimble ships and Iska had already begun moving the Majestic out of the path of the giant rock and I could see the other ships doing the same. With one notable exception. The Interceptor that was holding the hole on the flux open at the moment, didn't have a functioning drive and judging from the vector of approach, the planet was going to hit it, as well as a load of other ships later on.

I hit the comm to Osprey. "Ready the gravity projectors! It's gonna hit the other Interdictor!""

"On it, sir." The answer came back immediately. "But the planet will have to pass the flux first."

"Got it." I said and switched channels, getting hold of Keller. "Chief Engineer Keller, how long will the hole be open after the planet has passed the flux?"

"I don't know and doing the calculations will take longer than the passing of that planet, but there's something you should know." He looked at something I couldn't see. "Considering the planet's speed, there's an even chance that the planet will be caught by the pulsar and become a permanent part of the solar system, and if that happens, most of the ships in here will be destroyed within the next twenty years."

"Will that create a permanent hole in the flux?"

He hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I don't think so. If the planet is caught, it's far more likely that the planet will be caught in an orbit too close to the pulsar for that, but it will create a temporary hole as it passes through the flux."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, sir."

I looked up at the scenery before me again. Iska and the other captains had moved their ships away from the incoming planet.

"Lieutenant Karnos." I called. "Give me a projection of that planets course."

"Yes, sir."

It took a while for the computer to calculate, but then it showed up on the screen. The planet would most likely smash through the remains of the old Imperial Battlegroup on the way into the system. Then it would be caught by the pulsar's gravity field and depending on the planet's weight, it would either take a single half orbit and be sent out of the system, moving even faster than before, or it would stay in a stable orbit. In any event, at least half of the wrecks in orbit around the pulsar would be smashed.

"Well, that certainly limits any chance of going back after more ships." Remarked Iska calmly as she watched the screen.

I nodded. "Yes, but on the bright side, it will also prevent scavengers, the Empire or anyone else from going there to collect a lot of ships, which is a good thing. No matter how much we try to keep this a secret, it will get publicly known at some point, and the thought of a local warlord finding a way to get in and out of the flux still gives me the creeps."

"Well, at least we have taken the best ships there." She chuckled, causing me to nod. "Yes, we did, but you're only thinking about warships now... There're still plenty of functioning freighters in there, and no-matter what, it's 'only' half the wrecks that're going to get smashed. There'll still be enough leftovers for people to loot, though not as profitable as before."

"If they can find a way to get in and out."

"Yes, that's the catch." I looked up as the rogue planet completed its journey through the flux, the planet's gravity tearing a much larger hole in the flux than the Interdictor had done.

"That might work." Mumbled Iska and looked over at Tavune. "Scan, how fast is that hole closing?"

"Hold one, sir." Replied the young engineer and went to work. A few minutes later, he looked up. "We got two hours before the flux is strong enough to close again."

"Thank you." She looked at me. "Commodore?"

I nodded and activated the comm. "Everybody, continue going through the hole in the flux. There's plenty of room now, so just get our ships out as fast as possible, but it's closing, so watch out. Captain Mivito, get Osprey into the hole, ready to use the gravity well projectors."

"Yes, sir." Came the reply, so I walked to my chair, sat, and relaxed as I watched Iska give orders in a calm, steady voice. It really was a pleasure to see and hear her work, as Majestic followed Glorious through the hole in the flux, along with the freighters, while Osprey kept watch, ready to activate the gravity well in case it was needed.

I waited until Majestic was almost through the hole in the flux, then I closed my eyes and reached out through the Force.

As always, 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.

The glittering spherical spider web of possible hyperspace routes were still not there, but I did manage to find a route leading away from the system, zig-zagging through the Nebula before ending in a star-system with no less than three suns, that I had no problem recognizing as the Tetra 7 system. The trinary star system Tavune had pinpointed as the one responsible for our detour into the Snare system.

The Tetra 7 system was open now, but since we were in a nebula where navigation was always difficult, just getting there would take six hyperspace jumps and take at least a week, as we needed to recalculate the route after each jump, so chances were that it would be closed by the time we reached it.

It didn't matter much. We might have to wait a bit before the system opened again, but once it was open, we could make a new jump.

I opened my eyes and entered the route in the Navigation computer before I looked up just in time to see the Interdictor-class cruiser Osprey join the rest of the fleet on the right side of the electromagnetic flux.

My work done, I stood from the chair and walked over to the view screens. For the last year, blurred points of light had been the only sight in the space around us, but now the stars seemed like shining diamonds against the darkness of space. For some reason, the sight made me feel at home.

"All clear, sir. All ships are through!" called Iska.

"Thank you, Captain. Mister Tavune, please get me the Osprey again."

A moment later, Captain Mivito showed up on the view screen and if possible, the smile was even wider than before. "Well done, Captain Mivito!"

He bowed slightly. "Thank you, sir. Can we stand down on the gravity well projectors now?"

"Please do." I answered.

On the screen, Mivito signalled to someone. "Done, sir. Now we only need to find a route away from here."

"It'll be there soon enough." I promised and closed the connection, before I turned towards the astrogation station. "Astrogator Jander San. I've sent you a route. Please inform me how long it will take to verify it twice. Once verified, send it out to the rest of the ships."

The Sullustan looked surprised, but managed to say "Yes, sir.", before he went to work. "Sorry, sir, but with all the nebulae and other hazards around here, the route won't be finished until tomorrow."

"Thank you, Astrogator San." I said and looked over at Betty Nagos. "XO, we're out of the box system. How fast can you have your planned party ready?"

"Four hours." Came the precise answer.

"Make it happen." I ordered with a slight smile. "People deserve a party now. However, there needs to be just enough crew on each ship to be able to fly the ship out of danger in case more trouble is coming our way and just to be on the safe side, let's move the fleet in cover behind one of those gas giants. I don't want to get hit while we're trying to confirm the route out of here." My eyes glanced over at the screens. "Use the gravitronics to keep track of the rogue planet. We're almost in the clear and I don't want to stumble just before the finishing line."

"Yes, sir."

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

"This was the best idea ever!" Whispered Shakka later as we danced to the live music on the floor of the main hangar, surrounded by countless other pairs doing the same.

Looking around at all the smiling faces, I nodded. The evening had started with Iska making a short speech before the collected crews ate a light dinner, sitting at long tables under the rows of fighter craft hanging from their racks.

When the dinner was over and while they were still sitting by the tables, Betty Nagos took over, presenting a necklace with a dragon pendant to the crew. Made of solid gold, with small gemstones as eyes, it was not only beautiful but roughly worth a year's pay, and Betty Nagos made it clear that it was something that should be kept safe. What she didn't say was that each pendant was number coded to the person that received it, making it a lot easier to identify them later in case we needed it.

After that, the tables had been cleared away and the bands had taken turns to play music. Since somebody had to be first on the dancefloor, I had taken the first dance with Captain Iska, while Betty Nagos had danced with her husband Waydar. To my amusement, Resa had dragged Elise Samko out for a dance, while Shakka had danced with Tavune.

I don't know if it had helped, but it didn't take long before the dance floor was full, and it had stayed that way for almost three hours now.

"Yes, it's good to see people having fun after all the work they have put into this."

"Unfortunately, I think it's time for your speech after this dance." said Shakka, trying to keep a straight face.

"I know." I answered with a sigh. Some time ago, I had confessed to her that the only thing about being a commander that I really disliked was making speeches. I knew it was both customary and necessary, but I didn't like it. Trying to strike the right balance between how I would say things myself and how an officer talked to the entire crew, was in my opinion not an easy balance to reach and more often than not, I felt like one of the captains in the holovids. That I knew even the crewmembers not here would see and hear it as all speeches were shown on every viewscreen in the entire fleet didn't help.

For these reasons and because we haven't been sure that the Gravity Well Projectors would work, I had postponed the speech until we were through the Flux, which was now.

The music ended and I walked Shakka back to her seat, catching Tavune's attention as I walked past him and nodded slightly. He nodded back with a smile.

Instead of going back where I had been sitting, I walked to the podium where the other officers had held their speeches and waited until the music had faded.

"Attention on deck!" Iska called in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the flight deck. "Fleet Commander Commodore Thalen present."

There was the rumble of chairs as everybody stood to attention.

I smiled a little as I looked at all the faces. "Good evening people. I hope you're enjoying the party as much as you enjoy being paid for your hard work."

There was a chuckle from the crew, and I gave a little time to die before I said. "Before you go on with the happy times, I want a minute of silence for those of us who lost their lives along the way."

I nodded to Tavune, who activated the large view screens on the end wall, then I turned and saluted, as the screen showed the face, name and rank of every member of the fleet we had lost so far. There was no order given but judging from the sound of clothes moving behind me most of the crew were following my example and were saluting their fallen brothers and sisters in arms.

I kept the salute up until the last face had faded from the screen and then turned to face the crew.

"All right, people. For months, we have faced the unimaginable. Trapped in that cursed box-system, we confronted adversity head-on. Each day brought new challenges and each night tested our resolve. Yet, in the face of despair, we chose to persevere, and it was our unity, hard work, and inventive thinking that paved the way to this moment. Engineers, mechanics, bridge crews, spacehands and everybody else worked tirelessly, pushing the boundaries of knowledge, and every single one of you gave your all. You turned obstacles into opportunities, despair into determination."

I paused and looked at the crew. "Today, I stand here not just as your commander, but as a proud member of this remarkable crew. We have achieved the impossible. We're out of the box and our path is clear. Let this moment be a testament to our resilience and our spirit. We have proven that no matter how dark the night, we have the strength to find the dawn. We journey onward, knowing that together, there is nothing we cannot overcome."

I paused again, giving myself time to remember the last part of the speech. "Now, our voyage continues. Not as survivors, but as victors and, more importantly, as liberators, because this goes beyond our own survival. Out there, people suffer in the prison camps on Nodia Prime and Debra. They have waited long enough for their deliverance. It is our duty, and our honour, to bring them the freedom they deserve. However, as we prepare to embark on this journey, let us remember the strength we have found in each other during these dark times. Our unity is our greatest weapon, our determination, our shield. We are not just escaping; we are advancing towards a noble cause. Stay vigilant, stay strong, and trust in the path we have forged together."

For a few moments after I stopped speaking, there was only silence in the hangar, but then people started cheering and clapping. Instead of stopping it, I walked down from the podium and back to my seat.

"For someone that dislikes doing speeches," whispered Shakka with a wide smile. "You're rather good at it."

"Thank you."

The party continued for a while after that and somewhat to my amusement, I spotted Meistrin and Zwul dancing with each other, looking like any other pair of officers enjoying a good time and if I haven't known that they had spent an entire night together after the party on the Hawk, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

I did know that, however. Mostly because I had been curious and asked Meistrin about it in a private conversation during the week. She had confirmed it with a smile and as tradition bade, I had kept it for myself, being happy that the two had found each other here in the middle of nowhere.

"What're you smiling for?" Asked Shakka curiously in a whisper.

"In about half an hour this party is over and bar any emergencies, I'm off-duty until tomorrow and as far as I remember, so are you."

A smile spread on her face. "Yes?"

I looked at her silently and her smile turned into a grin. "Commodore, I would love spending the night with you."

"Likewise."

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

I was eating dinner the next day when the intercom signalled an incoming call, and I took it.

"Your route is a bit risky, sir." Said Jander San and then smiled. "But it's also the only route that leads out of here and I've sent it to the rest of the fleet."

"Very well, Astrogator San. Inform the Captain and let's get out of here. I'll be on the bridge shortly."

A few moments later, I walked onto the bridge, noticing the bright smiles of the crew.

Captain Iska saluted, smiling just as much as the others. "Welcome back, sir. We're ready to go into hyperspace."

"Thank you, Captain." I nodded as I walked up to the commander's chair and sat down, activating the 'all ship' channel. "Commodore Thalen here, I want a ready signal from all ships."

It only took ten seconds before all ships had sent the ready signal. "Ready to enter hyperspace in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... now."

The viewports flared as Majestic entered hyperspace. I waited half a minute and looked over at the comm section. "Check-up?"

Tavune looked at his readouts and grinned. "All ships have entered Hyperspace, sir."

"Thank you, Mister Tavune." I said and leaned back in the seat. It had taken a whole freaking year, but now we were on our way again, and it felt really good.

------------- To be continued ---------------

Remember: If you like the story, please vote, comment, and add the chapter to favourites. Not only does it make me happy, but like most authors here, it's inspiring and the only reward we get for our efforts :)