Into the Chaos -- Author's note.

Welcome to the nineth 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.

To those not really into star wars lore, the events in this novel happens about 2600 years before Darth Bane instigated the Rule of Two, limiting the Sith to a One Master, One Apprentice system. In other words, there were thousands of Sith in this time period. Some were immensely powerful (Like Darth Malgus), while other were not.

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

OftenRomantic have suggested that I add a list of the ships to the chapter, but it's simply too 'clunky' to start off with. Instead, I will put the list as either a seperate chapter (With a lot more into on the ships) OR as an artwork. Either way, it will take a few days to get done.

AND THANK YOU for the comments. As I've said before, they really do inspire me to continue writing.

And btw, yes I WILL get back to A Long Time from Home II, but my mind have gone Into the Chaos and I'm having a hard time focussing on that at the moment,despite having 3 new chapters almost ready (ALMOST :) )

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 9 -- Combat at Nodia

Dreadnought Majestic

"The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy,

so that he cannot fathom our real intent."

From the Holy Book of War

Tetra 7 system

Despite using the Force to find a safe route out of the Labyrinth nebula, it still took a week to get out, but besides that the trip was uneventful.

On the bright side, the sight that filled my eyes as we dropped out of hyperspace, was a magnificent one. The two smaller suns danced around their primary, like children dancing around a parent. That's where the similarity stopped, because as they did so, the larger gravity field of the primary drew strands of burning material from them, gradually absorbing the smaller suns.

It might take thousands of years, but the smaller suns were doomed, caught in a deadly dance that ultimately would lead to their demise.

In a strange way, it was a cosmic paradox. A scene of both creation and destruction. The larger star flourished, absorbing the life force of its smaller counterparts, while they, in turn, withered away, their light gradually fading into the abyss. The dance would continue, until one day, the smaller stars would be no more, entirely consumed by the voracious appetite of the larger sun, leaving only a single, massive sun at the centre of a now solitary system.

In a more practical way, the suns' positions, and the energy exchange between them, temporarily blocked the outgoing routes on the other side of the suns and with that the route towards Centauri 21 and the Debra system.

Not that it mattered, since we were heading in the other direction, going back to Epsilon Eta before finding the way to Nodia.

On the positive side, we had been careful coming into the system, so there weren't any problems except for the waiting time.

"Lieutenant Karnos, how long until this show is over?"

At the scanner station, Karnos checked the display, "A week according to the computer, sir."

"Welcome back to the Chaos." Mumbled Captain Iska, making me nod slightly. Such delays were frequent in this area of space and there was rarely anything one could do about it. She looked at Tavune. "Comm, signal that we're going to normal watches."

"Yes, sir."

Iska looked at me. "I'll turn the fleet, so we can hyper to Epsilon Eta as soon as we have the route."

"Excellent. I'll go check the route." I said and walked into my office.

That the navigation computers only knew of two hyperspace routes in the system didn't mean that there weren't more than that, as it only meant that the data wasn't available, so I sat down in a chair, closed my eyes, and used the Force to find those routes.

To my surprise, there were no less than two more, with one of them going towards the galactic north and I followed the flow. To my surprise the route ended in a system only four jumps away from Chiss territory. Granted, it was an extremely long jump that was entirely inside a nebula all the way, skirting a lot of hazards on the way, and wasn't one I would choose unless someone pointed a blaster at my head, but at least it was there.

The second route led into a region of space known as the Tempered Wastes. There weren't many star systems in that direction, but those that were there were extremely large and going that way meant skipping the edge of several gravity wells, which was never a good idea as there was a fair chance that it might pull you out of hyperspace.

Another point against that route was that Rakata Prime was supposed to be somewhere in the Tempered Wastes, which fitted with the two old battlegroups we had found. It was also far from anywhere else, so I backtracked and tried the last route.

That one was the one we had been on when we were hit by the gravity wave and, as I already knew, it led back to Epsilon Eta, the system with the asteroid base that we had taken more than a year ago and where we had encountered the three prison-ships.

The Epsilon Eta system proved to have no less than three hyperspace routes leading away from The Chaos and into the Outer Rim.

I was at the edge of my ability now but tested the routes anyway. The first led to an average solar system, with a huge asteroid belt. The second led to another unremarkable solar system, consisting of a white dwarf star and several planets, and the third proved to be so long that I had to give up following it.

Withdrawing from the Force, I took a deep breath, called the star map up on my screen and carefully plotted the routes on it before I leaned back in the seat and studied it. One of the disadvantages with using the force to find hyperspace routes the way I had done, was that the names of the planets and systems didn't just magically show up in my mind, so I had to use a star map to get the system names.

This time it was a pleasant surprise, and I was smiling to myself when I asked the computer to call Master Mechanic Waydar to my office.

I was still sitting in my chair when the giant of a man entered. "Hello, sir. You wanted to see me."

"Yes. I was thinking about the chat we had about Nodia Prime and the prisoners there. Are they all military prisoners?"

He pondered that for a moment, before answering. "Most of the former imperials are low-ranking Navy or troopers, sir." He grimaced as he sighed. "Not to mention that most of the republic prisoners are from planets that have been devastated. Just like the rest of us, sir."

I nodded at that. According to the people I had talked with there were two possibilities for getting away, if you were a republic prisoner of war: Either the Republic asked for the prisoners' freedom in an exchange, or the Navy did. Both possibilities demanded that someone in the Republic or its Navy had a reason to believe that they were alive, and with the Sith's reputation of killing captured military personnel, most of them had been written off as 'Killed in Action' years ago. With their home planets wrecked, there were even fewer people to ask for their return and most of the prisoners became slaves after a while.

"And those who're not military people?"

Waydar shrugged. "Most of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've talked with several people who just happened to be at a station, when the Empire took it. They had protested a little too much to the Imperial Officers and were taken away, eventually ending up at Nodia Prime."

"Very well. So, how well protected is it?"

He lit up in a smile. "Not that protected, sir. Now that the mines are close to depleted, it isn't worth much to the Empire. The system does have two orbital installations, but one of them is a mining facility, and there's only a small battlegroup led by a cruiser defending the system. At least that is what I overheard from the guards."

"How big is the garrison?"

"A couple of hundred men." Waydar said and then shrugged. "Most of the Imperial personnel were slowly being transferred to the orbital installations. As I'm sure you know, you don't need that many guards when you control the space around a planet. Especially not when the planet is so hostile, that it's almost impossible to survive outside the prison camp."

I looked into the air, as I thought it over. I doubted that there were that many prisoners left, considering the deal the Empire had made with the Zygerrians. No matter what, it was better than sitting on our hands here.

"Is there a chance that the Zygerrian would break the contract with the Empire, if none of their ships returned from the first pick-up?"

Waydar considered it for a moment and then shrugged. "I doubt it, sir. You don't just break a contract with the Empire, though I guess they can demand that they send an escort." He sighed. "There's a good chance that the slaves have already been picked up despite the long travel time from Nodia to Zygerria."

I nodded in the direction of the wall screen. "Take a look."

He did as I asked.

"One day from here to the Epsilon Eta system and another two days to the system we have identified as the Nodia system." His eyes widened at that, making me say, "Yes, we're that close. I'll inform the rest of the Battlegroup that we'll go to the Nodia system to take a look and see if there's any prisoners to be rescued."

He looked at me with eyes that slowly started to fill with tears. Then he bowed. "Thank you, sir."

"No need to thank me. I'm just doing what I promised. And besides, we don't know if there's anyone there or if there are, how to free them yet."

That made him smile. "For now, I'm just thanking you for doing the effort, sir."

I accepted that with a nod, just as the intercom chimed and Yaki's voice said. "Do you have a moment, sir?"

Waydar smiled and said, "I'll go now." and walked out.

I waited until the door had closed behind him. "What's up, Commander?"

"Sir, the guards have informed me that Marie Munmaki wants to have a word with you."

"I'll go talk with her." Glancing at the Panther droids, I added. "Have two guards meet me there. I don't think our unexpected visitors are that used to droids... Especially not the animal style of droids."

"Yes, sir." She chuckled and disappeared as the intercom switched off.

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

"What is going on, sir?" Marie Munmaki asked after the guards had brought her out of the cell.

I signalled the guards to walk a few steps away and when they did that I asked. "I assume that this has something to do with your ability?"

The young woman nodded. "Yes. When we talked last time, I couldn't find a way any hyper routes. I can now, but how is that possible?"

"For the simple reason that there weren't any hyper routes the last time." I said with a smile. "Please follow me...I have something to show you."

She followed me wordlessly to the lift, glancing at the bodyguards as they followed us. "Excuse me, but are those the same guards as last time?"

I shook my head. "No, this is another shift, so other guards."

"Ah."

The lift took us to one of the upper decks from where we could go through the blast-door in the thick armor layer that separated the inner hull from the outer one and go into the passageway on the other side.

Like several other passageways on the ship, this one had several recreational areas with sofas and tables where the crew or passengers could sit and enjoy the view through the large transparisteel windows in the outer armor.

Due to the lack of people on the ship, the area was deserted and a moment later we were sitting in two chairs, with her looking out of the window with an awed expression on her face, as she watched the mortal dance of the three stars.

I waited for a long moment and then softly said. "Yes, it's a beautiful sight."

She nodded without taking her eyes off it. "What is it? I mean, I've read about systems with two stars, but three?!"

"Well, it happens." I said with a chuckle. "Though the two smaller stars will disappear in a few thousand years."

"What?"

Looking at the stars, I explained how the dance would eventually draw all material from the two smaller stars, adding to the larger sun as it slowly consumed them.

"Awful thought." Marie mumbled. "Nature is beautiful, but rarely gentle." Her eyes shifted to something else. "Wow, what is that?!"

I looked in the direction she indicated and saw the cruiser Hawk, which was maintaining its place in the formation next to Majestic. "That would be Hawk. The ship that stopped Razor's Edge from drifting in space and got everybody out of it, before it collapsed."

"Was Razor's Edge really in that bad a shape?"

"Yes. Everybody on the bridge and engine room were dead, the reactor was in a complete shut-down, the hull was full of holes and so fragile that when another ship tried to hold Razor's Edge with a tractor beam, one of the engines simply fell off." I recounted. "To be honest it was a miracle that anyone was alive inside that wreck."

She nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off the cruiser. "May I ask what kind of ship that is?"

"It's a cruiser."

"So, it's what? Three hundred metres in length?"

That made me smile a little. Size and distance were extremely hard to judge in space, where there was nothing to compare an object to. "You mean like the Hammerhead-class cruiser?"

Marie nodded. "Yes, I've read about that one. It's huge... Much longer than Razor's edge."

"Yes, it's longer than Razor's Edge. As far as I remember, Razor's Edge was around two hundred metres in length and according to our engineers, equipped with an extra layer of armor and armed with four turbo-lasers and ten laser cannons, and had a complement of six Star Saber XC-01 starfighters."

That made her look at me, with surprise on her face. "You examined it!?"

"Yes. I study every ship we come across and learn something new every time."

"And what do you think of Razor's Edge?"

"For a converted freighter with antiquated starfighters, it's not bad." I said honestly. "From what the engineers told me, your people have done a good job."

"But it's not up to your standards." She determined with a smile.

I nodded at the window, where one of the Drakes was coming into view. "Take a look at the ship over there." She turned her head to watch the ship. "That is Hunter. Two-hundred and fifty metres in length, it's equipped with capital-ship grade armor and armed with six turbo-lasers and seven dual laser cannons and has a larger complement of starfighters than the Razor's Edge." I shrugged lightly. "I don't bet, but if I did, I would put my money on the Hunter if it went up against your converted freighter."

"You're kidding me?"

I shook my head. "No."

Still stunned, Marie looked out of the window again, to stare at the Drake, which was manoeuvring to take its place in the formation. It also told me that Iska had turned the entire battlegroup in anticipation of receiving a hyper route from Jandar San. A move that would save time later.

"Is that why you have no interest in getting us home as soon as possible?" Marie suddenly asked. "We're too... backwards to be of any concern?"

"No, I just have other obligations I need to see fulfilled first." I smiled a little, "but you're right on one point. I really have no interest in your system and I'm not a bad guy, which your people should be eternally grateful for, because I'm pretty sure that I could take your entire solar system with three ships." She looked alarmed, so I continued. "However, as I said, we have no interest in doing that. We want to free people, not enslave them."

She was silent for a moment. "Is that where you're going now?"

"Yes. There's a chance that some of our people are prisoners on a planet not too far away from here, so that is where we're going."

She nodded. "I need to ask if there's any chance that I might see Sean and Benny again. I miss them a lot."

"I'll see what I can do... just be aware that so far they're not likely to be willing to follow you back to your home. Yes, you have treated them more than fairly, but they're still slaves there and can be sold if anything happens to you."

"I know." She said with a sigh, just as my ear-piece activated and Iska said. "We have the route, Commodore."

"I'll be right there, Captain." I answered as I stood and looked at Marie. "I'm sorry, but duty calls. We'll talk more some other day."

She stood as well. "It was a pleasure talking with you, sir."

Looking at the two guards, I told them to escort her back to the cell and when they had disappeared into the lift along with Marie, I took another lift to the bridge.

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

We entered hyperspace as planned, but when I asked Tavune for the check-up on the ships, he frowned. "I think we're missing a ship, sir. The Chariot isn't responding."

I arched my eyebrows. Chariot was a Foray-Class blockade runner we had found in the Snare system and used to replace the damaged one that had been with us since Centauri 21 where Captain Meistrin had named it. Now it was commanded by Captain Nun'ovur'noca (Novur), who had proven to be an excellent captain.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir." He checked again. "They might have experienced some technical difficulties, but in any event, they're not on the same route as us."

The hyperspace communicator only worked if the ships entered hyperspace at roughly the same time and at exactly the same route, and if the Chariot wasn't answering, it either wasn't here or had a problem with the communicator. Either way, it was impossible to turn around now, so we would have to wait until we reached the Epsilon System before we could send people back to look for the Foray-Class blockade runner.

Before I had the chance to do anything Tavune called again. "Sir, Commander Crapen is calling. It's flagged as a private call, sir."

"Transfer it to my office." I said and walked the short distance to the office.

"Hello, Commander Crapen." I said as she showed up on the screen, the face under the short black hair looking worried.

"Hello, sir. Unfortunately, I have to report that our group is missing a ship, sir." She stated calmly. "For some reason, Chariot didn't make it."

"Yes, we noticed that during check-up. Could you send me the scan from the departure, please?"

She nodded and gestured to someone out of sight and a moment later, the scan data showed up on the other screen.

I looked at it for a few seconds. Chariot was pointing in a slightly different direction than the rest of the fleet, meaning that a hyperspace jump would take them somewhere else, but otherwise the system was empty.

"And you haven't heard from them during our jump?"

Commander Crapen shook her head. "They reported a problem with the hyper receiver just before you gave the jump signal, saying that it had crashed, so we just thought that it was a problem with the electronics."

I sighed. "Who was on the ship?"

"One moment, sir. I'll check."

I nodded and the screen went blank.

Thinking it over, I recalled the map of the Tetra 7 system and had the computer calculate the heading for the Chariot. Then I shook my head. If they had jumped to hyperspace just roughly at the same time as we did, they had taken the direct route though the Nebula and various other hazards towards Chiss space.

I looked up as Commander Crapen called again and I accepted.

"You are not going to believe this, sir." She said hesitantly.

"The ship was crewed exclusively with Chiss?"

Her eyes widened. "How did you know, sir?"

"Because chances are that they have taken the jump through... " I glanced at the map. "... Death's Maw nebula. That was the direction the ship was heading when we lost contact and it's the shortest way home for them."

Commander Crapen paled. "Are they insane!? That nebula is called Death's Maw for a reason. Not even the Navigator's Guild wants to go there."

Since they didn't operate in the Chiss Ascendency, I had never met anyone from the Navigator's Guild, but I knew that it was a group of force users that made a living by acting as Astrogators in the problematic areas in the Chaos. Sworn to secrecy and neutrality, they were rarely, if ever, cheated by anyone as that would ensure that no one from the Guild would work with them again. The Guild also never worked with pirates or military units.

"Have you been there?"

"No, sir. I'm not insane enough for that just yet." She shrugged. "I drifted around the outer edges once, but that was because I was hunting pirates. Not of my own free will. The outer edges are difficult enough to navigate. Going deeper is... well, insane."

Wondering why Death's Maw nebula was worse than many other nebulae in the Chaos, I activated the icon on it, calling up the details, and determined that Captain Crapen was correct. Aside from the normal hazards common to all nebulae, there were reports of, and in one case even pictures, of nightmarish creatures. One of them was an almost eight-kilometre-long squid-like creature that, according to the report, attacked and destroyed several warships when a fleet tried to fly through the nebula four hundred years ago. That was just one of many strange creatures and phenomena inside the nebula, and the more I read, the more unlikely it seemed that any ship would survive a trip through it.

Unfortunately, I was pretty sure that the Chiss crew and passengers were as clueless about the dangers of the Death's Maw nebula as I had been a few moments ago when they made the decision to jump. Mostly because the database on the Forey-class hadn't been updated, meaning that they were flying with three-hundred-year-old data. That mattered little when they received the astrogation data from the Majestic, but it was a huge difference when trying a jump on their own. On the other hand, with everything else they had done, they might have updated the database without anybody knowing about it.

"I see. Now, who was on the ship?"

She sent me a passenger list and the name Rirda'tare'aurnaco on top of it made me sigh again. Apparently, Administrator Atare had not been happy with the way things were going, despite his efforts to look like he had come around.

On the bright side, there were only eight people on the passenger list, and I recognized the names as belonging to Administrator Atare's staff from the colony at Alpha Viga.

The next list was the crew and with the exception of Pilot Nun'ovur'noca (Novur), the loss wasn't bad. I did feel sorry for the single engineer, though. I was sure he would have enough to do, maintaining the ship single handed. I didn't know how, but they had managed to crew the ship exclusively with Chiss. Fortunately, the Foray was one of the warships that was lightest on crew, which might be why they had chosen that ship type.

Something must have gone wrong in the planning of this because they seriously lacked crew, and if anything was worse than taking a ship into an infamous nebula, it was taking an understaffed ship there.

I almost wished that they had taken one of the hyperspace-capable smaller ships, like an Agency-class shuttle, but as these were in the hangars of the capital ships, they were out of reach for Atare.

Turning my attention towards Commander Crapen again, I said. "Commander, are these the only people who are missing?"

"Yes, sir. The rest are all accounted for." She paused and then added. "Sorry, sir."

"It's not your fault, Commander," I said calmly. "They obviously had this planned and managed to fool us all. Nobody will blame this on you."

"Thank you, sir."

When we had finished the conversation, I leaned back in my seat to think for a moment before I called Resa and Tavune into my office.

"We have a problem." I announced when the door had closed behind them. "The Foray-class Chariot has gone missing and from their last heading it looks like they were trying to take a questionable hyperspace route through the Death Maw's Nebula." I held up a hand to forestall any questions. "I wish them luck, but the problem is that I found the hyperspace route they're using less than an hour before we made the jump from Tetra 7. Even more problematic is the fact that I didn't tell anybody about it, since it's basically a suicide jump, so the only way they could know about it, is if they had a listening device or something similar in here."

They both nodded in silence.

"Good. Resa, you check the computer system. Mister Tavune, you go through this cabin with something that can detect recording devices."

"Yes, sir."

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

"The computer system is clear." Declared Resa an hour later, and Tavune shook his head as well. "There's nothing here, sir."

"There has to be something." I said, as I looked around. "There's no other way it could happen."

"Sir?" I suddenly heard Tavune say and when I looked at him, he pointed at the two Panther Droids. "What about the droids?"

Before I even had a chance to say anything, the two droids charged me, vibro-teeth suddenly visible as they went into attack-mode.

There was a flash, as Resa caught the nearest one while it was still in the air and slammed it into the wall, narrowly missing Tavune in the process, while I instinctively drew and hit the other with one smooth motion of my lightsaber, taking off its head.

It hit the floor, but not before its claws had ripped two long, but superficial, wounds in my left arm. Filled with adrenaline as I was, I ignored it and hit the other panther droid with the purple lightning that disabled electronics and droids alike, just as it was getting to its feet again. It collapsed just as the housing to the chest gun sprang open.

Two flashes lit the room as Resa drew and fired her blaster with lightning speed, hitting the droid twice in the open chest, destroying the gun inside.

"Are you okay, sir?" Asked Resa and looked over at me. Then she saw my wounds and hurried over to me, the LED in her temple blinking. "Sit down, sir."

"Not in here," I said and nodded towards the door, as I switched off the lightsaber. "Tavune. Get into the other room just in case they're going to self-destruct. We'll get Waydar to look at them later."

"Yes, sir."

It seemed like it only took a minute before Shakka came in to bandage the wounds, while a furious looking Master Mechanic Waydar took the panther droids away to examine them and an equally furious Yaki had a squad of Black Dragon troops in my suite and tried to make the arrangement permanent.

"Commander Yaki, that is not going to happen." I said firmly. "There's no way I can relax with a squad of heavily armed troopers standing around all day."

"But, sir..."

For once, I rudely interrupted her. "Stop there, Commander. I said no. When the Master Mechanic is done with examining the droids, I want two new droids. I understand you think I need protection, but I can feel the lifeforce of people near me and I'll go crazy if I have to shield myself constantly just to get peace."

She looked at me wide-eyed for a moment and then sighed with a nod. "Sorry, sir. I forgot about that."

"And before you get the idea of placing combat droids or anything humanoid in here, animal forms do not disturb my thoughts, while humanoids do."

"Yes, sir." She said and walked out of the door, followed by the squad she brought along.

Alone at last, I sat down in a chair, closed my eyes and used one of the new force-powers I had learned from the Holocron to heal the wound in my arm. Due to Shakka's bandages, I couldn't see the result, but my force sense told me that the wound was completely healed. Impressed, I left the bandage where it was. There was no reason to show this newly learned force power to anyone, before I was better at applying it.

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

Since I had very little to do during hyperspace travel, I used the time to catch up on a few things that I had postponed.

First, I visited the Escor's slaves and had a chat with them, hearing about their lives and discovering that Marie Mukini was a very kind owner compared to many others. Tales of harsh punishments were common and nearly all female slaves had been used as pleasure slaves at some point in their lives. Initially, I expected them to have children due to that, but discovered that all slaves on Yrla were rendered sterile soon after they became slaves, so they couldn't give birth to, or father, potential future leaders of the prominent families.

I also learned that two of the Escors, Olivia and Martin treated their slaves roughly, with Martin being cruel, enjoying inflicting pain on the female slaves he took to bed. The slaves belonging to the last male Escor, named Rolf, didn't really have anything bad to say about him, except for him being a slave owner. To me they sounded somewhat like a group of soldiers talking about a mediocre sergeant and the main complaint was that as a sergeant, he or she could decide what the soldiers should do.

Wanting to get the story from the other side as well, I had the three Sublars brought to an interview room and had a lengthy talk with them.

The two men did most of the speaking, especially Jay Knack, telling me about their civilization. It was a form of monarchy, with two ruling bodies under it. A High chamber for the Nobles and a Lower chamber for the common people. Despite their praise of the system, I kept getting the feeling that the divide between lower and upper classes of their culture was enormous, too large for almost anyone in the lower classes to bridge, while the upper class had all the land and other valuables like mines, factories and refineries.

It was also clear that the people here were members of the upper class. Jay Knack was the son of a Duke, the other male, named Burt Simon was a Baron, while the woman was Lady Lena Agusta.

There were a few things that puzzled me as they kept talking. At no time did Lady Agusta speak unless spoken to and as far as I could understand from the names and titles they didn't mention a female in a position of power at any point in the conversation.

Consequently, when I had brought the conversation to an end, I sent the two men back to the cell so I could talk with Lady Agusta.

"Why would you want to talk with her?" Asked Burt Simon, a dismissive look on his face. "She's a woman."

"Yes, I noticed." I said calmly and gestured to the guards. "Take the two men back to their cell."

"I must point out that in our culture, men are not alone with highborn women who're not their wives or sisters." Said Jay Knack stiffly. "I will have to insist that one of us stay here."

I gestured at the guards. "As you might have noticed, I am not alone with Lady Agusta and protocol states that I cannot be alone with a prisoner, so your worries are unfounded. Have a good night, gentlemen."

They were taken away to the cell and I quietly asked. "Lady Agusta, may I inquire what your job is?"

She looked at me like I had taken leave of my senses. "I don't have a job. I'm a woman."

"As I stated earlier, I have little to no knowledge of your society. What's your education?"

She began explaining, and it didn't take long before it became painfully obvious, that women in the Sublar culture were secondary citizens at best, property at worst. Their education was aimed at making them better wives, mothers and homemakers, with their primary duties being that of managing the household and raising children. They couldn't vote, hold any public positions of power and their property became their husband's upon marriage. Even if they did have an income, that income was controlled by their husbands.

Since she was clearly speaking from a high-class perspective, I asked about the lower classes, but that didn't help on the overall picture, as the lower classes in general were limited to simple jobs like servants or factory workers.

"You look surprised." She said after a while. "Isn't that the way it is everywhere?"

Looking over at the Black Dragons at the door, I said. "Corporal, would you please remove your helmet and state your name and rank for the lady?"

The corporal did as I asked and to my amazement, she wasn't a Chiss, but a human with light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. Yaki had told me about half a year ago that the Black Dragons had started to accept the best non-Chiss into the ranks, but she was the first I had seen in the armor.

"Corporal Mornett of the Black Dragons, my Lady." The guard told the stunned Sublar, who in that moment looked almost exactly like Marie when she had been in the same situation, the expression of disbelief on her face being almost comical. I used her surprise to ask the other guard to do the same, being grateful that the Black Dragons followed their tradition of only accepting women in their ranks.

The other guard turned out to be human as well, though she had a darker complexion, black hair and brown eyes. "Specialist Ram of the Black Dragons"

"You're women!" Agusta blurted.

"I hope so, mam." Corporal Mornett chuckled. "Otherwise, my husband would be very surprised and my two kids hard to explain." She glanced at me. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted."

She smiled slightly as she focused on the Sublar again. "Lady Agusta, if any man suggested that he owned me and tried to take my income and property, I would slap him so hard his head would spin for a week."

Agusta looked slack jawed at her, making me stand up. "Corporal, I think Lady Agusta needs to hear from a woman, so let's switch places."

"Yes, sir."

Corporal Mornett was smiling as she walked over to the table and sat down, while I took her place next to Specialist Ram by the door, listening while the corporal explained about the women on the ship and Lady Agusta asked questions.

However, she also let slip that she wasn't married and that puzzled me until the obvious answer presented itself, but I waited until there was a natural stop in their conversation to ask, "Lady Agusta, if you don't have a job and aren't married, what were you doing on that ship?"

She snapped her head around to look at me, obviously surprised by the sudden question, but managed to say. "I was a passenger."

"An unmarried female passenger that can't be left alone without a man supervising her on a spaceship on a desperate combat mission to stop the enemy from acquiring more ships?" I said with a chuckle and used the force power that allowed me to determine if people were lying. "I asked you earlier what your job was, but what I really should have asked was what you were doing on the ship."

"Nothing. I was a passenger, as I already said." She repeated, but it detected as a lie.

"Let me guess," said Corporal Mornett with a grimace. "The men that run your life have forbidden you to tell other people about your real purpose on the ship?"

"No, I really was a passenger." She lied firmly. Repeating her lie was a smart tactic from her, as the whole answer would detect as a lie, thus negating the force power.

I was fairly certain Agusta was the Sublars equivalent to Marie Murmaki, but there was no way to prove it and pressuring her would only make her repeat her lie. Not to mention that I might be wrong, and she had another function on the ship she didn't want us to know about.

"I do not believe you." I said calmly, "but let's leave it at that. Some people prefer to be slaves and there isn't much we can do about that."

"I'm not a slave!" Agusta said through clenched teeth.

"So, you can own property and are not beholden to the patriarch of your family?"

"No, but it's not the same as slavery!"

"The normal definition of a slave is a being that is owned by someone else, have no say in their own fate and don't receive a salary for what they do." I told her. "And by that definition, every woman in the Sublar culture is a slave, which by extension makes every married Sublar man or patriarch a slave owner." I shrugged slightly. "But to look at the bright side, as you heard last time, we offer freedom to all rescued slaves, so if you want to leave Yrla, you're welcome here."

She looked stunned again, so I explained. "That you don't fit the Yrlar definition of slavery, does not mean that you don't fit ours. You do, so if you want a life in freedom, please let us know." I paused, but as she didn't say anything, I continued. "Unfortunately, I need to go now, but feel free to keep talking here. The guards will escort you back to the others when you choose... or to a single cell, if that is your choice. Until we meet again, Lady Agusta."

"Commodore." She said automatically, but didn't say more as I walked out of the room.

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

When I got to my office, I took some time to meditate, before I found the case with the Holocron and the access crystal. I needed some answers about these Wegweisers and as far as I knew, Trejar Melbate was the one to ask.

Taking the small crystal from the case, I sat down and inserted it in the Holocron and with a suddenness that made me slightly dizzy, I once again found myself sitting on a sofa in a sunlit garden, looking at Trejar Melbate, who was standing near a large bush, smelling the aroma of its flowers. As all the other times I had seen him, he was dressed in a white and beige coloured outfit, that I had learned was a traditional Jedi robe.

"Hello, Master Melbate."

"Hello, Commodore Mitth'ale'nuruodo." He said with a smile and walked over to sit in a chair opposite mine. "Have you been able to leave the box system yet?"

I nodded. "Yes, indeed and we're approaching the prison planet I've told you about."

"That is good." He tilted his head as he looked at me. "You have grown a lot. Both physically and in the Force, since we talked last time. How long has it been?"

"About five months, I think."

He was silent for a moment, but then said. "I'm impressed, young man. You learn extremely fast. I sincerely hope you stay away from the Dark Side.. or the Corruption as you call it... because otherwise, I fear that I might have created a monster."

"Well, first of all you didn't create me. I was already a Praetorian when I used the Hologram for the first time. Secondly, I'm not insane enough to become a good Dark Side user to use your term."

A cup of tea materialised in his hand. "I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean."

"It's a racial thing." I said with a slight shrug. "When a member of my race is in combat we don't become enraged, quite the opposite. Instead of going berserk or entering some state of rage, we become calmer, more focused as emotions are drained from us and we do what makes sense." I explained. "We call it the Calm of Battle and the more trained you are, the easier it becomes to enter that state... at least as long as you're sane. Now the Sith get their power from rage, at least as far as I understand it, and the angrier they are, the stronger they become."

Trejar Melbate sent me a smile. "That is correct, and I get your point. That ability would work directly against anyone trying to draw power from the Dark Side."

"Exactly. That is not to say that it's impossible for my race to become Sith, they just have to go insane first... Not that insanity is always easy to detect, but with all the tests and evaluations we go through in the Navy, it's highly unlikely that any officer suddenly goes insane. They usually don't hand out warships to mentally unstable people to command."

That made him laugh, and for a moment it felt like talking with a real person and not a guardian construct in a Jedi Holocron.

"Anyway," Said Trejar Melbate when he had stopped laughing. "I guess you're not here to debate the traits of your race, so how may I be of assistance?"

"I've run into other force users that use their abilities to navigate the stars. Is that something you have any information on?"

"Yes, there's a Navigators Guild in the Republic that has people who use the Force to navigate the stars. Typically, these navigators have limited ability with the Force and very few of them are ever accepted as a Jedi." He looked thoughtful for a moment and then added. "On the positive side, I've never heard of any navigator using the Dark Side. I know the Sith have their own way of Force assisted astrogation, but to my knowledge they have never recruited from any of these organisations. Normally the recruits they could find there are simply too weak in the Force."

"So weak Force-users with a single strong ability?"

"A bit over-simplified, but in general, you're right." Answered Trejar Melbate with a slight nod. "And Navigators are not the only type. Some can use the Force to find what they need, be it objects or prey, while others have the ability to heal, see weather patterns or any other ability that will allow their society to not only survive, but thrive."

Thinking it over, I nodded in understanding. "So, potentially there are almost as many different Force traditions as there are societies and cultures."

"Potentially, yes." Smiled Trejar Melbate. "Practically, no. Some of the Force traditions have been included in the Jedi order, others have died out and yet others have turned to the Sith, the Dark Side or both."

"Yes, but by far the two most successful, not to mention numerous, societies or cultures are the Republic and the Sith." I rubbed my forehead thoughtfully. "They both control thousands of worlds with trillions of people, and any force-sensitives born in those cultures will most likely become either Sith or Jedi." I looked into the air as thoughts raced in my head. Reaching a conclusion, I sighed. "The war will start again, and unless the power structure of the Empire changes, it will be the Jedi or the Republic that starts it."

"I doubt that the Republic would start a new war but let me hear your reasoning."

I got my thoughts in order and explained. "The Sith Empire took half the Galaxy with the war material they had built, and the Sith they had trained in hiding, after the Jedi Civil War some three hundred years ago." I paused, waiting for him to nod, before I continued. "At some point the Jedi will realise that if they allow the Sith to hold on to those worlds for much more than ten years, the Sith will not only have built a new and stronger fleet, but they will also have educated a lot more soldiers and Sith. Even if the ability to use the force in some way is only one in a million, with strong force users being one in a billion, the number of new Sith they can find and educate from a population in the high trillions are mind boggling. So, either the Jedi and the Republic can go to war again, suffering in the short term, or they will hand over the Galaxy to the Sith in the long term."

Trejar Melbate had stopped smiling as I talked and when I stopped he looked somewhat defeated. "Unfortunately, you make a lot of sense... and the Sith ability to turn people to the Dark Side will just increase those numbers."

"How do they do that, by the way?" I asked. "I have heard about it, but as far as I know most people are seduced by the Dark Side, not forced into it."

Trejar Melbate shrugged. "I don't know for sure, but as far as the records go, it's mostly done by subtly manipulating people. However, this takes time and can be countered by meditation. There are tales of Jedi falling to the Dark Side after having been tortured for weeks on end and I guess that would be a faster way to do it."

Thinking it over, I shivered slightly. Seen in that light, death was to be preferred to capture. Especially since they would have to drive me insane first in order to negate the Calm of Battle ability, which would most likely add time to the torture.

"What about the other way around?"

"Well, I know that the Jedi can do it, but exactly how is not part of the data in this Holocron." He answered. "However, as far as I know, there has never been a case where a Sith had been turned to the light, unless that Sith started out as a Jedi. Those Sith that have only been trained in the Dark Side are lost forever... At least as far as I know."

"Nice to know... and as I haven't got any ties to the Jedi Order, that's out of the question." I thought for a moment. "How hard is it to catch a Jedi? I mean, if the Sith want to turn them, they can either manipulate them or do it by torture, and the last part requires that the Sith manage to catch them."

"There's no easy answer to that question." Said Trejar Melbate. "It'll depend on the Sith and the Jedi in question. A powerful Sith could catch a medium Jedi and fail against a powerful Jedi."

"Makes sense... so how can you keep them? I mean, I assume that most Jedi are better at escaping than basically any other people."

"Keep them sedated or use a Neural Disruptor." He said calmly. "The last one is a device that will keep people from reaching the state of calm that using the force requires." He gestured and a picture of what looked like a shock collar showed up, floating in the air. "I know for a fact that such devices have been used in my time to restrain Jedi."

"I shall do my best to avoid them."

"Yes, please do that." He smiled. "Anything else you want to talk about?"

"Nothing specific, but I do want to talk a little about the Force." I leaned back in the comfy sofa. "It's rare that I have the opportunity to talk with anyone that knows what I'm talking about, when it comes to that subject."

"That I can understand." He drank from the cup. "How goes your training with lightsabers?"

"Fairly well. The training methods you suggested have been very helpful." I answered carefully. Despite sounding and acting like a humanoid, Trejar Melbate was not a person. More like a cleverly programmed search engine that could draw on the data in the Holocron to answer questions and string sentences together like a person. That meant that the questions had to be carefully worded to extract the right information from him. "How do you rate my style of combat, by the way?"

"I'm not really familiar with what you call Praetorian Lightsaber Combat, but from what you have shown me so far, it reminds me of the Niman or Form VI style of combat, and that I know about."

I nodded slowly. "So, tell me about that form."

"In a moment." He smiled. "How long have you trained in Praetorian Lightsaber Combat?"

"Hmm that would be around sixteen years as they count them in the Republic."

"Good." Trejar Melbate said with a slight smile. "Niman is one of the easiest forms to learn, but paradoxically also one of the most difficult forms to master. In general, anyone with less than ten years of training with this form will be able to take down most non-force users, but will struggle a lot against a trained Jedi... and against a Sith, they will die."

"Encouraging." I said dryly. "Why is that?"

"Niman or Form Six, is a hybrid of Form One to Five, effectively combining elements of the preceding lightsaber forms into a single, generalised form for lightsaber combat." He explained. "However, while that means that it doesn't have any weaknesses, it also doesn't have any obvious strengths. Niman is a blank slate. It is what you make it to be, and for some that is a disadvantage so bad that scores of Jedi died during the war." He sighed. "For others, most notably the Sith, it's an advantage that is hard to beat. Two of the most famous Sith in history, Exar Kun and Darth Revan, both used Niman and both were almost unbeatable in lightsaber combat, because they used the one thing Niman has specialised in: Using the force while fighting."

"Hmm I thought that all force users could do that."

Trejar Melbate shook his head. "No. Granted, many Jedi have studied Niman for that reason alone, but nearly all other forms have the weakness that the wielder has to stop the flow of the bladework to use force powers. Niman incorporates them into the style, but unfortunately most Jedi choose to focus on force powers and never go beyond this stage of bladework. A lot of Jedi Consulars, which are the diplomats, used to train Niman because the basics are easy to grasp and for most diplomats the basics were usually enough." He gestured at me. "However, judging from what you have told me, the Praetorians never stop developing their skills with Niman, so that makes it a very good style for them."

"Thank you for the clarification." I smiled. "So let me hear some more about how to protect myself from the Force of the Sith."

"Well... " Trejar Melbate started, and we spent a good amount of time talking about the Force, Lightsaber combat and everything else connected to the Force.

I had discovered that while 'inside' the Holocron, it was nearly impossible to tell how much time had passed in the real world, but I was still surprised when I discovered that four hours had passed, since it hadn't felt like that long.

Looking at the clock had also told me that I had several hours of down-time left before it was time to sleep, so I took a refreshing shower and was about to sit down to relax, when the sound of the door chimes made me look in that direction. "Come in."

The door opened and Master Mechanic Waydar came in. "Hello, sir. I have the result of the diagnosis of the droids."

"That was fast but go on."

"First of all, the engineer that repaired those two droids was a Chiss named..." He looked at his data pad. "... Sirc'vek'luca. The same engineer that defected with Administrator Atare on the Chariot."

I sighed and nodded. That certainly explained how it happened. "So, they were designed to spy on me from the start."

"Yes, sir..." He said with a slight hesitation in his voice. "There's also a recorded message to you from Administrator Atare."

"Interesting. Can you pull it up on the screen?"

"I would rather not, sir." He admitted. "I don't understand your language, but it sounded rude."

"It most likely is." I admitted. "But put it up anyway. I might as well hear what he has to say."

With a sigh, he did as I asked and a moment later, Administrator Atare's face showed on the wall screen as he began to talk about me.

Basically, it was a rant about how I had betrayed the Chiss Ascendency by not going directly back, taken decisions way beyond my rank, illegally promoted female officers for sexual favours, not showing the proper respect towards senior officials, promoting robots to positions of command and a lot of other 'crimes'.

It was so far out, that I began to laugh halfway through it and each accusation just increased my amusement. It was clear that Administrator Atare acted in his own interest and was attempting to place the blame for his actions on me.

Master Mechanic Waydar looked at me in surprise. "May I ask what is so funny?"

"Him." I said, drying tears of laughter from my eyes as I listed some of the 'crimes' Administrator Atare was trying to lay on me. "He's hilarious."

"I don't get it, sir." Waydar admitted.

"Finding it funny might be a Chiss thing." I said, as I tried to stop laughing. "But none of the accusations he makes have any basis in law. This is purely Administrator Atare's wounded pride of not being in command, and not something any court in the Chiss Ascendency would spend more than a minute on. Especially not a military Court." I thought for a moment. "Oh, if he gets home, he'll most likely use his connections to fabricate some charges that will get me exiled for some period of time, unless the exile is reviewed by the courts."

"So, you're not worried?"

"No." I said with a shrug. "So far, I haven't broken a single Chiss law, with the exception of taking the Imperial ships to get out of the Share system, or rather not delivering them to the Empire with all possible speed." When Waydar looked puzzled, I explained. "The Chiss Ascendancy has a trade alliance with the Empire and according to that, we're to deliver any ship found to them, as long as said ship is part of the current line used by the Empire." I smiled a little. "So, I really should deliver the Drakes, Gage-class transporters and the Delta to the Sith Empire as soon as possible, and if somebody really wants to get me, the fact that I have no intention of doing that, is the only way to do it. Otherwise, everything I've done has been according to the letter and the spirit of the law."

"If you knew that it could get you exiled, why did you do it then?" Asked Waydar, honest curiosity in his voice.

"Two things. First of all, I don't know which Darth I should deliver the ships to. At this moment, I only know the names of two Sith. Darth Arkol and Darth Malgus. Now, we know that Darth Arkol is a renegade, which makes delivering the ships to him an act of treason. Darth Malgus, on the other hand, is also a renegade, but his fleet is so large, that he might be the real power in the Sith Empire at the moment, and since the strong rules in the Sith Empire, he might be accepted back into the Empire on the basic of that strength alone. So, if we run into Darth Arkol, I cannot give the ships to him, but if we run into Darth Malgus, I will happily hand over the ships in question to him in return for peace."

Waydar nodded. "And the other reason?"

"Nodia and Darth Arkol. The Dragon-class dreadnoughts, Wyvern-, Fafnir- and Interdictor-class cruisers are more than enough to free the Chiss that Sharon the Red has taken, but I'm not so sure about the Nodia system. Granted it's been a year since we took the two Kiltirin-class that brought you and all the rest from Nodia, but according to the files we found, the sale of the prisoners was instigated by Darth Arkol. That makes it likely that he'll have a force in the Nodia System, unless they have already emptied it, and any part of the Imperial fleet is not something we can easily beat with centuries old ships." I explained. "Not to mention, that as soon as we ended up in the Snare-system and you guys accepted my command, that made you my people... and it's the duty of any officer to take care of his people, which is why we're preparing to free the prisoners on Nodia Prime."

He nodded slowly. "Because we have relatives there."

"Yes." I said with a smile. "Now, how fast can you have two new guard droids for me?"

"That'll take a few weeks." He admitted with a grimace. "I don't dare use the two feline droids again, so the next pair is going to be the canine droids from Centauri 21... after we have done a complete reboot of the system and wiped everything."

"Sounds good. I'll look forward to seeing them."

He smiled, said his goodbyes and walked out again.

With a chuckle and a shake of my head, I leaned back in the sofa and had the computer pull up a file on naval tactics I could relax to.

It was a good watch, but I didn't get very far, before Shakka called. "Do you have a moment, sir?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"I would rather explain it in person. Is that okay?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'll be right there."

Shakka told the truth as she walked into my quarters through what I called the back door, which was just the entrance to my quarters, that didn't go through the bridge.

Somewhat to my surprise, she wasn't dressed in the usual medical suit, but in soft-looking grey pants and a ditto sweatshirt, the combination making her look extremely cute.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I really can't sleep."

"Come here and relax then... and drop the sir, please."

She flashed me a smile, but I could see the tiredness in her eyes. "Thank you."

"Why can't you sleep?" I asked as she lay down in the sofa, resting her head on my thighs.

"I don't know, but I think it's because we're in Hyperspace." She sighed. "That always makes me worried. Can I sleep here? For some reason being near you makes me feel safe."

Remembering that she had done the same in the Centauri 21 system, I gently caressed her back. "Sure. Do you mind if I continue watching this?"

"No, go ahead." She yawned. "I'll just close my eyes a bit."

I continued to watch the file, while absently caressing her back, and it didn't take long before she was snoring lightly.

The sound made me sleepy as well, but I did manage to keep awake until I was done with the file. Then I used the force to gently lift her up, before I took her into my arms and walked to the bed and placed her on one side, before taking off my clothes and lay down to sleep on the other side.

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

A soft female voice saying 'Sir, it's time to get up.' brought me out of my sleep and I quickly determined that I must had slept a lot deeper than I normally do, because not only did I have Shakka in my arms, but she was also naked, indicating that she had awoken while I was asleep, had undressed and gotten back into the bed, all without waking me. I hadn't heard Resa enter either and she was standing by the door to the bedroom, looking like she expected an answer.

"Thank you, Resa." I said sleepily and remembered that both Shakka and I had down-time this morning. "Anything urgent?"

"No, sir." She said with a smile. "Nobody has been asking for you or the Doctor, but just to be on the safe side, I have noted that the two of you are in a meeting with me about medical equipment."

"Fantastic idea." Mumbled Shakka sleepily in my arms and as I looked down, I discovered that she was looking at me. "What about some relaxing sex, Thalen?"

The cover had moved down her body, exposing her almost perfectly formed red breasts and I could feel my body react. "Sounds fantastic."

"In that case..." She said with a smile and looked over at Resa. "Why don't you undress and come join our 'meeting'?"

The droid's smile turned into a grin as she began to undress, but I didn't get to see it as Shakka used a hand to turn my head, giving me a soft, but intense kiss so filled with lust and need that it went right to my dick, making it fully erect in a few seconds, elegant red hands caressing my chest, wandering down my body to fondle my dick, sending shivers of lust through my body.

Shakka pressed her mouth against me a bit harder and I followed her lead until I was laying on my back in the bed, kissing her while fondling one of her breasts with one hand. The other arm was caught under her, but my hand was in a perfect position to stroke her lekku, which I did, causing her to moan.

The bed shook lightly as Resa climbed onto it and Shakka took a hold around the root of my shaft, pointing my dick straight towards the ceiling as she gently stroked it. Then it was my turn to moan as a pair of soft lips closed around the head of my dick, tongue gently playing on the tip. Then the mouth slid down the shaft until it reached Shakka's hand after which it went back up again.

The hand went away as Shakka broke the kiss and whispered. "Just enjoy it. I need to go to the toilet."

She left the bed with a smile and a for a moment I enjoyed the view of her well-formed red body as she walked around the bed, but then Resa went down on my dick again, soft lips sliding over the skin of the shaft all the way to the root while the head went down her constricting throat, causing me to close my eyes and moan again. It really did feel fantastic. Especially when she reversed the movement to pull off again, stopping when just the head was in her mouth to let her tongue play, while her soft wet lips slid over the edge of the mushroom head, as she bobbed her head up and down.

I groaned again as Resa slowly let her lips glide over the sensitive skin as she pulled completely off my dick, and then kissed along the side of the shaft. A hand on the inside on my thighs made me spread my legs and she continued downwards, licking my balls while gently stroking me with a hand, before licking her way up again on the other side of the shaft until she was back at the head. She wrapped her lips around the head and let it go down her throat as she swallowed my cock to the root, before pumping up and down, tongue playing on the underside, while her fingers teased the sensitive skin of my balls.

It felt fantastic and I was enjoying it when her fingers moved down to encircle me at the base of my cock and started to tease me with her tongue, licking the head for a little while, before she smoothly took me into her mouth again, sliding all the way down. Her tongue flicked briefly at the very bottom, before she tightened her lips around my dick and slowly retracted, sucking hard and licking my cock at the same time.

With a sigh of pleasure, I reached out and gently touched her hair, feeling it weave gently as she slowly pleasured me in what felt like an eternity. It was clear that she wasn't trying to make me come, the pleasure was a goal in itself, not the eventual finish.

"Turn around." I whispered. "I want to taste you."

Resa shook her head, again causing me to moan, as she didn't remove her mouth from my dick before doing so, and the feeling of her tongue and lips sliding over my dick as she shook her head.

"You don't take instructions well, do you, Thalen?" Shakka told me with a chuckle as she came back from the toilet. "I did tell you to just enjoy it."

"I like it even more when I have a pussy to lick."

"Good point." She admitted with a smile and crawled onto the bed, saying, "And I'm happy to deliver." as she straddled my face, hands on the bulkhead for support. Her well-formed red thighs were to either side of my face, and they left a good-sized gap between them at the top, a gap filled with sweet, perfectly smooth red pussy. The sight made my mouth water and it just became better as she lowered her pussy to my waiting mouth.

Shakka hissed as my tongue travelled over the lips, gently licking them from bottom to the top and back again, before diving in between them to tease the entrance. She lowered herself a little, pressing herself gently against my face and I got the hint, working my tongue into her until it was delving into her depths.

"Ohhhhh, fuck..." She murmured, resting her head against the bulkhead. "So good."

Lifting my hands, I slid them up the warm skin of her legs until I reached those two perfect humps of perfection that was her ass and started to grope them. Shakka's ass had been fantastic when we had met and a year of training had added firmness and a bit of volume to that, resulting in what could only be described as an exquisite piece of art.

I spent some time enjoying the feel of that firm ass under my fingers, while my tongue explored the inner walls of her pussy, moaning from time to time as Resa kept pleasuring my dick with her mouth.

Changing tactics, I withdrew my tongue from her depts and gave her clitoris a good workover, using both lips and tongue as I started slow, but gradually picked up the pace, listening to her groans getting louder. Sneaking a hand between her legs from behind, I used my fingertips to play with her wet lips, using the same rhythm as my tongue on her clitoris.

It didn't take long before Shakka's breaths became harder and the well-shaped legs on each side of my head started to shake.

"Frak! You're making me come." Shakka gasped. "Don't stop!"

Nothing could be farther from my mind in that moment. Instead, I pressed a wet finger against her anus, another at her opening, and heard her moan of pleasure as I pressed both fingers inside her. The moan turned into groans as I started finger fucking her in both holes at the same time, my tongue and lips still pleasuring her clitoris.

Suddenly, I felt Resa's mouth leave my dick and a moment later, she crawled up the bed.

Somewhat surprised, I lowered the pace as I felt a hand on my dick and a moment later, I groaned as Resa guided my dick into her wet pussy as she sat down.

Then I got myself together as Resa picked up the pace again, moaning into Shakka's pussy as I licked and fingered her.

"So good!" Panted Shakka. "Don't stop... that goes for you too, Resa!"

Resa said something I didn't catch, because at the same moment a jolt of pleasure ran through Shakka, making her close her legs around my head and blocking my ears. I didn't mind. Resa was obviously caressing Shakka's Lekku and riding my dick at the same time, doing so with her usual expertise.

It didn't take long before Shakka came in an orgasm that made her shiver and shake all over, juices running into my mouth and over my chin. I could even hear her muffled screams of pleasure, despite her legs blocking out most of the sound.

I kept licking and fingering her all the way through the orgasm, only stopping when she lifted up, bringing her pussy out of reach of my tongue.

In response, I removed my fingers and Shakka didn't miss a beat as she swung one leg over me to sit next to Resa, dragging her in for a kiss with one hand and finding Resa's clitoris with the other hand.

I could feel her pussy spasm wildly around my dick as Shakka expertly rubbed the clitoris and a moment later, the droid stopped riding me as she screamed out an orgasm into Shakka's mouth, the artificial muscles of her pussy milking my cock delightfully.

"That was awesome." Shakka smiled, once Resa had stopped shivering, causing the droid to nod. "Yes, it was." She looked down at me. "Was it as good for you as for us."

That made me chuckle. "Watching and feeling a woman having an orgasm is always good." She started moving her hips again, but I stopped her. "Please. I really need to go to the toilet before we continue."

Resa nodded and got off me, her pussy giving my dick a last squeeze before she stood, her breasts jiggling with the movement.

It was a tempting sight, but I really needed to go and rolled off the bed. "Now you two can have fun, while I'm away."

Peeing with a hard dick is never easy, especially not when I could hear the two women moaning in the bedroom, and it took me a little longer than I had expected, but I got it done and after washing hands and dick, I walked back to the bedroom.

The sight that met me was much different from the one I had expected. Instead of licking each other, Shakka was on all fours moaning with pleasure, with Resa was standing behind her, hands on Shakka's curvy red hips, as the droid thrust forward with her hips in a fucking motion, her large and perfectly shaped breasts swaying and bouncing as her hips collided with Shakka's ass.

First I assumed that the droid had to be using some sort of sex toy, but as she pulled back, I could see a dick-like appendage protruding from the droid's crotch going into Shakka's wet pussy.

The two women noticed my presence and as one stopped moving.

"You look... surprised." Said Resa slowly, with Shakka adding "I hope you're not offended."

"More like surprised and puzzled." I told her and walked closer, looking at Resa's appendage. "How does that work?" Remembering who I was talking to, I chuckled as I added. "In general, please."

Resa smiled at me and pulled completely out of Shakka, so I could see. The appendage did look like a penis with a shaft and a glans, but the shaft had raised ridges which I assumed was to increase the pleasure for the receiving part. Then I noticed something else. Resa's curvy hips were a lot slimmer without being as slim as a male.

"It's quite simple." Said Resa with a chuckle and as I watched, the appendage started to shrink and retract into her body, while the hips returned to their normal curvy form. "It's normally hidden inside me, but my hips can contract, pushing it forward and out, the elastic nerves that make up my clitoris spreading over the surface of the dildo like this." The hips started to shrink and as I watched, the dildo emerged from her body once more, reaching a decent length and width before stopping.

"This is the size limit." Resa said as she looked down on the dildo. "And before you ask, I don't have balls. They're not needed, and as I still have a vagina in this form, there's really no place for them."

"Do all the DD droids have that feature as well?" I asked curiously.

"No." said Resa with a slight shake of her head. "As you've pointed out yourself before, the DD type is a much simpler construction and while they potentially could have this extra feature, it's only available in the more advanced models." She smiled a little. "Which would also increase the cost."

"If you guys are done taking, can we get back to the sex part?" Asked Shakka with a chuckle. "You kinda interrupted us."

We both looked over at the naked red Twi'Lek, her body looking incredibly curvy and sexy as she laid on her side, watching us.

"In a moment, Shakka." Answered Resa before I could say anything. "It's important that everybody is comfortable with this before we continue." She looked at me. "Are you comfortable with this, or should I retract the dildo again?"

I thought about it for a moment. While I disliked the thought of another male having sex with Shakka while I was in the room, I found that Resa didn't count as a male in my mind. If anything, she was a female with a dildo attached to her, which somehow made it okay.

"Keep it." I told her with a slight smile. "And just for starters, I want to see you make Shakka come with that dildo."

"Yes!" Exclaimed Shakka and rolled over at her back, spreading her legs. "Come here, Resa. I'm so horny, I'm ready to explode!"

With a grin, Resa walked over to the bed and crawled onto it. It was strange, but even with her hips being slimmer, her ass looked just as bubbly and female as usual, as she positioned herself between Shakka's legs and inserted her dildo in the Twi'Lek's pussy.

"Oh fuck." Breathed Shakka as she lifted her legs and shifted her hips to make it go even deeper. Their mouths met in a lusty open-mouthed kiss, while their breasts rubbed against each other's and Shakka's hands found Resa's bubble ass, fondling it passionately.

It was an extremely erotic sight and I felt my dick react accordingly, going hard in a few heartbeats, as I slowly walked around the bed, taking in the sight of the two moaning women as they had sex.

As I reached the foot end of the bed, it gave me a clear view from behind of Resa's dildo going in and out of Shakka's pussy. However, I could also see Resa's pussy, the lips opening and closing ever so slightly with the rhythm of her fucking, juices leaking from her pussy running down the shaft of the dildo to mix with the juices from Shakka before running down between the red buttocks.

"Fuck... Stop... looking... and... join... us." Moaned Shakka, tearing me away from the mesmerising sight.

Making a decision, I crawled onto the bed and positioned myself behind Resa, my stiff dick gently poking her dripping pussy each time she pulled back from Shakka. Encouraged, I pressed forward smearing her juices over the head, but getting inside her proved to be a problem as the slimming of her hips had made her even tighter than normal.

"Keep pressing." Resa moaned and stood still for a moment. Her hips widened and with a swift backward move, she pressed my dick inside her until she had taken all of it. Then her hips slimmed again, making her pussy even tighter. It felt like a well lubricated velvet glove just tightened its grip around my dick, internal muscles rippling delightfully along the shaft.

Resa resumed her back and forth moves again, each move a double action with my dick sliding out of her clenching pussy when she was thrusting into Shakka and going back into her when she pulled back with an exquisite slowness, that only served to add to our pleasure.

However, the double action also doubled the pleasure she was receiving and it didn't take long before she was shivering all over, moaning and groaning into Shakka's mouth as they kissed, each back and forth move reinforcing the shivers, pushing her towards an orgasm.

"Too much!" Resa suddenly grunted as she stopped moving. "I'm going to overload."

That prompted Shakka into motion, holding onto Resa while grinding her hips against the droid. Taking the hint, I started moving as well, pushing my dick into the wet tightness that surrounded me.

A moment later, Resa screamed as an orgasm hit her, bucking her hips against us, which in turn made Shakka gasp and moan.

Resa lost her balance and collapsed on top of the moaning Twi'Lek, the dildo still inside Shakka, which gave me an idea. Leaning forward as well, I fucked Resa with strong strokes that made the flesh on her ass ripple each time my hips rammed into it. I groaned as the muscles in Resa's pussy milked my dick, but more importantly, each time I hammered into Resa, it also made her dildo move inside Shakka and I could see the effect in her face as she looked at me with wide eyes and a facial expression of pure pleasure.

Then she suddenly took hold of Resa's head and kissed her passionately. A kiss that turned into mutual screams, as both of them came in simultaneous orgasms, their bodies trembling and jerking as waves of pleasure ran through them.

I kept fucking Resa gently during the orgasm, but as they came down from their orgasmic high I pulled out of the droid and sat down on the bed, so Shakka wasn't getting squeezed under the weight of both Resa and I.

The two women continued to kiss for a while, but then Resa rolled away from Shakka to lay on her back next to the red Twi'Lek.

"That," said Resa after a while. "Was fantastic!"

"I agree." Said Shakka, still breathing heavily.

Resa smiled. "And it was also something I have never tried before."

"Really?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes, my former owner liked to see me having other women, but he never fucked me at the same time." She sent us a dazzling smile. "It was awesome! Thank you both so much for that!"

"The pleasure was all mine." Grinned Shakka and looked over at me, her eyes taking in my still stiff dick. "Ohhh Can we finish in my favourite position?"

I smiled back at her. "No problem."

"What is that?" Asked Resa.

"I really like to finish on top." Replied Shakka. "There's just something special about that."

"Go ahead." Suggested Resa. "I think the two of you have overloaded my circuits."

With a chuckle, Shakka got on her knees and crawled over to me, giving me a passionate kiss before saying. "Are you okay with that?"

That made me laugh as I let myself fall to the bed. "If I ever say no to that question, please drag me to a doctor, because I'm obviously sick to the point of being close to death."

Shakka smiled as she placed a leg on each side, sighing happily as she guided my dick into her drenched pussy and sank down. Placing her hands on my chest, she leaned forward and began rotating her hips as she rocked back and forth, changing the angle of her hips slightly each time.

The position made her red breasts stand out even more than before and almost automatically, I reached up and caressed them. As always they were smooth and firm, and I happily sank my fingers into them, causing Shakka to sigh happily.

"Keep doing that," Shakka gasped and began moving up and down on my dick, each move sending shivers of pleasure through my body, as she was going faster and faster, the pleasure making the muscles inside her pulse around my dick.

As usual when she was sitting in that position, the angle had caused her lekku to fall to the front of her body, just as a pair of long braids, and I began alternating between caressing her breasts and the sensitive head-tail, being gentle on the lekku and rough on the breasts.

"Fuck, this is good!" She gasped, looking at me with delight in her face.

I nodded silently as I could feel my own orgasm approaching.

"May I join?" Asked Resa suddenly.

Shakka nodded eagerly. "Yes!" She stopped moving her hips as she looked down on me. "I have a kinky fantasy I have never tried. Being taken by two people at the same time. May I try that?"

"Yes." I said with a nod. At this point, I just wanted us both to come and if that involved Resa again, I didn't have a problem with that.

Shakka looked at Resa. "Please?"

The droid smiled and as she stood to walk behind Shakka, her hips slimmed again, pushing the dildo out, glinting with lubrication.

I could see Resa's face over Shakka as she took her place behind the Twi'Lek and slowly started to insert her dildo into the beautiful red ass. Shakka had stopped moving, so I used the opportunity to slowly thrust upwards into her pussy.

"Fuck!" She breathed, her eyes going so wide that it looked like they might pop out of her head, as Resa began filling her ass with the dildo.

Leaning forward, she kissed me passionately as Resa pushed more and more of her dildo into her ass, until she was all the way in.

Shakka moaned loudly into my mouth and broke the kiss to whisper. "This is so freaking hot!" Then she looked at Resa. "Fuck me hard. I can take it."

The droid smiled and nodded, taking a hold of the wide red hips and slammed into her.

With a groan, Shakka began riding me again, while Resa continued to fuck her ass, keeping the rhythm Shakka had started.

It was a strange feeling as I could clearly feel Resa's dildo through the thin walls of her pussy and not only was it moving back and forth, it was also vibrating slightly, sending pleasurable shivers through both Shakka and I.

Resa's hands disappeared from Shakka's hips, only to take her Lekku, caressing them, as she rammed her dildo into Shakka's ass repeatedly.

With a smile, I focussed on those beautiful red breasts that dangled in front of my eyes, fondling and squeezing them, as I pinched her nipples from time to time.

"I'm going to explode in a moment!" She warned us.

"Me too," I growled, the combined feeling of Shakka's pussy around my dick, her breasts in my hands, as well as the sliding feeling and vibrations from Resa's dildo had brought me to the limit.

Shakka's pussy started milking me again and she picked up the speed, moving back and forth faster than before, adding to the pleasure.

A moment later she came with a howl, rotating her hips around my dick. The pleasure was overcoming me and I gave into it. Lightning of pure pleasure ran through my body, as I emptied myself in her milking pussy with a groan.

"Me too!" Moaned Resa suddenly and grabbed Shakka's hips to give a series of hard thrusts, screaming as an orgasm ran through her.

The feeling of us coming and the continued stimulation, sent Shakka into yet another orgasm, and she squealed and jerked wildly on top of me, each movement getting smaller and smaller until she leaned down to kiss me, her pussy vibrating away on my still stiff cock. A vibration that was enhanced by Resa's vibrating dildo until the droid widened her hips again, causing the dildo to stop vibrating and retract once more, as the droid more of less collapsed on top of Shakka.

"Thank... you... That... was... the... wildest... sex... ever." Panted Shakka after a while, giving me a smile and a kiss, before turning just enough to be able to drag Resa closer, giving her a kiss as well, as she got her breath under control. "That goes... for you... too."

"You're more than welcome." Chuckled the droid and let herself fall onto the bed. "We have to do this again at some point, but before that I need to have yet another test. I'm sure the sheer amount of pleasure blew a few circuits." She was silent for a moment and then nodded. "Yes. Two to be exact." She laughed, making her generous breasts jiggle. "It was so worth it."

"Well, I can't say that I blew a few circuits, but it was definitely good." I said lazily and stretched. "Unfortunately, we can't stay here forever. We all have things to do and places to be."

Shakka smiled. "Right after a bath."

"Yes, right after a bath."

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

The next day we arrived in the Epsilon Eta system, ready for a fight just in case there was anybody there, but unlike last time, there were no ships in the system. However, just to be sure, I sent First Squadron's scouts out to do a sweep of the star system to ensure that nobody was lurking somewhere. Next, I ordered ships to cover the hyperspace exits and sent Second Squadron off to examine the Asteroid Base.

That done, I sent out my force senses to examine the system for hyperspace routes, just in case I had missed one last time I did it.

As it turned out, I hadn't missed anything, so instead I took a closer look at the Nodia system. Mostly because I wanted to know if there was more than one way in and out of the system. If there was one, it was easily defended, while two would demand whomever that was there to split their ships into two separate groups, making them easier to defeat. Three would make the system hard to defend.

Hoping for three, I let my force sense follow the hyperspace route to Nodia and looked around. Aside from the huge asteroid belt, there really wasn't much of interest there, but then again, I wasn't looking for something special, so I just followed the flow until I detected an increase in it. Curious, I followed it and discovered another hyperspace route, but this one wasn't anywhere near the planet, as it was located outside the asteroid belt at the edge of the system.

While that was nice, it didn't help much, unless I could figure out where it ended, so I followed this one as well, and ended up in the same unremarkable solar system I had ended up in two days earlier. This one had only two hyperspace points and by chance, I took the right one in the first try, coming back to the Epsilon Eta system. Back-tracking, I tried the other route and discovered that it was an extremely dangerous route. Not on the level of going through the Death's Maw nebula, but close, and that alone meant that it was highly unlikely that any fleet would come that way.

I was smiling when I came out of the trance. Even if they had discovered the distant hyperspace point, which I highly doubted, it was highly unlikely that a hyperspace point so far away from the planet would be guarded. That was good news, as it eliminated the other way into the system, which was an old-fashioned system-to-system chain of jumps that would have taken us a week to execute. Out here in the Chaos, it was a common way to travel, but it was both tedious and time consuming, and I avoided it whenever possible.

The astrogators confirmed the route, so I sent the Repair ship Squid back to Tetra 7 to see if the Chariot had just suffered some technical difficulties, along with the Drake-class Predator for additional protection, with orders to meet us in the Nodia system using the new route when they returned.

Then I walked back to the bridge to inform the rest of the battlegroup over the main comm system that Raider had gone missing, which was why the Squid and Predator had gone back. However, I also told them that Chariot was presumed to had taken a route through the Death's Maw nebula, and that I wished them luck on their journey, while regretting that they were not willing to participate in the freeing of the prisoners in the Nodia and Debra systems.

Then we waited until the scouts had declared the system empty and Second Squadron was done examining the asteroid base.

"Squadron Commander Meistrin is calling, sir." Said Tavune as we were preparing the hyperspace jump to Nodia.

"On screen."

Meistrin was smiling when she appeared on the screen. "Hello, sir. I have an idea and want your input."

"Yes?"

"Instead of having to find the Asteroid Base every time we enter this system, why don't we just move it?" She suggested. "We can move it with the tractor beams of the capital ships and place it in a stable orbit around the second gas giant in the system."

"How fast can you do that?"

"Six hours." She answered. "And once there it has the advantage of being able to record ships going in and out of the system, as long as we provide the storage. We could even add a small device that will send the data to us given the right code."

It was something that might be useful in the future, but most likely never. On the bright side, it only took a little work and a storage device for data, making it an extremely cheap operation.

"It's a good idea, Captain. Make it happen."

She smiled. "Yes, sir."

The screen winked out and Iska looked at me. "That is an excellent idea."

"Yes," I agreed. "Information is almost always useful."

"That it is." Said Iska and informed the crew about the delay, ordering them back to normal watches, before she looked at me again, padding the lightsabre at her belt. "Are you up for some training?"

"Yes. Just let me go get my training bag."

"Good idea." She smiled. "Then I'll hear if Doctor Shakka is up for some training as well."

I nodded and walked into my suite. You can develop a lot of habits in a year, especially when caught in a box system, and one of those habits was training. For months on end, Shakka, Iksa and I had trained lightsaber combat three times a week and basic physical training on three of the other days, with the last day being a rest day.

However, as we had left the Snare system these six weekly training sessions had suddenly gone away, and I could feel it like an itch in my body. Apparently Iska felt the same and I hoped Shakka did as well, as she was learning a lot faster than Iska. However, with more than a decade of training, I was a lot better than they were, and it wasn't much of a challenge for me. On the bright side, I was sparring a lot more than I had ever done before, and Resa had reprogrammed a bunch of the training droids used by the troopers to act as melee fighters, while some of the marksman droids acted as shooters, firing shots that I had to deflect. All in all, I was in a better physical shape than I had ever been before and my skill with the lightsaber had also improved a lot, especially the defensive part.

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

The Nodia System

Dreadnought Majestic, Nodia System

"Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder and crush him."

From the Holy Book of War

Things were peaceful for the next couple of days, though there was growing tension in the fleet, as the possibility of combat became increasingly real. Yaki drilled her marines in boarding actions, the starfighter simulators had a waiting list and the gunners ran virtual target practice. Nothing of that was new but had reached an intensity that spoke volumes about the crews' readiness and will to take on anything to free their former prison mates.

Squid and Predator even returned before time, reporting no signs of Chariot and no debris or anything else that could indicate that a battle had taken place.

Consequently, we were on our way as soon as the two ships had taken their place in the formation, and despite taking an extra hyperspace jump, everything went smoothly and we arrived in the outskirts of the Nodia system three days later, well outside the range of any planetary scanners and as far away as possible from the small group of ships Master Mechanic Waydar had said was there.

As usual when we were coming out of Hyperspace, I was on the bridge. This time along with XO Betty Nagos, looking at the screens as the scanner pictures formed up, and I could feel excitement boil inside her as we came nearer the place where she had been held captive for years.

As the star map had shown, the system had only four planets and Nodia Prime was the only planet that was close to being inhabitable, if barely so. Like most solar systems, it also had several asteroid belts and according to Waydar, the belts had been heavily mined for their resources during the hundreds of years the prison colony had existed.

Aside from that, there was nothing special about the system and I forced myself to relax, as the Battlegroup carefully made its way towards Nodia Prime, scouts leading the way as always.

"Contact!" Called Tavune from the scan section half an hour later. "The scouts have detected two S-class Heavy Cruisers, a Terminus-class Destroyer, a Lictor class Dungeon Ship, two Gage-class Transports and two KDY Special Transport II. There're most likely smaller ships there as well, but these are the only ones we can detect at this distance."

As he spoke, the stats on the various ship types appeared on the screens and I studied them carefully. The S-Class cruisers were almost as big as a Harrower, meaning that they were big, hulking ships, sporting thick armor, twenty medium Turbolasers, ten quad-laser batteries and some missile launchers. Not the type of ship I wanted to go into a straight up duel with. Not even in a dreadnought. We would win, but the S-class Cruisers could inflict so much damage on our ships that it wasn't worth it, since we didn't have a repair base nearby.

The Terminus-class destroyer and the Gage-class cruiser I had already studied in dept while in the Snare system and were two different ship types using the same basic hull, with the Gage-class trading some of its weapons for cargo space. It still had the armor of a warship, as well as six medium Turbolasers and five lasers, so it could dish out a respectable amount of damage. Especially for a transport, which was why the Imperial Navy used them as oversized frigates.

While that was not unusual, the composition of the of the fleet was. Normally, a fleet would have a few of the largest ship types, like Dreadnaughts. They would be supported by a larger number of the second largest ship-type, which in many cases would be a cruiser-type, like the Wyvern-class or the S-class. The cruisers were in turn supported by an even larger number of the third largest ship-type, which could be destroyers, frigates, or corvettes, depending on the ship-types used by the fleet. The job of the smaller ship-types was typically to protect the larger ships against star fighters and bombers, and consequently they usually had a larger percentage of twin- or quad-lasers in relation to turbolasers.

All that meant, that each larger ship was usually supported by two or three smaller ships, just like each Dragon-class Dreadnaught was supported by Wyvern-class cruisers, who in turn were supported by Drake-class Frigates.

However, the fleet I was looking at had two S-class cruisers, supported by only one destroyer, though that one was supported by two Cage-class transports.

Why that was so could be losses, lack of ships or the whim of the commander, but the result was a less effective composition than ideal. One way to exploit the battlegroup's lack of anti-starfighter weapons, would be to focus the largest weapons on destroyers and leave the cruisers to the starfighters, but that would depend on how they deployed the ships.

It might have a screening force, but if so, they had to be smaller ships, or the scanners would have picked them up by now. Most likely Drake-class Frigates or a similar class of ships designed to screen the capital ships from enemy fighters.

That was a thought for later, I decided and turned my attention towards the numbers for the Kuat Drive Yards Special Transports II, as they were a type I haven't even heard about. At least not in that size. It was a gigantic container bulk freighter, capable of transporting more than two million tons of containers at a time, which made me wonder what it was doing here, if the mines were running on empty as Waydar and other former prisoners had said.

It was the Lictor that worried me the most. In all likelihood, it had slaves onboard and if they detected a battlegroup boring down on them, they would simply jump away before we got close.

I suddenly remembered my talk with Waydar regarding why I had taken the modern ships and not the old ones and decided that I had chosen right. With the firepower the opposing fleet had, especially the S-class cruiser, it could reduce any old battlegroup to dust and debris in no time.

"That Battlegroup is not really a small one." I said calmly. "But aside from that, I wonder what the Special Transports are doing here."

"I think they're closing down the colony, sir." Suggested Betty Nagos softly, making me glance at her.

Her golden-yellow eyes reflected the light from the screen as she shrugged. "With the mines close to being depleted, there's no reason to keep the colony running, sir. The asteroid mines are nice to have, but with the lack of any rare materials, they can be established elsewhere." She gestured at the screen showing the ships. "I think the Lictor is there to pick up the last prisoners, while the Special Transports and Gage-classes are there for the ore and equipment, with the rest as escorts. Unfortunately, that also means that there's less than nine thousand prisoners left out of the original forty thousand."

"That sounds reasonable." I said as I studied the sensor output. Nine thousand was the number of prisoners a Lictor-class could transport, and if they were closing the mines down, I guessed that they might as well sell off the prisoners while they were at it.

Then I noticed something. "Weren't there supposed to be orbital installations?"

"Yes, sir. Two of them." She studied the screen, but as I have discovered, they didn't show up on the scans. "I don't know what happened to them."

"Tavune, get me Chief Engineer Keller on the comm, please."

"Yes, sir."

A moment later, the Chief Engineer appeared on the screen and I quickly explained our problem with the missing orbital installations to him.

"My guess is that the orbital installations have been taken apart and are now in the Special Transport, sir." He answered after taking a moment to think about it. "Some of the orbital installations made by KDY are designed in modules that can be transported by the Special Transports. That way, the installations are easier and faster to set up or remove as need be, and it's a lot cheaper and easier than equipping them with a hyperdrive. If my guess is right, the mechanics and engineers are in the transports and destroyers."

"One Special Transport for each orbital installation?"

"Well, sir, that depends on the size of the orbital installation, but in general the answer is yes. If you have a full crew and know how to do it, you can take an orbital installation apart for transport in about six to eight weeks." He looked like he remembered something. "Oh... One moment, sir." He tapped on something out sight and then looked at the screen again. "I just remembered, that Kuat has built a transport container for people, complete with its own life support. It is meant for crew, technicians or troops, but if they have used those, there might also be prisoners on the Special Transport."

I cursed inwardly and asked. "Am I correct in assuming, that if we use Ion cannons to shut down the reactor, that life support will stop."

He nodded. "Yes, sir. Fortunately, there's air enough in a container for thirty people to survive for seven hours, so it's not like they'll die immediately."

"Good to know and thank you, Chief Engineer."

"You're welcome, sir."

"That, " said the XO with a smile, as the Chief Engineer closed the connection. "Is like having a living database, sir."

"Yes, and I appreciate it enormously." I said with a slight smile. "Without that knowledge, we would still be in the Snare system."

"At least until that rogue planet showed up." The blue-skinned Pantoran said with a little smile.

"Yes, but that wasn't something that could be predicted."

"True."

"No matter what, it doesn't solve the problem we have right now." I said thoughtfully. "We need to get close enough to both the Lictor and the Special Transports to prevent them from jumping away. Either by shutting them down or using the Interdictor, but with the sensors on a Terminus-class destroyer, we can't do that before they discover us and there's a good chance that the cruisers will tear the Interdictor apart before it even reaches its goal."

"Not even the Sharks can get that close." Commented Iska from the Captain's chair. "The Terminus Destroyer has some really good sensors."

"So, we'll need to fool them." I determined and turned towards Iska. "Captain, tell Second Squadron to circle around to forty-five degrees and launch some scouts to check the asteroid belt. I don't want to be surprised while I'm trying to surprise somebody else.

"Yes, sir."

"And let the crew stand down from battle stations. We're not moving in before we can do this without the Lictor getting away from us."

"Yes, sir."

Looking at the hologram of the system, I thought for a moment. "XO, how stable is the asteroid belt?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"How often do asteroids come close to the planet?"

"I don't know, sir." She sighed. "That's not really something the guards would tell an inmate."

"Good point." I said absently and looked over at the scan section. "Tavune, any scan interference from the asteroids?"

"Yes, sir, but our scouts are lingering just beyond the asteroid field, so it's not a problem."

"Let me rephrase the question." I said with a slight smile. "How much will it interfere with their ability to detect us?"

"Oh... sorry, sir." The young Chiss looked slightly embarrassed as he studied the read-outs. "We're quite safe from detection here, but if our capital ships come much closer it might be a problem. Our screening ships can get a lot closer without risk of being detected."

"Thank you. Give me the Buzzard, please."

"Yes, sir."

A moment later, Captain Tristana showed up on my screen. "Yes, sir?"

"Captain, I need you to use the launch tubes to launch two scouts at a vector where they can slide through the system close enough to get a good reading on their passive scanners, but not so close they'll be detected. The trajectory needs to go into the asteroid field on the other side, so the scouts can activate their engines without being detected."

"Yes, sir. I'll put the 'Gator on the task now. Wait one."

"Sneaky, sir." Said Iska with a chuckle, as the picture disappeared.

"Well, I certainly hope so. I hate going in blind."

It would take the scouts about six hours to travel across the system and disappear into the asteroid field on the other side, but even with just the passive sensors active, we should begin to receive data within two hours, hopefully telling what was in the system. That it only took two hours before we received the data was due to an invention by Engineer Choe Tran. She had installed a directional laser on each of the Dragonclaws on the Fafnir-pack for that exact purpose. It had taken a few droid parts to aim it and it wasn't as fast as other forms of communications, but it was fast enough and practically impossible to detect.

The screen blinked on again, showing Tristana. "The astrogator has finished calculating the trajectory and when we have changed position to a better place and launched the scouts, it'll take one and a half hours before we have the information."

"Very well, captain. Proceed with the operation."

"Yes, sir."

When the connection closed, I walked over and sat in the chair again and started the tactical hologram. There had to be a way to do this. I just needed the right idea.

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

As Tristana had said it did take about one and a half hours before we had any solid information, and it wasn't good news.

The warships were some distance away from the others, covering the system's other hyperspace exit point, without being so close than an arriving force could surprise them, while the Lictor and the Super Transports were close to the planet, guarded by two wings of MK. VI Supremacy starfighters, and a wing of S-13 scouts for a total of thirty-six fighters.

Normally that would have made me happy, as the Cage-class and the Terminus could carry a twelve-fighter squadron each, while the S-class cruiser carried two squadrons, for a total of sixty fighters. In theory, that left precious few fighters with the warships, but as it turned out, the opposing force had a lot of Imperial corvettes in the system.

More precisely, there were three near the planet and twelve with the battlegroup. Being the class smaller than a frigate, corvettes were the smallest of the capital warship classes and were normally used to guard against starfighters or as patrol vessels. Corvettes were, at least in Chiss terminology, between one hundred to two hundred meters long and armed mostly with laser canons. All of which didn't normally make them a big problem when arriving with dreadnoughts and cruisers.

However, according to the database, the corvettes I was looking at were Manta-class corvettes. Made by the Imperial shipyards at Taerab, they were a relatively new class of corvettes that were fast, well-armored and hard hitting. At one-hundred-and-eighty meters in length, eighty-five meters in width and a height of thirty-five meters, their diamond shaped hulls had a more than passing resemblance with a space creature by the same name from several nebulas in the Rim Worlds, which I assumed was where the class had gotten its name from.

The Manta-class was also almost as heavily armed as the Drake-class frigate, with two medium- and two light dual turbolasers, seven dual medium lasers and two medium Ion cannons, as well as a pair of tractor beam emitters. Taerab Starship Manufacturing had even managed to cram six S-13 scouts into the small hangar. All in all, they were surprisingly hard-hitting for their size and read as a slightly smaller version of the Drake-class frigates.

"That's a nasty corvette, sir." Commented Iska, who was also studying the corvette on the data screen. "Almost the perfect ship for anti-pirate duty...or interceptions of enemy cargo ships for that matter."

"Yes, and they have a trio for each of the capital ships for a total of fifteen, though one trio is by the planet."

She grimaced. "Not good for the starfighters... that corvette is almost as fast as they are."

"Some of them at least." I said and glanced over at Tavune. "Comm, give me Chief Engineer Keller again."

"Yes, sir."

A moment later the Engineer showed on the screen. "Yes, sir?"

"Sorry for calling you again, Chief Engineer, but I'm looking at the Manta-class corvettes here. Are they really as fast as stated in the Database?"

"Yes, sir." He said immediately. "The Manta-class corvettes are Taerab Starship Manufacturing's version of the Drake-class frigate, just made smaller so it could be sold as a corvette instead of a frigate, and the engine Taerab used in that corvette is ridiculously effective and the only reason they haven't been used in larger ships, is that they don't scale well. When you make them bigger, they lose much of their effectiveness... I guess your question means that there're some here."

"Yes. Do they have any weak points?"

"I don't know. I only ever looked at their engine, since that is quite honestly an engineering marvel. I can't think of any other corvette-class ships that are faster than most of the Imperial starfighters. I mean, a one-hundred-and-eighty meters ship with a top speed faster than the MK VI and VII is almost unbelievable."

That made me chuckle. "Yes, that is why I called you to have it confirmed."

He nodded. "Can I call you back in a few minutes, sir?"

"Yes, and thank you for the information, Chief Engineer."

"You're welcome, sir."

"Well, that rules out the M7 Nightsingers." Remarked Iska thoughtfully when Keller had disappeared from the screen.

I nodded slowly. While it was possible to take down the fast corvette, and their even faster scouts, with slower moving starfighters, that scenario demanded that the enemy was willing to fight and that I was willing to sacrifice some M7's along with their pilots.

Fortunately, we had other options as the rest of our fighters, Dragonclaws, S-13 Super Stings, Aureks and Dragonfangs, were all faster than the Mantas' and the last two were faster than even the S-13 stings.

"I know." I said and leaned back in the seat. With the exception of the S-13's, which most likely came from the corvettes, the starfighters guarding the Lictor and the two freighters had to come from the main battlegroup, which was a strange choice by their commander, as a potential attacker would have to go through the battle group to get to the planet, making the starfighters better used there.

However, no matter where they came from, we would have to sneak at least two fighter wings in, so they could take out the drives of the Lictor and the two Special Transports, but I didn't want to send them on a suicide mission. We also needed to take out the warships in order to get the prisoners out, but that was more straight forward, despite the presence of the slow, but powerful, S-Class cruisers and the quick, hard-hitting Mantas.

As he had promised, Keller did call back after a little while. "I did some calculations using some rough estimations regarding the power output from the reactor and I wish I could tell you that the Manta had weak shields or produced too little energy for it to use all its weapons when flying at max speed." He said with a sigh. "But as long as they don't try to use the tractor beam projectors while having power to all the weapons at full speed, which is a highly unlikely scenario, I can't see a problem."

"Well, thank you for trying, Chief Engineer."

"My pleasure, sir."

I pondered the possibilities for a while, studying the system map and weighing the pros and cons of each tactic based on the opposing force's position and composition as I went through each part of the problem one by one. Reaching our soft targets with enough firepower to survive taking them out. Making the warships go further away from the planet and subsequently eliminating them. Doing that with a fleet where most of the ships were so under-crewed that they weren't functional warships.

Finally, I allowed myself a little smile, as things started to fall into place. It would be a complicated plan, which I usually try to avoid like the plague. As soon as a plan gets complicated, little things start to go wrong, affecting the bigger things and at some point, the plan falls apart. Especially with ships so understaffed as we were, but with the two-fold problem in front of me there was no avoiding that.

Standing from the chair, I walked the few steps to the tactical hologram taking a final look at the situation. Then I lifted my eyebrow as the clock told me that I had been thinking for more than an hour. Not that it mattered.

"Tavune, get me Captain Meistrin and then the rest of the commanders, including the pack leaders."

A moment later, a smiling Meistrin showed on the screen.

"I'm at your command, sir." She greeted me cheerfully, using the Chiss expression, and I got the impression that she was looking forward to some action.

"Captain, I need your scouts to find some of the mined asteroids. They need to be large enough and hollow enough to hide a squadron of fighters. I also need you to jump out of the system, but I'll get back to that later."

Unlike when using a Hyperspace route, using system-to-system jumps and just dropping into a system from hyperspace was somewhat unpredictable, as there was no way of telling exactly when and where you entered real-space in a given system. However, I planned on having the Interdictor start up the gravity well projectors as soon as we entered combat and as the computer would eject ships from hyperspace when they detected a gravity well, Second Squadron should exit hyperspace within shooting range of the enemy warships.

"Yes, sir."

The rest of the commander and pack leaders showed up.

"Alright people, this in what we're going to do. It's just the overall plan and I'll explain it to you all now, and then go into details one on one later."

They saluted and I continued.

"During this, I want the all the support vessels and freighters to stay here beyond the asteroid belt where they're relatively safe." I looked at Jalmia Tarrick, the leader of the Hammerhead pack. "Captain Tarrick, your pack will take the hyperspace route into the system, drawing the attention of our opponents warships. When arriving, I want the pack to send a pre-recorded surrender message and then make a run for it, looking like you just discovered the fleet guarding the system. The S-Class cruisers will never catch up to you as they're simply too slow and if the rest get within firing range, jump out of the system again. You're not to engage in combat with them."

The black-haired human female captain paled but nodded, so I went on to explain the rest of the plan to them, ending with, "Any questions?"

"No, sir."

"Good, then let's get moving."

The rest of the preparation took a little longer, but four hours later everything was ready, so both First and Second Squadron jumped out of the system, followed by the Hammerhead pack, leaving the rest behind.

Three hours later again, First Squadron, the Drakes, and the Hammerhead pack arrived in the next system on the hyperspace route towards Nodia, while Meistrin's Second Squadron would drop into real-space in a system much closer to Nodia, from where they could return with relative ease.

Standing by the large view screens, I watched the Hammerheads form up, while the clock in the upper-right corner of the screen ticked down. Eventually, it turned to zero and taking a deep breath, I ordered the Hammerhead-pack to do their jump and then, five minutes later, we did the same after Iska had ordered everybody to the battle stations.

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

The scene we arrived to was one of chaos, as the Hammerheads were racing away with the Manta-class corvettes and MK VI Supremacy-class starfighters in hot pursuit, and we had arrived in the middle of the pursuing force. The Terminus-class destroyer and the Gage-class transports were following a bit further away, while the slower S-Class cruisers were lagging behind despite going at full power.

The tactical display lit up as it received data from both our own sensors and every other ship in the battle group. While the picture formed up, I used the waiting time to dive into the Force and used it to boost the skills of everybody under my command, before looking at the screen, trying to get a quick overview, while trying to ignore the explosions at the front of Majestic, as several of the opponents' fighters didn't react fast enough to our sudden appearance in the system and collided with Majestic's shields head on, destroying the much smaller craft.

Near the planet, the asteroids the Fafnirs had pulled out of their orbit with their tractor beams and sent on a trajectory that would take them close to the planet without outright hitting it, were minutes away from getting as close as they were going to get.

"Fire as you bear. Lasers on fighters, Ion cannons on corvettes." I heard Iska order.

A moment later the point defence and lasers cannons of eight capital ships and six frigates ripped through the rest of the Supremacy-class starfighters, wiping them out before they had a chance to do anything. Ion cannons, both those from the Drakes and the much larger from Falcon, Hawk and Majestic nailed the corvettes again and again, shutting them down and sending them drifting powerless through space.

Shaking my head lightly, I took off my helmet. Exiting hyperspace right in the middle of the opponent picket force's was incredible fortunate as it had allowed us to wipe them out practically without them getting a shot of at us in return.

I was also aware that even when taking them by surprise, hitting the nimble corvettes at all with capital ship weapons was at least partly due to my use of the Force. Ion cannons, especially the heavy ones, and Turbolaser cannons were notoriously hard to aim and in general considered useless against anything smaller than a capital ship, but boosted by the force as the gunners were, the few seconds it had taken the opponents to react to our arrival had been just enough for the gunners to hit their unlikely targets.

I guessed Iska's order had been for the Drakes and perhaps the smaller ion cannons on Stingray and the two Gage-class transports Orca and Beluga, but in all fairness, she hadn't specified that, and the result was spectacular, though with the power of a heavy ion cannon, I doubted that any of the Mantas would be able to restart their reactors without using a week or two at replacing burned-out circuit boards and other hardware.

"Hammerhead pack, get a hold of those Mantas." I ordered as I donned my helmet. The Hammerheads would have played a surrender demand earlier, but it couldn't hurt to repeat it now the opponent could see more ships in the system. "Comm, open a channel."

"Done, sir."

I turned towards the screens again, knowing that the computer would filter out anything but my image with the Dragon Defence Force behind me. "Ships in the Nodia system. You have been warned before, but I'm giving you a second chance. You're up against a much stronger force and I urge you to surrender while you still can. We have no wish to destroy the ships here, but if you do not surrender, we will do so." Eying the clock on the display, I added. "You have twenty seconds to strike your shields and power down your reactors. That time starts now. You have my word, that surrendered crew will be treated fairly and kindly." I paused and then added. "Those starfighters that wish to surrender, head towards the moon at Nodia Prime and stay there."

At least some of the fighters were the Mk. VI Supremacy-class starfighters, in which case they didn't have a shield to strike and with the limited life-support, they couldn't even power down without dying. So, by asking them to gather at the moon gave them a chance to surrender in a place where we could find them.

Seconds ticked away as we waited for an answer.

"Sir," called Tavune. " the Special Transports and the Lictor are moving out of the planets gravity well, charging their hyperdrives."

"Time?"

"Five minutes to the edge of the gravity well. Six minutes for the Lictor to finish charging its hyperdrive, seven minutes for the Special Transports."

I nodded absently. While the Lictor was decently armed and armored for a transport, its lack of a point defence system made it an easy target for any group of determined starfighters, as we had proven in the Epsilon Eta system. The two freighters were basically unarmed, so their best chance was to get out of here, while the warships would hopefully slow us down to give them the time they needed to charge their hyperdrives. Fortunately for us, that time depended on the size of the hyperdrive, the needed time increasing as the drives became bigger. In addition to that, the more expensive military drive in general took only half the time a commercial drive did, so while Majestic could charge it's hyperdrive in about three minutes, the larger and commercial drives on the Special Transport took about eight minutes.

"Plot their most likely course on the map." I ordered and a moment later, the course of the three ships showed up on the plot. A course that would take the ships away from us, but closer to the asteroids we had launched.

Since that part was going according to plan, I returned my attention to the rest of the battle group that was bearing down on us, even though they were outmatched. Then again, surrendering without a direct order was an offence in the Sith Navy and even with an order, you might be convicted to slavery... as many of our crew members found out.

Another point was that they might not even know how badly outmatched they were, since it was highly unlikely that they had the data on a Dragon-class dreadnought or the Wyvern-class cruisers in their computers.

I switched the all-system channel on again and repeated my offer of surrender, adding that the surrendered crew would be treated fairly and kindly, but the only result was that the Terminus-class destroyer and the Gage-class transports slowed down, allowing the S-class cruisers to catch up as they entered combat range.

Under other circumstances, that was a good tactic, but it was what I had expected and played right into my plan.

"Range for the heavies!" Called Master Gunner Kansen.

"Hold it." Iska ordered. "They still have ten seconds."

Nodding slightly to myself, I said. "Comm, tell Osprey to start up the gravity well projectors."

"Yes, sir."

"They're launching starfighters." Called Resa from the Scan Section. "Thirty of them."

Watching the display, I nodded absently, feeling the growing excitement on the bridge.

5 seconds.

3 seconds.

"Well, they had a choice." Iska said calmly. "Stand ready."

0 seconds.

"Fire!"

The six Long Range Heavy Turbolasers on the Dreadnought woke up and sent a volley of shots towards the closest S-class Cruiser. Most of them hit and the shields flared but held.

"You were right, sir. They have diverted all power to their forward shields." Remarked Iska calmly.

I nodded. It was the logical thing to do when you were charging an opponent, since you'll be expecting enemy fire coming straight at you, and my plan for taking down the opponent ships before they could inflict serious damage to our ships took that into account.

"Helm, go to half speed." Ordered Iska. "Guns, prepare an Ion-strike on Cruiser 1. Comm, tell Falcon and Hawk to go for Cruiser 2."

"Yes, sir."

The clock told me it was time for the second part of the plan, and at exactly the planned moment, I heard Wing Commander Kran Swur order. "Wake up, Dragons!"

Near the planet, the two fighter squadrons of Dragonclaws that had been launched by the Fafnirs hours earlier to drift through the system, coming ever closer to their target, activated their engines, while a squadron of Aureks along with a squadron of Super Stings and a squadron of Dragonfangs, left their hiding place in the empty mining tunnels of the last asteroids and attacked, as the three Fafnirs came out of the asteroid field, going full power towards the ships near the planet. The three cruisers were too far away to do anything, but their presence alone was yet another factor the opposing commander had to take into account, if he or she got the time to think, which was unlikely.

The six long range heavy turbolasers on Majestic fired again, still without return fire as the opponents simply weren't within range yet.

We were still too far away from the action for the scanners on Majestic to pick up exactly what was happening, but if they went according to plan, the Dragonclaws and Super Stings would take care of the opponent's starfighters, while the Dragonfangs and Aureks would take out the Lictors shields. Then a salvo of Ion-missiles from the Super Sting or the Dragonfangs would hit the Lictor, shorting out systems, making the reactor go into emergency shut-down and crippling the ship, after which the fighters would go for the rest of the ships.

That was the plan, but as always, no plan survived meeting the opponent, so there was a lot of leeway built into it and...

"The Lictor just dropped off the scanners!" Called Tavune, interrupting my thoughts. "Complete reactor shut down."

I nodded in satisfaction. That Lictor wasn't going anywhere.

The weapon discharge did continue near the planet, and I guessed that our starfighters were fighting the three Mantas and the rest of protective force the Imperials had left there, as they proceeded towards the two Special Transports.

A 'beep' warned everybody that the opponents' warships near us had reached a range where they could hit us, and a massive volley of turbolaser shots streaked towards us, followed by missiles.

The salvo wasn't well aimed and as they had elected to spread their fire over Majestic, Falcon and Hawk instead of focussing on just one of the ships, the shots wasted their energy against the shields, but the missiles were still racing towards us.

"Any time, Guns." Said Iska, sounding a bit on the edge and the Master Gunner nodded, waiting a second before he was satisfied with what he saw at the display and released the weapons.

Ten of the Dreadnought's twelve heavy ion cannons fired at the same time, sending a massive salvo towards the cruiser. Nine of the bolts hit their target and made the cruisers shield flicker, and then disappear for a few seconds, before the crew managed to get it back up.

More ion-cannon fire flew through space, but this time it was cruisers Falcon and Hawk that had fired their ion-cannons at the other cruiser. The Ion barrage hit Cruiser 2, but some missed and despite everything, the Cruiser 2's shield was still holding.

I nodded approvingly as another turbolaser salvo from the Majestic made me look over at its target just in time to see the salvo hit the Terminus-class Destroyer, smashing its shield, and sending armor plating flying through space.

"Mass alert." Called Tavune and a blink of an eye later, Second Squadron came out of hyperspace above and behind the enemy warships.

I quickly moved the icons on the tactical display, telling Glorious to go for Cruiser 1, while Eagle and Vulture went for Cruiser 2.

A quick tap switched channel to the Osprey. "Captain Mivito, move the gravity wells to prevent the Imperials from entering hyperspace."

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

Switching the channel off again, I turned my attention back to the battle.

A moment later, streaks of energy flew through space, as Glorious fired its heavy Ion cannons just as soon as they could bring them to bear, hitting the enemy cruiser several times in the aft end, where it wasn't shielded. The S-class shuddered but kept going. Then the rest of the gunners on Glorious had aligned their guns firing off a salvo, and a few seconds later, the S-class cruiser was a powerless drifting hull.

Second Squadron's two cruisers fired a moment later, going for and hitting the other S-class cruiser and without any shields to protect it from the ion-cannons, the ship suffered the same fate as the first cruiser, leaving only the Terminus-class destroyer and the two Gage-class transporters.

I frowned a bit as I noticed the two Gage-classes manoeuvring sharply, trying to turn the vulnerable engine section away from the new threat, while the destroyer kept pushing on towards us. While the move wasn't directly suicidal, it wasn't a good tactic either, relying on the enemy to keep focusing on their current target instead of trying to improve one's own position.

In front of us, the thirty enemy starfighters were closing in, but as almost a hundred Aureks and Dragonclaws overtook our capital ships and became visible to the sensors of the enemy fighters, they scattered and ran, their morale broken.

"Don't chase them too hard." I heard Wing Commander Kran Swur order. "They have no place to run, so unless they're suicidal, they'll give up if given time to think. Squadron 4 and 5, break off the main group and go help with the Mantas."

A turbolaser salvo hit one of the enemy Gage-class Transporters, making its shields flare. More shots from the ion-cannons followed, hitting the trio of support ships that were caught between the six capital warships. It wasn't an equal fight in any way, and it didn't take long before those three were drifting in space as well.

At the same time, the point defence systems of Majestic, Falcon and Hawk were working together to pick off the incoming missiles one by one, destroying the last missile moments before it hit the front of Hawk, causing the crew to cheer.

Turning them out, I switched channel again. "Liberation group, how is it going?"

"As planned, sir." Lieutenant Maxwell's voice replied. "The Lictor, the two Special Transports and two Manta-class frigates are in complete reactor shutdown, while the last Manta and most of the enemy fighters are dead. A few have fled towards the moon."

"Casualties?"

"Two Super Stings and an Aurek, all of them courtesy of the Manta-class corvettes." He reported. "We're trying to see if any of the pilots escaped, but it's unlikely."

"Keep trying and good work. Reinforcement will be coming shortly."

"Thank you, sir."

I took a few seconds to look at the situation on the tactical display. "Fafnir pack, get tractor beams on the Lictor and the Super Transports and drag them away from the planet before they get caught in the gravity well. Launch scouts to check out the planet."

"Yes, sir." Tristana answered calmly.

"Falcon, join up with Stingray, and get the enemy fighters under control. Use some scouts to inspect the rest of the system. Let's be sure that nobody else is lurking in this system." My eyes glided over the next targets. "Glorious and Majestic, get tractors on the S-class cruisers. Vulture and Eagle, you do the same with the Gage-classes and have your starfighters cover the military ships here. Hawk, Squadron 4 and 5, cover that Terminus-class. Orca and Beluga, help the Hammerheads get those Mantas under control. Commander Crapen, your pack helps them. Commander Larstrin, take your Drakes to the planet and help the fighters. "I thought for a second and then added. "Kraken and Squid, as soon as the scouts have cleared the system, we need your help with the Super Transports. Commander Yaki, I want a boarding force on the Super Transports as soon as possible. We have seven hours before the air in the containers run out, so we need to take the ships and restart their reactor. If that can't be done, we'll need to find the containers with the prisoners and get air into them."

"Yes sir."

"Don't get me wrong. Everybody has done a fantastic job. Now let's make sure we don't lose anyone this close to victory."

"Yes, sir." The various captains replied in chorus.

I switched the comm off again and turned to look at the Tactical Section. "Lieutenant Karnos."

"Yes, sir?"

"I want an analysis of this engagement, complete with tactical errors the enemy made and suggestions to how they could have done otherwise AND the same for our side."

She smiled, as she nodded. "Yes, sir. Anything special you want me to focus on?"

"Yes. Remember the timeline. Don't expect the opponent's commander to have knowledge he or she couldn't logically have at the time a decision was made." I smiled a bit. "And don't worry too much. It's a trap I have fallen into more than once when analysing battles."

"Yes, sir."

Sending her a nod, I walked over to the commander's seat and sat down with a feeling of satisfaction in my body. Not on my own behalf, but for the Battlegroup. Everyone had done their job perfectly and as an officer, that was really all you could ask.

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

Cleaning up

Dreadnought Majestic

"The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.

This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength."

From the Holy Book of War

Sometimes, success increases the complexity of the situation you're in and this was certainly one of those times, I decided the next day as we had a meeting in the large conference room next to my office.

Not only had we taken the two S-class cruisers, a Terminus-class Destroyer, two Gage-class Transports and fourteen Manta-class frigates nearly intact, but we had also done the same with the Lictor-class and the two Super Transports. The Imperial fighters had given up when they realised that the ships that transported them had been taken, leaving them without a way home in a system where the only place to survive was the prison camp on Nodia Prime.

I would have loved to say that we made it without any losses, but a search near the planet combined with sensor data had revealed that none of the three pilots had made it out of their craft before they blew up. It hurt but compared to the number of ships we had fought and taken, as well as the number of people we had freed, it was close to a perfect victory.

We had also done a search of the planet, but aside from the penal colony, there was nothing there.

Now came the part that was rarely described in books or holovids: The clean-up after the fight.

As Betty Nagos had guessed, we had caught them while they were in the process of closing the penal colony for good, as both orbital stations had been dismantled and packed in the Super Transporters along with the refinery and two thousand prisoners in the prisoner containers Keller had told us about and the equipment from the orbital mines. Fortunately, the engineers had been able to restart the reactors on both Super Transports, freeing us from having to locate all the containers with people in a race against time.

Another nine thousand prisoners had been transferred to the Lictor-class Dungeon ship, leaving 'only' a thousand prisoners left in the prison camp and I guessed they had planned to place them in the brigs of the two S-class cruisers, enabling the fleet to carry a total of thirteen thousand prisoners.

The mining equipment and the mined ore had been transported to the two Gage-class transports, which were filled to the brim with thousands of tons of Duranium from the planet based mine, along with an additional several thousand tons of Doonium from the orbital mines.

The numbers on the materials had made Resa smile widely and tell me that while Duranium was used for armor and the construction of hulls for ships, including starfighters like the Aurek-class, Doonium was a heavy metal used almost exclusively for armor plating of capital Imperial warships, meaning that we had just secured a lot more armor plating. Or at least it would be armor plating once it had been through the fabricators.

That, however, was for later. Right now, I had another problem. With the number of ships that had surrendered, there were thousands of captured Imperials, and I was thankful that they haven't shut down the colony's reactor yet, giving us a place to keep the prisoners.

Another problem was to decide if I trusted the almost thirteen thousand freed slaves or not. I didn't want to give them a ship and see them speed away as soon as they got the chance like Administrator Atare had done. On the other hand, I didn't want to keep both them and the more than eight thousand Imperial prisoners for long.

"I've said it before, sir." Said Yaki with a smile. "You need to stop capturing enemy ships. We're running out of people to crew them."

Commander Yaki, Captain Iska, Resa and XO Betty Nagos were sitting at the table, looking at me. Senior Captain Meistrin as well as most of the other captains that couldn't leave their ships were attending the meeting via the holonet, and I had asked Master Mechanic Arthur Waydar, and Lieutenant Caskey Titlow to be here as well, as they were the ones that had been here and knew the newly freed prisoners.

"... And places to keep the Imperial prisoners." Added Captain Meistrin with a slight smile.

"The prisoners are my least concern." I said humorously. "According to Commander Yaki, the prison complex have food for more than five years now that there are 'only' eight thousand people to feed instead of forty thousand. So, we can simply ferry them to the planet. Their commander is bound to come looking for them at some point." I thought for a moment and then added. "That is also the reason that the order to always wear armor and a helmet when dealing with anybody, freed prisoners, and captured enemies alike, are still standing. I don't want to give Darth Arkol any more information about us than strictly needed."

Most of the captains nodded at that. We had had time to talk with some of the captured Imperials and they had told us that their leader was indeed Darth Arkol, just as we had suspected. The same Sith Lord that Mahaw had been working for and according to the captured Imperials, he was trying to make a powerbase for himself here in the Chaos.

A task that had been more difficult than he had anticipated, since he had run into several war-like cultures that viewed the Sith's intrusion into the Chaos as an invasion, and despite winning the battles against those people, he had moved steadily towards the Galactic South during the years he had been in the Chaos, searching for a place where he could built a powerbase, preferably in an area with humans, since he despised other species.

At the moment, Darth Arkol was based in the Quamire system, which fortunately was relatively far away from Nodia, from where he had sent parts of his fleet out on different missions.

We had also gotten new information about Dark Arkol's fleet and to put it mildly, it was impressive, consisting of seven Harrower-class dreadnoughts, fifteen BXS-5 heavy cruisers, eight S-Class cruisers, twenty Terminus-class destroyers, fourteen Delta-class carriers, thirteen Gage-class transports and numerous screening craft like Drakes and Mantas, along with some support ships. Two of them being the Super Transports.

He also told us, that the main fleet had three Harrowers and six BSX-5's, while the rest of the ships were divided into four battlegroups with a Harrower and two BSX-5 along with some destroyers and other screening craft, in addition to four other groups that didn't have a Harrower in them and weren't considered a battlegroup.

Unfortunately, the officer couldn't tell us anything useful about where the five battle groups or the three other groups were located, as the group here had split from the main fleet four months ago.

In short, Darth Arkol might have lost a few ships here, but it was still more than enough to build a powerbase here in the Chaos. He also needed money, which was why he had been selling prisoners of war to the Zygerrians.

The part about him needing money puzzled me, as I couldn't figure out what he needed the money for. By flying into the Chaos, he had cut himself off from the support of the Empire, but since most Imperial ships were designed to fly for years at a time, I doubted it was fuel and the local cultures he had run into couldn't have been much of a challenge for a fleet that size, so I doubted he was running low on ammunition either, though there was no way to know for sure.

Whatever it was, it had to be something not available here in the Chaos, since he could take most planets, or at least blackmail them, with the fleet he had. Not that blackmailing a planet would give him anything useful except for consumables like food and water, as chances were that any planet in the Chaos wouldn't have Imperial credits, or any other currency used by the rest of the galaxy. They could give him gold and other valuable metals, but if he needed Credits, he needed to have those valuables exchanged into credits somewhere in the Outer Rim, and that was a long way from where he was now.

"Excuse me, sir." Said Arthur Waydar, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Yes?"

"I recognized some of the captured Imperials from my time in the Imperial Navy and I know that some of them don't really want to be there." He said hesitantly. "Is there any chance we can take in any defectors?"

I considered that for a moment and then nodded. "With all the former Imperials we have here already, I don't see a problem with that, but until I've had time to talk with each and every one of them, they will have to stay in the brig. I don't want fanatically loyal Imperials running free on the ships."

Looking relieved, he nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Which reminds me... How many spare armor and uniforms do we have?"

He blinked a few times in surprise over the sudden change of subject, but then said. "Just under two thousand armor and six thousand uniforms, sir."

"Start production again. With all the people here, we're going to need them." I ordered and looked at Kellers hologram. "Chief Engineer Keller. There might be some of the Imperial Engineers that want out and the same deal applies to them."

"Yes, sir."

"Are we taking these ships as well, Commodore?" asked Betty Nagos calmly after a moment of silence.

"Except for one of the S-class cruisers, the answer is yes... provided that we can repair them and have enough people to crew them, which is going to be a serious problem." I paused to think and then asked. "You have lived here. How many of the freed prisoners can we really trust?"

Arthur Waydar, Betty Nagos and Caskey Titlow looked somewhat uncomfortable as everybody's attention shifted to them, but finally Waydar said. "Most of them, sir, but there are some really hardcore criminals there as well. Not all prisoners are innocent victims of Imperial politics, but we'll know more when we have looked in the databases on the various ships."

Meistrin indicated that she wanted to speak, and I nodded to her. "Yes, Captain Meistrin?"

"The S-class cruisers have a large brig, sir. We could place the hardcore criminals in there, so the rest have a chance to reach their destination peacefully."

I nodded at that. "Good plan. So, we place those we don't trust on a S-class, along with anybody who doesn't want to come along with us. I will happily give them a ship to get away in, but I don't want them to turn pirates with a cruiser, so before they take off, we remove their missiles and most of the Tibanna gas. We also dismantle the Turbolasers and half the quad lasers. Not only will that prevent pirating, but also make the ship legal in most parts of the galaxy."

They nodded in agreement. Governments usually outlawed Turbolasers on civilian ships, making it a crime to have them.

"Anybody else?" I asked, looking around.

"Yes, sir." Said Captain Barley from his place in the ready-room on Vulture. "Why don't you want to keep both the S-Class Cruisers? They're big, powerful ships and those who want to go back to the Outer Rim could take the Lictor instead."

"Sorry, but the Lictor can't be used." Said Resa. "We have looked into the Lictor's navigation system and it's hard-locked. We can break it by installing new navigational equipment, but that'll take weeks and until then the Lictor will only travel to the planets it's programmed to."

"Ohh." Said Barley with a grimace and ran a hand over his short beard. "I didn't know that."

"I only found out a few hours ago myself." I admitted. "But back to the S-class cruiser. My reason for not wanting them, is that it takes more than two thousand people to crew them, which by the way is more than twenty-five Manta-class corvettes. Aside from that, they are slower than any other ship we have. The hyperdrive is a 3.5 and their realspace engines are just as sluggish, which are my two main reasons for not wanting it." I shrugged. "Regarding the Lictor, I don't want to give it back to the Zygerrians, so we'll empty it for everything useful and blow it up."

"So, what about the nine hundred surrendered Zygerrians?" Captain Barley wanted to know. "They go to Nodia as well?"

"Yes, since their beliefs are that the strong conquer the weak, I really think that they should spend a little time in the prison complex. Given the Empire's general attitude towards non-humans, they might learn something."

That brought a round of laughter and Captain Barley was smiling, as he said. "Thank you, sir."

I nodded and started to assign people to the various things we needed to do. Betty Nagos and Titlow got the job of splitting up the freed prisoners, finding out who would like to go back to the Outer Rim and who would stay with us, even after having read the rules of conduct for the Dragon Defence Force.

Master Engineer Gacith and the rest of the engineers on Kraken were responsible for pulling the teeth of one of the S-class Cruisers, so we could give it to the prisoners who wanted to go to the Outer Rim. I also asked him to place four of the newly captured Supremacy-class starfighters on the ship, so they would have an escort.

Since he had suggested it, I placed Waydar in charge of handling the captured Imperials, while Captain Barley got the job of transporting them to the prison on Nodia Prime, along with Commander Yaki who would be in charge of security.

We also needed to assign a skeleton crew to the newly captured ships, but first they needed to be inspected by the engineers, so we could have an estimate of how long it would take to repair them, especially the Manta-class Corvettes. As one would imagine, hitting a small ship repeatedly with heavy ion cannons had fried more than a few circuit boards and there was a chance that some of them would be impossible to repair in the time we had.

"If I forgot anything, please speak up." I looked around.

"One moment, sir." Said Resa, the light blue LED at her temple blinking rapidly. "I'm receiving a message." She was silent for a few seconds and then said. "According to the logs on the captured ships, this was only one out of three Lictors sent to empty Nodia. The first arrived half a year ago and is long gone by now, but the second took off only a week ago with nine thousand prisoners and five thousand children. This has been confirmed by both freed slaves and captured imperial crew."

That was extremely good news. If we could discover where it was programmed to go, we might have a chance to stop the last one and rescue the rest of the slaves.

"Any data on the escorts for those Lictors?"

"Both yes and no, sir. The first Lictor took off with its escort before this fleet got here and we have zero data on it, except a single reference saying that it contained three large capital ships, which fits with the size of a battlegroup the captured imperials told us about." Resa said. "But we do have data on the one that took off a week ago, when the ships here were in the system and it's not a battlegroup, but an escort group that consisted of an S-Class cruiser, two Terminus-class destroyers, two Delta-class carriers, eight Drake-class frigates and six Manta-class corvettes."

Another piece of good news. The S-class cruiser would limit the groups speed to 3.5, giving us a chance to catch them. On the other hand, five capital ships with frigates and corvettes in support carried a lot of firepower and if I wasn't careful, we might run directly into an ambush. "Resa, I want our best slicers to see if they can find the route that group has taken."

"Yes, sir."

"One thing, sir." Said Chief Engineer Keller.

"Yes?"

"I've looked at the different ship types and you need to be aware that these are upgraded versions... or at least the Terminus-class destroyers are. That means that in addition to the standard seven turbolasers, they also have six dual turbolaser batteries and thirty-two point defence laser cannon batteries. I haven't had time to look at the Gage-classes yet, but I'll assume that their point defence has been boosted as well, though not to the degree of the Planetary Assault versions we have."

That made the tactics I had chosen exactly the right ones, but mostly due to our lack of pilots, it had forced me to use the best pilots near the planets and keep the rest in reserve to protect the capital ships. If we had had more pilots, I would without doubt have ordered the starfighters to attack the destroyers and Gage-class transports the moment the two S-class cruisers were out of the picture. A tactic that could easily have led to a lot more casualties.

I shifted my shoulders to quell the cold shivers running down my spine. "Thank you, Chief Engineer. To get back to the other lictor and its escorts, see if any of the captured Imperial Engineers know anything. Unless they have committed a crime against the former slaves, you can promise a reward for useful information, up to and including getting a lift out of here." I turned towards Waydar. "Master Mechanic Waydar, you do the same with the Imperial mechanics and techs." I shrugged. "I'd rather save ten thousand people than insisting that we place all the captured imperials on Nodia."

Waydar saluted with a smile and said "Yes, sir.", while Keller gave me a nod.

"Good. "I looked at the rest. "If we get a course from either the Slicers or Waydar's people, I'm going after them. That means that with just a little bit of luck, First Squadron and all our cruisers will go after in pursuit, while Glorious and the rest of the fleet stay here. For that reason, I want you to move the fleet to our exit point and maintain a constant rotation of scouts, so we cannot get surprised in case Darth Arkol comes looking for his ships." I looked at Betty Nagos. "XO, get some info on the escort on the second Lictor, beyond what we already know. If they took off months ago, they might come back within a few weeks.

"Yes, sir."

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

Waiting time

Dreadnought Majestic, Nodia System

"Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small."

From the Holy Book of War

The following days were an exercise in patience, as the whole fleet moved to the outskirts of the system as soon as most of the captured Imperials and all of the Zygerrians had been ferried to the planet.

Somewhat to my surprise, Waydar had managed to find almost six hundred Imperials who wanted to join us, while Keller had found an impressive three hundred techs and engineers from among the ones that had been along to break apart the orbital installations.

However, after a superficial read of their emotions, I sent half of the Imperials and ninety techs back, as they weren't really dissatisfied with the Empire. They just didn't want to spend time on Nodia Prime. The rest went to the brig, so I could interview them later, when I had the time to do it.

There were even some of the Imperials from the Battlegroup that asked if they could be allowed to somehow defect from the Empire without joining us, as they had enough of war and just wanted to settle down somewhere peaceful.

That coincided nicely with the no less than three and a half thousand of the freed prisoners who wanted exactly the same. I held a meeting with some of their leaders and after some talk, I agreed to give them a S-class cruiser they could take to the Outer Rim. A feat that was only possible due to the presence of defecting Imperial officers, who knew the ship and could handle it. In return, they agreed to take the five hundred convicted prisoners along for the ride, keeping them in the brig.

It was a win for all, as they got their freedom and it freed us from having to escort the ship out of the Chaos.

With their usual efficiency, the engineers under the command of Senior Engineer Krott'inam'rirgo (Tinam) had not just dismantled the Turbolasers on the S-class, but along with his corps of seasoned engineers and the Squid, they had managed to take them away completely, by ruthlessly cutting any connections and lifting the turrets off the hull, before covering the holes with plating. It had turned out to be the only way to make the ship legal in various other systems, as the mere presence of turbolasers was illegal on a non-military ship and thus just sabotaging them wouldn't do much good.

The former prisoners were a bit dissatisfied with losing the turbolasers, but as they still had half the laser cannons for self-defence, they didn't complain too much.

The rest of the Imperials had been transported to the prison complex along with the Zygerrians, who weren't exactly happy about it, but as they were slavers, I couldn't care less.

Even with the thousands of people on the S-class cruiser, it still left us with no less than eight thousand people that wanted to join us. Most of them coming from planets that had either been devastated in the war or were under Sith control.

While that potentially gave us enough crew to staff most of the fleet, it also came with its own problems, as I didn't want to place too many of the newly freed slaves on one ship for two reasons. First, the defection of Administrator Atare and his small group of people was still fresh in our memory and by not overloading the ships with too many new people, we hoped to avoid another incident of that kind. Secondly, many of the freed slaves had been away from the navy for years, some even for a decade or more, and it would take time for them to become as good as they used to be or even better. It would also require an experienced person to learn from, which limited the number of new people that could be on one ship.

With that in mind, I got together with XO Betty Nago, Commander Samko and her droid DD5, trying to solve at least some of it while relaxing in my office.

With her usual efficiency, Betty Nagos already had those people that had been with us for a year pick those they trusted and could recommend, giving us almost two thousand trustworthy people that we could mix into our existing crews without problems, though some of them would still need a refresher course before they could handle the job. There were another five hundred, but those needed time to get over the horrible conditions of the prison.

She and her droids had also been quick to make a list of the freed slaves, complete with age, health, family and, most importantly, skills and professions.

As with the former slaves from the Kiltirin-class ships, there were almost no officers, but a lot of spacehands, gunners, cooks, medics, mechanics, electricians, welders and just about every other job a capital ship needed and provided, including almost a thousand space marines, both former Imperial and republic, that had been captured along with the rest of the crew on the ships they had been serving on.

"You know, the more I work with you, the happier I am that you accepted the job as XO." I told her with a smile as we looked at the list of people. "That is exceptionally good work in the time you have had to do it."

"Thank you, sir." She answered with a smile.

Samko nodded, causing a strand of red hair to fall into her eyes. With a gesture so practiced it looked instinctive, she brushed away as she said. "However, before we go on, there's an issue we need to address and that is the children."

I nodded. One thing that had surprised me was how many children the former slaves had. Since it had been close to impossible for the slaves to survive outside the prison or leave the planet, the guards haven't bothered to keep people separated or done anything to prevent pregnancies, resulting in almost eight thousand children, with the majority of them being under twelve years old by now. Another frustrating part was that the children apparently weren't counted into the prison population count, which had been the reason for the extra prison containers on the Super Transports, since the Lictor simply hadn't room for that many people. For us, it meant that we had to find room for three thousand children in addition to everything else.

Fortunately, that was included in the list of families Betty Nagos had made, making the placing a little easier, as it eliminated a lot of ships.

To make matters worse, Betty Nagos had told me that when according to the ones she had talked with, most of the childless people had been transported on the first two Lictors, making the one we hoped to catch the one with the most children on it. Five thousand to be precise, and according to the defected imperials, the extra people was the reason for the fleet's two Delta-class carriers, as they could hold three-thousand-three-hundred people each, or two-thousand-five-hundred prisoners and eight hundred security guards.

"Well," I said slowly. "If we agree not to split families, and for the time being not place too many kids on the ships that are going into combat soon, Glorious is the best place to place them."

"I agree." Samko said. "Let's match the skills of the families with the skills and positions needed on the Glorious and see where it takes us. Start with the non-trusted ones. We can assign those later... oh, and instead of the crew cabins, use the trooper quarters for families."

"That means one large family or two small families per cabin." I added, recalling the talk I had with Chief Engineer Keller a long time ago, regarding that subject. "And before you ask, a large family is one with more than 5 members."

"Yes, sir." DD5 nodded and went to work. A blond and female hospitality droid, that had been upgraded with administrative software, it had been Samko's assistant for months and knew the drill by now, so it didn't take long before it had assigned nine hundred families with children and a profession that the ship needed on the Glorious, bringing that ship up to full crew. It had even assigned extra people and some of the remaining DD-series Hospitality droids to take care of the children and their education.

"Not enough, sir." Samko sighed. "Where do we place the rest?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, sir, Majestic is the next logical place." Said Betty Nagos. "Yes, I know children don't belong on warships, but we can't really avoid it and even if the battlegroup is ambushed, they'll be safer on a dreadnought."

"You're right. The dreadnoughts are the best armoured ships in the fleet." I admitted. "Do it, and as before, start with the ones that have skills that we need."

DD5 nodded again and a moment later, five hundred families were assigned to Majestic, along with more droids and people to care for the almost eleven hundred children.

"A hundred families left." DD5 said when it was done.

"Okay. Place them on the Stingray, as that is going to stay here anyway."

"That was all the families and children, sir." The droid said.

"If you want the carrier along, we could place some families on the Hammerheads." Suggested Samko, making me shake my head.

"No, the Hammerheads don't have the facilities for it. The Gages do but as anti-starfighter ships, they're not a good choice for kids. At least not when going into combat, and you'll need Stingray here for protection." I looked at the droid. "DD5, how many do we have left?"

"Four thousand six hundred people." The droid said with a smile. "Seventeen hundred of which are trusted people."

"How many medics?"

"Three hundred and seventy-four." The droid replied. "Glorius, Majestic and Stingray have already received enough Medics, since they were part of the families."

"Good." Said Samko. "Place twenty-five on each Gage-class and Wyvern-class cruiser. The rest of the fleet get one medic per hundred crew members. Keep the rest in reserve on the Majestic." She glanced over at me. "We'll need it if and when we catch the other Lictor."

With a nod, I looked at the list again and discovered that there were almost seven hundred former fighter pilots among the prisoners. As the Supremacy-class didn't have a hyperdrive I could understand why there were so many of them, since they almost had to give up when the ships they were assigned to were either destroyed or had fled a combat without taking time to pick up its fighters. Being abandoned and subsequently court martialled haven't endeared them to the Empire and according to Betty Nagos, they were more than willing to fight against the Empire. However, it puzzled me that any of them were here at all since fighter pilots were officers. It was too many to be an error, so instead I asked. "XO, do you have an explanation as to why those Imperial Fighter Pilots ended up here when almost all other Imperial officers were killed?"

"Yes. For some reason some of the Court Martial Judges were of the opinion that fighter pilots weren't 'real' officers, since they basically just operated a war machine and didn't have command postings, so only the squadron leaders were executed. That at least was what Mariann told me a few years ago, and she was one of the fighter pilots sent to Nodia."

"Well, at least that explained why there had been fighterpilots among all the people we saved from the two Kiltirin-class ships in the Epsilon Eta system. Looking over at the XO, I noticed a sadness in her expression, so I asked. "Do you know what happened to her?"

"Yes, according to the files we got from the Imperials, she was aboard the Lictor that took off a week ago, so I hope they find that route." She was silent for a moment and then became professional again. "How about taking some of those pilots along? We got the fighters for them."

Shaking my head, I said. "No. I'm not going to throw pilots who haven't touched a fighter in years against experienced Imperial pilots. We'll have to make do with the ones we already have, until we're sure they're not just going to get themselves killed."

She accepted that with a nod. "That's fair, but as you know, we have almost seven hundred former Imperial pilots. Not only are they some of the best educated pilots in the galaxy, but both the Dragons and Wyverns have the training capacity to test the pilots. Added to that, both the Dragonclaws and the Super Stings have a typical Imperial layout of the cockpit, so they don't really need time to familiarize them with the cockpit. If we take them along, we can evaluate them while travelling and give a ship to those who make the grade."

Neither Dragonclaws nor Super Stings had a hyperdrive, so if we restricted the new pilots to those fighters, they couldn't just take off even if they wanted to defect.

"You make a good case. Take those Shakka, and the medics, think can pass a medical test and place them on the Majestic first and spread the rest on the cruisers. If they have a partner, have them assigned to the same ship."

"Yes, sir." DD5 said and then smiled again. "Oh... Three thousand nine hundred left. Fourteen hundred of which are trusted people."

"How many of those left are space marines?"

"Eight hundred and seventy, sir. Two hundred of those are thrusted prisoners."

"Assign those to Commander Yaki. She can figure out where they're going to be along with Lieutenants Seze and Titlow."

"Yes, sir." Said the droid. "Three thousand and thirty left. Twelve hundred are trusted."

Samko nodded. "I think it's time we pick a prize crew for the S-Class cruiser, the Terminus-class Destroyer, the two Gage-class Transports and the Mantas from the people we have already educated."

"The Mantas can wait until the engineers are done repairing them." I said with a slight shrug. "The heavy ion cannons really fried their systems and it'll take weeks before they're ready."

"Well, the rest will be ready sooner than that, sir."

"I know." I said and thought it over for a moment. "I guess you and the rest of the Promotion Board will have to promote a lot of people."

With relationships being allowed between crew members, promotions were taken care of by a board of officers that needed to come to agreement before anyone was promoted, and nobody was allowed to sit in on promotion debates regarding people they were involved with, romantically or otherwise.

Samko smiled. "Yes, sir, but fortunately we have a lot of competent people to promote from. The training has really done wonders."

"Along with your dinners with the officers." Added Betty Nagos with a chuckle, making Samko nod in agreement.

"Seriously?" I asked in surprise, as I had started the dinners to get to know the officers better.

"DD5, show 'dinner chart' 15a and b." Ordered Betty Nagos and a moment later the performance stats of some of the younger officers showed on the screen. She had also marked the times where the officer in question had been to a dinner, and to my surprise the officers efficiency rose by an average of two percent each time they had been to a dinner.

"As you can see, it works, sir."

"Hmm, I think that it's more about the officers getting to know each other better, than me being present at the dinners."

Elise Samko shrugged lightly. "Whatever the reason, it worked to better their education and the Board has a list of forty people that might be due for a promotion." She tapped on the datapad. "Do you want to see it?"

"No, thank you. I trust the Board to take care of that. Oh, what's the crew requirement for the two Super Transports?"

Elise Samko smiled. "They're civilian vessels. The crew requirement is only twelve and that shouldn't be a problem."

"Right."

The problem with promoting people was placing them in the right place afterwards. Learning a new position was almost always more a function of experience and on the job training, than pure academic research. You can learn tactics from a written text and vid explaining how it worked, but competent leadership rarely came naturally to people.

With that in mind, just getting a crew of newbies together rarely worked out, since they didn't have experienced people to learn from, and in this case, it meant carefully picking out people to promote and place them in a position where they could learn their new rank and responsibilities, while simultaneously making sure that their replacement could learn as well. In real life, it meant that you could only reinforce a trained crew with about twenty percent of its current strength before it started to lose overall efficiency and effectiveness.

Another problem we had was the lack of bridge crew. Most of a typical bridge crew were officers and with the exception of the fighter pilots, those were simply not present in among the freed prisoners.

"I'll need to get back to prize crews in a moment." I looked at the droid. "DD5, please spread three hundred trusted and three hundred non-trusted prisoners on the three Fafnir cruisers."

"Any priorities, sir?

"At least fifty gunners for each ship, if that is doable."

She nodded. "It is. We have nine hundred and forty gunners. Four hundred of them are trusted."

Considering the high number of gunners on the various warships, having a lot of gunners wasn't surprising. Most of our ships had droid gunners, but fortunately, we haven't made any major changes to the way the guns were aimed or used, so changing back to humanoid gunners was as simple as not activating the droids in the areas in question. "Fifty trusted and a hundred non-trusted gunners on each ship. Fill in the rest according to what I said before."

"Yes, sir. That leaves twenty-four hundred people and a little over a thousand trusted people."

"Good." I said, rubbing my forehead. "DD5, calculate twenty percent of the crew on each ship in the fleet, and then assign that number of trusted people to each ship, using the priorities listed."

"Yes, sir." Said the droid and did it. "Twenty-four hundred people and a little over four hundred trusted people left."

Thinking for a moment, I said. "Instead of a prize crew for the captured capital ships, we could do as we did in Centauri 21." Looking at Betty Nagos I explained. "We didn't have enough people there either, so we used our own people as officers and bridge crew, protected by a squad of marines in case anybody acted up. Then we filled the rest of the ships with crew chosen from the freed prisoners. It worked pretty well."

The XO nodded slowly. "I doubt we'll get a mutiny on our hands here, but aside from that, I think it'll work, sir." She thought for a moment. "But make it half a squad of marines. We need them if we ever catch the last Lictor."

"Good idea."

We spent the rest of the meeting juggling people and numbers, and while it took some hours, we did manage to come up with prize crews for the captured ships, except for the S-Class, as that one simply had too large a crew requirement and wasn't useful, until we knew if we succeeded in stopping the other Lictor.

"Okay," said Betty Nagos when we were done. "That's it for me today. My head is hurting from juggling all this." She looked over at Elise Samko. "I don't envy you this job, Commander. I would go insane if I had to do this on a regular basis."

The red-haired human sent her a brilliant smile. "I would go insane if I had to manage as many people as you do or study tactics and enemies as much as the commodore." She shrugged. "We all have our strengths and weaknesses."

I nodded in agreement. "One of the most important lessons at the Naval Academy is that as an officer you shouldn't strive to be better than the specialist under your command. Your job is to manage those specialists, having a view of the bigger picture, which enables the officer to guide them towards the goal of the fleet." I sent them a smile. "That includes finding the right person to do the right job, and it would have been a disaster if I have tried to force you... "I looked at Elise Samko. "... to command a warship. Yes, you have the abilities to do the job, but you don't have the mindset, which is just as important. The same goes for the XO here..." I smiled to Betty Nagos. "... who doesn't have a feel for tactics, but excels in people skills, planning and management."

They accepted that with nods, before Samko asked. "What about you, sir? I mean, to be honest, having a tactical officer on the Majestic is a waste of talent. Commander Yaki swears that you're one of the best tacticians she has ever seen and Captain Iska is among the best in the fleet as well."

"Yes. However, having a tactical officer on the bridge is, for me at least, an opportunity to teach a future captain. Not only by giving them assignments, but also by observing how things are done, how leadership functions." I smiled a bit. "Yes, that assumes that I do things the right way, but commanding other people requires that you think that way. Otherwise, you'll second guess yourself into oblivion."

Samko smiled. "I'll note down that Lieutenant Karnos is destined to become a future captain."

"Do that, because she is."

"What about Tavune?" asked Betty Nagos. "Why haven't you made him an official officer of the Dragon Defence Force yet?"

"Because he's not ready for it. In case you haven't noticed, Tavune is, despite being fantastic at anything tech related, somewhat immature for a Chiss of his age. He doesn't know it, but with all the assignments I have given him this last year, he's halfway through Officer's training for specialists. I'm just waiting for him to mature a little."

"That is a sneaky way to do it, sir." Commented Samko with a grin.

"Yes, but he's getting there." Said Betty Nagos thoughtfully. "Whenever he's working in a team now, he's not afraid to take charge anymore." She smiled a little. "I guess the nights with lieutenant Karnos have helped as well."

"And that is why I need an XO like you." I said with a sigh. "I don't notice things like that."

She looked at me in disbelief. "Sorry, sir, but how could you miss that?"

I shrugged. "That is the same thought I have most times when I look at obvious tactical errors in a battle analysis... hmm... Is their relationship something permanent?"

"Not really." Chuckled Nagos. "More like friends with benefits, but I'm still surprised that you didn't see it, sir."

"Strengths and weaknesses, as I said." Chuckled Samko.

"Exactly." Said the XO and stood. "But as I said, I've had enough of this and I have a meeting with the gunners after this."

"Alright. Let's break this up." I smiled and stood as well. "Thanks for a productive meeting."

"Likewise, sir."

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

Having had enough meetings, I spent the next day looking over the information we had gotten from the Imperials, and yet another day looking at the scanner data from the battle, just to see if I had missed anything during the combat.

The battle between the capital ships was just as I remembered it, with one exception: Either the point-defence of our ships were worse than I had thought or the missiles the Imperials had fired were insanely well armoured, because it looked like our anti-missile rockets had no effect on the enemy missiles at all. They had continued to home in on their targets, until they were taken out by point defence lasers.

I pondered it for a moment, until I remembered that the entire battlegroup had been conducting training scenarios, when they had been recalled and we hadn't used any missiles in the brief fight against the pods in the Snare system. Unless I missed my guess, all the anti-missile batteries had read as full, but nobody had thought of checking the type of anti-missile rockets that were in the firing tubes.

With a sigh, I got hold of Tactical Officer Karnos and had her check the anti-missile batteries. She looked so horrified at the thought of having used exercise rockets in a real battle, that I had to assure her that it wasn't her fault, and that I wasn't looking for someone to blame. I just wanted real rockets in the tubes before we ran into another encounter.

After Karnos had gone to work, I sent out a general warning to the fleet, warning them about the exercise rockets before I went on to look at the Starfighter attack at the Lictor and the Special Transports.

This time I got a pleasant surprise: Despite being up against an Imperial Force of equal size, our pilots simply dominated the Imperial force in that combat, even with the Mantas being there to support them. Granted, all our fighters were theoretically better than the Supremacy-class, but as far as I could see, the average Dragon Defence Force pilot was significantly better than their Imperial counterpart. At least in the free-form dogfight that the combat had quickly evolved into.

Focussing on the Dragonclaws first, I smiled as Wing Commander Lieutenant Wang and her wingman Lieutenant Caranut led the way though the enemy starfighters, scoring four and three kills respectively, while the rest of the wing got one or two each.

Satisfied with the performance of both pilots and craft, I shifted to study the Dragonfang and discovered that the new starfighter had done even better, mostly because their assignment had been different, involving both the enemy starfighters and the Mantas.

There was especially one pilot that had done extremely well: Lieutenant Maxwell was handling his Dragonfang like if was part of him as he pitted it against the Imperial MK VI and S-13s and won, using the high speed and extreme agility of the Dragonfang to make it dance around in space, while lasers blasted one enemy fighter after the other.

It was an impressive performance. Not only from Lieutenant Maxwell, but also from his wingman, Lieutenant Vibac Kigva, who had followed Maxwell every step of the way, protecting him against dangers and shooting down three enemies in the process, while Maxwell weaved through the Imperial fighters, leaving destruction in his wake as he had taken out six Mk. VI.

Then the two Dragonfangs had squared off against a Manta and won, as heavy lasers peeled the shield of the corvette, before four ion missiles took the corvette out of the fight for good.

That meant that the pair alone was responsible for destroying nine of the enemy fighters and one of the three Manta's protecting the Lictor and the Special Transports, and I made a note of doing something special for both them and lieutenants Wang and Caranut later.

I never got to determine what that 'special' should be because the intercom clicked on and Shakka said. "Sorry to disturb you, Commodore, but Lena Agusta from the Sublars has just been brought to the infirmary. Apparently, she was assaulted by one of her two cellmates, and she asks for you."

"I'll be right there, Doctor."

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

The trip to the Infirmary didn't take long, and five minutes later, I entered the infirmary, where Shakka was treating Lana Agusta for some nasty bruises on her face. In the next bed, a medical droid was working on a more seriously wounded Burt Simon. Both were being watched by Black Dragon guards.

Lena Agusta looked somewhat relieved when she saw me entering the infirmary, "Good evening, Commodore."

"Good evening. Could you please explain what happened?"

"Baron Simon and I had an argument." Agusta told me, grimacing as Shakka pressed a medical instrument against her skin. "He was on a rant about how evil the Escors were to have slaves, until I asked exactly what he was on about, since he was a slaveowner himself, as according to the law, he owned his wife." She sighed. "He told me that it wasn't the same, but when I used the same line of reasoning you used the other day, it quickly escalated, as he got more and more angry. At some point he ran out of arguments and decided to slap me a few times. Fortunately, the guards came in quickly after that and pulled him off me. They were none too gentle about it and when he tried to hit the guards as well, they threw him to the floor and immobilized him."

"Does that fit the facts?" I asked the nearest guard, who nodded immediately. "Yes, sir. We went in as soon as we saw it on the head-up display. It was clearly an assault."

There was a snort from Baron Simon, who had clearly heard what we had said. "Nonsense. Educating a woman is not assault." He hesitated and then added. "At least not in my culture."

"Which I'm leaving." Declared Lena Agusta and looked at me. "Commodore, as a slave, I would like to seek refuge in this fleet."

That caused Baron Simon to snap his head around to look at Lena Agusta with a horrified expression on his face. "You can't do that! You're one of the only Wegweisers we have left! You have a duty to the Sublar!"

There was silence in the room for a moment, as Lena Agusta stared icily at Baron Simon, who went even paler as it slowly dawned on him, he had blurted something that, judging from the look on Agusta's face, was supposed to be secret.

Agusta looked at me again. "Now that you know that, will you still accept me, Commodore?"

"Yes. However, you might change your mind, so you will be moved to a cabin where you'll stay for a while. After that, I'll assume that you know so much about our technology, that I'll not allow you to return to Yrla."

She nodded shortly. "That is understandable and acceptable."

"Lady Agusta!" Protested Baron Simon, becoming even paler than before. "You are not in a position to do that!"

"And that," Agusta said as she looked at him, "is exactly why I'm doing it. I've had enough of being owned by the state!"

"M3C." Said Shakka quietly. "Violet, please."

Baron Simon opened his mouth to say something, but at the same moment the medical droid pressed an injector to the side of his neck, causing him to collapse on the bed.

The red Twi'Lek smiled briefly at the droid. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Said the droid and began to arrange Baron Simon so he was laying comfortably.

Agusta looked at Shakka with wide eyes, causing the Twi'Lek to shrug. "It's my infirmary and I don't need to listen to that shit."

That made me chuckle. "Just in case you haven't met, Lena Agusta meet Doctor Shakka, who, as she just said, is in charge down here."

"And if you want to know more about how it is to be owned," Shakka added. "Just ask. Like so many others here, I'm a former slave, but unlike most of the others who worked in mines and refineries, I was a pleasure slave, which I imagine is part of the job as a wife where you come from."

It surprised me that Shakka straight up told Agusta about her past, but on the other hand, the Twi'Lek had never been embarrassed about it. The only reason for her to not mention it was that it had a tendency to make other people embarrassed on her behalf, which she disliked.

Agusta looked at the beautiful woman in shock. "But you're a doctor!"

Shakka nodded. "My former owner was an old man and worried about his health, so he had me educated as a doctor in case he needed one. Just like the women on your world learn how to manage a household and take care of children."

"How do you know that?!" blurted Agusta.

"Because Yrla is not the only world like that, and it's always the same." Shakka said with a sigh. "Though it tends to shift as civilization advances and physical prowess becomes less important."

Agusta still looked to be somewhat stunned, causing me to say. "Shakka, if you have time, I think I'll leave the two of you to talk, while I have the XO arrange for a cabin."

She sent me a dazzling smile. "I have time, sir. The new medics are good enough to take care of the minor things and when they get updated on the equipment, they can handle serious things as well."

"Good."

I nodded goodbye to them and walked out of the infirmary.

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

Third movie night

Dreadnought Majestic, Epsilon Eta System

Since we were waiting for a route, there was very little to do, so when the animation team uploaded another episode of 'Dragon Quest.' I decided to make a dinner out of it like last time, just bigger. Considering that this episode for the most part should take place here in the Epsilon Eta system, it somehow seemed fitting.

So aside from Samko, Iska, Shakka, Resa, Betty Nagos, Waydar, Titlow and Yaki, we also had Fradev Halllin, First Officer from the Vulture, Grahen Crontew, who was the Master Engineer on Eagle and Jalari Penpet, who was the First Pilot on Stalker. All three were human, though Jalari Penpet was the only woman of the three.

It was also the first time the twelve-person dinner table in the wardroom was filled, and for some odd reason it made me feel good.

After I had given the usual speech about the rules of dining, the food was brought in and Resa started the show.

As last time, it started with a quick recap of the last two episodes, telling the story so far, before the title screen showed up, with the name 'Dragon's Quest' written over a picture of an asteroid field, and the episode name "Epsilon Eta" under it.

Weirdly, the episode started with a montage of me reading, looking at star maps and writing notes, with a few situations from other places shown in between, like Shakka going from bed to bed in the infirmary on Duchess, checking on Iska, Sul, Tristan and others, and Meistrin standing on the bridge of Chariot, talking with people.

"What are you looking at?" Asked Titlow, adding "or will that be explained later?"

That caused me to laugh. "I guess it'll be explained later, but as I haven't seen the episode before I have no way of knowing."

"Oh, Yeah. Sorry about that."

Betty Nagos chuckled. "I have a good idea about it, but as we agreed, I'm not going to drop any spoilers."

Waydar looked like he was going to say something, but he was interrupted by our on-screen arrival at the Epsilon Eta system.

As the other times, the animators followed the real events to the letter, building tension with the discovery of the Lictor and the two departing Gage-class transports.

"That Lictor is waiting for something." The animation of me determined and ordered both the four Aureks and the droid fighters to be launched, with the droid fighters acting as screens.

Nothing happened for a while, the animators cutting between various people either waiting or doing something to pass the time, like watching the scanners or studying the Lictor. Just as the tension was threatening to become boring, the two Kiltirin-class dropped into real-space almost on top of us and the scene exploded into action with a suddenness that made people blink in surprise, except Yaki and I since we had expected it.

As in real life, the battle was short, violent and intense, but the animators cut between different ships, showing it from Duchess, where I was giving orders, to the cockpit of one of our four Aureks dodging laser fire, to the Barracuda, as it's shields over-loaded and disappeared. The many cuts made the combat feel longer, but as in real life, it ended with the two Kiltirin-class ships drifting in space along with the remains of several droid fighters.

"Jez, that was intense." Said Shakka as the ships on the screen turned towards the Lictor. "I'm glad I was in the infirmary during all that."

Fradev Halllin looked thoughtful and was the first one of the newcomers to ask a question. "Can we use that tactic with the droids? If we had any of them, that is?"

I shook my head. "The controls have a limited range, which in this case worked because the controls are installed in the Fury, which was part of the attack. If we installed it on a capital ship we would run out of range before the droids reached their targets, and the control unit is too large to be installed on a fighter... at least those control units we have."

"Too bad." He said with a sigh.

"The idea still has merit." Said Waydar. "If we had a lot of those droids, they could stay close the ship and function as an additional anti-starfighter force."

"Good point." Betty Nagos said with a smile. "If we ever find a large amount of those droids, I'll have the engineers look into it."

"Well, there weren't any droid starfighters in the ships we searched in the Snare system." Said the thin Grahen Crontew with a grimace. "And we went through a lot of ships."

"Fighter droids are very rare and you normally wouldn't find them in that part of the Chaos." Stated Resa, certainty in her voice. "As far as I know, they're only made by the Kzii, the best droid and cybernetics manufacturers in this part of the galaxy."

"Oh." Said the engineer with a smile. "I didn't know that."

"I've been to their home system, and it's guarded by thousands of those fighter droids."

"Where is that home system?" I asked curiously.

"It's in the Kziiz system." Resa said, "though I have no idea what it is called on the Imperial star maps."

On the screen, the fight with the Lictor started, making people silent as it showed us pummelling the ship in a race against time, and losing as the Lictor managed to enter hyperspace before we could deal enough damage to stop it.

"I know this really happened." Said Jalari Penpet slowly, her blue eyes looking around on the people who were present when it happened. "But I'm surprised they made it to hyperspace with the amount of damage they had taken."

"Yeah... well, so were we." Said Elise Samko with a slight sigh. "And even more irritated that we couldn't take the jump after them."

"Well, judging from how it went when people followed the Razor's Edge, I get you." Stated Betty Nagos. "Some risks are not worth taking."

The people around the table nodded at that, and I used the break in the action to pause the movie, giving the server droids a chance to serve the main course.

When everybody had been served, I started the movie up again, giving us a few minutes of peace, before the boarding action of the two remaining Kiltirin-class dungeon ships started.

Everybody at the table turned their attention back to the screen, which showed the close quarter combat against the Zygerrians on the ship, starting with the shootout in the corridor.

I sighed, as I heard a theme melody start and glanced over at Waydar, who was watching the screen with a smile on his face.

Sure enough, the melody increased in volume as the Zygerrians were shooting through smoke from the smoke grenade I had thrown and reached a climax as I stepped into the corridor and sent the ball of force down the passageway, knocking the defending Zygerrians down, before we went on the attack.

"Frak!" Exclaimed Iska in surprise. "I didn't know you could do that!"

Aware that many of the other people around the table were looking wide-eyed at me, I shrugged. "It takes some time to prepare, so it's rarely used, but it's extremely efficient when used right."

She nodded wordlessly, as the combat on the screen continued, somewhat to my embarrassment focusing on my duel with an Electrostaff wielding Zygerrian. A duel I personally didn't think I had handled too well, despite winning it at the cost of severely damaged armor.

Despite my embarrassment, I had to admit that the animation was excellent, with fast cuts between different angles, while the Black Dragons in the background were alternating between battling their own opponents and trying to find a clear shot at my opponent.

"Yes!" Exclaimed Yaki, as the duel ended with me running the Zygerrian through. Then she grinned. "I'll have to agree with what Betty Nagos here said last time: Despite knowing the outcome, this movie is exciting!"

The XO nodded with a smile. "Yes, I wouldn't have thought so, but it really is."

After the combat with the Zygerrians, the taking of the asteroid base was almost an anti-climax, relying on the same ruse and Force Illusion as I had used at Centauri 21. More prisoners had been freed, and while we had offered them one of the pirates' Star-class, they had chosen to come with us, instead of taking their chances in a single ship.

Somewhat to my surprise, it also showed Jalari Penpet joining us. I had completely forgotten that the pilot had been one of the freed prisoners from the asteroid base, but there she was, looking dignified as she left the cell.

It was also the place where we had left the damaged Mantis D5 and taken the Star shuttles instead. Not only did it give us more life support, but since we needed to leave a ship for pirates, it might as well be the damaged Mantis.

The break in the action also gave us time to eat some of the delicious food and talk a little among ourselves.

On screen, our small fleet of ships took off again, only to be caught in the gravity ripple that sent us hurtling through hyperspace to the Snare system. The animators had even done a good job of showing the gravity ripples, that made me order an emergency exit from hyperspace, with a sudden fast sequence, showing the pilots hammering their fists down on the emergency button as fast as they could, though one took a bit longer, as the lid over the big red button seemed to be stuck.

Then the screen went black for a few seconds until light slowly started to return, showing the bridge of Duchess lit only by the luminescent paint that shipbuilders had used for centuries to paint interiors for the exact reason of a non-fatal reactor failure.

"Shiiiiiiit!" mumbled Titlow. "That was close."

Iska nodded, as she put her glass down on the table. "I think that order saved... " Her voice faded as the screen showed the Military Transport colliding with an Interdictor-class cruiser, making it explode with everybody inside.

There was silence in the wardroom as on screen we began to realize that the pale sun really wasn't a white dwarf, but a pulsar and that we were in a box system with huge ion emission beams crisscrossing through the systems.

Then ship after ship started to come back as their reactors were restarted, a feat that was only possible because we had miraculously avoided ending up in the emission beams... with one exception: Military Transport 1 was drifting without power, completely engulfed in an emission beam from the pulsar.

"They're dead." Sighed engineer Grahen Crontew, as he watched the screen. "Tractor beams don't work in an ion field."

A moment later, that sentiment was echoed on the screen, followed by the animation of me asking if anybody else had an idea about how to save the Transport, and when nobody answered, I ordered Samko to get as close to the transport as possible.

What followed was a tension filled sequence showing the Duchess being expertly piloted in between emission beams by Elise Samko flying on instruments only as the beams were so hard to see that they might as well be invisible.

"Frak, you're good!" Pilot Jalari Penpet told Elise Samko in a low voice.

The redhead flashed a smile. "Thank you."

"But I still don't get why Thalen wanted you to get this close." Added Penpet with a frown.

Elise's smile widened into a knowing grin. "Wait a moment and you'll see."

The scene shifted from a close-up of the animation of Samko saying that we couldn't get any closer, to a view of the Military Transport from the cockpit of the Duchess.

Then the bloody theme music started again and the 'camera' moved backwards, showing the animation of me standing in front of the window, one arm stretched out, as if reaching for the Military Transport.

"What?" I heard Fradev Halllin say but ignored it as the view cut to the animation of Elise, who was watching the distance on the instruments, eyes widening as the numbers slowed down, eventually reaching zero, before starting to decrease as the Military Transport was pulled towards us. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster.

The picture shifted to a close-up of my animation as I let go of the Military Transport and ordered the Chariot to catch it with its tractor beams.

"Woooow." Breathed Waydar and looked at me. "That was insane, sir."

Betty Nagos elbowed him in the side. "No titles."

Waydar chuckled and said, "Honey, dinner or not, anyone that can pull a freaking Transport through space to save some people deserves a 'sir'!"

That made the others at the table laugh and nod, breaking the somewhat sombre mood the situation on the screen had created.

It also caused me to think, and I quietly decided to have the scene removed from the chapter, so that it wouldn't show on later viewings. The major problem I had with the scene was that I didn't want too much information about my abilities to be known. Public knowledge had a tendency to reach even the people you didn't want it to reach and right now, I had the advantage of being largely unknown to any Sith we encountered, and I would like to keep it that way.

On the screen, we had discovered that the two ships we had sent off earlier were here as well, instead of being safely in the Alpha Viga system. The news was devastating for the Chiss among the crew, and it showed on the faces of the animated Chiss. That damage reports kept coming in didn't help, as almost every ship seemed to have suffered damage to either their hyperdrive, life-support or both. The worst news was that Last Chance had a damaged life support, which was a potential disaster with four-hundred and fifty passengers on board.

"That is bad." Remarked Engineer Grahen Crontew with a grimace. "A lot of bad."

Yaki swallowed the food in her mouth. "Yeah, it wasn't really fun."

On the screen, I was promising the crew of the collected ships to find a way out of the system, after which the animation of me sat back in the seat, looking thoughtfully into the air. Then the screen faded to black and the end-credits appeared on the screen, along with a 'To be continued'.

"I feel cheated!" Grumbled Waydar. "We never got the explanation of what you were reading."

"Well, I guess you'll have to wait then." I said with a grin.

"As a side note, I now understand why you guys wanted an organic carbon scrubber and the 'kickstarter' for the reactor so bad." Said Engineer Grahen Crontew. "I mean, they both made sense considering where we were, but after seeing this I really get the sentiment, even if it's extremely uncommon on starships."

"Yes, but that is due to most ships being made in Republic or Imperial Space." Remarked Betty Nagos. "I know that space is always dangerous, but it's just much more dangerous here in the Chaos. So, it's kinda strange that none of the local ship builders equip their ships with organic carbon scrubbers."

"Well," said Resa. "Organic carbon scrubbers take a lot of room in a ship and for most freighters, that means cargo that cannot be transported, which again leads to less profit." She thought for a moment. "As far as I can calculate, we use about ten percent of the interior space that isn't used for the reactor or fuel, for the organic scrubber and hangar park. That would never work in a freighter."

"Good point." Said Elise Samko. "And you're right... freighters simply don't encounter those hazards often enough to merit using ten percent of the interior space on such things instead of cargo space. They would rather go around those hazards with the extra cargo space and profit."

There was silence for a moment, but then Waydar said. "Quick question, Thalen. That combat on the Kiltirin-class, was that where the shoulder plate on your armor was damaged?"

"Yes. They were firing a lot of shots and I missed a few parries, which hit my shoulder plate, and the Zygerrian Electro-staff did the rest."

"You were lucky, sir." Rumbled Waydar. "One shot more in that area, and your shoulder would have been gone."

"I know... which is why I have been training regularly for a year." I chuckled. "Both against swords and staff-weapons."

"Wise." Mumbled Yaki, while Penpet asked. "Did you ever discover where the Lictor ended up?"

"No." Answered Resa. "We don't have star maps for that area... Not even from freighters in the Snare system, so I'm guessing that the area is not an easy one to access... But from the maps we do have, we know that there's at least two nebulae in that direction."

Penpet grimaced, which I understood. Since they mostly consisted of gasses and stardust, Nebulae were always difficult to navigate, and pilots hated them with a passion.

"Unfortunately, it's also the area where the Debra system is located, so we'll have to travel there sooner or later, in order to free the slaves on Debra." I told them. "So, we'll have a chance to get some new star maps when we get there... after we have delivered both the Sublars and Escors back to Yrla, since we're going in that direction anyway."

"How're they holding up, by the way?" Asked Shakka curiously.

"Fairly well." I told her and looked over at the XO. "Betty, you have talked with them a few times. What's your opinion?"

"With the exception of the young Escor named Marie Munmaki, they're still stuck in that 'them vs. us' attitude." Said Nagos with a sigh. "No matter which side I talk with, they take turns trying to convince me that we should help their side against the others."

"And what does this Marie Munmaki want?" Asked Titlow curiously.

"To be with her two male slaves." I said dryly. "And before you say anything, know that the two men in question are quite willing to be with her as well, as long as they're not transported back to the planet. My guess is that they're in love with her and vice versa."

There was a stunned silence in the room, but then Waydar chuckled. "Well, that's a new one."

"Yes, and the only reason I haven't simply installed them in a cabin, is that I don't want them moving around on the ship if they're to return to Yrla. They might be harmless, but they're not stupid."

"May I suggest giving them a cabin and just lock the door?" Said Yaki with a chuckle. "A love that strong deserves to be rewarded."

I considered that for a moment. If Marie could be persuaded to join us, there was one more person in the fleet that could use the Force to do astrogation, and I had to admit to myself, that it was an appealing idea, but it demanded that Marie could see the advantage in staying with us and bringing her and her two lovers together would be a good start.

Their dynamic might change, but Marie had told me that they had been together for years and I hoped it would work out.

"Okay," I finally said. "Let's move them into a cabin but remember to limit their access to our net. Resa, do we have any empty cells left on Majestic?"

The droid shook her head. "No. They're all occupied by the Imperials, but if you just want to separate them, we can transfer the rest to the other capital ships and give Marie Munmaki and her two lovers one of the infantry officer's cabins."

"Do that and give the others separate cells. One for the Escors and one for the Sublars."

"Yes, s... Thalen." She said and chuckled, as the blue LED blinked a few times.

"Betty, could I persuade both you and Shakka to visit both them and Agusta about once a day for the next couple of weeks?" I asked. "I'll try to visit as well, but I can't be everywhere at once."

"Not a problem." Said Betty Nagos with a smile, while Shakka nodded and added. "The same from me. I actually like both of them, though they're both somewhat entrenched in their way of thinking."

"Thank you." I looked around and noticed the server droids. "Well, it looks like it's time for dessert."

"Nice!" Said Yaki with a smile, causing Titlow to shake his head with a smile. "I don't understand how you can possibly eat more."

"It's a little-known fact that there exist two different kinds of stomachs." Yaki explained with a straight face. "One for the regular meal and one for dessert or cake."

Shakka nodded with a grin. "Yes and its location in the female body still remains a mystery, despite the work of some of the best scientists."

"Suuuuure." Grinned Engineer Crontew. "And it has nothing to do with the fact that you love cake and can eat them at any time?"

"That is just slander and evil rumours." Declared Yaki with a chuckle.

Leaning back in the seat, I stayed silent as the banter around the table continued. As I had observed before, the morale and spirit of the officer corps was high, and getting out of the box system had only served to heighten that.

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

After the dessert had been eaten and people had talked for a while, the dinner and movie party broke up. I had originally planned on going to bed but found that I simply wasn't tired enough to sleep, so instead I relaxed for an hour or so, and then went down to the Spa to get a relaxing massage from one of the DD droids.

It did help a little, but not enough, so when the massage was done, I picked up my training bag and walked to the training area for some physical training, hoping that it would make me tired enough to sleep.

Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one with that idea as the gym area was filled with people, so instead I walked back to the lifts and into the small cargo hold I had reserved for my solo lightsaber training.

"You'll have to lower your weapons." I told the two guards as we entered the room. "The training droids are not that smart and will fire at everyone carrying a gun."

"Yes, sir." They replied and did that before taking up station on each side of the door.

With a nod, I pocketed my earpiece, drew my lightsabers and walked to the middle of the room. "Majestic, training sequence 1."

"Yes, sir" The computer replied and immediately marksman training droids rose from their resting places to flow into the air. Looking like thirty-centimetre-wide floating balls, the fast-moving and unpredictable marksman droids were, as the name suggested, commonly used to train soldiers, improving reaction time and aiming skills. They could also shoot back, using a low-powered blaster that gave a slight electrical sting if it hit, but were otherwise harmless, making them the perfect tool for training defence against opponents armed with ranged weapons.

For me it was also a fun game, where I got a blue point for deflecting a bolt and a red point whenever I reflected a bolt back to hit a droid, while the droids got a green point each time they managed to hit me. Trivial as it sounded, it gave me the opportunity to follow my progress by simply looking at the point-spread.

The first droid fired a bolt, which I reflected right back at it and moved out of the way just in time to avoid a bolt from another droid, allowing it to fly past me without trying to intercept it, as the move brought me into a perfect position to deflect the next attack.

As the training program proceeded, I could feel myself starting to relax and my moves became more fluid, as I moved with the force, feeling it flow through me. It was like a moving meditation where time became meaningless and only existed as an abstract idea somewhere in the back of my consciousness.

I was vaguely aware that Majestic had proceeded to the second sequence and after a while the third sequence started, kicking the pace and number of droids up another notch, but I was too busy trying to avoid, parry or deflect the bolts from the droids to think about it, and it was only when the combat suddenly stopped, that I realised that an hour had passed.

Being immersed in the force didn't mean your body was free from strain and when Majestic announced the end of the training program, my hair and clothes were soaked by sweat and, to my satisfaction, my body felt reasonably tired.

Looking at the scoreboard, I had deflected hundreds of bolts with about half of them having been reflected back to the shooter, while I had been hit eighteen times. Far from perfect, it was a lot better than it had ever been when training under Master Brin or when I had started training this way a year ago at the insistence of Trejar Melbate, the Gatekeeper of the Jedi Holocron we had found in the snare system. Perhaps even more important was the fact that I had been hit two times less than last time, showing that I was still improving.

Calling up the timeline of the training on the screen, I studied it. It was clear to me that the more I let the force flow through me, the better I became at deflecting and redirecting bolts, and the most important improvement I had made was to get into the flow faster and faster, which in turn resulted in less and less hits on me.

It wasn't that I hadn't known about it before, as Master Brin had taught me the basics of it, but the knowledge stored in the Holocron was more detailed and complete and as much as I liked Master Brin, Trejar Melbate or at least those who had programmed the gatekeeper, was a better teacher... or at least that style of teaching fitted my style of learning perfectly.

"Sorry to disturb you, Commodore," said one of the guards. "But Corporal Hedeta asks if you have time to talk with Marie Munmaki of the Escors."

I considered it for a moment. I seriously needed a quick bath and a change of clothing, but otherwise I had nothing planned, except for sleep. "Tell her I'll come for a visit in about half an hour."

"Yes, sir."

As I walked towards the lift, I placed my earpiece back where it belonged and called up Resa to ask where she had placed Marie Munmaki.

"Officer's quarters on the D-level, sir. Cabin 14." She replied, so after a quick bath and a change of uniform, I took the lift to the D-level along with the ever-present bodyguards, reminding me that I needed to talk with Yaki about that. Being followed around all the time was driving me insane and I fervently wished that those canine droids were finished soon.

Cabin 14 in the officer's quarters on the D-level proved to be one of the larger cabins for the higher-ranking trooper officers, consisting of a large bedroom with a connected living room and a small office, making it almost as big as the cabin Iska had.

Nodding to the two guards outside the door, I pressed the doorbell.

"Hello, Commodore." Marie greeted as she opened the door. "May I request that we once again visit the viewing area? I would like to speak with you in privacy."

"Sure. This way."

Marie was silent as we were approaching the lift, but then unexpectedly asked. "During the last week, we have been in several different systems. May I ask what you have been doing?"

I took a moment to think but decided to simply tell the truth, and as we walked into the lift I said. "We attacked the forces of a slave trader and smashed them, freeing thirteen thousand prisoners that were about to be sold as slaves."

"Thirteen thousand!?"

I nodded as the lift stopped. "Yes... or rather ten thousand adults and three thousand children." I walked out of the lift. "Come."

Like last time, the lift had taken us to one of the upper decks from where we could go through the blast-door in the thick armor layer that separated the inner hull from the outer one and go into the passageway on the other side, where there were several recreational areas with sofas and tables where the crew or passengers could sit and enjoy the view through the large transparisteel windows in the outer armor.

The newly arrived liberated prisoners were still settling in, so the area was still empty, though I guessed that it wouldn't last long. I had planned on sitting by a two-person table, but before we could even sit, Marie Munmaki's jaw dropped as she looked out of the window.

Outside, the hull of one of the massive S-class cruisers dominated the view as it floated beside Majestic, its eight hundred meters long hull held in place by Majestic's projector beams. Squid hovered over the heavy cruiser, while engineers in sleek, silver space suits floated methodically along the damaged sections, tethered to the ship by thin cables. Flashes of blue light flickered as the engineers used cutting torches to trim away damaged material, while others directed the droids in the delicate process of repairs.

"What is that?" She breathed. "I've never seen a ship so large?"

"That is our engineers repairing the combat damage on a captured enemy ship, so we can send more than two thousand of the liberated people to a place where they can live in peace." I told her, as I sat down by the table.

"B-but it's gigantic!" She blurted.

"Yes." I agreed calmly. "But it's the best choice to transport that many people."

Marie tore her eyes away from the S-class. "Is that the obligation you told me about last time we spoke?"

"It's part of it." I nodded. "Right now, we're trying to get into one of the enemies computers, so we can get the location of yet another fourteen thousand slaves, and..."

"Fourteen thousand more?!" She exclaimed, looking shocked.

"Yes. Nine thousand slaves and five thousand children." I said and looked her straight in the eyes. "I did tell you that the people here don't like slave-owners. That is because most of them have been slaves thinly disguised as prisoners and they will do anything in their power to liberate the people they have suffered along with."

She nodded and paused as she sat down in the chair opposite mine. "I can understand that. What was that about finding a location?"

I shrugged lightly. "We don't know the route of the group of ships carrying the prisoners, but if we get it, we will cross some of the most dangerous stretches of space in order to intercept them, destroy the ships escorting the slave ship, and hopefully set them free as well. Unfortunately, that also means that our trip to Yrla will be postponed until after we have freed the last group of prisoners, or have determined that we simply can't catch them."

Marie was silent for a moment when I stopped speaking but then said. "If you get the location, please let me know. I might be able to find a route there."

"Even if it means postponing your return to Yrla?"

"I'm not in a hurry, so if there's anything I can do for you, please let me know."

"As an astrogator, you mean?"

She nodded. "Yes... or any other job I can do."

I leaned back in the seat. "I must confess that I have no idea about your skill set. What skills do you have that might be useful on a spaceship?"

"Not many." She admitted. "My guess is that this ship is vastly more advanced than the ones I'm used to... at least judging from the ships out there."

I nodded in agreement. "You're most likely correct."

She thought for a moment. "I used to manage people and an estate, and I'm good at it."

"To be honest, nothing comes to mind right now, but I will think about it."

"Thank you." She said and smiled.

"However, there's one thing I would like you to do. While you're here anyway, I want you to think about how to eliminate slavery on Yrla and write it down. I mean all slavery... Including women being the property of their husbands. I do not expect you to figure it all out, but I would like some well thought out suggestions."

That made her laugh. "That will cause a collective heart attack in all men on Yrla."

"Most likely." I admitted. "However, as it stands now, the Sublars are convinced of their moral high ground, due to the fact that they don't have slaves, conveniently ignoring that the men own their wives, which is slavery as well." I gestured at her. "On the other hand, most of the Escors are convinced that the Island people are some sort of lower race, which can be treated as animals, despite our analysis of the genetic structure shows that all three population groups are so closely related and that there's virtually no difference between them, except on a purely cosmetic scale."

She blinked a few times. "What?"

"All three population groups on Yrla come from the same people." I repeated. "If you don't believe me, I can have Doctor Shakka explain it to you..." I thought for a moment. "Actually, I think I'll do that anyway. Doctor Shakka has a way to explain things so people understand it."

"How can we be the same people?" She protested. "We don't even look alike!"

"All of the people from Yrla look like humans to me." I admitted. "The variation is mostly superficial like types of hair, slanted or round eyes, and how light or dark your skin is. The only real differences are the cultures."

Marie looked at me slack jawed. "Are you sure about that?"

"To be honest, genetics is not my strong suit, but Doctor Shakka and her people are quite sure and they're the experts, so I see no reason to not trust their words." I paused for a moment and added. "I am, however, an expert on military matters and if the war on Yrla continues, there are two probable outcomes: Either one side will conquer the other or the war will cause so much collateral damage that the whole planet will revert into a collection of primitive societies or clans. The likelihood of each outcome depends on the degree of animosity between the Escors and Sublars."

Marie thought for a moment. "So, if both factions try to conquer the other, chances are that they will fail, dragging the whole down with them?"

I nodded. "When one side is desperate enough or feeling justified, they'll go for the civic centers, the cities, factories or food and water supply, in order to get the upper hand in the conflict. In military terms, that is known as 'total war'. A war where everybody is mobilised to fight a war, where every part of the enemy's nation is regarded as a legitimate military target."

Marie regarded me for a moment. "You don't like that concept."

"The goal of all battles should be to win, not to kill the enemy." I told her, "Hating the enemy will make any commander make tactical errors, trying to kill as many as possible, instead of focussing on winning." A quote from the Holy book of War popped into my head. "Where I come from, there's a saying that goes like this. 'Anger may in time change to happiness; aggravation may be succeeded by content. But once a planet has been destroyed, it can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.'"

"Yes, that is common sense." She said with a little smile.

I nodded. "I know, but when it comes to conflicts, common sense is usually the first casualty. Miss Munmaki, you know your planet and its cultures better than I do and for that reason, you have a better chance of coming up with something that might work, and that is more important than anything else right now."

"I'll see what I can come up with." She said with a smile.

"Thank you."

If she did come up with a reasonable plan, I would try it out on Lena Agusta and see what she thought about it. If the plan was at least possible, I could always have them work together to improve it, which would be a test of both of them to see if they could overcome their cultural differences.

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

The new crew

Dreadnought Majestic, Nodia System

"You don't manage people, you manage things. You lead people."

Vice Admiral Zedais, CEDF

"Commodore, this is Sergeant Blaccan." A male voice said. "I have some Senior Imperial Officers here in the brig, who would like to talk with the commanding officer... Sorry for calling you directly, but both Lieutenants Titlow and Seze are busy, and Commander Yaki told me to call you directly."

"No worries, Sergeant. You did the right thing." I said and stood. "Are they behaving?"

"Yes, sir. Though some of them are more arrogant than I would expect from officers of a Battlegroup that just had its ass handed to it... pardon my language, sir."

I laughed. "No worries, Sergeant. I've heard and said worse. I'll be there in five."

"Yes, sir."

The intercom switched off and I walked over to the back of the office where my armor was located. My order to wear armor when dealing with Darth Arkol's forces included myself, and I had no intention of giving him more information than I absolutely had to.

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

Sergeant Blaccan turned out to be of medium height and weight, though the Grey Wolves power-armor made him seem larger. That the helmet was shaped like a wolf's head only made him seem more dangerous and aggressive.

"Sir!" He said and saluted as soon as I stepped out of the lift. A motion that was mimicked by two more Grey Wolves a fraction of a second later.

"Sergeant Blaccan." I nodded, before looking at the two others. "Troops."

"This way, sir." The sergeant said and walked down the passageway until we stood in front of a cell. "Here you are, sir. And before you can protest, I am going inside with you. Protocol, sir."

"I'll not protest then." I said with a slight smile.

"Thank you, sir. The three women in here are Commander Naniyan Kindsta, former captain of the Terminus-class Destroyer Vipers tooth, along with two younger lieutenants. Jaljae Cabur, who was the pilot and Keltia Mormill, who was the tactical officer. They're easy to tell apart, as Cabur is dark-skinned and Mormill is light skinned."

"Appreciate the information, Sergeant."

"You're welcome, sir."

He opened the door and walked inside, looking around by the door for a moment, before walking all the way inside. I followed him.

The first one that met my eyes was a middle-aged blonde human woman, while the two others were younger women, perhaps in their thirties. One of them was short, black haired and light skinned, while the other was extremely dark-skinned, even darker than Waydar, and had short, curly hair. Since they were among those officers trying to defect, they were still wearing their uniforms and I had no trouble determining that the middle-aged woman had been the captain.

"Allow me to present to you, Commodore Thalen of the Dragon Defence Force." Stated Sergeant Blaccan and took a step to the side.

She looked at me with visible confusion on her face and in her eyes, as if she couldn't believe that a commanding officer was here to visit her, much less one in full armor, while her brain slowly started to catch up. It took almost five seconds and by then I knew that this was a person that reacted badly to surprises, which at least partly explained why the Terminus-class destroyer had reacted too slowly during the battle.

Finally, her brain caught up. "Commander of the Dragon Defence Force, I request that you tell me what is going to happen now that I have accepted your offer to join your forces."

I tilted my head a bit. Strictly speaking, she was right. I had given them an offer and they had accepted. However, I was also sure that she hadn't accepted for any other reason than trying to avoid being court martialled like the prisoners she was transporting.

"To be honest, I haven't had time to think about your situation, Commander." I said lightly. "I've had a lot of other things on my plate. So perhaps it would be a better idea, if you explained what you expected."

She showed her teeth in a tight smile. "Considering my more than thirty years of experience, I would expect a position that reflects my rank and seniority."

"I'm a little rusty when it comes to Imperial ranks and what ship they merit," I said slowly. "But as far as I remember, a commander typically captains a Delta-class carrier, while a Terminus-class destroyer is captained by someone with the actual rank of Captain. Am I right?"

The two lieutenants nodded shortly, while Commander Kindsta shrugged. "That depends on a multitude of things, connections and luck being the two most important ones."

"Ah. So, are you well connected or just lucky... or both for that matter?"

Her eyes flickered for a moment. "Both."

Looking over at the two lieutenants, I asked. "Is Commander Kindsta correct?"

They both nodded and the dark-skinned one, Cabur, said. "Yes, sir."

"Are any of you two well-connected?"

The light skinned Mormill nodded. "My grandfather was a navy officer... but that being said, I'm a very good tactician and didn't get my rank through connections."

"No connection and no luck." Said Cabur, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

"Thank you." I told them and returned my attention to Commander Kindsta. "You were about to tell you about your expectation..."

She got the hint and launched into a sales pitch, most focussed around her vast experience, and she did have a lot of it, as she had been in the Imperial Navy all her adult life and had participated in some of the larger battles in the recent war against the Republic.

Having an eyewitness to the events she mentioned could be interesting, but on the other hand there was a self-centeredness about her that I really didn't like, though that might just be my perception of her. Just to be sure, I decided to put her to a test.

"You were at the Battle of Hoth, so could you please give me a quick description and analysis of that battle?"

Commander Kindsta looked surprised, but then nodded and started to talk. Granted, she was a great storyteller but unfortunately the story she told had more in common with Imperial propaganda than a real story from an eyewitness.

I had picked the Battle of Hoth because it was one of the biggest battles from the Galactic War and one of the best known in the Chiss Ascendency. During Naval Tactics lessons at the Academy, I had literally spent days analysing that battle, using data from various different sources, be they Imperial, Republic, Chiss or independent. The Chiss version was even supported by scanner data, though I had no idea how they had managed to secure that.

However, the result was that I had an extremely clear picture of that battle that wasn't really the same as Commander Kindsta was telling me and as she claimed to be a tactical officer on a S-class cruiser during this, it should have been.

Holding up a hand, I interrupted her tale. "Sorry for asking, but were you really there as a tactical officer?"

The question caused the two lieutenants to give off a strangled sound, like they were trying to swallow a laugh, and caused Commander Kindsta to give me a stare. "Yes. Don't you believe me?"

"No," I told her calmly. "And before you protest again, I have studied the data from that battle, and if you had seen the scanner data as well, there's no way you would tell it like that. I do believe that you were there, just not as a tactical officer, so what were you really? And try not to lie this time."

It took a few seconds, but looking totally defeated, she finally mumbled. "Junior Lieutenant, Administration."

I nodded slowly. That made more sense, but it also told me that she hadn't bothered to spend time analysing the battle despite that she had been there, and I was starting to doubt that she had the knowledge to do that.

The two lieutenants were staring at their commander in shock but managed to look neutral as soon as they noticed me looking at them.

"Commander Kindsta," I said calmly. "You now have three options. The first one is to defect and stay with us, in which case you'll only work in administration. The second option is to defect and travel to the Outer Rim and settle down. The third option is retracting your wish to defect. If you choose the last option, you will be placed in the prison camp at Nodia where you'll stay until Darth Arkol's forces return here. No-one will know of your attempt to defect and hopefully, you can continue your life as before."

Her eyes widened as she looked at me. "You will keep this a secret?"

"Yes, I gain nothing from doing otherwise." Looking at the two lieutenants, I asked. "Did you wish to join the Dragon Defence Force because you're tired of the Empire or are you tired of war and battles?"

"The Empire." They said in unison and then looked at each other in surprise, that turned into smiles.

"Good. We will talk in a moment." I told them and turned back to the commander. "Since they stay here, so does your secret."

She thought about it in silence for a minute, but finally nodded. "I wish to take the last option and join the rest at Nodia."

"Very well." I turned towards Sergeant Blaccan. "Sergeant, have the guards take the commander to the holding cell, reserved for those who need transport to Glorious. There should be a shuttle leaving shortly. Once there, they'll arrange for her transport to Nodia."

"Yes, sir."

As the door opened, Commander Kindsta bowed slightly to me. "Thank you for your kindness, Commodore."

"You're welcome, Commander. I wish you luck in the years ahead."

"Thank you."

I waited until the guards had escorted her out and then took off my helmet. The two lieutenants had elected to stay and would see our faces eventually.

They blinked in surprise when they saw my face, but if it was the colour of my skin, my age or something else was hard to tell.

Ignoring their stares, I looked at them. "Pilot Jaljae Cabur and Tactical officer Keltia Mormill, I imagine that you have some questions. Please state them now that we have the time." I paused for a moment and then added. "Before you ask, know that in the Dragon Defence Force rank is determined by skill and competence. Not luck or connections."

Lieutenant Cabur smiled and like Waydar, the white of her teeth seemed almost impossible bright against the dark skin. "Thank you, sir. That would have been my first question."

The light-skinned and dark-haired Keltia Mormil asked. "Sir, I simply need to know how much of the battle went according to your plan and how much was coincidence. As far as I could see, you took our battle group without losing any ships and I'm curious about it."

"I won't go into it now, since any analysis always takes a long time, but I can say that the only coincidence was the main group arriving in the middle of your forward elements, instead of in front of it. I had expected you to start a chase, but not quite that fast." I said honestly. "Next question."

"Do we retain our ranks if we join you?" asked Lieutenant Cabur.

"As new members of the fleet, you will be tested, going through several scenarios. It will be the outcome of those tests as well as the other officers' opinion of you that will determine your future rank." I smiled a little. "If you have clawed your way to a position as lieutenants of the Imperial Navy on skills alone, I wouldn't worry too much. The most important question is that of loyalty, but for the most part only time will tell about that."

"Wait a minute, sir." Cabur said with surprise in her voice. "Are you saying that there's a chance for a promotion after our first tests?"

"Yes." I said simply. "You might also find yourself being a first officer or whatever position we need to have filled. In fact, everything except captain of a ship since that requires a proven loyalty."

"Sweet." Mumbled Lieutenant Mormill to herself and looked up. "By the way, sir. I've read your Code of Conduct and I need to get this straight. The Dragon Defence Force allows relations between crew members?" She paused and hurriedly added. "Within the limitations and exceptions described in the CoC, that is."

"Yes." I said with a slight smile and got an idea that was a little outside the usual. "Can I give you a short tour of the ship?"

"Oh yes!"

"Good. Then I'll arrange it, while the two of you change into something else." I smiled a bit. "I'll have you wearing some neutral clothes. We have a lot of freed prisoners on board and Imperial officers are not the most popular persons out there."

"Ah. Thank you, sir."

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

While the two lieutenants changed clothes, I used the time to tell Resa about my plans while I swapped the armor for my regular black uniform, leaving the weapon belt in the room. With two Black Dragons as guards, it wasn't like I needed it anyway.

Then I took the lift down to the lower levels and met up with the two lieutenants again.

"Sorry for asking, sir." Said Lieutenant Cabur as we walked down the passageway towards the hangar, followed by two Black Dragon guards that had appeared almost as if by magic, the moment I had left the cell, and had stayed with us as we had taken the lifts, "but do you normally give personal tours? I mean, I would imagine that you have people for that."

"I have, but I need something to do, while we're waiting for some info, so this is a nice break from the normal routine."

I nodded to the marines at the last checkpoint and continued walking.

"I see...." Her voice faded away as we walked into the hangar. As usual, it was spotless and impressive, with rows of Nightsingers and Dragonclaw Interceptors hanging from the top mounts. Under and between the rows, mechanics were busy doing maintenance on some craft, while others were repairing the few craft that had been damaged during the fight. As often after a successful battle, the spirits were high, and the crew were smiling and joking with each other as they did their jobs.

"Excuse me, sir." Said lieutenant Mormill. "But what is that tri-winged fighter?"

"That's a Dragonclaw Interceptor." I said as we walked through this part of the hangar towards the next lift. "One of our main starfighters."

Lieutenant Cabur whistled softly. "Three rapid-fire laser cannons and twin ion cannons! That fighter is packing some serious firepower."

"Most interceptors do. The important difference is that the Dragonclaws have excellent shields and decent armour."

Her eyes widened and she looked at the Dragonclaw again.

"By the way, you were the pilot of the Terminus-class, but do you pilot other craft as well?"

"Yes, sir." She said with another white smile. "I can pilot just about everything that can fly. Fighters, transports, capital ships, but since I'm not suicidal, I prefer capital ships."

That made me chuckle. "Remind me to introduce you to Pilot Satomie at some point. She once said almost exactly the same."

"She sounds like an interesting person, sir."

"She is." I said and got an idea as we entered the lift. In order to ease the transition from the Imperial Navy to us, it might be wise to assign a mentor to each of the defectors, and Satomie would be perfect for Lieutenant Cabur, while Karnos would be a good match for Lieutenant Mormill. The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea, as it would also help integrate the newcomers into the crew.

The doors to the lift opened and we walked into the hangar park. As I had expected, it was fairly empty, since everybody was busy with the things we needed to have done, but it was still a beautiful sight, with colourful flowers blooming in abundance adding patches of every colour imaginable among the green of the park, and a sweet aroma to the air.

With the edible plants now fully grown, the grow-towers looked like ancient trees growing under the artificial sky, filled with flowers and fruits.

"Wow." Breathed Mormill as she looked around at the park. "This is beautiful!"

"And unexpected." Added Cabur as she studied one of the grow-towers. "Wait a minute! I know these plants... they're all edible!"

I nodded slightly. "The hangar park functions as a combination of an organic air-scrubber and a greenhouse. Everything in here is edible and is used by the chefs to make better tasting food for the crew, along with the produce from the vertical hydroponic gardens."

"So, the ship doesn't use a chemical scrubber?" Asked Cabur.

"Well, we have one and will use it if needed, which it most likely will be after we have placed all the former prisoners, but there's no reason to use it before we must." I thought for a moment and added. "Besides, it smells better."

Cabur nodded. "The air is a lot better than the one I'm used to."

"Excuse me, sir." Said Mormill, nodding in the direction of Raika's Rest. "What is that... hmm... building?"

"That's a café." I told her. "Would you like a cup of the best chocolate coffee in this part of the galaxy?"

"Well, I don't know what it is, sir." Replied Mormill with a slight smile. "But I'm willing to try."

As always when I entered the café, Raika was behind the counter, greeting me with a "Hello, Commodore. Nice to see you again." Her steely grey eyes drifted over to the two women. "Hello, Lieutenants. Nice to see they, or at least the Commodore here, have let you out of the cell."

One of the many things about Raika, was that she talked with everyone coming into the café and as a result, she always seemed to know everything. I knew that she was a former navy tactical officer and loved watching battles and analysing them, but I was becoming more and more sure that she was a former member of the Republic's Navy Intelligence as well, and if not, she should have been.

They both looked slightly confused as they said, "Thank you, mam."

She snorted. "I'm not a 'mam'. I'm not even in the navy, much less an officer, so I work for a living. Just call me Raika." She smiled and suddenly looked like any grandmother in the vid in the database. "So, what can I get you?"

"We'll need three of your fantastic chocolate coffees." I said with a slight smile.

"Yes, Commodore. Just take a seat outside and I'll be out with the coffees in a moment."

"Thank you." I nodded and guided the two lieutenants back outside so we could sit by one of the tables right outside the café in the park, while the three guards took up stations around us. In the beginning I had tried to get coffee for them as well, but they had refused and afterwards Yaki had told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to stop doing that, so they could do their job.

"Did she tell the truth, sir?" Mormill asked as we sat down in the soft seats. "Is she really working on a warship without being in the chain of command?"

"Yes. Technically the café is as much a part of the ship as the turbolasers, but practically it's run by Raika." I shrugged. "As long as the crew have a place where they can relax in peace, I don't really care."

"Is this... park special for the flagship, sir?" Asked Cabur as she looked around, eyes following the raised pathways.

"No, there's a park on every ship larger than a frigate, with the size of the park depending on the available space." I explained as Raika with a "There you go, sirs." placed a large cup in front of each one of us.

"Thank you." I said and was about to ask the lieutenant a question, when the door to the park opened to allow a group of people inside, led by Athur Waydar. Dressed in the same kind of tracksuit as the two lieutenants, I thought for a moment that it was more defectors, but the presence of children in the group made it clear that it was some of the former prisoners.

Their reaction at seeing a green park within a warship was interesting to say the least, as they stepped inside, their steps tentative, as if they couldn't quite believe what they saw, but once they understood that it was reality, the transformation in their expressions was immediate and profound. Faces that had been hardened by years of captivity softened in an instant, eyes wide with disbelief as they took in the sight of greenery, something many of them had not seen in years and had likely thought they'd never see again.

The children had no such reservations, their excitement and joy almost palpable as they ran down the paths to explore the park, their laughter a stark contrast to the sombre expressions of the adults who watched them. Their happiness was infectious, and I saw how it brought smiles to the faces of the older prisoners.

A few of the former prisoners sat down on the nearest bench, leaning against the backrest, staring up at the artificial sky with tears in their eyes, making it painfully obvious, that it was the first time in years they had seen anything but the grey walls of a cell or the harsh lights of a mining operation. Others walked slowly, reverently, down the path, their hands brushing against the greenery of the grow towers.

"I doubt this will ever get old." Mumbled Raika as she watched them. Then she surprised me by placing a hand on my shoulder. "I know it's not customary to say in any fleet I've ever heard of, but... " The hand squeezed a little. "...thank you, Commodore."

Placing a hand over hers, I nodded slightly. "You're welcome. I'm just glad that we made it in time... and that there's still hope that we can take the other Lictor as well."

Her hand squeezed once more and then she walked back into the café without saying anything more.

So far, the two lieutenants had been silent, but when Raika walked away, Cabur said in a low voice. "According to our orders, this prison camp contained terrorists and enemy soldiers, but rumours had it that it was really personnel that had disobeyed orders. However, these people look nothing like any of the two, so what are they?"

"Before I answer that, I have a question for both of you." I said, watching them intensely as I asked. "Why did you defect?"

"It wasn't one thing, sir." Cabur began, her voice low but steady. "It was everything. The constant cruelty, the blind ambition, the endless cycle of violence. I served in the Navy because I believed in order, but what I saw in the Empire...it wasn't order. It was madness."

Mormill nodded in agreement. "The ruling force in the Imperial Navy is fear. Fear of the Sith, fear of failure, fear of becoming the next target. I saw good men and women crushed under the heel of that fear. Officers who dared to show compassion were punished, entire battle groups ordered into pointless attacks just to prove a point."

"And for what?" Added Cabur. "To feed the egos of a few Sith Lords who would just as soon turn on each other as on the Republic."

Mormill leaned forward, her blue eyes filled with a quiet determination. "The prison camps were the final straw. Not that I ever saw any of the prisoners, but the knowledge that we sold people and kids to the Zygerrians, to slavery, just ate me up and I knew that I had to get out, before it consumed me completely." She paused to drink some of the chocolate-coffee and blinked in surprise, exclaiming. "Shiiiit! This is delicious!" But before I had the chance to answer, she continued. "Anyway, then you guys come along and dismantle our battlegroup without even breaking a sweat. So, when the destroyer went dark, I swore that I would defect if given the chance. I want to fight for something real, something that doesn't leave me sick to my stomach every time I give an order. I want to be on the right side of history, even if it means becoming the enemy of the Empire I once served."

Cabur nodded, adding, "The same here, because anything is better than the endless cycle of fear and death the Empire offers, no matter how good the perks are."

"And if I wasn't convinced before, I am now." Mormill said, gesturing in the direction of the freed prisoners enjoying the park. "I'm not the type that cries easily, but the expressions on their faces almost got me. That and what..." she paused to think for a few seconds. "Raika, I think her name was, said. I want to be part of a fleet where people are thankful when we do our job and happy when we arrive... like the people out there."

I turned my head to watch the prisoners again. They had begun to relax, their tense postures easing as the reality of their freedom settled in. The greenery around them seemed to work a kind of magic, healing wounds that ran deep, offering a peace they had long been denied.

"To answer your question from before," I said slowly, as I took my cup of chocolate coffee. "The prisoners are a mix of former Imperial and Republic navy personnel, who had surrendered during the war, with a few exceptions thrown in just because they had room for it. Generally, the Republic personnel are here because they could be sold as slaves at some point, meaning that many of them are of above average looks and would fetch a good price." I sipped from the coffee. As usual it was hot and good. "The Imperials are here because they were given back after the Peace Treaty and subsequently court martialled for having surrendered or been caught by the Republic in the first place. Most officers were executed, so you find only non-officers among the prisoners."

They looked at me with disbelief at first, but then understanding started to dawn on their faces.

I stood. "However, we need to go before the freed prisoners arrive here. They deserve to relax and have some coffee in peace."

"Especially this coffee, sir." Remarked Cabur with a chuckle. "This really is the best coffee in this part of the galaxy, as you said."

Mormill nodded in agreement. "It's awesome." She stood. "Where to next, sir?"

"The bridge. I need to talk with a few people, and since you have elected to join us, you might as well come along."

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

Stepping on the bridge was always impressive, but that I could feel the excitement of the two lieutenants made it even better, as I remembered the first time I walked in here myself. It was merely a little over a year ago, but with all the things that had happened, it felt like half a lifetime.

One of the first things that caught my eyes was how big it was compared to the other ships I had been in. It was a large chamber, filled with rows of consoles and control stations, all humming softly while their displays lit the crew that manned them.

In the centre, elevated on a command platform, was the fleet commander's chair with a tactical hologram in front of it, and some meters closer to the viewscreens, was the captain's chair. Due to the slight elevation, both chairs could survey every station and every tactical display.

The floor was dark, polished metal, that reflected the dim lights of the bridge, deliberately kept low to ease viewing the screens.

Yet, despite it being the nerve centre of the ship, there was a relaxed atmosphere in here. A severe contrast to the tension we had experienced during the combat just a few days ago.

"Wow." I heard Mormill breathe as we walked inside, heading towards XO Betty Nagos, who was talking with Iska by the viewscreens.

"XO, I need a moment of your time." I said as we came nearer, causing her to look my way with a smile. "Certainly, sir. What can I do for you?"

"I just witnessed the freed prisoners experience the hangar park and let me tell you, it was quite a sight to watch their faces." I told her with a smile. "Is it possible to arrange for all the newcomers to spend some time there? Preferably in groups, so the park doesn't get too crowded."

"I'll arrange it." She said with a nod, her eyes drifting over at the two women.

I chuckled. "And allow me to introduce both of you to Lieutenants Jaljae Cabur and Keltia Mormill, recently of the Imperial Navy. Cabur is a pilot and Mormill is a tactical officer. Ladies, this is XO Betty Nagos and Flag Captain Zu Iska."

They greeted each other and were exchanging pleasantries, when Tavune suddenly called. "Resa on channel one, sir."

"On screen." I ordered and a moment later Resa appeared, smiling widely as she said the words I had been waiting for. "We got the Lictor's route, sir!"

One of the navigation screens flickered and shifted to a star map, showing a route that went through a lot of different systems before it reached the Outer Rim. That's where the route stopped, but I guessed that the Lictor would either meet someone there or follow a hyperspace lane all the way to Zygerria.

There was a cheer from the bridge crew, but I ignored it as I walked closer to the screen, studying the star map. Catching them would be problematic. They might be slower than us, but they had more than a week's head start and were far away by now. They had also taken a completely different route than I had expected, making me happy that I hadn't tried to follow them by guessing.

On the positive side, their route wasn't the fastest route possible, as they took huge detours to avoid astronomical hazards like nebulae and black holes, using the short, but known, hyperspace routes whenever it could be done, and system-to-system jumps when it couldn't. We had to do the same, but there might be a faster, riskier route that made catching up possible.

The range of some of the system-to-system jumps caught my eyes. Even with a very good astrogator, jumps that far would be hard to pull off due to their range alone.

Looking over at the two former imperial Lieutenants, I asked. "Is there a Sith in the Lictors' escort?"

They both nodded, and Mormill said, "It's commanded by a Lord Xhal, sir. A powerful Sith Lord."

"What ship is Lord Xhal on?"

"The S-Class cruiser Venom, sir."

Nodding slightly, I went back to looking at the star map showing the route.

At least that explained the long jumps. I didn't know much about Sith powers, but it was likely they could use the Force to boost their astrogation just as I did, though judging from the limited range of their jumps, it wasn't a speciality of Lord Xhal. Real specialists like the Chiss Skywalkers could map that route with significant fewer jumps.

However, that wasn't the case, and as we didn't have a Chiss Skywalker either, it was up to me.

Closing my eyes, I sent out my force senses, trying to find a shortcut somewhere that would enable us to catch them before they reached the Bakura system, as there was a chance that they had escorts waiting for them there. The head-start they had just made it more difficult, as it limited the number of routes we could take.

It took a while, but I finally found a route fast enough to catch them. As I had expected, it wasn't without risk, but it would allow us to catch up with the Lictor and the escorts in the Grinda system in two weeks' time, with us arriving there ahead of time.

Opening my eyes again, I quickly walked back to my chair and plotted the route into the astrogation computer before I looked at the Astrogation section and Jandar San. "Astrogator Jander San. I've sent you a pursuit route for the Lictor. It's not the safest route, but it's one of the only ones that'll allow us to catch them. Please recalculate it and see if you can make it safer."

His face lit up in a smile. "I'll take a look at it, sir."

"Time?"

He looked thoughtful. "Half an hour per jump, now that I have your route to work from."

"Thank you." I looked at Iska. "Half an hour to finish transporting people to the Majestic, Captain."

The Twi'Lek nodded and turned towards Flight Lieutenant Kierian, who was acting Wing Commander. "Flight Boss, recall patrols and get the shuttles and other support ships back." She glanced over at Betty Nagos. "XO, are we done taking on former prisoners?"

Nagos checked a screen. "The last ones are on the way now, sir. The same are those going the other way."

"They have half an hour to reach our hangars, or they'll stay here with Second Squadron."

"They'll be here, sir." Promised the XO.

With all the people we've had to move, crew and former prisoners both, half an hour was faster than I had expected.

Letting Iska do her job, I had Tavune get hold of Meistrin, as well as the eight cruiser captains. "Captains, we just got a course for the Lictor and its escorts and are going in pursuit in half an hour." That made smiles appear on their faces. "You'll receive a route as soon as the 'Gators have finished recalculating it. Captain Meistrin, as we talked about, I'll leave the Drakes here along with Stingray and take the cruisers and the Gage-class transporters. Good luck."

"Likewise, sir."

I closed the connection with a satisfied nod. Meistrin, Iska, Kanos and I had spent more than a few hours trying to put together a battle group that was big enough to take down the Lictor and it's five ship escort with relative ease, while still leaving enough ships here in the Nodia system to defend those ships that were too slow to take part in the pursuit.

I had also been sure that any short-cuts we found would be dangerous, as if they weren't, the Lictor would have chosen that route instead. That meant that I would only use ships that were equipped with a Hangar Park and organic scrubbers, as those ships could survive pulsars.

It also included the Kraken, as Chief Engineer Keller had made the argument, that we would need to be able to repair any damage from the combat and so needed a repair ship. I had said yes for three reasons. The first was that he was right. The second was that he had almost worked himself to death to get out of the Snare system for that reason, and I felt like he had deserved to be there. Third, unlike Squid, the Kraken was a well armored military repair ship, with tough shields and three turbo lasers and ten quad lasers for self-defence. It wasn't the ideal ship to take into combat, but it could handle itself.

That left Glorious, the carrier Stingray and the Hammerhead-class cruisers here along with all the rest of the ships, and even with all the Wyverns in First Squadron, that still left enough firepower with the second squadron to fight off anything smaller than a battlegroup and that was provided that the theoretical battlegroups even discovered the group of ships hidden in the extreme edge of the system.

Satisfied that the Second Squadron was as safe as they could be, I closed the connection just as Resa entered the bridge, looking around with a smile, as she saw the activity. "Hello, sir. I see that you're busy getting out of here."

With a smile, I nodded to her. "Yes, and well done getting the route, Resa."

She saluted. "Thank you, sir. The slicers have worked tirelessly and really deserve a lot of praise as well."

"I will remember, or you will remind me. Take your seat."

She nodded and walked to her station, making me notice the two former Imperial lieutenants, who were standing near a bulkhead, while they looked at the activity on the bridge, for some reason with a slightly worried expression on their faces when their eyes glanced in the direction of Iska. Following their glace, I discovered that they were looking at the lightsaber Iska had at the belt and understood their worry, as the people in their past who had been wielding lightsabers had been Sith, and if they thought Iska was a Force-user, she was someone to be feared. Unfortunately, it wasn't something I wanted to deal with here and now, so instead I decided to give them something to do instead.

"Lieutenant Cabur, go sit next to Pilot Satomie at the helm." I ordered and pointed in the direction of the Tactical section. "Lieutenant Mormill, you join Lieutenant Kanos on the tactical section over there. Observation only for now."

"Yes, sir."

"Alright people. Charge the hyperdrive and let's get ready to get out of here." I said and leaned back in the seat.

"Yes, sir."

------------- 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 :)