Lucky Strike (A Star Wars SI)

[MarkWarrior]

As kids, we used to play with plastic lightsabers, quoting movies, and laughing as we pretended to be Jedi or Sith. As adults, we like to claim that we left those dreams behind. That we matured and grew up and out of that kind of make-believe.

Of course, I'd thought it was the coolest thing ever when I woke up on Coruscant, the gleaming city, the skyscrapers larger than life, the speeders moving through the skies, and the distant spacecraft doing their endless shuffle to bring food, commodities, and whatever else the wealthiest of the Galaxy desired.

At first, I'd been filled with a sense of awe, the dreams of my childhood, the hopes I'd had as a teenager, finally showing fruit. After all, the sky wasn't even the limit here, the opportunities were endless.

Unfortunately, that initial burst of joy and happiness died soon after. Along with not having my family here, there were more complications. Without paperwork, I didn't exist to the Republic, and even in the Outer Rim, there was documentation or IDs for nearly everyone. So, it was assumed I was a criminal, and I was tossed into a cell and left to rot.

So much for the Ideals of the Republic. The only 'aid' I ever saw when I was living on the streets was a few people who showed kindness and helped me find clothing and temporary shelter for a few nights before I tried to move on.

I could've tried to find a place with the gangs of the undercity, but that didn't sit right with me. So, I had slowly climbed my way up to see the sky again before being thrown right back into the pervasive darkness that I'd just escaped.

At least here I got three meals of slop and a warm bed. That was better than what you could count on getting on a lot of the lower levels. But I was more isolated here than I had been down in the Undercity. I had no access to information, the prison guards considered us less than dirt, and everyone else here knew that I wasn't a hardened criminal. It was almost like they could smell it.

But they could tell that I'd had to do some pretty sketchy shit to survive down in the undercity and didn't want to push their luck. So, most of them avoided me, leaving me to my little corner of the prison to enjoy the quiet. After all, it wasn't like I had anything else I was allowed to do aside from check out books from the prison library that I was teaching myself to read.

---

I wasn't sure how long I'd spent in the prison complex when the offer was made. It was probably shorter or longer than whatever I thought it was, but I'd read through the entire library twice, once I'd taught myself how to read Basic, and was finally starting to plan a way to legally get out of here when he arrived.

Lieutenant Condev Teskit was a solidly built middle-aged man. His uniform was pressed and clean, his face clean-shaven, and he was on a mission here. An offer to those willing to take it.

"Serve the Republic in the war against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and your sentences will be summarily dismissed." His gray eyes looked at each of us, searching us and looking for guts, wisdom, I still wasn't sure what he was looking for. I'm not sure I had it, but he saw something in me because he accepted my signature with a stern smile and a nod as if he already knew what plans he had for me.

Not a single other person in the prison volunteered. Which is how I learned that they were all near the end of their sentences, or due for court cases. I nearly laughed when I read into the details. With the way the Republic courts worked, and the planetary courts on Coruscant, they'd be in prison for longer than their sentences were. But their lawyers always seemed to get them out ahead of time. Whether on a technicality or through some legal loophole, the people who could afford it never remained for more than a few days at a time. For everyone else, our court dates were set years, if not decades ,away.

So, I was the only one who'd found a way out of the prison. Trading in my off-white jumpsuit for the olive drab of the Republic Navy. My long, unkempt beard was shaved away, leaving a barren face, and the long curly mess of hair I'd grown in prison was now a close-cropped buzz.

I still vividly remembered the sights after stepping out of the prison, the skies that I'd thought gorgeous before being arrested were now filled with Venators and Acclimators, more police presence than ever before walked the streets, and off in the distance, the Senate buildings and Jedi Temple standing apart from everything else.

The Republic Navy's basic training was odd compared to what I remembered the military back home going through. It was a lot less focused on physical activity and more focused on ensuring that we all knew our way around the starships that were being used in the Republic Navy. From weapons systems to piloting, we were all thrown into a three month crash-course and told to sink or swim.

Gunnery, piloting, the math on how to calculate hyperspace trajectories, I threw myself into all of it with an energy and a fury I hadn't thought I possessed anymore. I knew that there wasn't anything I could do to convince the Jedi that Palpatine was a Sith Lord. What evidence could I even uncover that wouldn't be buried along with me? After all, I'd spent the first half-decade of my life in this universe crawling up through Coruscant's underbelly before being thrown in jail for the other half. No one would trust me, and at this point I was nearly broken. My spirit had languished with no purpose and no idea what to do.

So, I threw myself into the training, learning everything I could and maxing out my time every chance I could get. Small arms training came second nature to me, I'd long been a person who loved firearms and Blasters were easy comparatively when it came to recoil impulses.

The Sims were where I spent the most time, though. I trained on piloting everything I could during the three-month period. While Starfighters were fun and agile, something inside of me simply loved getting to pilot the big ships. So, I spent time making moving the big lugs around like it was second nature before getting kicked off and into the next phase of training.

---

In the end, I fully expected this to end up being like Warhammer 40k. Despite assurances from various officers in the training courses, I knew that the Republic wasn't the gold standard that everyone thought it was. And I fully expected myself and the other criminal elements to be tossed into the blender of the frontlines to never be heard from again. No one ever cared if penal battalions or crews came back with losses.

Instead, I soon found myself in front of an up-armed Consular Class Light Cruiser on one of the many docking areas for Coruscant. The name Firebird was written across the side of the Consular in Aurebesh, a fresh coat of paint that matched that of a Venator's was on it, and newly installed twin-turbolaser batteries gleamed in the midday sun.

"Mister Hull," a strangely familiar voice interrupted my woolgathering. "If you would join me, we do not have all day."

"Sorry, sir," I dry-swallowed and stood at attention, my mind racing to place the face and voice in the hope that I wouldn't get thrown back into that prison. "It won't happen again."

"See to it that it doesn't," Lieutenant Condev replied, his calm gait carrying him further up the ramp into the ship. "Now come, you're the last crew member, and we're due to join the battlegroup headed for Chrisophsis within the hour."

Shrugging the bag filled with my extra uniforms and the lone datapad I'd scrounged onto my shoulders, I struggled to catch up to the taller man. Eventually, keeping pace with him and following his flanks.

"Stow your bag in cabin Cresh-3, and then join me on the bridge," the man continued on his path. "You'll take your place there, ensign."

"Aye, Captain," I replied, widening my stride to hit the designated cabit and stowed my bag into the small foot locker. Given the nature of my new Commanding Officer, I fully expected for him to be a stickler for cleanliness. Then, closing the door behind me, I moved to the Firebird's bridge.

---

"Permission to enter the bridge, sir?" Ensign Hull asked, pausing outside of the threshold of the bridge.

"Permission granted," Lieutenant Condev Teskit replied, his hands clasped behind his back as he gestured towards the empty seat. "Please take your place in the pilot's seat, Ensign Hull. We don't have time to waste here."

The other man took a seat and then familiarized himself with the controls before mapping them in a way that felt more comfortable to him and setting the communications headset on his head.

"Captain," Janine Franz, the communications officer, looked up. "Control is authorizing us to launch and join the fleet."

"Ensign Hull," Condev looked at the second-oldest member of his bridge crew. "Please follow the directions issued by Control. The space around Coruscant is crowded, and I'd hate for us to collide with another vessel."

"Aye, Sir," The Ensign replied, his professionalism fitting in well with the rest of the bridge crew.

As the Firebird lifted off gently and then boosted for the void of space, Teskit considered his bridge crew. They were all green. They'd never been blooded or fought a battle in the void, much less tangled with pirates or the other scum scattered across the galaxy.

When the Republic Navy had told him to recruit from the prisons of the Core, Teskit had been disgusted with the idea. As an officer of the Judiciary Corps, he had considered it an offense at first. But there were a few gems in the rough he'd seen. Ensign Hull was one, and there were others whom he was keeping an eye on the careers of. If he eventually came to command more than this small ship, then he would need the potentially experienced officers.

Assuming that they survived beyond the first few battles, that was. For now, though, he was stuck with the young faces of his current crew. The refit Consular might be undergunned compared to many ships, but she had good shields and was fast enough that she would be able to do some damage if given the opportunity.

"Receiving transmission from the Negotiator, Captain," Franz looked up, one of her locks coming free from the bun that trapped it and falling in front of her eyes. "We're being instructed to join in the fleet formation. We're to escort the Renown."

"Moving into formation," Ensign Hull reported, his calm control easing the ship into the fleet's formation without a bit of the hull out of line. "Coordinates for Cristophsis are locked in, Captain. Give the word, and we can begin our hyperspace jump."

"Wait until we're given the order, Ensign," Teskit looked out the viewport at the fleet. "The last thing we want to do now is perish alone against the enemy."

Now that they were in position, it turned into a waiting game as the rest of the Open Circle Fleet arrived and split into their battlegroups.

"Captain, we're authorized to jump, I repeat. Authorized to Jump."

"Ensign," The Lieutenant gave the order and watched as the stars turned into streaks ahead of him.

"ETA to Cristophsis is a day and a half, sir," Hull reported.

"Then we meet the enemy in a day," Teskit looked to his crew and found them all looking to him for comfort aside from Ensign Hull, whose gaze was locked with the lights outside of the cockpit.

The Ensign was an odd one to have found within the prison system. Sure, there were plenty of people who went undocumented as citizens of the Republic when it came to the Undercity of Coruscant. Most of them simply went about their business and either joined a gang or became one of the many numbers who worked in the small factories beneath the skyscrapers.

Hull was one of the few who found themselves at the whims of the local jurisdiction when he climbed out of the Undercity. In most cases, he would have been given a slap on the wrist and given a path to rehabilitate somewhere in the Mid Rim. But Hull had happened to climb up during a crackdown on all crime in that subsection of Coruscant. The local gangs had been at war and after one too many businesses were a casualty, the Judiciary officers, local police, and judge had acted swiftly and without mercy, making an example of those who had committed even the smallest crimes.

All of which explained the hard lines on the Ensign's face, the dark bags around his eyes that he didn't even attempt to conceal and the pale skin that seemed almost albino-esq when he'd first witnessed him in the prison.

Now, he seemed healthier and extremely motivated, but only time would tell if the Ensign was truly worth the investment that Teskit had placed in him.

Most of the members of the Republic military recruited from prisons were serving in logistical areas on the frontlines, supplying Clone Troopers and local militia with food and weapons. Treskit had other ideas for a few of them, though, and had dug into his own retirement savings to invest in their futures as potential Republic Navy Officers.

This war wouldn't last forever, and Treskit knew that there would be a need for determined and loyal officers in the Republic after this was all said and done. The Separatists weren't the only ones to think the Republic was weak and failing. Many held such thoughts in the darkest parts of their minds. But there was hope for a change, they just had to win this bloody war first.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 1

Location: Christoph System, Savareen Sector, Outer Rim Territories
22 BBY

The stream of stars solidified into coherent light again, and the rest of the Open Circle Fleet dropped out of hyperspace around us, our lone Consular moving as an escort to the Renown, one of the shiny new Venators that had been donated and absorbed into the reformed Republic Navy.

"Captain, FLEETCOM is instructing us to move in and support starfighter wings," Franz reported.

"Excellent," Lieutenant Teskit said calmly, his face set in stone. "Gunner Mattix, we are to remove any bombers that make it through the fighter screen. Ensign Hull, follow all instructions from the fleet until we make contact."

"Aye, sir, initiating burn to received coordinates," I tapped a few controls and felt the giant engines shudder underneath us. If we were on any larger ships, I'd simply be the director of the pilots and sending commands to the copilots. But on a Consular, I had main control, and the two copilots were feeding me information and giving course corrections as needed.

We slowly began to outpace the large wedge-shaped Venators and Acclimators. The Z-95 Headhunters and ARC-170s keeping pace with the other Consular-class refits that had been hastily assigned as escorts for the larger craft. The number of starfighters flying through the void to meet the swarms of droid fighters felt small compared to the masses of droids that were coming to meet us head on.

Despite the speeds we were moving at, it still took time before the clash. As the minutes crawled by, the pit in my stomach grew until suddenly, we were in the middle of the furball.

It was utter chaos around the ship, the sensors screamed at me as droid fighters surrounded us. I clenched my hands around the controls for a moment before the Captain's calm voice carried across the bridge.

"Ensign Hull, come to heading zero-five-four and pitch us up five degrees. Ensign Ronard, increase power to the rear deflectors," Lieutenant Teskit's hands remained clasped behind his back. "Mattix, the sight of those droids offends me, cleanse the space around us and coordinate fire with the starfighter squadrons."

"Adjusting heading to 054, pitching up five degrees, aye sir!" I tapped a control and one of the twin droid copilots began to pitch us up as the slight shift gave us the most coverage over the fighter swarms that surrounded us.

Mattix's control over the five main batteries was absolute, while the few droids that assisted maintained control of the point defenses.

Then, as soon as we were in the furball, we were out of it, our heading had taken us out of the furball and given us a chance to turn around and inflict more damage along the flanks.

"Shields are holding at sixty percent," Ronard reported. "We're still good to go, captain."

"Adjust the course to one-seven-nine and pitch down ten degrees," Teskit ordered. "We're going to swing around and hit the bombers."

"Adjusting course, aye sir," my hands danced on the controls, hitting the side thrusters to spin us to the heading the Lieutenant had indicated.

The Firebird now had clusters of fighters in the forward cone of fire for the turbolaser batteries, the droids and Clone fighters intermingling and spinning around the cruisers that had finally caught up. Dogfights ended in sudden explosions or continued for seconds before splitting off into other directions.

Taking a deep breath, I eased the Firebird back into the furball, twisting the ship with assistance from the lone engineer and the droid copilots that were being used in place of trained personnel at the moment.

"Captain, multiple squadrons within our AO are requesting assistance with clearing out enemy fighter pickets," Franz looked up at the Lieutenant from her chair.

"Find the nearest squadron and forward the coordinates to Ensign Hull, the more fighters we keep in the fight, the more we have to use against the enemy later," Teskit responded. "Have we received anymore orders from FLEETCOM?"

"Negative sir," Franz shook her head. "Though the Seppies jamming is likely preventing us from hearing anything more than the fighters around us."

"Very well," Teskit inclined his head a fraction. "We will continue as previously instructed until we are commanded otherwise. Chief Mattix, please remove the enemy fighters from our area of operations. Petty Officer Franz, the Ship's intercom."

The gunner opened fire on every droid fighter that crossed our path while I attempted to keep any damage to our light frigate at a minimum. Our deflectors barely staying active as we were hit with the blaster cannons of the Vultures that swarmed us.

Then the second wave of Clone Starfighters arrived, the large wedge shapes of the Venators now lending their medium turbolasers and point defenses to the fight and causing the Vultures to break off and streak back to the Lucrehulks that had carried them here.

"Damage report," Teskit glanced around at us.

"Moderate hull damage in sections Aurek and Dorn," Ronard reported. "Deflectors are recharging but the emitters were damaged around most of the ship. We'll only be able to squeeze thirty percent out of our Deflectors until we've made the necessary repairs."

"Engines are intact and still ready for any maneuvers we might need, captain," I flipped through the data on my console. Inertial Dampeners appear to be compensating at ninety percent efficiency."

"Very well. Ensign Ronard, begin repairs, I'll have our Navy Troopers begin rescue operations of surrounding Starfighter pilots," Lieutenant Teskit gestured for Franz to activate the intercoms and began issuing orders. "Ensign Hull, initiate full sensor sweeps in our immediate AO. I want to see how the fleet looks."

Tapping a few controls, I began the sensor sweep. The broad spectrum sweeps giving me a picture of what the void around us looked like. Scattered around us were the broken and shattered frames of starfighters, both separatist and Republic alike. As far as the other Consular class frigates, well, we'd certainly come out better than most of the others.

A third of the other escorts were gone, either shattered into pieces, or drifting without power in the void around us. Another third were in the same position that we were in with minor to moderate damage that would be repaired in the next few hours, days, or weeks.

And the last third were the frigates that had been held back with the Venators and Acclamators.

What was worse than the damage though, were the lifesigns. Hundreds, no thousands drifted through the empty void of space, a few ships like the Firebird were doing search and rescue operations while beginning emergency repairs, but the rest were with the Open Circle Fleet. Intent on breaking the blockade of Christophsis.

---

Twelve hours later…


"Lieutenant Teskit, once you have affected repairs, you're to rejoin the Renown and deliver any rescued personnel to the medical frigates," Admiral Yularen ordered. "The Renown and her escorts are to be dispatched to ensure the hyperlanes between Christophsis and the Mid-Rim remain open to our forces."

"Understood, Admiral," Teskit looked at the hologram of his current commanding officer. "We will begin moving immediately to rejoin the Renown and provide her with an escort."

"Captain Dara will be in command of the battlegroup, any further orders will be relayed through him," Yularen continued. "Begin Comms transfer," the Admiral instructed someone that Teskit couldn't see, the hologram winking out and being replaced with a man that was as young as Teskit's youngest bridge officer.

"Captain Dara," Teskit greeted his new CO, locking the tension of having another green officer be in command behind his iron will and stone facade. "The Firebird is en route to join the rest of your battlegroup. Once we've made contact with the medical frigates and have transferred the starfighter pilots, we'll be ready to join in any fleet actions."

"See to it that it happens in a timely manner," the captain's visage reeked of arrogance even through the hologram. "If you are not present shortly, you may join us along the hyperspace routes."

Teskit swallowed back the initial burst of anger and simply acknowledged the order before gesturing for Franz to cut the communications.

"Ensign, Hull, what time frame are we looking at for docking and unloading of our current passengers?" He asked the pilot.

"Two hours to the medical frigate, and then another to join up with the Renown's battlegroup, Captain," The Ensign replied.

"Very well," Teskit rested his hand on his chin. "Petty officer Franz, relay our ETA to the Renown's command console, and open up a channel to engineering."

"Ensign Ronard, here," A muffled voice responded.

"What is the status of the repairs on the emitter?" the Lieutenant asked the only other veteran on the crew.

"We should be able to get back up to seventy-five percent of peak performance," Ronard replied. "Anything more will require more time than I expect us to have."

"Thank you Ensign, you'll rotate out with the bridge crew once you've returned from making repairs."

Teskit knew the dangers of running a bridge crew ragged. One of the first captains he'd served under had nearly gotten his ship destroyed during the Stark-Hyperspace War. His crew had performed well during this battle so far, but if they were to win the war, then good practices needed to be enforced now while the initial cost of victory was fresh in their minds.

"You have done well," Teskit offered a rare smile as he looked at the small bridge crew. "Second Shift will take your place once we enter Hyperspace. I want all of you to get six hours of rack time at a minimum, eight if possible. Rested minds are less likely to make mistakes in the heat of combat."

The crew of the Firebird was much smaller than one of the cruisers demanded, so having two shifts instead of the usual recommended three was how things were going to have to be run until Teskit had a larger command.

"Sir, do you know why FLEETCOM is weakening our fleet before we've even accomplished our objectives yet?" Ensign Hull asked, gesturing to the small holotable that showed the system.

"Because we came with multiple goals in mind," Teskit walked to the holotable and touched a few controls, zooming out from Christophsis to the surrounding systems and the hyperlanes connecting them. "Christophsis is critical to our defense of this sector of the Mid-Rim not only because of its resources. But also because of its location. Barring several smaller, riskier routes, Christophsis is the anchor to many of the routes that would be required to move large fleet operations through. There is no telling how many raiders and enemies were sneaked in while we were En route. So, we are to ensure that the lanes between the Outer and Mid Rim remain clear of Separatist forces."

Teskit leaned forward and changed the hologram to one of their ship.

"Hopefully we will have repaired most of the damage before we encounter further enemies. But we will do as duty demands of us," Teskit stated plainly.

With the display now showing the battle in space, it was clear that there was a stalemate. The Separatists had retreated behind the moon, and the Republic had landed ground troops to combat the occupation forces. All that remained was to see who would make the first moves to take total control of the void in the system.

But that wasn't the concern of Teskit, so he noted a few key portions of the system for reference if he had to return and then focused on the task at hand.

 

[MarkWarrior]

One of the things that people didn't realize happened after combat was the adrenaline crash. You see, the human body can only stay operating at high alert for so long before it drags itself back down to operating at the normal level. Sure, training and experience can stave off the worst of the effects, but only for a set time.

Now that we were twelve hours after the initial push of the fleet into Christophsis, I was more than exhausted. Sure, I could probably continue piloting and even continue to function if I downed some of the 'caf' that they had here. But, I would rather just go crash in my bunk.

"Captain, we're in formation with the rest of the Renown's battlegroup," I reported as we finally reached the position we'd been ordered into, the maneuvering thrusters nudging us to the exact coordinates we'd been ordered to.
"Second shift, report to the bridge," Lieutenant Teskit leaned over the intercom system that Franz had keyed for him.

A few moments later, the five crew members of second shift had arrived at the bridge. Droids were filling in for the other four slots until we had the personnel freed up for the tasks.

"Avon," I nodded at the Twi'lek that was the secondary pilot. "Let me flip the controls to how you like them."

"Thanks, you get some rest. I'd hate for me to have to fill in for you permanantly," the other pilot chuckled as I touched a few controls and changed the configuration back to the standard for the Consular.

"I'd be fine with you taking over," I shrugged. "You've got more experience."

"I hate flying," The Twi'lek shuddered. "I much prefer being the cargo hauler. Once we pick up a real pilot, I'll gladly go back to the logistical side of things."

"Well, I guess we'll see what happens," I shrugged and stepped out of the pilot's section, using the console as support for a minute before stabilizing and heading for the crew quarters.

My cabin (Cresh-3) was shared with Ensign Ronard. Instead of hot-swapping like the US Navy did back on Earth, we had shared cabins and when the door slid open to reveal the engineer already snoring away on the small bunk.

I quickly stripped out of my uniform and laid down in my bunk, pulled the thin but warm sheet and blanket up, and closed my eyes.

But sleep never came, at least not at first. Instead, my brain went over everything that happened in the void when I was piloting. All of the mistakes, every little thing that I'd done wrong in maneuvering and the places where I could have potentially saved the lives of some of the starfighters and pilots.

Eventually, I sighed and opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling like I'd done in the prison for the last few years and feeling the tension in my spine. Oddly enough, it was that 'click' in my brain that I wasn't in prison anymore that calmed my brain down enough for it to slowly shut down.

With a final yawn, I drifted off to sleep.

–
–

"Caf sucks," I complained to Ronard as we sat in the small kitchenette of the Firebird. The beverage did deliver caffeine to your system like it was supposed to, but it wasn't coffee, and I missed the drinks from home.

"Don't drink it then," The older man shrugged.

"It's better than not having anything," I sighed, though deep within, I was seriously considering trying to locate coffee or something similar. Hell, even though I didn't smoke outside of a cigar once or twice a year back home, I'd even like a zyn or some sort of nicotine. Anything that would remind me of home at this point.

But for now, I was stuck with caf, which was doing fine on helping me wake up if nothing else, so I sucked it up and finished the freeze-dried meal that breakfast consisted of.

Swallowing down the last of the meal with the mug of caf, I tossed the package for the ration into the trash and put the mug in what passed for the futuristic dishwashers here.

"You heading to the bridge when you're done?" I asked the other Ensign.

"No," He wiped off his mouth. "I've still got emitters to repair and test before we see combat again. The last thing the Firebird needs is to have a deflector fail at the wrong time."

The engineer was blunt, but I absolutely understood what he was saying. Outside of starfighters, the Consular was the lightest and most fragile ship the Republic fielded currently. But I'd heard rumors of the Corellians upscaling the design to a more heavily armored and armed ship instead of the refits we were using now. But until we were using one of those larger ships, we were a glass cannon without the extreme firepower.

"If we ever have the time, I'd like to learn what I can do to help," I offered.

"Stick to piloting," he grunted. "Last thing I need is for you to kriff something up."

"Alright," I raised my hands in surrender. "I just have an awful aversion to dying right now. So, I figured I'd offer."

Ronard sighed and glanced up from his food.

"Look, I appreciate the offer, and if we weren't in an active war, I'd probably be willing to teach you everything. But we don't have the time, and this isn't the place for me to show you basic repairs," the engineer sipped his caf. "So, stick to your job. If you pilot well enough, I should have less repairs to make. Improve where you can right now. Let me worry about keeping the Firebird in good repair."

"Fair enough," I shrugged and stepped out of the kitchenette, squeezing by Janine as she pulled her brown hair into a tight bun and tucked it under her cap.

We'd all had issues sleeping after our first day of combat. Well, everyone except for the Lieutenant and Ronard. But they were the veterans, they already knew what to expect. The rest of us were green, and still had a lot of learning to do before we were settled completely into our new roles.

So, with breakfast finished, I straightened my uniform and headed for the bridge. I'd be starting my shift early. But given we didn't know what would be waiting for us when we dropped out of hyperspace, I figured I'd rather be at my station where I had some control over things instead of stuck waiting to figure out if I'd live or die.

---

Lieutenant Teskit stepped onto the bridge of his ship, looking around and nodding in satisfaction as he noted the first shift was already waiting at their stations.

"Captain on deck!" Ensign Ronard called out, causing the entire crew minus the droids to stand to attention.

"At ease," Teskit ordered. "Ensign Ronard, do you have a report on the repairs?"

"We're as spaceworthy as we can be without a shipyard," Ronard replied. "Deflectors are holding steady at ninety-seven percent efficiency, everything else has been repaired."

"Excellent," Teksit returned to his usual stance. "Ensign Hull, how long until we have arrived."

"ETA is five minutes, sir," Hull replied.

"Mattix, warm up the weapons. Franz, be ready to receive transmissions from the Renown," He ordered. "When we drop out of hyperspace, I want us prepared for anything that may await us on the other side."

The crew went through their jobs and a few short moments later, the Firebird and other ships dropped out of hyperspace in formation. A planet and system I didn't know the name of was 'below' us.

But there weren't any Separatist ships in the system, so everything seemed calm.

"Receiving transmission from Captain Dara," Franz relayed.

"Lieutenant Teskit, your ship and the Pathfinder are to act as a scouting party," Captain Dara commanded. "You're free to do whatever is necessary should you encounter the Separatists."

"Understood, Captain," Teskit acknowledged. "I will begin coordinating with the Pathfinder immediately."

The Captain's hologram winked out of existence, leaving us in silence before Treskit began issuing orders.

"Captain, the Pathfinder is signalling that they'll follow our lead," Franz reported, her hands dancing across the communications suite.

"Very well," Teskit replied. "Signal for her to fall onto our left flank. Ensign Hull, begin preparations to take us into hyperspace."

"Aye sir, running calculations now," Hull began typing into his console.

"Petty Officer, once the Pathfinder has given her readiness, coordinate with Ensign Hull for the jump," Teskit commanded, taking the lull to try and remember who commanded the Pathfinder, only to draw a blank until he checked Franz's terminal to see that it was entirely manned by the Clones.

While the Lieutenant understood the use of the Clones as an emergency force, he was uncomfortable with the idea of fighting the war solely with clones as a fighting force. There were plenty of Republic Citizens that would be willing to volunteer to join the Navy and Army should they be given the opportunity. But HIGHCOM seemed content to utilize the Clones in place of a recruited navy and army. Despite the extreme costs of a clone army when compared to recruits.

"Hyperspace jump is prepared, captain," Hull reported. "Pathfinder is ready to jump as well."

"Initiate jump," Teskit replied. "Mattix, ensure our weapons are ready for when we drop out of hyperspace."

"Aye sir," the Chief Gunner officer replied as the stars turned into the streaks of light. "We'll be ready for them."

–
–

Shortly after jumping, the ships were yanked out of the hyperlane, the Firebird and Pathfinder narrowly avoiding an asteroid blocking the path.

"Captain, two Sabaoth destroyers and their starfighter escorts!" Ensign Hull reported.

"Hmm, the reports from Geonosis that the entire squadron was rendered combat incapable must be incorrect then," Teskit shook his head. "I recognize this tactic though, they utilized the Asteroid as a gravity generator. It's an old pirate trick, risky to pull off because you risk losing the cargo, but it does work. Mattix, ensure that the concussion missile launchers are loaded and prepped. We're outgunned here, but not by much, and Toth was the best of Sabaoth, and without him, they'll be lacking."

The Lieutenant stepped forward to the holotable as our sensors began to put together an image of the system."Call for the rest of the Renown's battlegroup to assist us, and then signal for the Pathfinder to create overlapping lanes of fire with us. After we've dealt with the starfighters, we'll have the opportunity to engage the destroyers themselves."

Teskit could see the hesitation in his crew for a moment and waited to see if they would follow his orders. A battle where they were among a fleet was one thing. A small skirmish between nearly equal forces? With the greater potential for their deaths, that was something different.

One heartbeat, then another, but the bridge crew moved through their paces. Whether it was training, fear, or both, the hesitation was gone, replaced with the quick action of a prepared crew.

"Ensign Hull, keep us out of range of the capital ship weapons of the destroyers," Teskit said, leaning over the holotable and watching as the twenty-four starfighters began to close in on the twin frigates. "Mattix, calculate the starfighters likely course and prepare to launch our concussion missiles."

"Yes, sir!" The two men responded, doing as instructed while the red dots moved closer on the console.

Now, it came down to the thing that made spacetime combat such an adrenaline rush and exhaustive experience. Space was massive, and even the 'short' distance between the frigates and the destroyers took time to advance through. So, even as the thrusters engaged, and the crew went through the calculations involving velocity and weapons tracking, the distance grew shorter. First five minutes passed, then ten, and at the twenty minute mark, the Sabaoth starfighters were within range.

The concussion missiles had been launched in advance and reached the initial fighters as they cleared the asteroid's horizon, the missiles detonating and damaging or destroying a fourth of the missiles before they reached extreme turbolaser range.

Mattix's face was set in stone, his hands dancing across his console as the turbolasers under his control began to engage the fighters, the point defence lasers taking care of anything that broke through and Hull's maneuvers keeping the Firebird from taking too much damage.

"Hull, port emergency thrusters on my mark," Teskit saw the proton torpedoes launch on the table and knew that they wouldn't have much time to evade.

"Thrusters are ready, captain," Hull replied, steady but filled with the adrenaline of combat.

Teskit's eyes tracked the torpedoes, knowing that the tracking wouldn't be fooled if they didn't do this at the correct time.

"Mark," Teskit ordered, the thrusters kicking in and sending the Firebird dancing to the right, the pack of torpedoes chasing them losing track and spinning off into the void of deep space.

"Enemy Starfighter strength is down to half," Franz took over the sensor feeds while coordinating with the other Republic vessel. "Pathfinder is reporting moderate damage, her concussion missile launchers are damaged."

"Have them pull back," Teskit instructed. "Hull, shift heading to two-three-five and spin down twelve degrees. We're going to pull the rest of the squadrons onto our tails. The Pathfinder needs to be ready to assist."

Hull and the droid copilots skillfully executed the command while Ronard shifted the power to the rear deflectors.

The twelve starfighters that remained closed in on the Firebird's tail as the Pathfinder opened up in a vicious crossfire that removed all but four fighters from the board.

After that, the four survivors peeled off and headed back for the destroyers. The first part of this skirmish was finished, now came the more difficult part.

 

[MarkWarrior]

---

Chapter 3

I gave a long exhale as I watched the last four starfighters leave the Firebird behind. With the initial danger now past, I could rest my OODA loop and get my head in order.

"Ensign Hull," The Lieutenant was now over my shoulder instead of leaning over the holotable. "Please bring us back into overlap with the Pathfinder and then plot a course for intercepting the destroyers."

"Aye sir," I replied, sending the course plotting task over to one of the droid copilots and hitting the control for the starboard maneuvering thrusters, spinning us around and heading back to our damaged ally.

"Damn," I winced as the other Consular filled the bridge viewports. There were a few hull breaches and the ship was leaking atmosphere in a few places. "She's in a sorry state."

"Pathfinder is reporting minor hull damage," Franz answered the question I hadn't voiced yet. "Her deflectors are at full strength though, and she's restored functionality to her port concussion missile launchers."

"Good," Lieutenant Teskit was looking at the Clone-crewed ship in front of us. "Have them send a full status readout in the next few moments before we move further into the system and eliminate the remainder of the Separatist forces."

"This is CT-1972," the voice of one of the Clones came through the communications suite. "We're combat capable and ready to bring the fight to the enemy."

I could almost sense the sigh of the Lieutenant as he breathed and then replied.

"We have not said that you are incapable of further combat," Teskit's arms found their natural place behind his back once more. "I need the full readouts of your functionality in order to plan properly."

"Understood, Sir," The clone replied. "Sending technical readout now."

I just sat in my chair, triple-checking the plotted course while waiting to hear what my orders would be.

"Sabaoth Destroyers are hardy ships, but they possess weaknesses that we can exploit if we move fast enough to take advantage. They are highly maneuverable vessels, yes. But they pay a heavy price for that ability," Teskit explained after a few moments, his datapad in his hand while he reviewed the damage that'd be done to the Pathfinder and the Firebird. "Their thrusters are where the shields are weak, and the capital ship turrets nearly overtax their generators when they are fired."

It only took me a minute to figure out what the Lieutenant's plan was.

We had a slight edge in speed on the destroyers, even if we couldn't match their firepower. And given the Pathfinder had restored functionality to some of their missile launchers, we now had an opportunity.

If I was right, then we were going to be playing bait, forcing the two destroyers to play to our tune while the clone operated ship took out their thrusters and main armament.

That's what I thought, at least. Until the Lieutenant continued.

"According to the initial scans that we took of the system and of the ships, it is obvious that while these two did escape from Geonosis, they are not as intact as they would like for us to believe," the terminals in front of each of us lit up with the scans. "As you can see here, one of the destroyers is missing the entirety of its capital ship turrets and is acting as a starfighter carrier. The other one has a weak thruster profile, but still retains all of its usual armament So, instead of baiting them out, we're going to be striking while they are still reeling from the loss of their starfighter escorts. Franze, send our plotted course to the Pathfinder and instruct them to use their own discretion for their engagement. Ensign Hull, give me a slingshot trajectory around the asteroid to enhance our speed. Ronard, reload our concussion missile tubes. Mattix, I want a firing solution ready for those missiles once we're in knife-fight range."

Tapping a single control, I forwarded the course I'd plotted to Franz with a short nod before running through the math on the slingshot that the Lieutenant ordered. I was a little concerned about the weapons and how fast we'd be moving through the enemy formation, and if I 'missed' where they were located, then we'd be moving too fast to turn around and assist the Pathfinder. So, I had to get this right the first time.

Running through the math in my head, I plotted out the most likely course for the enemy ships and then ran the slingshot through the duo. The droids ran simulations until we found one with a high chance of success and I forwarded it to the Lieutenant for approval.

"CT-1972, begin combat run," Teskit had signaled for Franz to open the channel. "We're initiating ours as well," He gave me a sharp nod.

"Executing a slingshot maneuver, aye, sir!" I sent a burst of fuel through the thrusters and felt the rumble as our engines began to accelerate around the asteroid.

The droids handled the maneuvering thrusters, keeping us in a tightly controlled orbit as we picked up extra speed from the gravity generated, (every little bit counted). And then we were on the other side and our sensors gave us the full picture of the system.

"So that's how they towed it into place," Ronard muttered as his console fed him data behind me. "Captain, we're going to need to take out those tugs as well."

"One problem at a time, ensign," Teskit replied. "We have no idea if those crews were pressed into service, or if they are manned by droids. Mattix, I'm sending you an alternate firing solution for the concussion missiles. Ensure that it is followed," Teskit tapped a control on his datapad. "When we are in range, focus fire on the enemy capital ship turrets, we can handle some hits from their secondary armaments, but one or two shots from those turrets will tear us to pieces."

I felt my jaw clench as we neared the effective range of said turrets, acting against the instincts that told me to alter trajectory in order to evade the green lances that chased the Firebird.

As we got closer, the fire became more accurate, less spotty when the predictive algorithms and people in charge of targeting caught onto our plan. But by then, it was too late.

We were in range for a handful of seconds, our turbolasers spitting fire, and the missiles exiting their tubes and then we were through the gauntlet. Our deflectors were down, and there were minor hull breaches, but we were alive.

"Ensign Hull, initiate retrograde burn now, and rotate so our belly is facing the enemy. We have more armor there at the moment and I'd rather take the hits where we can afford it."

I immediately began using the retro thrusters and maneuvering thrusters to arrest our speed slightly and spin us around. The long arc wasn't what I'd have liked, but even with how loosely we followed the laws of physics sometimes, we had to obey some of them. So, turning around, we saw the damage we and the Pathfinder had done on our pass.

The concussion missiles had been aimed at the faster destroyer's main engines. Most of them simply broke on the shields, but the others damaged the thrusters and caused them to sputter and burn out.

The Pathfinder had taken less hits than us. But one of them appeared to have hit a power generator, because the other Consular was dead in space, the only sign of life being the emergency transponder that activated once the backup power had triggered. As far as the destroyer with firepower remaining, after the initial hits and damage, it turned tail and began running, the hyperdrive kicking in once it'd made it past the asteroid's slight gravity.

In the distant viewport, the ship winked out of existence as it and the civilian tugs leaped to hyperspace, leaving us behind in the mix of debris and broken vessels.

---

"Captain, the crippled destroyer is surrendering," Petty Officer Franz reported.

Lieutenant Teskit allowed himself an internal sigh of relief at that report. He'd been prepared to continue the battle, but he would rather his ship and crew be alive than sacrifice themselves against a small force such as this.

"Tell them we accept their surrender," Teskit instructed, keeping his emotions locked down. "And instruct them to power down weapons."

"Sending orders over, aye sir!" Franze replied, her fingers typing up the message and sending it over to the crippled destroyer.

"Ensign Hull, bring us around to the Pathfinder," The Lieutenant tapped the intercom button and waited for it to connect. "Ronard, damage report."

"Sir, we've got hull breaches in sectors Besh one through three, fires in Cresh four, and our inertial dampeners are operating at forty percent strength," Ronard reported. "I've blocked all access to the exposed sections and vented the atmosphere in Cresh four. Deflectors seem to be slowly charging back up to the strength they were prior to combat."

"Very well," Teskit walked over to the holotable again. "Franz, give me the ship's intercom," She touched the button and he nodded in thanks. "All hands, prepare for search and rescue operations. Lieutenant Cora, prepare your boarding team and take a shuttle to the Separatist vessel. I don't want them deciding to renege on their surrender."

The security team leader and her handful of navy troopers boarded the small shuttle and docked with the Sabaoth destroyer, a communication coming in shortly from them that the ship was under their control.

While the security team did their job, the rest of the ship's crew began working on rescuing the Clones immediately. Ensign Hull docked with the Pathfinder and forwarded scans taken of the space around to the rescue teams. Said rescue teams tracked escape pods from the damaged Republic vessel and teams got to work. The handful of docking bays were vented while teams in vacuum rated suits and tethers attached magnetic cables and winched them into the said bays.

Then, as they finished up with those efforts and towed the Pathfinder near the destroyer, a handful of ships arrived out of hyperspace. The wedge-shapes and pain scheme telling Teskit exactly who it was that had arrived.

"Franz, open a direct channel with the lead Ship," Teskit grinned internally, after all, it wasn't often that two veterans of the Stark-Hyperspace Wars were able to meet.

"Lieutenant Teskit," The hologram of Jedi-General Plo Koon gave a humble nod. "I do not believe I have had the pleasure of speaking to you in many years."

"It has been over a decade, General," Teskit replied. "I regret that the circumstances, but am grateful to see an allied force."

"Indeed," The Jedi glanced away before bringing his attention back to the conversation. "I have dispatched engineering teams to assist in repairing what we can. We will also take possession of the prisoners aboard the enemy ship."

"Very well, General," Teskit inclined his head. "We will also require assistance with clearing the blockage of the Hyperlane. I have yet to receive any further instructions from the the Renown and her captain since beginning this skirmish."

"I will leave behind several Corvettes to tend to this task. Unfortunately, my main force is needed elsewhere." With that, the conversation wound down, and the majority of the Jedi-General's fleet vanished into hyperspace as soon as they'd vaporized most of the asteroid with their turbolaser batteries, leaving a handful of CR-90 Corvettes behind to assist with the prisoners and repairs.

"Captain, requesting permission to enter the bridge," A clone asked, standing on the outside of the threshold.

"Permission granted," Teskit glanced up from the holotable where he was coordinating the last of the search and rescue efforts.

"CT-1972 reporting," the clone saluted.

"At ease," Teskit replied. "Do you require something?"

"Sir, my men and I are ready to be put back to work," the clone replied.

"Your ship is currently undergoing emergency repairs," the Lieutenant replied. "And we've finally received a transmission from FLEETCOM. After we're able to move again, we're to report to the Core."

"May I ask why, sir?" 72 asked.

"Our ships were emergency refits intended for being rushed to the battlefield," Teskit explained. "The modular nature of the Consular and Corellian corvettes made this a cheap and fast option. We're to be repaired, given slightly better refits, and attached to a smaller battlegroup for escorting supply convoys to the front lines."

"But our orders-"
"Orders change," Teskit stood up straight instead of leaning over the holotable. "The liberation of Christophsis and other besieged worlds will not be accomplished overnight. There is plenty for us to do. Take advantage of the rest while you can," Teskit pitched his voice to the entire bridge instead of just the clone. "There will be times when that is a luxury we cannot afford."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 4

"So, I signed up because I've always wanted to work on a ship." Janine Franz gestured towards the caf pot with her cup as if asking for a refill. "Why'd you guys join?"

"I was an asteroid miner," Mattix shrugged. "Always loved blowing things up, and this paid a lot better than working in one of the belts."

"It was this or wait for a court date set twenty years from now," Was all that I said, not really wanting to expand on my experiences before being given this opportunity. "Honestly, I was just happy to see the sky."

"Damn," Franz shook her head. "Twenty years? What in the Corellian Nine hells did you do?"

"Crawled my way out of the Undercity at the wrong place and time," I offered. "A bunch of gangs were warring in the place I popped out," I chuckled at the absurdity of it even now. "There'd just been a massive firefight, and I was the only person there, standing like an idiot looking at the buildings and skies around me. So, I'm in a circle of dead or dying people with a blaster on me, well. It wasn't hard for them to throw me in prison," I shook my head. "Honestly, prison was better than the undercity," I shuddered. "At least there I got real food every few days, and I was safe from the nastier critters that love the dark."

"And I thought the asteroids were bad," Mattix laughed before changing the subject. "So, anyone heard anything about the refits?"

"They're not doing much of anything to improve survival," Janine sighed. "I took a peek at some of the transmissions while we were en route to the repair bays. We're getting a couple of boosters for our power plant and two more concussion missile launchers. That's it."

"That's not the only thing we're getting," I shook my head. "The Pathfinder is being scrapped. Her crew is being folded into ours, and we're getting rid of the droids that were handling the tasks we didn't have the manpower for."

"Not like there's much difference," Mattix scowled. "They act about the same as droids. We didn't even get so much as a thank you for dragging their asses out of the fire."

"I mean, if the news is to be trusted, they're basically brainwashed with the same personality from birth until now," Janine finished her cup of caf. "Could be they just don't know anything different yet."

I scratched at my clean-shaven face, missing the beard that used to grow there.

"Anyone got a copy of the regs?" I asked, realizing I'd never looked up if I was allowed to have a beard or not.

"Why?" Mattix asked, looking at me like I'd grown a second head for a moment.

"I've got to see if there's anything in it about growing my beard back," I replied.

"I don't remember seeing anything about that," Janine offered. "I've got a copy of them on my datapad. I can send it to you."

"I'd appreciate it," I nodded, collecting my dish and the package left from the food. "Now, I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to go get some rest."

I moved to open the door and head to my bunk when the door slid open, revealing Lieutenant Teskit and Ensign Ronard.

"Good," Teskit said. "You're all here. Some things need to be discussed as we conduct operations in the future."

The lieutenant waited for us all to be seated before he began to speak, his visage composed as it always was.

"As I am sure you are aware, we will soon be partnered with a new battlegroup that is not a part of our initial chain of command," he glanced at Franz as if he knew she'd been peeking at the communications, but didn't say anything about it. "We will also be absorbing the Pathfinder's crew into our own. Myself, Ensign Hull, and Ensign Ronard all outrank the majority of the Clones. However, CT-1972 is going to be the acting XO while present," Teskit held up a hand, silencing Mattix before he could protest. "He outranks you, and you will follow orders if he is in command. The Clones are to be distributed among both first and second shift bridge crews as their skill sets are determined and training is completed."

The Lieutenant then stepped back and allowed us to ask questions.

"I didn't sign up to be ordered around by a bunch of biological droids," Mattix crossed his arms across his chest. "Are you sure about trusting our lives with these clones, sir? They don't even have names. They have designations. Just like kriffing droids."

"They are just as capable as any of you," Teskit replied. "Though I am concerned with their unwillingness to interpret orders beyond the immediate. I believe that more experience will break them of that habit. But as with all recruits, experience only comes with time."

"Lieutenant, my biggest concern is the lack of speed from any new copilots," I brought it up. "Right now, the droids can react as soon as I do, their algorithms can predict and work with me. There might be a loss in efficiency for the first few battles as the Clones learn how I pilot the Firebird. I don't exactly use the factory standard controls," I shrugged. "And I prefer being alive to dead, seconds matter in a fight."

"Indeed, they do," Teskit smirked. "Which is why you and your new copilots will be conducting simulator training while the Firebird is getting her refits. Anyone else?"

"We'll have more engineers," Ronard shrugged. "That's good enough for me."

"No, sir," Janine shook her head. "I have no further issues or thoughts on the matter."

"Good," Teskit allowed the smirk to fall from his face. "We will be docking with the yards at Anaxes in two days. After the refits, we will join up with the new battlegroup being formed as logistical escorts."

"I do have one question," Ronard said. "Who will be the commander of this new battlegroup?"

"Commodore Dao," Teskit's jaw clenched and unclenched before he continued. "I've served with him before, and we should be fine as long as we are working on logistical operations."

It was obvious that Teskit had issues with this officer, but given how stoic our CO was, I didn't want to ask for any more information at the moment.

"If there are no further questions, then I'll leave you to it," the Lieutenant nodded at us. "Report for regular shift rotations until we've arrived at the repair bays. I'll grant what shore leave I can."

---

"I'm not sure that four ships are enough to act as proper escorts," Lieutenant argued with Commodore Dao and Reef Drake, one of the admirals he'd struggled with shortly after the Stark-Hyperspace War. "Yes, the two Arquitens have the firepower to scare off any individual raiders, but you're trying to rely on the two cruisers and another Consular-class frigate as well as my own."

"I understand the reservations," Commodore Dao replied, acting as neutral ground, for once, actually showing some tactical competence. "But we have no evidence that the Separatists have breached beyond Cristophsis on these hyperlanes as of yet. Beyond that, we don't have the crew to spare."

Or, he could just be an idiot and ignore the fact that Lieutenant Teskit and his crew had just finished fighting two ships on the very hyperlane that was argued to be 'clear.'

So, with a sigh, Teskit did what he always had to do when the brass ignored him. "I want it on record that I protest escorting a massive amount of lightly armed ships through potentially dangerous corridors," Teskit sighed, at least now it would be harder to make him a scapegoat for this sort of thing, again…"

"Your protest is noted," the Commodore visibly frowned. "Look, I don't like it any more than you do. I know that you and I have had our differences, but there are things we do agree on, and this escort boondoggle is one of them. Hopefully, this goes smoothly, and in the next few months, we get enough ships and manpower brought online for us to have proper convoys."

Drake then spoke up, his hologram taking over for Commodore Daos, and showing the smug face of the admiral who'd worked his way up through corruption and incompetence.

"Depending on how badly the relief supplies are needed on Cristophsis, we may need to divert you to assist immediately."

"Admiral," Teskit warned, keeping his face neutral. "That may not be the best idea for ensuring the supplies make it to the fronts where they're needed."

"And who are you to say what's needed for the war effort, Lieutenant?" Drake asked. "The Republic doesn't have time to pull any ships back for repairs at this time. Make what repairs you can and get to the coordinates the Commodore sends you. –"

Teskit used an old trick he'd learned from a slicer to fake a connection interruption and glared as the terminal chirped a few moments later with the coordinates for the rendezvous.

Standing up from his desk, the Lieutenant took a moment to calm himself before palming the intercom button near his door.

"All hands, report to the cargo bay," He ordered. It was the only place big enough to fit the Clones and his crew all in the same place.

Grabbing his datapad, Teskit quickly went through the status reports on the Pathfinder that had been sent to him before the hyperspace jump for both of them. Yes, this might work, but they'd be leaving some supplies behind when they scuttled the other ship.

Taking a moment to straighten his uniform and lock his emotions away, the Lieutenant strode powerfully through the ship until he reached the cargo hold.

The Clones had already shifted crates and made a temporary living space among the supplies when they'd been rescued from the void. Despite his initial impressions, it seemed there were human minds in their heads. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd seen navy officers desperately try to hide lewd contraband.

"Officer on deck!" Ensign Hull called out as he entered their section, the clones and his crew snapping to attention.

"At ease," Teskit ordered. "Despite our conversation earlier, the Republic has seen fit to override its previous instructions. Instead of reporting for the repairs, we're to head immediately to the Rendezvous point and begin convoy escorts."

He looked around at the crew, noting their expressions and how they felt about this.

"Unfortunately, I cannot refuse those orders or work around them," the Lieutenant continued. "However, we can make some repairs before we reach our meeting point. CT-1972, I regret to inform you that your ship is being stripped of anything useful and scuttled. But, we're going to need everything we can get."

"She was already supposed to be scrapped upon return," the Clone frowned. "What do you mean by modifications?"

"Ronard," Teskit nodded at his old friend. "Forward emergency plan Jenth-one to the crew. We'll need everyone working on this if we're going to get it done before we start escorting ships."

"Sir, that's a lot of equipment stripped off," one of the Clone engineers muttered. "It'll take at least three shifts to get all of that done. More if you want to actually use that to repair this one."

"I'm well aware of the difficulties," Treskit replied. "But we have burnt out emitters, damaged inertial dampeners, and a few of our sectors are still sealed off due to hull breaches. We need all of the equipment possible if we want to survive the next fight long enough to get repaired at a proper yard," The Lieutenant tapped a button on his datapad and then continued. "I've sent the details of how the next few shifts will work to each of your 'pads."

"You, you, and you," Ronard pointed to the trio of clones that had the markings for engineers on their uniforms. "You're with me. I've got the list of everything functional on the Pathfinder when we got her working enough to slave her to the Firebird. The second list here is everything we're going to need immediately. Everything else," the Ensign shrugged. "We'll either manage to squeeze it into our holds, or we'll scuttle it with the rest of the ship."


"Everyone else, go collect your pads and execute your parts of the plan," Teskit ordered. "Until further notice, we're going to be operating under shift plan Dorn."

"I'll adjust the ship's time to reflect the shift plan, sir," Franz finally said.

Thankfully, none of the crew seemed opposed to the shift plan," Teskit breathed an internal sigh of relief. Which was a good thing, because it was the best of the shift plans when it came to sleeping outside of Aurek. Dorn meant you worked sixteen-hour shifts and then got eight hours to eat and sleep. Just enough to keep 'functional' in the short term, but long term, the effects were draining on a crew's psyche. Unfortunate, but it needed to be done. And right now, they had the crew that, once they'd completed the repairs, they could move back to Aurek.

But for now, they had to get to work.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 5

"Captain, dropping out of hyperspace in thirty seconds," I reported, resisting the urge to wipe sleep from my eyes.

"Franz, please have the communications suite ready," Teskit nodded. "I expect we'll have to explain our brief delay."

Just as he predicted, as soon as the streaks of light reformed into individual stars, we were hailed from multiple different sources.

"Sir, multiple hails. The Corellian PDF is hailing us and asking for our Republic ID and system access authorization," Franz said. "And Commodore Dao is asking to speak to you directly.

"Send the authorization protocols and the ship's designation," Teskit replied. "Then accept the hail from Dao."

I kept an eye on the sensor feeds. Corellia was a large hub of trade for the Core, and despite space being massive, the way that you kept things from getting congested in space was to have specific lanes broadcast from the space version of air traffic control towers.

"Lieutenant Teskit, you're fourteen hours behind schedule," I grimaced at the way the commodore pronounced the word, but listened instead of commenting as the Lieutenant responded.

"Unfortunately, the Pathfinder's hyperdrive had received damage that we hadn't identified in the immediate aftermath of our previous battle," Teskit stated, his gray eyes not wavering from the hologram. "We attempted to repair it, but in the end had to scuttle the ship to ensure that it didn't fall into enemy hands."

"Regardless of your reasons," Dao sighed. "You're here now. Fall into formation alongside the Starfury. The Hydra and Ardent are the other two ships of this battlegroup. We will make up the escort of this convoy and others for the foreseeable future."

I took note of that and checked the sensors until I found the Arquitens listed under that ID tag, surrounded by assorted freighters that I assumed we were the escorts for. But I waited for the Lieutenant to give the order. I knew that initiative was a good thing, but I didn't have confirmation on our access to Corellia, and I hadn't received the appropriate path to use through the system itself yet.

"Once we receive the go ahead from the Corellian system control, we'll join the battlegroup," Teskit replied. "Is there any further information that I should be informed of?"

"We have a Jedi Commander," the Commodore shrugged. "Jedi Knight Kalyna Durald has taken command of the limited starfighters among our battlegroup. I believe you won't have a problem given your experience with the Order." Dao's head shifted to something on his ship before he refocused on the communications. "That will be all, Lieutenant."

With a quick touch of the controls, Franz ended the transmission before speaking.

"Sir, we've received authorization and a designated path through the system," She reported. "I've forwarded the requested path to Ensign Hull."

"You heard the Commodore, Ensign." Teskit's gaze turned to me at the con. "Bring us into formation with the Starfury. Ensure that we do not deviate from the path given."

Sending the secondary calculations to the Clones that had replaced the droids as my copilots, we quickly charted the course and began heading into the system.

It was funny, I'd been worried about them not being as efficient as the droids. But they'd blown my expectations out of the water after spending the last few days working closely with them. Admittedly, naming them was a bit of a problem, but we quickly had a name for at least one of them after a few rounds of Pazaak.

"Frank" had tried to cheat nearly as soon as he learned the rules of the game before finding out that skilled players were better at figuring out the tells of cheats early on. "Victor," on the other hand, had lost at every turn. So, of course, in the traditional military fashion, we turned their nicknames into the opposite of what they actually had demonstrated. Frank was a cheat and dishonest when it came to games, and Victor was anything but.

However, for all of their faults, when breaking out of their shell, they performed spectacularly when it came to their job. Quickly figuring out my methods and learning to anticipate how I was going to do things came as almost second nature to them. Of course, we hadn't operated in combat yet, but I was hoping we could maintain this level of synchronicity when we did enter combat.

Giving my head a quick shake, I refocused on the console in front of me. The problem with now being in a sector of space that wasn't in the middle of combat is that full-speed maneuvers were restricted. So, the ETA for slotting into our position among the battlegroup was two more hours. And unfortunately, under shift plan Dorn, I still had four hours of work before I would rotate out with the Clone pilot who'd taken Avon's place on Second shift.

Jazz was a good pilot, if a little rigid, and would be able to keep us alive if we entered combat along our escort route. But the man couldn't carry a tune to save his life. Which was a shame, given he had the largest collection of music onboard the ship. (He'd apparently started collecting the contraband while a kid undergoing training and kept the habit up til now.)

Still, I settled in for the next few hours, the occasional twitch of a control correcting our path as we moved to escort the convoy.

---

Location: Spirana, Inner Rim
Three Months since the initial battle at Christophsis

"Thank you for taking my considerations seriously," Kalyna Durald's voice came through the speakers as her Delta-7 Aetherpsrite and the six ARC-170s that made up the starfighter forces of Battlegroup Hydra.

"The other officers took some convincing," Teskit replied, trusting that this Jedi's instincts were better than some of those he'd heard rumors of over the last few months "But this is not the first time a warning from a Jedi has saved the life of myself or those under my command."

The entire convoy and Battlegroup Hydra had dropped out of hyperspace in this little-known system. With Dao now an Admiral and transferred to begin the liberation of Ryloth, the battlegroup had fallen to the command of a very young captain who had just graduated from the academy.

Thankfully, the young Captain Bradool had the wisdom to listen to Teskit and the few other veterans in the group and had given the order to drop out of hyperspace when Commander Durald had reported that there was danger along their convoy route.

"Lieutenant Teskit, your Firebird and Lieutenant Harrput's Starfury will scout the next few systems ahead," Captain Bradool's voice came through the same channel. "Jedi-Commander Durald, if this is a trap, as you suspect, then it'll be in our best interests for you to accompany the screening force."

"I'll transfer to the Starfury," Durald responded, her starfighter and three of the 170s peeled off for the Arquitens. "Durald, out."

"Lieutenant," Captain Bradool spoke after the Jedi had closed her end of the channel. "If this is nothing more than a bad feeling, I want to know immediately. The last thing we need is delays to the blockade around Geonosis."

"A delay is better than failing to receive the supplies at all," Teskit cautioned, knowing the grim calculus and reality of the war. "We cannot deliver supplies if the convoy is destroyed, or worse, captured."

"Just see to it that we remain as on schedule as possible," Bradool scowled. "I've never been late on a shipment, and I won't start now."

The transmission ended, and Teskit buried the initial burst of irritation with yet another idiot officer. Yes, the overall competency had increased over the last few months, but the Bantha poodoo that existed among the Republic Navy's leadership was still present; they had just adapted and knew that officers now needed to be competent and connected.

"Ensign Hull," Teskit turned to his pilot, his reddish-brown beard skirted the surface of regulations, but was still technically allowed, even if Teskit preferred his crew clean-shaven. "Link us up with the Starfury and lay in a course that stops us just shy of New Cov. If we're to run into trouble, it'll be out of there."

New Cov was a Separatist world that had been somewhat monitored and blockaded but left alone for the most part. With there being no particular value to the world outside of its position along the Corellian Run. However, with it being an exporter of biomolecules, the world might have a battlegroup of CIS forces patrolling in it and the surrounding corridor.

"Course is set, Captain," Hull reported, his hands moving across the controls before he glanced back. "Starfury is ready to jump as well."

"Initiate jump," Teskit ordered and waited for the stars to turn into streaks of light once more.

If the CIS had learned, they might repeat the trick that the Sabaoth had used to drag them out of hyperspace earlier in the war. If they hadn't, then they'd have to stop every few systems to get reports and updates.

Because RI varied wildly between knowing the exact troop movements of the enemy forces and not knowing what the Republic's movements were, Teskit had no way of verifying any enemy's locations without stopping and sending in the 170s to scan the next system over.

So, despite Bradool's wishes, they were going to be delayed, there was nothing that could be done about that.

–
–

"170s are reporting two capital ship contacts along our route," Franz reported as the Firebird and Starfury sat in the void between systems. "No ID on the ship classifications as of yet."

"Forward the transmissions to the Hydra," Teskit ordered. "Signal for the Starfury to stay on our flank, we're going to move into the system and engage the enemy."

The two Republic vessels made the short jump and arrived just in time to see a lone Munificent-Class star frigate and some sort of unidentified cargo vessel.

"Sound battle stations," Teskit ordered. "Lock down the corridors and vent the atmosphere in nonessential sections. Chief Mattix, bring the secondary concussion missile launchers online. "

The Munificent outgunned both the Starfury and his own Firebird. And it would be a serious problem if they got overwhelmed. The Frigate might have power control issues, and only be able to fire along one arc or another, but it was still a serious danger to both of the Republic Vessels.

"Captain, hypercomms are being jammed; we can't get a transmission out to the rest of Hydra. Commander Durald is hailing us."

"Lieutenant Teskit, I need you to play distraction" The Jedi's voice was eerily calm for a woman in a lightly armed starfighter about to face nine-to-one odds. "If the Force Wills, you'll be able to keep its focus on you while we handle the Starfighters. I have a plan for taking out the Frigate, but it'll have to wait until the fighters are dealt with.

"Understood, Commander," Teskit replied, cutting the transmission and issuing orders. "Ensign Hull, keep us out of range of the medium and light batteries. If we can get them to use their heavy turbolasers, their power plants will shunt everything away from their engines, allowing us to stay out of range of everything else until the Starfury's done with the droid fighters.

With that, the Ensign shifted his hands on the controls and the Firebird accelerated towards combat, leaving the Arquitens-Class Starfury behind to face the enemy fighters.


Author's Note: Due to feedback, I altered the chapter to be slightly more accurate to the firepower and what the two ships could deal with. The original is in Apocrypha

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 6

I grit my teeth and pushed the thrusters beyond their recommended safe limit, a handful of turbolaser bolts screamed past the viewport as I tapped the emergency chemical thrusters and shoved us out of the next wave of incoming fire.

"Sir, port thrusters are down to fifteen percent fuel capacity," Frank reported. "Engineers are shifting refuelling rigs to compensate."

"Belay that," I went belly up and tried to stay out of most of their cones of fire. Most of the Munificent's firepower was focused 'down' so, by being up I was safe from the waves of light batteries. But that came at a cost.

"Enemy fire's dropping off, Mattix warned me. "They're going to use the Ion cannons or the heavy batteries next."

"Stay in this arc," Teskit's voice somehow remained calm even through the storms of fire we were avoiding. "Mattix, how many point defenses are around the bridge?"

"Scanning," the gunnery chief replied, chewing his lip worriedly as the enemy's larger weapons charged up. "Twelve point defense laser cannons cover the Vorsal section, Captain."
"Hammer the shields there with everything we've got and then launch the concussion missiles," Teskit ordered. "We probably won't make it through, but we can blind them temporarily and give ourselves some breathing room."

The ship shuddered underneath us as a handful of the topside light batteries tracked us. Evasive actions only went so far when you were as outgunned as we were.

"Captain, dorsal deflectors are failing," Ronard reported. "I"m shifting power, but that'll only give us ten percent at best."

"Mattix," Teskit prompted, trying to grab the stunned man's attention.

"Captain, those Ion cannons will hit if I don't go evasive," I used what was left of the chemical thrusters to force us out of a wave of light turbolaser fire."

"Corellian Nine Hells," Teskit swore, a scowl on his face as he ripped the Gunnery Chief out of his seat and took over the controls. "Firing missiles and turbolaser batteries," He stated.

But it was seconds too late, and the blue arcs of the Ion Cannons struck our ship, forcing me to wrestle with what little physical control I had left as the lights and panels went dark.

Then I lost what little control I had, and we were dead in space, watching as the Munificent passed underneath us, headed for the Starfury, a handful of final turbolaser shots striking us in passing while we were disabled.

Sighing, I rested my head against my console for a second before standing up and turning to the Lieutenant.

"Sir," I caught his attention. What're your orders?" The dim red glow of the emergency lighting cast an eerie pall over everything.

"Ronard, take the other engineers and see what you can do to restore power," Teskit ordered. "Ensign Hull, see what control you still possess over our trajectory with emergency power."

The Lieutenant stood up and moved away from Gunnery Chief Mattix's console.

"Gunnery Chief Mattix, regain control of yourself and take your position."

I didn't even look at the gunnery officer, instead taking the opportunity to see what functionality I still had.

Technically, I still had access to the chemical thrusters, what was left of them, anyway, and could nudge us in one direction or another. But I didn't see how that would be helpful when I didn't have the sensors to tell me where to go and what was around us.

"Sir, I can still receive communications, but sending is disabled," Franz reported. "It's probable that our relay was damaged by the Ion cannon."

"Give me your headset," Teskit instructed, reaching for the device and listening in on the battle we were now locked out of.

I finished the few checks I could, and then made my way over to the copilots. Frank and Victor were both silent as the grave, but they had a bit more access to information than my console did at the moment. So, after a few words, I was able to see the bits of the battlefield we could still glimpse.

It wasn't pretty. The Starfury was in better shape than we were, but that was only because it had better shields and more firepower. Somehow the Jedi had eked out a win against the droid starfighters, but they'd lost two of the three that were backing her up in the process.

Then, a few minutes later, the lights flickered on, the white glow blinding me as I rushed to my console and sat down.

"Captain, I've restored power, but we're not going to be much use in a fight," Ronard's voice echoed through the intercom system. "Dorsal deflectors are shattered, and we've lost control of the starboard side electronics. Computer systems will be glitchy until we get everything back on."

"Ensign Hull, what is the status of the Starfury?" Teskit asked as I boosted the sensors to full power.

"Drifting, sir," I replied. "Looks like the enemy took out the bridge."

Teskit frowned, and then touched the intercom button.

"What's the status of our hyperdrive systems?" He asked.

"Fried," Ronard replied. "Backup's damaged too."

I continued looking through the sensors, and while listening to their conversation, I plotted a course that would take us to the drifting cruiser. From what I could tell, she was mostly intact aside from the bridge being gone, which meant the secondary command center might be intact.

Then I noticed something.

There was fire coming from the Munificent, targeting two fighters that danced around it before they vanished into the underside and out of view. Then, a few seconds later, secondary explosions rippled through the ship, the frigate exploding in a beautifully dangerous display.

"Sir, the Munificent is down," I found and tracked the twin starfighters, noting that there wasn't any left aside from the lone Aethersprite, and it was drifting as well.

"Get us over there," Teskit stalked over to the holotable and tried to reboot it, failing before coming and standing over my shoulder to take a look at what I could see.

"I've got control," I sighed. "But two of our engines are fried. It'll take some time."

Teskit looked around the bridge, his gaze finally locking onto the lone officer who'd locked up in combat. "Gunnery Chief, if you cannot execute orders in a timely manner in combat, I will find someone who can. Fear is natural, but we are more than our base instincts. We were very lucky today," the Lieutenant sighed. "That will not always be the case. Move past your fear, Mattix, or I will remove you from my bridge and find you a different position. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," Mattix stammered. "It won't happen again."

"No, it won't," Teskit replied, his voice low and cold. "Because if it happens again, we will likely be dead."

---

Condev Teskit was at a loss for once. His current ship would not be leaving this system, the damage to the hyperdrives had seen to that. He had limited access to most of his ship with the hull breaches, and if not for sheer luck, their keel would've broken in half.

Thankfully, their full sensor suite worked, and the parts they'd stripped from the Pathfinder all those months ago had allowed them to repair their communications suite. Though, not enough to reliably establish a hypercom transmission. It was short range only.

With all of this information, Teskit concluded that he had only one option remaining.

"Ensign Hull," the officer in question glanced up from his console. "After we've picked up the surviving pilots, work out a docking solution with the Starfury."

"Aye sir," The Ensign replied, despite his near breach of regulations regarding his beard, he'd performed as well as any helmsman could be expected in their situation, if not better. His use of the chemical thrusters to avoid incoming fire was inspired, if a bit wasteful of resource. Frank and Victor had performed beyond standards as well, quickly grasping and folding into the command structure with little to no issue.

Teskit shoved those thoughts deep down, he'd handle the crew after they'd finished dealing with the aftermath of combat.

"Lieutenant 'Seven-Two," Teskit spoke over the intercom. (They still didn't have a name for the Clone Officer. Nothing seemed to fit yet.). "Prepare secondary crew to receive starfighter pilots in the cargo bay,."

"Aye sir," The Lieutenant and XO replied. "How many are we expecting?"

Teskit looked at Frank who held up a hand showing two.

"Two," Teskit replied. "We're rescuing two survivors."

There was silence for a moment as the Clone put together what that meant.

"Understood sir, we'll be ready, CT-1972, out."

Teskit watched as the Firebird limped alongside the Jedi's starfighter and the Clones used jetpacks and tethers to rescue the Commander. Then, after bringing her aboard, Ensign Hull diverted to the lone transponder from an ejected Clone Pilot. Only for there to be naught but a helmet remaining.

"Sir," Hull's voice echoed through the quiet bridge. "That was the only other transponder that was active."

"Set course for the Starfury," Teskit ordered, not taking his eyes away from the empty helmet and air supply pack. "Let's hope that there's better news there. Seven-Two, how's the Commander?"

"She's with the medical droid, sir," The clone reported. "B8 said she'll be unconscious for at least two days."

"Understood, be on standby for a docking tube deployment. We may be transferring ships."

The Lieutenant let the channel close and waited patiently for Ensign Hull to get them close to the Starfury. Matching up with the wedge-shaped vessel was difficult. The larger ships speed and mass threw the initial calculations off, but eventually, they were able to get a docking tube connected and the atmosphere equalized between the ships.

–
–

"Seven-Two will be boarding the Starfury and checking the secondary control rooms, the engine room, and other critical areas," Teskit looked at the assembled crew. "If repairs can be made, we'll transfer all usable equipment to her and limp back to friendly space. The Admiralty will want to know that this hyperlane is temporarily secure, but that there's no guarantee that it'll remain that way without granting us more firepower."

"I'll report back as soon as we've finished our inspection," the Clone Lieutenant and engineers gathered in the docking tube.

Saluting, Teskit saw them off before returning to the bridge.

Up close, it was obvious that the Starfury had sustained more than bridge damage, scars and scorch marks dotted her hull, and when he examined her more intensely, he could see where emitters for the deflector shields were damaged or fried.

With her bridge simply gone, the Starfury would require a full overhaul in order to return her to combat-ready status, and the less said about the Firebird, the better. His ship was at her limit. Should the Starfury prove to still be void-worthy, the Firebird would have to be scuttled and the crew would have to familiarize themselves with the systems onboard the larger cruiser.

However, that depended entirely on how the Starfury's internals looked.

---

Two days later…

I threw my bag over my shoulder and headed for the docking tube. The Firebird had been home for the last few months, but now it was time to leave her behind. My quarters aboard the Starfury might be more cramped. But with her main bridge crew dead, and the XO having relinquished command to Lieutenant Teskit… Well, it was better to not dwell on the people you'd be taking the place of and the bunks they'd been sleeping in that now belonged to others.

Shaking my head free of the pensive thoughts, I scratched my close-cropped beard and boarded the Starfury. The larger corridors of the ship had clear signs and descriptions of where to go, and I quickly found my new quarters.

"So, looks like they threw us in the same room," Mattix tried to smile at me only for me to ignore him and enter the room, forcing my jaw to unclench as I tossed the small duffle onto the bunk I was claiming before stalking out of the room and heading for the secondary control room.

I'd probably be okay with speaking to him after a couple of days processing and sorting through my emotions. But after the last few days… I just wanted to get back to friendly space and take a shower with water, eat some food that wasn't freeze-dried rations, and have some rest in a bed that wasn't shipboard.

Over the last two days we'd dispensed with some of the navy traditions in favor of expediency. So, I simply entered the command center and took a seat at my console.

"Found out who you're bunked with, huh?" Franz's voice echoed through the mostly empty room.

"Yeah," I replied, remapping the console to issue commands to the engineers and other positions with simple taps instead of long codes and commands.

"I keep having nightmares about what might have happened if the Lieutenant hadn't taken over," the brunette added to what she'd just said. "I crunched the numbers, if he'd been a second later, we'd have gotten more than the smattering of ion fire and turbolasers."

"No use dwelling on it," I grunted. "Mattix fucked up. It's as simple as that. He'll either learn from it, or he'll go somewhere else. Either way, it won't be a problem for long."

"The cargo's been loaded onto the Starfury," Teskit's voice shocked me for a moment, sending a shudder down my spine as I parced his words. "Ensign Hull, take us on a small hyperspace jump to the system we were in before this one. The Firebird is on a timer for scuttling."

Flying a larger ship was odd, I noted as I entered the course and waited. Even beyond not having a viewport and relying on the sensors, there were a number of other factors to consider.

Instead of directly telling the engines what you wanted, it had to be relayed through the ship. Sure, I had a direct line if I needed to make an emergency maneuver. But this was a lot more supervising and directing the path we were going to take.

Basically, I did the math and had people executing my commands instead of me having to control every little detail. It was like having the two copilots on steroids. I delegated a lot more work, but the responsibility for maneuvering and control now fell to me.

So, I quickly calculated the jump and informed the Lieutenant that I had it locked in.

"Execute the jump and then we'll inspect the hyperdrive. If it's still intact, we'll make a longer jump and then make our way back to friendly space from there," Teskit turned to head out. "Hull, you have the con. I'll be in engineering if you need to reach me."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 7

Since opting into the Republic Navy, I'd grown used to seeing the streaks of light from hyperspace travel. It was calming in a way, almost soothing to see the wide expanse of the void and know that you were going somewhere.

So, it was a bit off putting to be sitting deep in the depths of a ship with the only information on our position in the void from sensor feeds. The only indication we'd even arrived back in the system where we'd left the convoy being the slight shift in sound from the sunlight engines spinning up faster and the message that trawled across my console's screen.

"Captain, this should be the system we left the convoy in," I called out, glancing over my shoulder at Lieutenant Teskit and the Jedi-Commander. "But I'm not picking up any active ship readings."

Quickly the worst possible scenario raced through my mind and I initiated a system-wide scan for Republic lifeboats and escape pod transponders.

I closed my eyes as the initial results began to pour in, filling my head with the grim reality of war. Thankfully, it seemed that the pods were still filled with living people. Though, it'd be taxing on our resources to take them all aboard.

"Well, Ensign?" Teskit asked.

"Sir, you're going to want to take a look at this," I dry swallowed and mapped out a course to the largest collection of escape pods.

Teskit's usual stoicism was disrupted for a moment by surprise before it settled into the usual flat look as he strode to look at my console over my shoulder, Jedi-Commander Durald settling on the other side.

"I see," Teskit's voice was icier than usual. "Continue on the course you've set, we'll bring as many on board as we can. How much debris is there along this route?"

"One moment," I shifted the scan and began trying to put together ships from the pieces. "It looks like it was the other two combat craft and two convoy freighters. The rest either escaped or were captured."

"We'll have to figure that out later," Teskit sighed, stepping back and heading for Franz's terminal. "All hands, prepare to rescue survivors from the Hydra, Ardent, and convoy vessels."

After he said that, he returned to his position, the bridge filling with a sense of urgency and purpose. But in the midst of the silent preparations, I asked the burning question I'd had for the last two days.

"Ma'am," I glanced over my other shoulder at the Jedi looking at my piloting. "How did you manage to take out that frigate?"

"Not easily," She gave a short barking, sarcastic laugh before a look of sadness flickered across her face. "Deadshot, my wingman had a brilliant idea. He'd managed to conserve four of his proton torpedoes and his weapons officer and Astromech found a hole in the deflectors over the fighter bay. R7 and I quickly figured out how to exploit it, and we pushed the attack. I cracked the hole open larger and pulled the point defenses away from the torpedoes as they hit the fuel stores inside the bay. Unfortunately, Deadshot and the other two didn't manage to evade in time, and one of the turbolasers hit their fighter. I didn't even see them eject," She shook her head as she lost herself in the memory. "After that, the shockwave sent us spinning, I think we hit some sort of debris and I was out."

After that, the control room returned to silence as we all considered how close to death we came. The only sound coming from Franz coordinating with our two shuttles and the transmissions from the lifeboats we could receive.

"Sir, Lieutenant Task (We'd finally found a nickname for CT-1972 through all of the work we'd done over the last few days.) Is asking where we're going to put the survivors," Franz relayed.

"Have them take up positions in the cargo bays for now," Teskit replied. "We'll make more decisions as the real numbers become known to us."

Franz informed the clone of the decision and the door slid open, revealing a filthy and tired Ronard flanked by two clone engineers in similar states of fatigue.

"Hypercom relay is repaired," the lead engineer muttered, striding over to Franz's console and hitting a switch. "I'm going to sleep for the next twenty-four hours. Don't break anything else."

"We'll see what we can do. No promises, though," Teskit gave a rare moment of sarcasm, shocking all of us. "Franz, get us in contact with HIGHCOM. We need to find out what we missed."

---

"CT-11890," Teskit looked at the clone officer standing in front of him and Jedi-Commander Durald. "You're the highest ranking officer to escape from the Hydra or Ardent. Can you run me through what happened after we left?"

"After the second day, a squadron of Seppie ships arrived. We could've handled the Lupus frigates if we didn't also have to tangle with the Munifex and their starfighters."

The Clone took a sip of the cup of water on the table between them before continuing.

"Captain Bradool had us focus on the frigates, honestly, I think their droid crews were faulty because that part of the battle felt like it came straight out of the simulators We had most of the convoy out of the system and heading towards Geonosis. But then the starfighters arrived. There were just too many of them for us to fight them all off. By the time the order to abandon ship came through, they'd torn through our line and the last two freighters were destroyed."

The clone took a deep breath. "Honestly, sir, I'm surprised to see any of you at all. We thought you'd been taken out by the fleet that found us."

"We ran into a Munificent," Durald said, her arms crossed across the chestplate of her armored robes. "As you could probably tell from the exterior of the Starfury, it didn't exactly go well for us."

CT-11890 winced.

"I'll say sir, what has Command said?" he asked.

"We're to finish search and rescue operations here and then return to Kuat for rest and repairs," Teskit replied. "We're no longer a combat capable force, and won't be until we've taken the time to get repaired and refit."

"I understand," the clone sagged into his chair. "Sir, permission to report to medical? I may have concealed how badly I was injured on my way off of the Ardent."

"Granted," Teskit replied. "We'll send someone to retrieve you if you're needed."

"So few made it off the ships," Kalyna Durald sighed.

"It's the way that it is," Teskit rubbed exhaustion from his eyes. "No warship has enough lifeboats for the entirety of the crew. Because every shipyard and officer knows that statistically less than half of the crew will survive to make it to the lifeboats. Everyone else will either be locked behind a bulkhead until rescue arrives, or will die. Regardless," Teskit pushed himself up from the table. "We've rescued everyone we can."

"Hopefully we'll get assigned more firepower in the future," Durald rested her head and arms on the table. "I don't want to have to do that again."

"Neither do I," Teskit agreed. "Neither do I."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 8

It was the single coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life. After disembarking the Starfury and going through debriefing I was directed to one of the monorails that spanned the shipyards.

The superstructures spiraled above me, ships in various stages of assembly and repair filled the skies, tugs and repair vessels moved to and fro, and off in the distance, the massive planetary defence force kept the system secure. The trio of Mandators dwarfing the fleet of Venators and smaller ships.

"They're a sight to see, aren't they?" Janine's voice broke through my internal thoughts. "Single largest ships in the galaxy. They're slow, but I don't think anything can stand up to them in actual combat."

"I think piloting one of those would be like losing something," I shrugged. "There's no way you can actually feel what's happening on the ship if you're on the bridge."

"Who cares about how it feels?" Janine asked, shaking her head at me. "Now, c'mon prisoner," She said sarcastically. "You'll get lost and we'll never see our helmsman again if you wander off."

"I don't even know what to do with two weeks of leave," I laughed. "So, lead the way."

She gestured for me to follow her and slung her bag over her shoulder, using my taller frame to assist with breaking through the crowds of Clones, Kuati employees, and other Republic Navy personnel.

"Navy sprung for a hotel on one of the lower docking rings," Janine explained once we were on the monorail. "Teskit's trying to talk the Admiralty into having better escort fleets, but there's no telling if he'll be successful."

"There's not enough personnel to go around," I shrugged. "There's only so many clones, and despite the Republic buying more of them. They're still having to go through the growing process."

"I hate how much like slavery that sounds," Janine frowned. "But what else can we do?"

"Recruit more people," I offered. "I dunno about you, but I don't see any ads or posters about recruiting. It's like the Republic thinks this is just going to go away in a few months."

I concealed my real thoughts, because if I casually mentioned that Palpatine was behind this whole thing, people would think I was crazy or something.

"Ha!" Janine laughed. "An anti piracy operation takes three months, I don't wanna think about how long the war's going to last."

Eventually, we started getting looks from the clones and employees so we allowed the conversation to die out in favor of looking at the shipyards around us.

While the silence endured, I took the time to start thinking about the galaxy. I (hopefully) knew some things that could change the core of the galaxy. But given how easily I'd been thrown in prison for just climbing out of hell… Well, I wasn't planning on taking any chances. Sure, I had some thoughts on things I might do to maybe change the fate of the galaxy. But at this point, I'd have to find out how to do it while being anonymous.

"So," Janine said after we reached the hotel complex. "I finally got to peek at your personnel file."

"And?" I asked, curious to know what it said.

"Turns out Teskit may have pulled some strings," She stopped outside the hotel door. "Because you're not listed as a penal officer. But as a standard one," she glanced over her shoulder at me. "You should probably speak to accounting, but if you haven't collected a paycheck since starting, they'll have back pay for you to collect."

With that, she walked in and spoke to the receptionist before exiting, tossing me a keycard, and vanishing into the turbolift, leaving me on my own.

I almost went to a nearby terminal to locate a Republic Navy post, but then remembered that I still had my duffle bag on my back. Sure, I didn't have all that much, but I should still toss it in the hotel room.

Taking the keycard, I entered the turbolift once it'd come back down and hit the correct floor before spending the next five minutes tracking down the right room.

It was so large, a full tub and shower? Sheets that weren't stupid thin and made by the lowest bidder?

I could figure out how I was going to get a message out to the Jedi Order later. Right now, there was a shower and a nap in a comfortable bed calling my name.

---

"Congratulations on your promotion, Captain," Admiral Howerl Vargance grinned. "Once the Starfury is repaired, we'll add it to the battlegroup you'll be taking command of."

Teskit hid the grimace at those words deep inside. Instead of the mixed battlegroup he'd hoped for, Acclamators for the cargo, Venators for the combat, he'd been 'gifted' a battlegroup made up of two true capital ships and a host of smaller vessels.

"Thank you, sir," Teskit accepted the poison pill with a straight face, accepting the handshake and stepping back. "Now, I've a ship to see to."

"I understand," Vargance smirked. "I'd want to inspect my new flagship as well."

The admiral left the debriefing room and Teskit to his own thoughts.

Stifling the urge to rage at how the Admiralty and top brass acted, Teskit exhaled long and slow before sitting down and picking up his datapad from the table. His thoughts churning as he considered the battlegroup he was to command.

The Providence, a Dreadnought-Class Heavy cruiser, was to be the new 'flagship' of the escort fleet. She was a relic, a prototype of the Katana fleet. A ship so old,that she'd been refit three times, four if you included the prototype systems she'd been tested with.

Her droid brains were inefficient, a relic of their time and probably untrustworthy.The weapons, while powerful, were somewhat anemic in comparison to other ships of her size. Thankfully, she had modern deflectors, and one of the many refits she'd undertaken had fixed the inefficiencies in the power supply and had updated her hyperdrive to a class 1.

The funny thing was, Teskit had gotten one of the things he wanted. But he wasn't going to be able to make it his flagship. The Inevitable was a modern warship, a Venator coming fresh off the shipyards that surrounded them.

But for some reason, the Admiralty had decided in their infinite wisdom that Clones were the only ones allowed to crew and operate the vessel. So, he was stuck with the Providence as the flagship, the Inevitable as another heavy cruiser for dealing with large enemy formations, and a handful of Arquitens and Consular-class refits.

Teksit sighed, he'd have to put together a crew request to fill out the Providence, and he'd also have to do some research into the droid brains that helped with the ship's automation. The last thing he needed was a ship that could be shut down by Separatist jamming techniques.

Ronard would be happy at least. The now-lieutenant had started his career on the Dreadnought-class ships and he'd know exactly how to fine-tune everything to his expectations.

As for the rest of his bridge crew, well. He'd just have to wait and see.

So, groaning and standing up, the Captain straightened his uniform and headed out. If he insisted that his crews get rest, then he should as well. They deserved nothing less than his best.

---

I had money. I had money and I didn't know what to do with it. I glanced at the handful of physical credit chits I'd asked for, and remembered the balance I'd had at the standard bank the Republic Navy used.

Because I'd worked for over three months without any idea that I was collecting a paycheck, it'd piled up and I didn't want to blow it all on anything. So, I'd glanced at some of the investment options and picked one that I hoped would be a good choice. Given Incom had a good reputation for starfighters, I thought that it'd at least turn a profit over time and had tossed most of my money in one of their investment funds. Then, I cashed some of it out and bought a handful of things.

A datapad that I owned instead of the one issued to me was now in a small backpack, a holdout blaster was tucked into a holster in my waistband, and a comlink now sat on the belt of my uniform.

I'd also stopped along the way and compiled a message to send to the Jedi Order. I wasn't quite sure how well it'd be received, or if anyone would believe it at all, but it'd pointed at several inconsistencies among the Clone Wars, and how Republic Intelligence seemed to be completely right or completely wrong with no in-between. I was hoping that if I sent things that were provable, and could be investigated, that eventually I could work my way up to sending messages that would expose Palpatine or others.

But I honestly wasn't all that hopeful. I knew how ignorant the Jedi Council were, and how corrupt the Senate was as well. Hell, if I didn't know how awful Palpatine would be as Emperor, I might have even supported a Julius Caesar style takeover of the Republic.

None of that mattered right now though. I'd set up an anonymous account with premade messages to send at specific points in time. If that changed things, then I would be happy for it. If it didn't, then there wasn't much more I could do right now. I mean, it's not like the Jedi would believe that someone without access to the Force could have reliable visions of the future.

And that's without getting into the fact that as soon as anything changed, I'd now be unreliable.

I snorted at that thought. No, life wasn't that simple. I didn't have the Force, I didn't show up with magical powers. I got lucky in the first few days and had worked my ass off to survive until this point.

Besides, the fall of the Republic was all but inevitable at this point. If not Palpatine, someone else would come along soon and pull something similar. Just without the Sith backing. The question was how bad the fall would be.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 9

Ensign Mark Hull​

"I'm coming," I groaned, waking up to the knocking at the door, stretching, and sitting up from the hotel bed before sleepily stumbling my way to the door. I'd spent most of the two weeks of leave time resting and exploring the shipyards around us. Knowing that I only had a few days left, I hadn't gotten back in until 'late' station time the night before.

"Morning, Hull," Janine had her duffle bag slung around her shoulder. "You packed and ready to go?"

"Go where?" I raised an eyebrow. "I thought we had another day of leave left."

"It got cut short," She tossed me her datapad and let me review the orders.

"Shit," I swore. "No, I didn't see the orders. Let me get everything together and then we can head out."

It only took a few minutes to toss the handful of belongings into my duffle and for me to change into a fresh uniform before meeting the Communications officer back at the door.

"So," I asked after we'd turned in our keycards. "I know you're plugged into the comms in ways I've never dreamed of. Got any idea how things went after our debriefing?"

"No," She shook her head. "While Teskit has a few people who vouch for him in the Admiralty, a lot of people don't like that he refuses to play the political games that the rest of them do. All I know is that our leave got cut short by a couple days and that we're to report to Docking Bay Thesh-5297."

"That's the opposite side from where they were working on the Starfury," I commented. "You think that we finally got something with a bit more firepower? I mean, I like being a part of a ship that has the ability to turn on a dime, but after the last few battles…" I trailed off.

"There's only so much enemy fire we can avoid," she agreed, and I could tell she was thinking about the skirmish against the Munificent and how narrowly we'd avoided dying.

We both settled into silence, joined by other members of the original Firebird as we all converged on the docking bay.

"Lot more troopers here," Ronard pointed out the armored clones.

"A lot more personnel, period," I replied. "There's gotta be a couple thousand here, at least."

"Still a lot less than the full complements supposed to be," Ronard gestured towards the Dreadnought-class cruiser on the other side of the bay. "I mean, you can run a ship like her on a skeleton crew, but you'll be having issues with maintenance."

"The crew count for the Providence comes to three thousand five hundred and two," Teskit's voice cut into our conversation. The tall man now had the rank stripes of a captain on his uniform. "The full details of her refits have been sent to you. Familiarize yourselves with them. She's going to be our home for the foreseeable future."

It seems I wasn't going to be a pilot anymore. With the chirp of the datapad, it clicked that my position as helmsman was more of a supervisor and manager than the person steering the ship with my own two hands.

"Five credits says we get into a fight during the first convoy run," Franz leaned over and whispered to the rest of us.

"You're on," I agreed, laughing as I stood up from the bench we'd been sitting on. "Now, I dunno about y'all, but I want to get familiar with the old girl, here. I've gotta learn how to make her dance, after all."

---

Captain Condev Teskit​

Captain Teskit looked around the bridge of the Providence. The familiar space of a Dreadnought filled him with a sense of nostalgia as he watched his bridge crew settle in and begin learning how their work on the new ship would go from here.

Eventually, his gaze settled on the man responsible for the weapons coordination of the ship. Marian Hobbs, the replacement for Mattix was another veteran of a local planetary defense force just as Janine Franz had been, and had clearly served on a Dreadnought before, because his motions and speech were fluid.

"Ensign Franz," Teskit called out to the communications officer by her new rank. "Please signal to Kuati System Control that we are ready to begin heading out of the system, along with the rest of Battlegroup Huntress."

"Relaying signal, aye sir!" She replied.

"Receiving Slaving command," Lieutenant Hull tapped a few controls. "Granting access to the controller."

"Very good," Teskit stood at the holotable, his hands clasped behind his back as was the norm.

Battlegroup Huntress was made up of his Providence, the Venator that command had graciously allowed the use of, four Arquitens, a pair of Consular refits, and a trio of CR90 corvettes that had been refit for differing roles.

Instead of being on the backfoot though. They were going to be on the offensive. The Republic's Hyperlanes were intact for the most part, a few stragglers from the separatists always made it through blockades to hammer convoys, but for the most part, the Navy was stopping them an dable to deliver supplies.

However, the Republic had no one harassing the enemy's own supply lines and convoys at this point. So, Teskit's orders were to get behind enemy lines and begin disrupting and breaking the enemy supply lines where they were able. Ground targets, navy, space stations, everything was authorized for attack as long as they did their job.
Though, with the slack in the rope, he also had been given enough to hang himself with. If Teskit failed, or had a string of bad luck, then it'd all come crashing down around him when the rope went taut. But if they won, or pulled off victories, then he and his crew would get all of the credit. Crews, bounties, captured ships. All of it would be credited to them instead of the Admiralty.

Freedom had its consequences. Both for the good, and the bad. They would see how Battlegroup Huntress fared against the rest of the galaxy.

Author's note: A shorter chapter, but given this is a transitional bit… I figured I should cut it off here.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 10 (Lieutenant Mark Hull)

Location: Skako Stystem. Core Worlds

The controls of a Dreadnought-class cruiser were different from those of the previous two ships I'd worked with before. For one thing, I didn't get an immediate response when I wanted to turn. Instead of being able to shift course and adjust headings immediately, I had to plan time into any maneuvers that I was going to conduct.

Sure, the Providence had emergency chemical thrusters. But with how large the cruiser was, it used up a lot more fuel to shift her if I needed to conduct evasive maneuvers. Still, it was nice to know that we could tank some hits now. Hell, I wouldn't enjoy it, but if push came to shove, we could theoretically get into a running brawl and come out ahead (depending on what we were facing).

Still, the thing that concerned me the most was the route that I'd been given for us to take. I knew that Count Dooku would be busy dealing with plenty of other things across the galaxy, and I was still worried that the plan would take us too close too far into enemy territory.

The plan was to go up through the hyperlanes towards Serenno before detouring and heading more to the galactic 'North'. Unfortunately, none of the rest of the bridge crew had any idea what the plan was beyond sewing discord behind enemy lines. Assuming there was a plan at all.

"Captain, transmission from HIGHCOM!" Franz called out, a second headset in her hands already held out for the Captain.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Teskit listened, replied a few times, and then went from slightly relaxed to stone and then back again.

A few moments later, he stepped into the middle of the bridge. "I regret to inform you that there has been a slight change of plans," Captain Teskit's voice echoed through the now quiet bridge. "The Third Army is experiencing troubles with local reinforcements in Corsin. The Separatists have locked down the system and the clones there are in need of supplies. We're to detour to Corulag and escor some reinforcements and supplies nto the system, they'll then deploy there and ensure that the enemy doesn't retain control while we combat whatever ships are in the void."

I tapped a control and brought up the galactic map, trying to identify the best route to take. Sure, it wouldn't really be out of the way for the original plan. But it might not be for the best if the enemy knew we were in the area.

Shaking my head, I zoomed in and simply plotted the course to Corulag. It was probably better that I didn't try to anticipate what the plan might be for this one. For all I knew, we weren't going to be planning on using hyperlanes for some of this at all. (Sure, it wouldn't necessarily be the smartest idea. But it wouldn't be the first time an officer in this galaxy had tried and pulled it off successfully.)

"Captain," One of the new bridge crew members called out. "Course is laid in for Corulag."

I blinked, and then remembered that it wasn't my job to plot the courses and pilot the ship anymore. No, we had navigators now and specific technicians who coordinated with Franz and the rest of the fleet to ensure that we arrived at our destination in proper formation.

That said, it didn't fill me with peace to give up control of the systems to someone else. Instead, I felt a new anxiety rise up in me now my life was now in the hands of some techs if we needed to evacuate to another system.

Trust didn't come that easily anymore.

---

(Captain Condev Teskit)

"Captain," Ensign Franz called out before he could give the order to jump to hyperspace. "Transmission for you."

She handed him the headset.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Captain," the soft voice of Jedi-Commander Durald greeted him. "Seeing as I have no current orders, I was wondering if I could attach myself to your starfighter squadrons."

"There should be plenty of space aboard the Inevitable," Teskit replied, his mind already figuring out where she would be best placed in his command structure.

"Excellent," she replied. "I'll be there inside of fifteen minutes, Durald, out."

"Let the Inevitable know that they're receiving a new officer," Teskit said, handing the headset back to Franz. "And tie the Jedi-Commander into our systems. Their hard enough to keep track of as it is."

"Aye, sir," she replied. "Tying her in now."

"Once the Commander is in place, the fleet is to follow the plan until we reach Corulag. We'll be coordinating with friendly assets in the area once we arrive," Teskit instructed.

Standing up from where he'd been leaning over Franz's station, Teskit strode back to the middle of the bridge and signaled for them to begin the transition to hyperspace.

"ETA to Corulag is fifteen hours!" The navigation tech reported.

"Fleet is reporting similar ETAs with momentary differences," Franz continued. "Signalling for them to jump now."

A few seconds later and the coherent light of the stars turned into streaks as the Providence leapt into hyperspace.

"Commander, you have the con." Teskit nodded at the Clone officer before turning around and heading back into the ship's tactical center. Once inside, the sounds of the bridge became more muted, and the holotable lit up with the information they'd been given. Allowing the veteran to examine the situation at Corsin.

As a relief force, Battlegroup Huntress lacked the staying power of any of the larger fleets. Huntress was built to be a speedy hit-and-run force, not a wholesale attack and sustainment fleet.

To make matters worse, Corsin hadn't gotten a solid message out that gave information on the enemy fleet's strength or numbers. Which meant that they were jumping in blind unless Teskit used one of the Consular refits to scout out the system before returning to the fleet.

The saving grace of this operation was that the ships they were to escort to relieve the Third Army were Acclamators and their escorts. With the extra firepower that the four ships would bring, there was a solid chance of routing the enemy and leaving the Acclamators at Corsin while he went off and completed his mission.

With that, Teskit got to work. Plotting out operational plans for the fleet based on enemy strength, as well as working out several plans for what they might encounter on their long raid. After leaving Corsin, it was better to assume they'd have no contact with HIGHCOM or FLEETCOM.

Finishing the planning, he shifted the holotable to a galactic map, his eyes tracking the hyperlanes until they paused on one of the systems in the Outer Rim that he wanted to ensure they hit.

It wasn't the big battles taking place in the Galactic "East". But there was a real chance to cause some damage to the North. They just had to seize the opportunity when it was provided.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 11 (Lieutenant Mark Hull)

One of the things that were aboard the larger ships in the fleet was a firing range. Though I'd used blasters, slugthrowers, and anything I could get my hands on prior to being imprisoned, I'd had a few years to fall out of practice.

So, once I got rotated off of my shift on the bridge crew, I headed in that direction. My holdout blaster tucked into a concealed holster while the issued blaster sat in a holster on my hip.

The firing range wasn't large, it was just large enough for you to practice shooting at what amounted to near suicide ranges. Honestly, seven meters was way too close for comfort if an enemy were present. But they compensated for the lack of space by using small silhouette targets to simulate distance.

Settling into the barren space, I set up the holographic programs and adjusted the blaster to training mode, shaking my head all the while. Back on Earth, I'd been a massive gun nerd. Weapons, their history, how to use them, and what jobs they all served. Here, though, it all felt like a waste.

As long as the weapon did its job here, I didn't care. That said, there was something deeply satisfying about seeing something be scorched in a 'blast radius' when a blaster bolt impacted versus the small hole that appeared from a handgun back home.

The issued blaster had an alpha-numeric designation that I didn't particularly care for. But the ability to swap a couple of parts out and a blaster rifle or sniper rifle made something I'd studied up on and asked for some help from clones on the configuration and holster fitting. It was extremely handy for Navy personnel in particular. If we ever had to make landfall onto a planet, having the pieces to turn the standard issue sidearm into a rifle made a ton of sense.

Not that I saw any other Navy personnel aside from the Marines or Navy Troopers with a blaster on their hips. But I knew that the chances of being boarded were higher than I'd like, and I wasn't willing to take those odds.

Taking a deep breath, I inhaled and closed my eyes for a second before opening them and testing my draw. I did it smoothly, calling on old training habits that would always be reliable when it came to anything small arms related.

Then I repeated the gesture. Over and over again, slowly picking up speed. Draw, bring up with muzzle pointed at the target, find sight picture and alignment. Then holster and repeat.

After five minutes of making sure I had the draw down pat, I flipped the safety off the blaster (I'd already set it to training mode) and went to work. Draw, fire a burst of blaster fire at the target, evaluate accuracy, then shift to the smaller silhouettes. I started with the standard man-sized target, doing several runs on variations of said target that grew increasingly smaller.

Then it shifted to small circles. The size of a soccer ball, then smaller until I was shooting at a target the size of a golf ball from seven meters away. Which might sound like it was easy, but the blaster bolt itself always seemed to drown out any initial placement and shot evaluation. So, the smaller the target, the more time I took to line up a shot and ensure accuracy.

Of course, I wasn't just there to train with the issued blaster and holster though. Tucked into my waistband was a holdout blaster, and having a concealed weapon on my person that I hadn't trained with was a stupid idea.

So, I went through all of the steps I had before, with the added difficulty of having to shift clothing out of the way for a clean draw. The last thing you wanted from a concealed projectile weapon was for a trigger or anything to get snagged on a piece of cloth.

After several hours of practice, I'd worn down the power packs for my blaster and swapped them out for new ones before tucking them back into their holsters and heading for the bridge. I'd timed my practice to coincide with heading to my next bridge shift. Hopefully, we were close to Corsin and I could take my place on the bridge team. I really didn't want someone else at the helm when it was my life at stake.

---

(Captain Teskit)

Corsin was chaos incarnate.

The fragments of the planetary defense fleet were scattered throughout the system, a handful of the Republic starfighters that remained dueled in the asteroid belt, and the smattering of Confederacy ships weren't in any sort of battle line.

"All ships are to move into formation Grek," Teskit ordered. "I want starfighters to focus on the Captors while all capital ships handle that Destroyer."

Battlegroup Huntress shifted into the requested formation, the fighters moving to fill in gaps among the corvettes and smaller cruisers while the Carracks they'd picked up in Corulag backed them up with anti-starfighter batteries.

In the center of the formation, the Providence and Inevitable stood out, their capital weapons coming to life as they were given more power.


"Sir, the Acclamators are heading straight to the planet," Franz reported. "Commander CT-8757 is planning to discharge his ground troops before moving to assist."

"Acknowledged, have several of the Carracks escort them in," Teskit replied. "The last thing we need is for the troops to get taken out before they've even made landfall."

Thankfully, they'd managed to catch the enemy on the back foot and his battlegroup outnumbered the Separatists. If there'd been a Lucrehulk parked in orbit there would have been no chance for them to take control of the void without a large number of sacrifices.

Oddly enough, there had been reports of a Lucrehulk when it came to the initial battle for control of the system. Which meant it'd probably moved on to harass other systems while leaving this small force behind to retain control.

"Task, you have the Con," Teskit nodded at the clone, allowing him to take control of the Providence while he stepped back and looked at the larger picture.

"Yes, sir!" The clone nodded and took the Captain's place. "Ensign Hobbs, shift power to the forward deflectors and weapons. Lieutenant Hull, prepare to execute a flight plan on my mark-"

Teskit tuned them out slightly as he ran through his options.

There were three capital ships in the system, and a host of smaller missile frigates. While not a threat individually, they'd become a problem if left alone for too long.

The Munificent would have to go first. Teskit decided, tapping a control and sending out orders to the rest of Huntress. The large ship was isolated and away from the Captor and Auxilia that were in orbit of the planet.

Who or whatever had control of this fleet, whether it be a tactical droid or a living being, had moved the Star Frigate to support the elimination of the holdouts among the asteroid belt, and that would be their undoing.

With that in mind, Battlegroup Huntress shifted their power to engines and accelerated through the system at a breakneck pace, the Separatists realizing the danger a fraction too late.

"Starfury, coordinate with the Thunderwasp and Deringer. I want missile frigates Aurek and Besh taken care of," The captain ordered. "Inevitable, focus fire on the enemy ion cannons, we can't afford to be delayed."

Then, they were in the midst of battle.

The Providence shook a bit as enemy concussion missiles and turbolaser fire scattered against her shields, but the old cruiser held strong, shrugging of the lances of energy as she returned fire.

The Star Frigate had to split its focus though, as squadrons of Separatist and Republic Starfighters darted in and around the large capital craft. narrowly avoiding the turbolasers that filled the space between the Inevitable, Providence, and their foes. Due to the split focus, the damage it could inflict on one ship or the other was limited, and with the inefficiencies of her power supply, the Munificent couldn't power up her heavy turbolasers to fight without losing maneuverability.

But the Munificent wasn't the first casualty of the battle. A Lupus missile frigate, hounded by twin Arquitens and a CR90 corvette casually ripped the ship to shreds, turning away and towards another even as the small ship slowly drifted off into the void, devoid of power or engines.

In return, a squadron of Z-95 Headhunters was vaporized under the guns of the Separatists before the Munificent's shields flashed. One, twice, then a third time before failing completely.

Two squadrons of bombers, seizing the opportunity, headed in, their proton torpedoes aimed at the engines, the detonation sending a shockwave rippling through the frigate, then the rest of the battlegroup got involved, concentrating fire on a weak point in the armor until secondary explosions began to spread throughout the ship, breaking it apart.

Teskit allowed the slight sense of satisfaction to bubble up from watching the same sort of ship that had removed him from his previous ship break apart. Then he forced that emotion to the side to focus on the battle. Celebration could come later. The battle wasn't over yet.

One of the anti-fighter Corvettes had been completely destroyed, and another crippled, while the one that had been refit into a missile boat was continuing to fire.

Then the Separatists did the smart thing instead of what Teskit had expected. Cutting their losses, the Captor and Auxilia gathered their fighters back and then jumped to hyperspace, leaving the rest of the Munifex and other small ships behind to face the Republic's wrath.

With the large ships out of the way, and the Acclamators moving from orbit to join the rest of the engagement, any small ships were now trying to perform emergency jumps as well, either narrowly escaping, or trailing atmosphere, hypermatter, and Tibanna as they careened through space.

"Finish off the rest of the enemy and begin search and rescue operations," Teskit ordered over his FLEETCOM. "Have the crews of the Corvettes move to the Providence. We'll find a use for them."

All that was left to mop up Corsin, then they'd be leaving this system and heading to the North. The enemy hadn't waited to strike, and neither would he.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Captain Condev Teskit​

Fleet Location: Bandomeer

"Ensign, open a channel to the primary station in the system," Teskit ordered. "We'll need to know what the prices of fuel are locally before I spend any of our limited funds on refueling."

"Aye, sir," Franz held up a hand to her headset and began speaking rapidly to the system control.

"Commander Task, get me fuel reserves and estimates from the rest of Huntress," Teskit turned to the Clone Commander. "We'll have the lowest reserves go first and then move on from there."

"Sir, the manager of the station is asking to speak with you," Franz spoke up. "Says he's not authorized to release fuel to us without verifying our identity and payment first."

"Very well," Teskit didn't quite sigh at the thought of dealing with what was assuredly nothing more than a middle manager for some corporation. "This is Captain Condev Teskit of the Galactic Republic Navy."

"Captain, I'm afraid that with the influx of change in the galaxy, that we may be limited in what services we can provide," Manager Vhen Ida said, his voice in that slightly high nasal tone that ensured no one took him seriously. "In fact, I'll need approval from corporate if I'm going to refuel anything more than one of your ships. Which can take a few days to a few weeks to complete."

Teskit waited for the other man to finish his spiel before speaking.

"You can provide the fuel or we'll find another system to do business in. This is not the first time I've encountered your ilk," He stated. "We are not so deficient that we will allow you to stall us in the hopes of racking up a bonus. You can accept the going rate for fuel in this sector, or we can continue on our way, the choice is yours, manager. "

"How much fuel do you need?" Ida asked.

"Here sir," Commander Task handed the information over to the Captain. "Ships are sorted by low fuel to high, with thoughts towards their efficiency as well."

Teskit nodded and passed it on to Franz.

"We're relaying that information now."

"I'll be able to provide fuel to your fleet," The manager sounded defeated. "Start rotating through. But if I don't get paid, I'm suing the Republic for depriving me of my bonus."

"I'm sure that will work out greatly for you," Teskit growled and closed the channel. "Ensign, direct the ships to start refueling in sequence. Lieutenant Hull, we're filling in as security along with the Inevitable until it is our turn to rotate in."

"I don't know how you handled him, sir," Franz muttered just loud enough for Teskit to hear.

"Incompetents are everywhere, Ensign," Teskit replied. "Learning to manage them was a necessary skill throughout my life. Developing it takes patience, and a great deal of swallowing your own pride. An ability that has shown its value particularly of late."

"Yes, sir," Franz nodded and then turned to begin working on coordinating with the Battlegroup.

"Commander, you have the con, I'll be in the tactical room," Teskit stepped into the darkened room and illuminated the map of the galaxy. He had options, so many options for harming the Confederacy, the question was. Which direction did he start with?

---

Lieutenant Mark Hull​

There was something deeply unsettling about moving further behind enemy lines. After two or three jumps, it became obvious that our holo communications with HIGHCOM were being jammed or interfered with, and occasionally we saw a handful of smaller cruisers or frigates drop out of hyperspace right as we were leaving to head into the next system. We were being hunted.

And while Bandomeer might technically be neutral right now. That didn't mean we were safe. So, we were here just long enough to top off our fuel stores and purchase a few goods we didn't have and then we were back off towards Serenno.

Which felt like a suicide mission if I were being completely honest. Sure, the Confederacy's seat of power was over to the Galactic East. But there was no way that Serenno and other worlds the Confederacy was using weren't guarded heavily right now.

Worse, the Hydian Way was one of the most common hyperlanes for trade in the galaxy. If we didn't change course soon, we'd be predictable and in greater danger of being wrecked by whoever was hunting us.

So far, Captain Teskit had been a Competent and able commanding officer. I'd have to trust that he wasn't going to have us run headlong to our deaths like that.

Of course, our peaceful refuelling was interrupted before we could do more than get half of the fleet rotated through.

"Task, send over the necessary funds as payment for the refueling," Teskit ordered as a small Confederacy battlegroup appeared on our sensors. "Franz, signal for Huntress to begin exiting the system on the following route," He tapped his datapad and the course he'd worked on was transmitted to myself, Franz, and the hyperspace navigation techs. "We don't have the firepower to deal with that."

A pair of Providence-Class destroyers had jumped into the system with Hardcell refits and Munifexes as the smaller escorts. Holding the center of their formation though, was the one thing that was making us flee the system instead of fight this group.

The Lucrehulk Battleship would be able to take us all out by its lonesome unless we were smart about how we fought. But with escorts that massed as much as they did. Well, we were better off leaving while we were at a crossroads where the enemy were going to have to guess at where we were going.

Sending a brief message to engineering asking for them to funnel more power to the main thrusters, I pushed our ship, the original Providence, towards the edge of the system. Directing the team to keep us in the formation as Teskit directed.

Still, seeing the massive bulk of the Lucrehulk and the firepower that it possessed made me long for one of the Mandators or other massive Battlecruisers that were protecting the Kuati Drive yards and other 'important' worlds. They were some of the only ships that could actually face off with a Lucrehulk one on one.

As the rest of Huntress gradually dispersed into hyperspace, I watched the enemy battlegroup sit and wait. They might be slower than us, but eventually, we'd get tired or screw up; and they would be there waiting to take us out.

The stars turned into streaks as we abandoned the neutral system to the CIS. Glancing down at the route that Teskit had given us, I shook my head and shrugged. I had no clue what the plan was, maybe he knew something I didn't but it just didn't make sense to me.
–
–

"How's our resident criminal?" Franz asked, taking a seat next to me in one of the many mess halls scattered throughout the Providence.

"I'm trying to figure out the Captain's plan," I replied. "Bandomeer made sense as a stopping point," I set the datapad down where the other officer could see it. "But he has us jumping to Halmad next, and we don't have the next jump coordinates yet. I thought we were supposed to head further north and then double back towards the east."

"Hmm," the Ensign frowned in thought as she pulled the tab on her meal kit, waiting for it to finish heating up. "There's a few possible locations from where we are," her fingers tapped several worlds within a certain radius of us. "There's ten or so worlds within a radius that we don't have to rely on the hyperlanes for navigation to. "Of those, some are neutral, some are on the Republic's side, and of the rest of them, only a handful would impact the Seppies ability to wage war on the Republic, if they were attacked. " She removed a large portion of the systems from the consideration, leaving only three.

"Axxila, Botojef, and Ord Cestys," I muttered. "Criminals, droids, and ships,"I muttered, thinking about the snippets I'd read in brief about said systems.

"Any of the three will cause some setbacks across this sector," Franz agreed. "It'd be a real coup if we were to hit all three of them. But, we'd have to head through an area with some known black holes in order to bypass the hyperlanes for that."

"Something to think about, that's for sure," I stroked my beard. "I'm just glad I don't have to make those sorts of choices."

"You and me, both," Franz laughed. "So, did you see that the Jedi came over during the refueling?"

"No," I raised an eyebrow. "Why, something happen?"

"She met with Captain Teskit alone again," She smirked. "An older gentleman, wise in the world, and an innocent Jedi…"

"You need to clean out you brain," I rolled my eyes. "Whatever you're reading, I want to burn it."

"I'm just saying, there's a possibility," she pulled the packaging off of her food and spooned a mouthful of what looked like mashed potatoes into her mouth.

"Jedi aren't celibate," I shook my head, snorting at the clearly perverted woman in front of me. "They can even get married if the circumstances are right."

"And you know this, how?" Franz settled in, her eyes alight with interest. "This is the first I've ever heard of this."

"First of all," I sucked down some water and opened a history book on my datapad. "It's right there in the archives. So, stop going to wherever you just went. I've never been in a relationship with a Jedi."

"That's what someone who got dumped by one would say," She snarked. "You may continue telling your story."

"Franz, you're the first woman I've spoken at length with in the last seven years," I sighed. "I spent five years crawling up through the Undercity, and two in a prison."

She winced, clearly not expecting to have hit a nerve there.

"Okay," she shifted a bit. "So, it's in the historical records?"

"Yeah, the records that the Republic has go back thousands of years, there are some from before the Ruusan Reformation, and other sources. And that's before you get into the fact that you can request information on subjects and if the Jedi Order's Librarians have a publicly available copy that they'll send it to you digitally for a small upkeep fee.."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 13


Navigating through the random systems that were off of the hyperlanes was an exercise in both patience and in stress levels. Once off the beaten path, you had to slow down and triple check your calculations before jumping into hyperspace.

There were a few known black holes that we had to avoid, and while there were a few explored and known systems in the space between the main hyperlanes, there wasn't a ton of information on said systems beyond a handful of entries into the history books.

Helping map out the routes made me feel like I was back in the Age of Sail, or the early space exploration. We would jump into a system, take some quick readings and refer to the space charts, then run another calculation and jump again. Sure, I might not have been the greatest at math back home, but I'd had nothing but time in prison to study the things I'd found interesting here in the Star Wars galaxy.

With all of said spare time, I'd read a ton of history and textbooks on navigating the hyperlanes and how Hyperdrives operated. It might only be book learning at first, but after a few months spent in the Republic Navy's version of Boot Camp, it was quickly transformed into practical applications. Because despite what the texts said, hyperspace navigation wasn't science alone. There was a large element of instinct and what felt like superstition built in. Hyperdrives might be rated as faster or slower, but for some reason, it didn't always translate 1-to-1 with how you actually arrived somewhere.

We also scanned the systems and worlds as we passed through. Regular trade routes missed these systems, and it was entirely possible for the Separatists to have hidden bases or a couple of Munificent Star frigates stationed out here to relay hypercom transmissions outside of the usual channels.

Which meant that we weren't surprised when the sensors picked up a couple of ships floating in the void of a system with no name. No, instead we simply sounded the call for battle stations and shifted our alert status.

"Sir, they're immobile," the sensor technician reported. "I'm not detecting any lifesigns or power from either of the ships."

"Get me an ID on the ships," Teskit ordered. "Launch our squadron of starfighters and have them do a flyby. If anything goes active, I want to know."

"Sir, Warbook is reporting partial matches," the tech sounded confused. "Records are saying that their ships from the Old Republic Era, but they're not an exact match."

"Keep scanning," Teskit ordered. "Franz, open a channel to the battlegroup."

"Aye, sir," Franz replied and I heard her hands fly across the controls.

Tuning that bit of conversation out, I opened a program on my terminal and accessed the sensor feeds that the technicians were discussing.

Sure enough, there were two cruiser-sized analogs sitting there, slowly orbiting the red dwarf of a star in between the asteroid belt and the trio of planets that made up the objects in this system. One of the ships looked eerily familiar, and I struggled to figure out where I'd seen it before. It was triangular, and looked a bit like a star destroyer, but it had rounded surfaces instead of the hard angular edges of the Venator that was a part of our battlegroup.

The second ship looked like a Corellian Corvette, or something else with a hammerhead frame writ large. And as we got closer, it finally clicked into place where I recognized the larger of the two vessels.

It was as if one of the many enemy ships from KOTOR had jumped out from the screen. As if the Star Forge had spat out a perfect replica of the Leviathan and done it hundreds, thousands of times.

Sure, there was a different configuration of turbolasers, ion cannons, etc from the design that they'd used in the games and from what we had in the Warbook. But it was either from that era, or closely descended from that design.

As for the other ship, it could be any number of hammerhead designs used by the Republic through the millennia. There had been a lot of them, and they all had different roles.

"Starfighters aren't seeing any activity," Franz reported. "What do you want to do, captain?"

"Anything on the ID yet?" Teskit asked the Tech.

"Negative sir, computers won't force a match."

"Captain, the design is clearly a modified Interdictor-Class from the Jedi Civil War," I spoke up. "Or at least something descended from it. As for the other ship," I shrugged. "I've got no clue, sir. There were a lot of Hammerhead designs used by the Republic."

"Sir, now that I've got a match on one of them, I've narrowed down the second ship," The tech seemed relieved. "Now that we're close enough, I'm running damage assessments."

"Commander Task," Teskit turned to the Clone. "Have a few squads of troopers ready to board both ships. Lieutenant Hull, you're to suit up and go with the group aboard the Interdictor."

"Sir?" I raised an eyebrow in confusion as I stood up. "I'm only barely trained in boarding operations. And not on a ship this old."

"None of us are trained on ships this old," Teskit replied, meeting my gaze firmly. "You're familiar enough to recognize the ship when no one else here could. Ronard and a few engineers will accompany you. If either ship can be restored, we'll move both of the corvette crews aboard to act as a skeleton crew and move on from there."

"Understood, sir," I dry-swallowed and nodded, a pit appearing in my stomach. "I'll find out whatever I can." I left the bridge, passing by the clone who would be filling in for as the head navigation officer.

---

The standard-issue suit given to Republic Naval Officers for boarding actions was similar to the Clone Armor in some ways. A plastoid chestpiece, some sort of insulated clothing with armored shoulders, knees, and elbows. The boots had magnets built in, and the helmet was like a sealed and armored bubble connected to the oxygen pack on my back.

I wished that we had a better helmet, but I knew that if I wanted a better suit, then I'd have to purchase it on my own and incorporate it into my kit. The Republic Navy operated off of a similar to the old US Army. You could use the issued kit, but it was probably made by the lowest bidder and while durable enough to last for a while, it was almost always a bit behind on where the future was headed. Or, you could buy your own gear and use it as long as it fell within the regs.

If I had known that I would be going to help inspect a derelict from the Jedi Civil War, then I would have bought something better while we were at KDY. (And a decent blaster rifle too.) Instead, I was going to be using this suit and my issued sidearm. And if the opportunity came up, I'd grab something nice for myself to use at a later date.


"Lieutenant," one of the Clone Troopers nodded at me as I climbed aboard the LAAT/I, a small green stripe on his shoulder indicating he was a Sergeant.

"Sergeant," I replied. "Is your squad ready to go?"

"Yes, sir," I could feel the anticipation of the trooper. "Just waiting on the rest of the techies to get aboard."

"Shouldn't be long now," I grabbed one of the handles above me. "Y'all placing any bets on which ship is working?"

The clones exchanged glances, some unseen message passing between them under their helmets before one of them replied.

"If I had money, it'd be on the hammerhead," the clone shrugged. "I've seen the records, those things were built tough."

"Well, I guess we'll find out," I chuckled as Ronard and the engineers split up between the handful of LAAT/Is and shuttles. "Pilot, get us over to that Interdictor," I ordered. "Might as well find out what ghosts lie here."

Right before the doors shut and we lifted off though, a figure leapt into the troop bay, the brown robes and lightsaber comforting me a bit when she simply nodded and settled into a meditative state.

If nothing else, having a Jedi along meant that this would either go well, or be a disaster. Either way it wasn't going to be boring by any means.

 

[MarkWarrior]

The ride through the void was silent apart from the rumble of the gunship's engines and repulsors. Knight Durald had her eyes closed and seemed to be in some sort of meditative state underneath the clear bubble that made up the helmet of her environment suit.

There were a hundred and twenty people split up into halves to inspect the two ships. Ronard had half of the engineers and was heading up the inspection of the hammerhead looking ship, and I was going to be in charge of seeing how spaceworthy the Interdictor was.

All of which filled me with nerves. Especially as we crept ever closer to the looming cruiser. The odd shape filling the transparisteel viewscreen of the gunship.

"Sir, where do we want to make an entry?" the pilot asked.

"See if the hangar bays are open at all," I replied. "If the bulkhead doors aren't closed, we'll work our way through there. If not, we'll use an escape pod hatch."

"Yes, sir," The clone replied, pulling on the sticks and moving us over and down the side of the ship.

I looked out the front and saw very minimal damage to the hull from anything. Sure, there were a few minor turbolaser scars, but it didn't seem like there was a ton of battle damage. Whatever happened to these ships wasn't external. No, there was something else going on here. And based on the fact that Durald was with us, I figured it was something to do with a Force ghost or some leftover Sith or Jedi bullshit.

All of the hanger doors were shut, probably a safety feature similar to the one aboard modern ships where when the power initially cuts out, the doors slam shut as it's more power efficient to close the doors than it was to keep the magnetic fields up and running. Which meant we were going in through one of the escape pod hatches.

"I've located one of the larger escape pod hatches," the pilot informed us as he dropped the gunship 'down'. "Secure your tethers and get ready to breach in."

Every clone and engineer had a line of strong but thin cord attached to their utility belt that was able to be secured magnetically or via a grappling hook if necessary. In this case, we locked them onto the side of the cruiser and locked our magnetic boots onto the armored hull.

"There isn't any power to the doors," An engineer called out as he examined the external control pad that was covered by a panel he'd pulled off and left floating beside him. "I can plug in a temporary battery and get some power to them for now. With it being without power for this long, it should have reverted to factory standard access codes."

"Do what you need to," I ordered. "Just get us in."

It was kinda odd that Durald hadn't taken charge yet, but I simply shrugged as the second LAAT/I touched down and the other thirty clones and engineers attached themselves to the hull.

But working out in the void took time. So, it was slow going as a trio of engineers pulled a case to them and began working with various cable ends, struggling to line everything up with the correct power requirements.

Waiting on them, I looked out around me, Battlegroup Huntress being tiny specs barely visible in the light of the local star, and the small nebula around us shimmering with a rainbow of colours as the dust scattered the light. If nothing else, just getting to see this view made signing up with the Republic Navy worthwhile.

Maybe it was the view, maybe it was that I was locked into the task we were doing, but any nervousness I'd had vanished as soon as the escape pod hatch slid open and the engineers waved us through. Replacing it was a calm certainty that things were going to go wrong, and it was only a matter of time before we encountered something life-threatening or changing.

---

"Get those generators hooked up to these terminals!" Ronard barked. "And someone close the blast doors on this hanger!"

Whatever had happened aboard this ship, it was bad. Debris lay everywhere, all but four of the starfighters were in pieces, and scars from blaster fire, grenades, and what looked like a plasma torch covered the hanger.

If Ronard were a betting man, he'd put money on there being bodies further inside the ship. In fact, he was counting on it. Which is why he tapped a Clone Sergeant's shoulder and pulled him in close.

"I want a squad with each set of engineers," Ronard ordered. "And two of them clearing out the interior of the ship. Beyond the damage here, something feels off."

"Lucky, Shrap, get over here!" The clone pointed to two clones that looked identical to the rest. "Take two squads, go through this ship, make sure nothing alive is in here."

"And if there is, Sarge?" Lucky asked.

"Then you make sure that it isn't anymore," Ronard cut in. "Anything still alive here isn't something we want to deal with."

"Understood, sir," Shrap nodded, moving to his squad and giving them some directions while Lucky did the same.

The two squads disappeared further into the dark ship, green chemlights on their shoulder pauldrons and helmet mounted lights the only sign they were there at all.

"Jon!" Ronard turned his attention back to his job, trusting the Clones to do theirs. "I want the lights on and a floor plan!"

"Workin' on it!" The other old engineer yelled back. "I ain't seen anything this old since you and I had to break into that one freighter back in the day."

"Just get it done," Ronard sighed, the glint of a Vibroblade floating nearby catching his attention as it reflected some of the rays from the flashlights. "I want to get this over and done with."

"Sir, these starfighters are in immaculate condition!" Praul called out, his lekku constrained by the helmet he wore. "We should be able to put them into service if we can get them into one of our hangar bays. The concussion missile tubes are even the same diameter as ours!"

"Well, at least we won't be going back empty handed," Ronard reached out and grabbed the Vibroblade, attaching it to his hip. Something told him he'd want to have it later. "If you can get them powered up and running, have them taken back to the Inevitable. They'll have the hangar space for them."

"Yes. sir!" Praul replied.

All around him, engineers began cleaning up debris, the ones with the generator eventually got the hangar's power working and Jon got the console working enough to pull a rough layout of the now identified Thranta-Class Corvette.

"Jon, we're going to go check out the core," Ronard called his old friend over. "If I recall, these Thranta's had an older annihilator core that had issues. If this thing is unstable, the last thing we need is for us to power it back on. We'd kill half the battlegroup and ourselves in an instant."

Jon shuddered. "I hate these old ships," he muttered. "Always feels like there're ghosts watching your every step."

"You and me both," Ronard replied. "Sergeant, any word on those squads we sent further in?"

"They haven't encountered anything yet," the Clone replied. "Nothing aside from bodies, anyway."

"Bring them back until we get the power back on," Ronard called out. "Last thing we need is for us to activate some security measures and kill our people."

---

"I'm breaking you into six groups," I looked out at the sixty clones and Engineers. "One tech to one trooper. Group one," I pointed to myself and a handful of people. "We're heading to the bridge. Group two, engineering, see if we can restore power. Group three, head over to the hanger, see if there's anything there. Groups four, five, and six, I want you to spread out, police bodies and see if you can find any information on the ship and what it was doing here as we reactivate systems."

We were about to disperse when I gave one more command.

"Updates every five minutes," I ordered. "If you're delayed, we'll assume the worst happened and all groups will reorient on the last known location."

With that, they all moved through the rest of the ship, leaving me with nine other people and a Jedi to wrangle.

Thankfully, there were aurebesh markings and arrows pointing to common areas on the ship, even if we were going to be roaming through the ship's corridors until we finally got to the bridge.

With a few short hand signals, the clones took point and we began moving through the ship, the darkened corridors only lit by the helmet lights of the clones and some chemlights. The eerie darkness consuming everything but not in a way that seemed threatening, just lonely.

Then, as we bypassed a door to go through the barracks on the way to the bridge, we saw the bodies.

They were clearly on their way to their battle stations, their uniforms marked with the symbol of the Republic, and some of them floating above their bunks as if they'd died trying to climb out.

"This is Lieutenant Hull," I opened a channel to the other teams. "You guys seeing this too?"

"They're everywhere," Engineer Aliya breathed quietly. "So many of them…"

"Team four," I felt an epiphany strike. "Once the power is on, make your way to the atmosphere scrubbers. See if there's any chemical agents present or lingering there. Everyone else, keep your suits on until we've got verification that it's safe to breathe."

Walking through the barracks, I nearly paused at the armory room before shaking my head and continuing on. There would be time to loot things later.

Thankfully, ships weren't wholly reliant on turbolifts to get from one area to the next, there were hatches and access points that had ladders and other old-fashioned means of transportation throughout every ship in the galaxy. Unfortunately for us, said ladder system stretched from the bottom of the ship all the way to the top, and even on a cruiser that wasn't as massive as a Mandator or Praetor, there were still a lot of rungs.

The only good thing was that we currently didn't have any artificial gravity. So, instead of having to physically climb, we were pushing ourselves off and allowing momentum to carry us to the levels that we wanted to be on. Eventually, after an hour or so of stopping to check which floor we were on, we reached the floor that the bridge was on.

Just in time too, as Aliya informed all the groups.

"I'm about to activate the backup reactors," Aliya informed us all. "It should allow critical sections to be accessed and systems restored. But one of those is artificial gravity. If you're in the access corridors, you need to hold on."

There was a slight sound heard and the red glow of the emergency lights slowly illuminated everything. Sure, it made everything seem more sinister at first until my eyes adjusted, but being able to see the dead actually made things less terrifying. Also, being able to open doors made our transit even faster.

"Good work," I told Aliya. "Anything else that we need to be aware of?"
"There's still hypermatter in storage, but it'll take time to reactivate the pumps and restore power to the main power plant," you could hear the shrug in her shoulders. "There's no sign of critical issues, it's like the main plant just ran out of fuel eventually. Leaving it here."

"Copy that," I nodded for the Clone Engineer to open the door to the bridge. "Keep me posted."

The bridge had the same bodies that the barracks had, only they were in slightly more decorated uniforms barring the lone figure in the prominent brown robes of a Jedi lying on the center of the ground.

"Nothing but dust and echoes," Durald finally said something, having been mostly silent during our trek through the ship. "Not even so much as a Force Echo is here to mark their passing."

She knelt next to the mummified corpse and pulled out a lightsaber, igniting it and seeing the pale blue beam before shutting it off and adding it to her belt. Crouching down again, she eventually removed a small brown pouch before tucking it into a pocket and standing up.

"There is no threat from the Dark Side of the Force here," She murmured and then jolted as if struck by an electric shock.

"Gunship Besh, meet me at the hangar we passed by earlier!" She ordered into her comlink. "Lieutenant Hull, I'm taking this squad with me. They're going to need assistance on the other ship."

"Go," I replied and gestured for the Clones to follow. "We'll be fine here."

With that, the Jedi left us alone in the dark red lit corridors filled with the dead.

Author's note: The Interdictor was technically a Galactic Republic class of ship before Revan mass-produced them with the Star Forge. I rolled some dice in order to see what happened here. And, well. Sometimes things get flipped on their heads.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Kalyna Durald had never been the strongest or smartest Jedi. She knew that she'd only barely squeezed by her trials with her endurance and specialization at healing. With the Republic going to War against the Confederacy, she'd only barely accepted being made a 'Jedi-Commander'. She was 'adequate' at all of the disciplines expected of a Jedi, but only good at one. Fighting, strategy, leaping into danger without thinking twice?

No, she left the strategy, battle plans, and everything else to those who were good at it. Captain Teskit was a highly competent and capable commander, as were the majority of the ranking officers among Battlegroup Huntress. She would much prefer to remain in the background, listening and assisting as needed.

Which is why she'd simply observed as Lieutenant Hull and his people went through the derelict vessel. Instead of directing, she'd reached into the Force and waited for it to speak to her. But the deeper they got, the less danger there seemed to be. The only thing that remained on this ship was that of a deep sadness. There were no Force Ghosts here, no lingering madness of the Dark Side.

Yes, it was a tragedy that so many died, but after reaching the bridge and collecting the dead Jedi's lightsaber and Holocron, she'd been confident that there was no lingering issues on this vessel. That was, until the Force screamed out at her as the Dark Side surged nearby. It shocked her senses and she reached out, feeling the panic and dear of the personnel on the other ship as well as the loss of life that had just happened.

"Gunship Besh, meet me at the hangar we passed by earlier!" Kalyna ordered into her comlink before turning her gaze onto the officer aboard this ship. "Lieutenant Hull, I'm taking this squad with me. They're going to need assistance on the other ship."

"Go," Hull seemed concerned, his brow furrowed as he replied and gestured for the Clones to follow. "We'll be fine here."

The clones simply fell in behind her as she sprinted down corridors, eventually arriving at the turbolift that would carry them down to the hangar below them.

"Ma'am, do you know what the enemy is?" the Sergeant asked.

"Not yet," Kalyna shook her head. "I sense that someone or something is killing the other boarding party and it is fully immersed in the Dark Side of the Force."

"Whatever you say, ma'am," The green-striped clone shrugged. "We'll follow orders."

When they arrived at the hangar, the doors were just beginning to slide open, the pair of gunships sliding into the bay and setting down next to the rows of starfighters that dominated the space.

If they'd had the time, Kalyna would have marveled at the immaculate condition that everything was in, but as it was, she and the clones bypassed the fighters and bodies that filled the hanger, heading for the closest gunship and climbing aboard.

"Pilot!" she called out. "Get us over to the other ship, and open a channel to the Providence."

"Yes, ma'am!" The clone replied, sliding closed the bay doors and taking off at a rapid speed.

"This is Captain Teskit," The voice of the Battlegroup's commander was calm.

"Captain," Kalyna's mind raced to figure out how to explain the issue to him before the calming influence of the Light Side filled her. "The other ship is under danger and their party is being attacked."

"I presume you're asking for reinforcements?" The Captain asked.

"No," she shook her head. "If we don't manage to defeat whatever this is, then you need to destroy the ship."

"I'll take it under advisement," Teskit replied. "But I'll not destroy a ship that has any of my people aboard it. Not while there's a chance to recover them. I'll leave communications with the gunship open. If you require reinforcements, then call for them and I'll divert more troopers your way."

Kalyna simply sighed and immersed herself in the Light. She would need to be at her best to face this, and she wasn't confident in her ability to handle an ancient Sith threat.

–
–

The gunship settled into the hangar of the second derelict, the red glow of emergency lights and harsh white of flashlights pointing down a corridor with Clones and engineers keeping their blasters trained on the entrances.

"What's going on here?" The Clone Sergeant asked as he stepped off the gunship, Kalyna pulling her lightsaber off her belt and holding it close. Whatever was aboard this ship, its attention was caught by something further within.

"Sir, first and second squads encountered something after the backup power was restored. We all heard the screams, but there was nothing we could do." a sole clone replied. "The Chief Engineer is trapped in the engine room along with Sarge, and we haven't had any contact from the few engineer teams that are scattered throughout the ship."

"Stay here and protect those who are left," Kalyna ordered, swallowing her nerves. "Sergeant, your squad is with me, we'll eliminate this or buy time for the Engineer and his group to evacuate."

With that, she stepped into the corridor and gestured for them to follow her as she followed the directions of the Force.

The deeper they went, the more oppressive the feeling became, until eventually they discovered the two squads of clones that had been exploring the ship. They had been cut apart by lightsabers, the burn scars littered throughout the room showcasing the fight the clones had put up against whatever they'd faced, and the long gashes in the floor and walls showed that it was clearly raging or some sort of berserker.

Igniting her own lightsaber, Kalyna allowed the comfort of the weapon to center her as she took point, leading them even deeper. The Sith Markings on the wall showing exactly who this ship had belonged to.

Finally, after what felt like hours of looking through the dark corridors for the enemy, they found him. A dark figure shrouded in dark robes, a violet lightsaber held in his hand as he carved apart a bulkhead door.

"Finally," a smug and charismatic voice seemed to echo through their minds and the stale air of the ship. "An opponent that tastes different. I will enjoy pulling the life from you, Jedi."

With a quick shift of his wrist, the dark-jedi pulled his lightsaber out of the door just in time to block the blue bolts of the Clone's blaster rifles.

"Please, must you have the help with you?" He settled into a stance and taunted. "Have the Jedi become so weak that they fight against me with this filth?"

Taking a deep breath, Kalyna settled into a Soresu stance and centered herself. Waiting for the enemy to make the first move was hard, but she knew where her strength lay, and outlasting the enemy was her way.

After a few seconds, the violet blade lashed out against her, the enemy blade clashing against her yellow as she redirected his force into the wall before stepping back into her stance. But that was only the first probe, and a flurry of attacks came soon after that.

This Sith, Dark Jedi, whatever he was, was more skilled with the blade than she was, the only reason she was able to keep up with him was due to his weakness. It was obvious that he was holding back or struggling to overcome some sort of injury.

They clashed in the hallways, Dark versus Light as Kalyna struggled to keep the enemy bottled up in this narrow space. Occasionally, one of the clones would get a shot off, the blaster rifle bolts enough of a distraction to allow her to stay in the fight as her energy slowly began to dip.

As her energy levels flagged, she began receiving small wounds, the violet lightsaber leaving small cauterized wounds on her. Then, right as she was about to flag and knew her end was near, a stream of fire retardant material streamed from an overhead nozzle, covering the Dark Jedi and distracting him enough for his deflection to lag behind by a few seconds, just long enough for her yellow blade to drive through his heart and lungs.

"This is Ronard, you guys alright?" A voice echoed through the comlink. "We managed to gain control of some interior systems and tried to lend a hand."

"Thank you," she breathed in response, kicking the now deactivated lightsaber out of the dead Dark Jedi's hand. "Do any of you have flamethrowers?" She asked the clone squad behind her.

"Negative," the Sergeant shook his head. "If you want the body gone though, I have a solution," He held up one of the thermal detonator grenades. "We can leave this behind on a short timer and close the door behind us."

"No," Kalyna shook her head. "We're not leaving this out of our sight."

Touching her comlink, she connected to the channel Ronard had spoken on.

"Engineer, are you able to reactivate the main power on this vessel?"

"Everything's kriffed," the engineer replied. "We've got blasterfire scars and bodies all over the place, the main reactor's likely to go if we turn it back on, and there's enough damage here I wouldn't want to even try limping this thing to a museum."

"Pull the logs as best you can," Kalyna replied. "We've dealt with the threat, but there's no telling what other evils lie on this ship."

"Already ahead of you," Ronard said. "We pulled the system and logs across the ship as soon as we reached the engine room. We'll tuck them into a storage device and meet you in the hangar."

"Alright," Kalyna let out a breath she'd been holding. "Grab the body, we're throwing it into the sun before we leave this system. But we can't leave it out of our sight."

---

"Air scrubbers are going to be an issue," Aliya said, showing me her datapad. "There's some sort of biological compound that's grown into the scrubbers themselves. It was probably created to be used as a weapon, with this ship being the test case for it."

"How long will it take to remove it?" I asked.

"More time than we have," she replied with a heavy sigh. "I've shut them off and sealed them for now, but we'll have to find a yard and have that system overhauled if we want to use it. Outside of that, we should be able to set up some areas with backup scrubbers for sections of the ship, but we'll have to use some bulkheads as an airlock."

"Alright," I nodded, already thinking about which sections to set up. "Anything else?"

"Port side hangar doors are sealed shut, and I don't think we'll be able to open them with the equipment we have, also, the power conduits on that side of the ship are in disrepair, looks like there was a small collision with something that broke something there. We can reroute the power, but we won't have the turbolasers on that side, only deflectors. Beyond that, it seems that this ship was refitted and didn't have the gravity well generators that the other ships of her class had. Instead, they placed ion cannons, more point defense lasers, and a half-dozen heavy turbolasers around the ship."

"Well, there goes that hope," I shrugged. "Tell me the thrusters on the port side still work."

"They do," She nodded. "We've got full engines and if we can make it to a yard, we can get this ship up to modern standards. Honestly, if we can improve the power efficiency, we'll have stronger deflectors than the Inevitable. Not to mention we already have a thicker hull."

"Well, let's hope we can get to that yard sooner than later," I said. "I've got most of the clones working on policing bodies and taking inventory of the armories and barracks. If there's anything you want, let us know."

"Honestly, sir," She replied. "I'm just happy to work on the Horizon as it is. Sure, the tech is old, but you can see where we based ours off of it and where we diverged. It's fascinating."

"I'm sure it is," I agreed. "But right now, we need to piece together exactly what we need to get the Horizon limping along. As well as what we do and don't have aboard her. If there's anything we can use the ship's fabricators for, we'll do that, if not, we'll source it from the battlegroup."

"We're gonna need a lot more personnel," she tapped a button on her datapad showing the necessary amount of crew to just get the most basic of systems running.

"We're getting five hundred," I showed her the memo. "That doesn't include the sixty already here, but we're going to have to make it work."

"That's just enough to get us moving," She sighed again. "Now, which sections and subsections are going to require power. If we're going to be operating on a skeleton crew, we're going to be able to focus on a handful of sections and pump more power to the shields and turbolasers…"

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 16


"Try the test now," I ordered Aliya over the comms.

"Checking power conduits," She replied from the engine room. "Everything's green on my end."

"Good," I reached up to wipe sweat off my brow before running into the stupid dome. "If all of the tests check out, then we'll have bypassed the damaged section."

"Running the whole suite now," Aliya said. "Stay where you are, it'll take about thirty minutes for us to get the results back."

"Understood," I responded. "I'll be here."

We'd spent the better part of 24 hours working to restore as much of the Horizon to full functionality as possible. While more and more personnel were reassigned from the battlegroup to assist, Ronard and his group were stripping everything of value from the nearby Thranta, a steady stream of Gozantis and shuttles ferrying everything into the impressive cargo holds of the Interdictor.

There were still bodies to be policed and set aside for a space burial, systems to be checked and worked on, but the initial work in getting us prepared for the jump to the next system was done. Or it would be after these tests came back.

When we finished working on this, I was going to crash for a few hours and then look in the Armory to see what loot I would be claiming for my own. I already had a decent blaster pistol and holdout blaster tucked away in a hidden holster. But it never hurt to have more specialized arms.

Frankly, I was hoping to pick up one of the Cortosis-weave vibroblades at a minimum. Even if the sword simply served as a wall hanger for my quarters for a while. I'd rather have it and never need it than need it and not have it. If I managed to find a decent set of armor that fit within the regs, I would probably grab that too. (Though, I was likely never going to wear it barring another boarding action.)

"Lieutenant, what's your location?" Ronard's voice broke through my thoughts.

"I'm at the port side power control center," I replied. "Waiting on tests from Engineer Aliya for verification that we're good to go."

"Stay there," the other man ordered. "I'm coming to you. Captain Teskit decided on the command of the ship and it's something you're going to want to hear."

"Understood," I shrugged. "I'll remain on station."

Bringing out my datapad while I waited, I ran through some of the ship logs we'd pulled. Eventually, we were going to submit them to the historical archives, but right now they simply made for fascinating reading.

The door slid open a few moments later, revealing Ronard in his standard issue suit, the only modification being a helmet that was designed with his background in mind.

"Lieutenant Commander," I stood up as he entered the room.

"Sit back down," He commanded, looking around for a minute before grabbing a chair and dragging it in front of me before plopping down. "I'll get straight to it. I'm being given command of the Horizon."

"Yes, sir?" I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't expected to be given command of a ship yet.

"But I don't want anything to do with running a ship," Ronard said bluntly. "And Condev kriffing knows that. So, here's how things are going to work. I'm an engineer, that's all I want to be, that's all I want to do. You're going to essentially be the captain, running the day to day of the ship. The Captain already cleared this. If we encounter another Republic fleet, you let me know and I'll come up to the Bridge and look the part. Until then, enjoy your new responsibilities, Lieutenant."

With that, he stood up, pausing at the door.

"I'll be in the engine room if you need me."

A few minutes passed and I sat there somewhat frozen, still putting everything together when my comlink chimed and Aliya broke through my mental fog.

"Lieutenant, all the tests are coming back positive, hell, they're better than we expected. If we can get some repairs made, we should be able to get some of the turbolasers on this side of the ship back up and running!"

"Copy that," I shoved aside the shock and focused on the tasks we were doing right now. None of the other stuff mattered if we couldn't get the Horizon moving. "Where do you need me to go next?"

"There's two stations further up that are giving me some odd readings," she replied, pausing for a moment to do what I assumed was to look at a panel. "I need the conduits there inspected and marked as to whether they can be repaired with what we have on hand or if we need to wait for yard time."

"Alright, give me directions," I stood up. "I'll go check things out."

---

It wasn't until we'd begun moving that I finally found the time to grab a couple of trophies for myself. Sure, I probably could have done it earlier, but I wanted the Horizon to be in as good condition as possible before grabbing whatever might help me.

Of course, picking which armory to loot was the hardest decision. According to the ship's logs I'd read, this ship was commanded by a Jedi Knight and had a handful of commandos onboard. Given how prominent the Cortosis-weave vibroblades were back then, I was confident in finding one that I'd be comfortable having and learning how to use.

Eventually, I settled on the armory the closest to the bridge, assuming that it would be the one that the Jedi and his commando team would likely be using. An assumption that I was proven right in when I opened the door and looked at what was present.

Racks of Republic Modular armor with varying helmets, vibroblades, and what looked like custom blaster rifles and pistols were tucked into racks and footlockers. There was also a small fabricator resting on a nearby workbench, a feed ramp with materials sitting just beside it.

First things first, I went to the rack of vibroblades, bypassing the katana looking ones immediately and heading for what looked like a straight sword, grabbing each in turn until I'd found the one I thought was balanced the best, then tucking it and the sword belt onto my side. I tested the draw and nodded, sliding it back into its sheath before turning to look at the armor.

Republic Mod armor was one of the things that many people in the Republic Navy wished hadn't been phased out. From what I understood, the basic armor remained the same for nearly ten thousand years before being changed. With only minor updates to the systems. All of which meant that I wouldn't have to do much shopping around to find compatible helmets or accessories for the armor.

Even better, it was technically still allowed in the regs for space suits, (Provided it was painted appropriately).

So, after looking through all of the suits, I grabbed the one that fit best and tossed it and the vibroblade into a footlocker, then turned my attention to the blaster rifles. My issued sidearm was again, probably one of the best procurement decisions the Republic had ever made, but it was still technically just that. A modular sidearm, and anything that tries to do more than one or two things is probably not going to do particularly well at any single one of them.

With that thought in mind, I looked through the blaster rifles before deciding on a cutdown carbine with iron sights and an optic that reminded me of the AR platform I was familiar with.

Then I was done. I didn't want to take any family heirlooms we might find. After all, families here in this galaxy oftentimes could trace back lineage thousands of years. So, after grabbing ammo for everything and a few power packs for the armor and blade, I dragged the footlocker out. There was still work to be done before we reached known space.

---

"Captain, we've arrived in the planned system, the Horizon and corvettes are lagging behind," Franz reported.

"Very well," Teskit replied. "Have the battlegroup fall into formation Cresh and start scanning the system. "We won't be able to fool the Separatists for long, so calculate our jump to Ord Cestus and have the Horizon, Adept, and Jackal join the formation as soon as they arrive."

"Aye, sir," The ensign replied, speaking into her headset and relaying the information.

"Commander Task, you have the con," Teskit moved back to the tactical display and pulled up the known information on Ord Cestus.

There were a handful of known battle droid factories producing the somewhat upgraded B-1s that were in common use throughout the Confederacy. Sure, it was only a few factories, but anything to catch the Separatist's attention and drag it away from other operations would be useful.

Teskit considered the planet, resting his hand on his chin as he was notified that the Horizon and other two slow ships had caught up.

He currently had a manpower problem. He had enough crew to keep his main fleet in action, but not enough to keep them fresh. But there was a solution if they could manage to pull it off.

B-1s weren't the smartest, but they were easily reprogrammed if you had control of the factory. Assuming he could capture and hold the factory long enough, he could manufacture enough of them to ensure his crew issue was solved and then destroy the factories as they left.

The largest issue lay in the shutdown codes. They would be on a limited timeframe to change the factory codes to something only his troops had access to. He needed to speak to Ronard and his engineers. If they were going to do something like this, he needed a guarantee that they could make it work before he exposed his people to the potential threat.

–
–

"It can be done," the Captain's old friend sighed on the other end of the private comms channel. "But we'll only be able to do this once. If we do this, then the enemy will put together that we were able to do it and will adapt."

"I'm aware," Teskit replied. "I just need to know if it will help with the manpower issue."

"It'll certainly help," Teskit could almost hear Ronard's shrug. "But they're not going to be the brightest bulbs. It'd be like having the army or security forces in charge of the ship. Best to pair them with experienced crew so their learning algorithms can perform at their best. They won't fully replace any of our people. But here on the Horizon, or the other ships we stripped crews from. They'll definitely be a help."

"Get me a list of what we'll need," Teskit said. "I'll have everything ready by the time we reach Ord Cestus."