Into the Chaos Ch. 03

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That left me with only one option.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir!"

"Engineer Keller, how's Resa?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thank you."

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

"Yes, sir."

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

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

"Oh shit." Mumbled Keller behind me.

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

"Do we have a spare?"

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

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

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

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

"No, sir."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"On screen."

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

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

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

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

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

"Thank you, LC."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's fine."

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

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

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

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

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