Into the Chaos Ch. 05

Into the Chaos -- Author's note.

Welcome to this chapter of my story 'Into the Chaos'. A Sci-fi story that takes place in the Unknown Regions of the Star Wars universe just after the Great Galactic War, almost 4000 years before the events of the movies.

This is the fifth chapter and if you haven't read the previous ones, I recommend that you do that first.

Disclaimer: I do not own or hold any rights to any Star Wars licenses, including the star ships used in this story.

Some warnings:

This is an erotic sci-fi adventure, meaning that there will be both sex and violence, but I don't mix the two.

This story is posted on the Literotica website and the author does not give permission for it to be reposted or reprinted anywhere else without consent.

P.S. The series is self-edited, so any mistakes are mine, though I now have a proofreader, that can catch missing words ect. Thanks to Jessejames932006 for doing that.

P.P.S. While you're here anyway, please rate the chapter and leave a comment :)

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Chapter 5 -- Repairs and training

Various ships, Unknown System

"It is believed by many that the military life is one of adventure and excitement.

In truth, that life more often consists of long periods of routine, even boredom,

with only brief intervals of challenge and danger."

From the Holy Book of War

Starting the repairs - month 1

Just as Keller had predicted, the back-up reactor on the Epsilon-Class repair ship started without a hitch on the third day, enabling the engineers to switch on the all-important life support and fill the ship with breathable air, though it would take at least a day more before the ship was ready to receive passengers.

While the air was filling the ship, the engineers charged the droids and had the cleaning and maintenance droids strip the dead from their armor and place the remains into empty containers, which would later be transported to one of the older wrecks.

As soon as the droids were done cleaning up, half the engineers started to work on starting the ship's main reactor, while the other half moved the maintenance droids to the next ship in line, so the droids could remove the dead bodies there before the engineers would move in and repeat the process.

As soon as Keller gave the go-ahead, the Rendaran-Class Shuttles started to ferry people from Last Chance to the Epsilon Class, slowly emptying the Heraklon-class transport of people. I considered using the Jackpot as well, but unfortunately the Lethisk-class freighter was too big to enter Last Chance's small hangar, so I dropped that thought. Using an airlock was too time consuming, considering that the shuttles could simply fly from one hangar to another.

It took time, but with the crisis averted, the general mood of the fleet was much better, and people took the delay in stride.

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The next three weeks were hectic as the modern Imperial ships were cleaned, repaired, and started up one after another.

Since we needed to train a lot of the former slaves, I had decided to leave just a skeleton crew on the Repair ship and gather most of our people on the fleet's flagship, one of the Dragon-Class Dreadnoughts, as that would make the basic training a lot easier.

That the ships had only been here for three years was an added benefit, as it meant that all the food in the ships was still usable, giving us years' worth of food to use, effectively eliminating my previous concerns about food shortage for the time being.

Before everybody else was moved to the Dreadnought, Chief Engineer Keller wanted to give me a personal tour of the flagship and thus, I had taken Duchess' pinnace to the ship, where the Chief Engineer was waiting for me in the hangar.

"Welcome onboard a Dragon-Class Dreadnought, sir!" He greeted with a wide smile as I exited the pinnace.

"Thank you, Chief Engineer." I said as I looked around in the enormous main hangar.

It had taken a small army of cleaning and repair droids more than a week to remove all the dead bodies, clean the armor and the ship's interior, before they had placed everything back in their proper place.

The result was spectacular, as the hangar was spotless, with row after row of fighter craft hanging from the top rack in the hangar, looking ready to deploy. At only ten meters in length, it was small for a strikefighter, but it looked fast and deadly.

Next to me, Keller had noticed the direction I was looking at and was smiling widely. "You'll be pleased to hear that the starfighter complement in the Experimental Battlegroup is different from that of a normal Imperial Battlegroup. Except for the ones on the repair ship, half the Mark VI Supremacy-Class starfighters have been replaced with the Dromund Kalakar produced M7 Nightsinger, and all the S13 Sting scouts have been replaced with the S13a Super Sting."

"I'm not familiar with these ships, but it sounds like Dromund Kalakar replaced the normal complement of fighters, with their own versions... So, what are the differences?"

"Well, the M7 Nightsinger is an upgrade of the Mark VI, which turned it into a Strike Fighter. It has shields, two more lasers and an additional missile launcher, without giving up much of the speed and manoeuvrability of the Supremacy-class, and perhaps more importantly, it has a hyper drive."

"Let me guess." I said slowly. "It was more expensive and couldn't compete with the Mk VI Supremacy-class?"

"Almost right, sir." He said with a sigh. "It was produced and most likely still is, but the Supremacy-class is so cheap to make, that it's by far the most used starfighter." He shrugged. "It was the same story with the S13 Sting versus the S13a Super Sting. Dromund Kalakar's Super Sting is basically a slightly modified S13, with upgraded weapons, sensor, and communication equipment. All in all, it was the superior craft, but the Sting was easier and cheaper to produce."

Since I didn't know the crafts, he was talking about, I just nodded slowly, assuming I would have time to read up on them.

However, from what he had told me so far, it sounded like the Experimental Battlegroup had been designed by engineers, that didn't know much of how the Empire fought space battles, and just wanted to make the best ships they could.

While that was a commendable goal, in this case it wasn't smart as it resulted in ships that didn't fit into Imperial naval doctrine. At least not when it came to star fighters. According to the lessons at the Chiss Naval Academy, the Imperial doctrine for star fighters was to deploy overwhelming numbers of fast and highly manoeuvrable crafts, like the Mark VI Supremacy-Class, which used a complicated swarm tactic to take down the enemy starfighters, leaving the Republic's capital ships to the Dreadnoughts and Cruisers.

With their largest ship being the five hundred meters long Valor-class cruiser, the Republic didn't really have dreadnoughts and so relied heavily on their starfighters to damage the much larger imperial capital ships, before the republic capital ships went into combat with them.

Consequently, the Imperial main starfighter was a space superiority fighter, like the Supremacy-class, while the Republic main starfighter was a Strike Fighter, like the Liberator-class.

That was not to say that Imperial star fighters didn't attack large ships or that the republic strike fighters didn't go into combat with enemy fighters, it just wasn't their speciality and not the way they were normally used.

With that in mind, making a strike fighter for the Empire wasn't a good idea. Especially not, if you expected it to be the main fighter of the Empire.

I discovered that Chief Engineer Keller was looking at me, like he had asked a question I hadn't heard. "Sorry, Chief Engineer. I just needed to sort out in my head, why your superior design of the M7 Nightsinger wasn't that successful."

"If you come to a conclusion, I would like to know as well, sir." He said with a sigh. "I think it has bothered me ever since."

"Oh." I said and explained my thoughts to him, finishing with. "So, the engineers of Dromund Kalakar built a strikefighter to the wrong navy doctrine. The capital ships and the S-13 Super Sting all had a chance, as they fit into the naval doctrine, but a strike fighter like the Mk. VII simply doesn't fit, since the Empire mainly uses space superiority fighters and I doubt that it'll be produced in any significant numbers by the Empire."

Engineer Keller looked thoughtful for a moment before he said. "I think you're right and I haven't seen it that way before, sir." He smiled a little and changed the subject. "As for the numbers you asked for, the Dragon-class got room for ten wings of twelve fighters, which sums up to one hundred and twenty, but as I said, it's standard procedure to use only half the full complement of fighters during tests." He smiled widely. "It looks like the shipyard at Dromund Kalakar bent the rules somewhat, because while the ship has sixty Mk. VI Supremacy class, it also has sixty M7 Nightsingers." He turned and started to walk down the rows of fighter craft. "There're no bombers, but on the bonus side, there are ninety-six S13a Super Sting scouts, since the leadership at Dromund was showing those off to the Admiral in hope that he would recommend them."

He gestured in the direction of several rows of smaller craft hanging in top racks, just like the Interceptors, and gave me the specs. Admittedly, I was impressed.

At only seven meters in length, the small scout not only had two hard-hitting rapid-fire lasers as most Sith starfighters, but it also had ship-to-ship Ion missiles and hardened armor and shields. As all scouts, it had an excellent sensor and communication suite, and it was both faster and more manoeuvrable than the Interceptor.

In fact, it was so good, that I didn't understand why the leadership at Dromund Kalakar had even bothered to make the Nightsinger, when they already had a starfighter, that despite being a scout could be used as a new and better space superiority fighter at production cost that was only slightly higher than the Mk. VI Supremacy-Class.

Deciding that the ways of the Sith were strange, I nodded at what Keller had said and looked around. It was by far the largest hangar I had ever been in, easily overshadowing even the largest Chiss ships, which a short while ago had seemed like invincible giants. They didn't seem so invincible now, as the Dreadnoughts of the Sith Empire were bigger, better armed, had better shields and their Turbolasers had a longer range than the Chiss Mega Masers. All facts that made me worry about the future of the Chiss Ascendency.

"Chief Engineer Keller, if you have sent the statistics of the Dragon-class to me, I simply haven't had time to read them. You said that the Dragon-class is an improved version of the Harrower-Class, so aside from a greater degree of automatization and slightly better shields, what exactly makes it better?"

He looked like he just remembered something and blushed a little. "Sorry, sir. Sending the statistics to you has completely slipped my mind."

"Not a problem, Chief Engineer. We've all been busy. However, the question still stands: What makes the Dragon-class better?"

"Research, sir." He said with a wry smile. "The leadership wanted a ship that was better than the Harrower, so the design-team went over the most frequently expressed criticism of the Harrower and tried to rectify them. For example, some Harrower captains have complained that the rugged exterior of the Harrower enabled Republic starfighters to fly between the structures on the ships surface, making them impossible to hit with point defence lasers. So, the exterior of the Dragon-class is a lot smoother, and a better point defence system was added."

"Good choice." I commented.

He nodded and continued. "It was also determined that it could use a little extra punch, so the ship has six heavy turbolasers with increased range on the top, enabling the Dreadnought to engage most enemies, before they can engage the dreadnought."

I nodded without saying anything. With the speed that starships flew in, it was normally only good for a single salvo before the enemy was within range of the other weapons, but my experiences from both Alpha Viga and Centauri 21 told me that if used well, the advantage in range could make a huge difference. The downside was that Heavy Turbolasers were even slower to aim and fire than normal Turbolasers, making them useless against anything else than other capital ships.

"However, the biggest change in weaponry between the Harrower and the Dragon, is that the Harrower has four medium Ion cannons, but the Dragon has no less than twelve heavy Ion cannons, though only ten of them can hit a forward target at the same time. We had to limit the number of Proton Torpedo and Concussion Missile launchers to eight each for that, but I think it's worth it."

I raised my eyebrows. That was an unusual high number of Ion cannons, but not unheard of. As far as I remembered from the classes at the Naval Academy, that was the same as one of the Mandalorian battleship types had during the Mandalorian War, and that had proved highly successful.

At least against capital ships. Like the heavy turbolasers, Ion cannons were huge, slow to turn, and the bolts weren't that precise. None of that mattered against a target several hundred meters long, but against starfighters or other fast and nimble ships, it was close to useless.

"Mandalorian style?"

He grinned and looked approvingly at me. "Close, sir, but it really was a throwback to the Centurion-class Battlecruiser, except that newer tech allows the heavy Ion cannons to have a range that matches the medium Turbolasers." Keller scratched his head. "The biggest difference is the lack of the distinctive pronged front of the Harrower. While that was made for faster deployment of the fighters, it had the draw-back of launching the fighters right into the cannons of the enemy, increasing losses significantly. Eliminating the prong also made the angle of the front sharper, enabling more cannons on the side of the ship to fire forward, increasing the overall firepower. Instead, two of the main engines were moved to the sides of the ship, giving room for two large aft hanger doors, allowing for faster deployment of the fighters. Along with the port, starboard and ventral hangars, the Dragon-class can deploy its fighters even faster than a Harrower."

"That seems like a huge improvement over the Harrower."

He nodded. "I agree, but Admiral Vost Hennat's notes will tell you more. After all, they spent months out here, testing the ships." He pointed to the entrance to a side hanger. "This way, sir. I got more to show you."

I followed, but the smaller version of the Phantom-class yacht standing in the smaller side-hangar made me stop and chuckle and look at Keller. "Well, you did say that the Phantom-class yacht was mass produced, but what is it doing here? And why does it look like a mini version of the Duchess?"

He smiled a little. "According to the original plan, the commanding officers on each capital ship had a personal shuttle, which was a Kolareth-Class Imperial Military Transport. Unfortunately, by the time we were readying the task force for testing, all the Kolareth Transports had been swooped up by the Navy, so we just took what was there, which happened to be seven smaller versions of the Phantom-class yacht, and loaded it into the fleet. This mini-Phantom is called a Shark-class."

That made me laugh. "Are they as good as Duchess?"¨

Still smiling, he shook his head. "No, but they do fly very well, have military grade shields and an excellent sensor suite, and we have seven of them. Normally, they're kept in a smaller hanger next to the Commander's quarters."

"So, why is it down here?"

Keller shrugged. "This is the flag ship, so there's two of them. One for the Captain and one for the Fleet commander, but as the ship only has one of the small hangars, the captain's ship is here, while the Commanders ship is at the small hangar."

That made sense and with a nod, I looked over at the Shark again. "It's a beautiful design... What about weapons?"

"Well, it's designed to pass as legal in most systems... even non-Imperial systems... so, it has two heavy Long Shot Laser cannons, and a couple of point-defence lasers."

That made the Shark extremely well-armed for its size, but as with the Duchess, that seemed to be the norm when it came to luxury yachts, which the ship resembled. "You worked on this?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes, but nothing major. I do like the design, though."

"Yes, it is gorgeous." I agreed and looked over at the Chief Engineer. "Any more pleasant surprises?"

"Well, that depends on how you look at it, sir. The other hangars hold four KT-400 military droid carriers, and there's ten Agency-class shuttles in the shuttle hangar bay, while the rest of the starfighters are spread out in the other hangars."

"It makes me wish we had a lot of pilots." I admitted. "Anything special about the Agency-class shuttles? I must admit that I don't know the class."

"Not really." He admitted. "Do you know about the Ministry-class military shuttle?"

I nodded. The Ministry-class shuttle, or the 'Mini' as most people called it, was widely believed to be one of the best shuttles ever made. Relatively cheap to produce, it was fast, agile, and reliable, and had been produced in numbers that, according to the database, rivalled the number of inhabited planets in the galaxy. Even out here in the Chaos it was a common sight.

The armor wasn't great and it was only armed with two laser cannons, but as it was designed to outrun fighters and not fight them, the weapons were only for emergency use anyway.

"Good." Keller said. "Take a Mini and equip it with a hyperdrive, along with a navigation computer, and you have the Agency-class shuttle. It's a good little ship as long as you don't plan on going into space battles with it."

"Nice to know, but not really a surprise."

"Good point, sir." He thought for a moment, but then shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but the only other thing I can think of, is that we got the computers up and running again." There was a chuckle. "They haven't even bothered to change the security codes for new ships since I worked there, so everything is up and running, awaiting the start-up of the main reactor."

I thought for a moment and then said. "Chief Engineer Keller, I cannot explain how grateful I am, that you're here with us. I don't think we could have done this without you."

"Thank you, sir." He said after a short pause. "Honestly, the Master Engineer could do the same. I'm just faster due to the fact, that I'm familiar with the systems."

"I have to disagree, and I hope that you're not planning on returning to the Empire any time soon."

"More like never." He said with a snort. "I never really thought about it before I became a slave myself, but I'm not going to return to a system that allows slavery."

"That sounds fair, and we can talk more about that later... Could you show me the bridge?"

"Certainly, sir." Answered the Chief Engineer and pointed in the direction of the lifts. "This way."

That the Sith Empire had hundreds of years of practice in building warships showed, as the bridge was well designed, with everything placed for easy handling and effective operation.

The first surprise was the commander's chair. Looking like a comfortable throne, it was situated in the middle of the bridge, giving the commander an excellent view of the relevant readouts, which as always included a holographic display. The surprise was that the chair could turn around to face a small open area, clearly designed to be a place where visitors could stand.