Into the Chaos Ch. 05

"I wish we could continue, but I guess it's back to duty now."

"Yes, so you'll have to wait for the continuation."

"That's okay." She said with a lusty smile. "I can seduce Iska later." The smile widened a bit. "I bet you'll have fun thinking about that later."

I sighed as the visuals that came to my mind sent shivers through me. My evening with the two Twi'leks had been one of the wildest erotic experiences in my life and both had expressed quite clearly that it was an experience they wished to repeat, either individually or together, when we were out of immediate danger.

"You would be right." I said and pulled up my pants again. "But at least it's an image, that I treasure."

She took a step forward and stood on her toes to give me a kiss. "Don't worry, Thalen. We know that the fate of the fleet weighs heavily on your shoulders. Just remember to give yourself time and freedom to enjoy and relax once in a while". She eyed her discarded clothes. "And now, I need to get dressed, so we can get out of here."

I nodded and watched her dress, while getting my uniform in order, and five minutes later, we walked out of the room and into the empty hospital.

When Shakka saw that there was nobody in there, she stopped. "Thalen. There's a thing I need to explain to you."

I stopped as well. "Yes?"

"For a lot of reasons, I'm extremely attracted to you and I don't want to get sexually involved with any other man. I do however like women as well and I hope you're okay with me going to bed with other women." She hastily raised a hand. "I'm not saying that you cannot take other women to bed, with or without me, I'm just stating my position."

That made me blink in surprise. With all the other stuff that was going on, I really haven't had time to consider my relationship with Shakka. However, a quick search of my own feelings made it clear that the thought of her taking other men to bed wasn't an enjoyable concept, which was strange considering that I didn't have a problem with Yaki doing that.

Deciding that thinking about that was for a later time, I smiled at her. "Thank you and I'm totally fine with you taking other women to bed."

I would have liked to explain more, but at that very moment, the door to the hospital opened and a group of Chiss walked inside, looking around as they walked but stopping when they saw me. I recognized them as the Black Dragons combat-medics and was about to say something when Shakka took over. "Greetings and welcome to the hospital of the Majestic. As soon as the LC has gone on his merry way, I'll give you a short tour and then we can talk about what to do and how to do it."

That caused them to smile and nod to me.

Taking the hint, I nodded to them. "I'll leave you to it then. Have a nice evening." I looked at Shakka. "Doctor."

"I'll have the list ready as soon as possible, Lieutenant Commander." She said with a slight bow in return.

With a smile I turned around and walked out. I had no idea what list she had been talking about, but I had no doubt that she would come up with something for me.

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An educational meeting

Dreadnought Majestic, Unknown system

"Never tell people how to do things.

Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

From the Holy Book of War

One of the advantages by being on the same ship, was that meeting in person was much easier to arrange, and the first meeting I had called people for, was a meeting about education.

As usual, I had Resa along with me, but I had also invited Astrogator Jander San, Chief Engineer Keller, Captain Meistrin, Lieutenant Yaki of the Black Dragons, Junior Lieutenant Seze from the Spacemarines, Gunnery Sergeant Caskey Titlow, Senior Mechanic Arthur Waydar, Operations Officer Betty Nagos and Administrator Rirda'tare'aurnaco (Atare). The last being the one in charge of the people from the mining facility on Alpha Viga.

"Let me start by organizing some things." I said and looked at Captain Meistrin. "Since you have already made me a Commodore of the Dragon Defence Force, I'm going to run with it regarding ranks." I nodded to Seze. "Junior Lieutenant Seze, from this moment on, you're a Lieutenant and thus the one in charge of the space marines. Yaki, I hereby promote you to Commander, in charge of the Black Dragons, as well as all our ground forces." I looked over at Titlow. "Gunnery Sergeant, as far as I can see from the data, you're the highest-ranking marine among the former slaves. Do you want a job?"

"Well, you did say that we all needed to help, sir."

"I'll take that as a yes. You're now a Lieutenant in the marines under Commander Yaki, just like Lieutenant Seze. I trust that the three of you can work together to make the marines a real fighting force."

A bright smile spread on the dark face, as he said. "Yes, sir."

"Resa." I gave the female droid a nod. "You need a rank if you're going to continue as my personal assistant, so I'm promoting you to Operations Specialist in the science department. That suit what else you have been doing so far."'

"Yes, sir." Resa said, smiling widely.

"Wait a minute." Protested Administrator Atare. "You're promoting a Droid? That's against the law!"

"Really? Which law are you referring to?" I asked mildly. "Because, while it is correct that the law states that robots cannot be in a position of command, it doesn't really state anything about droids. The same way, it doesn't state anything about Humans or Twi'Lek. On the other hand, the law does state that the commanding officer can promote anyone they deem worthy and have the skills to hold said position. Now, Specialist Resa was not only instrumental in cracking the codes that held the prisoners from Nodia Prime in their cells, but she has also done everything anybody has asked of her to the complete satisfaction of the officers. Therefore, it is my right and privilege to give her a promotion."

I locked eyes with him for a moment before he nodded and looked down. "Yes, sir."

"Good." I turned towards Betty Nagos. "Are you up for a job as well?"

"Yes, sir." She said with a smile and for a split second I felt her satisfaction in being back on a ship, where she felt she was born to be.

"Excellent. You're now a First Lieutenant. Mostly because you're going to be the Executive Officer of the Majestic and as a former Operations Officer, you're the best for the job."

She looked at me open-mouthed for a moment. Unlike so many other positions on a warship, the XO as the Executive Officer was called, was an administrative staff position and not a combat command position, but they were next in command right after the captain and it was an important position.

"Thank you, sir." She said after a moment.

"You're welcome and trust me, there will be times when you're going to curse me for this." I said with a slight smile. "Now onto the real subject of the meeting: The things we need to do, starting with education. We need a lot of able spacers, pilots, gunners and other specialists."

That made Senior Mechanic Waydar snort. "That describes most of the former slaves from Nodia Prime, sir. They'll need a refresher course, but then you got about two thousand people."

"Good." I looked over at Administrator Atare.

"Sorry, Lieutenant Commander, but some of my people couldn't be able spacers, if you gave them a lifetime of training." Said Atare bluntly, ignoring the change in ranks. "Do you have any other jobs?!"

As I had sent him a list days ago, that was a question I would rather not have, since it showed that he hadn't read what I've sent to him. "Yes, I sent you a list, but just from the top of my head, I'll suggest cooks, medics or technicians."

He nodded shortly and looked at his datapad. "That'll help a bit. How about soldiers? I got a few former troopers that needs something to do."

"Same here." Remarked Jander San.

"Point them in the direction of Commander Yaki." I told him. "I'm pretty sure they could use a few good persons in their squads." I glanced over at the trooper leader, who nodded before saying. "There's a little problem about armor, sir. The ones we have now are excellent for ground combat, but it would be nice to have some armor that works in vacuum... Just in case we need it."

"Not a problem." Stated Keller absently, while looking at his datapad.

"And why is that?" asked Yaki curiously.

The Chief Engineer looked up. "Oh Sorry, sir. As I told the Commodore the other day, the Dragon-class Dreadnought and the Wyvern-class cruisers are designed to project the might of the Empire and each of the Dreadnoughts can carry a brigade of seven thousand troopers, along with their support personnel, which amount to about eight thousand in total. The Wyvern-class carry two battalions or four thousand troopers each. Both along with their weapons, armors, and support equipment. On the test-run, they only carried half that, but that's still thousands of armors."

With sheer force of will, I stopped myself from shaking my head. I kept forgetting that the Empire was enormous, controlling roughly half of the galaxy, which meant half a billion inhabited star systems, each with an average population of one hundred million people.

Seen in that light, the loss of the twenty thousand crew, pilots and troopers wasn't even a drop in the ocean. Along the same line of thought, the loss of a battlegroup this size would be a major catastrophe for the Chiss Ascendancy, but for the Empire, this was just a minor mishap. A costly one, for sure, but still minor.

Seze looked surprised. "A brigade on each Dreadnought?"

"Yes, sir. As a comparison, one Harrower alone carries seven thousand troopers, and the Dragon-class is twelve percent larger." The Chief Engineer shrugged slightly. "Normally the vehicles, artillery and the rest of the support would be stowed away on the lower levels or in the transports, but as far as I have seen so far, they only brought the usual droids along for this test mission. At least on the Dreadnoughts. I haven't had time to look at the inventory for the other ships just yet."

Paul Keller pressed a few keys on his datapad and a moment later, a picture showed up on the viewscreen, showing a person in a silvery body-armor over a black bodysuit. "Since they were test vessels, the regiments were not regular infantry, at least not on the Dreadnoughts, but Dromund Kalakar's security force. The armor is recycled trooper armor from the Dark Wars, but that doesn't make them bad armor, sir."

"No, just ugly." Mumbled Yaki, causing Lieutenant Seze to chuckle and say, "Yes, they do have an unfinished look to them."

"Use them as a base and finish them, Lieutenant." I ordered. "We have time and resources to make it happen and we just need to produce enough for the few troopers we have."

"Yes, sir." Said Yaki with a smile. "What style would you prefer?"

"Not too Sith, not too republic. Until further notice, we're supposed to be a mercenary unit, so something in that direction."

"Yes, sir."

"And while we're talking about mercenary units, we need some rules for this battlegroup." I said, looking at the others. "Commander Meistrin, get together with some of the others and draft us some rules of conduct. We will need them if we're to make people cooperate to get out of here."

"Yes, sir."

I looked at Jander San. "Astrogator San, on the list you sent me, there were some agricultural specialists. I need to know if they're actually agricultural specialists or just farmers."

"One moment, sir." He consulted the datapad and then looked up again. "Most of them are agricultural specialists, but there're a few farmers in between."

"That will work." I said slowly. "I have a job for them and it's not going to be easy."

"Oh?"

"Among the loot from the pirate base, is twenty-two metric tons of seeds or whatever it is called for algae of the high oxygen producing variant. I want the agricultural technicians to make an organic carbon dioxide scrubber, capable of cleaning the air in a ship without the need for electric power."

Atare opened his mouth to say something, but I held up a hand to silence him. "What's more... I want those scrubbers to work in a zero-gravity environment."

"Why?" Atare finally asked, while the rest were looking at each other with confusion written on their faces.

"We're in a nebula, surrounded by pulsars, black holes and what not. When we leave here, it might not be possible to avoid every pulsar out there and I want us to be able to survive a few weeks without power. Having an organic scrubber should give us enough time to drift away from any emissions we might encounter and restart the engines."

That made most of them nod.

"Also, as a last desperate way of trying to get out of here, I will take the ships we have and fly them towards the flux, powering down the reactors before we reach it and float right through it." I stated calmly. "It's a risk and not one I will take before everything else have failed, but it is a way out even if we risk half the ships ending up with destroyed engines and drives."

"And for that we need organic scrubbers." Said Captain Meistrin with a nod.

"Exactly. Along the same lines, we need medics." I continued. "I have been through all the lists and Doctor Shakka is the only real doctor we have. The four others are medics from the Black Dragons or the Spacemarines, and we need more. Find some people with first aid training that are willing to be medics and have them report to Doctor Shakka and the rest of the medics for more education."

"Some of the people from our ships are former medics." Said Betty Negos. "They need a refresher course, but I'm sure they would like their old job back."

"Thank you, XO." I said, causing her to smile as I used the short form of Executive Officer. "That'll help a lot."

"Captain Meistrin. Even in zero-g we need food. Have someone locate and distribute enough zero-g ration packs for people to survive for three weeks. The crew can keep them in their cabins, but the packs need to be available for consumption and not locked into a cargo space somewhere."

"Yes, sir." She said as she noted it down.

Turning towards Paul Keller and Arthur Waydar, I said. "Besides your expertise in training apprentices, I need three things from your team: A mechanical indicator that can show when it's safe to restart the engines, lavatories that work in zero-g and a door or cover for the hangar bays. It must be airtight, but not armored. We need to keep the air in, but if the thing gets stuck, I want the starfighters to be able to shoot their way through it."

"Yes, sir." The Chief Engineer said with a smile. "That shouldn't be a problem."

"Good. Now back to the training part. Do any of your people have experience with that?"

"I have about fifty people that are used to having apprentices." Said Jandar San, looking at his datapad again. "Gunners, pilots, technicians and plain teachers."

Captain Meistrin held up a hand. "I can take some of the pilots we have and teach them the difference between operating a transport and a capital navy ship."

"Good idea. Make a rotation. One day half the pilots have training in handling, while the other half train the new pilot. Then switch around the next day... or whatever works the best." I suggested. "Then we can run some training scenarios for the bridge crew."

She nodded. "I'll do that."

Senior Mechanic Arthur Waydar lifted a hand. "There's a lot of former pilots among the people from Nodia Prime, former Empire and Republic both. Unfortunately, bridge crews tend to be higher ranking officers and all of the higher-ranking Imperial Officers were executed."

Betty Nagos nodded in agreement. "The former Republic Navy are a little bit better represented, but not by much. On the bright side, most of those who're left are itching to get back at it... even if they need a refresher course."

"Good." I looked around, but Atare remained silent, causing me to say. "Administrator Atare, will you honestly tell me that none of the five hundred Chiss can teach someone?"

"Sorry, sir. But I haven't had time to look into it and I can't think of anybody right now."

I might not be the best at reading non-Chiss, but I am rather good at reading Chiss and for some reason, Administrator Atare disliked me and thought that I extravagated the seriousness of the situation in order to take advantage of it somehow.

"It's a simple choice, Administrator. Either we find someone to educate the people we have, or we will join the graveyard out there. Having them educated is not a polite request, it's an order. If you can't find the people we need, say so now and I'll find someone who can."

"Yes, sir." Said Atare tight-lipped.

"Thank you, because we have plenty to do and the more time, we waste on small things like this, the longer it'll take before we're ready to go home."

When the meeting was over, I walked out along with Captain Meistrin and Major Yaki and without saying anything, I walked directly to the bridge, stopping by the comm section.

"Oh... Hello Sir." Tavune said as soon as he saw me.

"Hello Mister Tavune. I have a job for you, but first I need to know who you think is the most respected of the people from the Alpha Viga refinery. Not the highest ranking, but the most respected."

He didn't even hesitate. "That would be Krott'inam'rirgo (Tinam). He's the senior engineer."

Since Tavune's full name was Krott'avune'authum, they were clearly family, so I asked. "How're you related?"

"He's my uncle, sir." Said Tavune with a proud smile.

"Excellent. I need you to go on a family visit. None of the passengers from Alpha Viga are spacers and I don't think the Administrator has explained the severity of the situation for them. Could you perhaps change that while you're visiting?" Before he had the chance to ask questions, I held up a hand. "I don't want you to lie or exaggerate anything. Just to tell it as it is."

"It'll be my pleasure, sir!"

"Thank you, Mister Tavune."

As I walked away from the comm section, I heard Yaki mumble. "Sneaky, sir."

I turned and looked at her with a smile. "I don't have the time or energy to make Administrator Atare understand that we're in a bad situation. He doesn't know space and all he sees are that these new ships are in perfect working condition, which makes everything fine."

"Which it's not." Captain Meistrin said with feeling in her voice.

"Which it's not." I confirmed. "And I hope that the others on the ship can see that."

"I hope your plan works, sir." Yaki said and looked at me. "Do you have time to look at some suggestions for the armor? I have some sketches in my cabin."

"In a moment." I looked at Captain Meistrin again. "Captain, one more thing. If you see someone with extraordinary leadership skills, please give me their names. We need officers, people who can lead and give orders that will be followed."

She nodded again. "That's a good idea, sir."

"Well, I certainly hope so." Looking at Yaki, I said. "Let's go look at those armor sketches, Commander."

When we got to Yaki's cabin, she called several pictures of various armor up on the screen and it took me a moment to realize that they were drawings.

Looking at Yaki, I asked. "You made these?"

"Yes, I like drawing. It gives me something to do in my spare time."

"Well, you're very good at it." I stated. "Which one would you suggest?"

"This one." Yaki replied as she pointed to a picture of a blueish engraved armor. "It's not going to be that exact armor and I guess the engraving will have to go, but I hope you can see the basic concept."

I nodded slowly. The armor looked good and the engraving, or whatever it was called, intrigued me. Since all of the armor were going to be made in the fabricators, there really was no reason for not engraving the armor. Especially since we didn't have that many ground soldiers and thus didn't need that many armor. Laser and blaster fire wouldn't be affected either way and just as important, the engravings and the colours were so different from the Sith and Republic armor, that nobody would mistake them for either.