It was empty in space. Deafeningly, blindingly empty. Stellar phenomena expelled a vast variety of wave-particles, while minute chunks of iron ore traveled through the vacuum at speeds averaging 10,000-20,000 km an hour. The average being could only survive 30 seconds of time without suitable protection, 10 seconds without permanent damage. In another dimension, but at the same place, hyperspace…did whatever hyperspace does, while corresponding to infinitely many points in real time. This pleasant reality was, however, suddenly distorted. Space, pressured from 10 to the 32 of points on a plane, gave. Splitting along a line, hyperspace replaced realspace for around 3.5 seconds, forming a pair of perfectly manicured lips. These lips blew a kiss, from which a large piece of metallic spittle appeared. Disappearing a moment later, this apparition left behind only a massive wave of palutrons, which dissipated into the galaxy as they tunneled through realspace into a black hole, gossiping to each other about how barbaric realspace was, and why would anyone want to live here, anyway? Ignoring the palutrons, the glob of metallic spittle hung in space, perfectly motionless. While the palutrons were complainers, they certainly didn't intend for the alien inside to die if they could do anything about it.

The alien inside was currently suffering from confusion and a concussion. Going through hyperspace could be rough on a person, but going through hyperspace while a large crowd of british people all complaining that they could do it better than he could, and saying that he was doing it wrong, and protesting loudly over each other that the others were all imbeciles, and that the speakers were genius's. Fertis didn't know what to think. He didn't even know who or what British was. He did know that he never wanted to hear that particular accent or the phrase "I do say!" ever again. He would throttle the person who spoke in such a manner. Ears ringing, Fertis opened his eyes for the first time. The ship, if you could call it such, was in chaos. Lights blinked everywhere, except on the control panel. Components skittered here and there, trying to avoid explosive decompression, multisystem failure, cascading multisystem failure, reaction mass decompression, crashing into the planet below, crashing into the sun, or re-entering hyperspace again. Dialogue between the engineers went something like this:

"Spanner, 23r, request immediately.

"Request reason for discharge (electrical)?"

"Request aid, fusebox cover!"

"Spanner, 23r, REQUEST IMMEDIATELY."

"Danger level estimated minimal-zzaaaaooowww!"

"Warning. Primary gyro system failed. Warning, primary gyro system failed."

"SPANNER 23r OR ALL UNITS CEASE TO FUNCTION IN 25.346E!"

"Spanner, 32r."

"Request aid, fusebox cover, immediately."

"Warning, gyro systems have failed. Activating secondary gyro systems. Request location of secondary gyro systems."

"Secondary gyro systems located at hyperspace point (Condensed data package)."

"Warning, personnel interface systems have failed. Request location of interface systems."

"Personnel interface systems at realspace point (Condensed data package)."

"Secondary gyro systems retrieved."

"Personnel interface systems retrieved. Probability of emergency repairs…ignore report."

"Warning. Fuel containment systems failing."

"REQUEST AID OPENING FUSEBOX."

"…executing fusebox aid action…executing…applying force. Fusebox accessed. Executing fusebox repair action."

"Burn calculated. Preparing for burn."

"QUERY? PREPARING FOR BURN?"

"Warning. Repair operations not sufficiently secured for burn action."

"Burn action initiated in 20 tefrs."

"SECURE ALL STATIONS! SECURE ALL STATIONS!"

"Warning. Station not secure."

"Warning. Station not secure."

"Warning. Station not secure."

"Warning. Station not secure."

"Warn-"

"Wait. Thruster burn? Cancel thruster burn-cancel! Begin task…retrieve general purpose painkillers. Begin task…medical diagnostics."

"Tasks acknowledged. Beginning medical diagnostics. Dispensing painkillers."

"Request information on disabling ship computer?"

"Request granted. Method of disabling executive computer functions is (condensed data package.) Method of disabling secondary computer functions is (condensed data package.) Method of disabling low-level computer functions is (condensed data package.)"

"Acknowledged. Request permission to disable computer executive functions?"

"Ermm…yeah. Permission granted to disable executive functions. Use the spanner method."

"Request clarification: spanner method?"

"Clarification…well…perform melee action with spanner on computer until it stops performing executive functions."

"ERROR! 'SPANNER METHOD' WILL CRITICALLY DAMAGE COMPUTER COMPOENTS!"

"I suppose that this unit is right…very well, I'll attend to it by administrator functions. Continue repair operations. Alert me if anything comes up." A sigh. "When will these painkillers kick in? Spraining a knee is very painful…"

And with this having been said, the Engineer's Angel continued to chart and elliptical orbit, while Fertis Doxelian laid back and held a chillpack to his knee. With a sigh, he thought back to the events on Coruscant. That was where everything had started. That was why he was out here. Running from the empire. And his brother was supposed to be the one who got in trouble…