Vortex

The Vortex sure was a beautiful ship. As the bulky, practical Kraken closed in on her, the elegant lines and sleek design of the failing vessel became clearer.

The crew might be drooling, but Six had no time for aesthetic appreciation. He barked out his orders, a little sharply. 'Vail and Dan - check out the cargo hold and move over everything to the Kraken that you can. Then find where the ordinance is and acquire it - take two of our repulsor-loaders with you. Star and Kehl get suited up, I want as many of those weapons detaching and bringing on board as you have time to get. Use the droids to help you, set one or two on stripping armour. Xinn get to the weapons store with a repulsor-loader and bring everything, including personal armour, ammo and any tech you can get your hands on. I'll get the fuel cells, Kit get to the bridge. I want downloads on where they've been, where they're going, and the invent. Cross check with the boarding teams so we know we haven't missed anything, there could be more than one weapons store on a ship like this. Inez - you stay on board, scan for the imps showing up and be prepared for emergency evac. Keep a scan on us so you know where we are. Keep scanning the engine. 15 minutes before she blows give the evac signal.' He paused for breath and looked his people in the eye by turn. 'This is critical for us, we have to get as much as we can, we have to make money from this trip. Get what you can and don't stop, keep going until you hear Inez signal and then you drop everything, and I mean everything, and you get your asses back on this ship. Understood?'

Everyone nodded seriously, but inside they were excited to be let loose on a luxury ship. Still, they knew this was important. They had been thrown a life line and they had to make the most of it.

Only Inez looked disgruntled but she and Six had an agreement - if one left the ship the other stayed. One of them had to survive to carry on the mission. They should never both head into the same danger. At times like this though, she wished they didn't have to be so dam sensible.

'Guys, take carry bags with you - you never know what you might find worth taking on a ship like this' she yelled as they trooped out. 'And someone bring me back something nice!'

The moment they docked with the cargo bay, the team launched themselves into action.

Kit almost ran to the cockpit of the cruiser. He was so relieved to be able to salvage something from this disastrous mission. He couldn't help but take a few moments to stare around him at the luxury surroundings, plush carpets, state of the art control screens; even the chairs were high tech and seemed to be covered in velvet. He pushed comparisons with the Krakens battered, functional cockpit design away and concentrated on starting a download of the ships files, as that would take the longest. Then he started a scan to look for unexpected power sources on board that might indicate tech worth investigating. The ship controls were incredibly easy to use, he guessed that she had been designed so that even rich idiots could fly her without too much difficulty.

His first task was to power down any non-essential systems. The less power consumed, the less strain on the failing engines, the longer the integrity of the ship should hold and the longer it should take before the ship exploded. He switched off life support, knowing the air would be fine for longer than they needed, and all non-essential routines from diagnostics to charging the ships droids as well as releasing the door locks so the crew could move around unhindered.

His next task was to disconnect the astrogation unit, the imps would have the most up to date star charts available, and they had the resources to find the fastest routes, so this was bound to contain valuable data they could use on Kraken.

Once he had the unit in his carry bag, alongside a very nice blaster he had found in a compartment in the captain's chair and a swanky chronometer he had found on the floor, he pulled up the ships scan. It was done and he started checking in with each team to let them know his findings - another two ordinance stores for Dan and Vail, plus another weapons store for Xinn. It was then that he noted two faint life signatures had been picked up - he homed in and found to his astonishment that there was a survivor abandoned in the cells. A humanoid, close to death judging from the strength of the signal. He scanned for the second, but it had vanished, still it was no surprise the scanners were malfunctioning after the beating the ship had taken.

He opened his comlink 'Six I've found a life sign, a prisoner, in the brig. Red level.

'On it' responded Six. He had already repulsored the ships fuel back to the Shadow Dancers cargo hold. It was a pretty disappointing haul, but then why would the ship carry much spare fuel when it was running with a container ship full of the stuff? Currently he was checking out the private quarters and filling his carry bag with all manner of - what he hoped was valuable bric-a-brac, jewellery and portable equipment.

Six ran into the brothers as he was searching for a way to red level and gratefully dumped his bulging bag on Vail and Dan's repulsorloader as they manoeuvred a large haul of ordinance back to the hold. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief, there had to be something to sell in there.

But back to the task at hand. He located a turbolift down to red level, and set off in what he hoped was the direction of the brig in his measured run. He unholstered his blaster - he didn't want to leave any enemy of the Empire here to die - an enemy of your enemy is your friend and all that, but common sense said there was some sort of criminal in there and he or she may not be as grateful for rescue as one might expect, so better to exercise a little caution.

The power to the cell doors were down, and the hermetic seals broken. There looked to be only five cells and Six worked through them quickly to find the occupied cell. The fourth door was pushed open and empty. He was too late, the prisoner must have escaped and be loose on the ship. He was about to alert the rest of the crew for a possible problem, and order Kit to run another scan, but instinct made him check the fifth anyway.

To his astonishment, he found it occupied. A broken girl sprawled in the corner, injured, malnourished and apparently unconscious. Six couldn't imagine what a teenager could have done to warrant passage on a ship that clearly belonged to a high ranking Imperial. He approached cautiously but she didn't stir. At that moment, the alarm sounded from Inez. Either 15 minutes til the ship blew or the imps were here to investigate. He remembered his own instruction, drop everything and run.

He had no time for caution, he shoved his blaster back in its holster, scooped up the girl and nearly threw her into the wall she was so unexpectedly light. He adjusted for her lack of weight, turned and ran, the occupant of the fourth cell forgotten.

'Inez, talk to me' he yelled as he ran.

'Vail and Dan are just getting the last of their loads up the ramp into the hold, Xinn is on her way back, she had to leave her repulsorloader though, oh no, wait, Kit is going to help her with it. Star is getting the last of the droids on board now, Kehl is here getting ready to jump, they got all the major weapons and quite a bit of shielding. Where are you?

'I have the prisoner and I'm heading for the repulsorlifts' he responded just as a small explosion rocked the ship and threw him to the floor. He went sprawling, the girl crashing into the wall.

He was getting to old for this he thought, as he scooped her back up and noticed the blood in her hair - new or old it was hard to say.

'Dammit Six, get back here - the powers failing, you are going to need to climb. We only have 2 or 3 minutes, things are ramping up fast. I'll send Dan to help you'

'No!' he yelled, staggering toward the lift 'prepare to evac, if you have to leave me just do it, you can't put everyone else at risk for me'. The only answer he got was the click of her switching off her comms unit.

He knew what that meant - she was so stubborn. She wasn't going to leave him so he was going to have to get moving. Not that he wanted to die here, but he didn't want to endanger his ship and crew either.

He sprinted back to the turbolift and put the girl down as gently as time allowed. It was no trouble to force the doors open, climbing was going to be the issue with the unconscious prisoner to carry at the same time, but he stuck his head in the shaft to check it out. To his relief he could see Dan looking down at him from above.

'Throwing a rope down' Dan's word were followed by a length of rope nearly hitting him on the head, he grabbed it and tied it round the girls chest swiftly. Her comfort wasn't really a consideration right now.

He pulled the rope and felt resistance on the end, so he swung the girl into the shaft, and yelled for Dan to pull. The girl rocketed upwards, and Six guessed that Vail was up there hauling rope as well as Dan. He didn't hang around to surmise, though, he was already manoeuvring himself into the shaft and reaching across to grab the ladder. The shaft started to tilt at a crazy angle, and he knew the gravity was going to fail. That wasn't necessarily a good thing, sure he could float up the shaft, but it would make sprinting to the ship impossible once he got there. He started the climb, concentrating only on moving his legs and arms, three rungs at a time, as fast as he could.

'Two minutes and counting' yelled Inez, now the argument was over she had turned her comlink back on.

Six drove himself on, though his leg and arm muscles were burning from the speed of his climb. He could see Vail above him ready to grab him and help him over the edge. It just seemed so far away, he wasn't getting any younger, but he trained hard. He could do this. He had to do this. Too much was at stake.

The gap was closing but was it fast enough? He could have cried with relief as he reached the top and Vail heaved him over.

Vail dragged him to his feet, he had to force his legs to move, the relentless fast climb had sapped the energy from them. The gravity was hanging on somehow, he almost wished it would fail, his legs felt so heavy.

Inez shouted: ' one minute, get moving guys, c'mon'

Six supressed an urge to ask her exactly what she thought they were doing, but saved his breath for running as fast as his tired legs could carry him. There was no sign of the girl and Dan, so the two men got their heads down and focused, Vail's sprint driving Six to double his efforts to run faster. When the Kraken came into view, Six dug deep and the pair raced up the ramp hitting the close and seal button. 'Go Inez, go' he rasped before collapsing on the floor half laughing in relief, half fighting for breath.

The ship rocketed away from the dying cruiser, but not fast enough. They were still caught in the blast as The Vortex exploded spectacularly in the silence of space.

Six and Vail were thrown across the floor, but in the time it took to uncrumple themselves, no alarms had been triggered and the next second they felt the lurch of the Kraken launching itself into hyperspace.

They were safe - for now. Six just hoped the blast damage wasn't going to be expensive. Sometimes he felt more like an accountant than a soldier.

Six and Vail sprawled on the floor for several minutes more, their lungs taking in the oxygen they needed, the burning in their muscles slowly subsiding.

'Whoo, that was close'

Vail nodded and grinned, and they both burst out laughing.

Inez who had come down to see how they were could cheerfully had punched them both - she could see that they thought their narrow escape from an exploding ship was an exciting escapade. A great story to embellish and tell in the next seedy bar they patronised. Now they were safe they didn't care at all that they - and consequently the rest of the crew - had been three seconds away from death. All in a day's work. They worried her sometimes - too reckless, too little to lose. She gritted her teeth and silently backed away. She had a patient waiting in her little med bay according to Dan's frantic message. She had just needed to know Six was ok. And Vail. Typically, they were fine. And currently slapping each other's backs in high spirits. Grr.

Kehl had laid in a course directly away from their base. He would jump to the outer edges of a system with lots of traffic but little interest in tracking wayward visitors. There were plenty of busy planets that were known for not recording the comings and goings in its space lanes - due to most of its patrons being bounty hunters, smugglers and worse. Any planet with a steady income from crime would quickly be reduced to an abandoned back water if it started providing information to the Empire. If it didn't – officially atleast - record anything, it couldn't later be forced to give up those recordings to any authorities.

So the Shadowdancer could safely get lost in the traffic joining the busy space route and when it emerged somewhere far away, it would be as the Kraken.

If the Empire turned up at that planet, hot on their tail, there was no way they could be tracked. To be fair, it seemed unlikely the Empire would ever spot they had been anywhere near their convoy, traces of the Crimson Dawn were everywhere. Kraken jumped out in the middle of an explosion so that should have wiped out any trace they had left. But just in case the Empire struck lucky, it was always wise to take precautions.

While Kehl and Xinn got them home, Kit started to sift through the data he had downloaded. Six, Dan and Vail, once the rush of adrenalin had passed, made food for everyone, consumed most of it themselves and then started to sift through the carry-bags people had brought on board. It was no good trying to explore the cargo carriers, the hold was reassuringly crammed, and there just wasn't the space to investigate.

There was a good haul, fancy blasters with great sights and a lot of power, fancier chronometers studded with precious stones even two pairs of night vision goggles. Personal comlinks, jewellery, cloaks and coats. Clearly a man of refinement, the Admiral who owned the fallen Vortex - but also rather small - the coats fit none of them. Dan said that he would save them for Kit, he was much smaller than the three soldiers, or Kehl.

They all took a turn trying on the fancy cloaks, falling about laughing at each other swaggering about. However, no one on board would seriously wear a cloak - they went on the sell pile. Until Star crept in, covered in hydrofluid from her repairs, grabbed the fur lined number and waltzed out looking very pleased with herself. It was going to make a very luxurious blanket for her bed.

Six decided it was time to get to work, and left the guys still inventorying the contents of the bags, pocketing a simple but finely wrought ring as he went. Inez and Kit had gone very quiet, and even more importantly Star hadn't said how Kraken was holding up. He went to find her first, judging the integrity of the hull was more of a priority than anything else. While she wouldn't be looking at cloaks if the hull was about to rupture, he tried to take his responsibilities as Commander seriously. Most of the time.

As he had correctly guessed, she was arranging the cloak on her makeshift little bed, hidden in the back of the engine room.

'Report'. Star gave him a brief overview, internally she had fixed a few circuits in the shielding, overloaded from the blast and there wasn't much more she could do right now. She would need to retune the hyperdrive after their emergency jump and she would need to inspect the hull armour, but she could do neither of those things til they landed at their hideout. From her diagnostics she judged the ship would make it that far providing there were no more emergencies or additional strains on her systems.

Six nodded, relieved and left the little Twilek to her home-making. Next stop was Kit, he was curious to hear about the ship they had boarded. And he needed to know who the prisoner was, though she hadn't looked too dangerous to him. But better to take precautions, always better.

Kit was soon tracked to the cockpit, absorbed in his work. He had downloaded the files, and easily managed to decrypt most of them. He was currently working on decrypting the location of the secret imp base which was a much tougher nut to crack, protected as it was by the very highest levels of imp security. Still, Kit was confident that it was only a matter of time before he had the coordinates, after all – he had done it all before. The location would be great information for Contact, a feather in Kits cap, and even better, might have distracted Six from his other findings. If only. He took a breath, put his data pad on the console and braced himself as he heard the firm step of his commanding officer.

'Report'.

Where to start? Kit had had a read through of the data and he was nervous. He had wanted to run it past Inez, she always knew what Six was thinking, and it would have been so much better coming from her. But there had been no sign of Inez since they'd jumped. So he just had to get on with it. He squared his slim shoulders and spoke slowly through an explanation of who the ship belonged to while he frantically tried to think of a way to explain about the prisoner. But he couldn't find the right words. Suddenly inspired, he transferred his current programme to the console and once he had finished his explanation about the imp Admiral on board, and how he hadn't been seen in over a year prior to this, he passed his data pad to Six. Then he fastened his eyes on his decryption programme. He didn't want to be caught watching the old clone's expression.

He knew how Six felt about the Empires treatment of the Jedi...

Six took the datapad amiably enough, but he was alert to Kits reticent behaviour. There was clearly something about the Vortex he needed to know. He retired to one of the wellworn soft chairs in the little antechamber that separated the cockpit from the rest of the ship. The crew referred it to the R&R because after their beds it was the only comfortable place to rest and relax on the whole ship. The commander quickly forgot Kit as he absorbed the unbelievable contents of the data file.

The prisoners name was Rune. Background details were sketchy. She had trained in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and had been chosen by a Jedi Master to become his Padawan at the tender age of 10. Six surmised this was only just before Order 66 was given. She hadn't been in the temple with the other children when Anakin had slaughtered them and neither had she or her master been back at the front line of the fighting to be slaughtered with the other Jedi when the Order went out.

The pair must have gone on the run, but Rune and her Master had been captured within a year by an Inquisitor and the Master had been killed. She had been kept, she was to be turned and made to serve the Empire.

But they hadn't been able to turn her. Not one of the Emperors minions had managed it though they tortured and abused her, passing her from Inquisitor to Inquisitor, each trying to be the one to finally make her their apprentice. Six scanned through what seemed like books of notes from each Inquisitor's failed attempts to turn her. He had only read a few pages of the methodical experiments and felt so sick he had to stop.

The last Inquisitor in the log believed her to be descending into some kind of vegetative state brought on by prolonged stress and felt she was now beyond turning. Her lack of response to outside stimuli seemed irreparable.

Six wondered if it was true, or the notes of someone who didn't want to be seen as the last in a long list of failures. Still, the main thing was that she was out of the Empires clutches. Now she could heal, and if she was mentally damaged in some way, maybe that could be healed too, in time.

Fortified he read on. Ironically, it was only after she had started to shut down that she had been summoned to the Emperors palace. She was to be transported immediately and given into Vader's keeping. It seemed The Vortex was already scheduled to jump to the research and development station, where Moff Tarkin was due to visit in two weeks to approve progress with the one-man fighter programme. Rune was added to the ships manifesto to be delivered to the rendezvous point. Tarkin would collect her and take her to Lord Vader and the Emperor along with his other cargo. Six wondered what would happen to her there, the subtext implied she would become Vader's apprentice or she would die.

Six was still for a long time after reading this. Eight years she has been a prisoner, resisting the dark side, and had been only two weeks away from Vader and most likely, death. After all, he reasoned, if she had resisted the Dark Side for that long, it seemed unlikely she was going to give in now. Even at the evil Vader's hand.

She must have given up all hope of rescue long long ago.

He wondered what kept her going, what she must have gone through, an innocent child - he couldn't bear to think of it. But one thought was pushing its way to the forefront of his mind. He had found a Jedi. Against all the odds. A Jedi.

Was this the salvation he had been searching for all these years. Was this his chance to make amends? Could he save her and restore the Jedi to the galaxy? She was trained in the ways of the force. There were children born every day all over the galaxy with the potential to become Jedi, if only there was someone to train them. Could this girl be the key? Could he, Six, finally be redeemed? His heart was thundering so hard at the possibilities he could feel his whole body trembling.

With a start, he threw the datapad down on the console and ran to the med bay. Kit stared after him, wondering what that reaction meant.

The Medbay was a grand name for what was essentially a cupboard fitted out with some very basic medical equipment. With Inez and her patient in, it was a bit of a tight squeeze. When Six burst in, he nearly knocked his second flying.

Six, with visions of the girls blood covered hair in front of his eyes, didn't even notice he had cannoned into her.

'How is she Inez?'

Inez face told him everything he needed to know: not good. He ordered the door closed and rolled up his sleeves prepared to give whatever field-medic level assistance he could.

Neither were seen by the rest of the crew for some time.

Kehl was glad to emerge from hyperspace back at their little hideaway. The planet looked barren and unwelcoming from space. Scans would reveal there were a few low-tech nomads roaming the more temperate of the three continents, but not the blasted plains the Kraken was currently plummeting towards.

Homestead was located in a barren, mountainous region that had been strip mined by one of the big galactic mining Corp for a few decades and then abandoned during the Clone Wars. The natives would never have known what was going on, so it had been sanctioned by the Trade Federation. Even though one day the nomads may have developed technology enough to mine for themselves, now there was nothing of value or use left.

As the Kraken reached a low altitude Kehl expertly levelled off his beloved ship and flew her along just above the ground. He loved the challenge and thrill of flying her in atmosphere, buffeted by winds that had gathered speed racing across the miles of open plains, or dodging sudden tors on mountain sides.

Below them, a little of nature was returning to the land, some scrubby grasses and bushes giving a light dusting of green to the endless brown and grey. Nature always found a way, and now that it had regained a foothold, Kehl suspected it wouldn't be long before the land would start to see some trees and wildlife return. Eventually there would be resources enough to support intelligent life again, and maybe the nomads would come, but that would be long after the crew of the Kraken had left it. And that was fine by them: they didn't want any uninvited guests, native or otherwise.

On the view screen the mountains were fast approaching. Six and Inez had found the perfect spot to set up their hideout, after months of searching low tech planets. Sheltered by mountains, they could bring the ship in under a huge natural overhang of solid rock that shielded them from scans from space as well as the worst of the environment. There was running water under this natural hangar, and plenty of room for storage of equipment they weren't using at any time. They could even have fit several more ships in if they had owned any.

As they approached, Kehl searched for the satellite dish they had set up permanently on a nicely camouflaging scree, way above the hangar. Even though he knew exactly where it was he could never see it. And that was good. The satellite was constantly monitoring for high tech entering their boundaries while they were present or away. Kehl had downloaded the records the moment they had dropped out of hyperspace. No tech had entered the system while they had been away. It was safe to return home.

Once they had landed under the mountain the crew members were keen to examine their haul from The Vortex in more detail. When Six and Inez didn't appear Kehl reluctantly took charge and after sending Star off to start in on her repairs, he divided the containers up so that each crew member knew exactly what to inventory. He expected protests and complaints as to how he had made the allocations, but no-ones heart was in their usual squabbles. Everyone was wondering what was going on in that cupboard that was taking so long.

As the crew input their findings into their datapads, Kehl was quickly able to build up a picture of what they had got away with. A disappointing amount of high quality fuel, new, stronger but light weight shield-plating, ships weapons, ship building materials, ordinance and ammo as well as the improved astrogation computer, personal armour, high damage blasters and personal items of value, gold bullion and precious stones from the grab bags. Then there was the heavy weaponry and shielding that Star had liberated from The Vortex. It was shaping up to be the best haul ever – if only there had been more fuel. Kehl knew SIx was not going to be happy about the fuel.

And somewhere the Commander and his Second were still with the girl. Even Kehl was feeling the restlessness of the crew. What was happening? And should someone go and look? And if the answer to that question was yes, did it have to be him?

'Right everyone, we can't do any more today. Let's get some dinner, celebrate our good fortune and get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow figuring out what to do with everything. Dan and Vail, you cook. Xinn, tidy away here, Kit download the invent data into the mainframe. I'll go and see how Star is and then er, go and see how Six is getting on. There were good sides and downsides to being in charge.

It didn't take long to track down Star, she was sat on the hull scrutinising a patch of blackened shielding, her head tails twitching in consternation. 'How's it looking Star?' Kehl was keen to keep Star talking as long as possible in the hope that Six or Inez would appear before he had to go and knock at the medbay door.

'Some repairs needed, but not too much damage, considering. I'll retune the hyperdrive first thing in the morning when I can clear everyone out the hangar bay. I've checked over the astrogation unit and it's ready for Kit to install – its so much better than the one we have, it will halve our journey times. The shields took the brunt of the damage, you got them angled in the nick of time. But the plating at the back still took some of the blast damage and I am going to have to replace a couple of patches. But that's ok, we got more than enough from the imp ship. The beauty of it is, it's not even standard imp shielding which is good enough, its top of the range independent shielding so I can use it as is, and no one will see its stolen from the imps unless they look at the manufacturing codes at the cellular level and check who bought it. Like that's gonna happen.'

Kehl shivered uneasily. He was a star ship captain: he didn't like to tempt fate. 'Great. You can start–'

'-Report'

To Kehl's great relief Six was stood at his elbow. He didn't have to go near the medbay after all. 'Star, wrap it up for now, the boys are making dinner. You can start on the shielding after retuning the hyperdrive in the morning. Once that's done, now the crates are listed and labelled you can go through the star ship parts and decide what to keep for upgrades and repairs and what to sell, OK? There are crates of shielding in there unlike anything I've ever seen – incredibly light weight, must be for the one-man fighters – you might wanna check it out.'

Star perked up at the thought of new technology and started to tidy things away and send her droids back to their docking stations as the two dour men walked back into the ship together.

Six was anxious to hear what had been going on in his absence, but he didn't interrupt Kehl as he painstakingly reported on everything that had happened since Six had disappeared into the medbay all those hours ago. As he spoke, Kehl took in his Commanders haggard appearance and wondered what was going on. But he didn't ask.

Six nodded, pleased even if his face didn't show it as his Captain finished his evaluation of the ship and their current status. 'Make sure Star gets all the help she needs to finish the repairs and upgrades. I want an assessment on when we can leave by end of shift tomorrow. Have Kit send the invent to my personal console. I need to report in, I'm overdue in fact' he added, consulting his chronometer. He gave Kehl a rough slap on the back, which would have sent a slighter man, such as Kit flying, and headed off.

Kehl nodded solemnly and watched Six walk wearily to his quarters, wondering not for the first time, who Contact really was and what his link to the Commander was. Six was the only crew member with his own quarters. The ship wasn't really designed for such a large crew, having its origin as a long-haul bulk freighter which only needed two personnel. Everyone else shared - Inez and Xinn, himself and Kit and the two brothers Vail and Dan. They had bunk beds and a couple of shelves each and that was it. Star in her little cubby hole in engineering had more space than the rest of them.

Kehl decided to do a sweep and see if Inez had appeared. She would be the one to ask for intel. Though he walked the length and breadth of the ship, there was no sign of her. Hmm, surely she couldn't still be in med bay? But the door was still shut. He carried on with his sweep, uneasy at this break from routine. What was going on?

Six was incredibly weary by the time he reached his berth. He knew Kehl had been desperate to ask what was going on, and he was amused that his Captain hadn't asked outright. Amused and relieved. He still hadn't decided what to tell his crew, or Contact. He set an alarm on his chronometer. He was exhausted, and he knew Inez was too, but they had agreed he would sleep first with Inez taking first watch. After his strenuous escapades on the imp ship, he could barely keep his eyes open and his muscles were stiffening up. The girl was stable, but without fancy monitoring equipment one of them needed to stay with her, she wasn't quite out of the woods yet. Her vital signs had been at critical and they had had to resuscitate her more than once in the last few hours. They had pumped their entire meagre stock of anti-infection drugs in to her. Removing the force collar without causing her further damage had taken hours and throughout, it had felt like she was fighting not to wake up. Six knew Inez was at her wits end trying to keep the girl alive. In fact he wasn't sure she wouldn't have given up and let the girl take her chances if Six hadn't insisted she keep going. There was no way he was going to let this girl die. She had to survive. She had to survive so that maybe he could too.

He blinked, pushing those nightmarish few hours to the back of his mind. Before he could sleep he had jobs to do. First he downloaded all files relating to the brig and the prisoner to his personal computer and then deleted the files from the mainframe for safety, but not before noticing that there had been two prisoners due for transport. He wondered what had happened to the second. There was no personal file on a second prisoner but Six remembered the open door of the fourth cell. Had the prisoner escaped on one of the life pods? There had been no one show up on the scans. Had he – or she - even been on the ship?

Next he needed to compose his report to encrypt and send to Contact. He was long overdue reporting in. With leaden fingers he started to type up an outline of what he wanted to say. Speeches weren't his strong point and he often got flustered when speaking formally. Inez has patiently taught him to sketch the outlines of what he wanted to say so that he could always refer to his notes to stop himself getting lost – or give away information he didn't intend to. He didn't have the luxury of that time now, he knew his friend would be frantic having not heard anything long past his agreed report in time. The salvage time plus his stint in medbay had put him way off schedule.

He was going to have to wing it. For someone who loved to fly by the seat of his pants in combat, he was ridiculously uncomfortable doing the same when just talking.

'Contact'

'Report' even though the voice was electronically distorted Six could pick up the urgent undertone, and he could picture the expression on the face of the person at the other side of the comm channel.

Hesitantly at first, he led with the question of how Contacts intel had become compromised, then gave an overview of Crimson Dawn swooping in and stealing all of their target ships. He even detailed how the dawn had picked off one ship first – that must have been the lead ship, so the intel that they had was clearly very detailed, and accurate – once that ship was gone the others were unable to jump away and had to abandon ship. He went on to explain that their scans that had revealed a potential source of other viable goods. He gave a quick and heavily abridged review of their haul of equipment, dropping in that he just hoped it was enough to at least cover their outlay on the slave programme and fuel. He saved the best news til last, Kits discovery of the location of the secret base, no data on the prototypes themselves, but news on the visit of Moff Tarkin, whose whereabouts were usually a closely guarded secret. This was a real feather in their cap.

The one thing he did not even hint at was the presence of the prisoner. He was not ready to report her yet. Even though he knew that Contact would be as thrilled and moved as he had been, if there was a leak, he couldn't afford to risk this getting out. His distant friend would understand. But oh, how he longed to share this world-shattering news.

A Jedi. He had never thought he would see another. A Jedi, and one who had known Master Yoda. He had a chance to redeem himself. And the fledgling resistance he was working so hard to bring about may have an actual Jedi about to join it ranks. If only she would regain consciousness he thought as he finally lay his head down and lost hold of his own.

For the first time in years, the nightmares did not come.

Deckard

Officer Deckard was beside herself with suppressed excitement, there was a mystery to solve, and there was nothing she liked better.

As the new girl in a team of male analysts, she was constantly shunned by her colleagues and given the worst of the assignments. Even nine months in and with an excellent work record under her belt, she was made to feel like an unwanted outsider. When the chance of a promotion came in, she knew full well that Tahndi, her supervisor had pre-checked the attack file before assigning it to her to make sure it wasn't the Shadow Dancer. In fact the whole team knew she was analysing an enemy engagement that had no chance of leading to her promotion over them.

But there was a reason why she had managed to get this job against all the odds. She was better than them - and she had been waiting patiently for a chance to prove it. Finally, her chance had come, she was sure of it.

As soon as she saw a visual of the attack on a top-secret convoy she could see it was clearly by the Crimson Dawn. As their task was to find the Shadow Dancer - known to be part of a fledgling terrorist group and nothing to do with any of the crime lords - there was no wonder none of the male officers wanted to work it.

But Deckard's strategy was to make herself useful to high ranking officers out on the front lines. By building a good reputation across a wide network of influential movers and shakers, she might one day be in a position to get a leg up when she needed one.

This was another one of those times when she might be able to make some useful connections, if nothing else. If she could find out anything of interest about that attack she could use it to go straight to the local Governor of the area. Being even a junior member of Lockee's elite security team meant she didn't have to bother with chains of command, she could go direct to anyone up to Governor level with information if she wanted. She had very quickly learnt to circumvent her own chain of command unless she wanted someone else to take the credit for her work. She was gradually building up a reputation as a very effective analyst, at least outside this base.

She meticulously downloaded the data streams for the black boxes from each of the ships and compared their readings with each other looking for anything out of the ordinary. It was a long shot, but she wasn't going to get anything else to do until this terrorist ship had been found and the promotion safely assigned to one of her smug colleagues. She was quite looking forward to having one less idiot to mock her and make her life as miserable as possible, she reflected as she waited for the data.

Once she had it all on her unit she painstakingly began the process of isolating the initial streams that she wanted and comparing the readings for the six ships. The ship that had blown early on didn't have much data to provide, but the other five had continued to record through the battle and the four that hadn't exploded had recorded up until the point they were retrieved by the salvage team.

She quickly built up a picture of the Crimson Dawn fleet and identified every ship. There was clear evidence here for a court case, not that the local authorities would bother to take anyone to court. If those ships were found they would be blown out of the sky. She carefully saved and filed the data ready to send.

Then she moved on to logging all the Imperial escape pods. Each pod would send out a signal to its black box of all known serving armed forces personnel within it. It meant that she could track each pod individually and report which ones were known to have been destroyed by fire from the CD fleet and who was in each, along with those that had jumped. The problem with pods were that they were less reliable than ships and sometimes they didn't reach their pre-programmed destination. She compared the list of pods registered as making their proscribed destination and sent the data to the salvage teams. They would inform families of those confirmed dead and send out search ships along the hyperspace lane to look for pods that didn't make it.

Then she examined the data to see if she could pinpoint why the first ship had blown. Yes they had been under attack, but sometimes an attack could trigger a failure because of a design flaw, it was always worth knowing these things because as she had inadvertently found out before - it could mean a bonus from Procurement or the manufacturer depending on how she wanted to play it. On this occasion though it was obvious that the ship was in the clear: during the barrage it had taken a direct hit to the fuel cells triggering an immediate explosion, no survivors.

Examining the box readings for the second ship to explode, the Vortex, was where she found her first anomaly.

Scanning through the log of events, for clues as to why the ship was abandoned when it was, she found the voice recordings announcing the abandon ship and the diagnostic showing the engine had taken a hit, engineering could not be contacted to contain the problem, and there was a hull breach. Scans showed no life in that section which the ship had automatically sealed off.

There were clear indicators that the engines were starting to overload and an explosion did seem the logical outcome. Still, she wanted to check. She turned to the engine and power out-put readings, which were recorded every five minutes along with those of many other systems, and started to work through them, analysing how they led to the explosion. To her puzzlement, several readings stood out. Whereas most remained stable, or gradually increased or decreased, a few showed a change of direction in their readings or even stopped, which was surely impossible. She dug deeper. Someone had been taking systems off line to reduce stress on the failing engine and extend the time lapse before the ship exploded. She double checked the pod report. Yes, every pod was ejected and all personnel accounted for - there was no one left to carry out these manual overrides.

Deckard felt a shiver of excitement wend its way up her spine, there was something else happening here, and she was going to find out what it was. She did a quick check that no one was nearby and let out a little whoop of glee. Then she sent a service droid off for coffee and settled in to examine every piece of available footage. There was a mystery to solve here. It was going to be a long night but she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

Next chapter: the Jedi prisoner regains consciousness and Deckard digs deeper...