Chapter 4
The Wreckage
They were two days into their search for the missing ship, a major ion storm brewing near the area distorted the sensors somewhat, though Victor's upgrades managed to level out the disruption. Running on emergency subsystems after Victor blew out two more circuits nodes after the first one, they would've been dead in the water if not for the Titan's old age.
The titan class freighter was built during the time when a group of pirates suddenly appeared using what they called Ion Snares, a ship trap that sparks an ion pulse through the hull to kill weapons and engines without shorting out life support systems. When the trap's existence was first spoken around bars and clubs, it had been thought to be an impossibility, a rumour pirates came up with to scare smugglers or other space farers, until various reports got sent in about running into such traps.
Ship builders at the time were forced to make adjustments to their electrical systems, creating a bypass system that hides behind the main circuitry, connecting the engines to the central power core. The design is initially inactive, and with a manual activation sequences, would become active and divert the power directly to the engine and around the damaged or disabled main circuitry. The inactive system prevented it from being affected by the supposed electric pulse that would disable it, so when it was activated, it would bypass the effects and allow the ship to use its engines to escape.
That redesign costed the ship builders greatly, it was almost to the point that their ship production was shorted by nearly thirty percent. Their losses grew to the point that they were forced to completely redesign the ships they built into entirely new models, and before they could add in the bypass, it was revealed that a group of smugglers had banded together to spread the rumour of the Ion Snares as a way to prevent other smugglers from going near a planet that had a kyber crystal mine.
To say the ship builders were upset was an understatement, that planet became grounds for one of the bloodiest battles in a long time. In the end, the ship builders kept their redesigns and forgo the added bypass system. The Titan was one of the few ships that survived from that time, retaining the bypass system that was currently keeping the ship afloat.
After the third circuit blew, Garfield had to switch over the systems to prevent further incidents to the engine and ship's core. Activating the bypass meant shutting down the main systems, nothing but the engines, life support and sensors were left online. They were essentially a tiger without its claws, and no amount of hissing will save them if they can't bare their claws.
With weapons and reflective shielding offline, they had no defense or offense. If they ran into an enemy then all they could do was run, a prospect that Garfield feared and hated. Though the days with the four guests had made things unpredictably entertaining, distracting him from his brooding apprehension over how defenceless Titan was.
Victor was the eager one, spent his time working on the ship in the hanger, tearing it apart and putting it back together again with relentless vigour. He was never satisfied with any of his work, though without parts he had little to work with. With little else to do, he would spend his time inspecting every little detail of the experimental tech onboard, wasting not a single second he had on Titan. He wanted desperately to peruse the classified tech, but he didn't want to be the reason that deprived Garfield of the tech just for his curiosity.
Richard was the confusing one, and the most exasperating as he never stood still for second. There was a terminal in the rec room that connected securely to the galactic network, and he was searching through the history of the freighter pilot, building a profile on the captain piloting the ship as a way of tracking him. Though Garfield was relieved when he finally found a reasonable excuse to shut down Titan's communications in order to keep her running, ending Richard's search prematurely and preventing him from blatantly trying to search for the Seven Sins. Garfield didn't need someone hacking his computers and finding his location.
Kori was the weird one, she flittered about the ship aimlessly, sometimes even just staring at random parts of the bulkheads for a few moments. Garfield was fearful that she might find his hidden stash of holocrons, though she wasn't looking anywhere near the bridge, a comfort that he tried to revel in since Jedi were always an annoying mystery. Kori did have one redeeming feature, she was endless optimistic, and the gel that kept the group together as they would occasionally argue over something or other and she would end it with a bone crushing hug.
Raven was the inquisitive one, she captivated Garfield's attention completely, and it wasn't just for her beauty. She would mostly spend her time in her room, why he wasn't sure, but he didn't pry. The time that she wasn't hold up inside her room, she was always on the bridge, enjoying the stars soaring past the front screen. She would often ask him questions, the subject didn't matter as she would ask about literally anything, even the stars that flew by the window.
Garfield had started to warm to them somewhat, finding the daily interactions somewhat better than the still silence he was used to. It was a change that had him jumping at the bit to reach for one of his blasters, though remembering that he wasn't with the Scarlet Reapers and that they wouldn't slash him with a blade for saying literally anything. Although, he longed for the days that the Titan would be serenely silent, he could walk the halls and not expect to run into someone that instantly wanted to chat.
The search into finding the freighter hadn't picked anything up on the first and most of the second day, but nearing the end of their search pattern they suddenly caught a blip on the radar. The other four were excited that they didn't have to spend a week searching for a missing ship, but Gideon sourly glared at the sensors for ages. The ship was supposed to be following Protocol Theta, a planned tactic and route that led the ship through a static sea of ion storms, a route that if you didn't have the perfect map, your ship was as good as done for.
The freighter's supposed location was nearly a lightyear off course, it either meant the captain didn't follow the planned route, or that wasn't the freighter. And with the Titan in limp mode, running into any enemy out in the ion storm wasteland was certainly going to test Titan's defences.
Garfield had the ship closing in on the location of the blip, Victor's upgrade had blown not long ago which nearly sent a cascade through the ship had it not been on the bypass system. He didn't want to enter the fight blind, but he had no choice after the sensors practically packed in after Victor's modification dealt more damage than they were expecting. The Titan was running on visuals only, Garfield's worst nightmare.
"We're ten minutes out." Garfield called through the intercom, alerting the others to their arrival time. He was sat at the helm of the ship, working through star charts of the region, plotting escape routes and cluster storms he could use to scare off pursuers. The others reached the bridge with fives minutes out, each standing behind the main captain's chair while Raven took the co-pilot's seat.
"You haven't been happy since we first learned of the freighter's location?" Raven asked, she was leaning back in the chair watching the stars drift by. She, like Kori and Richard, hadn't packed much in the way of clothes, they each lost most of their gear on the dunes of Tatooine. Though to their graces, and Garfield's shock, Honey had packed each of the rooms with spare clothes for both genders. However, Garfield did love Honey's chosen style as the three behind him looked like patients at a mental asylum with the all white shirt and trousers with various straps running across them.
Richard and Victor had both noticed Garfield's soured mood, though they had long since given up trying to get anything out of the eerily quiet smuggler. They were surprised that someone in his profession could keep his mouth shut for as long as he had done, they went a whole day with silent Garfield, even Kori was trying to hug him and lift his mood.
"Might as well say this for ranger rick's sake." Garfield had enjoyed taking jabs at Richard, he found alternating between 'ranger rick' and 'soldier boy' ticked him off the most. "Protocol Theta's route is a full lightyear from here, there is no way that that captain drifted this far-off course unless my friend lied to me and the captain was operating under Protocol Echo."
"How many protocols are there?" Victor asked, still trying to wrap his head around Garfield working for a highly secret military operation that not even Richard knew existed. The former republic sergeant knew of many secret bases of the republic, including ones for the empire and independent third parties, but not the one they were heading to.
Bruce's status allowed him access to the vast majority of intel reports crossing the republic's intelligence operations, but there was never an operation anywhere this close to Nar Shaddaa. He wanted to ask Garfield about it until he had a run in with Victor in the hanger who explained about the classified tech incident on the bridge not long ago, instead Richard had to wait until he met the friend in person to get the answers he was looking for.
"Depends on who you ask." Garfield chuckled, his friend had a protocol for protocols, and anyone who works for his friend only ever gets told of one, two at the absolute most. Garfield had to memorise more than half of them, though he wasn't even sure if that was half of them. "I know more than thirty protocols, though at best… I'd say there is… a hundred, I think."
"Is your friend military or an entire government?" Richard spluttered out, not even Bruce had that many and he was an Admiral within the republic. The other three just stared dumbly at Garfield, agreeing with Richard's joke. Even Raven was surprised by the number of protocols Garfield had to remember, not even the Sith had that many rules or planned routes to a single location.
"Depends on what day it is." Garfield chuckled, he knew his friend could give either side's officials a run their money when it came to procedures. It was a wonder they had people working for them, they weren't the type to give second chances given how many rules there were in play. "We're arriving at the location."
Titan exited lightspeed, dropping into standard speed as they arrived at the coordinates. There before them was the wreckage of the freighter they were after, torn apart in many ways but still held in one piece. The ship was a new class freighter with a long tube-like body and several rectangular pods attached along it, the head of the ship had been torn apart completely. The dark brown exterior had blackened marks all over, and most of the pods had puncture wounds as well as the tail end of the ship, a large block like structure at the end of the ship with six engines jutting out of it.
"That's cannon fire…" Richard muttered aloud, they were working on the assumption that the ship gotten lost or had been disabled due to an ion storm, now the worst-case scenario was playing out before them. "I really wish sensors were working…"
"Alright, we're going for a snatch and grab." Garfield stated, his heart dropped the moment he saw the puncture wounds, he knew that his friend will be livid to hear about this. He shook his head and set to work, he wanted to spend as little time as possible scavenging the ship. "Richard, the ship's depressurised from the looks of things, so hopefully the gravity plate is offline. Get inside, open the cargo pod's doors, we'll float the shipment into Titan's cargo bay."
"What if it isn't there?" Richard quickly followed suit with Garfield's seriousness, he was set to board the ship, but he needed all the parameters of the mission.
"Then get the data core, my friend will accept either as mission complete." Garfield started manoeuvring Titan into position with one of the airlocks, he wanted to dock with the freighter but with the Titan in limp mode, it was a risk he couldn't take. "Either main corridor has a turn off halfway down that leads to the side mounted gun turrets and the airlocks, there are EVA suits there as well as a plasma torch. You'll have to break in."
"I can help with the infiltration." Victor spoke up, he caught on to the conversation and wanted to help, though it was more because he felt useless on board the Titan. With little to do, he was getting bored and with the opportunity to prove his skills, he jumped at the chance to volunteer. "Also, I can find the data core and get the power back on in the ship… and I want to get parts from that ship…"
"Argh! Fine, but if you get yourself killed, it isn't my fault!" Garfield grumbled, he didn't like the idea of the others getting involved when it was only his and Richard's necks on the line. Richard had tried to argue, but he saw the merit in taking a skilled mechanic, as well as an extra set of hands.
"I'll go as well." Kori stated calmly, she was unnerved by the sight of the derelict spaceship, but she retained her composure. Ever since she boarded this ship, she felt at peace with those around her, that even though they had dark pasts, she could trust them. Leaving Richard and Victor to go alone onto that ship didn't sit right with her, with her lightsaber and skills as a force user, she could help the mission greatly.
"Don't you join in either." Garfield pointedly glared at Raven, she seemed about to open her mouth, but she closed it with a smirk, waiting for a reasonable excuse as to why he was benching her. "Oh, don't act all sour, I know you have been trying to learn the controls of the ship… not successfully might I add."
Raven winced slightly, startled that he found out why she joined him on the bridge on so many occasions. Though, if he knew her reason for joining him, why hadn't he stopped her. Her confused looked had Garfield groaning, shaking his head that she hadn't figured it out yet.
"The controls are biometric, they only respond to me." Garfield hadn't wanted to reveal that fact, it was one of the well-kept secrets of the Titan, though he knew he had to release the restrictions temporarily. Richard and Victor both grew wide eyed at that piece of information, though both for entirely different reasons as Victor marvelled at the technology while Richard realised how pointless it was to try and commandeer the ship. "Except, I need a co-pilot for this mission, so I will temporarily allow you access to the ship's helm."
"I'm flattered." Raven sarcastically quipped, though she sighed at the thought of how futile her attempts had been behind his back. She was worried about this friend of Garfield's, if they were really some sort of secret military, then her secret identity was in trouble.
"Wow, Biometric control panels… that's impossible!" Victor exclaimed, what little experimental technology he knew of, there was never anything like what Garfield had. He practically leapt forward and tried to tap one of the control panels only for it blare red and sound an alarm, the deafening ringing echoed throughout the bridge, causing each of them to wince harshly until Garfield turned it off.
"Don't touch!" Garfield freaked out, tapping in several hundred lines of codes into the system before the timer ran out. He whirled on Victor, his face stricken with rage and exasperation. "Don't ever touch the control panel again! If I wasn't here, then this ship would have gone catatonic!"
"Sorry… I didn't think…" Victor tried to apologise only to realise how bad of a mistake he nearly committed. "Catatonic? As in the entire system would deadlock itself?!"
A sudden chill breezed through the bridge as both Richard and Raven realised how futile it was to commandeer the ship, one wrong move and they were stuck inside a hunk of junk floating in space waiting for a rescue team from Garfield's friend to leisurely stroll in and take them down. The Titan's security systems were akin to a maximum-security prison, and with no viable escape pods, they were going to meet this friend of Garfield's regardless of what they do. They were stuck.
"Wait… If you weren't in the bridge…" Victor caught onto the other secret of the Titan, one that made the ship his new favourite creation ever as he stared wide eyed at it in exhilaration. "This ship is bio coded to your life signal! You can control it even when you're not on board!"
"Not when she's in limp mode." Garfield huffed painfully, he didn't think Victor would catch onto one of the Titan's greatest secrets, though he did notice the fearful looks on both Richard and, more importantly, Raven's face. Next time they were alone, he was going to ask her about it, though for now he had more important things to focus on. "Titan's designed to follow my life signal, if I'm not on it and somebody manages to get around the biometric system, she'll turn around and return to me in full lockdown. Anyway, enough chitchat! We have a mission to complete before whatever did that comes back."
Garfield pointed towards the freighter, glaring harshly at the three who opted to go onto the freighter. Nodding quickly, Richard dashed down the corridor with Kori on his heels. Victor reluctantly followed, passing longing glances at the bridge as he did so. It was a few minutes later when the system registered the EVA suits were online, tapping into their internal comms, he spoke to the three.
"Alright, with most of Titan's systems down all you have are the EVA's short range comm units, once onboard you'll lose communication with the us until you return to the Titan." Garfield had finished moving the Titan into position close to freighter's one remaining airlock, he didn't want to get close to it encase the freighter either exploded or the airlock depressurising damages Titan's own. "Victor, once the power is online, the ship's own communications unit can be tied into the EVA's comm units, it'll work temporarily but it will be enough for now. Also, if you happen to run into the captain, they should have a device around their arm, can you secure?"
"Err… Why?" Richard called back through the comms, the data core was understandable as it held the records of what happened to the freighter, but this didn't seem logical, especially with the bridge in the state that it was in.
"Can't answer that, afraid its classified." Garfield curtly stated, he was focusing on altering the system to accept Raven as co-pilot rather than the inane questions of Richard. As for the device, it was essentially tracker for his friend to use and follow the shipment, and though it could track a person for one end of the galaxy to another, it had a fatal flaw in that once the person was dead, it stopped working as well. "If you can't find it, detonate the core of the freighter."
"Okay, I am officially weirded out now… who the hell is your friend?" Richard rhetorically asked, he knew he wouldn't get an answer, but he wanted to express his exasperation over the immense secrecy. "We're ready, we're heading out."
Garfield wanted to track the suits locators, but with the sensors down, the best he could do was watch from one of the few external cameras still working. He watched as the three of them left the ship, gliding effortlessly across to the freighter's airlock. Once they had a secure hold of the freighter, Garfield moved Titan away and towards the only side which had the most pods still intact.
"Raven, place both of your hands on the panel in front of you." Garfield was absentmindedly working through the last protocols and commands he needed to input before she could be accepted as co-pilot. Following his direction, she gingerly placed her hands on the screen before her, watching the screen light up red around her hands. Before she could react, the screen superheated itself and scorched her hands harshly, whipping her hands away she glared Garfield menacingly. "Oops, did I forget to mention that it would hurt…"
Raven glowered at Garfield, deciding if getting even right now would be detrimental to the mission. Instead, she tentatively touched the screen again, finding it cold to the touch once again, though now she could actually interact with the terminal. Playing with the controls, she found them far more responsive than any she had used before. She even found the controls predicating her motions and shifting to different panels or screens just at a thought, the weirdness of the interface had her staring wildly at Garfield.
"Cool huh?" Garfield loved the interface, he developed it himself after his friend installed all of the biometric and bio coded systems. Though he wasn't as tech savvy as Victor, he did learn how to code systems after spending endless amount of time alone in space between missions. He found that he could alter the bio systems to partially register brain signals from the fingertips and interpret it into the control system, however the system tended to get confused occasionally. "The system can only read partial surface thoughts, so remember, the system can only register it if you think the exact word or number loudly in your mind."
"It explains how you can control the ship effortlessly and swiftly." Raven complimented him, she had found it weird how quickly that Garfield could navigate and pilot Titan simultaneously. With this kind of system in place, the response time on Titan should be next to zero, a feat that not even the latest ships in either side's experimental laboratories had.
"Since the others aren't here, mind telling me why you looked afraid when you learned how pointless it was to hijack my ship." Garfield inquisitively asked, he was inputting commands into the system to prepare the cargo bay for depressurisation since most of the systems were disabled, if there was one fault in opening the cargo bay door in space then half of Titan would depressurise. He already had enough problems with Titan that having to manually repressurise the ship room by room would cut the last straw of his patience.
"Just surprised that there are extremely advance biometric systems on a smuggler's ship." Raven tried to divert the topic away from the truth, focusing more on the control panel before her. The panel may be advance, but the controls for piloting the ship weren't, though she was sure that Garfield altered the ship's controls to a simpler form with how many commands he had been typing in. "Wouldn't have thought a smuggler could have access to such tech, let alone be allowed to install it on their ship."
"Connections and a random chance." Garfield chuckled, he doubted he would have half of what was currently installed in Titan. Garfield had the fortune of running into his friend on one of his first solo missions, from there he worked to improve his relationship with them and earn the technology. "Though, I have to admit, you're the strangest Sith I've ever met."
"What! How did you…" Raven blurted out before stopping herself, the shocked look on Garfield's face showed that he was only fishing for information, he had no idea that he managed to reel in the catch on the first try. Groaning to herself, she slumped into the chair, knowing there was no way she was going to take the ship with the amount of security protocols in place. "What gave me away?"
"No one walks on Tatooine without a weapon bigger than that dagger, unless they had friends or…" Garfield left his sentence open, he didn't need to go into detail as the sands of Tatooine spoke for themselves. Only force sensitive people walked the blistering sands unarmed, forgoing the need for lightsabers as the threats could be dealt with by showing off an ounce of power, scaring away most who didn't want to tackle them. "As for which side, that was down to Kori. You kept your distance from her and would awkwardly watch her from afar. Though, I just thought you were some ego centric rich elite's kid from the empire that ran away…"
"Ouch…" Raven didn't know which of one hurt more, being former Sith or a runaway ego centric rich kid. She sighed as she stared at the freighter, unsure of why Garfield wasn't reacting like any of the past captains had when they learned of her past. "You don't care that I'm Sith?"
"Nope." Garfield shrugged it off, he was surprised at first to learn that she was Sith, but he never felt the same sinister and horrifying feeling he would get from other Sith. In truth, he didn't know what to make of her, though since his friend hadn't tried to silently warn him in his last communication, he had no reason to believe that she was a threat. "Oh, and I won't tell the others, but my friend will have a few questions for you before he lets you leave."
"Wait, your friend knows?" Raven could understand Garfield unveiling her secret from their interactions, but his friend only had one phone call with Garfield, and she hadn't been in the frame of the call.
"Well, if they don't, they will the moment we rendezvous with them." Garfield laughed, he could imagine the shocked look of surprise on his friend's face when Raven walks into the station. However, that was wishful thinking. "The ship's biometric systems log your prints and DNA into the system, which automatically upload to the station's systems the moment we land."
"I wish you'd told me that before I placed my hands on it." Raven grumbled, glaring at Garfield as if he had tricked her into signing her life away. Whoever this military friend was, she doubted that Garfield's reassurance that they would ask a few questions before letting her go was smoke to beguile her.
"My friend isn't affiliated with either side, they don't care who you are, so long as pose no threat to them or expose their location." Garfield could tell that she was afraid of meeting his friend, worried that they would take her into custody for being a Sith. "Just be warned that trying to fight your way out won't work, they have their own force user that isn't one to be mess with."
Garfield remembered the first time he met his friend's right hand, they were someone that he grew close to and favoured far more than his friend, and he knew of their skill after the few times they had sparred together. He had wanted to admit the truth to them about his newly found power, yet he was afraid of being treated differently by them, and everyone else he knew.
"Anyway, I'm done with the command procedures, I need to get an EVA suit on and secure the cargo bay." Garfield got up from his seat, stopping short of the door to speak to Raven before he left. "The internal comms are locked open, so if you have questions just ask. When the other three get the freighter's power online, move the ship to whichever pod they can open and keep the ship level."
Garfield headed down to the cargo bay, moving and securing the crates to the back of the bay before traveling down the other corridor. Each airlock on the ship had three suits stored there, the were two more in the cargo bay storage unit but with the ship in limp mode, the storage unit was automatically deadlocked.
Adorning the all black suit with a clear visor for the face, he tested the comms before returning to the cargo bay. He waited anxiously for the other three to call in, worried as time ticked by and nothing was heard. Garfield was about to tell Raven to reposition the ship closer and risk the Titan's outer defensive layer when they heard crackling coming through the comms.
"Titan come in." Victor called through, finally managing to get the freighter's core powered up after nearly ten attempts and electrocuting himself twice. "Titan, are you receiving me?"
"We hear you, though there's a lot of static." Raven responded, she was trying to make out what Victor was saying through the interference.
"It's expected, the comms are being boosted through a subpar system after all." Garfield cleared the confusion, he was amazed that he could hear Victor enough to make out what he was saying. It was far better than what he thought would be the odd word and a lot of charades. "Which pod are we snatching from?"
"Not sure, most of them have cargo." Richard responded, he found breaching the freighter far easier with Kori at his side, her powers and lightsaber made short work of the doors. Though she split off in search of the bridge, trying to find the captain since the other two were preoccupied with their respective tasks. "I don't know what we are looking for."
"They'll be the crates with no markings on them." Garfield responded, the standard protocol for shipments was non-disclosure, ensuring there was no way it could be tracked back to his friend. The crates had no identifying markers, but the captain can put some on to hide them if they have to pass inspection. However, with Protocol Theta, the trip was far too short and didn't go through any checkpoints, so it was likely that the captain hadn't marked them. "They'll be separate and secure from the rest of the cargo."
"Yeah, I remember them, there in the last pod before the tail end of the freighter." Richard responded, heading back down to the last pod to secure the cargo. "Victor, how's the data core coming along?"
"It's partially damaged, don't know if its viable, but it won't be too hard to unhook." Victor had found that the data core's location was the same as the generator, a stroke of luck that had him confused at first until he realised how outdated the computers were. It was eerily similar to the ones that Garfield had installed on his ship, though these ones didn't have as much wear and tear as the Titan's. "Do we really need this thing? Its ridiculously heavy and still sparking."
"Yes, we do!" Garfield nearly yelled through the comms, it was one thing to complete the mission, but it was another to get one up on his friend. "My friend hates it when people they hire are attacked, if we can secure the cargo and provide proof of the attack, we can get another favour out of my friend."
"Victor, secure the data core, I too want to know who would attack a freighter and not take any of the cargo here." Richard had found that fact weird, the only type to brutalise a ship in this manner are either blood thirsty pirates or someone who had a vendetta against the captain. His research into the captain of the freighter showed no enemies nor affiliation with any group, there was nothing to suggest someone coming after him like this.
"If the cargo is still intact, grab what you can." Garfield could only imagine the stuff the freighter was carrying, that and the chance to score a shipment in progress was insanely beneficial. Richard was about to complain about looting when Garfield cut him off. "Look, you may be some noble soldier trying to clear your name, but in order to survive out here, you can't turn your nose up at opportunities like this. Trust me, that's the quickest way to die… very slowly and painfully."
"Fine, but just know that I object to this!" Richard grumbled, his time running from the republic had been brutal, especially because he refused to break any laws or rules of the republic. A lot of these crates would contain materials that could be sold for credits or food that can be eaten, though he hated the idea of stealing, he couldn't disagree with Garfield's words.
"Garfield, we have a problem." Kori's worried voice spoke over the comms, she had been suspiciously quiet the entire time they were talking until now. Worried, the others clamoured up, waiting for her to explain. "I'm not within my ability to reach the bridge, however during my search for the captain… I came across an active escape pod that hasn't been released from its housing."
"Active escape pod?" Victor exclaimed, shocked by Kori's words. "That means it should still be pressurised, someone could be alive in there!"
"Raven, move Titan into position, I'll open the cargo bay and inspect the pods exterior." Garfield called, the depressurisation of the cargo bay was complete, but with the ship in limp mode, he would have to manually release the door. He preferred to only open it once, but if the needs must, then he didn't have a choice.
Raven got the location from Kori and moved the ship, juddering Titan a few times as she got use to the ships size and its surprisingly responsive control. After the third time Garfield had yelled at her to be careful, they were in place over the escape pod.
Opening the cargo bay door required a manual lever at the top of the door to be turned, it's hidden behind a secret panel that he had installed. The lever realises the door's latch, but it could only work if the cargo bay were depressurised and the gravity plate was offline. Detaching the plate and turning the lever, he activated the emergency release and waited for the door to fully deploy.
Drifting out to the ship, he worked his way over to the escape pod, grateful that it had a window facing outwards. Peering inside, he couldn't quite see inside with the lights off and no personal light on his suit, one that he had been meaning to get installed.
"Raven, can you point Titan's front lights here. I can't see anything." Garfield chose to omit the fact that the suits did not have lights on them, though it was more his own fault for failing to grab the wrist attached lights he stored with the EVAs. With a few missed attempts, Raven managed to level the ship in front of the escape pod, the front lights blaring through the escape pod.
Garfield peered inside, finally seeing the interior of the escape pod. It was a standard escape pod that can be bought cheap on the market which explained why it was stuck, they tended to fail as often as one out of three times. Inside, the basic seats and basic control panels were barely blinking, but that wasn't what drew his eye. A small form was curled up on the floor, it had weird plain brown rags covering it.
"There's something inside, but I can't make it out." Garfield called out, no angle he used to see inside the pod proved fruitful. Whatever that bundle was, it hadn't been thrown in or left there, it was delicately placed or… "Kori! Get out here now! We need to get this pod free and onto the Titan ASAP!"
"Garfield, what's going on?" Richard immediately flew into action, he didn't know what was going on but the edge in his voice was one that he knew well. Time was limited, and that usually meant someone is dying.
"There's a child inside the pod! These useless cheap rubbish pods aren't airtight!" Garfield could now make out a small hand in the bundle, he panicked as he knew how useless these escape pods were. Too many people died in them but because no one ever figured out how inept the makers were when they made these hunks of junk, they easily got away with it. "It's a wonder they survived this long, if the pod hadn't jammed in the housing unit, they would've died ages ago."
"Kori, use the bridge to get around to Garfield." Richard called out, working up a solution to saving the child first rather than the mission. "I'll make my way there, we'll get the pod out and back on board."
"No!" Garfield called out, he hated what he had to say next, but he didn't have a choice. "Focus on the mission, get those crates into space and we'll come and pick them up once me and Kori have secured the pod."
"Alright, Victor get to me with the data core, we'll store the cargo outside the ship until they can come back for us." Richard didn't want to argue with Garfield while he was working on securing the pod, it wouldn't do to be haggling over command with a life at stake, though he trusted the smuggler to have the skill to secure the pod.
Kori made it quickly to Garfield's side, working diligently with her lightsaber to release the pod, following Garfield's instructions to the letter. They were able to easily get the pod out of the housing unit by Kori's force power, she lifted it into the cargo bay while Garfield relocked the door.
"Raven, repressurise the cargo bay." Garfield focused on securing the pod to the ground before the gravity plate activated, though as nothing happened nor alarms going off, Garfield sighed deeply. "The command prompt labelled Cargo Air Pressuriser."
"Oh…" Alarms blared to life as air filled the cargo bay. Garfield shook his head and made a mental note to relabel the command prompts with 'press here to put air in the cargo bay'. With air filling the room, Garfield activated the gravity plate once Kori was sure that the pod wouldn't crash to the ground.
Kori used her lightsaber to break open the pod, much to Garfield's chagrin as the pod nearly cracked in half the moment the air rushed in. He hoped that the child wouldn't be too hurt by the sudden air change. Kori tore her way into the pod, she gently picked up the bundle and watched in shock as a green and black striped lekku fell out of place from the bundle. The child was a female Twi'lek, one that Kori was biting at the bit to help though she knew not how.
"Hold still!" Garfield had been trying to get to Kori but she was practically bouncing back and forth in the cargo bay with the girl in her arms, once she stopped long enough for Garfield to check the child's pulse, he realised that she was suffering for malnourishment and oxygen deprivation but was hanging on by a thread. "Alright, the door after the rec room and before engineering is the infirmary, get her into the kolto tank and slam the red button."
Kori was off in a flash, though before she could rip the door from the bulkheads, Garfield managed to use the emergency release he set on the door. Once she was gone, he had to deadlock the door behind her since it broke his command procedures to use the manual release on the door. He doubted that Kori would be back judging from the look on her face, though if she followed his instructions to the letter then the girl would be put in suspended animation until they could reach his friend.
Deactivating the gravity plate, he depressurised the cargo bay again, an annoying feature that Garfield didn't really fix since Titan rarely ever was in limp mode. He was racking up a list of mental notes that were slowly causing his eye to twitch, he never had this many issues in one mission before, and he was really regretting letting them onboard.
With the cargo bay set, he waited until Raven gave him the clear sign to open the door again. He found Richard and Victor standing by the open cargo pod door, they had arranged the crates by the end of the pod as well as the data core that Victor held onto carefully. They worked methodically to move the crates onto the Titan, focusing on shifting the data core to the most secure location possible before getting the shipment onboard.
"Anything valuable onboard?" Garfield asked as they secured the last shipment crate to the cargo bay ground, he didn't want to roll the dice on whoever attacked the freighter to return, but they hadn't found the captain's body. Protocol dictated that the ship be destroyed, and it would be wasteful to leave anything good.
"Mostly perishable goods that were destroyed in the attack." Victor stated, he had downloaded the cargo list from the ships terminal and worked his way through it, there wasn't much in terms of useful items but there were a few things of interest. "There are containers filled with alloys and metals, pod racer parts, and one crate that isn't listed."
"Not listed?" Garfield could only think of three reasons for not listing a crate on the manifest, the first one obviously was secrecy, his friend being a prime example of that. The second was for personal storage, generally miscellaneous items that aren't needed around the ship anymore, they usually get stored in the cargo hold or if they aren't useful anymore, then they chucked it at the first opportunity.
The third may be what Victor found, sometimes smugglers don't have a large enough secret compartment to hide contraband in, so they would sometimes keep it in an unlisted crate that they can drop off before inspections and collect via shuttle or tow. In any case, Garfield didn't want it onboard his ship. Secrecy means people will kill for it, personal storage usually has useless items with no value, and his friend tended to confiscate contraband whenever he visited.
"Yeah, some weird silver box with a skull on it." Victor remembering passing it on the way to the engine room, it was weird as he couldn't place it nor understood why it had power lines tied into it. "It's strange, I don't know why it was tied into the ship's hull…"
"The hull? As in the actual hull directly?" Garfield frantically called, startling Victor who could only nod as he tried to figure out why Garfield was panicking. Though before he could ask, Garfield started screaming through the intercom. "RAVEN GET US OUT OF HERE NOW!"
Without waiting for an explanation, Raven steered the ship away from the freighter, the cargo bay door still wide open. Garfield quickly moved to shut it down, nearly getting himself casted out into space when Titan took a sharp turn away from the freighter. They were pulling fast away from the location when Richard finally stopped spinning rapidly around the cargo bay to asked Garfield a question.
"What's with the impromptu departure?!" Richard sarcastically barked out, only to watch Garfield hold out a hand and with three of his fingers held up. Counting down from three to one, a massive explosion rocket Titan, jarring each of them. It was a few seconds later when they managed to collect themselves. "What was that?!"
"A trap!" Garfield grumbled, for the first time since Titan was limping back to the station that he was glad it was, if it hadn't then they wouldn't have been alive long enough to complain about the ship's problems. "That skull box is a proximity ship mine, pirates wire them up to the hull of their recent kill, and when a ship comes to their aid and docks… Well, it wouldn't have been pretty… anyway, if Titan wasn't running on the backup systems, then I would have docked with the freighter carelessly."
"But… why did it explode?" Richard asked, they were waiting for the cargo bay to refill with air. Victor had managed to work out how to activate the gravity plate while Garfield was returning to the ground, though his timing wasn't exactly as perfect as he hoped when Garfield nearly fell to the ground.
"The ship's engines most likely sparked the bomb, the vibrations and energy from them would have hit the freighter's hull." Victor explained, now that he knew what he was dealing with he could speculate on how it worked, he found thinking of the bomb as device rather than the weapon that had nearly killed them all.
"Umm… Garfield, what is this machine doing?" Kori asked through the intercom, she had been watching fearful as the girl floated inside the green liquid, but now the machine before her was flashing red. Garfield groaned, and rushed over to the stairs leading to the catwalk with Richard and Victor on his heels, heading through into the living quarters and down to the corridor leading to the engine room.
They rushed into the infirmary, a room that had two light blue medical beds with various equipment lining them. A large silver cupboard was directly to the left of the door when they entered, and the large cylindrical kolto tank took up the entire far end of the room. The room had a pearl white décor with a dark blue floor and ceiling, the kolto tank's green and red glow reflected off of the white walls, casting an eerie feeling to those inside.
Kori was standing nervously watching the little girl inside the kolto tank, the girl floated inside the glowing green liquid curled up in a small ball. Garfield whipped off his helmet and ran over to the terminal in front of the kolto tank, reading through the prompts displayed there as Victor and Richard stood not far behind him trying to comfort a worried Kori.
"Okay… that isn't good." Garfield hated the kolto tank, it was a priceless piece of technology that had save his life more times than he could count, but it was the most temperamental device he ever had the misfortune of working with. "Her species isn't in my data base… how is that possible?"
"She is a Twi'lek!" Kori frantically cried, glaring at Garfield as she tried to fight off Victor and Richard. She knew a Twi'lek by sight, and she refused to believe that Garfield didn't have their species on record.
"I know, this device has an updated list of every species on record, how it can't register a Twi'lek is beyond me." Garfield sighed, he wished he could thump the infernal machine in hopes that it would suddenly start working, but he knew how pointless that was. "Look, the kolto tank will keep her under suspended animation until we reach my friend, they have far more sophisticated equipment and actual medical staff. They will know what to do with her."
"We can't leave her in there!" Kori tried to storm forward once again, still struggling against Richard and Victor. The two held her in place and tried to move her back to the door, hoping they could get her out of the room first before they tried to calm her down.
"Kori she is hanging on by a thread, if you take her out then she will most likely die." Garfield grunted, he stormed past her once he was down shutting off the alarms, stopping to glare harshly at her. "And even if she didn't, I ain't having an unknown lifeform freely roaming my ship, though we're lucky the internal sensors are offline, or we'd have far more alarms than just that one."
Garfield left the room before Kori could retort, he had enough excitement for one day and just wanted to get back to his bridge and relax. Storming through the ship, he tore off the EVA as he reached his room and put on a new set of clothes, leaving the suit in his room to replace later.
Entering the bridge, he found Raven sat in his favourite chair, working quietly away at the terminal. Garfield thought about barging her out of it, instead he thumped himself into the co-pilot's seat, startling Raven. Leaning back in the chair, he sighed as he watched the stars fly by as they jumped to lightspeed.
"Intercoms off, though I think you knew that." Raven stared accusingly at Garfield, wondering if one of the many commands he imputed had shut it off when they entered the infirmary.
"Nope, just turned it off from the terminal in the infirmary." Garfield grumbled, relaxing in the chair as he debated unlocking all the restrictions he put onto the system or leaving it till after he gotten some sleep. "Only the navigation, life support systems, and weapons are restricted terminals, requiring a biometric pass to use. That said, all the terminals have the biometric system installed in them which allows authorised individuals access to all systems from any terminal."
"How rich are you?" Raven exclaimed, the thought of a smuggler having classified technology was already surprising, but add in the kolto tank, the multiple biometric screens, and the experimental technology, she was starting to wonder if he was a spy for some mysterious third party. That or he is incredibly rich, which Raven found puzzling considering his current employment.
"No comment…" Garfield tried not to smirk, the shocked and bewildered look on Raven's face was almost too much to handle. It was one of the few pleasures Garfield had, walking into some insanely rich establishment, and waiting for them to insult his profession before he bought half of the items on sale or their most expensive service. Just watching their face fall apart as they realised the mistake they made nearly has him in stitches.
Attempting to fall asleep while a blistering hole burned into the side of his head happened to be a difficult task, one that Garfield was wondering if retiring to his room might be a better course of action. With sleep out of the question, he got to work undoing the commands he had entered into the system, he needed to reset the cargo bay controls for when they dock with his friend's space station anyway.
"Garfield, how far are we from your friend?" Richard suddenly appeared on the bridge, his presences had gone unnoticed until he spoke. Garfield reacted instantly, diving over Raven, and snatching the hidden blaster from under the terminal. He whirled around and pointed it at Richard, intent on putting a hole through his head when Raven placed a hand on his shoulder once again.
Flinching harshly, Garfield lowered the weapon and sighed, ignoring the pointedly raised eyebrow from Richard who hadn't even blinked when the blaster was pointed at him. Stowing away the blaster in the hidden holster, Garfield ashamedly returned to the co-pilot's seat.
"I apologise for appearing unnoticed." Richard finally spoke after a few seconds, revaluating his opinion of Garfield. The reaction speed and the intent to kill in Garfield's eyes spoke of his upbringing, one that Richard knew well as he himself had nearly done the same to Bruce on a few occasions. "Though, I would suggest securing those hidden blasters. I doubt Victor has the skill to avoid a blaster shot, and Kori is already looking for an excuse to attack you."
"Noted." Garfield sighed, it wouldn't be the first time he nearly killed someone because they surprised him. Though, Honey's reaction was priceless as she broke his nose and threw him out of his ship until she could find every last blaster he had hidden, it was several days later that she gave up and stormed off the ship. "Is Kori that mad with me?"
"More or less." Richard winced, the black eye Victor was nursing in the rec room a testament to Kori's boundless rage. "She's just upset that the girl can't be helped until we reached the station, though I'm more concerned with how she isn't a registered species."
"Don't be." Garfield shook his head, he was sure the kolto tank's scanner was acting up and decidedly determining the girl was an unknown lifeform for the simple reason that it couldn't be bothered to work properly. "That kolto tank once thought I was a Gundark."
"Now that you mention it… I do see the resemblance." Raven quipped, enjoying the irritated glare from Garfield. She had been piloting the ship while they had been conversing, though where she was supposed to be going was beyond her. "Could the angry Gundark put in the coordinates of the station?"
"Ha. Ha. Very funny!" Garfield pouted, that infuriating incident had been ingrained in his mind ever since the retched device tried to alter his personal profile's race to Gundark. He swore that his friend had nearly cracked a smile when they saw that, first time they had even smiled in his presence before and it was because of that stupid device. "Anyway, I can't enter in the coordinates as the station is never in the same place. There is supposed to be a specific rendezvous point to head to that would give me the coordinates."
"Protocol Theta?" Richard asked confusedly, he was sure that they had to follow the same route that the freighter had. Though with how secret Garfield's friend was, there was no telling what the current procedure was.
"Nope, that's a lightyear in the other direction and I can't follow the same route as another ship for security reasons." Garfield hated this practice as his friend never gave him a protocol to follow ever since he tracked down the station just using star charts, from that point onwards his friend always made a point to make Garfield track down the station. "It'll take a week, maybe two, before we get to the station. And Raven, just follow this route for now."
Garfield sent a planned route to the pilot's terminal, it was one of seven routes that he had to pre plan before arriving at the freighter. Something his friend taught him after he got himself stuck trying to escape from a group of pirates, after nearly losing half of Titan's hull and two its engines in that fight, he vowed to never be unprepared again.
He decided to leave Raven authorised to use the helm, though she was only limited to that system. With her piloting the ship, he could focus solely on tracking down the station's location. Garfield felt weird around Raven, she was an oddly comforting force, and yet nervous that she might kill him in his sleep. However, he knew she wouldn't try to commandeer the ship given its current state, and the system would alert him if the ship detours far off the route he entered.
Garfield was halfway out the door of the bridge when he remembered that they failed to acquire any parts from the freighter, and what little he knew of Victor, he became increasingly worried.
"Oh, and tell Victor to keep his paws off the shipment!"
Author's Note: Sorry if the characters are a bit OOC, but I kinda like the difference, though I feel that I'm making Raven a bit too lackadaisically in this.
Comments
Miss geek – Thank you for your comment, it's really appreciated. I do apologise for the long upload time since I have another writing project on fanfiction and another for a different site. I'll try to keep a regular upload time but it will differ at times. Though there may be times that I have to put the story on hold at times to focus on a different project.
