A Left Turn at Albuquerque
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anybody.
Chapter Nine
Independent Freighter Twilight Monsoon
Sometime Later
Jordmar Edmodarn hummed softly as he brought his beloved ship out of hyperspace for a short cruise between hyperspace lanes as to carry their cargo of medical supplies and industrial mining equipment from Naboo to Sullest required a hyperspace lane change. It would take a few hours to make the journey across the system at sublight to the point where they'd be able to return to hyperspace and complete what promised to be a relatively lucrative voyage. He also did not anticipate any problems acquiring a new cargo after they unloaded their current cargo.
"You sound happy," a warm female voice said from behind him. Jordmar looked over his shoulder to see that his co-pilot/business partner/sometimes lover Wevv Malzin had come into the cockpit of their heavily modified Ghtroc 720 light freighter, a somewhat cheeky grin on her yellowish green Miralian features.
"Should I not be," he asked with the characteristic roguish grin of a Corellian. "We're only one jump away from Sullest and payday. Then its just a matter of finding a new cargo."
"True though can we please go somewhere nicer than Sullest on our next job," Wevv asked as she slid into the co-pilots seat.
"Hmm I'll see what I can do about that. Where do you fancy Alderaan? Empress Tata?" He didn't say anything about returning to his homeworld as the Imperial nationalisation of the shipyards – that for millennia had been his people's pride and joy – and their support industries had really done a number on the planets environment. The last time he'd been there he'd been hard pressed not to whip out a blaster and shoot some stormtroopers in retribution for what the Empire was doing to his homeworld.
"Alderaan sounds nice its been a couple of years since we last went there."
"Okay Alderaan it is," Jordmar agreed a moment before a proximity alert went off on his console. Before he could turn to see what, the problem was, a flicker of pseudo motion outside the viewport caught his attention and he looked over to see a dreadnought-class heavy cruiser with Black Sun markings had just dropped out of hyperspace and it was practically right on top of them. "Oh kriff."
"You can say that again," Wevv replied. "What in the Forces name is a Black Sun dreadnought doing here? And how the hell do they even have one?"
Jordmar shrugged his shoulders as he had absolutely no answers. The Empire was usually quite thorough in ensuring no private organisation or enterprise had access to any warships above frigate classification. A cruiser-class vessel – even one as ancient but still extremely potent as the dreadnought-class heavy cruisers – being in the hands of an organisation like Black Sun was thus a very strict no-no. After all the last thing the Imperials wanted was for any private organisation to have the means of giving the slowly growing rebellion anymore heavy warships than they already had. Maybe there is truth to the rumours going through some of the cantina's that Xizor has entered into a business relationship with the Emperor it would certainly explain how and why they have cruiser class vessels, he thought.
At that moment a dull thud followed by a soft shudder ran through the deck. Jordmar didn't even have to look to know that the dreadnought had just locked onto them with a tractor beam. "I don't know as nothing in our cargo warrants them doing this to us, especially with a dreadnought," he replied.
"No, it doesn't. Do you think they're after the other thing?"
"Possibly, especially if the rumours are true and the Dark Prince is sucking up to the Emperor," he agreed exchanging a worried but determined look with Wevv. The item in question was a crate that had been entrusted to their care at the end of the Clone Wars by Milo Thrain – a Jedi Sentinel who'd worked with them all through the Clone Wars using the Twilight Monsoon as his transport rather than requisitioning a warship – when the man had been dying after being shot by the three Clone Troopers who'd also been part of the crew during the war except at the end when Palpatine issued Order 66. As they both recalled Milo hadn't gone down easily – as unlike most Jedi he had preferred body armour to itchy robes – and taken out two of the clones before the last one managed to get him. Though the clone's triumph hadn't lasted long before a bolt from Jordmar's heavy pistol ended the turncoat trooper's life.
They'd never opened the crate in question but had kept it securely locked away as the mortally wounded Milo had asked before his life expired.
"We can't let them take it," Wevv commented. "Milo died to protect whatever is in that crate there's no way I'm letting some trumped up Falleen gangster who maybe or maybe not be in bed with our 'beloved Emperor' get his slimy hands on it."
"Agreed," Jordmar replied with a nod as he started tapping various controls powering up the Twilight Monsoon's weapons systems and beginning to power up the shield generator – being a military model, albeit a clone wars model it would take several seconds to build up enough power running as it was off an upgraded civilian power plant – though he wouldn't be able to raise the shields while the dreadnought had them in its tractor beam.
"Okay weapons and shields are powering up," he said. "Go back and get R4 out of his recharge slot would you then man the turret."
"On it," Wevv replied as she stood up and raced out of the cockpit to first get there astromech out of his charging station and then climb up into the dorsal turret that housed the dual heavy blaster cannons that were their main – but not only as thanks to a combination of Milo and Jordmar's weariness of Imperials – but not only armament.
As she left the cockpit the radio crackled to life. "Freighter Twilight Monsoon this is Vigo Melan of the Black Sun dreadnought Valiant Watcher. Power down your weapons and prepare to be boarded and you will not be harmed," a Falleen voice said over the radio.
Yeah like I'd believe one of you reptilian bastards, Jordmar thought as he kept his eyes focused on the viewport and the dreadnought that was growing bigger and bigger outside. In seconds the dreadnought would be in position to latch onto their dorsal docking port than a score of Black Sun mercenaries – who were well known for their brutality – would pore into the ship. He knew well that they wouldn't hesitate to kill him where he sat and take Wevv – who was quite attractive even by human standards – as a new slave either for the pleasure of their dreadnought's commander, Xizor himself or worse sell her into the galactic slave circuit – which had ballooned in size since the Empire took over.
"Not if I can help it," he muttered to himself as he flicked a control causing two small hatches – one on either side of the cockpit – to open and a target grid to appear on one of his screens. Along with an infographic that showed clearly that their battery of twelve concussion missiles were armed. Moving the crosshairs on the target grid he locked onto the dreadnought. "Eat this," he muttered as he thumbed the trigger causing a shiver of recoil to run through the ship as two concussion missiles were sent flying into space.
Instantly the missiles, before they could even start their own engines, sped towards the dreadnought as they instantly became caught in her tractor beam. The Valiant Watcher's crew had no chance to react as the two missiles ion engines engaged further boosting their speed as they slammed into the ship at virtually point-blank range. Both missiles impacting the aft engineering section of the dreadnought whose shields – set as they were to the default ray shield configuration to better repel turbolaser and other energy weapons fire – offered no resistance as the two missiles – their speed increased to beyond their normal level by the dual actions of their engines and the tractor beams pull – punched deep into the armour band before detonating.
The effect was dramatic.
A visible shockwave rippled along the underside of the dreadnought, titanium-durasteel armour rippling like water with some plates snapping off and spinning into space. The force of the blasts was channelled by the armour into/then through the pressure hull and severing a primary power conduit. The result of which sent arcs and sheets of raw, white-hot electricity from its hypermatter reactors through the aft lower decks flash frying engineers alive and causing droids to explode as the rampaging electrons subjected them to massive overloads. Secondary explosions erupted, spreading the sudden mayhem inside the Valiant Watcher even further, as damaged systems and conduits overloaded and blew out.
The Twilight Monsoon shivered slightly as the tractor beam tethering them to the dreadnought released as the emitters and beam generator lost power. Jordmar immediately turned on the shields and gunned the sublight engines to full power and banked away from the dreadnought, heading for the safety of open space like a spooked mynock. He was after all well aware that while his missiles had inflicted serious damage to the Valiant Watcher she would only be helpless for a short time. Soon her damage control crews would shut down the ruptured conduit, extinguish the electrical fires that had no doubt started before rerouting power and then the dreadnought would be after them turbolasers blazing. There only hope really was to outrun her as for all their strength dreadnought-class heavy cruisers were not exactly the fastest of capital ships. In fact, they were well known to be quite slow and cumbersome.
He just hoped that the Valiant Watcher wasn't one of the ex-Imperial models of the dreadnought-class. A few moments later that hope was dashed as the sensors warned of multiple small contacts leaving the dreadnought. It definitely had to be ex-Imperial as every single one of the fighters was – according to the computer analysis of the silhouettes – a V-Wing starfighter which had entered service with the Republic in the last few months of the Clone Wars and which had served the Empire for the first few years of its existence before the TIE line was developed.
"Oh, kriffing hell," he muttered knowing that despite being small the V-Wing was quite a potent little starfighter. "Wevv."
"I see them," Wevv called back even as she rotated the turret to face the incoming fighters and pressed the trigger sending coruscating red bolts of superheated ionized tibana gas flying into space towards the approaching fighters. The lead fighter had obviously not been expecting to be attacked immediately by the freighter – or for his prey to have such heavy energy weapons – as it ran straight into her shots. The heavy bolts immediately punching through its shields to turn the fighter and its pilot into a plume of vaporised metal and torn fragments no bigger than a playing card.
"Nice shot," Jordmar called up to his co-pilot as he began taking evasive action even as the V-Wing formation broke up as the pilots attempted to sort themselves out into a new attack pattern following the sudden death of their leader. The sound of their astromech R4-D7 entering the cockpit caught his attention. "R4 interface with the navi-computer and start calculating an emergency hyperspace jump."
R4 warbled an affirmative and rolled over to one of the terminals and plugged himself in. It was at that moment that the fighters – apparently having sorted themselves out – blew in their light laser cannons raking the Twilight Monsoon making her shields flash with static as they absorbed and dissipated the energy of the plasma bolts. A soft shiver ran through the deck but other than that they were unharmed.
Jordmar allowed himself a slight smile at that as from the way the V-Wings wobbled slightly their pilots were surprised by the resilience of the Twilight Monsoon's shields, obviously having expected them to standard civilian grade shields which would have sustained serious damage under that barrage. Not took it and shrugged it off. There hesitation cost them as Wevv took advantage of it to turn another fighter into a cloud of debris.
Shaking off their shock the Black Sun's mercenary pilots attacked again. Raking the Twilight Monsoon again and again. Wevv fired back, though most of her shots missed though she did score a glancing hit on one fighter making its shields flare with electrostatic strain and making the craft momentarily stagger in space with the transmitted kinetic force. It was all the time she needed to tag the fighter with a full-on hit sending it to its doom.
Obviously angry and frightened now – as this particular prey was showing itself to have a tough hide and very sharp teeth and claws with which to protect itself – the mercenary pilots attacked again this time focusing all their fire on the freighter's aft deflector shield. Immediately warnings began to flash on Jordmar's screens warning that the aft shield was starting to corrode, and he instantly banked to try and shake off the fighters. Only for the damned things to use their superior agility to stick like glue to his rear end.
"Wevv," Jordmar called back as the ship shook fiercely under the heavy laser assault.
"I'm trying Jord," Wevv yelled back as she endeavoured to shoot the fighters down, but they were staying mostly out of her arc having figured out that getting into her range was certain death for them. "But they're staying out of my arc."
"Stand by," Jordmar replied before abruptly killing the engines and firing his reverse thrusters at full power causing the V-Wings to shoot past them, the move catching them completely off guard. Almost immediately the pilots scrambled to get out of the firing arc of the dorsal turret again, most made it though Wevv was still able to nail two of them sending the pilots into the eternal embrace of the Force. "Nice one."
"Thanks, but I don't think they're going to fall for that again," Wevv replied as Jordmar reengaged the main engines and attempted to pull away from the momentarily disorganized fighters.
"Probably not," Jordmar agreed. "R4 how's that hyperspace course coming?"
The droid warbled back that he had one calculated. It was only a short jump, but it would get them to the hyperspace lane, from there it would be a simple matter to escape before the dreadnought and its fighters could catch up with them.
"Great work R4," Jordmar praised as he stabilized the ship for the jump to hyperspace.
Unfortunately, at that moment their luck ran out as the fighters, smarting from their losses and detecting that the Twilight Monsoon's hyperdrive was powering up for a jump, attacked once again. As before they focused their firepower on the engines and broke through the weakened aft shields to land blasts on the engines. Alarms went off in the cockpit as Jordmar was almost thrown out of his chair as the starboard ion engine violently flamed out from the damage causing his beloved ship to begin corkscrewing out of control from the sudden uneven thrust.
Grunting he fought with the controls and after a few seconds of effort managed to get Twilight Monsoon back under control.
"How bad is it," Wevv called from the turret.
"Starboard engines out. Oh, kriff and we've lost the hyperdrive as well," Jordmar replied a profound sense of defeat falling on him like a smothering blanket. The Black Sun had them now.
"You know what we need to do," Wevv said. "We cannot let Xizor get his hands-on Milo's crate, especially as he's certain to give it to the Emperor."
Jordmar sighed. "I know," he said knowing the only way to keep the crate from eventually falling into the hands of the Emperor and to save himself and Wevv from a fate worse than death – as Xizor was sure to make them pay dearly for giving the forces he sent against them so much trouble – and that was to go out on their own terms. And besides if Milo had been right then when they died they'd see him again in the infinite realms of the Force. "R4 on my command prepare to overload the fuel cells."
The astromech warbled sadly but prepared to do as his master – who had widely boasted to other astromech's to be the best master a droid could ever ask for – asked. However, before he could begin the process of removing all the safeties on the main power cores fuel cells a new event occurred as two things happened virtually simultaneously.
First a trio of brilliant blue-white beams of radiant energy abruptly cut across space, lancing between the now near helpless Twilight Monsoon and the remaining Black Sun fighters that had run them down. The energy backwash of the beams actually destroying one of the fighters and sending the rest spinning out of control their shields flaring against the energy wash. Simultaneously a transmission burst across the radio.
UES Tanganyika
A Few Minutes Earlier
Sitting in the quiet confines of his ready room Captain Kaidan Halsey resisted, just, the impulse to sigh as he worked his way through the incessant amounts of paperwork – or rather its modern electronic descendant – that came with commanding a starship. Thankfully the load on him was relatively light today, the fact that they were in another galaxy who knew how many billions of light years from their own meant that most of the more bureaucratic make-work paperwork could be quietly shelved for later leaving only the more important bits for him to deal with.
Which was still quite a considerable amount.
He was just starting to read through a report on the state of the ship's missile stores – both for their single squadron of Alpha fighters and the Tanganyika's own missile and torpedo batteries – when the desk comm unit signalled for his attention. Instantly relieved to have something other than paperwork to do he reached forward and touched a button on the terminal. "Yes?" he asked.
"Sorry to disturb you sir but we're coming up on our first defold point," his XO Lieutenant Commander Veronica Mars reported from the bridge. This soon, Kaidan thought before blinking as his eyes fell upon the wall chronometer which showed he'd actually been doing his paperwork for the better part of an hour. More than enough time for the Tanganyika – equipped as she was with the latest generation of the hyperspace fold system – to cross the thirty-two thousand, two hundred and sixty light years that was the farthest distance a ship could safely go in a single fold. It was about two thirds of the way to the planet they'd been tasked with surveying as a possible new home for their people, should it be determined that it was impossible for them to get back home.
Something that he knew was very likely to be the case since analysis of star charts had shown that this galaxy – which according to the star charts recovered from the Kimbala was called Corusca – definitely was not part of their local group of galaxies. The science divisions were still in the process of trying to figure out exactly where they were in relation to the Milky Way, only then would they be able to determine if it was possible to travel across the great vast darkness of intergalactic space in any reasonable space of time. Like anyone with any experience in astronavigation he didn't think they would be able to find away home, though of course they still had to at the very least try.
"I'll be right their commander," he replied into the comm unit as he stood up. After taking a moment to retrieve his uniform jacket from the back of the chair and putting it on he left his ready room and made the short walk onto the bridge of his beloved ship. And not for the first time noting how different it was to on some of the older ships he'd served on over the years being white panelled, surprisingly spacious for a warship as small as a Garfish and far higher tech with holographic projector fields having long since replaced the dials and TFT screens of the older ships.
"Status," he asked as he made his way to the command chair and sat down. Which never ceased to make him feel somewhat like a king as the command chair on the bridge of modern Terran warships was not only at the back of the bridge but on a slightly elevated platform over everyone else, allowing a ships master or mistress to have clear lines of sight to both the holographic HUD's floating in their projector fields but the bridge windows as well. Though the latter was purely a side effect as in battle, despite what pre-Robotech science fiction had liked to show, a ship's crew rarely actually saw the enemy capital ships that they were firing at as anything more than distant points of light. Which was fully understandable when you considered that at three hundred thousand kilometres even the biggest ship would be all but invisible against the darkness of even interplanetary space. A discovery during the First Robotech War that had done in the old romantic notions of space combat – at least between capital warships.
"Sir we've reached our defold point," the helmswoman reported, "commencing hyperspace defold manoeuvre in three… two… one."
Kaidan nodded and leaned back in the command chair as around him the crew began the process of navigating the ship through its return to normal space. A shiver and a thrum of incalculable power ran through the entire ship, seeming to make the very air itself vibrate, a microsecond before a shimmering wall seemingly appeared outside the ship as the fold bubble and the ship within it burst back into normal space from a hyperspatial wormhole. A flash of bluish energy – that everyone would always compare to a gyroscope in appearance – appeared as the fold sphere dissipated and the Tanganyika and everyone aboard her fully integrated back into normal space-time. He couldn't help but smile at how smooth the transition with the newest model fold engine was in comparison to their older drives. With the first- and second-generation space fold drives the transition to and from hyperspace could be… well… somewhat bumpy to put it mildly.
The sudden wailing of a proximity alert instantly drew him out of those thoughts. "What is it," he demanded.
"Sir sensors are picking up a number of contacts on a bearing of zero, zero, one mark zero, one, two distance two hundred thousand kilometres," sensors reported. No wonder they triggered the proximity alert, Kaidan thought as two hundred thousand kilometres was well within their weapons range. Thus, any unknown vessel would be immediately tagged by the sensors as a potential threat.
"What do you make of them," he asked hoping against hope that the ships were not Imperial. They'd already had more than enough encounters with them since coming to this galaxy and while he didn't fear any known Imperial warship – all their encounters so far had shown they had little to fear from them having both superior armour and weapons to the Imperials – it would be extremely inconvenient to say the least. Especially as they would certainly be forced into an engagement as it took several minutes for even the most modern hyperspace fold drives to complete a cool down and repower cycle after propelling the ship so far.
"Scans confirm they're not Imperial," sensors reported. "It looks like one small vessel that appears to be a freighter of some type. The others are one vessel around heavy cruiser size and a dozen fighters of unknown design. The fighters appear to be attacking the freighter, the cruiser is hanging back it appears to have been damaged."
"Pirates," Kaidan answered with an annoyed grimace on his face. He'd dealt with pirate's numerous times over his career as not all the Zentraedi or Triumvirate Clones who'd served the Robotech Masters had joined them after the First and Second Robotech Wars. Instead they'd become pirates and were thus a constant security headache for the Expeditionary Force and the armed forces of the various Sentinel races.
Thankfully there were standing orders for what to do about pirates if they encountered them and the best part of it was the fact that those standing orders had not yet been rescinded.
"Orders sir," Veronica asked a second before the officer at sensors spoke up again.
"Captain the freighters engines must have been hit," the young man reported. "They're losing speed. Sir we've got to do something."
"And we are," Kaidan replied, orders to avoid contact with the natives be damned he was not about to leave some innocent spacers at the mercy of a group of bully's – which were what pirates usually turned out to be. "Battle stations. Scramble our veritechs and power up all standard weapons and tactical don't bother with the shadow device, let them see us. As soon as the guns are ready fire a warning shot across that cruisers bow. Communications as soon as the warning shot has been fired transmit the standard warning just remember to tie in the translation matrix."
"Aye sir."
For a moment more nothing happened then a faint thrum of power ran through the ship as the main turret on the underside of the ship fired sending a trio of brilliant blue beams of supercharged, hyper-compressed protons at near lightspeed towards the pirate fighters. The beams, as meant, passed between the pirate fighters and the freighter in a clean miss. Kaidan raised an eyebrow when he saw one of the pirate fighters disappear in a brilliant explosion, obviously having been slightly too close to the beams and been obliterated by the particle backwash. The rest of the fighters spun out of control as the beams disappeared, the backwash throwing them around like flotsam in a storm. A backwash that really wasn't that strong, certainly when compared to the massive backwash of reflex and synchro cannons which, especially the former, had been known to destroy entire squadrons of ships.
Damn these guys ships are so fragile, he thought with a slight shake of his head as he saw the fighter die. He glanced over at the communications officer as the younger man opened a broad-spectrum channel, so the pirate fighters and cruiser would be sure to hear them.
"Attention pirate fighters and cruiser this is the United Earth Ship Tanganyika. You are directed to surrender or withdraw from this area immediately," the officer said, "failure to comply with this demand will result in your immediate destruction." Immediately they got a response. "Incoming transmission from the cruiser."
Guess we got their attention, Kaidan thought before speaking up. "Alright put it through," he said.
Instantly a projector field activated and a holographic screen pixeled into existence bringing in an image of the alien bridge. It was very plane looking with a mixture of different races manning consoles along the walls of the room, though a handful were freestanding. There appeared to be a faint haze in the air of the cruisers bridge, almost like smoke and he wondered if it was from the damage the cruiser had already sustained. Though what immediately grabbed his attention was the green-skinned reptilian looking humanoid in what was clearly the command chair. The alien spoke immediately.
"This is Vigo Melan of the Black Sun dreadnought Valiant Watcher. This matter is not your concern I suggest you withdraw immediately, or we'll destroy you," the alien said with an arrogant confidence that said the alien was used to being obeyed.
"Captain the cruiser is turning towards us and her engines just came on," sensors reported. "They appear to be attempting to target us." Probably trying to intimidate us as everything we know about this galaxy's weapons tech shows they cannot hope to hit us at this range, Kaidan thought.
"You are engaged in piratical activities Vigo Melan," Kaidan replied, "as an officer in the Robotech Expeditionary Force I am bound by duty and honour to stop you. We can do this the easy way and you get to live but if you insist on doing things the hard way." He made a gesture to his bridge tactical officer.
Moments later the Tanganyika's main turret fired twice more sending beams first above and then below the dreadnought their energy spill not only making its shields flare with stress but violently rocking the entire vessel. On his holoscreen Kaidan saw Melan grab the armrests of his seat as the bridge of his ship visibly shook as though gripped by a sharp two to three second earthquake. Immediately he saw alien crewmembers giving each other nervous glances as they realized the horrific range and power of the Tanganyika's weapons systems.
"That was your last warning Vigo Melan," Kaidan said conversationally. "Recall your fighters and leave now and I'll let you live. Continue your aggressive approach and I will turn you and your ship into a cloud of plasma and dust long before your weapons can touch me. I give you one minute to make your decision."
Vigo Melan scowled his skin turning a darker shade of green in a combination of anger and fear. Kaidan just watched as the unknown being mentally weighed the pro's and con's and ultimately came to the decision that Kaidan knew he would. Like all pirates Melan was – and whoever this Black Sun he worked for were – a coward and didn't really have the stomach for any fight where he didn't already have an overwhelming advantage.
"Fine we'll leave," Melan said at last with a very unhappy frown on his face. "I do not know who you are, and I don't care to. All I will tell you is this the Black Sun will not forgive or forget this disrespectful behaviour, you have made an enemy of us this day."
"Noted," Kaidan replied not at all bothered by the threat. It was after all nothing he had not heard many times before from dozens of criminal groups and organisations back home. They always got so full of themselves and thought themselves to be the second coming of the Robotech Masters or something, but always, always buckled before the REF's superior firepower and training. Should this Black Sun give them trouble, well they would soon learn what it truly meant to be on the business end of a particle beam cannon. He paid no attention to the growl of annoyance from the alien on the holoscreen before it broke the channel from its end. The holographic screen vanished from existence as if it had never been present at all.
"Sir the pirate fighters are returning to their cruiser," sensors reported. "The cruiser is also turning away from us."
"Keep an eye on them," Kaidan ordered, "I don't trust them not to try anything at the last minute."
"Aye sir," sensors acknowledged the younger officer diligently watching his screens as the Valiant Watcher collected its surviving fighters. Somewhat to his surprise that was all the pirates did, they did absolutely nothing to further threaten the damaged freighter. Instead as soon as the last of their fighters was aboard the vessel vanished into the FTL system the people of this galaxy seemed to use. "The pirate cruiser has gone to FTL sir."
"Excellent communications send a message to the damaged freighter. Offer them assistance," Kaidan ordered.
"Aye sir."
Twilight Monsoon
A Few Moments Earlier
Still sitting in his pilot's chair Jordmar watched, and listened, in amazement as the unknown warship that had identified itself as the Tanganyika – which was a very strange name if he ever heard one – forced the Black Sun to withdraw. Beside him, having come back down from the gun turret, Wevv was just as shocked and amazed by what they had just witnessed. In all their thirty odd years of plying the space lanes together they had never once heard of the Black Sun backing off like that before.
Both guessed the utterly unheard-of range of the alien energy weapons, not to mention the incredible power that their sensors showed was in those beams, had something to do with it. Vigo Melan had obviously realized that while his dreadnought-class cruiser was tough and durable it wouldn't withstand fire from those lethal blue beams for very long at all. Especially as the Valiant Watcher was already damaged from their earlier concussion missile attack.
A trill came from the console mere seconds after the dreadnought disappeared into hyperspace. "Incoming message from the Tanganyika," Wevv noted. "Audio only."
"Let's hear what they have to say," Jordmar answered knowing that they didn't really have a choice, especially as R4 was still assessing the extent of the damage that they'd sustained and what – if anything – there loyal astromech could do to repair it.
"On speakers," Wevv answered with a nod as she keyed the comm panel. Immediately the picked up the channel from the alien warship in time to hear a male human voice, speaking in very oddly accented Basic almost as if it was coming from a translator of some type. The whole channel also had a very audible background humming sound to it, indicative of the sheer amount of power that had to be behind it.
"Attention unknown freighter this is the UES Tanganyika. Our sensors indicate that your ship is badly damaged do you require assistance? Please, respond. Repeat. Unknown freighter this is the UES Tanganyika, our sensors indicate you ship is badly damaged, do you require assistance? Please, respond."
"Should we reply," Wevv asked a moment before R4 warbled that he had completed his assessment of the damage to the ship. "How bad is it R4?"
R4 warbled back that it was pretty bad. Their starboard ion engine was to all intents and purposes destroyed cutting their acceleration by half. Though the worst damage was to the primary hyperdrive motivator, like the starboard ion engine it was basically destroyed as were the power transfer lines to their backup hyperdrive system. They were to all intents and purposes stuck.
"Guess we don't have a choice do we," Wevv commented.
"Doesn't look like it," Jordmar agreed before using his own console to open a channel to the alien vessel that had saved both their lives. "UES Tanganyika my name is Jordmar Edmodarn, captain of the freighter Twilight Monsoon. I thank you for chasing those Black Sun bastards away and gratefully accept your offer of assistance."
"Captain Edmodarn this is Captain Halsey," a new voice answered over the communications link. "You are most welcome. What is the status of your ship and crew, do you have any injuries?"
"We have no casualties, the Black Sun was careful to only target our engines," Jordmar replied. "We do still have some sublight capacity, but it is limited and our hyperdrive is offline."
"Understood I'll send some fighters to tow you to our ship's fold perimeter if that is alright with you," his fellow captain answered. What's a fold perimeter, Jordmar wondered, exchanging a puzzled look with Wevv. In their long career as spacers they'd never heard something like that before. Guess we'll find out.
"The tow will not be necessary," Jordmar answered "though what do you actually mean by fold perimeter?"
"It's the perimeter of the bubble created by our space fold drives upon activation," the other man answered once again prompting Jordmar and Wevv to exchange glances the same question in their eyes and on their minds. What in the name of the Force was a space fold drive? "Your vessel is unfortunately too large to fit inside our hanger bay, so we will have to take you somewhere where your ship can be repaired properly. You have my assurance you will not be harmed."
"I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by a space fold drive, but I will trust you captain," Jordmar replied knowing he really had little choice. Even if his engines had been working at full capacity he doubted that he would have been able to leave unless Captain Halsey wanted him to. Given the observed range of the Tanganyika's beam weapons the other man could have easily disabled them, or even destroyed them, had he decided that they weren't going anywhere but with him. "How close do I need to get to your ship?"
"Within twenty kilometres."
Jordmar raised an eyebrow even though he knew that the other man wouldn't be able to see it. While it was a huge distance on a planet, twenty kilometres was extremely close in space. While not quite point-blank range, it was still a very close approach to make one that dramatically increased the likelihood of a collision. Not that he intended to collide with anyone as Twilight Monsoon was damaged enough as she was thank you very much.
"I understand," he said at last as he brought the port engine to life at a very low level. "R4 watch the starboard lateral thrusters for me, would you? I don't want them overheating." The astromech warbled an affirmative.
Slowly over the next couple of minutes Jordmar guided his battered ship towards the Tanganyika, barely noticing when a couple of fighters fell into formation with them. He guessed that they were there just in case they went out of control. The warship grew larger and larger outside until she practically filled the space ahead of them. Seeing that he was within the twenty-kilometre radius specified he brought the ship to a halt and turned so they were flanking the alien ship.
"Now what," Wevv wondered.
"I guess we wait," Jordmar answered.
They didn't have to wait very long. Seemingly within a few seconds of them coming to a stop next to her the energy readings coming off the Tanganyika spiked higher than anything he'd ever seen in his life before. Which considering the life he'd led – especially when working with Milo during the Clone Wars – was saying quite a bit. Through the view port he and Wevv watched as a strange whirl of bluish energy – the looked like an antique gyroscope of all things – flashed a few kilometres away before transforming into what appeared to be sphere of frosted glass that completely surrounded both ships and the still deployed fighters. After a second or so the sphere flashed and rippled with rainbow colours before transforming into a tunnel of rapidly moving points of light.
Jordmar exchanged a look with Wevv again. This method of faster than light travel definitely wasn't hyperspace as there was none of the shimmering blue-walled tunnel effect of a hyperspace corridor. Instead it was almost like they were still in normal space, almost aside from a slight shimmering distortion – like rippling water – that broke up the starlight in some way. They were clearly travelling down some kind of conduit or corridor, but it wasn't hyperspace – or at least not in the way that they understood it.
"Caff," Wevv asked breaking the moment knowing that they could both do with a drink after what they just went through. While they would have both liked some alcohol Jordmar never allowed it on the ship not when they were in space anyway, planet side was a different story. Thus, caff would have to do.
"Yes please."
"I'll go make some then."
Wevv stood up and left the cockpit leaving Jordmar alone with R4. Jordmar for his part leaned back in his pilot's chair and just watched the odd display outside the cockpit. He had no idea where Captain Halsey was taking them but after a moment he decided that did not matter. As wherever it was as long as it was away from the Black Sun – who would quickly send more ships to the battle site especially if Xizor really was after Milo's crate – then it was fine with him.
Author Note: Well another chapter bites the dust. Hope you all like the new characters, especially Jordmar and Wevv who are going to have an important role to play in the story from here on out, introduced in this chapter. And of course, the re-introduction – if unseen – of the character of Prince Xizor – from the Legends novel Shadows of the Empire – as an antagonist for both Jordmar and Wevv and now the REF. When the idea of Xizor was mentioned in a conversation of spacebattles I just couldn't resist bringing him back into things.
Next time we see the beginnings of the repercussions of this battle and the final scout cruiser will make a very interesting discovery.