"What's wrong?" Javif asked Lorana, sensing her distress through the Force."The Outbound seems to have drifted off course in the aftermath of the battle, I've tried to recalibrate our coordinates, but it's no good, we're stuck on our current trajectory".
Judging from the distressing tone in Loranas voice, Javif could tell that there was something else to this. "And I'm guessing you're about to explain why it's worse than it sounds?"
"Our current course takes us right past this system's star." Lorana sighed.
"How close?" Javif quickly responded
"Close enough that dreadnaughts 3 and 4 are caught in its gravitational pull and most likely drag the rest of the ship down with them"
The young Jedi stood up from his station, after flipping a switch on his console that lowers the blast shields outside his section of the ship, revealing the observation windows. Javif stands in front of the glass, placing a hand on its surface, reaching out through the force. As a Miraluka, he is not able to "see" the vastness of space before him and must use his Force sight to find what he is looking for.
However, It didn't take him long to feel the energy of the star through the force, even feeling the intense heat radiating from it with the palm of his hand."How long do you think we have?"Javif called over to Loranas hologram.
"20 minutes", Lorana choked out. "if we don't do something soon..."
"Then we'll be heading right into that star, Javif finished in his head. This can't be how this ends, not after everything they've survived ... unless. Javif hurried over to a nearby console and began pulling up information from the ship's database until he found what he was looking for.
"Lorana, I have an idea". Javif swiftly said.
"What?" responded Lorana.
"We disconnect the ship", Javif waited for his fellow Jedi to respond.
"What are you talking about?"
"Look, the Outbound is just 6 heavy cruisers connected around a single central core correct? Well, according to these schematics, each dreadnaught can be disconnected from the main hull in the event of an emergency."
"I think I can confidently confirm that our current situation counts as one" Lorana fired back.
"So, if we disconnect D3 and D4, the side where the Outbound is most likely to be caught in the gravitational pull. It might just be enough to allow the rest of the ship to pass by the star unaffected."
"That could work, but there's just one problem" Lorana interjected, "we can't disconnect the dreadnaughts remotely, we have to go to the bridge of each ship and activate the protocol from there."
Javif pondered on this for a moment before reaching his decision.
"I'll do it ... you focus on keeping the Outbound out of range of the star."
"I'm going with you!" Lorana quickly responded.
"No!" Javif snapped back, "it's quicker if I do it."
Lorana pondered, "Are you going to have enough time?"
"We don't have any choice here." Javif said, "I'll join you on D5 when I've finished."
"I have a bad feeling about this."
Javif tried to reassure his friend, "You worry too much."
He ended the conversation there and headed off towards his next destination.
Marr was pushing his abilities to their utmost limits. With the use of force speed, he managed to navigate his way towards the bridge of Dreadnaught 3. Reaching the main console, Marr activated the emergency disconnect protocol. Unfortunately, the process had only a 4-minute delay before completion, so the exhausted Jedi once again drew upon the force to push his body to its peak and sped his way towards to connecting bridge leading to the next dreadnaught. After making his way down the bridge, an alarm suddenly went off and Marr knew the bridge was about to disconnect. Looking ahead, he saw the blast doors leading into D4 had started to close. Despite feeling his legs about to give out under him, Marr managed to reach the doors, roll under the narrow space and made it to the other side just as the doors closed. Marr lay on his back, breathing heavily.
"That ... was ... too ... close ... for ... comfort."
"Marr!" Loranas voice echoed from his com-link. "Are you there? D3 has been successfully detached. Did you make it to D4?"
"Yeah" Marr gasped. "Just made it. Making my way to the bridge now."
"Are you alright?" concern was woven into her tone. "You sound exhausted?"
"It's been a long day," He pulled himself back onto his feet and headed off towards the bridge.
On his way, he passed through a hallway and something caught his eye from a nearby external window. Dreadnaught 3 had indeed detached from the main ship and was slowly being dragged towards the nearby star. With the imminent threat of the star drawing closer, Marr hurried off and finally reached his destination and quickly repeated the process on the main console. However, this time he encountered a small problem. The console had been damaged during the attack and as a result, he could no longer implement the activation delay. Meaning he could still enable the detachment protocol, but he couldn't buy the extra time he needed to get off the dreadnaught.
"I don't have a choice."
He'd have to put his faith in the force and hope he could reach the next dreadnaught in time. Javif activated the protocol and immediately sped off towards Dreadnaught 5. Already he could tell that the process was underway, so Javif drew on what little strength he had left to push himself to the extreme. His body was on the verge of collapsing with exhaustion when he turned a corner and failed to notice an R3 astromech droid in the hallway. Javif crashed right into the droid, knocking both of them onto the floor.
"No, no, no!"
Still feeling dazed from the impact, He managed to drag himself to his feet and ran off to the connection bridge between the two dreadnaughts. Horror struck Javif as alarms started to scream around him and as he reached the bridge, the blast doors were already half closed. Javif tried to rush towards the doors but his legs collapsed under him and he fell to the ground right as the door fully closed. Javif dragged himself up and ignited his lightsaber and plunged it into the door, in a desperate attempt to cut the door open. unfortunately, this was in vain, as the Dreadnaught was already detaching. While this was happening, the depressurisation, along with the structural weakness of the door caused it to rip open, pulling Javif into the void of space.
Feeling the coldness of space rapidly engulf his body, Javif had little to no options. Though exhausted, he was able to clear his thoughts and still his breathing, he then used the force to allow what little traces of air in his lungs to sustain him. An old technique taught to him by his late master, Javif was told he could use this to hold his breath for hours ... even days. But what little good that would do him. With his body seizing up, there was very little more he could do. He was slowly drifting further into space, he had possibly only moments left to live. As he could feel his eyes getting heavier and his body getting colder, he suddenly felt his hand make contact with something. At first, he just thought it was a piece of debris, but then he could feel the momentum of his body being dragged back towards the ship. He managed to open his eyes and saw what he was attached to. It was none other than the astromech droid that he had crashed into before, the very same droid must have also been dragged outside when the door ripped open and was now using the propulsion jets it has to drag Javif through the void of space back onto the now exposed area of the ship.
As they made it onboard, the droid interfaced itself with a nearby console and closed the hull shutters, which allowed the artificial gravity to activate again and they both fell onto the ground. Javif gasped for air before turning to the little droid.
"Thank ... you." he gasped, "Thank you ... my little friend ... who...?"
The droid responded with the typical beeps and whistles that all of his kind use."R3-M4?" The Jedi confirmed, "thank you, R3 ... though I'm worried your valiant efforts may have been in vain."
R3 let out a low-pitched sigh. A few minutes later, both Marr and R3 entered the bridge and the young Jedi sat down on the command chair, exhausted, with his entire body in pain. He manages to take out his comlink and activates it, hoping to get In touch with Lorana.
"Lorana, do you read me? He was met with silence, "Lorana!"Some static can be heard through the comlink but other than that, nothing. feeling defeated, Marr puts the device away. He looks out from the main window, only to see the star is now so close that now blocks his entire view. the temperature of the bridge has risen immensely, causing Marr to break out into a sweat.
"I guess this is it."R3 rolls up beside him and Marr places his hand on top of the droid's dome, offering a small smile."At least I won't be alone ... thank you for being here, my little friend."
The astromech droid expresses a series of beeps and whistles, only for Marr to respond in a rather pessimistic tone."I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do. We're caught in the star's gravitational pull, there's no way to navigate the ship around the star and the thrusters aren't strong enough to push us away."
R3 tried to comfort the Jedi, but he merely chuckled in response."I'm OK with this ... a Jedi's life is sacrifice and if my actions lead to a more hopeful future for Lorana and the surviving colonist? Then I can make my peace with that. At least I won't have to go through this alone ..."
Marr cut himself off, a crazy idea had just entered his mind and he quickly activated the console in front of him.
"Through! that's it? "the astromech droid seemed puzzled. "R3, are there any stasis pods in the medical facility of this ship? R3 beeped in confirmation, however, Marr immediately shot up from his chair and headed out of the bridge.
R3 quickly followed suit and caught up with its Jedi friend. "We can't pull away or go around the star, but what if we dive head first?" R3 let out a sequence of sharp whistles in shock. "I mean we can go through the star, we use the ship's hyperdrive and the star's gravity to throw us out the other side and back into space."
R3 hastily reminded Marr of the ship's current structural integrity."It's a risk, I know", Marr conceded, "But it's a better option than what we have now."The whole structure of the ship had begun to shake more violently, nearly knocking the pair to the ground. They raced towards the medical centre, as their surroundings began to break apart and the atmosphere heated up immensely.
Marr burst through into the med centre and approached the stasis tanks. Unfortunately several of them were badly damaged and inoperable due to the recent attack.
"No, no, no".
Thankfully, R3 got Marrs attention and led him towards the last remaining stasis tank."Yes!" He turns to face the astromech, "Listen very carefully, R3. I'm going into stasis, hopefully, it should protect me from the intense heat and radiation from the star. I'm going to need you to return to the bridge and redirect as much power as you can spare into the forward deflector shields and activate the ship's hyperdrive... if it still works."
R3 let out a sad sigh. "Hey, this is gonna work ... maybe". He chuckles nervously, "Anyway, once we're through, deactivate the drive and reawaken me. I'm not going to lie to you, the odds of this working are astronomical ... we just have to trust in the Force for this one."
R3 gave an encouraging whistle and let Marr climb into the tank before interfacing with its controls to set everything up for him. As the hatch of the tank began to close, Marr looked over to the droid. "Don't forget to activate the bridge's ray shields. It should give you some protection."
Right as the hatch closes, the tank activated, leaving Marrs body in a preserved, immobile state. His mind was now in a deep slumber, waiting to be reawakened. R3 made its way out of the med lab with the use of its propulsion jets and flew towards the bridge, avoiding falling debris in hallways as it goes. R3 rushes into the bridge and lands in front of the main command console before interfacing with it.The droid activated the bridge's ray shields and red energy barriers then engulf the doors and observation windows. The dreadnaught is diving ever closer towards the star as R3 begins to engage the hyperdrive. The Droid calculated that the odds of this working were astronomical. Without proper calculations and a hyperspace route, they would be jumping blindly into space and end up anywhere in the cosmos.
But R3 knew that there was no other choice, the droid engages the hyperdrive and there was no turning back. However just as it did so, the bridge started taking damage due to the intense environment. equipment and circuitry started to explode and melt, and before the droid had a chance to respond, the ray shields had started to falter.
The dreadnaughts hyperdrive activated and the ship plunged headfirst into the star. Leaving behind a trail of debris as the Outbound Flight was able to escape its grisly fate and continued into deep space, with the young Jedi Lorana, left to wonder about the fate of her now-lost friend.