The delivery at resupply station 41 went smoothly and on-time. We got paid well. Good times.
"Very well then, Captain. With old business out of the way, I have another job for you."
I blinked at the station's logistics officer. We were in the station's large hangar, by the aft loading ramp of Clear Skies. "I'm sure we could come to an agreement, Commander," I said with a nod. "What is it you want moved and where?"
He sighed with a small frown. "Well... The troop transport that was going to take our four hundred soldiers to Dantooine for shore-leave, showed up a couple of days ago and needed its hyperdrive completely refitted. That would take weeks and getting new transport out here, needs to be approved, which might take months. I want you to ship them there."
I just looked down at the human-like he had gone nuts. "You realize I have a cargo-ship, right? Never mind the uncomfortable situation of sleeping in the hold, my life-support would never take the strain."
The crazy bastard nodded. "I know, I am willing to supplement the pay with portable life support units, fold-able bunk beds, and porta-loos. I understand you take passengers already?"
At my nod, he continued, "We will pay whatever they pay per soldier."
Well... Praise the inefficient war machine, I guess.
I quickly agreed then shared the good and bad news with Commander Swan. She looked disgusted at the navy but then went to work organizing everything.
The logistics officer looked like he almost swallowed his tongue when he saw the actual cost, then tried to talk it down. I actually allowed him to talk the price down ten percent just to stay on his good side but we both knew he needed this deal more than I did.
If he didn't take it, he would have four hundred off-duty soldiers making trouble on his station and if they weren't actually put off-duty, he might have a serious morale issue.
So, the next few hours were spent observing military engineers running in fear around the hold under the wrath of the fifty-kilogram Sarah Honor for messing around with Her ship. I'm lucky most people can't read my body language as that was the funniest thing I've seen since I arrived.
In the end, though the bunk beds, portable toilet booths and portable life-support units were strapped in. I even talked him into providing enough MRE's for each soldier during the 2 day trip to Dantoonie so we don't even need to feed them, just provide water...which we will hopefully have enough off.
The haul itself encountered few problems and Mekak was happier than a fish in the water. Turns out, he was a good sabacc player, and more than a few of the 'livestock' weren't. The livestock was limited to inside the cargo bay and as such had very little to do but play cards.
In the end, I had to actually order him to stop hustling them as sooner or later, there would have been a riot in the cargo bay.
When we could finally unload them, I couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief. That many people crammed up in a small area was a recipe for disaster.
Once they had finally cleared out, I make my way down to the cargo bay to find my chief engineer already waiting for me.
"So, Captain? What do we do with all this crap?" she asked while looking around.
The place was more or less a mess and I sighed, "Stow the life support units somewhere, they can come in handy in the future. Scrap the rest. We don't have room to stow them and I don't think we have time to sell them either. Now if you would excuse me, I need to find us some new cargo..."
It took two days to locate a new shipment and during that time, the passengers were free to roam around the planet. In the end, two of them decided to jump back to Coruscant and we failed to pick up two new ones.
At the very least, the next job was going to be nice and easy. Haul ten months' worth of dried, powdered, and canned food to a mining station in the Cra'kto system.
No Republic soldiers messing up my cargo hold.
The trip wasn't long, the Cra'kto system was only three days from Dantoonie but it did have an unusual feature. It had a rather extreme hyper-limit.
Usually, you pretty much just needed to break orbit to get far enough out of a planet's hyper-limit to enter hyperspace, unless it was extremely close to the star. But something was strange about the Cra'kto system which was almost unique in the galaxy. The star's hyper-limit was massive, much, much larger than it should be.
Either way, we had to drop out of hyperspace with over ten hours of travel from the station and slow-boat it in. I was relaxing around the command pillar on the bridge, listening to my crew chatter while studying up on programming languages. These things were... less flexible than Morrigi ones. And more annoying.
"Uh... Captain. You might want to see this..." Tel'te spoke up from her station. "I have something on sensors..."
I closed the instruction program and pulled up the sensor feed to see a big blip exit from behind the sensor shadow of an asteroid in front of us before slowly turning and accelerating towards us.
"Sir, I'm reading that as a Hutt cruiser," she said and glanced back at me.
I gave her a calm nod. "Very well. Helm, turn us about, full power to engines, and plot a course to the closest hyper-limit."
I pressed the internal com button. "Commander Swan, please report to the bridge."
When she arrived, she took one look at the sensor display before looking at me. "Pirates, Captain?"
I nodded. "Most likely. Helm, can we outrun them?"
She frowned before shaking her head. "No, sir. We are two hours from the hyper-limit at this speed and they will be weapons range in one hour, 45 minutes."
Nodding, I opened the com to engineering and Sarah Honor answered, "Yes, Captain?"
I hummed. "Miss Honor, would it be possible to cut fifteen minutes of a two-hour flight to hyper? We are about to have some unwelcome guests if we don't."
There is a few seconds of silence and someone swallows on the other end of the line. "Pirates?"
I nodded. "Affirmative. Can it be done?"
She sighed, "No... not with the equipment we have. I might cut five minutes off it but we are running as hot as we can."
"Very well, do what you can and remind me to upgrade the engines at first possible opportunity," I answered before closing the connection then turning my attention to Jack Melton.
"Mr. Melton, please signal the mining station, if they are still there, and report that we are likely to be a tad delayed."
He gave me a wide-eyed look before nodding and turning his attention to his com equipment.
Commander Swan was standing next to my pillar, just observing for now.
We couldn't outrun them and while heavily-armed for transport, we couldn't fight off a cruiser. Our shields couldn't handle ten minutes of fire from a cruiser, even at extreme range. This was troubling.
"Captain, we are being hailed," reported Jack Melton.
I give him a nod. "Put them through."
The hologram of my pillar formed a screen in front of me showing a human. "Clear Skies, you will cut your engines and surrender. You cannot escape. Surrender and you will live. All we want are your cargo and the passengers."
I looked at him for a moment. I smelled a rat. "I'm afraid you are a mistaken, sir. We are a republic cruiser, not a freighter. Please check your sensors again."
I cut the connection and opened a com signal to engineering again. "The second engineer, please report to the cargo hold and disengage the safeties on the magnetic transporter strip."
"Eh... Yes, sir," she answers before the connection was closed and I opened another one to the cargo-hold.
"Mr. Mekak, move three containers of powdered goods onto the magnetic transport strip then make sure everything else is locked down, please. As soon as Miss Honor has finished her work on it, I plan to open the bay to space, so please clear out as soon as you two are finished."
"...What's going on, Captain?" he asked and I snorted.
"Pirates. Now, get to it."
Commander Swan frowns slightly up at me. "May I ask what you have planned, sir?"
I snorted. "Something that will make me look like a genius if it works and a complete fool if it doesn't. Any suggestions on how to improve the situation, Commander?"
She sighs, "No, sir... As far as I can see, we have done all we can. Perhaps restrict the passengers to their cabins until the crisis is over?"
That was a good point. I quickly opened a com channel to Icri to get her on it and then we simply waited.
The first turbolaser shot lash out from the cruiser and struck our shields at extreme weapon range. The ship shuddered slightly and I nodded before deploying the rear turret then opened a channel to the cargo masters office. "Mr. Mekak. Open the hold and deploy the three containers, please. Full power to the magnetic transporter."
"On it, Captain," he answers and the ship shuddered not only from shooting the three containers out the back at a hundred km/hour but also from another couple of turbolaser hits.
I quickly aimed the turret and let lose a volley of fire, blowing them up. The food in them, as well as debris, formed a slowly expanding cloud between us and the cruiser. The cloud lit up from the turbolaser bolts hitting it and dispersing their energy into it.
It worked.
But it won't last long. "Mr. Mekak, please reload and be ready to fire again."
Four minutes plus one more volley of containers and we flashed forward into hyperspace on our way back to Dantoonie... with a shipload of most upset passengers.
Now, it was time to figure out what the hell happened... and I think I know where to start...