Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 49 – Padawans Lost
On the Raven as soon as they had entered hyperspace they had all got flung against the rear bulkheads. Not being buckled in and without the effects of gravity as they flew, Harry and their attacker got sent into the rear bulkhead of the bridge.
Harry was almost relieved when he landed face to face with their attacked and saw a flare of pain on his face before his head slumped forward.
Looking down Harry saw that his lit lightsaber had penetrated his opponent's stomach and then gone straight through into the bulkhead behind.
He wasn't dead, but he wouldn't be alive for very long, but right now that was not a problem, the important thing was he was no longer a major threat. Removing his and confiscating his opponent's lightsabers the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners kicked in, the computer now realising that they were in space automatically activated the systems, dropping both to the floor.
Harry had to think quickly, they were in hyperspace without planning, coordinates or a clear trajectory, which meant that there could be anything in their path when they dropped back out of hyperspace. They were relatively safe in hyperspace because the chances of hitting another ship were virtually non-existent, that meant his priority had to be his wounded friend.
Quickly stunning his dying assassin he ran into the back. He could see that Hermione had passed out, either due to their opponent or from a collision with the bulkhead, and was now crumpled in a heap against the far wall.
Carefully he ran his wand over her and deduced that she had a fractured hip but was otherwise ok other than a painful but superficial looking bump on her head. Carefully lowering her to the ground he cast a leg locker curse upon her and a similar charm on her hips and lower waist to set the bones in place. She would be able to heal herself within a couple of days with jedi healing meditation but it would not be a perfect fix, it would be the same as a bone resetting a break just done much faster.
Reviving her she slowly came around.
"Harry?" she asked uncertainly before she fully regained consciousness and gasped at the pain in her forehead before using the Force to subdue the pain. "What happened?"
"You fractured your hip; I've set them and your legs. I think you then collided with the bulkhead, hence your head."
"What about the man who attacked us?"
"He's currently dying slowly in the cockpit. He got impaled by my lightsaber, but we have bigger problems right now. We are in an un-plotted hyperspace jump and we don't know what the status of the ship is after that battle and getting its docking port ripped open."
"Well the emergency containment shields obviously kicked in as we have not been sucked out into space," she concluded. "What of the maintenance droids?"
"I haven't seen them; unless they were in remote parts of the ship when the seal blew they were likely sucked out like the soldiers on the flagship. Can you help me fly?"
"I think so," she nodded. "Help me to the cockpit."
It took a couple of minutes of careful levitation to get Hermione into the room and the Co-Pilots Seat readjusted into a lying upright position and then close enough to the console before they could start to ascertain the ships status.
"Life support and hull integrity are good," she read, "The only breach is the docking collar which was completely ripped off. The energy protection and regenerative properties we gave the hull seem to have done their job, as we have ninety eight percent hull integrity over the rest of the ship and the internal hatch and the emergency shields have plugged our hull breach."
"Hyperdrive is operating well," he took over. "Primary shields are at eighty percent, they weren't on when we were docked so the damage must have been from hull impacts that damaged internal systems before the hull plates regenerated over them."
"Here's a problem," Hermione continued. "Our communications and navigation antennas have been ripped off¸ again probably impact related and our sub-light engines are barely operating. The log shows an impact just as we went into hyperspace. Something must have hit the control systems just as we were jumping into hyperspace. It might have been easy to accelerate but it's going to take us a long time to slow down when we drop out of hyperspace."
"Well there's no time like the present," Harry sighed. "We will have to work out our position using the navi-computer and fly ourselves back to the rendezvous point when we drop out of hyperspace…Ready?"
"Ready," she agreed as they both took a hold of the controls.
"Dropping us out in Three…Two…One…"
As the tunnelling of hyperspace stopped and their view was immediately filled with a planet.
"Bad timing! Very bad timing!" shouted Harry as they both wrenched back on the controls. "We're going to hit it!"
"It's a gas giant! We can go through!" Hermione remarked.
"Gas giants sometimes contain sub-orbital rock debris," Harry reminded.
"Then let's skim it as lightly as we can."
They flew at the planet just short of light speed; their engines were in full reverse as were the charms that allowed Harry to control the ship broom like.
They blasted into the side of the gas giant, their view outside immediately turning pitch black as the gases enveloped them. They spent at least a couple of minutes pulling hard on the controls before they heard and felt something like a cloud of stones hitting the hull. It lasted less than a second before stopping, but that second was enough.
"Micro asteroids," Hermione remarked. "Most got absorbed by the shields but one or who got through because of the high speed. They pierced the hull but not the cabin; we've lost some of our manoeuvring thrusters."
"This just gets better and better," groaned Harry.
It was another minute before they emerged once more into the clear space.
"That wasn't so bad," Hermione sighed in relief before seeing something and revising her announcement. "Forget I said that. It's not over yet."
Directly ahead of them was a moon, and this one was not made of gas.
"Turn! Turn!"
"We are turning!" snapped Harry. "In case you have forgotten we're lost the majority of our engine power and thrusters!"
"Try and turn us into a re-entry path!"
"What do you think I am trying to do!" he countered.
"Why are you shouting?" she demanded.
"Because you're shouting!" he snapped. "Now just let me crash this thing."
"I'd rather we didn't."
"I don't think we have a choice in the matter."
Tapping on her console Hermione analysed their readings as their course changed.
"Good news is that you've pulled us into an orbital angle."
"And the bad news?"
"The moons gravity has us but we don't have enough speed to stay in orbit, we're going in but at a shallow angle."
"Better news than before I suppose. How long do you think before we begin re-entry?"
"Less than two hours," she replied. "I'm beginning to think that naming this ship the Raven was bad luck."
Back at Malastare there had been a flood of Dug firefighting equipment coming in from every direction to treat the blazes that had been caused by the crash of the Raven, the flagship and the other ships lost during the battle. The Jedi Task Force had won; when the flagship had been taken many of the pirates ran leaving the rest of the fleet to surrender.
The guards that had got out on the escape pods had been retrieved, they reported that Trench was last seen with some of their own heading for another pod, as those guards had not been heard from either it was assumed that they had all gone down with the ship.
The jedi had been most concerned to learn of this double bladed lightsaber user who had attacked their padawans, especially as they knew nothing about him other than he wanted Harry dead, but that was something they could take up with the Council later.
The clean-up operation was left to Masters Oppo and Tiin; Plo was keeping an eye on Coleman and Aayla who were not taking the loss of their padawans well. They had insisted that salvage operations started immediately to recover their padawans bodies. Even with the advance protections that the Raven had there was no way it could have survived that impact and the immediate crush of the larger ship falling atop it. As such the trio were currently standing as close as they dared to the wreckage of the ships directing and levitating the parts of the larger ship out of the way.
They had been at it for over an hour when something occurred to Plo.
"Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the Raven just below and to one side of the flagship when they crashed?"
"Yes," Coleman replied, he had been almost silent since the crash, which admittedly was not unusual for him, but the emotions were still evident to the telepathic Master. Despite this though he was doing much better than Aayla, he fully expected her to either to snap at someone or to collapse in grief at any moment, which was why his current line of questioning was more directed at Coleman.
"Well, if we have been digging this corner of the ship where they were positioned should we not have seen something of the superstructure by now? A hull plate, the main spar, the engines? With all the improvements and protections added to that ship something should have survived."
Both the others paused and thought.
"Something should have survived," Aayla stated, before doing something she should have done as soon as the crash happened. "Coleman, can you feel your master/padawan link?"
"They are gone Aayla," he replied, thinking that she was clutching at straws.
"No, don't feel for Hermione, feel for the link itself," she instructed.
Coleman paused and did so before looking up wide eyed.
"It's still intact."
"Exactly, if they were dead it would be gone, but it's still there. It's like-"
"They left the system," he finished.
"They apparated?" asked Plo.
"They can't apparate much outside the range of a planet's gravity," explained Aayla. "And we'd be able to feel them if they were within it."
"They must have entered hyperspace;" concluded Coleman. "It's the only way they could leave without us seeing them."
"Then why haven't they contacted us?" asked Plo.
"If they were under attack and about to crash it's possible that they did not have the chance to plot the navicomputer," Coleman theorised.
"Extremely dangerous," Plo remarked. "But given the circumstances it might have been their only solution."
"If the ship was badly damaged by the collisions with the flagship they might not have an operable comms system."
"So we have to find them," finished Aayla.
"This is it!" Hermione shouted as they dived through the atmosphere.
"I'm raising the nose to slow us; we can use the hull as an air break." Harry remarked. "Turn on the repulsors to full power. Direct them directly down on their mounts so that they will be at ninety degrees to the rest of the ship, that way all their thrust will counter out forward speed."
"What about our vertical speed?" Hermione asked.
"At the angle I am flying at it should slow that too. With luck the repulsors will be enough to stop us hitting the ground and we'll just have to wait until air friction stops us before lowering the gear."
"Oh come on, how often do things go that well for us?"
"Normally just in time to save our lives," he replied.
"True enough," she replied consulting her consoles again. "We are slowing both vertically and horizontally."
"Are our shields fully charged?"
"Yes, you were right. The new energy protections on the hull did protect us from the heat friction. If we turn the shields and deflectors on double ventral that should take away come of the force of the impact. Impact in about twenty seconds."
"We've cleared the clouds," Harry announced as the pair looked down on the land that was revealed before them. "Could be worse," he nodded.
"Sensors are detecting a partially arid, partially desert landscape. We are quite close to an inland sea; do you want to try aiming for that?"
"Ideally yes but we don't have the time, we've got to come down on land."
"Ten seconds!"
"Brace for impact, full power to ventral shields deflectors and repulsors. Full reverse thrust!"
"Five…Four…Three…Two…"
#We have alerted all inhabited planets in the sector as well as all judicial and jedi forces in the area,# advised Master Dooku's hologram. #Do we have any indication as to direction to duration of their jump?#
"No," replied Plo. "Master Coleman and Knight Aayla have already left in hyperspace capable fighters to begin searching. In addition we are sending what ships we can spare from the attack force to help with the search. Can any jedi be spared?"
# Alerted we have, ten jedi in your sector. Assist you they will,# added Yoda.
"Thank you Masters, I know their Masters will appreciate it. The search could take a very long time given the speed of the ship and as we do not know what direction or what distance they travelled."
#If we are to be realistic Master Plo,# continued Dooku. #The only sure way of ascertaining if they are in a system is for either Secura or Coleman to travel there and feel the presence. Even other jedi might not be able to pick them out from amongst other life forms. The search could take years.#
"Harry!...Harry wake up!"
Harry groaned as he opened his eyes and raised his head.
"Good, you're awake," Hermione decided.
"What happened?" asked Harry as he sat back in his chair and rubbed his head.
"Well from what I remember we hit hard, the shields and repulsors took the brunt but we still collided with the surface which knocked you out against the control column. We bounced up on the repulsors twice before stabilising but we were still travelling forward extremely fast, faster in fact than the repulsors could compensate for."
"What do you mean?" he asked unclipping himself and looking to her, she was still tied into her vertically seat.
"Well we landed on the desert so that helped us a bit, but unfortunately there were large boulders scattered amongst the sands and at the speed we were going our underside hit one of them hard and that's when we lost all power. We then nose-dived into the sand as the repulsors failed and skidded until we hit the cliff we are currently under."
Standing he helped levitate her out of the cockpit. On the way out he knelt down and checked on their attacked who had slid forward to just behind their chairs during the impact; he appeared to have died whilst stunned at some point after they jumped into hyperspace. His identity and motives would have to be a mystery for another day.
They continued, Harry levitating her out of the ship so that they could expect the damage from the outside. For once they were thankfully that the docking collar had been ripped off as they would not have been able to use the exit ramp that was underneath the ship and forcing the docking collar open would have been difficult if it had been damaged during the impact. Despite this the entrance was still half buried in the sand but they were able to get outside. Stepping out onto the sand they were for the first time able to see what had become of their ship.
"Well at least that's better than the Hogwarts crash," Harry remarked.
"Very few impacts could be worse than the Hogwarts crash," Hermione added.
The ship, especially the forward part, was partially submerged in sand and in a slightly nose down condition. The bits of the ship not concealed looked to be in reasonably good conditions but with a lot of superficial damage; quite a few dents, no antenna or radar equipment, some of the gun turrets were bent, basically anything small and thin that pointed away from the ship was broken, bent or missing and anything flat was corrugated but the ship itself was intact. The ship had come to rest under a small cliff that leaned far out over the ship putting most of it in shade, which turned out to be a good thing as they were on the arid edge of a desert and it was very hot.
With difficulty, for Hermione, the pair did a quick situation report.
"Well, good news is we have plenty of supplies," Hermione remarked, looking over the inventory list. "Thank goodness we used shrinking charms on the ration bars, we are likely to get very sick of them but we are not going to starve."
"Worse news, the core is intact, the engines are repairable, we could probably throw together a make shift distress beacon, although it would be short range and if we had to defend our position the shields and some of the turrets are also repairable."
"I thought you said worse news?" she asked.
"One of the two things that are not repairable are the main power lines coming off the core, so the engines work, the core works but we are completely unable to get power from one to the other."
"So we have a repairable space worthy ship but no way to get it there?" asked Hermione. "And I know we do not have the components to repair the lines. Could we substitute a secondary line?"
"They're not strong enough to handle the power output, even with the core at minimal power they would breach within seconds."
"Anything else I need to know?"
"The only other major thing that is broken is the memory for the main computer, the computer itself is fine but unfortunately when I impaled our assassin my blade penetrated the wall and shorted out the main memory, it would be recoverable if we had the right diagnostic equipment but we don't. So all we have is the equivalent of a newly built PC with nothing but the OS installed on it. All the communication codes, the navigation charts, the on-board maintenance records, etc are all gone."
"So…" Hermione began summing up. "We have food; we have a space worthy ship, with full power, but no way of getting the power to where it is needed."
"And if we could get it there," he took over. "We would have no navigation charts to tell us where we were or to identify what area of the galaxy we are in or where the nearest hyperspace lane is."
"And also with no power we have no water filtration system so we have a very limited supply of fresh water, I'm guessing only a few gallons," she concluded. "Did I miss anything?"
"No, I think you about covered it."
"So…" she began.
"So…" he echoed.
"Well, they'll be looking for us," she assumed. "It will take them a while as they don't know where we are."
"We don't know where we are," he reminded.
"Ok…" she calmed. "Well we need to stay alive until then…So…first problem, if we can't recycle the water is a fresh water source. We could use magic of course, we can shower and cool ourselves with that but it won't sustain us any more than conjured food would."
"You seal an internal hatch and go into a healing meditation, I'll go look for some," he instructed. "Once we have that we can start repairing what we can of the ship."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the delay guys, been a busy few weeks.
An anonymous guest asked if the regenerative ability of the Raven's hull is connected to the Yuuzhan Vong ships ability to grow since they are alive. The answer is no, basically (from my point of view) each hull plate has a charge of magic and when it gets hit that charge is used to repair the hull but when all the energy is used up that it the hull reacts like any other piece of metal. The reflective systems work the same way. As for the question if I was going to include the book where Anakin gets a living ship? I wasn't planning to as I have not read the books; most of my knowledge comes from the movies, the comics and good old wookiepedia.
Also people have been asking about the unknown lightsaber user, I have not told you who he is yet, he is someone I have created so don't try to guess who he is, though you could try guessing WHAT he is, one person got quite close.
Lastly I apologise for those of you who asked questions in reviews, I normally save them all up then answer them at once so those of you who have waited over a month I am sorry for the wait.
Enjoy