"First, yes, you're going to need guards. Even on your ship. Spies can and will take advantage of any perceived weaknesses they find. But don't let your guards keep you isolated from your crew either. If you're the kind of guy who talks to his men a lot, don't stop. A loyal crew is worth a lot."
Corvell seemed to accept that tidbit.
...
"Second, and this one you aren't going to like me for, but you are probably not going to stay a captain, or even on this ship." There! That was a reaction! Corvell looked at Kyle with open eyes, a little bit of fear in them. He didn't want to leave his ship. "You may get promoted. Commodore, or even Admiral."
Corvell didn't like that. "I would have to refuse."
"Maybe," Kyle said. "That's what you should know. War changes things, but it doesn't have to change you." Oh sithspit, he was starting to sound like Luke of all people. "But what do I know? I'm just a retired merc."
"Indeed you are, Kyle." Corvell responded. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we should be at the rally point in a couple hours. I need to review our plans and expectations."
"Of course, Captain." Kyle stood up and offered his hand, the Captain shaking it firmly. "Would you mind if I got a Holo Net feed? With everything that's going on, I think I want to catch up on the news."
"Gladly, Mister Katarn." Corvell walked with him to the hall. "Ensign, once Mister Katarn is back to his ship, allow him access to the public news networks, and our Navigational Computers should his ship need to update itself after their accident."
The Ensign gave a sharp salute. He, Kyle, and their two escorts headed back to the flight deck.
...
( Raven's Claw )
Kyle climbed atop the wing. "Jan?" he asked, hoping to get her attention as she was currently hip deep in the engine.
"Oh, hey Kyle!" Jan didn't bother to look up as she had a welder in hand. "How did it go?"
"Captain is taking us to Khar Duma, a military rally point. Once there, we will be free to go. Until then, he's given me access to the news, and the Claw access to the NavComps, should we need to update our system."
"Oh, that's nice!" She paused before she spoke again, more serious. "I hope you said 'thank you'."
Kyle hadn't. "I.. shook his hand."
"Kyle!"
"What? I was polite!"
"Fine. What did you find out?" She returned to her repairs.
"Nothing much. Hence the news. Pretty hard to fake that."
"Let me know what you find," Jan said, dismissing Kyle to focus on her work.
"Sure." He climbed down this time, rather than jumping off, and went into the Claw. He put away the pistol, but not the saber as it was smaller and he could play with it in one hand while he read what he could access on the local news network with the other.
"Let's see here," he muttered to himself as he flipped the saber end over end. "Declaration of War," he skimmed over the public announcement, which could have easily come from any archive. The Empire was almost proud of its origins in the Clone Wars, and made certain that no one would forget it. Kyle moved on to the next article.
"Chancellor Palpatine offers condolences to fallen Jedi. Huh, never thought the Emperor of all people would play nice. But, you know, hindsight and all that." The article described how the dead Jedi from the Battle of Genosis was an example of the sacrifice required to win the war. "Right. I'm pretty sure Luke told me how you had your hands in both sides."
Next article was a counter declaration by the Secessionists. "Blah, blah, blah, politics and threats."
Then there was market stuff, but Kyle skipped over that. He didn't really pay attention to galactic economics. Then local news. But that didn't help him at all.
"Kriff," he swore. Nothing. Reading through all this was like reading through an archive for all he could tell. Now he wanted to talk things over with Jan, but she was busy fixing the engine. And that meant he was bored.
Luke was right. Again. He pulled out the small bag with Yun's crystal in it, but instead of heading for a workbench near the back, he held it in one hand, his own saber in the other, and started to meditate.
Jan slapped him in the back of the head. "Wake up Kyle!"
Kyle snapped back to awareness. "Wha..? Jan! I was meditating!"
"No," she said as she leaned over his seat. "You were sleeping. Snoring in fact."
"Was not." Kyle objected, even as he recognized the signs of actual sleeping in his muscles. He was supposed to be meditating!
"Guess this means you found nothing?"
"Nothing you couldn't get out of an archive." Kyle handed over the datapad with the news. "Here, read for yourself."
Jan did, allowing Kyle to put away his weapon and the other crystal. "We good to go?"
"Uh huh," Jan replied, not looking up from the scrolling text. "Wow, this is detailed."
Kyle looked back to make sure no one was listening in. "So, what do you think?"
"It's a bit too complex to be a joke," she said as she put away the pad in order to climb into her seat. Once she was comfortable, she started checking the navigational computer. "What else is there?"
"These people are so far out to lunch that they missed the War completely?"
"For thirty years?" Jan didn't believe it, and neither did Kyle. "You sure they're not, you know, being..." she twirled one finger at her head, while the other one made that gesture that some Jedi did when they wanted to try and influence someone.
"Not that I could tell," Kyle replied. "What else could it be?"
They both sat in silence before Jan shook her head. "No, that's a bad idea."
"What?" Kyle asked, curious.
"No, you don't want to know. It's a bad idea, and I'm dumber for thinking of it."
"Out with it, Jan."
"Alright, but please don't laugh."
"Jan..." Kyle growled, hoping to get something out of her.
"Well, what if... no. It's really stupid."
"JAN!"
"Time travel!"
"What?"
"You've heard the stories, right? Where ships go into hyperspace, and come out years later, where only minutes or hours have passed for them?"
Kyle didn't know how to respond to that. "Jan? Are you feeling alright? Did you bump your head?" He held out one hand to check her, only for Jan to swat it away. "And you called me out on old spacers tales not a day ago. And besides, in those stories, they only go forwards in time, never back."
"I know! But what else is there?"
Kyle didn't know. "You know what, I don't think we know enough. Once we get off this ship, we'll find some answers. How long anyways until we drop out of Hyperspace?"
"According to the information the NavComp is getting, another twenty minutes or so."
"Then why don't we relax?"
"Kyle, there is no relaxation we could do in twenty minutes." Jan said with a sly grin.
"Is that a challenge?"
"No." She got up. "I'm going to check the engine those guys were looking at earlier. If there's something wrong, there may be something new there."
"You do that." Kyle picked up the data pad and picked out a random article. It was about cooking, but he read it anyways.
Bridge of the Astute
"We'll be at the Rally Point in one minute Captain." Commander Grigh stated as the Captain read the latest reports from his crew readiness drills.
"Thank you, Commander. Once we're settled in, we'll let our guests take their leave of us." Corvell had set aside the comments that Katarn had made. He would trust in his superiors in the fleet they were about to arrive at. "Alert the crew."
"Aye sir." Grigh picked up a vox and set it to shipwide. "Attention all hands, Realspace reversion in twenty seconds. Mark."
Twenty seconds later, the Astute re-entered realspace in the Khar Doma system.
Right into a battle.
...
Kyle grabbed at his chair as the ship stopped travelling over the speed of light, then started shaking. "JAN!" He yelled out as re recognized the signs of a ship under fire. For a moment, he was glad he was on a Carrack class, as it was extremely tough for its size. He hurriedly started the ship's warmup sequence once he saw Jan clear of the engine.
"All hands!" the ship wide intercom blared to life. "All hands to battle stations! This is not a drill! The Seperatists are attacking the Rally point!"
"Aw sithspit," Kyle groaned as he looked around the cockpit. "Jan, get in here!"
"I'm here! I'm here!" She said as she jumped into her chair. "Astute Control, this is Raven's Claw! Permission to get out of here!"
"Negative Raven's Claw!" The voice came back over the communicator. "We're in a battle and we can't afford to open the blast doors or the shields to let you out!"
"Damn it!" Kyle pounded the transparent cover of the cockpit. "What do we do?"
"Can't leave," Jan said as she nursed the ship into life. "Unless you want to cut off the mag locks, open the blast doors, and lower the shields around the shuttle bay for us?"
Kyle considered it. It was a bad idea. "No. Damn."
Then the ship shuddered again, this time throwing them both back and forth in their seats. "What was that?" Jan and Kyle demanded of each other at the same time.
"All hands! Stand by to repel boarders! I repeat, we have been hit by a Droid Boarding pod on the port side, Deck D!"
"Boarding parties?" Jan was surprised. "Really? While we're in a battle? How?"
"Who cares?" Kyle said as he got out of his seat. "You stay here and keep the ship ready to leave."
"Kyle! What are you going to do?"
The Jedi Master grinned as he pulled out his lightsaber. "Why, give our uninvited guests a warm welcome."
...
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