Chapter 4
At first the mass they were approaching just seemed like a jumbled mess, but, as the small ship got closer and the exterior lights did a better job showing it, it became obvious what had happened.
“Omni, using the damage estimate the course those ships were traveling at impact.” Kitten said. It popped up on the screen.
“Now, extrapolate that course forward and see if there isn’t a planetary system there.”
“No such system exists, the course would leave the galaxy.”
“Account for about 3700 years of drift.” Sparrow tossed in.
The new course intersected a system far in the distance.
“How did you know how long ago this happened?” She asked him.
“The front ship there, the huge one. It’s a Harrower class dreadnaught, the capital ships of the sith empire that tried to conquer our galaxy about 3700 years ago. The rest of the ships appear to be its escorts.”
“Why would a battle group hit a stationary object? The hyperdrive control systems should have told them that there was something in the path.”
“I have no idea. Omni, anything interesting about the planetoid?”
“Not really, it’s a giant ball of dense metal. I detect nothing worked about it.”
“So, either way, we can assume the fleet was on a known hyperspace lane heading for whatever system that is. Do you have an ID on it?”
“No, the charts I was able to download don’t extend out this far.”
“Then either every control system in that fleet malfunctioned or, what?”
“The moon arrived too quickly for the computers to detect it in time.” Sparrow theorized.
“That’s crazy. What could move a moon like that?”
“I have no idea, but I bet if Omni does the calculations it will reveal that the impact was greater than if the moon was stationary but less than a hyperspace impact.”
Sure enough a few minutes later Omni reported that that was, in fact, the case.
“Okay, so the mystery of the day is solved, sort of. The question now is what do we do.”
“We need to establish some funds, we need to obtain better equipment and a stable base, we need allies. These are the needs I identify as critical right now.” Omni stated.
“The problem I see, is that this find is way too large for us.” Sparrow told them.
“There is no way we can efficiently sell off what we can find here, let alone get decent prices for it. The only choice I see is to involve my clan.”
“I thought you didn’t want to risk your clan?” Deux asked.
“If this find is worth what I think it is then it would be worth the risk. Giving my clan that much wealth would also earn us a powerful ally in the future.”
“The only other three groups I can think of big enough to handle this are the empire, the republic, and the hutts. The empire is out, the republic has no real presence here, and the hutts would just kill us.”
“So how do we go about contacting your clan?”
“I have absolutely no idea. We can’t land this ship anywhere because I am sure the imperials have the word out on it. It’s also not worth the risk for me to go planet side. If something were to happen and this editor thing got airborne we would all be in trouble.”
“Another difficulty we will have is that our communications systems on board are from our galaxy and are not compatible with what is used here.” Deux offered.
“So,” Kitten ventured as she thought it through. “Our first priority needs to be getting a different transport. We also need to take a good look around and make sure we get what we need from this mess before we turn the bulk over.”
“Does this ship have EVA suits?” asked Sparrow.
“No, in the event of a major system failure the stasis tube would have kept Kitten safe while I handled it.” Omni shared sadly.
“Well Karabast! Either that means you two are doing all the exploring on 5 or 6 different ships or we need to somehow get ahold of some help and equipment.”
“With the droid bodies we were able to bring aboard exploration would take an excessive amount of time. I will make a close approach and do a full scan of each vessel. Hopefully we can select a target or two and board only those vessels.”
The scan seemed to proceed slowly, at least to Sparrow. He had come to a realization that he was really struggling with. He was about to bring it up to Kitten when Deux spoke in his head.
“It doesn’t work like that.” He said gently.
“What do you mean?”
“First off, without someone like me or Omni it would completely wipe the persons mind.”
“But couldn’t..”
“Listen Sparrow, we haven’t had a chance to get to know each other that well yet, but, for all intents and purposes Omni and I are immortal.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Omni is older than those ships out there. He is therefore very very cautious when it comes to budding, because over time it would be very easy for us to overpopulate.”
After thinking about it for a minute Sparrow got it, just one child per century would create a massive population eventually. It made him a bit humble that Omni had done it for him.
“I know you worry most about children but Sparrow, how old are you now?”
“I assume 17?”
“Hmm, that’s not far off actually. You are not a good example. My point is that anyone changed as you were, will be a a mature adult when the change ends, even a young child. You would rob them of their entire childhood.”
Sparrow rocked back a bit in disappointment at that. He could see that Deux had a point but he still felt there were circumstances where the change would be a gift and not a curse.
“And when it is we will all support you doing it.” Deux assured him.
“We have something!” Omni said from within the ships systems.
“What have you got?”
“As expected, most of the main ships are heavily damaged. That caused a lot of the smaller vessels inside to get rattled around. It looks like someone on that corvette over there was a tie down expert. From what I can scan from here every ship in that hanger is complete and at least mostly undamaged.”
“Any reason we can’t take a closer look?”
“No, I am heading in now.”
They carefully edged into the large hanger bay and settled the ship on the deck. It was an odd feeling to be in the large dark empty space with nothing moving and no sound at all.
Omni and Deux slid themselves into the two protocol droids they had brought aboard and headed into the auxiliary airlock. It seemed unlikely that the hanger still had a breathable atmosphere after so long.
Sparrow and Kitten watched the screen as the droids moved across the bay floor. They looked at various ships and even entered a couple before they boarded a mid-size ship off to the side.
It was obvious that that ship was something special. It was dark and sleek, sort of oval in shape. A few minutes later one of the droids came out and went looking for a fueling hose. The droid hooked the hose up and then went and manipulated some valves on a tank against the wall.
The other droid came down the ramp a minute later unspooling a power cable. It made it back to their ship and fiddled around for a minute trying to make a connection. It must have gotten it because amazingly the lights came on outside the ancient vessel.
“This is an extremely lucky find!” Both of them heard. “It looks like it may even be operable. Things don’t actually decay in the vacuum of space but the extreme cold may have damaged sensitive components.”
Over the next couple of hours, the synthetics managed to repair the ship, called a Fury class interceptor. It took a few parts runs but amazingly the synths reported it was 100% functional and the air system was pressurizing the ship.
Once that process had started the two droids wandered off to explore more of the sith corvette.
Deux came back a short while later easily lugging two suits in the low gravity.
“Here you go guys, it’s all I could find for moving from ship to ship.”
“Put them in the airlock and we will charge their power supplies.” Sparrow suggested.
Omni came back next, and he was carrying a droid.
“This is quite a find. Their design allows for much more efficient movement speed, and they have both armament and armor built in. They will be very useful.”
They brought the droid aboard and, with surprisingly little adjustment, had it charging. Omni headed out to do more exploring.
Sparrow and Kitten were chatting lightly as they waited for new developments when she made a comment that triggered a thought in him.
“Wait, you said that Omni could control many droids? All at the same time?”
”Of course.”
Deux had returned at that point with his own new droid steed. He plugged his in and then slid out of the protocol droid and returned to his usual riding spot around Sparrows neck.
Sparrow jumped a bit when the protocol droid stood up and started talking.
“We can leave a bit of ourselves in the droid like we do with you and Kitten. This allows us to communicate with it. We also reprogram any droids we openly control to allow for more autonomous action.”
“I see what you are thinking about and believe we can turn it into a workable plan, with some modifications.” The cyber volunteered.
“What are you thinking?” Kitten asked.
“You and I are sitting around here not really helping. I know that we need to move carefully but I can’t help feeling time is pressing on us.”
“If we leave Omni or Deux or both here, with a number of powered up droid units they can finish the explorations and gather our loot while we go and get in touch with the mandalorians. Hell, if possible maybe they can add another ship or two to our little fleet before we get back.”
Suddenly the lights came on in the hanger.
“I have been thinking along similar lines.” Omni comm’d.
“This ships reactor was shut down, it has almost a full load of fuel. Using it at the level we will be it will last for many years.”
“I am endeavoring to access the ships computer core now.”
“Well, this could be good news, or very, very bad. This battlegroup was created in secret due to infighting in the sith ranks. It’s mission was to go to that planetary system and investigate the lack of reports from the hidden science facility there. All contact was lost months before the battlegroup was deployed.”
“It seems several ships did manage to avoid colliding with the planetoid and those ships were used to rescue the survivors. The last entry indicates that those who left had intended to return to salvage.”
“The good news is that since they intended to return they left most of the equipment and all of the groups droids behind. The droids were tasked with repairing what they could.”
“Accessing the droid reports there is a transport ship that may be repairable. We should be able to effectively operate it as well.”
“There was a medical transport ship in the group but it seems to have been severely damaged. Perhaps it might be possible to salvage at least some of the equipment we need.”
“All right, sounds like we have a bit of a plan then.” Sparrow smiled. “All we need to figure out is who goes and who stays.”
“We can all go.” Omni said, “based on my analysis of the threat and opportunity here I believe Deux and I should each bud off and leave the new synths here to manage this.”
Sparrow reeled a bit in shock.