Get your own Free Home Page The 'Yavaris II' was just preparing to enter hyperspace.
The 'Millenium Falcon' had departed for Coruscant a few hours before.
The 'Yavaris II's' course was for the Yavin system to deliver supplies
and news to the Jedi 'praxeum'. They were also going to make one
other delivery.
Kes stood alone at the front of the 'Yavaris II's'
bridge, staring out the transparisteel at 'Voyager'. The ship had
been her home for the last two years. All her friends were there:
Harry, Tom, B'Elanna, Neelix, Tuvok. Captain Janeway and the Doctor
had become second parents to her. And know she was leaving them all
behind...
Mara Jade came up beside her and put a hand on her
shoulder. "It'll be all right," she said. "You'll be just fine
and so will they."
Kes said nothing. She thought of Harry, of
how lonely he would be without her. Everyone kept saying that she
could always come back, but, despite her exceptional learning capabilities,
it might take years to become a Jedi Knight. She would probably go
through the elogium by then, and by the time she returned to Harry, she
might be old and feeble.
General Antilles gave the order to jump to hyperspace.
Kes watched 'Voyager' until the stars turned into starlines and the 'Yavaris
II' soared through the mottled sky of hyperspace. Kes closed her
eyes as she felt hot tears come. She calmly wiped her eyes and took
a seat beside Mara Jade.
With a flash, the 'Yavaris II' emerged from hyperspace
into the Yavin system. Wedge could see the huge orange gas giant
before him, reflecting the light of Yavin's sun. On the other side
of the planet was a small, forest moon that Wedge knew very well.
The Alliance had used it as a hidden base of operations from which the
assault on the Death Star was planned. Wedge had been but a mere
fighter pilot then, but he was one of the few who had gone up against the
massive battle station and lived. He still remembered Dodonna's briefing
before the attack, and his own outburst of pessimism.
The abandoned base now served as a training center
from which to restore the Jedi Knights. It was run by his former
wingman and close friend, Luke Skywalker, the one who made the shot which
destroyed the Death Star. Wedge smoothed his brow and looked around
at the bridge crew. Little had he known then that he would be in
command of his own ship.
"Prepare to orbit the planet," he ordered. "Maximum velocity."
The 'Yavaris II' sped around the huge gas giant
planet and soon the rain forest moon of Yavin IV was in view. Wedge
was about to send out a hail to the planet, immediately Kes began to groan
and clutch her forehead. Then, suddenly, she bolted upright, her
face filled with dread.
"Oh, no!" she said, quietly but gravely. Then it appeared.
In an instant, a tiny point of light flashed as
a ship emerged from hyperspace. The ship approached them at full
speed, despite its bruised and battered condition. Everyone on the
bridge stared in shock at the enormous, wedge-shaped vessel. They
knew the ship very well. It was the 'Kraken'.
Mara began barking orders immediately. "Activate
the new decflector grids! Get the turbolasers charging and the new
weapons online! Helm, take evasive action!"
People scrambed to get to their stations.
The holotable activated to show a view of the battle. Wedge could
already see that the 'Kraken' was launching TIE squadrons.
"Inform the hangar bay to launch all fighters, at once," he said.
"Prepare to-"
"We are being hailed," Mara cut him off. "It's the 'Kraken'."
"On holotable."
The holotable's displays changed from a view of
the growing battle to the familiar image of Admiral Daala. Her face
was even harder and colder than usual. Her eyes blazed with green
fire. Her copper hair flowed down her back like molten metal.
Behind her, Wedge could see through the holocam, was the seated form of
Pellaeon, Grand Admiral Thrawn's second-in-command.
"General Antilles," Daala bit out, "You have been warned once
before! Now it is time to pay the price! We know that you have
dealt with the alien ship called 'Voyager' and we know of your little technology
trade. I am not willing to discuss anything other than the terms
of your surrender! If I can't capture your ship and its precious
technology, I will destroy it! I want your ship! Now, are you
going to be nice and *give* it to us, or do we have to *take* it?"
Mara looked over to Wedge, her eyes pleading with
his to allow her to speak. Wedge nodded and they both looked back
to the holotable.
"You want our ship?" Mara retorted. "Well guess what? You
won't *get* it! You can't *have* it! Now I suggest that you leave
the system before we blow you right out of the sky!"
"Who are you?" Daala demanded. "Who the *hell* do you think
you are to speak to me in such a manner?"
"Who the hell do I think I am?" Mara repeated. "I'll *tell*
you who I am! Few in the Empire knew of me, but those who did reffered
to me as the Emperor's Hand, and you have just bought yourself and your
crew a one-way ticket straight to hell!" Mara abruptly cut off the
transmission, but not before a look of absolute horror registered on Admiral
Daala's face. Wedge looked proudly at Mara then turned back to the
battle.
"Ms. Schwarte," he said. "Fire all phasers!"
Admiral Daala had just had the transmission cut off
in her face. No one had ever had the nerve to do that to her.
She would normally have been insulted, but her mind was somewhere else.
*'Emperor's Hand'!* she thought. Could it be that this
Rebel officer, this Jedi vermin, was an equal to Darth Vader? In
that case, she knew that she could not hope to win. It was better
to go down fighting.
She turned her emerald gaze to an ensign at the
tactical station. "Begin a full-scale bombardment," she said coldly.
"Fire all turbolas-"
Before Daala could finish the command, brilliant
red-orange energy lanced out from the 'Yavaris II' to strike the 'Kraken'
directly on their turbolaser targeting systems. The ship rocked and
shook. the Star Cruiser fired again and again, striking the flight
launch control station and their deflector shield domes. The bridge
of the 'Kraken' was showered in sparks. Control panels erupted and
burst into flames, leaving crews scrambling to put them out. Display
panels were hanging by their own wires. The bombardment then subsided
a little.
"What the hell was that?!" Pellaeon shouted.
"These are the same weapons that 'Voyager used against us," the
ensign said.
"Have damage-control crews repair damaged systems," Daala said.
"Especially turbolaser targeting systems."
"More bad news," the ensign said.
"What?" Daala and Pellaeon asked in unison.
"Their turbolasers just came back online."
"Fire at will!" Daala said
"But our targeting-" the ensign tried to explain.
"I don't care!" Daala said. "Tell the gunners to shoot
at any Rebel craft they can see."
The ensign was all too glad to ablige.
The 'Kraken' opened its full firepower onto the 'Yavaris
II', all sixty of its turbolasers blaring with discharged energy.
The bridge rocked and shook as crewmen were thrown from their seats.
Mara looked at Wedge and wondered if she had really screwed up this time.
"Damage reports coming in from all decks," Clayton shouted over
the din. "We have several deflector shield generators down.
Most of the rest are still operational. Shields and hull holding,
for the most part. Engineering is trying to repair what they can.
The Medical Department is backed up with casualties."
Kes' face suddenly went pale. She got up and
walked to the holotable, just staring at it, her eyes focusing on the starfighter
battle being displayed, her ears listening to the comm traffic.
All of a sudden she shouted into the voice pickup,
"Rogue Leader, Rogue Two, watch it! You have three of them coming
up on your tails!"
Randy Coe's voice sounded confused. "Who is
this? And I don't see any -- whoa!" The display showed them
both swerving out of the way of the oncoming TIEs, then blast them into
space dust. "Thanks, ... whoever you are!"
Kes put down the voice pickup and raced toward the
turbolift. She turned as the door opened for her. "I'm going
down to the medical section," she said. "No one knows how to use
that new equipment more than me, and they need some help down there."
"Right," Mara said as the Jedi candidate disappeared throught
the doors. Would she ever cease to amaze?
Down in Engineering, Isaacs was gathering up some
equipment and putting it into a tool-box. Sams was doing the same.
Isaacs had not forgotten how B'Elanna Torres had chewed her out a few days
ago. She had been withdrawn, bitter, insulted. As usual, she
took it out on everyone in her department.
Nate Westin came up to her. "What are you
doing?" he asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she answered in a condescending
voice. "I'm going to repair one of those shield generators that are
damaged. I am ordering all of you to make teams of two or three and
repair the rest of them."
"Why?" Westin asked. "We only have at least a hundred more.
We could just take those offline and divert the power to the others."
Isaacs went into another one of her ballistic fits.
She slapped him across the face and shouted, "Don't question me, just *do*
it! That's a direct order!" She grabbed Sams by the wrist and
headed toward the access tunnels. Nate Westin felt his stinging cheek.
*No more,* he decided. He had made up his mind. He
would disobey the Chief Engineer. *Then, I should think about how
to write a request that the General drop her off for Jedi mental healing
on Yavin.*
Isaacs and Sams crawled through the cramped acess
tunnels, lugging their tools behind them. Isaacs just couldn't understand
why people were so nasty to her. She was ony making sure that they
did everything right. If she wasn't there, who knows what could go
wrong. That was how it was on Palmetto in her Basic class...
Sams pitied himself. He just couldn't understand
why he was Isaacs second-in-command. Actually, no one was in command
under Isaacs, but even if he had any authority, he'd never use it.
He had no idea how any of this stuff worked. He didn't know any principles
of Engineering or other modern technology. Being a farmboy on a distant
backwater planet in the PMS-223 star-system would do that to you.
Hell, he even handwrote his own reports! Why Isaacs would promote
him to that high of a position always baffled him. Maybe it was because
he never questioned her orders, and he was always quiet during repairs.
Hell, maybe it was because she liked his handwriting!
They finally reached the shield generator in the
access tunnel. it opened up into a larger room where they could spread
out their equipment and get to work. From his pocket, Sams pulled
out an antique stopwatch so he could measure their efficiency in his report.
Isaacs was starting to ask for tools and mumble to herself as she worked
on the generator.
"Hydrospanner," she said, asking for the tool. Sams didn't
respond, just staring out the small viewport. "Hydrospanner!" she
said again, a bit vexed. Sams then pointed out the viewport.
Isaacs could make out the double-hulled shaped of
an Imperial TIE Bomber, a craft meant to deliver heavy ordinance against
ground bases or capital ships. Judging by its movements, it was out
of control, and carrying a lot of mass, indicating a near-full payload.
She jumped up in alarm then crawled as fast as she could toward the hatch
they had came through. She slammed her palm on the control, sealing
the hatch. Then she turned to Sams.
"Seal the other hatch!" she screamed. "We have to seal
this compartment before the Bomber collides with us!"
"What about us?" Sams asked. Isaacs crawled back toward
the hatch he was next to.
Again she slapped her palm on the control.
The hatch closed and the compartment sealed. Sams stopped his watch
just as the TIE Bomber collided with their compartment. A fiery explosion
ensued, breaching the hull and sending everything into the hollow vacuum
of space.
The whole Engineering Department felt the explosion.
Westin looked at his damage-control console and saw that the section Isaacs
and Sams had been working in was breached. It flashed a dark red,
like the color of blood. It would take the department at least a
five days in space suits to repair it. Westin immediately thumbed
on the comlink.
"Isaacs, are you there?" he asked. "Sams! Can you
hear me?" There was no response. Westin knew that there was
no other explanation.
The General's voice came over the comlink.
"Isaacs," Wedge shouted, "I need more shields! If you don't get them
soon, we're all space dust!"
"Sir," Nate answered a bit uneasily at speaking to a flag officer,
"this is Lieutenant Nate Westin. Isaacs and Sams are gone.
The compartment they were working in was destroyed."
"Well, then, Westin," Wedge said, "it looks like you're the new
Chief Engineer. Now how about some more shields!"
"I think I may be able to get shield strength back up by taking
the damaged generator offline and boosting power to the remaining generators,"
Nate said, looking to his control terminals. Isaacs might have known
something about engineering, but her subordinates knew just as much, if
not more than she did.
"Don't lecture me, Lieutenant," Wedge said, "just do it!"
The General deactivated his comlink. Nate turned to the Engineering
Staff with a look of seriousness in his eye.
"Alright," he said loudly, "listen up! Isaacs and Sams
are dead. According to the General, *I* am the knew Chief Engineer.
The General says he needs shields, and he needs them *now*! I am
not going to send any of you to repair the damaged generators, there's
no time. So here's what we'll do..." Nate then went into a
slew of technobabble, a language understood by everyone in Engineering.
He felt confidence build in his heart as it pounded faster. He had
never felt so good.
The bridge of the 'Yavaris II' was a hive of activity.
Wedge and Mara were giving orders constantly. The comlinks were constantly
busy, filling the air with requests and status reports. People were
constantly coming back to their duty stations as they were discharged from
the Medical Section, where Kes was taking charge of the wounded and doing
a damned good job of it.
Still, the 'Kraken' remained like a wedge-shaped,
hungry, metallic monster, pounding them with turbolaser blasts. Wedge
had seen Daala like this before, at the Battle of Maw in the Kessel system.
She was extremely overzealous, and at times it worked to her enemy's advantage,
but sometimes, it didn't.
Bill Clayton looked at his station and addressed
Wedge. "Our shields are within optimal levels again, but I don't
know how long they can stand the strain."
Wedge let out a small, quiet sigh of relief.
"Good job, Westin," he breathed.
"General!" Schwarte said, looking out the bridge transparisteel.
"Look!" As Schwarte pointed, the huge Imperial Star Destroyer turned
around and sped from the scene, fleeing to hyperspace. The bridge
crew gave a cheer that was joined over the intercom by the Engineering
staff. Kes came back via the turbolift and smiled at Wedge and Mara.
Once again, Admiral Daala had been put to flight.
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