Technical Error

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Shields: Activate Them

Something that the First Order should include in its training for all positions? Trying to work while upside down in the midst of a battle. You nearly screeched the first time that Drejuhl executed a flip; your datapad exited your lap and almost missed your hands. Thankfully, the group aboard the Supremacy had not yet reached the throne room. Missing a handful of seconds while you scrambled to find a better position for your datapad wouldn't hurt. If the plasma beam that had sought out the Knight's ship had hit, on the other hand, that would have hurt. It would have killed both you and Drejuhl, or at least damaged the shields. You were, between working on your datapad, attempting to gauge the strength of the weapons. Drejuhl had sworn multiple times. That served as a rather accurate indicator that the Resistance had seen some quick upgrades similar to what you had been able to do for the First Order. They had the benefit of not facing in-fighting, such as what would happen in the throne room.

It was your stomach that did a flip when you considered that Drejuhl would quite possibly be dodging the Resistance ships along with TIEs of pilots who remained loyal to Snoke.

As he piloted the ship, the Knight of Ren charged with keeping you safe called over his shoulder that there was a dried herb that would help reduce nausea. He wanted some for himself, however offered you some. You accepted after tending to him first. It made you want water, of which there was none onboard aside from a rather small emergency supply. You looked away from the screens, forcing yourself to endure the ever-changing view of the outside. No planets in sight. There would be no crashing onto some surface. You chugged a quick gulp of the water. Drejuhl did not want any when you asked. He asked instead for an update on what was occuring aboard the Supremacy .

"Squeakers is with General Hux. Two of the Knights of Ren, one of the Praetorian guards, and the stormtroopers have taken the prisoners onto the elevator leading to Supreme Leader's throne room. Skywalker and the girl are behind along with Kylo. My guess is that it's only a matter of minutes before things come to a head."

Air was sucked out of your lungs as a blast made impact with the ship's shields. You expanded the readout on your console, checking over the remaining strength of the shields. Defenses had dropped by six percent. Not bad considering. Except that there were more Resistance fighters entering the battle. Three of them targeted Drejuhl's ship. The Knight dodged a fresh barrage from two of those ships, destroying the third with a quick attack.

"That fix to the targeting system," he said, his words echoing a little in the speakers of helmet that you had on, "good call."

You silently thrilled at the compliment, the praise bringing a wide grin to your face. It was a nice, albeit temporary, distraction from the space battle. On the screen from Squeakers' transmission, Kylo Ren had distanced himself from his uncle. His hands were set in impossibly tight fists. Rey glanced at him on more than one occasion. Her eyes were pleading; maybe, maybe not. That was how you were reading the expression on her face. You recalled the connection that Kylo had spoken of. Some sort of Force bond; maybe that was similar to a familial connection. She had spent time with his birth mother, a fact that you also took into consideration. This girl wanted Kylo Ren to betray the First Order and join her.

It was scary in some respects that that wasn't far from the man's plans. You only wondered if Skywalker was able to sense this. He appeared calm. Or was that how he always looked?

You input a command for your droid to focus on the old Jedi Master. The Force user returned Squeakers' stare. That was rather intimidating. Another quick command, and your eyes aboard the flagship rolled over to the redhead whom you did not fully trust. General Hux was maintaining his composure like an expert actor. You had not expected anything less from him really given your own, albeit limited, experiences with the man. It was next to impossible to hear the sound from the droid's transmission as the battle of which Drejuhl was a part grew in size. There was also interference, which resulted in the image blurring enough times that you shrunk the screen to focus on the readout of the antigrav machine.