Morgan pushed her Grimmtash forward, gauging her opponent with a focused and cold look. The holographic monster moved ahead, stunning Baylan's Karkath. The fallen Jedi fell back on his chair, thoughtful.
"A fine move, Lady Elsbeth," he said, smiling. "The only one that did not lead to certain defeat on your part, actually."
Elsbeth squinted, crossing her arms in disdain.
"I don't mind you using your special ability to further our plan, Baylan. But using it to win at Dejarik is a dull parlor trick," she said.
"Oh, I'm not using it," replied Baylan, smiling. "I like to believe that the best way to train and further my gift is to practice logical deductions on my own. I'm just very good at this silly game... I would never cheat at it."
Morgan snorted in frustration. Her last move had been good but she had made too many mistakes already, and the old fallen Jedi was winning. I guess that old fool wasn't a Republic General for nothing, she thought. Frustrated, she turned off the game, surrendering. She looked around at the relatively calm crew salon. She didn't like meddling with the rest of the crew, but Baylan had made a point that it was important for morale. A few mechanics and guards were either chatting with cheap drinks or playing Sabbac, everybody seeming to have kept a few tables away from them in respect. She returned her gaze to the fallen Jedi.
"How honorable of you, Baylan," she mocked. "Though I took you for a pragmatic. Is that honor too, that makes you protect Sabine Wren?"
"Ah," said Baylan with a faint smile. "I had my suspicions that you had trouble letting that one go."
"The girl, and your girl with it, have been wreaking havoc on this ship since the first day," complained Morgan. "And I still fail to see why we bother with that prisoner situation. We have no use for the girl."
She knew Baylan would read her opinion as biased and spiteful. Yet it wasn't. Sure, she despised the girl and the old order of do-gooders she represented. But she would manipulate, use, and recruit the girl herself if there was any use to it. She was not blinded by anger: anything the girl could tell them, they already knew, and some more. Anything she could do for them, they had someone that could do it better. Keeping her alive was a waste of oxygen and supplies.
Baylan took a deep breath, closing his eyes. He then responded with his usual unwavering calm.
"I understand that in your perspective, Miss Wren can serve no purpose," he stated. "Nevertheless, you don't see what I can. I assure you the girl is of utmost importance, and should prove critical to us soon."
"May I ask in what capacity?" insisted Morgan, slightly irritated at Baylan's answer.
"I would explain further if it made sense for me," conceded Baylan. "I know we are to need her. I don't know why, yet."
"Well maybe I'm out of patience," said Morgan coldly. And I shall just execute her, never mind what you prom..."
She stopped mid-sentence, standing up, a sudden feeling of danger echoing through the Force. Baylan had stood too, calm but alert.
"You're feeling that too?" she asked.
"Yes," said Baylan, closing his eyes, like he always did when exploring the meaders of the Force.
"It's coming close fast, it's gonna happen..." started Morgan.
"Now," completed Baylan, gabbing promptly the Dejarik table, solidly welded onto the floor.
Morgan mumbled a spell, gathering the Force to anchor herself in place. She succeeded just in time, the shockwave hitting them a mere second later.
As they both remained in place, silent, crewmembers all around started to scream, loud crashes echoing left and right as people and objects fell down the floor or were projected onto the walls. Everything rumbled in chaos, sparks and flames shooting from electronic panels, metal structures screeching under the vibrations.
When the rumbling stopped, chaos was left. Smoke and screams were filling the air, and a concerto of alarms was deafening Morgan's ear. She mumbled a spell, dampening the sounds around, then turned to Baylan.
"Baylan, please restore some order to the ship and have everybody on alert," she ordered. "Then fetch your apprentice, and meet me to the command bridge. I'll go and assess the damages, and what caused them."
Baylan nodded in approval, and turned away, already ordering a couple of mechanics to follow him.
Morgan made her way to the main bridge, the weird and mesmerizing lights of intergalactic hyperspace wobbling around the big canopy. Behind the control consoles, droid pilots and mechanics were talking nervously, giving each other diagnostics and damage reports. Morgan cleared her throat loudly, getting their attention.
"Full report, now!" she shouted.
Both mechanics looked at each other, and then one of them stepped forward, talking hesitantly.
"Magistrate Elsbeth, uh... the good news is, the Eye is fine. For now. Something yanked us pretty bad, but we seem to be back on course..."
"Something yanked us?" said Morgan, irritated. "You mind being more specific?"
The lift opened behind, and Garret, her chef engineer, shot out, datapad in hand.
"Yes, a... ah! Magistrate, it's good that you're here," he said, straightening himself. "I've just come from the engine room, I was running diagnostics on those early rumbles we've experienced..."
Morgan turned her gaze to him, crossing her arms expectantly.
"Magistrate, I'm afraid we have a rogue maneuvering thruster," he said.
"Come again?" asked Morgan, raising a brow.
Garret pulled a hologram of the ship on the main console, pointing at a small thruster at the bottom of the giant ring structure. It blinked red.
"When we put in place that last hyperdrive, we skipped the structural tests on the ring section it was in. It appears we've created some sort of short-circuit in that secondary maneuvering thruster. It started firing up randomly, believing we were ordering it to rotate the Eye. It doesn't respond to our commands anymore, we can't control it or shut if off for good."
Morgan paled some more at the picture of it. They were launched at intergalactic travel speed, through a hyperspace wormhole that was still very much experimental physics. Nudging the ship even a little in such condition... thought Morgan.
"If it continues," said the engineer, reading in Morgan's eyes, "the best case scenario is we get yanked off hyperspace and it'll take weeks to calculate a course back. But if that thruster fires up at full power at the wrong moment, we will be torn apart in a mist of metal in milliseconds."
Silence dropped on the bridge, everybody taking in the gravity of the news. Finally, Morgan straightened herself and spoke.
"So why are you standing here instead of sending men to repair it? Must I say everything all the time?" she pestered.
Garret paled, looking away. Then he pulled some files in his datapad, before handing it to Morgan.
"Magistrate, we had packed three spare control units and the bypassing tools with them, in case of such damage. But as you can see..."
Morgan snatched the datapad from the engineer's hands, looking at the file. It was a ship manifest, updated from this morning's routine inventory.
"Garret... why does this say we have no spare control units?" she said, in a low cold voice.
"Ma'am... it's because we don't. Anymore," gulped Garret.
"Oh, so did they magically evaporate?" said Morgan, ironically.
"Not magically Ma'am. They were... sucked out the ship in a cargo hold depressurization," he responded, looking away as he continued. "I... believe that mercenary woman purposely opened a loading hatch earlier this week, and almost emptied our spare parts into hyperspace. All three spare control units were jettisoned."
YOU ARE READING
Storms of the Eye - A WolfWren fiction
Science Fiction[ AHSOKA TV SHOW SPOILERS ] So you know how we were robbed of Sabine and Shin spending days in the confined space of a ship? I decided not to accept that, and write what we know should have been. This is their story. Do I know where it goes? Maybe...
