Out of Time – Far from Home

By Jagged Fell III

Newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Jagged Fell entered the Senior Officer’s recreation lounge looking to enjoy his last evening of leave before going back out on patrol. He usually would be home with his wife, Shiri’ala, down on the surface, but she was away on business, and he had decided he wanted to try his luck at the Sabacc tables rather than be alone at home. He stood just inside the doorway for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the low light of the room. He noticed an open seat at a table by a view port and made his way to it.

“Is this seat taken?”

“No, join us, we could use a fourth,” said an older Naval Commander at the table.

“Thanks. What are the table rules? Haven’t played here before,” Jagged asked as he took the open seat.

“Standard Kessel Sabacc with set Shift tokens. Five hundred credit buy-in, with twenty-five credits to the House with each buy.”

“A bit steep but what else do I have going on tonight? I’ll play.”

Jagged sat down and paid his credits to the droid built into the table. As he waited for the rest of the players to pay up and the hand to be delt he took in the room around him. It was of obvious Imperial design, but for once did not look like something he would expect to find on the Class II Imperial Star Destroyer Challenge he was normally assigned to as a squadron commander. While the walls were Imperial grey with mostly hard edges and straight lines, the tables were surrounded be colorful, cushioned chairs and loungers that offered comfort that was rarely experienced aboard a Star Destroyer. The view port beside him offered him a marvelous view of Aurora below and he could just see the bow of the Challenge as it was docked to the adjoining Triad Platform for reprovisioning.

The droid finished dealing the first hand. Jagged had gotten a four and a two, not a good start, but that is where skill entered the game. Jagged threw in his first chip to draw a replacement for the four. Then, as the game moved on from one hand to another and new games were started after a winner collected the pot, he struck up a conversation at the table to get to know his fellow gamblers. Two of the others turned out to be naval officers as well. Lieutenant Commanders working as supply and logistics officers to different ships of the Home Guard. It turned out that the man who had welcomed him to the table, Navy Commander Bron Lantill, was the captain of the Raider Corvette Lightning, one of the escort ships of Jagged’s own mothership, the Challenge.

“I have not seen you at the tables before, young man,” Lantill said. “What, pray tell, brings you to this fine establishment tonight? If night truly has meaning on an orbital platform.”

“My promotion to Lieutenant Colonel just came through and wanted to celebrate,” Jagged answered as he bought back in for a new game. “But my wife is away on business and the squadron won’t report back from leave until tomorrow. So, I came here, as a treat to myself.”

“Well, congratulations my boy,” Lantill said jovially. “I must say, you look rather young to be putting on that rank plaque, if I may say so. How long have you been serving in the Emperor’s Hammer?”

“I joined the TIE Corps about two years ago. Been in one leadership role or another since nearly the start.”

“Two years?!” exclaimed the older man. “Oh, I forget how quickly you TIE fighter pilots are allowed to rise up the ranks. I was serving aboard navy ships here in the Fleet for almost fifteen years before I got my Commander’s plaque."

"Fifteen years!” Jagged burst out, disbelievingly. “I didn't know the Navy was so slow to promote. Why didn’t you just transfer to the TIE Corps?"

"Oh, when I first joined the Emperor's Hammer it was as a Cadet in the TIE Corps,” answered Lantill somberly. “Now, I didn't come into the program after some prior service, or academy."

"Went to the TIE Fighter academy on my home world before I came to here," Jagged replied thoughtfully.

"Quite right. Only natural you would come up the ranks fast after that,” responded Lantill with a bit more animation. “No, I was a freighter pilot for many a year before the chaos of war with the New Republic made me decide to join to fight for order, and security."

"If you joined the TIE Corps, how did you end up in the Navy?"

"All was well with my training, at first,” Lantill said, almost conspiratorially. “I was top of my class, truth to tell. But that was when it was all academic course work. Then came the day of our first flight simulator exposure."

"What happened?"

"All was going well until a pair of X-wings were added to the test,” said with an almost forlorn look in his eye. “The moment I tried to follow their maneuver, and the stars spun around me...I became violently ill,” he said with a bit of hesitation. “I began to retch into my breath mask. And of course, once I was started, the smell and taste made me retch all the more," he finished sadly.

"You’re kidding," Jagged said disbelievingly.

"Oh, I assure you I am being quite serious,” Lantill replied with a chuckle. “Needless to say, that was the end of my career as a TIE Fighter pilot. The training staff quietly had me transferred to the navy and I began my career with a bit of a cloud over me, you might say. Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long to rise up the ranks. But that was a long time ago, and I am quite content with my lot in life."

At that, the hand ended and Bron Lantill busted out yet again. "More content than I am with my luck this evening, you win again, Colonel."

"Just luck I think." In fact, the Commander was a terrible Sabacc player. Jagged couldn't understand why he was even playing at this high stakes table. "I think I will call it a night while I am ahead."

"As will I. We must play again together, my boy. But next time we should play Pazaak. Now there is a game I could clean you out playing," he said as he rose to his feet.

"Pazaak? Never heard of it."

"It is an ancient game, from the era of the Old Republic in fact," Lantill answered, his eye seeming to come alive with excitement for the subject.

"Old Republic?"

"Long ago, thousands of years before Emperor Palpatine brought order to the galaxy, there was what is now know of as the Old Republic. Pazaak is a game from that time. The time of Revan and Malak. The time of the Mandalorian crusades, of the Jedi Civil War and the first Jedi Purge," Lantill finished with a faraway look in his eyes.

"Never heard of any of that. How do you know about any of those things? I thought the Emperor cleansed the records of those traitorous Jedi." Jagged was beginning to wonder if this could be a loyalty test of some kind.

"Oh, he did,” Lantill answered quickly. “But I have always been fascinated with the period and have collected all the information I could find over the years. Look at the time, I really must be going, and so should you. We go back out on patrol starting the marrow."

"Catch you around Commander."

---

Two weeks later, Jagged entered the briefing room of the Challenge for the morning briefing for the day's patrol.

He raised his chin in greetings to Colonel Mordred, his counterpart in the other squadron belonging to Wing X, and took his seat next to his wingman, Lieutenant Commander Alun Tringad.

Admiral Locke Setzer, the Battlegroup III Commander, took to the podium and began.

“Alright, settle down. Today our mission is to investigate reports of New Republic activity in the Alzoc III system.”

The lights dimmed in the room as the holo projector flickered to life, showing an icy world lit by a blue white star.

“We don't expect much, as our reports are unreliable, but will deploy Flight One of Typhoon Squadron all the same,” Admiral Setzer continued. “You are to travel ahead of the Challenge and Lightning to Alzoc and begin your search of the area. We will arrive sometime after you and will have the rest of Typhoon Squadron on standby if the New Republic has a sizable force in the area.”

“As the situation may be fluid today, pay particular attention to your datapad for any change in orders and listen closely to all radio messages,” Admiral Setzer finished, looking in the eye of every pilot in the room. “Let's get to it.”

Jagged checked in with his pilots to make sure each knew what they were to be doing today and then proceeded to don his flight suit and head down the corridor to the hangar. He said hello to Roolo and Stee've as he passed them, on the way to his fighter. His craft had the ubiquitous ball cockpit of the TIE series craft, but whereas a standard TIE had two pylons, the Defender possessed three. And attached to those pylons, rather than the large, hexagonal wings of the TIE Fighter, the Defender had a pair of outwardly canted, dagger shaped wings, each sporting a wingtip mounted weapon. Jagged did his preflight walk around of his TIE Defender and climbed in once everything was found to be to proper, Imperial standards.

Going through his startup sequence, flipping a dozen switches and pressing half as many buttons across four different control boards and finally his Defender was ready for action. The Defender was a super-fighter. It was equipped with four laser cannons mounted to the lower wings, a pair of ion cannons upon the upper wings, two multipurpose warhead launchers attached to the main hull, and a shield generator twice as powerful as that of an X-Wing. All while being the fastest production fighter on either side of their war with the New Republic.

“Hangar Control, this is Typhoon Lead, ready for clearance to launch.”

“Typhoon Lead, the rest of your Flight has reported ready to launch, you may launch now.”

Jagged fed power into his repulser coils and then entered the command sequence to activate the rack launcher of the Star Destroyer and dropped down from his storage space. After clearing the overhead rack, he hit the main thrusters, and his Defender shot out of the hangar and into Space below the Challenge.

Jagged was immediately hit with a sense of foreboding from the misting of red among the stars around them. This system seemed to be at the edge of a dust cloud of unfortunate hue. Jagged brought his fighter up and around looping close to the Raider Corvette Lightning. The corvette looked nothing like the Corellian model, so favored by the Rebellion. No it was of decidedly Imperial design. It had an arrowhead main hull, even more tapeper than that of the iconic Star Destroyer. And it also featured a pair of almost TIE Fighter wings swept inward, along the hull at the stern of the ship, with another set of TIE inspired wings mounted to the ventral hull, around amidships.

Jagged checked his sensor board and moved to form up with the other three fighters of his Flight. Just as he was getting set, he heard over the radio the voice of Admiral Setzer, “Ok Typhoon Lead, head on into the system and we will follow.”

“Roger,” Jagged replied as he set his fighter on a vector for the system’s distant star. He sent the jump command to his wingmates and smoothly pulled back on the hyperdrive levers. His craft was only in the swirl of hyperspace for a brief moment before the gravity sensors on his hyperdrive activated the emergency drive shut down due to them crossing into the mass shadow of the star.

Now, the formerly distant, main star of the system loomed large in his view screen. As his sensors pinged the local area, and his Combat Multiform Display lit up, Jagged could see several, familiar, silhouettes against the sun's glare. He surveyed his sensor readings and activated his radio link to the Challenge.

“Woah! That is a New Republic base Alright! Challenge this is Typhoon Leader; we have a sizable New Republic presence here. They seem to be guarding some sort of base.”

Jagged’s sensors had confirmed what his eyes told him, there was a Rebel space station a few dozen kilometers in front of him, guarded by a pair of the familiar, rounded hull, Mon Calamari Star Cruisers. His sensors also showed a sizable number of X-Wing star fighters, which his eyes couldn't make out at this distance.

Admiral Setzer's voice came back across the radio link, “Work on clearing the entry area of enemy craft. The Challenge will be there shortly.”

“You heard the Admiral. Let's take care of these fighters and worry about those capital ships after the Challenge arrives.” Jagged put action to his words, arrowing his Defender towards the now rapidly closing X-Wings.

The Typhoon pilots were out numbered, on the order of three-to-one, but Jagged wasn't too concerned. Their Defenders were vastly superior to the X-Wings opposing them, and his pilots were more than a match for anyone the New Republic could send their way.

The fight had lasted a few minutes, and the wreckage of eight X-Wings littered the space around them when two things happened. Another two full squadrons of New Republic fighters arrived and so too did the Challenge and Lightning.

“Deploying the rest of Typhoon Squadron now,” Admiral Setzer said over the radio. “Continue to stay close to the Challenge and the Lightning to provide us cover from those bombers.”

For now in the mix of New Republic fighters now in the area was a full squadron of Y-Wing bombers and they were a definite threat to the Challenge and Lightning. As Jagged started to line up on a Flight of four Y-Wings they loosed a pair of proton torpedoes each at the Lightning.

“Oh no you don't!” Jagged exclaimed to himself and he quickly put more power to his engines as he turned to chase down the torpedoes. He switched his lasers to single fire and began to shoot down the eight, deadly warheads. It took him less than half a minute to take out the torpedoes and then he executed a tight half loop to bring him back on target for the bombers. He found another 8 torpedoes racing at him. Jagged quickly destroyed four of them before they raced past him.

Jagged switched his cannons to link all six weapons and began to pump verdant laser energy and azure ions into the lead bomber. It exploded quickly under Jagged's guns and he had time to shift to his aim to the right and took out a second bomber before the other two flashed past.

Coming back around Jagged’s sensors showed that two of the surviving four warheads had made it through the Lightning’s own defensive fire and impacted against the corvette’s shields.

“We need some help over here, Typhoon,” the Lightning’s Captain, Commander Lantill, called out.

“Working on it,” Jagged muttered to himself as he quickly got on the tail of the remaining two bombers, who were now maneuvering wildly, attempting to get away. Jagged would not be denied. He poured more green and blue weapons fire into the stern of the bombers and was quickly rewarded with a pair of expanding fireballs retreating in his wake as Jagged searched out even more bombers threatening the ships under his protection.

Some minutes later in the battle Jagged heard Lantill call out over the radio, “Looks like the New Republic is retreating, multiple ships have fled into hyperspace.”

Jagged quickly examined his own sensor board and saw that both the aquatic looking Mon Calamari cruisers had indeed jumped away from the base.

“Getting strange sensor readings from inside that base,” the Lightning continued.

After a short moment, Admiral Setzer ordered, “I don’t like this. All fighters fall back to the Challenge or get into hyperspace!”

Jagged finished off the X-Wing he had been playing tag with and then brought his Defender around and started back to the Challenge.

“Our hyperdrive isn't online yet, we need another minute,” the Lightning reported.

Admiral Setzer replied with, “Typhoon Leader, stay with the Lightning until she is ready to jump, everyone else jump out now.”

Jagged altered course to circle the Lightning and watched the rest of his Squadron jump away, followed by the Challenge.

But the New Republic fighters did not seem content to let the Emperor’s Hammer craft to leave, unmolested. Jagged's threat display showed that there was still more bombers coming after the Lightning and a few of the X-Wings had remained to guard them.

Jagged got back to work intercepting the torpedoes and blasting the bombers, protecting the Lightning, the best he could, but a few warheads, inevitably, made it past him. “Hurry it up Lightning!” Jagged called over the radio.

“That's it, we are ready for hyperspace,” the Lightning reported. Jagged turned to line up on the Lightning’s exit vector and as he pulled back on his hyperdrive throttle he saw in his rear monitor a terrifying sight…the star had gone supernova!

Jagged’s fighter was buffeted as he entered hyperspace and even the color of the swirling space around him seemed off. Suddenly he was back in real space and the Lightning was a short distance off his port wing. They obviously had been thrown in hyperspace a fair distance from Alzoc III, the misty red nebula surrounding the space around that system was gone as all Jagged could see was stars and a pale blue among the stars now.

“What just happened?” Jagged asked the other ship.

“Don’t know, come aboard and we will see if your sensor logs can be combined with ours to make sense of it all,” the Lightning replied.

---

It turned out, to come aboard the Lightning took a fair amount of work to accomplish. The Lightning still had both of the standard TIE Fighters normally assigned to it aboard. There wasn't room for Jagged’s Defender until the Hanger crew moved them both to the sides of the hangar deck to allow just enough room for Jagged to set down on a temporary landing cradle.

The crew chief came up to Jagged. “The Captain has requested your presence in the Command Staff meeting he is holding in the Officer’s Mess. They are trying to figure out what the kriff happened out there.”

“I'd like to know the answer to that myself,” Jagged said and then headed for the hangar exit.

---

“Thank you for joining us, Colonel,” greeted Commander Lantill as Jagged entered the room. “And thank you for what you did for us back there, we likely would not have survived those bombers if not for you.”

“Just doing my duty. Do we know where we are yet? My nav computer couldn't make heads or tails of the star locations after we got kicked out of hyperspace.”

“No, the ship's navigators are still working on our location,” replied a lieutenant commander, who seemed to be the chief engineer. “Also got reports of possible damage to our long-range communications as we can't seem to pick up any comm traffic or navigation beacons. But the crazy thing is the repair crews aren't finding any obvious damage to those systems.”

“How curious,” answered Lantill. “Keep me informed of the results of their inspections. In the meantime, what can you tell us of what happened at that New Republic base, Lieutenant Commander Jast?”

“Best I can figure it, the New Republic has been working on reviving the Sun Crusher technology,” answered Chief Engineer Jast.

“Sun Crusher?” asked Jagged. “I don't think I ever heard of it.”

“You’re too young, and not from the Original Empire,” replied Lantill, wearily. “About twenty years back, the New Republic got their hands on a technology that allowed them to explode stars, and they used it on the Imperial world of Cardia. They say it wasn't them, but a rogue jedi and that they destroyed the weapon. But the evidence speaks for itself. They blew up that star back there, certainly enough. They must be planning on using it on the Emperor’s Hammer, knowing that our Fleet, anchored by the SSSD Sovereign, is too strong for them to destroy any other way.”

“We don't have much time then!” exclaimed Jagged. “We need to warn Aurora.”

“Agreed, that is why the work crews are working to find the problem with our comm system,” calmly replied Lantill. "If it is not repaired soon, we will need you to go and try to make contact as our TIE Fighters do not possess hyperdrives.”

“At your orders, sir,” Jagged said simply.

“Anything else you can tell us of the events that brought us here?” Lantill asked towards Jast.

“Just that we detected a huge spike of chronal radiation when we got hit in hyperspace. Still trying to make sense of what that could mean.”

“That will be all for now then. You are all dismissed. Colonel Fell, please stay so we may discuss where you will be sleeping tonight.”

After the rest of the officers had filed out of the room Commander Lantil turned to Jagged, “I think the simplest solution for where to have you stay is in my cabin.”

“Sir, that really won’t be necessary. You are the Captain and shouldn’t have to share your quarters.”

“You are correct, I am the Captain. And therefore, I decide what is necessary on this ship. It will cause the least disruption. The other cabins on the Lightning are too small for two senior officers to share. So, putting you in the XO’s cabin will cause a cascade of my officers being displaced out of their quarters. This way only I am inconvenienced.”

“Well, thank you sir. Hopefully I am out of your hair soon anyway, we got to get back to Aurora to warn them about the Sun Crusher.”

“We first need to determine where in the galaxy we are, until then it is best you remain with the Lightning. Besides, now we can play that game of Pazaak we spoke of back in that Sabaac den.”

---

Twelve standard hours later, the situation had not changed. The Command officers of the Lightning had gathered once again in the Officer’s Mess.

“Report, Lieutenant Commander Jast,” ordered Lantill.

“Sir, I don't know what to tell you,” reported Chief Engineer Jast. “I have had my crews going over every millimeter of both the comms systems and the navigation array. We are still not receiving any hyper comm traffic or hyper buoy data. On top of all that, the nav computer still hasn't been able to get a fix on where we are in the galaxy. Without knowing where we are, we can't plot a course back to Aurora.”

“We must report the New Republic’s revitalized Sun Crusher project before it is too late, " stated Lantill. “Now is the time for anyone to suggest any ideas they may have to solve our dilemma.”

The room broke out in discussion of various ideas while Jagged sat and pondered the situation.

Sometime later Jagged broke in, “Engineer Jast, did you say that your crews believe there is nothing wrong with the hypercom?”

“They can’t find anything obvious but that we…”

“So, we don't know if there is anything wrong with the Lightning? That it isn't some jamming field created by the New Republic?”

“I have never heard of a jammer that could block a hypercom signal when not in line of sight to the jammer.”

“Okay, maybe it was the supernova then.”

“Normally I wouldn't say it was possible, but there definitely was something weird about that explosion.”

“And we can't jump home because we don't know where we are and can't just jump to a random star we see because we don't know how far it is away,” continued Jagged.

“Aye, but we already said all of this…hold on, I think I get where you are going with this,” said the engineer, brightening to the subject.

“Do you think you can make it work?” Jagged asked excitedly.

“Yes…I think we can make it happen.”

“How long would it take to get my fighter set up for it?”

“Few hours, tops,” Jast said as he got to his feet, obviously about to leave the room to get to work on whatever he and Jagged had been talking about.

“Care to elaborate for the rest of us in the room what you two have in mind?” asked, pointedly, Captain Lantill.

“Well sir, the main barrier for us to get home is finding out where we are,” explained Jagged. “And we can't even start jumping to the stars we can see as we don't know how far away any of them are. But, if the hypercom is actually working on the Lightning and my Defender, I can jump my fighter away a known distance, and then we can combine the star positions from my new location and that of the Lightning to determine how far away all the stars really are.”

“With that, sir,” chimed in Jast, as he sat back down, “we can send the Colonel to the stars around us to try and find an inhabited world where we can get new nav data. The only real challenge is knowing the exact position of the fighter relative to us and his orientation in space, but my boys can get around that, no problem.”

“Sounds like the best chance we have to get back to Aurora in time to save it,” decided Captain Lantill. “But, Colonel Fell, you will be taking a great risk making all those blind hyperjumps.”

“Better one man than this whole ship. And I must get back home, my wife could be there when the New Republic makes their attack.”