Capítulo 9: First Days Are Always The Worst
"Come on SD we gotta fix that rupture or we won't have life support," Jaden shouted from a nearby vent he was in, as he was located under the engine trying to reactivate the cooling systems for the engine.
"Beep beep boop."
"Yeah you may be able to breathe but I sure as kriff can't!" He shouted back before going back to fixing the coolant systems. Jaden had managed to figure out that the booby trap that had crippled their ship started in the coolant systems; it deactivated the entire system which let the engine overheat pretty quickly causing a rupture, and the resultant plasma leak. The most annoying part for him was that he could've easily fixed this, but the crash just made the damage worse and allowed it to spread throughout the ship and affect other systems.
*Hmmmm*
Jaden grinned as the panel in front of him lit up and started making the humming sound he had long craved to hear. With the coolant system back on and the rupture in the engines being repaired by SD8 he would be able to reactivate the engines and restart life support systems; since backup power was minimal and main power was down he has to turn the engines back on to power the system otherwise he can't do anything.
"Boop Boop!"
"That's what I like to hear!" Jaden shouted, as he shimmied back down the vent and popped out of a hatch in the engine room. The whole ship was still covered in a purplish miasma that was toxic to the lungs; while this was incredibly dangerous to breathe, on the bright side, it meant that there were no outer hull breaches.
Jumping up from the vent he quickly rushed to the engineering panel and started the pre-engine check —wouldn't make that mistake again— before reigniting the engines. Jaden smiled once more as the familiar thrum of the engines sent a surge of excitement running through his veins; while his ears could still pick up problems with the engines that could be sorted out at a later time. For now Jaden started transferring power system by system to avoid an overload, and first on the list was life support.
He pressed a button and watched as the vents started sucking in the poisonous waste that had infested the ship "Nice job SD, we can finally breathe again," he said as he took off his mask.
"Beep beep."
"I know you can't breathe I was just... never mind forget it," Jaden said with a sigh before heading out of the engine room, as the doors opened he heard a terrible banging and the sound of a woman screaming. "It's gonna be one of those days isn't it," he said to himself before climbing back up the ladder; while he was still in pain from the crash once he had shaken off his dizziness he managed to alleviate it with the force. Though he would at least pay a visit to the ship's medical bay as he didn't want to exhaust himself using the force; especially when he had no clue where he was and what enemies lay in wait.
The muffled screaming of Aurra could be heard all the way from the lounge, as Jaden walked into the cockpit he could see the assassin struggling inside her metal bindings as she tried to get free. "Stop being so dramatic, I could've just left you to breathe in the toxic fumes and die," he said as he ripped off the mask around her face.
"Let me go now or I'll kill you!!!" She shouted viciously as she flexed her muscles trying to burst the metal wrapped around her.
Jaden rolled his eyes. "You already tried that when you were free, I'm not an idiot so just lie there and be quiet," he said as he 'accidentally' kicked her head walking towards the command console. Aurra kept her mouth shut as she stared venomously at Jaden; her gaze was like vibro-daggers piercing his back — it made him extremely uncomfortable.
"What kind of idiot are you booby trapping your own ship, why not just place a damn tracker on it," he said as he sat down on the damaged seat and started inspecting the console for damage.
"I'd rather this ship turn to dust than be used by a Jedi or any Republic scum!" She said viciously, practically spitting out the words.
"Well, this Jedi has disabled all your booby traps and fixed the damage caused to the engine by your last one, don't worry I'll take good care of her," he said smugly as he looked back at her. All he received in return was a long explicit rant that would've hurt his feelings had he been a couple of years younger. At a certain point, Jaden started to tune her out — especially when she mentioned him being assaulted by a Rancor.
The command console was not in good shape; luckily there were a few other consoles in the cockpit he could use he'd just need to reroute command functions to them. However, the flight controls were another problem as they'd been heavily damaged in the crash and would have to be fixed before Jaden could even think about taking off again. As he worked on rerouting command functions SD8 rolled and walked inside with a fusion cutter attached to his arm.
"Beep boop bap."
Jaden whipped his head around and looked at SD8 "Are you sure?" He asked.
"Beep."
"Kriff!" He shouted as he slammed his fist against the panel he was in front of. SD8 had told him that the plasma leak had fried the hyperdrive circuits making the thing useless unless he could get replacement circuitry, and it couldn't just be any circuitry so he couldn't scavenge it from around the ship. Hyperdrive engines use circuitry with a special metallic alloy of titanium and chromium; any other metal would be subject to hyperspace decay.
A hyperdrive essentially creates a ripple in space-time, which it then uses to propel itself forward and break through the barrier of real space to hyperspace. If a ship tried to enter hyperspace without the protection of a warp field from the hyperdrive, its ship would start to age thousands of times faster than normal—turning the ship into scrap. However, it's much more likely that the ship would be torn apart from the stress way before then. The special alloy however was able to resist the deteriorating effect that hyperspace had which was why the whole engine needed to be constructed out of it.
Jaden wasn't happy about this development as it meant that he'd have to venture outside. Hyperspace circuitry wasn't something you had lying around; even fixing your hyperdrive outside of a repair station wasn't advised as it was a delicate piece of machinery once you opened it up. Jaden remembered reading about an entire cruiser that was ripped in half after the hyperdrive malfunctioned; Jaden shuddered at the thought, as he had never actually repaired one or even opened one up before.
Jaden's experience with ships mostly came from reading and stealing blueprints. He'd never actually flown in space before 'I crashed on my first flight... great," he thought to himself as he brushed his hand through his hair; he had to think about what to do now, but as things were looking it seemed he didn't have much choice but to venture outside.
He didn't want to be dragged into this war but if he went outside now he had a feeling that he wouldn't be able to help it, and ever since he gained his connection to the force he's come to realise that his feelings are usually correct. "Unfortunately I have little choice," he said to himself heading to the medical bay to get himself treated before heading out.
"SD, continue making repairs to the ship hopefully I won't be long," he said to his droid companion.
"Beep boop beep boop."
"Shit... you're right, I suppose I'll have to take her with me, let me see if I can come up with something to keep her in line," he said with a grin on his face.
...
Jaden walked across the muddy planes away from the ship with Aurra walking in front of him. Using some scraps and a couple of power cells he'd quickly managed to make a rudimentary shock collar that he was able to control from his wrist data pad "I'll kill you as soon as you close your eyes..." she growled out in front of him, as she struggled to lift her legs out of the muddy swamp they were in.
Jaden chuckled "You get within ten feet of me and the collar delivers a shock strong enough to knock you out, if you get within five feet it's a lethal dose so do your worst," he replied. He wouldn't tell her that the reverse was true as well; that going thirty feet away would deliver a shock strong enough to knock her out and forty feet would kill her. To be honest he was quite annoyed with her, and was looking forward to her learning the hard way not to try and run; of course, he would need to be careful that she doesn't get her hands on any long-range weapons —that could cause him quite a bit of trouble.
He was tempted to just kill her, but he struggled to bring himself to. It was one thing to kill someone in a fight, but to kill a person without a weapon felt wrong—despite how dangerous it was to have her around. In truth the reason he kept her around was in case he needed someone to practice on…
'I'm sure it will all work out...' he thought to himself.
———————————————————
Commander Delts watched as his men formed a perimeter around their temporary operating base using the dismantled escape pods as a makeshift barrier. Commander Delts wanted to make sure of the laser cannon from the crashed gunship, but unfortunately, none of the troops were part of the engineering corps and didn't have the training necessary to detach it from the ship and still make it functional.
Delts walked to the canopy where they'd set up their limited equipment; they had short-range scanning capabilities, but their current communications equipment was useless in this storm. "Corporal have you managed to contact any of the other pods?" He asked as he approached the seated Clone from behind.
"Negative Commander, the equipment was damaged when we passed through the atmosphere, it'll take a while before I can repair them," the Corporal replied.
"Damn..." Delts said to himself.
"Sir we have multiple contacts coming into scanning range!" The corporal warned which caused Delts to turn his head to the short-range scanner.
Putting his wrist to his helmet he turned on his personal communicator "All troops possible enemy contact, get to defensive positions!" He called out as he grabbed his blaster rifle and headed out to the direction the multiple blips were coming from. The republic forces were lucky as their escape pod landed on a plateau above a fairly large hill; with the rain going downhill making the terrain muddy any enemies would be at a severe disadvantage.
The Clone Troopers all prepared themselves as they braced their weapons against the barrier; their helmets offered greater vision, but in this storm, they'd still have to wait for the enemy to get close before they could accurately fire. "Hold fire men!" Delts commanded as he had his own rifle against the barricade as he scanned for enemy forces.
"Commander they should be within sight any second!" The Corporal called out over the radio.
Delts prepared himself but even when a minute passed he didn't see anything, and then two minutes passed and still nothing. When five minutes passed and there was no enemy in sight Delts thought maybe they were getting false readings; that's when the sound of a large screech echoed through the storm and several dozen orange lights were launched into the sky much to the Clone's confusion.
Delts eyes widened in realisation when he realised the lights were coming closer as they reached the apex of their height. "TAKE COVER!" He shouted as the orange lights that he now realised were missiles landed in their base causing explosion after explosion. A number of clones were caught in the shockwave and blasted to pieces or were rendered unconscious if they were too close; they were lucky that the storm provided poor visibility to the enemy forces otherwise they would've completely wiped out their troops.
"OPEN FIRE!" He shouted as he tried to prevent another barrage from happening. The clones who had not been struck by the explosion began firing their weapons —blue lights raining down on where they thought the enemy was. However, the storm provided them with poor visibility so even if they managed to kill an enemy they wouldn't know about it.
Delts and the Clones kept firing however hoping that they were managing to beat the enemy back or at least cause some damage to the artillery that they had in their possession. Their hopes were quickly dashed as another barrage of missiles was sent up into the air only to come down on the base once more; this time Delts was thrown clear of the barricade, and due to the muddy terrain started to slip down the hill as he tried to pick himself up. However, he wasn't the only one who was condemned to this fate as quite a few clones had been thrown clear of the the barricade.
This is where things seemed to get from bad to worse as the enemy troops started firing for the first time. Clones were slaughtered left and right as blaster rifles burned holes through their chest and thermal detonators ripped through their armour and tore their limbs off. "Regroup on me!" He shouted out to anyone who might hear him as he continued firing his weapon —though with a lot better accuracy now that he was closer.
Delts managed to hear a few screams as he fired into the foggy storm which managed to put a smile on his face. He then chucked a few grenades of his own granting him a little visibility with the large plume of fire that exploded from the bottom of the hill.
*BOOM*
Another barrage of rockers from what Delts now recognised as the IG-277 Hailfire-class tank; a pretty effective tank for dealing with large groups of enemies though inferior to republic tanks of the same class. Unfortunately for Delts and his men they didn't have any artillery of their own, and the closest thing they did have was the crashed gunship that was all but scrap.
Delts realised they were quickly running out of options, they could either hunker down and try to take the attacks of the enemy artillery or they would have to rush down the hill and take the enemy in close quarters; though with limited visibility and bad terrain they would incur considerable loss. The choice was soon taken out of his hands as coming into their vision were Jabiimi nationalists who wore boots that allowed them to glide over the muddy terrain and even up the hill they were on.
Delts scowled as he raised his rifle and started shooting at them 'These must be the famed Nimbus Commandos," He thought to himself as he started unloading his rifle into the nearest commando. On the third shot, he managed to hit one in their boots making him crash and burn —He was pretty proud of that kill.
However, the other clones didn't fair as well as Commander Delts; the Nimbus Commandos were so agile and skilled that the Clones that were already on the hill almost perished immediately; while Clones behind the barricades managed to maintain a defensive line. Despite the constant artillery strikes and the harassment from the agile Nimbus Commandos they managed to beat the enemy back, and Delts was also able to fight his way back to the barrier before diving over; though he had a couple of new wounds and shattered wrist armour to show for it.
"Commander the enemy seem to be backing off," The Corporal echoed through his communicator.
"They must've run out of ammo," His Sergeant commented as he helped Commander Delts up.
Delts nodded in agreement "This must be a token force, I didn't see any clankers apart from the Hailfire tank... they must be diverting their troops elsewhere."
"Perhaps they're going after the other landing sites?" His Sergeant replied.
"Shit..." he whispered to himself before bringing his communicator back up to his mouth.
"Corporal how long till you get communications up and running?" He asked with a little desperation in his voice.
"Maybe twelve hours if I'm not distracted..." the Corporal replied through the radio.
"Can you not shorten it, Corporal?" Commander Delts asked, but his tone suggested that this was not a request but an order.
"I'll try sir but this equipment is not my specialty, the comms team landed in the LZ northwest of here," the Corporal stated.
"Just do your best Corporal, we will try to buy you as much time as we can," Delts replied with a sigh. He knew their only chance of survival was reinforcements or the miracle that they managed to kill every last enemy at the bottom of the hill.
Though based on what had happened during their campaign so far Delts wouldn't be crossing his fingers.
(AN: So the battle has started, and Jaden will be joining soon. I'm not sure what to do with Aurra sing tbh, what do you guys think? Anyway hope you enjoyed the chapter. Also I know that my explanation of hyperdrives was not canon, that's cause I changed it.)
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