Chương 25: The Return
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***
* Four weeks later *
Finished!
Towards the end of the journey, I was not only bored, I was counting the days left until I could get out of hyperspace. As I sat in the hangar, studying the academy programme, a thought occurred to me - why did I stop at a cruiser? I probably could have found a hyperdrive of the same type if I'd poked around in the sands longer, but I settled for a backup. Of course, we're all strong in hindsight, but now it was too late, and I waited. I waited to get out of hyperspace, like a demob waits for orders, like a boy waits for his first relationship, like a pioneer sailor waits for the cry of "earth" from Mars. And he did. I should have looked for another hyperdrive after all. As far as I understood, the story was the same as with processor sockets - Corellian hyperdrives were the oldest, in the form of large plates of metal, there were others - Kuat ones, which were a large cylinder made of many layers of metal, there were more original ones, like the same docking hyperdrives-rings, but they were more a kind of cylindrical ones. My cruiser had plate hyperdrives, the form factor and size of which was labelled "14/Cor1-T900-C2" and the reserve "10/Cor1-T120-C9". As not hard to guess, this stood for the fourteenth and tenth models, Corellian First Series, nine hundred and one hundred and twenty tonnes respectively. The last digit was the class.
My transport had a three-tonne hyperdrive, three hundred and seventy series, which, with the same second class, was much more economical and reliable. Exploring the hangar, I found several fighters under the rubble, which, to my surprise, had rather explosive materials at their core. From them, at least two of them, I also took out all the stuffing and decided to assemble my own speeder-car. This activity was much more interesting than just memorising the materials of the academy, especially since meditation and working with my own memory helped me to quickly assimilate the material - after each lesson I diligently laid out the knowledge on the shelves of the mind. Now I have passed the basics of state education and interethnic business etiquette. Extremely useful subjects, not counting the rather fascinating history of the galaxy, which was also very interesting in places.
It didn't take as long as I thought it would - I quickly riveted together the frame and hull, using the aerodynamics and design of early twenty-first century Earth machines, shared the repulsors and reactors with the interceptors, and from the fighters I stuck in some pretty powerful deflectors that would protect me from even massive fire. After a couple of days of tinkering with the new marvel of technology, I sold it the cockpit and seats taken from the interceptors. I had a place to drive it - the hangar still allowed me to do so. After two days of more or less fascinating work, the silver, aerodynamically shaped speeder with spartan interior was ready, and I plunged back into waiting.
The moment the hyperspace exit was scheduled, I was sitting on the bridge, in the chief pilot's chair. Erdva was right there - the jump exit was right in the Corellian sector, so some difficulty in wiring the inside of the warship was expected. When the ship came out of hyperspace and Erdva pulled away from the control panel, handing the helm over to me, I was incomparably relieved.
Before my eyes, the screen showed Corellia - actually somewhere far away in space, but the magnified image was being shown by the computer. I gave the throttle, and we crawled forward on one sublight engine. Two more were too damaged, and not just the metal parts, so it was impossible to repair them by force. The blackness of space and the view of the giant surface of the cruiser's upper "shell" were pleasant - I was in control of the whole thing. But, no sooner had I flown a few minutes than a Corellian frigate appeared and approached me.
- Erdva, comms! - I said to the droid. He quickly moved to the radio operator's post and in a minute the voice of the commsman was heard all over the bridge:
- Cruiser, come in! This is corvette F4430, come in!
- This is the cruiser... - I leaned over to the console, can you hear me?
- We hear you fine. State your destination and home port.
- The purpose of arrival is to repair the ship. No home port.
- I repeat, repeat home port... - the operator on the frigate.
- The cruiser is assigned to the--" I looked at Erdv, and the inscription appeared before me: Sith Empire. - to the Sith Empire. No port indicated.
This time the operator was silent for a long time. A minute, maybe. Then a voice came through:
- Request permission to inspect the ship.
- Yes please, - I shrugged my shoulders, - look as much as you like, I'm opening the hangar gate.
- Acknowledged, - answered me over the connection.
A minute later, a corvette model CR70 in the colours of the Corellian space fleet approached the base of my ship and disappeared under the lower claw. I had to watch through the cameras - they came closer, cautiously. It's understandable, a single shot from one turbolaser would incinerate a corvette with its shields, and the Forbidden had five batteries with two dozen turbolasers each. That's not counting the usual anti-fighter laser cannons, which were also quite dangerous. But there wasn't enough power from the backup reactor to power the weapons, and even the shields were inaccessible. A small shuttlecraft separated from the corvette and flew into the hangar. Inside it landed next to my transporter and two uniformed men stepped out. I knew the laws, so I wasn't afraid to meet my dear guests. I had to leave the bridge, shut down all systems and go to the hangar. Erdva stayed in the deckhouse.
It was about two hundred metres from the bridge to the hangar, not counting the two descents on the lift, so I got to the inspectors pretty quickly. I came out, obviously having aroused their interest. The first to address me was the senior officer:
- Lieutenant Hojo Anthony," he introduced himself.
- Anakin Skywalker," I said, "what do you want to see? - I glanced at the other man. The usual clerks - one young and one older, with wrinkles and the look of a typical Justiciar.
- To enter the Corellian sector on a warship, you must have authorisation.
- Please, this ship is over a thousand years old and the power from the backup reactor is barely enough to maintain life support. And not in all parts of the ship.
- If your ship is unarmed... - the lieutenant thought.
- Armed, but not armed. Besides, not counting the droids, I'm the only one on the ship," I smiled, seeing the look on the face of the young man accompanying the lieutenant.
- I need to make sure of that," he said and nodded to his subordinate, then turned to me: "Take me to the reactors.
If you say take me to the reactors, we'll take you there, no problem. I headed towards the reactors, leading the two inspectors. The young one was very nervous, as this ship is supposed to be a very formidable weapon, and during the peaceful existence the science of war has moved backwards, and "Prohibitory" is on a par with battleships, which are in service only with the most belligerent systems.
We walked through the passages to the reactors - we'd encountered a couple of droids but no humans the entire trip, which reassured the inspectors a little - I was the only one on the ship. This they believed, as all the posts where crew members should be were empty. Some parts, such as the self-defence system consisting of laser turrets, were broken out by me, as they were outdated and could theoretically be dangerous even for me. Who knows what the iron thing, which is the ship's computer, will get into its iron brain?
We reached the first shutdown reactor, which stood dead weight. From a distance it looked like a giant cylinder standing in a hall, surrounded by many layers of defences. The reactor was silent. The checker asked my permission and went into the reactor control terminal. After the self-diagnostic system confirmed that there was no fuel and the plant was unfit to start up, we moved on. Besides the backup, the cruiser had three reactors, and only two were needed for full operation. Then the pattern repeated itself - having made sure that all combat systems were unusable, the inspectors, having returned to the hangar, issued me several documents that allowed me to conduct the ship to Corellia without restrictions. Sincerely thanking them and receiving a farewell, I watched them return by shuttle to their corvette. Actually, they were a bit lax in their approach to the inspection - there was a legion of droids on one of the decks, and they screwed the pooch on that, making sure only that there were no weapons on the ship. So fuck them.
The officers looked at the pieces of interceptors piled in the corner as scrap metal, and rightly so - I'd never fly one of those!
The way to Corellia was open. But before I landed my pepelats on the planet, I had to negotiate with the operator where exactly to land. The KMC hangars were located in a region of the planet quite far from the capital - on another continent. And again negotiations, only this time with KMC, who had to spend an hour explaining what exactly I wanted and that the other hangars would not be suitable. As a result of long negotiations with the company managers, I got a tip on the shipyard's ground complex and sent the ship there.
Landing wasn't easy either - the cruiser was too big, and even a couple of correction droids had a hard time accurately entering the hangar.
As I was late for the academy, I was in a hurry - I threw the bike and the assembled speeder into the cargo hold of the G9, and ran to the head of the shipyard, explaining how to contact me, from whom to get money to repair the ship, and what kind of accessories I needed. In addition to hyperdrive and armament removal in favour of shields, it was luxury cabins for captain and crew, reducing the number of crew to the minimum possible, creating several halls on the top deck, "and in general, I'll send you drawings and descriptions later, and you just try your best. Such haste was justified - I wasn't a complete idiot and could work on the ship's blueprints, but after I'd shown myself on Alderaan.
On my map I discovered... Fifteen million credits. Yes, thirty tonnes of beskar was worth that kind of money, half a million a tonne. However, they'd deducted taxes and some other fees that I'd agreed to, so there was almost fifteen million on the card. The cost of a new ship, of the class and size of the Forbidden, was about thirty to forty million. Repair, or rather modernisation of the ship could cost me more than a new one, as a purely military ship Prohibiting was not interesting to me, while a civilian modification with all the features was necessary - I had to go broke and give ten million as a deposit at once. Smelling the smell of money, even if it was intangible, the repairmen became much more compliant, their indignation practically disappeared, and in general, it seemed to me that their life priorities had changed dramatically. Anyway, the meeting on repair and modernisation was quick - I had time to think over what and how while still in hyperspace, and now I gave them a rough plan-scheme of the main modifications and told them my thoughts. Unlike me, an amateur, professional shipbuilders quickly understood what I needed and promised to do everything quickly and efficiently. We parted satisfied with each other.
When I was done with the repairmen, who, by the way, I never got the name of the chief engineer I was talking to, I immediately flew to Alderaan, not bothering with pre-flight preparations, refuelling and all that. I would see Alessia in a few hours, and the whole cruiser thing would be postponed until I had a good night's sleep and a mental break from the subject. I'm a month late to the academy, but I think they'll accept the "I was flying on a spare hyperdrive" excuse.
This time, having learnt from the bitter experience of a month-long journey, I jumped as fast as possible and bypassed the hyperspace route, relying on my strength and manually steered the ship in hyperspace, thus reducing the travel time to a minimum - the jump to Alderaan took two hours instead of six.
Sitting in the transporter's seat, I even thought I had developed a special obsession with the speed of ships. If this keeps up, I'll be looking for the fastest ships in the galaxy, or building them-the desire to spend as little time in hyperspace as possible was burning.
The ship came out of the hyperspace in a spectacular fashion - right in the orbit of Alderaan. One more millisecond and it would have crashed to hell, but I'm an ace pilot, I can make a show of it! I had to take my mind off piloting to calm down the local dispatchers - their hyperspace sensors must have been going off when I popped up right under their noses... The frightened dispatchers had enough of the standard set of phrases, and they fell behind.
There was one more reason for the rush, and it was quite significant - Alessia. Or rather, what she would do to me when I was a month late, without any warning. As I descended towards Aldera's spaceport I had time to mention the force, and all the Sith I knew, and Yoda and Master Windows. Or something like that, I can't remember exactly!
* Alderaan, Alessia, First Day of School *
Returning to the dormitory was rather sad - parting with relatives, Jedi Order friends, and everyone-all was sad. There was a bright side to returning, though - Ani.
When I went to Anakin's room on the first day, after dropping my things off, I went to see him... he didn't answer. The dorm door was locked tight. Maybe that kind of attention would make me look bad in any other case, but only a deaf person would know that Anakin and I have a thing. Though the deaf are more likely to know. Just in case, there was a secret button in the door lock that Ani had attached, just in case. I reached through the force to it and touched it. It was already hard to do, because my connection to the Force was so weak. But the door obediently moved aside, letting me inside. And inside...
No one, not even a trace. The wardrobe was open, with Ani's clothes in it, missing only a couple of travelling suits, the rest either in the wardrobe or lying on the couch. There was a piece of paper on the nightstand, with some squiggles in an unknown language, similar to the Thodarian that Anakin was fluent in.
I walked inside and looked around, peering into the fridge. I didn't need to open the door; I could see through it that a piece of pie had been petrified on one of the shelves for a long time.
So Anakin didn't come. But classes are supposed to start tomorrow!
The bummer overtook me, leaving me to hope that Ani would make it in time, because he was always punctual... relatively punctual. While the slob was gone, I tidied up what I noticed, hanging my clothes in the wardrobe and consigning the stiffened remains of the pie to the rubbish chute.
I stayed in Anakin's room for another two hours until I was sure he wasn't coming. Since it wasn't good to be late on the first day of school, I retired to my room for a good night's sleep.
In the morning, I stopped by Ani's room again, but the room was just as empty. I had to go to the Academy. Today was the introductory lectures, not counting the traditional welcome ceremony for new students.
The first part of the ceremony was short, the newcomers were welcomed, told a few words about diligent study, talked about the importance and value of education and let them go away, and we, sophomores, unlike last year, had to go to the lectures. It was at this point that my consciousness began to alert me to the fact that Anakin was nowhere to be found. Usually he sat next to me, but he wasn't in the classroom at all. The first person to approach me was some man:
- Alessia, have you seen Skywalker? - he asked.
- No. He's not in the dorm either.
He seemed upset. I rushed over to ask him why:
- Why?
- Yes, we have the opening of the autumn racing season in two days, and the guys and I wanted to invite him.
- Hopefully he'll make it in time," I shrugged. The guy nodded in reply and left upset. And then the questions started pouring in. There wasn't a single one of the so-called "golden youth," or rather majors, but it seemed that almost everyone who'd taken our course on scholarship had asked about Anakin. I found out that my friend had lent a couple in love money for a romantic holiday trip, and now they were waiting to pay him back, four of them were waiting for some new repulsors Anakin had promised them, another one was asking about Anakin because Anakin regularly helped him with his homework, and at the end of a short break he was asked by two girls who were almost as upset about Anakin's absence as I was! I even started to get jealous when they had already left. I didn't realise Anakin would be so popular, because it seemed he didn't socialise much with his classmates.
Towards the end of the day, the flow of inquirers dried up, and I had no choice but to believe and wait....
And so a week went by. Two weeks, three, four...
Towards the end, I had already given up on my studies, as the thought of something happening to Ani kept me from sleeping well. But...
One morning when I woke up, I felt that there was someone in the room. Before I got up, I looked up and it was Anakin.
I jumped up and jumped at him, and gave him a good beating for all the pain he'd caused me:
- Where the hell have you been, Sith, do you know how worried I've been?
- I know, Ali, I know. I'm sorry, please," he said, and to avoid more slaps, he took me by the shoulders.
- Just this once! I'm worried here, I don't sleep at night, and he's in the middle of nowhere!
- Sorry, sorry, I got held up in hyperspace. I had to jump on the backup, so he's been bored for almost a month.
- I thought something had happened to you... you know how you are at picking up trouble!
- I know. Don't worry, everything is fine..." he replied, "I just got delayed a bit, it's nothing..." he pulled out a box from somewhere behind his back. - This is for you, Ali.
- Do you want to pay me off, despicable? - I asked proudly.
- Yes. You'll take it, won't you? - he pulled something metal out of the box. Judging by the fact that I could see it very clearly in the force, and not as usual, the object was filled with power to the brim.
- What is it?
- A pendant. I made it for you while I was in hyperspace. Melted the metal from an ancient hyperdrive. - and put it round my neck. I had to tilt my head and lift my hair so Anakin could fasten it.
- They were looking for you here...
- Me?" he wondered. - Who? - And clearly agitated.
- Classmates. Have you forgotten that you borrowed money? Or have you forgotten that you promised repulsors to our technicians? There were some chicks and local race organisers looking for you. They wanted to invite you to join the team.
- I don't want that for nothing," he replied with a sour face, "I don't want to be cheating in competitions... you know my capabilities.
- Roughly," I snorted, touching the pendant with my hands, "what's it made of?
- Oh, it's a pretty specific metal. Cortosis. It doesn't lend itself to a lightsaber! - He glanced at the droid standing next to him and hurried me: "You should get dressed, because the class is in an hour...
I was the only one who noticed that I was standing in front of the guy in a very see-through nightie. My heart sped up, but I didn't have enough anger at Anakin to punch him. Just enough to escort him away.
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