NationStates Jolt Archive

Sixteen months after the Battle of Konoha

Somewhere in the oceans, a mariner gazed up to see what had suddenly cast a light shadow over his ship. He could see the White Diamond Drive Yards above him, which might explain a bit. But there seemed to be a black dot amidst the grey shipyard.

He extracted a telescope and gazed up at it, making out the black spot to be a wedge...he could even make out some of the scaffolding that surrounded the EWS Immortal. She was the first new class of vessel to come off of those yards in twenty years. So that's what took up so much of the military budget, the mariner thought to himself.

Two Hundred Sixty Nautical Miles Overhead

"Bring Reactor One online." The imposing figure of Admiral Makaryk, he who had finished what Admiral Riordan started at the Battle of Konoha, cast an eerie shadow as sunlight warped around the bridge, lit artificially only by emergency lighting, provided by the Alternate Power Unit, one of the tethers still remaining between shipyard and completed ship. The figure spoke for the first time since stepping onto the jet-black prototype Star Destroyer fifteen minutes ago. There had been no need for speaking up until this point, and the Admiral was not one to waste his breath. Nor, unlike Coredians, was he the one to get too attached to the ships that he commanded. Especially unproven ones.

"Aff." The ship started to vibrate slightly as the reactor (one of them, anyway) rumbled to life.

Admiral Makaryk allowed himself a smile, rare in this time of war. At least I don't have to deal with "educating" Coredian engineers and navigators...just a few motley crew and some random Jedi they sent as a dignitary. He cast a quick glance at the Jedi on board the bridge. I hope this one...what's his name? Kevin Bailey?...actually has a clue about what he is doing. He then pulled out a checklist.

Keys to Apollo. Check. Apollo...literally the same vector-thrusting technology on the 1960s Apollo lunar modules, scaled up, of course, to deal with the size of the craft, used precisely because it functioned during the prolonged power austerity measures on the Apollo 13 mission. Translation: it functioned manually, while everything onboard that craft that had to do with electricity was shut down. Doubt the Coredians would've thought about that.

Sextant. Check. Woodians had some crazy contingency navigation theories.

Roll of bright packing tape. Check. More craziness.

Solar-powered, battery backup datapad. Check.

Flashlight. Check.

He continued to run down the checklist until finished. Satisfied, he looked up, and glared at the primary engineer. "Disengage the APU. Engage Reactor Two." He heard a clicking noise as something demagnetized underneath him and the APU retracted back into the shipyard. One less umbilical cord from shipyard to ship. More belly rumbling ensued as the second reactor came online. Lights came on, computers booted, and numbers started flashing on screen. Numbers that indicated some slight semblance of where the ship was, reactor capacity versus power use, how quickly the ship's main capacitors were charging, and other random unimportant things like that. Also, something not quite so useless: a handy little utility to monitor where every joule of power on the ship was going, extremely useful for getting data to streamline the prototype's electrical systems, as well as those of the ships after it.

"Engage Reactor Three."

Another curt "Aff" followed, followed by more rumbling. The vessel seemed restless, very restless, to leave its berth.

"Demagnetize the ship." Several loud clicking noises echoed throughout the Immortal II as shipyard controllers cut the electric current running through various magnets up to a hundred meters across, and disabled all tractor beams holding the ship in place, releasing the ship into free fall over White Diamond.

"Captain Burke. Ten percent thrust. Slingshot us around the planet such that we exit orbit headed for the farthest moon. Let us stretch her wings."

As if three reactors weren't enough to generate a noticeable vibration, the engines fired only a couple hundred meters behind and below the bridge, giving everyone on board a gentle jolt. The blue jewel beneath them seemed to rotate slightly faster...but everyone knew that it was simply the ship picking up speed.

OOC: Second Generation Immortal Star Destroyer [Immortal II] Specifications

Manufacturer: White Diamond Drive Yards

Designation: Capital Starship

Length: 2,700 meters

Crew: 41,000

Troops: 16,000

Cargo Capacity: 58,000 metric tons

Consumables: 8 years

Hyperdrive Multiplier: x1.0

Hyperdrive Backup: x6
1 Kearney-Fuchida Jump Drive

Sublight Propulsion Backup: Four auxillary engines
Manual vector thrusters, each thruster can function independently of the others, or independently of any power outages on the ship.

Speed: 5/18/40/55/65 MGLT

Hull: 8,100 RU

Shields: 2,800/6,800/14,400/19,700/23,000 SBD* [halved efficiency when cloaked]

Multi-Layered Shielding System, reverse-engineered from the captured Huntaerian TSSD Megadolon (see Battle of Konoha) and modified according to Woodian needs:

Added layer of Coredian Molecular Shielding, pursuant to joint development with CoreWorlds. Allows shielding to absorb energy in such a manner that it is diverted to the Immortal's electrical systems.

Added anti-radiation shielding. After Woodian planners realized that the Empire had access to the same kinds of radiological WMD's that the Woodians had inadvertantly purchased in the Romulan Scimtar-class Warbirds, this was viewed as a necessity to integrate into MLSS.

Weapons: 90 Advanced Heavy Turbolaser Batteries [again, reverse-engineered from captured Huntaerian ships, modified slightly for further capacitor efficiency], 80 Heavy Ion Cannons, 60 Heavy Naval Particle Projector Cannons, 40 Naval Pulse Lasers [for point Defense], 30 Transphasic Torpedo Tubes, 12 Heavy Naval Gauss Rifles, 15 Tractor Beams, 4 Coredian Beamlasers, 4 "Overcharge" Heavy Particle Projector Cannon

Ammunition: 1200 Heavy Naval Gauss Rifle slugs (total for ship), total 3,600 tons
15,000 Transphasic Torpedoes

Onboard Craft: 216 TIE Series Fighters (can be modified for other fighters as well), 6 Hrothgar DropShips, 15 Delta Class Dx-9 or Dx-9s Transports, 8 Lambda Class T-4a Shuttles, 1 Gamma Class Assault Shuttle.

Special: Modified Romulan phase cloak device, reverse-engineered from the Scimtar-class Warbird, and scaled up to disguise larger capital ships of this class. Though the cloak hides emissions extremely well, rendering it nigh undetectable except through cumbersome trial-and-error blind firing, it does not have a phase inverter that allows the ship to travel through solid matter unimpeded. The vessel can fire and maintain shields when cloaked, though due to high power stress, shields only operate at half capacity when cloaked. Commanders are advised not to fire when cloaked unless absolutely necessary, or the enemy is distracted by other threats, as it makes the craft significantly easier to locate.

Rating system: It was realized after the wide performance variations in the first Immortal class that traditional systems of shield and speed ratings could not compensate for events when a ship's captain dumped the entire ship's power output into one system, such as a sudden burst of speed from engines or a sudden reinforcement of the shields. Therefore a new rating system was devised for each subsystem according to 10%/25%/50%/75%/90% of maximal power usage, respectively. Therefore, if an Immortal-II is traveling at 50% throttle, its rated shield strength at that moment cannot be more than 14,400 SBD. Such a system is necessary to account for Woodian commanders' frequent tendencies to stress their already overpowered-for-their-size ships to the max.

Multiple reactors: The second generation of Immortal Star Destroyer contains three reactors, each 67% the capacity of the single reactor onboard the first-generation ships. Therefore, Immortal-IIs can muster a reactor throughput roughly twice that of their older brethren. This leads to faster engines, more weapons power, and more shields, as basal power requirements for basic functions such as life support remain basically the same. To accomodate the space for two additional reactors without sacrificing hangar or cargo capacity, it was deemed necessary to enlarge the ship from 2400 meter length to 2700 meters.

Notes on the Particle Projector Cannon. It is basically an extremely heavy ion cannon that fires bolts of superheated ions, making it fully capable of slagging armor in addition to wreaking havoc with electrical systems. Moreover, PPC bolts are significantly thicker and stronger than ion cannon bolts fired from an ion cannon of comparable class. Therefore, a hit from a PPC is liable to do about six times as much damage to shielding as a comparable-class ion cannon, for the shields must absorb heat energy in addition to electrical energy, a bit less if fired from extremely long ranges due to heat dissipation in the cold void of space. The downside: A correspondingly longer recycle time between shots--about eight seconds.

"Overcharge" Heavy Particle Projector Cannon: During the Battle of Konoha, Admiral Riordan pioneered the tactic of overcharging a Particle Projector Cannon on such a scale that it functioned with effectiveness comparable to a mini-superlaser blast. Even more deadly: linking several PPCs and firing them in this manner. However, the tactic had unfortunate side effects. The heat generated was so great that it slagged the weapon; a regular PPC fired in such a manner effectively became disposable. Woodian engineers have enhanced the cooling mechanism and electrical circuitry for the "Overcharge" PPCs to fire in such a manner without destroying themselves.

[Pursuant to OOC agreement between myself and Huntaer, IC RP in progress, predates this ICly]

Hyper-X Capacitors: Special energy capacitors were designed that could store an impressive amount of energy in a very small space. These capacitors would make incredible batteries, especially for their small size and large energy capacity, and that is an area that the Alliance Military Defense Development is exploring, but it is outside of the scope of this system. The primary purpose of the capacitors is to provide additional energy for a weapon so that it can fire twice as quickly for a single fire. For example, a laser cannon that could normally fire three times per second is equipped with this system and can now fire six times for a single second. After the capacitors are discharged once, they need to be recharged. To recharge them, the weapon that they are attached to must not fire for 5 seconds. Unfortunately, each weapon must be equipped with its own capacitor, and the larger the weapon, the larger and more expensive the capacitor. Also, for obvious reasons, only energy weapons can be equipped with these capacitors.

[thank you Huntaer for letting me use your description]

Bemused by all the low-tech equipment the Woodians used, Jedi Knight Kevin Bailey and the few technicians who were sent with him to view the commissioning and shakedown cruise of the EWS Immortal was also excited that the takeoff sequence had gone off without a hitch. Of course, there were many more things to do before the ship would be ready for service, like hyperspace and combat exercises. Little did the Knight and his charges know that the Woodians planned more for the ship than the usual shakedown cruise. Usual, that is, for a Coredian...

Bemused by all the low-tech equipment the Woodians used, Jedi Knight Kevin Bailey and the few technicians who were sent with him to view the commissioning and shakedown cruise of the EWS Immortal was also excited that the takeoff sequence had gone off without a hitch. Of course, there were many more things to do before the ship would be ready for service, like hyperspace and combat exercises. Little did the Knight and his charges know that the Woodians planned more for the ship than the usual shakedown cruise. Usual, that is, for a Coredian...

OOC: OK, you'd see the sextant and flashlight, and even the key, and whatnot. But you wouldn't have known about Apollo (i.e. you wouldn't know what the key is for) unless you were reading the Admiral's mind. Possible, I suppose, but a serious breach of Jedi ethics.

----------------------

"Admiral, we have reached escape velocity and cleared White Diamond's orbit."

Admiral Makaryk nodded sagely as White Diamond seemed to drop beneath the vessel's black superstructure, slowly, only drifting at first, then more rapidly until it was out of view. "Run engines at half power for five minutes, then burn them to capacity and cloak after a further five-second delay."

"Aff." The ship seemed to lurch a bit as the engine rumbling increased. The turbulence wasn't anywhere near as bad as a combustion-powered DropShip, but by now even the Coredians could tell that this thing was designed for function, not comfort. I'm sure if they had their way, inertial dampeners would require a reactor all unto themselves for a ship like this, Admiral Makaryk thought to himself, even enjoying the turbulence a bit. They are soft. Outwardly, he gave no hint of his judgmental thoughts, instead closely watching the various displays that indicated the multitudes of capacitors still charging, including, most importantly, two massive 1500-meter-long ones that ran lengthwise along the port and starboard sides of the ship. The smaller capacitors, such as the Hyper-X weapons capacitors, seemed to charge almost immediately, but the large ones seemed to take forever...but that was probably simply due to the massive amounts of reserve power they were supposed to hold. Their power draw alone managed to push all three of the ship's reactors right up to the edge of the redlines.

When five minutes came and went, the vessel's vibrations increased from "a little bit of turbulence" to "almost as bad as a Saturn V rocket for the uninitiated, yet still no big deal to those who had ever been on a DropShip during its landing cycle." The ice moon known only as WD-IV, because no one had come up with a name for it not already taken by some other landmark somewhere, started to bounce around a little in the viewport, at least for a few seconds before the ship forced some semblance of stability upon itself. Five seconds after that, the black superstructure visible from the bridge, and the lights upon it, seemed to vanish into the emptiness of space as the cloaking device engaged. The crew could see stars through it...

The ship diverted electrical current from charging those massive capacitors to the engines and cloaking device, and their ability to charge slowed to a trickle, at least compared to how quickly it had been charging. It was probably a wonder the reactors hadn't blown up yet.

Eyes widened and bodies were pressed to the seats as the Star Destroyer roared forward like a bull. The Jedi Knight decided to reevaluate the sanity of the Admiral as the eternity of G-forces pressed on. Then what amounted to the inertial compensators stabilized the ship at the same time the two-mile long dagger faded away in the viewports, revealing nothing but stars. Kevin looked at the power consumption gauges and whistled. An ordinary ISD would have had its reactor overloaded by now.

OOC: Is this open? If not, consider this a tag.

As the Immortal rounded the icy WD-IV moon, something else came into view. A tiny, yet bright disc of light some distance away...one of the two modified Sovereign Star Destroyers in the Evil Woody Thoughts Navy.

Looking at various holographic displays and whatnot, Admiral Makaryk noted acceleration rapidly dropping as the engines finally started to strain against the devil of sublight space travel known as relativity. Relativity also happened to be something that Coredians could thank the Force for as the Admiral ordered, "Cut power to engines." As abruptly as it began, the rumbling, noise, and vibrations of the three slightly-oversized engines stopped. Conservation of momentum would suffice for propulsion for the time being.

However, relativity wasn't the only reason behind the Admiral's temporary return to sanity (at least in view of the various Coredians milling about the bridge). "Raise shields to twenty percent. The Star Destroyer about fifty million kilometers out has orders to 'light us up' with a turbolaser shot...if they can find us." A wry smile crossed his countenance. "If they do not find us...we find them, to do our combat trials. Helm, two degrees to starboard please." He wanted to sneak up behind the SSD's engines.

"Aff." The Coredians had a chance to enjoy a little more than a half hour of blissful peace and tranquility. Until the Immortal stealthily closed to within ten thousand kilometers of the backside of its mock adversary, that is...

Approximately 68m kilometers from White Diamond Drive Yards

"All hands to battlestations! Decloak in thirty seconds!" Time for the live-fire combat exercises...time to scare the Coredians shitless. A slight grin probably betrayed his thoughts to the Jedi...granted, this was a regularly scheduled exercise, but the Admiral seemed to take special pleasure in "breaking in" the "soft" Coredian military. Of course, he wasn't the only one, either.

He looked at the faint ion exhaust trail of the SSD right in front of the bridge, twelve o' clock in front of them. They hadn't been detected yet. This probably would've been a good time for Coredians to wonder if the Admiral planned on blowing up his own navy's ship. The Woodian crew acted as if nothing was unusual...they would much rather ascertain their new toy's combat capabilities (and limitations) now, rather than the hard way in combat against the Empire.

"Raise full shields!" At this point, part of the reason why those huge capacitors existed became crystal clear. Admiral Makaryk watched as the various power displays which monitored and recorded where every joule on the ship went showed a massive drop in the charge stored in the two mega-capacitors and the shields raising themselves from twenty percent to full strength in a matter of a couple of seconds. However, he remained cognizant that in full combat conditions, the vessel would not easily replenish such a charge...it would be hours, if not a full day, before that could be done again under constant combat conditions.

Then the black wedge in front of the bridge suddenly reappeared, like a privateer emerging from a cloud of fog, just off the stern of a Spanish Main treasure galleon.

OOC: Is this open? If not, consider this a tag.

OOC: Not unless you have military ships in my home system. Which is...to say the least...extremely frowned upon, unless we know you IC.

The Sovereign-class vessel fired first, as had been previously arranged. A various assortment of turbolasers, particle projector cannon, and ion cannon splattered across the Immortal's front shield, some of the energy from said splattering getting recycled into the Immortal's own power systems. As if she needed more power...Admiral Makaryk didn't think he would have to issue the "HOLD" order...the order customarily given during combat stress testing to indicate his ship's limits had been reached...anytime soon.

Two competing needs crossed his mind: the need to deal with the Super Star Destroyer's shield quickly, and the need to preserve the ship intact, lest he get into deep shit. "I want one of those beamlasers fired twenty meters to port of the conning tower. Whomever misses faces a Trial of Position. Follow this five seconds later with a slightly overcharged PPC blast to the same spot. That should evaporate their shield without damaging the ship. Quiaff?"

The affirmative response given, the gunners fired exactly where the Admiral had indicated. The Super Star Destroyer's shields flared uncomfortably close to the bridge. A gunner two thousand meters in front of, below, and to starboard of Admiral Makaryk's position on the bridge moved to follow up with the PPC blast as ordered...

A single klaxon buzzed on the bridge as a display indicated the imminent overheating of a coil joining the weapon's Hyper-X Generator with the weapon itself. But with only one-fiftieth of a second of warning, the crew had no time to react. The weapon misfired.

Instead of a single coherent beam of superheated ions, the weapon emitted what amounted to a huge, artificial, 6-million-degree-Celsius solar flare, visible by the naked eye on the surface of White Diamond's night side, sixty-eight million kilometers away. A section of armor measuring about nine hundred meters long by five hundred meters wide instantly melted and flash-glazed over as the expanding blue flare passed over it. Admiral Makaryk watched in horror as the flare morphed into an expanding blue arc hundreds of kilometers across, and passed over the Super Star Destroyer, disabling not only its shield, but also its communications, its weapons, its sensors, and a goodly portion of its lighting. Fortunately, it was far enough away for the flare to have dissipated enough to spare it from being completely disabled, or worse, destroyed.

Of course, now the Immortal's bridge had its own problems, as the wailing klaxons seemed to go forth and multiply like mosquitoes. Red blossomed on the bridge as smallpox blossoms on the faces of its victims. The air filled with the sounds of practically each crewmember announcing what was wrong, at their particular station, resulting in chaos that took either an extremely experienced listener or the Force to discern everything that was being shouted. The navcomputer shut down. Sensors were fried. Comm was fried. Targeting shut down. The computer that governed climate control rebooted. The hyperdrive motivator was damaged, and the vessel did not have the solar charge necessary for Fuchida jump. All three primary and the two starboard auxiliary engines became unresponsive...

Finally the bridge became dead quiet as the lights shut off and emergency lighting, which consisted pretty much of lights to mark corridors to the escape pods, came on.

"Admiral, all three reactors have shut down. Starboard capacitor reads...three volts, fourteen amps."

Then the entire starboard half of the ship, right up to the conning tower, went dark.

Reeling over the idea of fighting a Super Star Destroyer, even in a wargame with a ship less than half its size, Kevin Bailey simply resigned himself to watching the events unfold. He noted with interest the accuracy of the Beamlaser that struck near the conning tower of the Super Star Destroyer. He decided that in his report to the Council, he should stress the importance of similar accuracy in the Coredian Navy.

Without warning, the PPC not only struck the SSD, but assaulted it in such a way that it disabled the ship, damaging it severely...and the Immortal as well. Then the bridge went dark and things started to go bump in the gloom.

Then, a lightsaber ignited, bathing the bridge in a eerie green glow. It was also at the lowest power setting to avoid getting anyone hurt. The glow also showed Kevin with a wry smile. "Congratulations, Admiral. You've discovered a way to disable an entire Super Star Destroyer in one shot. The only problem is, it disables the Immortal as well."

Admiral Makaryk ignored the Jedi as he found the flashlight he had checked for earlier. (Of course, he had no way of knowing his lightsaber was on the lowest power setting.) He turned the flashlight on, and set it upright, and a surprising amount of that light reflected off the ceiling and walls, giving the bridge surprisingly uniform, if not dim, lighting.

"Enough with what's bad. What do we have aboard the ship that's still good?" the Admiral asked in a surprisingly calm tone of voice.

"Portside capacitor has enough power to run the ship for two hundred thirty hours at current consumption. Those Coredian shields recaptured some of that...coronal mass ejection."

"We're going to lose a lot of that in the burn to get home," the Admiral reminded the bridge crew. "Just thought I'd let you know. Continue."

"Two portside auxiliary engines...and the computer that controls them."

"Life support is still functional, but only eighty percent efficiency. Sickbay still operational."

While Admiral Makaryk's crew informed him of what was still functional, he found that key which he had checked for earlier. He quietly and discreetly turned it inside a keyhole in his console, and out popped a nondescript-looking joystick. I should be able to run this even on starboard side...except, of course, for the thrusters that were melted. He thrust to port, and he noticed that only the starboard thrusters on the ship's underbelly fired...pitching the ship up as well. He thrust straight down a couple times to fire the thrusters just to starboard of the centerline to countervail this, and the ship started drifting back down again. For quite a few seconds, the only noise on the ship remained the soft pfft...pfft...pfft of the Apollo thrusters firing...until White Diamond became visible as a small blue dot, and its sun as a much bigger, burning yellow dot.

"Send all spacetroopers aboard this ship to retrieve crew on starboard side and get them portside. We're not venting anything into space, so they should still be alive, except for those who melted."

"Aff." A couple people on the bridge left to don spacesuits.

Then the Admiral glared at one of the engineers, as it turned out, one of the few with a still-functional computer console. "I want you to calculate the most efficient burn possible with what we have to get us home. Write down the data, then shut down the computer. We need to save as much power as we can."

"I need to know distance we need to travel. The navigation system is dead."

Admiral Makaryk produced his sextant. "You do know how to use one of these, quiaff?"

"Aff...but in space?" The engineer had a look of surprise on his face.

"Measure the angle between White Diamond and her star," the Admiral replied coldly. "The distance between the two is known to be a hundred fifty-two million kilometers. Do the math." He thrust a pen and paper in the engineer's face.

"Aff," the engineer replied meekly, embarrassed and a little bit humiliated.

A few minutes later, he grumbled, "Sixty-eight million clicks between here and White Diamond." He plugged the data in, then a couple minutes later, gave Admiral Makaryk the information he wanted.

"Most efficient burn possible is 45% thrust for fourteen minutes, thirty seconds. We are projected to have sixty-nine hours of power left; we will need ninety-two hours. Twenty-three hours is the lowest spread I can get out of this thing."

"Apparently, we'll have to find more power austerity measures after we do the burn." A sadistic grin crossed the Admiral's face as he gazed at the Jedi and various Coredian crewmembers. "You heard the engineer. Running niceties like stabilization gyros is a needless waste of power that we don't exactly have. Therefore, allow me to enlighten you on the definition of full manual burn. There are only two inputs to the ship: throttle and my joystick over here. There are only two outputs from the ship: thrust and the minimum inertial dampening necessary to keep you from getting squished. The latter, you experienced a bit earlier."

The imposing Admiral then turned to his own crew, as he came up with a few power-saving measures of his own. "Turn off the ship's heat. We'll get a little bit, but not much from the burn, and after that, we let the ship's temperature fall to about two degrees Celsius. Shut down everything except the minimum required for this burn, life support, power monitors, and the sickbay, for that matter, and after we do the burn, shut down that as well."

"Aff. More displays went dark.

"I need someone to time us for fourteen minutes, thirty seconds...someone to input the throttle...and I will assume responsibility for steering the ship."

After he had his two volunteers, the engineer reported, "We are go for full manual burn, fourteen minutes, thirty seconds, on MARK."

Immediately, the ship seemed to leap forward and drifted up to starboard. Admiral Makaryk found himself reigning in a raging bull with nothing more than his joystick as vector thrusters fired all over the ship in an apparently vain attempt to compensate for the lack of stabilization gyros. The sun and her primary planet, the two fixed points of navigation for this otherwise blind burn, drifted off the bottom of the bridge's viewport.

The admiral jammed his joystick straight down, but with a goodly portion of the ship's dorsal vector thrusters burned off, the ship was somewhat less than fully responsive. "She's dragging, she's dragging..." Almost a full minute passed before the Admiral managed to bring White Diamond's star back into view. Those crew who had lacked the foresight to fasten themselves to something found themselves occasionally thrown about the bridge due to the ship's wrenching turns to get herself back on course. For the next thirteen minutes did the star and orbiting planet bounce around the viewport, occasionally drifting off entirely, but thankfully never for more than a few seconds at a time.

Finally, everyone's favorite word (including, begrudgingly, the Admiral's), pierced the engine noise. "SHUTDOWN!"

Immediately, the engines went quiet, as the tiny dot of White Diamond drifted back into the center of view.

"Standby, evaluating power usage on that burn..."

The Jedi Knight and the Coredian engineers braced themselves for the full manual burn, their bodies shoved backwards by the force and several were even thrown off their feet. Kevin's train of thought was more along the lines of I expected this from a snubfighter, but a capital ship, never mind a Star Destroyer?!

Woodians were crazy, was his honest opinion. Then again, even the legendary Han Solo was considered crazy, and he survived sixty on-and-off years of war with nothing but a finicky souped-up freighter, a hydrospanner and some elbow grease. Kevin Bailey decided to keep his mind open on the Woodians' craziness.

If the shoe fits...

Had a technical discussion with Huntaer about a certain part of this post before I left

While he waited for Engineering to figure out how much power the ship had left, Admiral Makaryk cast a hard gaze at the Jedi. Jedi weren't well known for giving away their thoughts, but watching him brace for the burn along with the rest of the Coredians only reinforced his perception of them...not only the Coredian crew, but this young Jedi as well...as soft.

Unsuitable for crew. Not trained at all. Admiral Makaryk shook his head.

The engineers interrupted the Admiral's own thoughts. "We have seventy-three hours of power left to ninety-two needed. Turning down the thermostat saved some, but unfortunately the void of space is colder than two degrees Centigrade, sir."

"Dammit." The Admiral was just as worried about condensation causing shorts as he was about a lack of power...and the just-shy-of-four-day ride home meant condensation would be a big problem if the ship's artificial atmosphere ever became colder than that atmosphere's dew point. "Evacuate the disabled section of the ship entirely; I want all life support there off within the hour." Then another thought crossed his mind...

"Can we siphon off charge from the individual Huntaerian Alliance weapons capacitors to the main capacitor?"

"Admiral, they weren't designed to do that..."

"DAMMIT! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A TRIAL OF REFUSAL!"

"Eeep...neg, sir." An engineer's eyes nervously darted about as the Admiral himself walked down to the bridge's engineering platform. One did not simply become an admiral in the Woodian Navy without being damn good at fighting, if only for the capacity of earning subordinates' respect, and the engineers all knew it. They timidly parted like the Red Sea as the Admiral removed a thin durasteel panel, revealing what looked like a Star-Destroyer-worthy circuit breaker behind it.

Suddenly the Admiral became the most patient being known to man, his wrath assuaged by access to the circuit breaker, as he noticed the main bus breaker for the dead capacitor had failed to short, and quickly closed it (indicating another potential problem that the orbital engineers could deal with after the Immortal reached safety).

Then he closed another bus breaker...and opened about 270 more...individually...one for each weapon. He glanced at the power indicator to verify that power was flowing from the individual Hyper-X weapons capacitors to the main operational capacitor...which, thankfully, it was. How much, he would find out after the little ones ran out of juice to give.

Admiral Makaryk's glare returned to the resident Jedi. "You Coredians participated in the development of this and expected to take deliveries for your own navy...yet you do not train your crews for her operation?" he demanded incredulously.

Even the Jedi felt the heat from the Admiral's laser eyes burning into his skin and he fought the urge to wince. He tried to smile, but it came out as very nervous in the glow of the sun. "Of course we train our crew to operate this ship. I...regret to admit that it may not be to your standards, but to ours."

Probably a lame excuse considering how strict the training of the Woodian allies are, but then Kevin (and the Coredian engineers) weren't used to such a high degree of efficiency that the Woodians endure. And maybe, just maybe, that's why the war with the Empire was nothing more than a stalemate at this point.

Idiot. I need to wipe that smirk off his face.

The six-and-a-half foot Admiral Makaryk wasted no time in stepping forward, maintaining his glare on the insolent, excuse-making Jedi. He let Kevin stare nervously at his chest for a moment.

Then he struck, his open palm striking Kevin's head that not even the Woodians saw he was about to do it.

"I want answers, not excuses." The Admiral shook his head at the alleged Jedi who didn't even look old enough to shave, much less serve as an official delegation.

Kevin was suddenly on the ground, a bruise beginning to form where the Admiral smacked him for his cheek. Not since his instructors has one laid a hand on him in this manner! Getting back up, he yelled, "What the hell was that for?!"

Admiral Makaryk looked down at the "Jedi" kid with an icy stare, somewhat surprised he didn't just punch him again. "You really want to know why I struck you?" He motioned to the expressions of the Woodian engineers on the bridge. "You are quite fortunate. Had you given the same answer in response to one of them...why, some of them would have killed you on the spot, as is their right in this military, so long as they are capable of defeating you in the proper Trial, if only doing so would not have entailed explaining those most unfortunate circumstances to the Coredian Government."

Admiral Michael C. Makaryk stared at him further, allowing the look of shock to grow on his face like cancer. "To be blunt, I have seen little other than mediocrity, or worse, outright incompetence, from Coredians. You are too soft; you apparently fight teddy bears instead of the Empire. Yet you claim that Coredians are actually trained..." If it was possible, the Admiral's expression grew even more hardened...as if he wished nothing more than to shove the imbecile back to the ground and plunge his knee into his ribs, yet was somehow able to restrain himself.

"What you do not understand, imbecile, is that the difference in training is the difference between everyone on this ship getting home and everyone on this ship dying. You Coredians have some clue of how to start the ship's reactor, but not the slightest clue of how to dump their 'last gasp' output into the mainline capacitor and shut them down at the same time. That is a difference of about two days' power. To be more blunt, that is the difference between having enough O2 to make it to the shipyard and having the atmosphere swamped with toxic CO2 levels thirty hours short. You are damned lucky that we know how to make CO2 filters by hand...but only the life support can generate enough oxygen to keep us alive. Not that you should benefit..."

"Worse, you are soft and complacent about spaceflight. Jacob Whitfield can tell you all about the cancellation of the USA's space shuttle program, for he was a little over ten years old at the time. Our older generations remember a time when what went up, did not necessarily come back down. As such, we have an understanding, which apparently Coredians are too damn complacent to have, that shit happens, and it is not always in battle."

"WIPE THAT GRIN OFF YOUR FACE BEFORE I DO IT FOR YOU!"

"I can tell by your crew's reactions to the manual burn that none of you have a f*cking clue how to do what I did. In other words, you have no f*cking clue how to run a ship without a f*cking navcomputer to tell you how to do it. You have no f*cking clue how to calculate how much thrust you need to get home before the power dies out. Well, congratulations, you're dead!"

At this point, the alleged Jedi Kevin Bailey enjoyed a very brief break from the Admiral's lecture, as he checked with his engineers to see how much power they had managed to suck from weapons. "One hundred eight hours," a Woodian engineer quietly told him, barely loud enough for anyone else to hear.

"Well do not get too excited, any surplus goes into slowing the ship down again upon orbital insertion." Admiral Makaryk's glare returned to the boy, who could see the Admiral now had a clenched fist. Make that two clenched fists. However, he did not swing this time...

The Admiral simply took several steps forward, until his chest was an inch in front of Kevin's eye level. If Kevin stepped back, the Admiral stepped forward. He simply looked down at Kevin's hair, more or less exhaling straight on his head.

"You think Woodians are crazy, do you not? I don't see the Coredian engineers doing any calculations about, oh, where we might be...is that because they expect a computer to do the calculations for them? Oh that's right...we need the power that would run those computers to run life support. God forbid if a Coredian ship ever gets hit by an ion cannon...no wonder you can't fight a space battle worth a damn!"

Some of the Woodian crewmembers on the bridge cheered. A couple of female engineers laughed at the plight of the young Jedi. "The Admiral is owning some arrogant street kid...always gotta love it when some forcebirth gets put in his place, quiaff?"

"Aff," the other answered, nodding...

"You wonder if manual engine burns are crazy. Let me tell you something, imbecile. My knowledge of something that happened in April 1970 saved your f*cking life. I speak of the Apollo 13 mission, where the crew lost all electrical power except for 2181 ampere hours. Not much, is it? Lucky for them, combustible rockets don't require a whole lot of electricity. Lucky for them, neither did their vector thrusters. Did I mention that they also had to use a variant of a sextant to help them get their bearings after they slingshot around the moon? They didn't have enough power to run their navcomputer, either. And you Coredians second-guessed our decision to use what are basically 1960's-era vector thrusters on this ship. Well, considering that had they been reliant on functional reactors, we would all be hopelessly adrift and about to die, I don't hear too many complaints. Yet you probably have no f*cking clue what I'm talking about, do you?" The Admiral sneered.

"You could put me in the command module atop of a Saturn V rocket, and I would know how to handle liftoff, how to separate the CSM from the lunar module, and recapture it. I would then be able to get to the moon and back. And yes, I did have to pass an Apollo 13 Trial before I was allowed to captain a capital ship. You Coredians, right up to Daniel Masaki, see no damn point in that. But that is how your lucky ass gets to go home. You Coredians better shape up and learn how to deal with no electrical power; otherwise any reasonably competent Empire would wipe you out with only ion cannon."

His glare grew more intense. He shot it at the Coredian engineers on deck before returning it to the Jedi. "I am giving all Coredians aboard this ship a choice," he stated curtly. "Pass Woodian standards of training, or fight a Trial of Refusal against me." He stared at Kevin Bailey so intensely that he might have headbutted him had he so much as twitched. "No lightsabers."

An older Jedi would have relented. However, Kevin Bailey had just turned twenty standard years old. He completed his trials, but he has yet to achieve the level of patience of the Masters. The Admiral had called him out on the carpet and a young man's wounded pride was at stake.

Without a word, his lightsaber was off his belt and on the table, and his cloak was off his shoulders. "Very well, I refuse."

The Coredian engineers were shocked as they saw their Jedi rep take up the challenge. They were smart enough to decide to take the training session. One of the older ones shook his head. "Poor kid, I knew him well."

Oh, yes, the Jedi was nervous at fighting an Admiral a head taller than himself, but being considered incompetent was a slight on his honor. "You consider us Coredians soft. I will have to disagree. Let this Trial decide whether your words speak true."

"Very well." The Admiral knew the kid was probably way over his head. Jedi were way too dependent on lightsabers. Therefore Woodian training methodology relied upon training on that which you were not dependent upon. "No need for spray paint, Lieutenant. The Circle of Equals is defined as this bridge." He glared at the young impetuous Jedi. "To win, you need to do one of several things: Kill me, beat me until I submit, or force me off this bridge. If you knock me out, the last option won't be a problem, because you can drag me to the exit and throw me out. I hope you know what you're getting into."

The Admiral grinned sardonically. "Lieutenant Dunn, please moderate this Trial."

"Aff," came the Lieutenant's reply. "Begin."

A Jedi may have the lightsaber as his primary tool of combat, but that was not all the Jedi Knight was capable of in combat.

Knight Bailey accepted the Admiral's terms with a nod. Killing the Admiral is out of the question, but perhaps beating him to the ground or even simply throwing him out of the bridge will suffice.

In an instant, the young Jedi moved from relaxed to lashing out for the Admiral's head with a powerful whiplike snap of his foot.

If the impetuous Jedi thought that a Trial of Refusal was a simple matter of kicking his opponent in the head, he was solely mistaken. As quickly as his foot went up, the Admiral grabbed it, pulled it in toward his chest to yank Kevin a bit off balance, then snapped it as hard as he could...

The Jedi twisted to avoid the snap, bringing up his other foot to connect hard against the Admiral.

The Admiral dropped into a squat to avoid the second foot, letting it pass about an inch over his head, before springing back up to deal a powerful uppercut to his opponent's jaw.

The Jedi no doubt thought his reflexes superior due to the Force, yet remained ignorant of the Admiral's two decades of hard experience in these same kind of Trials, including some periods of time when such Trials numbered several per day...

A rising block deflected the uppercut from his chin and the Jedi summoned the Force, letting lose a powerful shove that hit the Admiral in the chest.

The Admiral was not Force-sensitive enough for Jedi training, but that did not mean he was helpless before the kid's Force-powers, either.

He let the Force-punch hit him, even exaggerating its effects deliberately, allowing him to stagger back in what was partially mock recoil.

He let Kevin advance towards him, continuing to stagger as if he could not regain his footing from the shove. But as quickly as the cursed forcebirth had administered the Force-blow, the Admiral vaulted around a support pole, using his arms to swing his entire body around the axis of the pole. Blocking a punch was one thing...blocking the Admiral's entire body was something completely different, as one of the Admiral's legs swung around for the head and one swung for the stomach, all before the various observers could even blink.

It takes a lot to surprise a Jedi, but being young and foolish, the Admiral's unorthodoxy took him by storm. The boy slammed into the ground and the wind was knocked out of him.

It was time to finish this...

Finish it the Admiral did. He wasn't one to let an opponent get back up. Much to the cheers of the Woodian spectators, Admiral Makaryk wasted no time in getting off the pole, plunging his knee into Kevin's exposed abdomen to keep him from getting up, and delivering a punch to the head that Kevin was probably too stunned to do much about...

And it was over. The punch knocked Kevin right out, leaving him with a broken and bleeding nose. His humiliation was complete. Now he will serve along with the other Coredians as if they were Woodians.

Years later, when the Knight becomes a Master, Kevin will acknowledge the training has done much to humble him and to better the country as a whole. But for now, he needs to recover, and the Coredian government needs to be notified.

"Kill him! Kill him! He defied you!" The cheers of various Woodian personnel eager for the young defiant kid to get what was coming to him filled the bridge.

Lieutenant Dunn inadvertently added to the raucous cheers when he ordered, "The match is not yet completed. In order for the Trial to conclude, Kevin Bailey must either be killed or expelled from the Circle of Equals."

"The forcebirth spawn is not worth the trouble of explaining a death to the Coredian Government," Admiral Makaryk replied, to much laughter amongst the Woodians. He dragged Kevin's limp body by the wrist to the exit, opened the door manually, then flung him out of the Circle of Equals, off the bridge, so hard that his wrist made a loud snap before his head hit the wall.

"Admiral Michael C. Makaryk wins!" Are there any now who wish to refuse him?" Lieutenant Dunn's voice pronounced the match over, to the cheers of the Woodians on deck...and while the Coredians might grumble about rough treatment, at least the Admiral had let the kid live. Potential diplomatic incidents notwithstanding, it wasn't like he was obligated to.

Before dismissing the bridge crew for a shift rotation (getting home would take almost four standard days, after all), the Admiral took the first step in letting the Coredian Government know of this occurrence, and it was an ominous one. Though the ship's communications systems were down, the Admiral could still begin a codex, or warrior's record, for the young Kevin Bailey.

He brought a battery-powered datapad over to his body, injured but not irreparably so, and rifled through his pockets for identification. After he found the information he needed to document the Jedi, he...documented him.

KEVIN BAILEY WAS ASKED BY ADMIRAL MAKARYK WHY COREDIANS
WERE NOT PROPERLY TRAINED TO OPERATE A SHIP CLASS
DELIVERABLE TO THEIR OWN NAVY UNDER CONTINGENCY CONDITIONS.
KEVIN BAILEY REPLIED, QUOTE, "OF COURSE WE TRAIN OUR CREW
TO OPERATE THIS SHIP. I REGRET TO ADMIT THAT IT MAY NOT BE TO
YOUR STANDARDS, BUT TO OURS." ADMIRAL MAKARYK THEN
STRUCK KEVIN FOR INSUBORDINATION, INTONING, "I WANT ANSWERS,
NOT EXCUSES." THE BOY PROTESTED ABSENT PERMISSION TO
SPEAK. ADMIRAL MAKARYK THEN PROCEEDED TO EXPLAIN THE
NECESSITY OF SUCH TRAINING, THEN, USING AUTHORITY AS SHIP'S
CAPTAIN, ORDERED ALL COREDIANS ON THE SHIP TO EITHER GO THROUGH
PROPER WOODIAN TRAINING METHODS OR FIGHT A TRIAL OF
REFUSAL AGAINST HIM. ALL COREDIANS EXCEPT KEVIN BAILEY ACCEPTED
THE TRAINING. KEVIN BAILEY THEN SAID, QUOTE, "YOU
CONSIDER US COREDIANS SOFT. I WILL HAVE TO DISAGREE. LET THIS
TRIAL DECIDE WHETHER YOUR WORDS SPEAK TRUE." ADMIRAL
MAKARYK DEFEATED HIM IN THE RESULTING TRIAL OF REFUSAL,
MODERATED BY LIEUTENANT DEREK DUNN, AND THEREFORE KEVIN BAILEY
IS ORDERED TO REPORT TO TRAINING AS DIRECTED BY WOODIAN
MILITARY AUTHORITY.

To magnify the boy's shame, he read the entry to the bridge, much to the delight of the Woodian crew present. It was only then that the unconscious boy received first aid, but he would be all right unless he pissed off a Woodian again...

The older engineer who spoke shook his head once more. "I hope this lesson is one well learned."

The others nodded, agreeing. They took bets on whether further humiliation for the young Jedi would be necessary.

Meanwhile, Kevin Bailey was taken to the infirmary and took his time healing. When he woke, he will be quite humiliated indeed.

Admiral Makaryk's response to the engineers' mumbling was, as usual, blunt. "Twelve hours' rest. The incoming shift will take care of things. When we return..." he glared at the Coredian engineers... "we crunch the numbers to get us home. It'll take upwards of ten hours, so be prepared."

The Admiral then glared at the newcomers that were supposed to relieve him. "If anything unusual happens, wake me up, and if I find that you failed to report, you do not want to find out what will happen to you. For the record, I just defeated the Jedi in his Trial of Refusal, so such challenges are...ill-advised."

He, along with the rest of his shift, went to get some rest. At least what rest could be had when the temperature on board the ship had by now dropped to just above freezing. Not that they would mind, of course.

Twelve hours later, the engineers returned with paper, pens and pocket calculators, ready to crunch the numbers, although a few seemed to lack sleep.

Meanwhile, the young Jedi awoke, feeling the heat of humiliation when he realized that his nose and his wrist were broken, courtesy of losing the duel. He groaned as this meant that he will now be under the Admiral's command as if the man was a Master, at least until the High Council decided his fate when they returned to the docks.

Twelve hours later, the engineers returned with paper, pens and pocket calculators, ready to crunch the numbers, although a few seemed to lack sleep.

Admiral Makaryk, too, returned to the bridge, rested but grumpy at Coredians in general due to the insolence that their alleged leader had displayed earlier.

"No calculators!" he grumbled, before he started the next half hour or so teaching them how to use a sextant in space. Not only did it yield valuable position data, but velocity could be derived from its use at carefully timed intervals by the kind of math they should've learned in high school--trigonometry, followed by dividing by time spent between the measurements. They'd have to learn how to write it out all over again, it seemed.

Meanwhile, the young Jedi awoke, feeling the heat of humiliation when he realized that his nose and his wrist were broken, courtesy of losing the duel. He groaned as this meant that he will now be under the Admiral's command as if the man was a Master, at least until the High Council decided his fate when they returned to the docks.

He awoke in a dark room, lit only by a battery-powered lamp, his wrist in a cast. If he looked to his right, he would find a glass of water on a table next to his bed. No one seemed to be in the room, until a nurse wielding a syringe came in, glaring at him as if he did not deserve even this small comfort.

"Shut up," she said pre-emptively, with a tone of voice almost as cold as the Admiral's, before the disgraced Jedi could so much as say hello. "This is a painkiller to deal with any residual effects of the Trial until the ship docks. There is not enough power on the ship to run the sickbay fully, so further treatment will have to wait. Any complaints, drop them in the suggestion box." She pointed abruptly.

The nurse gave him the shot, then left again without saying another word.

Admiral Makaryk, too, returned to the bridge, rested but grumpy at Coredians in general due to the insolence that their alleged leader had displayed earlier.

"No calculators!" he grumbled, before he started the next half hour or so teaching them how to use a sextant in space. Not only did it yield valuable position data, but velocity could be derived from its use at carefully timed intervals by the kind of math they should've learned in high school--trigonometry, followed by dividing by time spent between the measurements. They'd have to learn how to write it out all over again, it seemed.
It has been quite some time -since University, in fact- since the technicians had to write out the equations and they were rather rusty without the high-tech equipment they were used to, and especially without calculators to check their work. Plus the fact that the sextant was almost never used in this day and age meant that the techies had to take a leaf out of the Jedi book and unlearn the knowledge acquired with their degrees.

This was so troublesome, indeed!


He awoke in a dark room, lit only by a battery-powered lamp, his wrist in a cast. If he looked to his right, he would find a glass of water on a table next to his bed. No one seemed to be in the room, until a nurse wielding a syringe came in, glaring at him as if he did not deserve even this small comfort.

"Shut up," she said pre-emptively, with a tone of voice almost as cold as the Admiral's, before the disgraced Jedi could so much as say hello. "This is a painkiller to deal with any residual effects of the Trial until the ship docks. There is not enough power on the ship to run the sickbay fully, so further treatment will have to wait. Any complaints, drop them in the suggestion box." She pointed abruptly.

The nurse gave him the shot, then left again without saying another word.
Geez, who lit a fire under her ass? The young Jedi thought uncharacteristicly. He's not normally sarcastic, but being defeated so thoroughly can certainly change a man. He wondered if he should wait for the ride to end or just get up and go.

It has been quite some time -since University, in fact- since the technicians had to write out the equations and they were rather rusty without the high-tech equipment they were used to, and especially without calculators to check their work. Plus the fact that the sextant was almost never used in this day and age meant that the techies had to take a leaf out of the Jedi book and unlearn the knowledge acquired with their degrees.

This was so troublesome, indeed!

Woodian engineers found themselves bemused by the seemingly endless cries of "Check my math" and repeatedly verified Coredian uncertainty for hours on end. What they could've done in nine or ten hours took almost a full standard day to do with the rusty Coredian engineers forced to do it, but finally, with two and a half days to go before dropping into White Diamond orbit, they figured out a proper plan for orbital insertion. Maybe now they wouldn't take computers for granted.

Another side benefit: it'd make their required navigation training that much easier.

Geez, who lit a fire under her ass? The young Jedi thought uncharacteristicly. He's not normally sarcastic, but being defeated so thoroughly can certainly change a man. He wondered if he should wait for the ride to end or just get up and go.

Perhaps the absence of anyone would serve as a hint. No one further came for him, almost like the entire ship had forgotten he had existed. However, it was more a case of no one wanting to have anything to do with him, except for possibly the Coredians, who happened to be otherwise occupied...

Woodian engineers found themselves bemused by the seemingly endless cries of "Check my math" and repeatedly verified Coredian uncertainty for hours on end. What they could've done in nine or ten hours took almost a full standard day to do with the rusty Coredian engineers forced to do it, but finally, with two and a half days to go before dropping into White Diamond orbit, they figured out a proper plan for orbital insertion. Maybe now they wouldn't take computers for granted.

Another side benefit: it'd make their required navigation training that much easier.
Many a Coredian engineer sighed in great relief now that they have managed to properly insert the Star Destroyer into orbit without the use of a computer. It required a lot of scratching out, a hell of a lot of recalculations and there were several mistakes made that could have ended badly if the buddy system hadn't come into play.

The engineers had a lot to learn, indeed.


Perhaps the absence of anyone would serve as a hint. No one further came for him, almost like the entire ship had forgotten he had existed. However, it was more a case of no one wanting to have anything to do with him, except for possibly the Coredians, who happened to be otherwise occupied...
Kevin sighed, bored with staring at the ceiling for hours. The painkiller made him drowsy and it's not like it would change for a while. So, he calmed his breathing and began to enter a healing trance. Hopefully the trance will make the time pass long enough the ship to return to orbit.

Eighty-four hours later
Six and a half hours before arrival

Just over six hours were projected until the crippled vessel managed to round the planet and dock in the White Diamond Drive Yards on the day side, and the blue-white-and-green crescent, complete with her equatorial rings, was finally starting to get big in the bridge window. Admiral Makaryk planned on using the rings as a rough reference, for the shipyards were located above that line drawn across the planet known as "fourteen degrees, thirty minutes north latitude." In other words, the craft would more or less orbit above the outer edge of the rings, something he had informed the Coredians about a day ago.

No one paid the disgraced Jedi any attention at all. Sure, occasionally the Admiral ordered someone to bring him food and water, but inevitably, that someone simply dropped an emergency ration bar and a bottle of water outside his door and left without looking at him less than a second after dropping it off. The boy had much to think about, and, unfortunately, the fact that the first act recorded in his codex was a failed Trial of Refusal meant that the training he had to go through, or at least its initial stages, wouldn't be much easier.

Meanwhile, Woodian crewmembers had managed to scrape together enough dehumidification apparatus to prevent condensation from forming on instrument panels, despite the fact that the temperature inside the Star Destroyer had fallen to around forty degrees Fahrenheit. Had this happened in deep space, the atmospheric extremes would've been much worse.

Admiral Makaryk, meanwhile checked some more calculations, and informed the crew that the ship could spare enough power for a reverse-thrust burn in four and a half hours, to slow the ship down so it could dock in the shipyards. The Woodians on the bridge smiled at the thought of the Coredians suffering through getting thrown about once more. Of course, the crew kept Kevin Bailey out of the loop...

By the time the Woodians took the ship back into orbit, the young Jedi ended his healing trance and was able to get back up on his feet. Feeling hungry, he took the ration bars and the water and had himself a nice snack before heading out. His wrist was feeling better, though he knew it would be sore for a while.

The first thing he noticed was that the Woodians were either looking at him like he was a Redeemed (a fallen Jedi who returned to the Light) or didn't even exist. It made him shudder to feel such cold glares. Was he not humiliated enough after all the Admiral had put him through? It seems that somehow, according to the Woodians, it was not enough.

Upon reaching the bridge, he announced himself dejectedly with a bow. "Jedi Knight Kevin Bailey, reporting for duty."

His bow was ignored. The crew, including the Admiral himself, had more important things to worry about. Like the reverse-thrust burn, considering that White Diamond by now practically swallowed the entire port side of the bridge viewport. Of course, it seemed like Kevin Bailey was the only one on board who hadn't been told about it.

The words, "We are go for manual burn on mark" in the background somehow would manage to pierce his shame, or at least they better have, for his sake. The ominous line was quickly followed by something more ominous: "Mark."

The engines ignited all right, burning most of the power that the ship had left at this point, save for three hours to run herself in the same conditions that she had been running herself in for the last four days. Once again, Admiral Makaryk carefully steered the vessel using nothing more than a joystick, and once again, he found it much easier to turn to starboard than to port. However, the second burn was far less...severe...as the engines only vibrated at ten percent thrust; the downside meant that such burn would be longer.

At no point did anyone speak to the boy, or even look at him. Despite (or perhaps because of the exigencies thereof) the burn, the prohibition on him speaking seemed palpable. Especially to a forcebirth stuck with the ability to read the collective mood of a room.

As the planet's gravity well ensnared the ship and bent her path into an orbit, the night side of the planet seemed to fall away. At this point, several systematic flashes of lights emanated from above the planet; the Admiral and most of the Woodians discerned their origin as coming from the White Diamond Drive Yards itself. It seemed as though space control had figured out that all of their communications had been knocked out, and figured out the prototype's remaining capabilities by deep-scanning her. Now, space control was using Morse code to signal which dock to use.

A few pfft-pffts were the only sound heard on the bridge for a few minutes as Admiral Makaryk gracefully let the Immortal drift to where she should be. The crew watched as the massive orbital shipyard a few thousand kilometers ahead of them seemed to burn some engines of its own. Only a few knew why: to adjust its orbit to account for the inbound ship, rather than using tractor beams to bring it in from here. If a ship's captain brought in a disabled vessel under her own power, it was considered far less of a failure in Woodian culture than if the craft had to be towed one way or another...but the Coredians conveniently didn't know that. Nor did the Woodians wish to mention it in front of the disgraced Jedi.

Finally, someone broke the silence by casting one of the dreaded glares at Kevin Bailey. "Admiral Makaryk should have killed the forcebirth when he had the chance," snared an icy female warrior's voice.

"Silence!" the Admiral demanded of the detractor, perhaps allowing the boy a tiny degree of reassurance in the process. He then quickly returned to guiding the ship as it continued to coast to the shipyards.

The last half hour seemed like an eternity, as the computer-display-sized structure enlarged into a sprawling facility with about thirty times the volume of an Eclipse. Individual docks came into view, and suddenly, a line of blue buoys flashed. A few more taps to the joystick lined the behemoth craft up perfectly for final approach. No one dared speak. The Admiral fired the engines in reverse again, leaving the ship with a mere fifty minutes of power left.

Finally, as the facility seemed to engulf and surround the ship, tractor beams subtly nudged the ship, adjusting its course by a matter of inches. The electrical current they enjoyed the use of was not even enough to slow the ship down. "We have capture," the Admiral said in a crisp voice.

Suddenly the vessel seemed to abruptly stop, though relative to the shipyard it had only been traveling about ten kilometers an hour in the seconds before. Scaffolding descended and several clamping sounds reverberated throughout the mammoth vessel. "And we have harddock," Admiral Makaryk added, as the lights on half the ship came back on.

Kevin was taken aback at the woman who spoke such harsh words as the reverse-burn took place. Such sentiment! I can understand if the Admiral's a popular man, but to wish my death? I don't understand how they could do so! A strange and unsettling culture, the Woodians have.

The Coredian engineers sighed in collective relief when the ship finally docked. Now they will be able to look over the problems and help the Woodians solve it...and begin their training. For Kevin, however, his troubles have only just begun.

"Kevin, come with me," Admiral Makaryk demanded. "We shall now discuss your fate with your government, independent of the prejudices of the rest of the crew." The Admiral glared at the woman who had publicly wished for the boy's death, though he knew that a substantial minority of the crew felt the same way...

Kevin nodded. "If I may, Admiral? I understand that I lost and I must pay the price, but I don't understand the emotions of your crew. Elation, I understand. I-got-what-was-coming, I understand, but not hatred. What is the reasoning for that?"

Now that his private quarters had power again, he slid a small canister into a data reader. It also had a radio transmitter, which would seem archaic to the Jedi...the distance from White Diamond would have made its use impractical even if it had had power earlier. Now, it could be used to bounce a signal off the shipyard's own comm facilities to transmit Kevin's codex, his record of everything he had done while under the care of the Woodians (not much so far, and what was on there wasn't good), to the Jedi Council. He allowed Kevin to read it before transmitting, along with a request to have a little chat with his superiors.

He then turned to answer Kevin's question. Without smacking him this time.

"A Trial of Refusal is not something to be taken as lightly as you did. Normally one is fought only when a subordinate believes that an order is illegal or unethical, or to contest the verdict in a courts-martial. The choice between nav school or fighting was neither. If a warrior fights frivolous Trials of Refusal, it becomes a taint to his honor, even if he repeatedly wins them. In the most extreme cases, officers themselves will fight Trials of Refusal to contest being assigned to command such a warrior. I will leave you to imagine where the Woodian military would be if everyone fought Trials of Refusal over everything."

"Unfortunately, they are sometimes required. The entire Woodian Jedi Bloc fought Darth Ebolus in a Trial of Refusal, though unfortunately the Sith fragmented them such that they could not defeat him. Those Jedi found death more honorable than obeying him, but they received enslavement instead. Even though they lost their Trials...they were untrained Force-sensitives at the hands of a Sith Lord after all...the tapes that emerged after the civil war ended of those Trials largely exonerated them from the shame that they could have endured. Even their direct victims recognized that they fought against what Ebolus turned them into."

"The hatred that you experienced occurred because you trivialized what is, to us, a near-sacred rite. You fought a Trial against an order that none would have questioned. To be honest, *I* did not think you would select that option, especially as you were sent as a diplomatic attachment to your crew, more or less. If the Coredian engineers weren't properly trained to begin with, I don't think you received the necessary, er, cultural training to deal with us either. Tell me, what did you know of Trials--of Refusal, of Position, of Grievance, of Possession, et cetera, before you stepped on this ship?"

Kevin was surprised at the sudden change over the Admiral. Far more cordial than before. Then again, perhaps he isn't meant to be so on the bridge of a Woodian starship. The young Jedi's cheeks colored red in embarrasment as the scope of what he had done sank in. "I didn't recieve much information on the Trials, just an overview of Woodian culture. It seems that I was sorely mistaken of the use of the Trial and the slight that we Coredians were considered soft and incompetent...I was foolish and I know now that it was a fight that was not necessary."

A voice rippled from the transmitter. "It is good that you recognize your error, young Jedi, for it would be far worse for our relations if you didn't."

"Master Elendil." Kevin bowed in respect.

"Young Bailey." The Elven Master nodded his head in reply. "I take it you have learned a necessary, if painful, lesson, have you not?"

"Yes, Master." Kevin's cheeks remained red.

"Very well. Much as I would like to recall you now and send forth a more experienced diplomat, I don't think that would be a good idea on short notice. Therefore, you will remain with the Woodians and learn the intricacies of Woodian culture so that such a travesty does not occur again. Is that understood?"

Much as he feared the result of his order, he replied. "Understood, Master."

"Will there be anything else, Admiral?" Master Elendil asked cordially.

"Master Elendil, may I ask you a few questions?" Admiral Makaryk gave the Jedi Council Member a bow. "We had certain...technical problems which revealed issues other than those in Kevin Bailey's codex."

"Ask away, then." The Jedi Master replied.

"It appears that your government partook in the development of the Immortal-II and will eventually take delivery of them...yet you do not train your crews in how to operate them?" the Admiral asked bluntly. "The difference in training was the difference between everyone on this ship getting home and everyone on this ship dying. The Coredians had some clue of how to start the ship's reactors, but not the slightest clue of how to dump their 'last gasp' output into the mainline capacitor and shut them down at the same time. That is a difference of about two days' power. To be more blunt, that was the difference between having enough O2 to make it to the shipyard and having the atmosphere swamped with toxic CO2 levels thirty hours short. Fortunately for your crew, we know how to make CO2 filters by hand...but only the life support could have generated enough oxygen to keep us alive."

"Worse, you are soft and complacent about spaceflight. Jacob Whitfield can tell you all about the cancellation of the USA's space shuttle program, for he was a little over ten years old at the time. Our older generations remember a time when what went up, did not necessarily come back down. As such, we have an understanding, which apparently Coredians are too complacent to have, that shit happens, and it is not always in battle. And it is my understanding that what happened here was, in fact very similar to something else that Master Whitfield can tell you about. Apollo 13."

"It appears that your government partook in the development of the Immortal-II and will eventually take delivery of them...yet you do not train your crews in how to operate them?" the Admiral asked bluntly. "The difference in training was the difference between everyone on this ship getting home and everyone on this ship dying. The Coredians had some clue of how to start the ship's reactor, but not the slightest clue of how to dump their 'last gasp' output into the mainline capacitor and shut them down at the same time. That is a difference of about two days' power. To be more blunt, that was the difference between having enough O2 to make it to the shipyard and having the atmosphere swamped with toxic CO2 levels thirty hours short. Fortunately for your crew, we know how to make CO2 filters by hand...but only the life support could have generated enough oxygen to keep us alive."

"Worse, you are soft and complacent about spaceflight. Jacob Whitfield can tell you all about the cancellation of the USA's space shuttle program, for he was a little over ten years old at the time. Our older generations remember a time when what went up, did not necessarily come back down. As such, we have an understanding, which apparently Coredians are too complacent to have, that shit happens, and it is not always in battle. And it is my understanding that what happened here was, in fact very similar to something else that Master Whitfield can tell you about. Apollo 13."
Master Elendil frowned at the accusations. "This scenario you have gone through...you will have to tell me of this from the beginning, for I do not quite understand your complaints."

"When we tested the overchargeable PPC, it misfired, causing something like an artificial solar flare," the Admiral explained. "It also backflowed into the ship, meaning two fried reactors, a third that was unsafe to operate, and half of the ship getting fried. We had to run the ship off of a single large capacitor--including the burn we executed to get some thrust to get where we are. No power was available for niceties such as nav systems. Your crew had little, if any, idea how to operate in such conditions."

"When we tested the overchargeable PPC, it misfired, causing something like an artificial solar flare," the Admiral explained. "It also backflowed into the ship, meaning two fried reactors, a third that was unsafe to operate, and half of the ship getting fried. We had to run the ship off of a single large capacitor--including the burn we executed to get some thrust to get where we are. No power was available for niceties such as nav systems. Your crew had little, if any, idea how to operate in such conditions."
"I see." Master Elendil nodded. "If I recall correctly, the few cases that we've had a situation like this, it was in battle. It's not that we don't know how to operate in no-power environments, it's just that as far as I am aware, we've never experienced a particular case like yours outside of battle. The particulars of ship training, however, is not my area of expertise. You will have to speak with our Admirals if you want a fuller explanation. I will say this, however. Your methods and our methods of training aboard ships appear to be quite different. What one nation may consider 'soft' another may consider adequate and in our case, the training we give our crew is nothing to sneeze at, athough again, I am not the right person to speak about it. We have not had the level of rapid advancement that you seem to have gone through for many millenia and the reliability of our ships has rarely been in question. There was no reason -until now, it seems- that we would need the kind of training you have acquired from your...'Apollo 13' craft, was it? In any case, I shall hear the story from Master Whitfield. It certainly sounds interesting."

"And if I recall correctly, there was a little thing called the Outbound Flight Project in your neck of the woods whereby an entire fleet managed to get lost in deep space outside of battle," the Admiral snapped back. "Your crews would have been up Shit Creek without a paddle had they been in that situation, because they appear to not have a clue how to orient themselves without a computer to do it for them. Apollo 13, by the way, was not a craft, but a mission, executed by another nation more than a hundred years ago that went awry. An interesting little tidbit of such mission is that its vector thrusters functioned while the ship had to run for several days on only around 2200 ampere-hours...therefore, we drew from that ill-fated spacecraft for the Immortal-II. Good thing we did, otherwise this ship would've only been able to turn in a single direction."

Suddenly, a blue light went off along with a little beep. "Hmm...must be the engineers. Please hold, Master Elendil." The Admiral switched to the engineers, but left Master Elendil to watch, effectively making it a three-way conversation. Four ways, if Kevin Bailey was counted.

"Admiral Makaryk, we have located the source of the misfire," one of the engineers said, matter-of-factly. "A power coil overloaded, and caused the entire weapon to misfire. A higher-capacity coil would have avoided the problem."

Admiral Makaryk's eyes widened, but he held his cool. Turning his attention to the Jedi Council Member, he added, "I would rather find that out now than in battle. There are certain additional risks inherent in prototyping."

"And if I recall correctly, there was a little thing called the Outbound Flight Project in your neck of the woods whereby an entire fleet managed to get lost in deep space outside of battle," the Admiral snapped back. "Your crews would have been up Shit Creek without a paddle had they been in that situation, because they appear to not have a clue how to orient themselves without a computer to do it for them. Apollo 13, by the way, was not a craft, but a mission, executed by another nation more than a hundred years ago that went awry. An interesting little tidbit of such mission is that its vector thrusters functioned while the ship had to run for several days on only around 2200 ampere-hours...therefore, we drew from that ill-fated spacecraft for the Immortal-II. Good thing we did, otherwise this ship would've only been able to turn in a single direction."
"I'm afraid I have to admit that the Admiral here has a point, Master. The navicomputer was knocked offline and before the duel, I noted the engineers seemed a little lost. Not everyone has initutive navigation skill, you know." The Jedi Knight said modestly.

The Jedi Master looked from the Admiral, to his subordinate, and back to the Admiral, then sighed as he realized that they have good points. "I will have a talk with Admiral Pellaeon about this matter. It is perhaps more serious than we realized."

Suddenly, a blue light went off along with a little beep. "Hmm...must be the engineers. Please hold, Master Elendil." The Admiral switched to the engineers, but left Master Elendil to watch, effectively making it a three-way conversation. Four ways, if Kevin Bailey was counted.

"Admiral Makaryk, we have located the source of the misfire," one of the engineers said, matter-of-factly. "A power coil overloaded, and caused the entire weapon to misfire. A higher-capacity coil would have avoided the problem."

Admiral Makaryk's eyes widened, but he held his cool. Turning his attention to the Jedi Council Member, he added, "I would rather find that out now than in battle. There are certain additional risks inherent in prototyping."
"Yes, indeed. Your points are clearly made." The Jedi Council member nodded. He didn't show it, being an Elf, but he was rather chagrined by Admiral Makaryk's good points, and the fact that the proof that it could have been much worse was right before him. "I will put this matter on the next Council meeting. For now, will there be anything else?"

Admiral Makaryk had wanted to ask Elendil why the Coredians hadn't sent someone more experienced in the first place for a delegation, but did not wish to start another 'discussion,' much less embarrass the boy even more in front of a Jedi Council member. He had served his time in purgatory. However, being a Woodian, he could not allow the question to go completely unasked...

"Kevin Bailey here said that he knew practically nothing of our various Trials when he came here. Even the most elementary of primers could have informed him that if there is one Trial that is not to be frivolously undertaken, it is that of Refusal. Between the civil war, the service of Council Member Whitfield, interaction with several other Jedi, and the experiences of the Masakis themselves, at least some elementary knowledge of their importance to us should have diffused into the Order by now. Why did he not receive the proper training for the task he was sent to do?"

"My fault, actually. I read up on your culture, but skimmed over the Trials. Didn't think I was going to actually get into a Trial." Kevin admitted.

"Well, if that be the case, I have nothing further for you, Master Elendil," the Admiral replied. He turned to glare at the boy. "I do hope you are not planning on being so negligent in your studies at nav school."

Like an initiate, the young Jedi shook his head enthusiastically. "Oh, no sir! After today, I'll never neglect my homework again!"

A faint smile appeared on Master Elendil's face. "See that your words stand, Knight Bailey. Admiral, Jedi Bailey, may the Force be with you."

The screen then went blank, leaving the young Jedi in the tender loving care of Admiral Michael C. Makaryk.

Tender loving care indeed. Finally, the boy could receive proper treatment for his injuries. A quick notice to the crew, from the Admiral, that the boy had initiated surkai worked wonders for the treatment he received from the rest of the crew (technically he hadn't yet performed the proper rituals, but he *had* asked for forgiveness, and the crew didn't need to know the details). While no one especially wanted to be social with him, the crew at least treated him like he was human again.

An hour later, Admiral Makaryk had the boy in the medical bay of the massive shipyard itself, where the boy could finally receive treatment other than injections of painkillers from rude nurses. It was here that he received his first true meal since the Trial of Refusal, too, consisting of Polish barszcz (beetroot soup), followed by kaczka z jabłkami (roast duck with apples). The apples came sliced to make them easier to eat, considering that the boy had been kicked in the head during the Trial of Refusal. He also managed to have his broken wrist set (finally!), and get a liquid nanocarbon injection to fill in the cracks in the bone. Luckily for the twenty-year-old kid, he only had to wear a cast for about an hour before the liquid-bone injection itself set.

As he was discharged from the medical bay, the nurse simply warned him not to mess with the Admiral again, as if he hadn't received that warning already.

The bone injection worked wonders for the young Jedi's wrist and in no time at all, his cast was on and off. Even he had to admit that it was a lot better than bacta, which heals bones in about a day or longer, depending on quality. Now that he was healed and fed, it was time to begin his training in Nav school...