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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2819572" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 315: Streak of LuckJyren finished his swearing just as the transport reverted back to realspace. The jump had only lasted a few half seconds...if that. Just a micro-jump to escape. That was a good sign. But then Jyren noticed something that was definitely a bad sign.    There was no response to his swear...and it had not only been a rather forceful, crude use of Corellian slang, but it had been loud enough to be easily heard throughout the freighters mid-sized bridge. No one even turned to look his direction. No one...    No one was even on the bridge! Jyren’s eyes finished the scan just after the Force had delivered that information to him. Immediately, he ran over to one of the empty pilot’s consoles and hopped into the seat to check what was going on. He’d at least expect a droid crew! In fact, he’d been ready for a serious fight to even get to the bridge in the first place. But this...a quick look over the binary running across the console screen proved that the large freighter was actually slaved together with the others and being piloted from the Strike Cruiser. And, from the countdown off to his left on a chronometer, they were preparing for another jump.    It became immediately obvious to Jyren that he needed to get manual control back to the consoles on board the freighter’s bridge.    It also quickly reminded Jyren that he was not, in fact, a slicer. That meant his best bet at getting control back was breaking something. Physically breaking, not just randomly cutting wires or other technical tasks. To himself, and in a place where Shadow could easily pick it up in his thoughts, he cursed and wished that Shadow was here instead of him.    And from the look of the chronometer, he had roughly three minutes to figure this out on his own.    Another thought quickly jumped into his mind. Even if he did get control back before the jump, it would become quickly obvious that something was wrong to the very well armed Strike Cruiser that was well within weapon’s range. The second he got control, the ship would have to be jumping to another hyperspace destination to avoid any other...troubles.    Memories reminded him of the location of the navcomputer, and he slid the chair over in between the console for the navcomputer and where the main bulk of the slaved systems would hopefully be. Almost carefully, Jyren tested the console to see if he could do anything...and was able to access the galactic map and program in jump coordinates. Not that they would be loaded into the computer itself, but he could program them then quickly load them and jump after he dealt with the slaved systems.    Though he wasn’t the best with manually calculating jumps, the training he’d been given as a fighter pilot coupled with some basic help from the navcomputer allowed him to program in a five minute jump to a small, and empty, portion of space. He could then regroup and find a way of getting to Shadow...the one part of this whole plan they’d never actually worked out.    A minute and a half was left on the chronometer.    Jyren pushed his chair over to the main systems console and looked at the odd configuration that was caused by slaving its system to another ship. He knew the basics of how it worked. All of the main systems were connected to one console, and then a special comm frequency transmitted the information between the slaved ship and the main ship that was actually being piloted. It had never been a great way of flying ships, as the more that were slaved the more problems developed, but it worked when times were desperate and things simply needed to move. Unsurprisingly, this was one of those times for the New Republic.    So, Jyren figured the best way to get control back was to cut off the comm frequency being transmitted. And, again, he was not a slicer. This was exactly why, just a few moments later, there was a snap-hiss and a blue-green lightsaber blade thrummed loudly in the silent bridge. Jyren grimaced slightly, not actually liking this crude plan, but knowing he didn’t have much of a choice with less than a minute until the jump.    After a deep breath, he spun the blade around and then jammed it straight into the console. There was a crash of sparks and a few very loud hissing and popping sounds as Jyren moved the blade around before finally slashing it out of the side. More sparks(and some small flames) spewed out, too, and multiple alarms went off.    Trying to ignore them for the moment, Jyren thumbed off the lightsaber and ran over to the navcomputer again. Without looking, he hit the switch to input the coordinates then ran back to the main pilot’s console...which was now covered in a series of red lettering. However, it didn’t say anything to indicate the ship was about to explode on him. It did, though, say that the ship was cut off from the Strike Cruiser and that new coordinates were trying to be uploaded into the navcomputer...most importantly, it wanted an override code.    This time, Jyren’s eyes went wide.    And override. They hadn’t even thought about that! It was so obvious! Damn! Damn, damn, damn! Twenty seconds...and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the Strike Cruiser was both hailing him and acquiring a target lock on the freighter. They were definitely not playing around.    His eyes darted from the view outside the bridge of the rest of the small convoy then back to the console asking for the override code in the bright red text that never meant anything good.    Ten seconds.    He could just randomly put in a code of course...but there was no way that would ever work, and there was no time to respond to the hail and use the Force to coax it out of whoever it was that was going to yell at him on the other end. Panic was starting to rise in him and only got worse when there was a loud, constant beeping to indicate that the Strike Cruiser had locked onto the ship. They would remain in this position through the jump, and be able to reacquire the target within a matter of milliseconds on the other end.    Four seconds.    Jyren’s hand had started to shake...and old habit that he’d sworn he’d gotten rid of years ago. It had started long before he was in Starfighter Command, but had only gotten worse with the first few flights...and then after Mare had died...    Two seconds.    No! Focus!    Jyren didn’t focus. In fact, he gave up and just put in the first code that came to his head.    One second.    Outside the viewport, he watched as the other ships in front of him made the jump to hyperspace.    Zero.    Just as the Strike Cruiser made the jump from above the freighter, the ship began a quick change on its heading, turning sharply starboard...then jumped in a completely different direction from the rest of the convoy.    For a long five minutes, Jyren just stood there, hands tightly gripping the console in front of him and eyes locked on the endless blue of hyperspace. He knew he’d made it. He knew the coordinates would take him far away from where the rest of the convoy had gone. He knew that it had somehow worked.    What Jyren didn’t know, however, was when this long streak of luck was going to run out.</blockquote>

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