Mapping new hyperspace routes was a dangerous business.
The galaxy was filled with objects, even in the spaces between observable spaces. Rogue planets drifted between systems, unilluminated and invisible. Dead iron stars floated in the endless black, spheres that were aggregating interstellar material while waiting to become black holes. Anomalous gravity phenomenon secreted themselves in unchecked corners of creation, their own gravity wells preventing any sign of their existence from creeping out and being seen by navigational sensors.
But perhaps the worst part of mapping new hyperspace routes was the fact that... hardly anything ever happened.
Of all the myriad things that could go wrong, of all the horrors that infinite space could offer... things rarely went awry.
Space was big. Tremendously, awesomely big. So big, that you had a decent chance of drawing a perfectly safe straight line between any two points. Sometimes, it seemed that charting hyperspace lanes was a pointless exercise, because the infinite reaches of creation made it unlikely you'd have a mishap.
You could easily become inattentive.
Even lazy.
Boredom tempted you to stretch your jumps just a little further than you ought to, just to get it all over with.
And then, when the warm cloak of complacency seemed safe and comfortable... it happened. The Universe made you pay the price for your lack of attention.
This had just happened to Crasdon. And it had happened at the worst possible time, when his droid partner 'Fancy' was in her charging berth. There was no one to harangue him about being more careful. No one to put a second set of eyes on the sensors. No one to help him maneuver out of a dangerous scenario.
And then he'd jumped into a singularity cluster.
Crasdon was a good pilot. That's the only reason he didn't die horribly in the initial seconds.
He jerked. He juked. He hammered the stick this way and that way, dancing on gravitational waves with the ship's blazing thrusters. He forced the scout to move in ways its designers had never intended.
Then, as he came to a break between the tug of one singularity and the pull of another, he'd punched the hyperdrive into action again.
No navcomputer.
Just go. Somewhere.
Anywhere was better than here.
Then he'd been hurtling through hyparspace. His heart was racing. Suddenly, every minute he traveled within uncharted hyperspace felt incredibly hazardous. When he couldn't take it anymore, he dropped out again.
He had no idea where he was when the ship re-entered realspace. He only knew that he was about to die.
The ship was crossing the threshold of a planet's orbit, and it was going far too fast.
He flipped the scout, straining the inertial dampers and clenching his fists into a white-knuckled grip on the controls. Then he fired retro-thrust, slowing the descent of the craft for a minute before flipping again. His gaze danced across the landscape, identifying the first open patch he could find between surface features.
There! Next to that mountain!
He set the scout down, remarkably without so much as damaging the landing leg.
His hands were shaking as he stood up and locked the control console. Then he rushed to the back of the craft, barely checked the atmospheric indicator, and opened the airlock hatch. The ramp began to extend, and he didn't even wait for it to finish before he started clambering down to the surface of this unknown world.
He had neglected to put on his gloves, or strap on his blaster. He had neglected absolutely everything.
He'd felt the need to plant his feet on real ground, and to get real air in his lungs. He needed just a moment so that he'd be able to think...
Gradually, as he realized the improbability of his survival, he began to laugh. Fear transformed into euphoria. Now that he was no longer in danger, the moment became one of the greatest misadventures of his life. A story he'd tell countless people at bars. Something he'd share with his kids one d-
His train of thought was interrupted as his eyes took in the landscape. Before, he'd only seen it as a series of obstacles preventing a good landing. Now, he took it in with his mind fully engaged. Black, sulfurous, volcanic. But...
Out there. That mountain...
Something wasn't right about it.
"That's no mountain," he muttered to himself.
Crasdon retreated back into 'Whiskers' and got together his equipment. Put on an EVA suit. Boarded a jump-speeder and took off.
An hour later, he returned to the ship and stalked back to the bridge. By now, the navcomputer had crunched the numbers on this impromptu trip, and figured out where the ship had dropped out of hyperspace.
Crasdon activated his holocom, unwittingly using a code which wasn't too old... but was old enough to have been cracked by some of the Galactic Alliance's enemies.
"This is Captain Crasdon Kaine, calling Outlander Station. Outbound Flight Contractor ID 53216-B. I'm in the Rethosian system's third planet. To my knowledge, this planet has never been surveyed by the Galactic Alliance. Anyway, I've stumbled across something that's too big for me to survey alone. A massive structure, the size of a small mountain. It's man-made, and it's hollow. But most importantly, it's covered in runes. Ancient Sith runes. I can't read them, but this feels like something the Jedi need to be made aware of, right away.
I'll stay on site and secure it to the best of my ability until additional ships can be dispatched.
But... I've got a bad feeling about this. Don't wait too long..."
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