| SCS Reliant
| Defender-class Cruiser
Well, this was just
lovely.
The smell of burning plastic bit at his nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes even as the smoke lingering in the air made his labor to take a breath and not cough. Another hit on the port side was marked by the ship pitching wildly, prompting the boy to grab hold of the console he was standing to maintain his footing as suddenly it felt as though they were riding out a rogue wave in space.
The power grid was overloaded. A slew of sparks blew outward, dancing across the metal deck as arcs were grounded to the ship's frame. As soon as the inertial dampeners had kicked in to stabilize the ship's flight profile, the disheveled Pantoran hunched over the console and choked as he tried to breathe.
"That star destroyer's really starting to piss me off," the boy uttered finally.
In the finest Silver Jedi tradition, this whole endeavor had been rushed. Boo had still been on Commenor when the call had gone out for any available or experienced personnel to lend a hand with a mission to some
forget-me-not station in the Sepan-8 Sector. It was the standard raider scenario.
Talk about a tale as old as time.
The Concord had all of the Silver Sanctum Coalition and Silver Jedi records on him -- much to the failure of his many and varied efforts at purging those files. Old habits, and what not. But, Boo's former commission in the Levantine ExplorCorps and the fact that his Astronautical Academy midshipmen cruises had been under the command of
Coren Starchaser
had made it easy for the boy to get swept up into the
push to make this mission happen.
He was activated as a Commander in the Concord forces and introduced to the
Reliant -- a Lucerne Labs cruiser that had been undergoing resupply and refit. It was only operating at about eighty percent capacity, with a skeleton crew assembled from those Concord officers who'd happened to be on leave or detached duty nearby, and then augmented by a handful of Antarian Rangers.
They didn't know this ship.
They didn't know each other.
And they sure as hell had questions about why there was a kid who looked
thirteen years old leading the bloody charge.
The uniform jacket hung open, swallowing the blue-skinned youth's lanky frame as it hung loosely from his shoulders. The sleeves were rolled back, in clear breach of proper military protocol, as the purple-haired teen labored at the com-scan console.
It'd be
brilliant if they had a full bridge crew. Feth, he'd take a
full compliment of proton torpedoes while they at it. Had they been able to delay launch until Taungsday, then they might have been able to manage it.
For that matter, that might have allowed time for
Théodred Heavenshield
to be contacted and take this mission out. Terrible odds. Lost cause. This was
definitely a job for a Heavenshield. Boo just wasn't certain that he was the
right Heavenshield for the job.
Holo maps sprang up at the boy's fingertips, as his yellow eyes tried to get a snapshot of the current order of battle.
It looked like some of the boarding ships might have made it to the raider command ship. But that was about the only good news at present.
"Shield integrity at forty percent," the tactical officer shouted from the other side of the bridge, warning, "Another hit like that on the port side and she's had it."
"You worry about those cruisers. I'll worry about those shields," Boo stated flatly. Opening a quick holo-window, the boy called up the current power allocation tables and then just as quickly set those aside. Instead, expanding the com-scan display and overlaying navigation, the boy ordered,
"Helm, bring us about to two-one-eight mark seven. Half power to the engines."
As soon as he'd given the order, the Pantoran swatted the com-scan view aside with a dismissive wave of his hand. Bringing the power allocation tables up, the Pantoran began looking for options at routing more power to the shields.
"Let's see if we can't put those cruisers between us and that trangular queen," the boy uttered softly, even as he worked.
Bloody hell. It had been a long time since he'd watched Coren on the bridge of those deep space explorers. What the Hutt would Coren
fething Starchaser do?
The helm seemed to have doubts. "Commander, at that attack vector, we'll have to engage those cruisers at
point-blank range."
"I'm aware," Boo answered dryly.
"There's
three of them and only one of us," the helmsman opined.
That sparked further commentary from the tactical officer. "We won't last long in a dog-fight."
The boy's eyes flickered up, first over to the helm and then over to tactical.
"Longer than we'll last if that star destroyer keeps picking us apart," the Pantoran uttered coldly.
The tactical officer just turned back to his console.
As the helmsman and the navigator shared a look, the one whispered to the other, "
Who is this kid? And what Sith Academy did they get him from?"
"It was a First Order Academy, actually," Boo stated in a matter-of-fact tone, as his youthful timbre made itself heard over the din of the bridge. Prosperia Junior Academy on Dosuun to be precise. Followed by additional training by the Knights of Ren on Skye.
"If there's no more questions..?" the boy asked, allowing a pregnant pause.
"Engage."