Into The Chaos Ch 7

Into the Chaos -- Author's note.

Welcome to the seventh chapter of my story 'Into the Chaos'. A Sci-fi story that just happens to take place in the Unknown Regions of the Star Wars universe just after the Great Galactic War, almost 4000 years before the events of the movies.

As I said, this is the seventh chapter and if you haven't read the previous ones, I recommend that you do that first.

Disclaimer

: I do not own or hold any rights to any Star Wars licenses, including the star ships used in this story.

Some warnings

:

This is an erotic sci-fi adventure, meaning that there will be both sex and violence, but I don't mix the two.

This story is posted on the Literotica website and the author does not give permission for it to be reposted or reprinted anywhere else without consent.

P.S. The series is self-edited, so any mistakes are mine, though I now have a proofreader, that can catch missing words ect. Thanks to Jessejames932006 for doing that.

P.P.S. While you're here anyway, please rate the chapter and leave a comment :)

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Chapter 7 -- Building a way out

Dreadnought Majestic, Snare system, the Labyrinth nebula. Year 2 ATC/ 3651 BBY

"Strive for perfection in everything you make.

Take the best that exists and make it better.

When it does not exist, design and build it."

Saying from the CEDF

Interdictor upgrade

Repairship Kraken

Chief Engineer Keller's workshop on the Kraken looked exactly like the workshop of an evil genius in the holovid shows: There were screens everywhere, showing schematics of ships, blueprints for parts and diagrams for everything under the sun. The flat surfaces were filled with various spare parts, with the exception of two tables which functioned as stands for two huge models. One was an Interdictor-class cruiser and the other was a Dragon-Class Dreadnought.

Intrigued, I walked closer to the models. As always, I found the deadly sleekness of the Dragon-class Dreadnought to be one of the best designs I had ever seen in a capital ship. Everything, from gun placement to the way the top armor extended over the engines, shielding them from damage, was just perfect.

Even the aft hangar opening was perfectly placed and though it looked somewhat small on the model, it was only a trick of the eye due to the size of the ship. In reality, the narrow looking opening was almost a hundred meters long, twenty meters high and was separated into three different openings that led into the aft port, starboard and central hangars, allowing multiple squadrons of fighters to be launched at the same time.

Smiling, I turned my attention to the Interdictor. The over-and-under configuration of the hull the designers had used still looked strange to me, but like the Dragon-class there was a certain appealing sleekness to the layout. Looking at the model, I suddenly realised what it reminded me about: An enormous claw from a crab, and I wondered why they hadn't called the class something that reflected that.

As usual when it came to most Imperial ships, the exception was the command tower on the superstructure. I knew that the command tower had strong shields and armor, but shields didn't last forever and once they were gone, the tower was a priority target for enemies.

"What do you think of the design, sir?" Asked Keller from behind, causing me to turn and look at him. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes.

"I'm not sure about it." I answered. "The command tower is exposed, and the split is still a bit weird, but somehow they made it work. Especially the way they have placed the hangars in the middle of the split, so the fighters can be launched without being shot at immediately."

That made him chuckle. "I have to agree, sir. It takes some getting used to." He paused and then asked. "If you could change some things with the Interdictor, what would you do? Without changing the overall layout, I mean."

I looked at the model again as I pondered his question and then said. "I would move the bridge from the top of the command tower to the bottom, remove about half of it to make it a smaller target and add some extra armor... especially on top of the tower and around the hangars by the split. That much open space inside can't be good for the structural integrity of the ship." My eyes slid over the model. "Those light laser cannons are slow to fire, so I would place dual or quad lasers there instead." I chuckled. "Aside from that, I don't know enough about the ship to give a qualified opinion."

"And the Dragon-Class?" asked the Engineer, gesturing in the direction of the other model.

"Hm." I looked at the model. "That one is harder, but I would bring it back to what it should have been, a Battle Carrier. Limit the trooper quarters to a thousand marines to stop boarders, use the saved space to stack as many fighters and scouts into the ship as practically possible and leave the transportation of troops to the Gage-Class PA ships. Then you'll have a Dreadnought that not only can out-gun a Harrower, but also drop two hundred space superiority fighters and an equal number of strike fighters. Enough to scare the life out of anybody going up against it."

"You're basically describing a MX9, sir." Stated Keller with a chuckle. "So, you're not alone in having those thoughts."

"Nice to know... hmm... Any chance of finding a MX9 out here?"

"Sorry, but that is highly unlikely. As far as I remember, no MX9 ever disappeared without a trace. They were all either destroyed in battle or decommissioned and scrapped."

"Yes, that's usually the fate of warships... Now we're on the subject, what about the MX5 cruisers that we found? I looked at the stats and they seem surprisingly good with a good weapon load, enough star fighters to take on most enemies and just enough troopers to stop it from being boarded."

Keller smiled a tired smile. "We can repair and restore three of them without much trouble. The other three are only good for spare parts."

"How long will that take?"

"Two to three months, unless we run into some unforeseen trouble."

"That's not bad, but I'll have to think it over before I give any definite answer."

"Too bad we don't have any BSX-5 out here." Keller commented thoughtfully. "They sound like the type of ship you would like. Armed and armoured like a dreadnought but only carry fifteen hundred troops and has room for about eighty starfighters."

He had mentioned those before, so I said. "They were the ones built by the same company as the Harrower, right?"

"Yes. I'm rather sure the designers looked at the MX5 when they designed that vessel."

"Well, as you said, there are none of them here, so we'll have to build what we need." I gestured at the model of the Interdictor once more. "Why do you have that model here? Isn't the schematics enough?"

Keller hesitated for a moment. "The Interdictor is actually the reason why I wanted to talk with you." He ran a hand through his hair. "When we found the original version of the Interdictor, I suggested that we repair one and you said that it was too crew intensive."

I nodded at that, and he continued. "But you also said, 'Not unless you can install automated systems.'"

"Oh." I said and turned to look at the model again. "I guess you have found a way to partly automate them?"

"Exactly, sir." The engineer said proudly. "If we strip some of the system off the two smashed Wyvern-class cruisers, along with some spare parts from them as well, and use droids for gunners, we can make the crew requirement a lot lower. In fact, I can get it as low as five hundred, with forty as the minimum skeleton crew, but we must do it now, while we're repairing it anyway, since it involves rerouting a lot of power."

I thought about it for a moment. Considering that the Interdictor's gravity well projectors could not only open holes in a box system, but also prevent ships from entering hyperspace, or, if placed on a hyper lane, could cause ships to drop out of hyperspace, it added a lot of versatility to the fleet. If we had one at Epsilon Eta, the Lictor-class Dungeon ship wouldn't have been able to escape, and many more slaves could have been rescued.

The crew requirement of five hundred was still a lot as it was without gunners and fighter crew, but with a skeleton crew of forty it was doable.

"Talking about power, can the reactor on the Interdictor handle the energy needed for all the automated systems?"

"No, sir. The interdiction field projectors require a lot of power." He said calmly and called up a blueprint of the Interdictor on a screen. "As you suggested with the Dragon-class, the ship has a lot more room for troopers than it needs to have, since we're not about to invade the galaxy. So, if we eliminate the troop quarters in this area here, ..." He highlighted the troop quarters near the reactor. "... we can not only enlarge the hangar space so the cruiser can hold another wing of starfighters, but we can also install another reactor here and let that one power the automated systems. The fuel will be stored here..." He highlighted two cargo holds. "... which will remove about four thousand tons of cargo space, but transporting cargo isn't what this ship is all about anyway and it still leaves five thousand tons of cargo space for spare parts."

Looking at the blueprint, I found myself agreeing with him. So far, everything he said had sounded like it could be done, though there were a few questions I would like to have answered before giving the go-ahead. "Where does that other reactor come from?"

"From a Hammerhead cruiser." He said with a slight smile. "I would have loved to install the newer reactor from the Delta-Class carrier, but the Interdictor-class was originally built by Republic Fleet Systems using Corellian shipyards and they used the same reactor type as the Hammerhead cruiser." He called up the blueprint of a Hammerhead cruiser. "The Hammerheads reactor is smaller, and unlike their Imperial counterparts, all the connections and control system are the same, so it's doable."

"How long will it take?" I asked, fearing that it would take longer than anyone would wish to stay in the 'box'.

"About four months." He shrugged. "But we're doing everything at the same time, so it's only about a month more than just repairing the Interdictor."

I thought for a moment. "How come the difference isn't greater? I would have guessed that it took much longer."

"Manpower, sir." Keller stated. "Not only do we have about three hundred former navy engineers and mechanics from the liberated slaves, but we also have the two hundred Chiss engineers from the Last Chance, and while they're not ship engineers, they're extremely competent. Added to that we have a lot of repair droids from the various ships we have looted, and the Squid salvage ship which makes quite a difference." He glanced at his ever-present datapad. "However, seventy-five engineers are about the maximum number of people that can effectively work on one area of a ship that size, so while hundred-and-fifty work on the inside of the two Interdictors, another seventy-five install the new systems, while the next seventy-five engineers focus on the reactor."

I did a quick calculation and asked. "And what about the remaining two-hundred engineers?"

That earned me a tired smile. "Fifty of them are assigned to look at the Mandalorian MX5s, and if we're going to repair them, that number goes up to one hundred and fifty, while the rest are working on other projects, like helping the pilots get the Aureks back in shape."

I thought for a moment, juggling available crews and assignments in my head. The MX5's could be crewed with a skeleton crew of fifty, forty if cutting a few corners, and they were really good ships. Much better than most other ships out there, including the old Foray-class blockade runners.

Another factor in me wanting them was the future. At some point we would most likely have to turn the Imperial Battlegroup over to the Empire. Especially if we ran into Darth Malgus with his superior fleet. At the start of our trip, I had thought that the smaller ship would be enough to transport the crews, but with the addition of the freed prisoners from the two Kiltirin-class dungeon ships, there was no way the smaller ships could transport more than four thousand people.

However, with life support for a crew of nine hundred along with a flight crew of three hundred, two hundred gunners and five hundred troopers, each MX5 could take nineteen hundred people. Added to that was the eight hundred people each Hammerhead-class cruiser could carry as crew, gunners and passengers. Even disregarding the smaller ships, that enabled us to carry about eight thousand people in ships that didn't belong to the Empire.

Having made up my mind, I said. "Repair the MX5s. I would rather have them than most of the other older ship types. If some of the systems or weapons can be upgraded, it'll be even better, but if not, we'll just take them as they are. We need them to carry people in case the Empire ever lays claim to the rest of the ships... Hmm...And we need to find a new name for the class. Otherwise, they might pop up in Imperial Databases or in the memories of very good engineers."

"Yes, sir." He grinned, nodded and wrote something on his datapad, before looking up again. "What about the cargo we're hauling? I mean, we have found a lot of stuff so far, but we can't really transport it in these ships."

"Good point and you sound like you have an idea."

He chuckled at that. "I do, sir. Some of the civilian vessels have a very low crew requirement and can take a lot of cargo." He turned towards the computer and ordered it to show a list of the civilian ships from the scans we had done, excluding those who were more than a hundred years old, as well as those who were damaged beyond repair. "There you go, sir."

Looking at the list, I said. "Please eliminate those with a hyperspace rating higher than two. I don't want the whole fleet to wait for a freighter."

Keller nodded and a moment later, the list was much shorter.

"Well, well, well." He said with satisfaction in his voice, as he skimmed the list. "It looks like we got some Cargo King Super Freighters!"

Having no idea what he was talking about, I said. "I don't think I've ever heard of them."

"You most likely wouldn't, sir." Keller said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "It's a local knock-off of an old Imperial Military Transport, which basically means that it's decently armored and shielded, has a pair of laser cannons to scare off pirates and can carry eighty thousand metric tons of cargo. There's even room for twenty passengers on it, though on the original, that space would be occupied by troopers. All features that make it an extremely useful, if somewhat expensive, ship out here in the Chaos." He finally looked at me. "Most importantly, it has a Rank two hyperdrive."

I nodded, looked at the screen showing the stat and was pleasantly surprised. With a length of a hundred and twenty meters, the Super Freighters could be flown by a crew of only four. Six if you included two gunners to man the laser turrets.

"Any chance a starfighter pilot can handle one of these?" I asked. While we had an abundance of engineers, we were seriously running low on skilled pilots. Normally ships also had an astrogator, but as any ship in the fleet could just be fed astrogation data from the Majestic, that was less of a concern.

The Chief Engineer. "Yes. Like most big cargo ships they're sluggish and handle like a flying brick, but they're not that difficult to fly. Their only problem is that they only hold consumables for three or four months, but as they will be flying with the fleet, that shouldn't be a problem."

"Fine. Check them out and see if some of them can be easily repaired."

"I'll have someone do that later." Keller agreed.

"Good, so let's get back to the Interdictor and the new reactor." I said and pointed at the area he had indicated. "You wanted to install it here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then that area needs to be armored with just as thick an armor as the main reactor."

He almost snorted. "That goes without saying, sir. We'll need to reinforce the armor belt anyway."

The expression made me tilt my head. "Just to make sure that we're talking about the same thing, what do you mean about an 'armor belt' when we're talking about ships?"

"Oh." He chuckled. "Armor belt or belt armor is what we call the extra thick armor that protects the front and sides of the ship." He touched a control and an image of Majestic showed up on the screen. "The Imperial wedge form was invented for a reason and works exceptionally well when the bow is pointed at the enemy. Not only offensively, where it allows any side mounted guns to hit targets in front of the ship, but also defensively. All the sloping sides are designed to deflect and redirect enemy fire to prevent it from reaching the heart of the ship."

I nodded. That way of armouring a vessel was as old as warships. "What is the degree limitation for deflection?"

"It's most effective under 45 degrees, lessening as the angle goes up towards 90 degrees." Keller answered and continued. "However, the sides of the ship are basically a wall between the two slopes. It's vertical, so there's not much deflection of enemy fire there, which is why the armor is very thick and double layered there. One layer between the weapon emplacement and a thicker layer behind them. It's also where the belt armor is located. It's basically a layer of heavy armor placed in modules on top of the other armor for added protection."

He paused and I held up a hand. "Got it. It means the same in my language. Extra heavy armor designed to protect the edges of the ship and has the advantage of being easy to replace as long as the inner armor is relatively unharmed."

"Exactly, sir. So, we take some of the spare armor for the belt armor on the other Interdictor and use it to build a protective sphere around the additional reactor."

I nodded slowly, as I thought it over. "Well, with all you have done so far, I see no reason not to believe you now, so let's give it a try."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? Just like that?"

"Remember Epsilon Eta where the Lictor got away from us with an estimated nine thousand prisoners and soon to be slaves on board?" He nodded and I continued. "I don't want that to happen again, and an Interdictor can prevent that."

"Ahh." He said with a slow nod. "I agree, sir. I know that we can't save everybody, but even a little goes a long way."

"Especially for the prisoners."

"Yeah."

"But this comes with a few conditions." I said as I looked at him. "The ship needs to have a hangar park and all the rest the other capital ships have, so they can lose power without the crew getting killed." He nodded and I continued. "Furthermore, I want the primary reactor to power as many systems as possible, and the secondary reactor to power the field projectors."

That made Keller blink a few times in surprise. "Why that way, sir?"

"Because once we get out of here, I would rather have a functional warship with a non-functional projector system, than the other way around."

"Good point." He said with a speculative look on his face. "Well, the reactor from the Hammerhead cruiser has an output large enough to power the field projectors, so it shouldn't be a problem. I just haven't thought about it that way."

"Well, I plan on taking a few of the newer versions of the Hammerhead-class cruisers with us and if need be, I'm more than willing to scrap one of those to get a new reactor for the Interdictor." I frowned a bit. "By the way, where does that 'cruiser' classification come from? It irks me every time I hear it... Mostly because in the Chiss Navy, the so-called Hammerhead-class cruiser would be a frigate and not a cruiser."