"Drev!"
"It is… all right, Master. I believe I have matters righted. Though I now admit to being wrong, The Sith appear willing to fire pre-jump." Drev laughed and Relin thought he heard the hint of hysteria in it. "What just happened aboard Harbinger?"
Relin could hear the continuous thrum of laserfire through the comlink, could hear the stressed grunts and rapid breathing of his Padawan. He glanced at Saes, unmoving on the floor of the chamber, and fought down his need for revenge. He could not fix himself through murder, and anger had already caused him to exercise poor judgment.
He deactivated his lightsaber, and left his arm and his former Padawan behind him on the deck of the Sith dreadnought.
"I'm coming. Stay out of the way of those guns."
"The dreadnoughts are near the end of the jump sequence. I've got to stay in their jump field until the last moment or those guns will get a clear shot."
"Harbinger isn't jumping," Relin said as a secondary explosion ripped through the hyperdrive chamber. Smoke poured through the double doors, and he lifted his cloak to his mouth to prevent a coughing fit that would feel like a knife stab to his broken ribs. Alarms sang their song of dismay while he sped as best he could from the chamber. Even if his charges had not completely destroyed the hyperdrive, Harbinger would not risk a jump with a damaged drive. He and Drev had done something to help Kirrek. Not everything. But something.
Klaxons blared on the bridge. Tension animated the faces of the bridge crew, hung in a pall over the quiet. Dor stalked over to the helmsman's station.
"Abort the jump sequence!" he ordered, his claws sinking into the helmsman's shoulder deep enough to draw blood.
"Trying, sir. Something is… wrong."
Crew stood from their stations, watching the helm and the viewscreen.
"Stay at your posts," Dor ordered, and stared them back into their seats. "Sit!"
They did as he bade, while Dor hovered over the helmsman's shoulder like a guardian spirit. Harbinger could not jump with a damaged drive. The ship would be torn apart.
"Not responsive, sir," the helmsman said, and Dor heard panic creeping into his voice.
"Emergency shutdown, then," Dor ordered, and disliked the tension in his own voice.
The helmsman worked his console, then slammed a fist on the readout. "Not responsive. Jumping in twenty-three seconds."
"Get the engineers down there," Dor said.
"I've tried," the communications officer said. "No one is responding. A security team is in Corridor Three-G, outside the hyperdrive antechamber, but they report that the blast doors are closed and sealed."
"Have them go around, and quickly!" Dor said, and the comm officer repeated his order.
The ship lurched as another explosion rocked the rear section. The distinct bass hum of the activating drive, more felt than heard, vibrated Dor's bones. He turned to the bridge security officer, a Massassi a head taller than Dor and with as much metal under his flesh as he had bone.
"Get a team to the hyperdrive with explosives and blow the power linkages! Now!"
The security officer nodded and sped off the bridge, barking orders into his comlink, but Dor knew nothing could be done in time. They were going into hyperspace, on fire and with a damaged drive. He sagged into the command seat as the helmsman counted down the seconds remaining to them all.
"Nineteen. Eighteen."
Captain Korsin's voice from Omen cut through the silence. "We are getting odd readings from your jump field."
Dor stared at the viewscreen and saw the bulk of Omen beside them. The Jedi Infiltrator did a fly-by of Harbinger's bridge, twisting and turning through a shower of laserfire, smoke streaming from one of its damaged engines. Dor cursed the Jedi in the Infiltrator, cursed the blasted Jedi on board who had done a half job on the hyperdrive so that they would all die in hyperspace.
"You shoot that ship out of the sky," Dor snapped at the weapons officer. "And you do not stop shooting until I countermand the order. If we're to die, so is that Jedi."
"Sir? The jump-"
"Do it!"
The weapons officer nodded and the sky around Harbinger lit up with intensified laserfire.
"Sections ten, eleven, and twelve on D deck have fires," said someone. "Dispatching fire teams."
Dor waved a hand in acknowledgment. It mattered little.
"Captain Saes, did you receive my last transmission?" Korsin asked.
"Twelve. Eleven… "
Despite the ache in his severed arm and the spike of pain in his ribs, Relin used what mental strength remained to him to augment his speed with the Force. His emotions swirled: fear for Drev, anger at Saes, disappointment with himself. The Force swelled in him and he drew on it fully to pelt through the corridors, a blur of motion. Alarms sounded everywhere in the ship. Droids, crew members, and teams of Massassi security forces hurried through the corridors.
Concealed by the chaos, Relin sped toward the ship's spine and its escape pods.
"Harbinger is still readying to jump," Drev said. An explosion sounded in the background. Drev cursed as an alarm sang. "Engine one is down."
"They cannot jump. I destroyed the drive."
"Still showing an active drive, Master."
Relin cursed, hesitated, almost turned. But he did not. Wounded, fatigued, he would not be able to fight his way back to the hyperdrive. Perhaps he had damaged it enough to at least foul Harbinger's jump coordinates.
"Get clear, Drev," Relin said. He reached one of the long corridors that connected the forward and rear sections of the dreadnought. Doors dotted its length. Each would open onto one of the ship's 288 escape pods.
"Engine two is down. I'm on thrusters only."
Laserfire still sounded in the background. Relin cursed. The Infiltrator would be an easy target maneuvering on only thrusters.
"Get out of that ship. I'll pick you up in a pod."
"I am not in a suit, Master," Drev said, coughing. "And you know how long it takes me to put one on."
Relin did know. Drev's Askajian frame made donning a flexsuit a lengthy process. He imagined the cockpit filling with smoke, imagined losing another Padawan.
Relin moved to the nearest escape pod docking door and cut his way through it with his lightsaber, nearly short-circuiting the weapon's power pack in the process, and piled into the cramped interior of the pod. He did not bother with the instrumentation or pause to strap himself into one of the four seats. Instead he simply found the emergency release button and struck it.
The pod exploded away from the dreadnought, throwing Relin against the wall. Wounded arm and shattered ribs protested the impact, but Relin endured. He reached out with the Force for his Padawan. The contact reassured him. He felt the lightness of his Padawan's spirit, his joy in life.
"I'm clear. Put the ship on auto-evasive, get into a flexsuit, and get out. I'll find you in the pod."
"No," Drev said, and Relin heard the smile in his Padawan's voice. "Harbinger is going to jump. Your plan did not work, Master. We cannot let both of those ships get back to Sadow. You said so yourself."
It took Relin a moment to understand what his Padawan intended. He rushed to the small viewport in the pod and scanned space for the Infiltrator. He spotted it under the dreadnought, swooping up and circling back toward the bridge. Even on thrusters Drev spun the Infiltrator in evasive arcs that danced through the laserfire.
Relin spoke in a low tone, the same tone he might use to calm an excited bantha.