Captain Wash Moklam stood at the viewport of the bridge and watched the pseudo motion of ships slipping the bounds of real space. The small Corellian capital ship that had been keeping the other hammer-head, the Arcus Fire, occupied the whole time while the Unity had been helpless was the last to leave.
In seconds only three ships remained. The Arcus, the Bogan Charge and his own hammer-head class star cruiser. Suddenly the lights and sensors on the bridge flickered back to life.
"All systems seem to be functioning normally, Captain," his first officer said from his station.
The captain of the ship turned slowly without saying a word and walked deliberately to the turbo lift. "Send all reports to my quarters," he said without emotion just as the lift doors slid shut.
---------------
Geoffry Spickolly stood outside the captain's quarters. It had been two days since the ambush. Two days since Moklam's task force had been resoundingly defeated in what should have been an easy victory given their superior firepower and technology. Two days since the captain had emerged from his quarters, and Spickolly was unsure whether it was a good idea to bother him.
That vibro-jack program, the one that sliced into the system and hi-jacked the basic systems, had been much bigger and vastly more complex than he had first imagined and thus had created many problems trying to fix it. The number one error he had made was assuming that the program had been inserted remotely and recently.
If he had known how big it was, he would have known there would have been no way to slice it in remotely. The time and bandwidth it would have used to download would have been detected easily. The only possible explanation was that somehow they had gotten on board the ship and downloaded the program manually. The only time that could have happened was during the time the Unity had spent in the Kuat Drive Yards.
Spickolly knew the captain was probably in big trouble for losing that cargo shuttle, and he could easily sit by and let that happen, but the civilian's ire was up now. He'd been made a fool of and as a slicer, it would get around that some self-taught piece of lese had gotten the better of him, and in the slicer world, he could not let that stand.
The door swooshed open for Spickolly shortly after he knocked on it. Stepping in he surveyed the room. Papers, flimsi-plast and various other items were strewn around the room. He assumed this part of the ship must have been hit fairly hard during the fighting.He said as much to Captain Moklam who was still lying on his bunk.
"What makes you say that?" the officer said, rolling over and sitting up on the edge of his bed.
Spickolly took another look around the room. He suddenly wondered if the mess was due to fighting at all. "Heh heh heh... no reason."
Moklam rubbed the 2 day stubble on his face and looked blearily at the civilian in his brightly colored shirt. "What in the Galaxy do you want from me, Spickolly? Did you come here for your, 'I told you so's?'" The ship's senior officer stood up and walked over to his tipped-over chair, righted it, then sat down and opened a drawer. Pulling out a dark colored bottle and cup, he tried to pour a drink. When only a drop landed into the bottom of the glass, he looked at the bottle with disgust, then tossed it haphazardly across the room, confirming Spickolly's new theory about where the mess may have come from. Moklam reached into the drawer and pulled out another bottle only to discover this one was empty as well. "Just as well, I guess," he sighed, leaning back in the chair.
"Well?" Moklam asked, prodding the social recluse to explain the reason for his visit.
"Dude. That guy totally kicked my tail," he said and laughed as if he told a funny joke.
"That may be, but you'll go on with your career. I, on the other hand, will be lucky if I'm not drummed out of the Service. Now if you're done gloating, please leave," the captain said, dismissing the slicer with a wave of his hand.
"Oh, no way, General dude. I'm not gloating or anything, bro," the slicer said. "I've totally got a plan to get these Sith guys, but I need your help, dude sir."
"Didn't you hear me? I'm probably going to be forced into 'retirement' for this. How am I supposed to help you?"
"I will totally take all the blame, Commander. I'll report that it was all my fault, but you gotta find a way to keep me from getting fired. If you can do that, I can hand these Hutt slime to you on a platter," the slicer said.
Moklam leaned forward. For the first time since losing the battle, he was feeling something other than shock. "Go ahead, Spickolly. I'm listening," Captain Moklam said, grinning.
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