Star Wars: New Age

Chapter 18

The Shakedown Run

Back on the bridge, the weight of their impossible discovery in the hangar bay settled over them. They now possessed a fleet of priceless, hyper-advanced starships. But they were all sleeping, and the task of waking even one felt as daunting as moving a mountain.

Zana, as always, was the one who cut through the awe with cold, hard strategy.

"Okay," she said, pacing before the main viewport. "We have our golden goose," she gestured in the direction of the hangar, referring to the powerful mining vessels. "But a tool that powerful is complex, and right now, we have zero room for error. You don't learn to drive by hot-wiring a massive freight hauler. We need a shakedown run. A proof of concept."

She stopped and looked at Kael. "Back to the map. Forget the Aethelian Crystals. Forget the Cryo-Carbide. All of that is for later." Her voice was firm, outlining the parameters of a new, more cautious mission. "Find me something boring. A quiet, uninhabited moon in a neighboring system. Something the ancients marked for common, but still valuable, industrial metals. Titanium, Iridium—something we can mine with basic equipment and sell at any trade hub without attracting the attention of a hyper-corp. The goal here isn't to get rich in one go; it's to prove we can do it."

Kael, understanding the logic immediately, nodded and turned to his console. His fingers flew across the holographic interface, filtering their newly aligned map with Zana's parameters: nearby, uninhabited, common resources. The list of potential targets was much larger and far less glamorous. After a few minutes of cross-referencing, he isolated a candidate.

"Here," he announced, highlighting a small star system on the main display. It was just two micro-jumps away. "System RX-981. Unexplored on modern charts. Contains a gas giant with three moons." He zoomed in on the second moon. "The ancient logs designate this moon, B-7, as having significant surface deposits of Iridium. It's not a rare metal, but it's always in high demand for ship manufacturing. The system is quiet. No outposts, no claims."

"Perfect," Zana said, her lips curling into a slight, satisfied smile. "It's low-risk, and the reward is practical. That's our target. RX-981, Moon B-7."

She then turned her attention to Jax, her expression shifting from strategist to project manager. "Now for the vehicle." She looked him in the eye, gauging his condition. "The mining ships are our ultimate prize, but they're too much for a first attempt. The Scout ships are the key. They're smaller, less complex. The power-up sequence should be more manageable for you. It's the logical place to start."

The new plan was set. A clear, achievable goal. A close, quiet destination. A smaller, simpler ship. The abstract dream of flying one of the Warden's vessels had just become a direct, immediate objective.

Zana gave them a final, decisive nod.

"Let's go wake up our ride."

They returned to the vast, silent hangar, the scale of the chamber no less awe-inspiring than it was the first time. They walked past the hulking forms of the mining vessels and the sharp, aggressive lines of the interceptors, their footsteps the only sound in the cavernous space. Their destination was one of the four identical Scout ships, resting in its cradle like a sleeping predator.

Up close, it was both beautiful and intimidating. The design was seamless, forged from the same dark, unscratchable metal as the rest of the station. There were no visible thrusters, no weapon ports, no crude mechanical joints—it looked as if it had been grown rather than built.

Kael performed a slow, circular scan with his datapad. "It's just as I feared," he confirmed, shaking his head. "Completely inert. Not a single external panel or manual release for the cockpit. It's a sealed egg. There's no way in unless…" His voice trailed off as he looked at Jax.

It was all on him.

Jax took a deep, steadying breath, pushing aside the wave of performance anxiety. He stepped forward and placed a hand flat against the ship's cold hull. He closed his eyes and reached out with the Force, not with a command, but with a quiet search. He ignored the larger, ever-present hum of the main station and listened for the smaller, silent spark within the ship itself. He found it—a tiny, cold, sleeping ember. The Scout's own Nexus Core.

Remembering the lessons from the training chamber and the bridge, he knew he couldn't use his own energy; it would be like trying to jump-start a starship with a hand-held battery. He had to be a conduit.

He opened his mind, connecting to the immense reservoir of power from the main station's Core. He drew on that vast, ambient energy, siphoning off a tiny, focused stream. Then, with all the concentration he could muster, he directed that stream of borrowed power towards the sleeping ember inside the Scout ship.

It was the most delicate mental task he had ever attempted, like performing neurosurgery with a ghost's fingers. He had to hold the connection to the main Core, draw from it, and precisely aim that energy at the Scout's heart, all while convincing the dormant machine to accept the offering.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. The muscles in his back and shoulders tensed with the sheer effort of his focus. For a long, agonizing minute, nothing happened.

"Anything?" Zana's voice was a quiet whisper on the comm.

"Almost…" Jax grunted, refusing to break his concentration. He pushed a little harder, pouring more of his will into the connection.

Then, he felt it. A flicker. The cold ember at the heart of the ship seemed to stir, accepting the energy.

A low hum began to emanate from the Scout, a resonant frequency that vibrated through the deck plates. A network of faint, glowing white lines, identical to the ones on the bridge, raced across the ship's dark hull, mapping out its internal systems. The hum grew steadily stronger, stabilizing into a smooth, quiet thrum of active power.

With a soft, satisfying chime, the single-piece canopy of the cockpit, which had been an opaque black, shimmered and became perfectly transparent, revealing a compact, two-person cockpit within. A moment later, with a barely audible hiss of equalizing pressure, the canopy began to retract, rising smoothly upwards and clearing the way.

It was open. He had done it.

Jax stumbled back, his connection breaking as he gasped for breath, the mental exertion immense. Kael was already rushing forward, his scanner going wild. "It's online! Power is stable, on internal standby. Life support is active in the cockpit. He did it, Zana, he actually did it!"

Zana walked slowly toward the open ship, her expression unreadable. She peered into the alien cockpit, then ran her hand along the now-humming hull. She turned to Jax, and the last vestiges of her professional skepticism were gone, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated respect.

"Every ship needs a name," she said, her voice quiet.

Jax, leaning against a support strut to catch his breath, thought of the anonymous profile that had saved them, and the ancient being that had guided them.

"We call it the Echo," he said.

They stood for a moment in silence, the three of them, looking at their prize. The Echo. Their first real asset. Their first tool. Their first, tangible step towards a new future.

The cockpit of the Echo was a marvel of alien minimalism. There were two seats, molded from the same seamless dark material as the bridge. There was no joystick, no throttle, no bank of switches or buttons. The entire front canopy was a single, flawless piece of transparent material that offered a perfect, panoramic view of the hangar.

"Alright," Zana's voice, crisp over their comms, broke the reverent silence. "Let's not waste it. Kael, you're co-pilot and navigator. Jax, you're at the helm. Let's see what she can do."

Kael scrambled into the co-pilot's chair, which seemed to subtly conform to his Bothan frame. Jax slid into the pilot's seat. The moment he did, the chair molded around him, and panels on the armrests and the dashboard before him lit up with the soft, white, pulsing light of the Nexus Core. They were points of contact, waiting for him.

"There are no controls," Kael said, his voice a mixture of panic and wonder.

But Jax understood. The controls weren't physical. He placed his hands on the glowing panels on the armrests and closed his eyes. The ship's consciousness, its systems, its very hull, seemed to reach out to him through the Force, an extension of his own body.

The Warden's conceptual voice offered one last piece of guidance. [DO NOT PILOT THE SHIP. BECOME THE SHIP. ITS HULL IS YOUR SKIN. ITS SENSORS ARE YOUR EYES. WILL IT TO MOVE.]

"Kael," Zana instructed, standing behind them, her hand resting on the back of Jax's chair. "The ship may be alien, but space isn't. Plot the course to RX-981, Moon B-7 on your datapad. Call out the vectors. Jax will… translate."

Kael, given a tangible task, nodded and began plotting their course, a series of short micro-jumps.

"Okay, Jax," Zana said, her voice low and steady. "Take us up. Slow and steady."

Jax didn't think about engine power or vertical thrusters. He simply looked at the ceiling of the hangar and willed the ship to be there.

With a smooth, silent grace that defied all known laws of physics, the Echo lifted from its cradle. There was no engine roar, no thruster wash, only the faint hum of the Core. The ship rose five meters and then hovered, perfectly still. The sensation was breathtaking. Jax wasn't flying a ship; he was a ship. He could feel the landing struts retract into the hull as if they were his own limbs.

He willed them forward, and the Echo glided out of the massive hangar bay, navigating the silent, cavernous corridors of the station with impossible precision. Soon, they emerged from the main entrance, floating silently in the void.

For the first time, they saw their home from the outside. The Stasis Station was a masterpiece of camouflage, a small, pockmarked moonlet indistinguishable from the millions of other dead rocks in the Rykon Belt. Their secret was safe.

"I have the first jump vector," Kael announced, his voice trembling with excitement. "Ready when you are."

"Engage, Jax," Zana ordered.

Jax focused on the coordinates Kael had fed him. He didn't need to see them; he could feel the destination as a point in space. He focused the ship's will—and his own—on that point, and pushed the intent to be there.

The universe folded.

It wasn't the familiar, streaking lines of a standard hyperdrive. It was a nauseating, instantaneous lurch, a disorienting flash of impossible, non-Euclidean geometry twisting in on itself. And then, stillness.

The journey had taken less than a second.

Before them, on the now-live viewport, hung a gas giant and its three moons. One of them, a pale, cratered orb, seemed to glow faintly in Jax's Force-enhanced senses, a beacon of raw, unrefined Iridium.

Jax let out a shaky breath, his knuckles white where he gripped the contact panels. He looked at the moon that was their first target, their first hope for building a new life. He opened the comm channel to his two stunned companions.

"We're here."