Cyphor Fey'lar
Nightclouds Reward, on course for Kashyyyk.Cyphor relined in one of the lounge couches as he watched Kalmi go through some basic force exercises with Kathlyn. The two had only been paired for a couple of months now but already they seemed to share a strong teacher-student bond he thought to himself. It had been interesting this past year watching first Cha'alla and then Kalmi train their padawans, while both of them used some of the structures he had used to teach them both brought their own style to the practice, which in reflection highlighted certain aspects of his own teachings that he might have done differently. It was something to think about at least while Nikan and Nayanna still looked to him as their master despite how he hated the term. He had officially named them knights, but they were yet to receive padawans of their own in part due to their ages. Regardless Cyphor saw the two of them taking other roles rather than acting as teachers, afterall, not all Jedi took padawans in the old order, Cyphor saw no reason to force it on his students now.
As these throughts ran around in his head the intercom signalled and Hayle's voice came over the lounge speakers.
“Cyphor, come to the cockpit for a moment.” she said simply, her tone brooking no argument despite Cyphor technically being her employer. Nodding for Kalmi to carry on Cyphor rose and headed to the cockpit. The door slid open smoothly on his approach and he stepped inside and went to stand behind Hayle's chair.
“Something up?” He asked as he glanced out the cockpit window at the tunnel effect of hyperspace.
“Sensors picked up a freighter ahead of us a few hours ago, its about twenty minutes ahead of us and moving just as fast as we are.” Hayle replied as she gestured towards the sensor readouts.
“Readings show a standard bulk freighter but at this speed the hyperdrive engine at least is an aftermarket job, and this route is not a standard one.” She added while Cyphor took a seat in the copilots chair.
“So, smugglers most likely then.” Cyphor said as he looked over the readouts himself.
“Tried talking to them?”Hayle shrugged.
“No response, not everyone wants to talk these days, specially smugglers on a job.” She answered.
“So why tell me now?” Cyphor asked as he looked up from the sensor readings.
“I dunno, a feeling maybe, everything looks normal, maybe I’m just paranoid, but we are bypassing a major conflict point with this jump.” Hayle said with a small sigh. Cyphor was about to respond when the sensors registered a fluctuation ahead.
“What was that?” he asked as Hayle and he both watched the sensor readings. A moment later the freighter exploded.
“What in the name of the Force was that!?” Hayle exclaimed. Cyphor was studying the sensor logs at the time of the fluctuation and the explosion to try and figure out just what had happened.
“If they were smugglers its possibly you'll spot something in the logs that I'd miss.” He said calmly as he directed Hayle to study the logs as well. Theoretically if there was something ahead they had a bit under twenty minutes before they themselves ran into it, a little checking wouldn't hurt and still give them time to try and avoid what might be out there.
Minutes ticked away, four to be exact before Hayle discovered that the explosion had been external, the fluctuation the sensors detected was the vessel veering slightly off course, it appeared the freighter had collided with something.
“I'd call it sloppy piloting,” Hayle said after she had told Cyphor what she'd found,
“But there shouldn't be anything to run into out here in the first place.”“You want to drop out of hyperspace?” Cyphor asked, afterall she was the one that had put them on this route in the first place as a way to avoid the Corsin system.
“I think so, but not just yet, I'll wait till we're about five minutes out, getting there on sublight will take a lot of time if we drop too soon.”“Its your ship, Your call.” Cyphor replied simply.
“Remind me to get one of those fancy sensor arrays Cha'alla had put on the traveller, I'd rather like the extra detail it offers for times like this.” Hayle replied as she set a timer for the drop out of hyperspace.
The timer ticked down slowly, five minutes to drop... four... three...
“Hayle...” Cyphor said with an odd look in his eyes. Hayle registered Cyphors 'warning' a moment before the Reward glanced... something... and she dropped her ship out of hyperspace immediately, the whine of the engines was audible from the cockpit as they strained at the sudden jolt out of hyperspace. As the sensor readings came in for real space a number of anti ship mines were showing up about an hour ahead at sublight speeds. Had hayle not dropped out when she had she suspected the reward would have gone up like the freighter ahead of them had.
“Guess this smuggler route isn't as safe as it was supposed to be, those weren't there the last time you passed through here I take it?” Cyphor said with a small grin.
“No, they most certainly were not.” Hayle said as she took a deep breath at the closeness of it all.
“And stop grinning.” She said clearly before she started muttering under her breath, Cyphor caught 'crazy jedi bastard' uttered among other things.
“Sensors are only picking up that patch of mines.” Cyphor said as he focused on their situation.
“That doesn't sound right...” Hayle replied, her brow furled in concern.
“I wouldn't call myself an expert on space warfare but I know enough that you trust me with Pandorum, if someone wanted to reliably mine a hyperspace route you'd need a lot more than 1 or 2 patches of mines.” “Maybe its a very old field, left over from a previous conflict, these might be all that's left and it was dumb luck that they were so close to our course this time.” Cyphor remarked.
Hayle frowned at the sensors and again muttered something about upgrading to the fancy ones on the Ashlani Traveller.
“I'm going to take us closer, see if the sensors cant get a better read, I'm sure there's more and I don't want to re-enter hyperspace until we're clear of them.” She said as she throttled up the sublight drive and kept a close watch on the sensors.
As the Nightclouds Reward gets closer to the patch of mines they detected Hayles suspicion bore fruit. There were more mines, a lot of them, and eventually sensors detected a Republic Venator class Star Destroyer at the edge of the field laying what appeared to be the last of the mines.
“Well, I'd say they're new wouldn't you?” Hayle said as the sensor data on the Ventaor came in.
“It appears so.” Cyphor replied.
“So we go around the field then. Even at sublight I don't like our chances of getting through there.” He added.
“Agreed, I'm sure we could pilot through it on a good day but one wrong slip and we won't be around to see the result... well you might... jedi ghost thing and all...” Hayle said as she started setting a course that would take them around the field on the far side from the Venator.
“Id still rather not put that to the test, I'm not even sure I could make the transition to a force spirit, many masters spent decades trying to learn how and never succeed in the old order.” Cyphor replied sounding a bit more subdued than he usually was.
Hayle shook her head and got out of the pilots chair.
“Here take the stick, it'll take us some time to clear the field so I'm going to go sit in the turret in case that Star Destroyer has any fighters out.” She said as she headed for the gun-well. Cyphor nodded and shifted to the pilots chair.
“And start the nav computer on a hyperspace course, I'd rather not stick around a moment longer than necessary.” Hayle called over her shoulder. Cyphor smiled slightly at that and started the computers calculations. He then made a note to have the sensor logs saved to a data pad so that the location of the mine field did not get lost, he was aware of several people that would value its location.
The field turned out to be larger than Hayle had initially suspected, it took them almost a day to get halfway around the field at sublight speeds, thankfully without encountering any fighter squadrons from the Venator, likely its entire hanger compliment had been filled up by the mines it had laid. The Venator left around the same time they were halfway around the field and everyone on board - Kalmi, Kathlyn and the blood hunters having since been informed of their situation - breathed a sigh of relief. Another day of sublight travel saw them clear of the field and the Reward jumped back into hyperspace to resume its trip to Kashyyyk. Now they just had to figure out how they were going to land when they got there, Hayle said she still had a few tricks up her sleeves, Cyphor however wondered if her tricks would be enough.
On their way to Kashyyyk Cyphor and those aboard Nightclouds Reward encounter a little difficulty, but manage to avoid trouble and resume their journey after a short delay.