Lieutenant Colonel Jagged Fell III gazed around the disheveled conference room. It had once been an orderly and sleek grey paneled room, as befitted a conference room aboard the Raider Corvette Lightning, a ship of the Emperor's Hammer. But now, after their second brush up against an exploding star, multiple maintenance panels had been removed so that Lieutenant Commander Jast’s work crews could get at the overloaded power relays inside the walls. Even now, six hours after the supernova, some of the relays still emitted occasional sparks from inside the walls.

Chief Engineer Jast was beginning to wrap up his report on the state of the ship, "My men should have the rest of the power systems restored in the next two hours, but it will likely be some time before the Lightning is fully operational again."

"How much time, in your estimate?" asked Commander Lantill, the captain of the Lightning.

"If our damage reports are accurate, then I would estimate it will be another forty-seven hours until all systems are restored."

"What is the status of the Hypercom?" asked Jagged. "Have we been able to reach Aurora? We have to warn them of the NR and their Sun Crusher."

"The system checks on the comm show that it is functional, but we haven't been able to raise Aurora, or any other Emperor's Hammer vessel."

"So, did it not work? Are we still stuck in the past?"

---

Over six months prior, the Lightning, escorting the Imperial Star Destroyer Challenge, had come across a New Republic research base in the Alzoc III system. Once it was clear that the Emperor's Hammer forces could not be driven away, the overmatched New Republic ships began to flee. Sensing something amiss, Admiral Setzer had ordered his ships to retreat as well, but the Lightning’s hyperdrive had been knocked off line. The admiral had ordered Jagged, in his TIE Defender, to hang back and defend the stricken ship while the rest of the Emperor's Hammer ships jumped away. At nearly the last moment, the Lightning brought their hyperdrive back online and both Jagged and the Lightning made their jump just as the star went supernova.

When they re-emerged, they determined that the New Republic had reinstituted their Sun Crusher weapons program. The Sun Crusher was a super weapon with the power to cause a star to go supernova, thereby destroying the whole solar system of its target. It was the New Republic's only hope of overcoming the awesome might of the Emperor's Hammer in their core systems of the Minos Cluster. The Lightning needed to get a message back to the homeworld of the Emperor's Hammer, Aurora, warning them of the danger but they could not raise them via the Hypercom. And moreover, the Lightning’s navicomputer couldn't determine where they were in the galaxy to be able to plot their way back home. The crew of the Lightning and Jagged had devised a plan to enable them to explore the nearby stars, in hopes of being able to establish their location, and therefore enable them to get back home.

But they soon discovered that the exploding star had not only thrown them far off course, but also into the distant past. They had been sent over 4,000 years into the time of the Jedi Civil War. Unknowingly, Jagged had interfered with a critical Old Republic mission, and his actions would have prevented the Jedi from capturing the Dark Lord Revan, thereby forever altering the future of the galaxy. The Lightning and Jagged had been able to right his wrong by assisting in the capture operation of Revan and, hopefully, all was now back on track for the future they knew.

A few weeks after they had resigned themselves to a long, slow death in the distant past, far from their loved ones, Lieutenant Commander Jast had an idea to attempt to use a possible supernova he knew of from a Wild Space legend to possibly get back home. It was a sign of their desperation to see home that all members of the Lightning’s crew agreed to risk yet another supernova and blind jump.

---

"We measured the same chronal radiation as we traveled through hyperspace," answered Jast. "And the hypercom signals we had been able to tune into before our latest jump are now gone, so I think we can safely say we are no longer WHEN we were. I just can't say when or where we are now."

"Our first order of business is to once again enable us to plot a course through hyperspace," Lantill announced. "We shall use the same method you two devised last time, but not until the Lightning is restored to operational status."

Both Jagged and Jast nodded their understanding.

"We will gather again in forty-eight hours, unless Engineer Jast reports a delay in the repairs. Until then, you are all dismissed."

The officers around the room rose and filed out the entryway to go about their tasks in the repair of the ship.

---

Two days later Jagged was sitting in the operations briefing room as Captain Lantill was reviewing the mission for the day.

"Alright Colonel Fell," Lantill began, "just like before we will have you jump just a few light years away. Then you will take an advanced navigational scan and send the data back to the Lightning. Once our computer has determined the distance to the closest stars to us, you will jump to each in the hope that we will find something to tell us where we are."

"Be careful in engaging in any combat, we don’t want a repeat of what happened last time. Good luck."

And with that Jagged headed for the hangar.

---

Jagged did his preflight walk around of his TIE Defender and climbed in once everything was found to be to proper, Imperial standards. It was especially important that he inspected everything about the fighter as it was their only hyperspace capable fighter, and who knew how long it would be until that situation could be changed. Even though parts had begun to run out for general repairs, Jast had declared his craft had top priority for any repairs it needed, it was too important that they had a shielded scout for them to allow it to be deployed without being in tip top shape. The Defender had the ubiquitous ball cockpit of the TIE series craft, but whereas a standard TIE had two pylons, it possessed three. And attached to those pylons, rather than the large, hexagonal wings of the TIE Fighter, the Defender had a pair of outwardly canted, dagger shaped wings, each sporting a wingtip mounted weapon.

Going through his startup sequence, flipping a dozen switches and pressing half as many buttons across four different control boards and finally his Defender was ready for action. The Defender was a super-fighter. It was equipped with four laser cannons mounted to the lower wings, a pair of ion cannons upon the upper wings, two multipurpose warhead launchers attached to the main hull, and a shield generator twice as powerful as that of an X-Wing. All while being the fastest production fighter on either side of their war with the New Republic.

“Hangar Control, this is Typhoon Lead, ready for clearance to launch.”

"You're cleared for launch, Colonel."

Jagged fed power into his repulser coils and lifted off the cradle his fighter rested on and gave the main engines a small bit of power and he left the hangar.

Jagged brought his fighter up and around looping close to the Lightning. The corvette looked nothing like the Corellian model, so favored by the Rebellion. No it was of decidedly Imperial design. It had an arrowhead main hull, even more tapered than that of the iconic Star Destroyer. And it also featured a pair of almost TIE Fighter wings swept inward, along the hull at the stern of the ship, with another set of TIE inspired wings mounted to the ventral hull, around amidships.

"I am ready to head out."

"Good luck, once again Typhoon Leader."

Jagged set his jump timer to pull him out after only a short moment and punched his hyperdrive. The stars barely had time to swirl around him before he was dropping back into real space. He could tell he had not gone far as the stars around him did not look meaningfully different than those around the Lightning..

“Ok, jump successful. Activating the advanced navigation scan now,” he radioed back to the Lightning.

His computer display changed to indicate that it was scanning and locating all the bright stars around his fighter. It took a few moments but then the computer beeped that it was done and sending the data back to the Lightning.

“Scan complete and data on its way,” he called.

Lieutenant Commander Jast replied, “Hold one Typhoon, you know the drill.”

Jagged sat, looking out at the stars for several minutes when his tactical board let out a tone and he heard Lantill say, “Typhoon, we have jump coordinates for your first star system.”

Jagged brought his Defender around on his new exit vector and his craft leapt into hyperspace.

He dropped out of hyperspace to a new starfield, a small asteroid field, and a planet, not too far off in the distance.

Keying his radio, “Jump successful. Scanning the area…not showing anything.” It seemed the system was completely devoid of any signs of civilization.

"Ok, sending the coordinates for the next system for your search," replied Lantill.

Jagged brought his Defender around to the course to the next system on his list and punched his hyperdrive, when the stars around him once again resolved back into pinpricks of light, his attention was immediately drawn to a battle raging in the far distance.

The ships were too far away to get any details on any of them, but their shapes were instantly familiar to Jagged.

"Well...I think I have a good guess on WHEN we are..."

"What did you find?"

The familiar torus shaped ships and proto-star destroyers were unmistakable.

"I am pretty sure we are some time during the Clone War. I have a sizable fleet of pre-Empire cruisers and destroyers fighting ships that look like the old holos of the Separatist forces."

"Do you now...one moment while we look to see if we have any pre-Empire hypercomm frequencies and authorization codes."

After a few moments, "We know both when and where we are. You can go join the fighting if you want, but be warned, those Republic forces will likely attack you. Otherwise, make your way back to the Lightning, we have some thinking to do."

Jagged thought to himself, "Like I am going to miss the chance to be able to say I fought in the Clone Wars." And he punched up a micro jump deeper into the system and right into the heart of the battle.

As he came out of his micro jump he was right on top of one of the big donut shaped ships, a Lucrehulk Jagged remembered. He took the opportunity to strafe the enemy ship and then began to check his scanners for the nearest droid fighter. Jagged was able to quickly rack up several vulture droid kills before either side took notice of him.

When a droid targeted him, it wasn't too bad as he could quickly dispatch the annoyance before moving on to the next. But after some time he had several Republic ARC-170 fighters chasing him too. He didn't want to kill any of the clone soldiers who were just loyally serving Palpatine's Republic so he was forced to take evasive action more and more.

Jagged soon realized he was doing more harm than good in distracting the clone pilots from their mission against the Separatist so decided it was time for him to leave. He punched up the course back to the Lightning and quickly shook off his pursuers and jumped to safety.

After he made it back to the Lightning, Captain Lantill greeted him with, "I see you decided to get involved once again. No matter, it should not have any lasting impact on the conflict, or our future. Come to my briefing room, we have much to discuss."

---

Gone were the open hatches and sparking power relays. Now, as the command staff of the Lightning gathered in the conference room, it looked like a proper, ship-shape, Imperial space once again. The ability of Chief Engineer Jast's team to keep the Lightning in proper Imperial order impressed Jagged. But he knew from conversations with Jast that their supplies of spare parts were dwindling.

"So," began Lantill, "for the good news first. Thanks to Colonel Fell, we now know when and where we are. We are almost precisely one year before the Emperor ascended to the throne. We are at a point where we could conceivably merely wait until our original timeline were to happen, and be able to get the message about the Sun Crusher to Aurora."

"That is not for another fifty-four more years, sir," interjected Lieutenant Commander Larders, the Lightning’s First Officer.

"I am well aware of that, First Officer," answered Lantill. "But the truth of the matter is that we cannot risk another blind jump through time. There had been a slim hope that the temporal event that sent us into the past was merely a two way tunnel, and that by recreating the event we would have been sent directly home. But that obviously is not the case."

"It is incredible to think, but we have now discovered true time travel," remarked Jast.

"Yeah, but to do it you need to know where a supernova is going to be before it happens," replied Jagged. "And we can't control it."

"Precisely," said Lantill, "unless we can learn to control the process, we cannot risk it again. There is no guarantee that we would arrive any closer to home than right now. We could be sent further into the past, or even into our future. No, our safest course of action is to get home the slow way now."

"It is too bad we don't know where to find a top notch stellar, or even better, temporal researcher," bemoaned Jast.

"We don't have accurate enough records of this time," replied Larders. "It was incredibly fortunate that we had the hypercom and hyperbuoy codes and frequencies."

"Excuse me, sir," spoke up an extremely young ensign who had been standing against the wall. "But we might have that information."

"Wait, who are you?" asked Jagged.

"This is Ensign Thors, my aid," answered First Officer Larders. "I thought he knew better than to speak at one of our meetings. I will need to remind him of proper decorum later. Pay him no attention, we were saying-"

"No, let him speak," interjected Lantill. "I wish to hear what he has to say." Turning to the young man he continued, "You were saying you believe we may have 'that information'? What information are you referring to?"

The junior officer took a timid step forward. "Erh...that we might have the information on where to find a researcher, like Commander Jast was asking for."

"And how would we have that information, and Chief Jast not already beware of it, Mister Thors?"

"Umm, my, my personal files, sir. I have a lot of information on the Clone Wars downloaded onto my personal directory, sir."

"Why would you have that data in your personal directory?" asked Jagged.

"Ahh...you see...when I was assigned to the Lightning I heard that Captain Lantill was interested in the Republic, the old Republic, so I figured I would try to learn all I could about the major war they had, the Clone War, you know, the one just before it became the Empire."

"Ensign, I study the Old Republic. What made you think that meant the government just before the Empire?" asked Lantill.

"Well, I figured that the Rebels call themselves the New Republic, so the one before must be...the...Old...Republic," Thors responded hesitantly.

"No, ensign, the Old Republic is from before the Sith...Oh, never mind. What makes you think your data file would contain information on a research scientist?"

"Well...I mean...I didn't know what would be interesting so I just downloaded everything..."

"What do you mean by everything?"

---

Two days later the Command Staff met once again, this time without Ensign Thors.

"When the kid said everything, he meant it," Chief Engineer Jast began.

"What do you mean?" asked Jagged.

"Well, near as I can determine, what he did was copy the ENTIRE Emperor's Hammer database for the time period of 3 BFE to 0 AFE." Somebody at the table let out a whistle. "Including, somehow, even the files to which he doesn't have clearance to access."

"How could he possibly fit all of that in his folders?"

"It seems he used Commander Larders' access privileges to override the personal storage limitations."

"How much data are we talking about?"

"Let us just say that the reports I have been getting from the enlisted personnel about their files not saving properly and the loss of their log entries now makes a whole lot more sense."

"I assume you have taken care of this issue?" asked Lantill.

"Yes sir, I have moved all the data to the engineering directory and cleared it out of his personal folders. All the database issues should now be sorted out."

"Did his 'youthful error' actually help us?" asked Larders.

"Actually, I think so. I was able to find records of an Arkanian researcher named Runoba Zang who I think will be perfect for our needs."

"What makes you think that?" asked Lantill.

"Well, he is one of the top stellar researchers, who specializes in supernovae. He recently published a paper on the theory that supernovae punch a hole in the fabric of space-time and that temporal aberrations could be created in the area around the star that last just a few seconds."

"You don't say," murmured Jagged.

"Yep, and it didn't go over well with the Institute of Applied Science. They claimed it was too far-fetched and bad science."

"Well, about that..." joked Jagged.

"Obviously they did know what we know now. But it may help us, Zang has been disgraced and been sent to the Outer Rim as a punishment."

"Are you certain his removal from history would not impact our future?" inquired Lantill.

"Yes sir. Due to his disgrace he has had his clearances revoked and as such has been removed for consideration for Operation Stardust. But even if he hadn't, the records show he didn't...doesn't...survive the Clone Wars. His ship is presumed lost to CIS forces in just another six weeks, in fact."

"You don't say..." said Lantill thoughtfully. "You are all dismissed while I consider our options." There was a flurry of motion as the various officers rose from the table. "And First Officer Larders?"

Larders stopped and turned back to face Lantill, "Yes, captain."

"I trust you plan to 'counsel' mister Thors on proper naval procedures about database access?"

"Oh, you can count on that." Larders said with a determined expression.

"I thought so. Please keep in mind that his...indiscretions...may have saved us all."

"I will keep that in mind sir."

---

It was the next day before Captain Lantill called for the follow up meeting.

Lantill opened with, "I have thought long and hard on this, while also querying the records that Ensign Thors so fortuitously downloaded for us."

That bought out the expected chuckles and a blush to Thors' face.

"Thanks to Chief Jast's research we know of a scientist who likely can help us get home. And in addition there is a supernova that will occur on Empire Day, in a little less than a year's time."

That announcement caused a murmur to break out in the room, which quieted down once Lantill continued.

"I have decided that our actions here are unlikely to cause any serious repercussions to our future, as long as we stay clear of any major battles, or any of the main players in this war, there is little we could do to change anything of true import to the galaxy as a whole. And as such, we are free...no, honorbound, to pursue all means within our grasp to return to the time which we left."

"Does that mean we are going to capture this Zang character?" asked Jagged.

"Yes, but first we must prepare ourselves for this operation, and to be able to support ourselves. We already had to capture more food supplies while we were in the deep past, and now we are once again nearly out of provisions and are desperately low on parts for repairs. And we can't continue to operate as a single ship with only a single hyperspace capable fighter."

"What are you saying, sir?" asked Jagged, becoming a bit wary.

"I think it is time we put those pilots you have been training these last few months to work, don't you."

In the six months that the Lightning had been stuck in the Old Republic Era, Jagged had proposed to Captain Lantill that he begin training any of the junior officers and senior enlisted who wished to learn in advanced fighter operations. Lantill agreed that it would be a good way to maintain, if not improve, morale amongst the crew and gave his blessing. Now, the fighter-trained pilots aboard the Lightning were more than just Jagged and the four TIE pilots who had begun the journey, there were now over two dozen qualified pilots.

"You are still our most skilled and senior pilot, so it will be on your shoulders to perform these critical, initial operations."

"Yes sir, I will be happy to do whatever you need done."

"Our first target will be a Republic medical station at Ord Cestus. They should have a Corellian Corvette we can 'borrow' and a number of Republic fighters. We will capture one of the corvettes at the station and any cargo ships that are in the area. We will divide the crew of the Lightning to man both ships. We will lose some of our ability to respond at all hours to alerts, but we will more than make up for that loss of combat readiness in pure firepower."

There were definitely many expressions of concern around the room as Lantill continued.

"Our second target will be a strike at the heart of the Separatists to capture one of their destroyers and its droid fighters."

"Why would we need a droid ship, sir?" asked Larders.

"All will be revealed in time..."

---

After Jagged was once again in space, Captain Lantill radioed, "Ok Jagged, we must capture those ships. Good luck."

"You can count on me to get what we need...somehow..."

And he punched his fighter into hyperspace and to Ord Cestus.

Looking out at the ships arrayed about the medical station in the distance Jagged messaged, "Well, that is more than I was hoping to have to fight...sending my tactical feed back now."

"Agreed, you shouldn't try to take on all of those ships..."

A moment later Jagged's sensor board lit up with indications that more ships had just dropped out of hyperspace nearby.

"Hold on...it looks like a new convoy is dropping into the system...Yes, it is a corvette and some freighters...Let's hope they are carrying what we need."

Lantill radioed in reply, "Storm Units 1 through 4 are launching and preparing to jump in on your command."

Realizing that the corvette needed to be taken out first, or it would prevent any of the freighters from being captured, Jagged set his shields full forward and began his attack runs against the blockade runner. He was very familiar with the weapons and their firing arcs of the Corellian Corvette, they being one of the New Republic's most common escort ships.

It only took him a few minutes of concentrated work to whittle down the corvette's shields and then use his ion cannons to disable the escort craft. Checking his sensor board to see if the fighters streaming from the other ships in the area were still out of range he found that they were still clear from danger.

Keying his radio he said, "Ok, come fetch our new ride."

After a short pause he heard the assault transport call, "We'll take it from here, just keep those fighters off of us."

Noting that he still had a few minutes until the lead fighters were in range, Jagged wheeled his fighter about to start after the closest freighter. He noted that all three were making a run for the station and the safety it would give them but they were too far out to be under its covering fire.

As he was lining up for his second strafing run against the freighter he heard Storm 1 radio once again, "Corvette is secured, retreating now with our prize."

Jagged finished his run against the freighter and checked his sensors as he passed. It showed that the last pass had finally disabled the freighter and even that it was hauling a cargo hold full of food.

"The grocery store is ready for pickup," he radioed to the waiting Storm transports.

When Storm 2 entered the system, they matched Jagged's casual tone, "What do you think? Will they have any fresh nerf?"

Once again, Jagged turned his attention to the next transport in line, the Republic fighters were still out of range, but it was likely he would have to deal at least with the leading wave of them before their mission here was completed.

"Supplies secured, running now," radioed Storm 2 as they completed their mission.

Having finally disabled the second freighter, Jagged glanced at his sensor board to check on the cargo of the vessel and radioed, "Tell Jast I have a whole ship full of parts for him."

Almost immediately Storm 3 was in the system and asked a very important question, "Do you think they will be able to fix the shower on deck 3 now?"

Now the lead fighters were just about in range and Jagged had his hands full when Storm 3 radioed they had finished capturing the ship, "Transport secured, heading out."

Jagged checked the time estimate from his computer, he would not have time to finish off the fighters currently harassing him and get to the last freighter before it was in range of the medical facilities defenses. he would have to disable the freighter while dodging the Y-wings and ARC-170s he was currently entangled with.

He took a few hits on his aft shields, but he got the freighter disabled at least a full kilometer outside the range of the station. Glancing down at his sensor board, Jagged excitedly radioed to the last remaining Storm transport, "Got a whole ship loaded with fighters here!"

Soon he heard Storm 4 message back, "Since we're the ones capturing them, can we get first pick for our personal fighters?"

Jagged was too busy keeping the Republic fighters from attacking the transport to engage in the banter. It took longer than he liked but finally Storm 4 messaged, "Capture complete. Heading for home."

Just a few more minutes and then, once both Storm 4 and the freighter Gremlin had jumped away Jagged received the all clear message from the Lightning, "Ok, Jagged, that job is done. Now go get us some droids."

As the coordinates of the Separatist outpost Lantill was sending him after came up on his navigation system Jagged realized he was only escaping the frying pan to land in another fire.

"Serenno, man you weren't kidding about hitting the heart of the Confederacy."

---

After landing in the distant outskirts of the Serenno System, Jagged scanned the area and reported back to the Lightning, "Well, the place is packed, but what did you expect?"

"Yes, but one of those Recusant Destroyers is away from the main force. Grab it before you get overwhelmed."

They were right, there was a Recusant just a few kilometers away at a mobile repair station, whereas most of the local defense forces were away in the distance, but Jagged would not have much time in which to disable the over a kilometer long ship, "Easier said than done..."

It took all of his warheads, and much more time than he was comfortable with, but Jagged FINALLY disabled the Separatist ship, "There, it is disabled. Get here quick, we don't have much time."

Storm 5 popped into the system and radioed, "We will work as fast as we can. Keep those droid fighters away from us so we can get out of here."

Luckily for Jagged the vulture droids were not all going to arrive at the same time, but it was still a near thing when at last Storm 5 messaged they were done, "Droid control ship secured, plotting our jump now."

Jagged had to destroy another half dozen droid fighters before, at last, the Recusant was away and he got the recall message from Lantill, "Well done Colonel Fell, get out of there while you still can."

---

The boarding team for the Republic corvette had used non-lethal tactics and stun bolts as much as they could. As a result, of the original one hundred crew members ninety-two were now captured and under questioning to determine who might be willing to join the Emperor’s Hammer and help crew the corvettes, and who needed to be dealt with before they could compromise the mission. They can’t reasonably keep them all captive; their supplies are limited and every mouth to feed is another meal they will have to eventually steal from either the Republic or the Separatists. And if they were going to be able to survive for almost a year here in the Clone Wars, they were going to have to keep a low profile.

When Jagged had a chance to go over to the Republic Corvette, recently rechristened the Thunder, he was a bit surprised to see the state of it. The boarding teams had hardly damaged the ship at all, and for being a ship from fifty-four years in Jagged’s personal past, it looked surprisingly familiar. Honestly, the only real difference of the Thunder to a Corellian corvette in the service to the Emperor’s Hammer in Jagged’s past experience was the lack of Imperial furnishings in the crew areas of the ship. It seems the Republic, even in times of war, were less utilitarian than what came after.

Chief Jast’s work crews were hard at work reconfiguring the hangar bay to hold as many of the ARC-170 fighters that they had captured as possible. Jast had told Jagged that they should be able to fit nine of the X-Wing predecessors in the Thunder and four in the Lightning, but that they would be slow to launch so not to expect all of them to be available to Jagged as wingmen. They had captured significantly more than thirteen ARC-170s on the freighter Jagged had disabled, but as they didn’t have hangar space for them all, most would be kept in storage to be used as spares to replace any combat losses.

The ARC-170 fighters looked antiquated to Jagged’s eyes, being a less armed and bulkier version of the X-Wing. But they had Class 1.5 hyperdrives and shield generators, so they were a significant step up in force projection from the two standard model TIE Fighters that Jagged previously had available to be wingmen to his state-of-the-art TIE Defender. The ARC-170 were more capable with the addition of their tail and forward gunners, but the Lightning did not have the crew to spare to have three pilots per craft, so the decision had been made to forego crewing the fighters with more than just a pilot and one of the captured and reprogrammed R2 units.

The boarding teams who assaulted the Confederacy destroyer had not shown any of the restraint as their brethren had aboard the Republic ship. What organics they had found in the massive ship, at least compared to the corvettes, had been dispatched without a second thought. As Jagged toured the ship he had only previously seen in historical texts and films he thought on how his time with the Emperor’s Hammer had changed him. Once, he was sure, the blaster-pocked walls, with the drying pools of blood, would have turned his stomach. But after the war with the Kilji, in the Unknown Regions, and the horrors he had seen them commit on Cardio Prime, he wasn’t sure anything could disturb him anymore. Sometimes he would lie awake at night desperately fighting to keep the images of the slain children from his mind so he could sleep without the nightmares, often he would fail at his task and wake screaming and crying.

Jagged missed his wife Shiri’ala, she had a way of soothing his mind and driving away the memories. He also just missed her presence. It had been more than seven months since he had seen her, and more than six since they last spoke on the comm together. And, even if this next supernova got them home, it would be nearly a year still until he could possibly see her, assuming they made it back in time to stop the New Republic from destroying Aurora. If they failed to stop the New Republic, Jagged privately vowed to wreak vengeance upon all who had taken the woman he loved from him...

---

It had been two weeks since their successful capture operations and once again the command staff of the Lightning had gathered to discuss their next moves.

Captain Lantill opened the meeting with, “First Officer Larders, please report on the status of the prisoners from the Thunder.”

Larders straightened and replied, “Of the ninety-two prisoners, the security team and I are confident in accepting fifty-four of them as provisional Emperor’s Hammer recruits.”

“Excellent, that will go a long ways towards relieving the strain on us all in manning the ships.”

“Yes sir. The plan is to split the recruits between the two ships and limit the number on any one shift to limit any risk they might still pose for any coup attempts. But we feel confident that this is not a likely concern, these recruits seem to be genuine.”

“And what are we to do with the thirty-eight who we are not recruiting?” asked Jagged. “Are we just going to continue to hold them captive?”

“No,” answered Larders, “that would still be a waste of our resources. We can’t simply release them as they could go back to the Republic and reveal our presence. But we also do not wish to be needlessly blood thirsty. We have found a relatively habitable world in this region of the outer rim that is still unknown to the Republic or Separatists, our plan is to deposit the prisoners there with enough supplies to support them for two months. If they can establish their own local food production in that time, then they will likely be able to survive until the Empire discovers the world four years from now. If not, then we gave them the best chance we could without compromising our mission.”

“Now, with that out of the way, Chief Jast, are the modifications to the Lightning and Thunder complete? Are we able to field our newly acquired ARC-170 fighters?” asked Lantill.

“Yes sir, we won’t be able to quickly launch more than a handful at a time, but we have done all that we can,” answered Lieutenant Commander Jast.

“Then I think it is high time we discuss our next actions,” Lantill said while looking around the room. “In two weeks’ time, our best hope to get home, the Arkanian Runoba Zang, will depart Mon Cala on his fateful trip home. We must recruit him to our cause, or we are doomed to take the slow route back to our time.”

“We can not count on Zang merely choosing to come with us. We must make him think we are with the Republic and are rescuing him from the Separatists. The irony is that we are rescuing him from the trap that lies before him, but we cannot be certain of our ability to stop the actual Confederacy forces that await him, even if we knew exactly where the ambush was to take place. So, we will create our own Separatist ‘trap’ for him.”

“So that is the reason we captured the Recusant and its vulture droids?” Jagged asked.

“Precisely. Commander Jast’s men have installed a full slave rig to the controls of the destroyer which will allow a small team of controllers from a nearby transport to operate the ship and its fighters. The system will not allow the craft to fight to its full potential but should look convincing enough to the crew of Zang’s freighter and to Zang himself.”

“But won’t he figure out that we aren’t from the Republic if we are to give him enough information to be able to help us?” asked Jast.

“I am certain he will. I am actually quite curious to see how long it takes him to determine that. But we only need him to fall for the ruse long enough to keep his reservations at bay until we can show him our sensor readings from the supernova. My reading of the man from his published papers is that once he is presented with this problem, and given a chance to prove his theories, he will not be able to keep himself from pursuing the problem to its solution.”

Two weeks later, Jagged and several of his newly trained fighter pilots sat around the holoprojector in the combat briefing room.

“We have only one chance to get Zang on our side,” began Lantill. “Each of you will need to play your parts for this to work. Colonel Fell, you are to carry the special interdictor mine that Chief Jast has constructed to the Shaylin System and prime it for detonation.”

“Once the mine is in place, then head to Mon Cala and inspect the freighter and personnel transports until you determine which is carrying Zang. You are to wait until his ship has jumped into hyperspace and then signal the mine to detonate. If you signal too early, the interdictor field may not be active when Zang’s ship traverses the Shaylin System, and if too late it may be past the system before it can fully activate. Once a successful signal has been sent, jump back to the Shaylin System and help fight off the ‘Confederacy’ forces that will be attacking the ship.”

“A few moments after you arrive the Thunder and its ARC-170s will arrive to assist in the ‘rescue’. We need the attack to look believable, so the vulture droids will be programmed to kill you and Zang’s ship, do not let them do so. Once you have destroyed the destroyer and all remaining droids, the Thunder will send a shuttle over to pick up Zang.”

Standing up, the Captain gave them a final, “Good luck,” and they were off to their fighters.

---

The beginning of the mission went without a hitch, Jagged dragged the interdictor mine to above Shaylin 18 and then moved on to Mon Cala. Once there the authorities radioed him, "Unidentified fighter, state your identity and purpose here."

Lantill messaged, "Ignore them, you should be gone before their forces can scramble to reach you."

So Jagged went to work and found the AA9 Freighter whose automatic manifest returned that Zang was aboard.

"I have located the ship, following it at a safe distance."

"Remember, once they jump, signal the mine. You won’t have much time."

The nearest Republic fighter was still over five kilometers away when the Waverunner jumped into hyperspace. Jagged quickly sent the signal to the mine and jumped to hyperspace himself.

As he landed above Shaylin 18 he saw that the Recuscant Destroyer, Perilous, was in place and sending out vulture droids to go after the Waverunner.

"Mayday! Mayday! Something has disabled our hyperdrive, and we have Separatist fighters inbound!"

"Waverunner, this is Lieutenant Colonel Fell of the Republic Experimental Fighter Squadron, I will do what I can to protect you. Reinforcements are on their way."

"Thank you!"

Right on queue the captured Republic corvette, Thunder, arrived and radioed, "Waverunner, we are here to assist you."

Jagged was thankful for the four ARC-170 fighters that also arrived to assist him, it had been a long time since he had any wingmen while on a mission, and the help was greatly appreciated.

They made relatively quick work of the captured vulture droids and then, once they were gone, they also destroyed the Perilous. It might have been nice to just disable it again so they could use it again in the future, but they couldn't risk making Zang suspicious before he even stepped foot on their ship.

After all the attacking forces were gone the Waverunner radioed, "We are saved! Thank you so much!"

The Thunder messaged back, "Waverunner, you have a Republic researcher on board, a Runoba Zang. We are sending a shuttle over to transport him back to our ship for safe transport to his destination."

"Understood."

However, when the Lambda shuttle arrived at the Waverunner some suspicions seemed to have been raised anyway, "Never seen a shuttle that looks like that before."

Thinking quickly Jagged radioed, "We are with the Experimental Weapons development department in the Navy. All hush hush."

"I guess."

Soon the Monsoon reported that they had the researcher, "Zang secured, heading back to the Thunder."

Jagged headed to the Thunder himself to meet this Arkanian.

---

Jagged was waiting at the foot of the Lambda shuttle’s ramp when Runoda Zang disembarked. He could have passed for human, if not for the fact that he had only four digits on each hand. He also had both his eyes covered. At first Jagged thought it was only some protective eye shielding, but once closer he realized that the scientist had replaced both his eyes with cybernetics.

“Who are you,” asked Zang, without preamble, in a haughty tone.

“I am Lieutenant Colonel Fell, I was the lead fighter protecting you just now.”

“Your craft is unlike any that I have seen before.”

“It is a highly advanced prototype, unique at this time, in fact.”

“Interesting. Take me to the captain now.”

Biting back his annoyance at the arrogance in the scientist, Jagged said, “Of course, right this way.”

---

Jagged led Zang to the Thunder’s conference room where waited Lieutenant Commander Larders, the acting captain of the Thunder, and Chief Engineer Jast who had come over to the Thunder to be here for this first meeting.

“Please sit...Professor...Zang?” greeted Larders.

“Yes, refer to me as Professor Zang if you must address me.”

Giving Jagged a quick look that clearly communicated his shock at the lack of grace of their new “guest” Larders sat and began, “Professor Zang, we are glad we were able to come to your rescue just now and-“

Zang cut Larders off and turned to address Jagged, “Why were you following me, Colonel?”

“Ah...”

Chief Jast, realizing that the other two in the room were unaccustomed to dealing with academics like Zang, jumped in, “We had reports that the Separatists were targeting you for capture and were sent to see that didn’t happen.”

“Why?”

“We believe that they were attempting to gain your expertise to assist them in winning the war.”

“Preposterous, I am in disgrace. They would never target me.”

“We have new data from several supernovae that seem to corroborate your theories. They may too have wanted to deny you the opportunity to examine what we have.”

“Show me.”

---

Fifteen minutes later, as Zang was pouring over the datapad Jast had given him upon his demand, Jagged was beginning to wonder how many days it would take the prickly researcher to determine that the data showed that time travel was possible. It turned out, not that long.

“You are not soldiers of the Republic. You are from the future. Explain.”

“Bring him to the Lightning,” commanded Lantill from the holocomm that Zang had not been aware was listening.

A few hours later, aboard the Lightning, the command staff and Professor Zang gathered in the conference room.

“Professor Zang,” began Lantill, “it was my decision to hide from you the fact that we are not from this time, that we are not soldiers in this war. We are from the lawful continuation of the Republic, serving the government that Sheev Palpatine has established. We did not wish to distract you, or cause you concern before we were able to show you the data we had gathered from the supernova.”

“You need not have bothered,” replied Zang. “I care not who you serve, only that you have presented me with a chance to prove that I am correct. What is it that you want from me?”

“Is there a way to control the jump through time? Can we use another supernova to return to a time of our choosing?”

“I do not know. Where may I work?”

---

It was a week later when Zang notified Lantill that he was ready to talk once again.

“It is fortunate that your ‘Imperial’ efficiency gathered so much data from both of your jumps. So too that you have experienced both a leap into the past and one also into the future. I now can hypothesize the mechanisms for the control of the direction of time travel and its duration.”

“That is incredible!” exclaimed Chief Jast.

“Yes,” replied Zang in an off hand way, “but I need more space with which to work if I am to devise a way to properly control the phenomenon. And we will need a supernova if this is to be of any use.”

“We know of a suitable star that will go nova in approximately ten months,” supplied Lantill. “It is at the edge of our detailed knowledge of this time period, if we are not ready in time then we will have no more chances.”

“Then I must begin at once. This is what I will need...”

---

“Professor Zang has made it clear that if we are to get home, we must secure a research station for him in which to work," said Lantill to the gathered pilots of the Lightning and Thunder. "As such we have chosen to target the Separatist station at Dalos IV.”

“Per the records Ensign Thors has supplied us with, the Republic will not attack here until a month after the war’s end. And we feel that the Confederacy will not prioritize its recapture in the midst of the wider conflict.”

“This will be a straightforward assault with all our forces. We must eliminate all Separatist ships in the area, and prevent any from escaping to carry the news of the station’s fall.”

---

As they dropped out of hyperspace above Dalos IV, Jagged could see that in addition to the station they had come to seize there were three Separatist capital ships in the area, a massive Lucrehulk battleship and two Recusant Light Destroyers. There was also a fair number of droid fighters buzzing about.

"Jagged," the Lightning called, "make sure to protect both the Lightning and the Thunder from any bombers they may send at us. We will let you know when our sensors show all the warhead armed droids have been expended."

Keying his threat display to show the fighters targeting the corvettes Jagged hit his mic, "Roger, hunt the bombers."

The next minutes were a blur, sometimes Jagged would call out targets to the ARC-170 wingmen, but most of the time it was down to his skill to shoot the bombers and their warheads out of the star-filled sky.

Then, also before he knew what was happening, "That is it Jagged, you are cleared to press in towards the Separatist capital ships. Remember you can rearm on the Lightning if you run out of warheads."

All the bombers were history, now it was his turn to play capital ship killer. First one Recusant went up in flames, then the other.

"Almost done with these capital ships," Jagged called over the Imperial frequency as he went back for more warheads. Now just for the Lucrehulk, a massive ship, over three kilometers in diameter. It was even bigger than the Imperial Star Destroyers Jagged usually called home. But he had fought bigger and this ship was going to fall.

It took the combined efforts of all the fighters the Lightning and Thunder could field, but eventually, even with droid fighters from the station still harrying them, the behemoth fell.

"Great work Jagged, now disable that station."

It was spare praise, but Jagged would not have expected anything more effusive.

After the juggernaut that was the Lucrehulk, the station seemed almost trivial to defang and disable, but the fight was kept interesting by the near continuous stream of droid fighters launching from the base as they attacked it.

But at last the Lightning called, "Boarding teams are on their way. Protect them from any fighters that are still launching."

It wasn't too much work to keep the fighters off of the assault transport as it docked with the station and the boarding parties went to work. After a few minutes Jagged heard the message he had been hoping for, "Mission complete, but we are still working on preventing the fighters from launching. We have managed to disable their targeting so pay them no mind and come aboard."

---

Once again, the boarding teams had been brutal in their mission, but this time a small remnant was left alive in order that they might perform the regular duties of running the station while the Emperor’s Hammer occupied it.

Professor Zang did not seem perturbed by the carnage around him and merely declared, “This will have to do. We must get to work immediately if I am to be proven the greatest stellar researcher of all time.”

As Jagged and Lantill walked along the corridor of the station, Jagged said, “Zang doesn’t lack for confidence, does he?”

“No, but that is the prerogative of the truly brilliant. We will see if he can back up his belief in himself.”

“I just feel sorry for Jast if he has to spend these next months working closely with that man.”

“If it is the sacrifice he must make to get us home, I doubt he will mind too much. But I will be sure to put him in for a commendation once we get home if he manages to not threaten to shove him out an airlock in the next ten months.”

“So, you think we will get home?”

“I can only hope Jagged. If not, I fear for what will happen to our home. But enough of that, let us see if we can finally find you some quarters aboard this station and get you off of my couch.”

---

To be concluded in Part 3, Out of Time: Race for Home