Klaxons blared and bayed and the enormous ship shuddered violently, as if shaken by some angry god. A few consoles on the combat information center sparked and sizzled, while several overhead panels exploded, revealing burning cables and hissing coolant pipes as the battlecruiser was violently ripped out of hyperspace. They only had seconds after the detection of the hyperspace disturbance, not enough time to make the necessary adjustments to prevent this disaster.
"<Status report!>" shouted the warship's commander, a silver-haired man dressed in a white uniform, red sash and three chains draped over his shoulders, the enigmatic Darth Tacitus, Sith Lord and absolute ruler of the Eternal Empire, that totalitarian nation which cast ever-darker shadows over the Unknown Regions, expanding and enforcing its rule through brutality, discipline and sheer grit. Immediately, a series of holograms lit up above his command console, displaying information about the beleaguered vessel in the blocky letters of the Imperial alphabet.
"<I want an immediate update on our surroundings!>" he commanded, the ship's crew scrambling to bring the sensor arrays back online.
The answer came as the ship rolled, tumbling lazily and uncontrollably through space, the blackness driven away by a blue horizon.
A horizon! As if on cue, the sensors came back online, confirming what every crewmember on the bridge feared, but did not voice. The massive warship was on a collision course with the planet and it was already caught in its gravity well, its speed insufficient for it to maintain orbit. They had but minutes until they hit the atmosphere and at this velocity, the battlecruiser would burn up and break apart. Minutes weren't enough to get everyone to the escape pods.
Tacitus' crew looked towards their commander, the oppressive silence confirming what everyone thought.
They were going to die here.
Eyes glued to the flickering holograms in front of him, the Sith Lord cast his mind against the problem, furiously running through the numbers and considering his rapidly diminishing options, quickly settling on one. It was a long shot. It would be difficult to pull off, perhaps impossible. But it was a
chance, the last, best chance the countless souls aboard the massive ship, had.
"<Evacuate the outer decks!>" he ordered in High Nelvaanian.
"<Switch over to manual controls and transfer pitch, yaw, roll and acceleration to my console!>" he barked and the navigation officer's face twisted in a horrified grimace as the man deduced what the Emperor intended.
"<Sir, we need to launch the escape pods! The ship won't hold!>" the officer protested.
But the Sith Lord did not change his decision. He did the math, ran the complex calculations and knew what the numbers indicated.
"<She'll hold,>" he answered in a low, intense tone.
Taloned fingers flicking across the console blindingly fast, he brought the ship's shields online, concentrating all power in the front and underside sections and inputted the commands to fire off the vessel's directional thrusters in precise intervals, arresting the metal behemoth's uncontrolled roll and angling its massive hull. Another button press brought up a display indicating the status of the main thrusters. It blinked 'ready' in angry, red letters.
The Invictus' hull was shaped like a long, sleek dagger tapering towards the front. He ran the equations through his mind, knew that the ship's geometry made the mad maneuver possible, even though it was never designed for anything like this. If the massive battlecruiser hit the atmosphere at just the right angle and he fired the main thrusters at just the right time... The vessel could use the atmospheric drag to stabilize itself and with a little push from the main engines, skip across the planet's atmosphere, bringing up the apoapsis just enough to allow the massive vessel to adjust its orbit and escape its fiery death.
In theory, at least.
But he was confident it was possible. He could do it. His crew could do it. They were the Eternal Navy, unmatched in skill by any spacers in the history of the galaxy, different from any who came before them. Better than any who came before them.
"<Brace for lithobreaking!>" he warned, more alarms blaring throughout the ship, this time warning its occupants to find something to secure themselves onto.
He cast one brief glance at his companion, the beautiful woman beside him, the woman who would soon become his wife. If they made it out of this mess alive.
The massive warship shook and groaned, its hull protesting angrily at the abuse it was subjected to as it slammed into the atmosphere. Immediately, the shields went in the red, then fizzled out, unable to cope with the shock. As the full force of the alien atmosphere slammed into the ship, Tacitus could only hope that the shields held for long enough. Otherwise, this was going to be a very short maneuver.
Heated by friction with the decelerating battlecruiser, the atmosphere lit up like the fires of hell, long, red tendrils of flame angrily hugging the vessel's hull, tearing apart plating, sensors, smashing in viewports on the lower decks and heating them to temperatures hot enough to incinerate flesh. The diagram displaying the various sections of the massive warship immediately turned red, a million alerts popping up on the holographic display as systems failed, overwhelmed by the destructive heat. His hands running over the controls of his console, the Sith Lord worked in silence, beads of cold sweat forming on a brow creased in a frown of intense concentration. In his mind, he counted down...
Three... two... one...
now. Now!
With the press of a button, the ship shook as if it struck an asteroid as the battlecruiser's main thrusters fired at full burn, struggling against the planet's deadly grip. The crew stared silently at the numbers displayed at the center of the holographic projection, numbers showing the ship's velocity relative to several points of reference, its altitude and rate of descent. It was a race against time and everyone knew it. The massive battlecruiser couldn't take much more of the punishment the atmosphere was subjecting it to.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the numbers changed. The rate of descent slowed, then halted and the projected periapsis of the ship's trajectory began to rise, higher and faster, putting the vessel on a course away from death.
They'd done it! Skipping across the planet's atmosphere like a colossal, metal leaf, the Invictus broke away into space.
"<Circularize our orbit as soon as we hit apoapsis,>" Tacitus commanded, releasing the controls back to the ship's navigation officer.
"<Give me a status update on the ship and the rest of the fleet. I want to know how long repairs will take,>" he ordered.
"<Sir, our hyperdrive is offline. Engineers are working to fix it, but we lack the necessary parts,>" reported one of the officers. The Sith Lord sighed. So, their ordeal wasn't over just yet. Once again, his mind raced through the possibilities.
"<Give me a scan of the planet,>" he demanded and soon enough, the holographic projection lit up with a representation of the alien world, several blinking red icons representing hundreds, perhaps thousands of shipwrecks, all caught by the planet's gravity well throughout the millennia, evidently suffering a less fortunate fate than the Invictus. Hopefully, one of them held the necessary parts, or something that would allow them to jury rig the hyperspace or the long range comms.
"<Prepare an expedition to the planet's surface,>" the Sith Lord ordered.
The flagship of the Eternal Empire had survived so far, but the danger was not yet over. Who knew what awaited its crew, down below. And without spare parts, the battlecruiser would be stranded, condemned to drift through space until its supplies ran out. The ship's fate depended on this expedition.
