One moment Kyle is tightening the nuts in the engine room, the other everything went to shit. All the bolts he just wrenched in broke looks. Something snapped on his left and he wished the heavens that it wasn't any of his limbs. He had his time in a med-bay's osteo-printer machine and he hated every single second in that forsaken machine. He despises it. They'd have to kill him before they could put him back in there.
On his right, a pipe blew steam in Kyle's direction. Just as he was fanning pungent vapor out of his face, an overhead pipe broke free from its hold and hit him square in the face.
Kyle questioned himself. Did the ship's hull split in half? Because he's seeing stars out here.
And at once - he lost his consciousness.
---
Kyle awoke in a sea of blue. Its shade is too dark to be the sky and too light to be the ocean. The blue is everywhere, even in him. He is blue. Wait- No. He is nothing. He lacks a body but it's baffling because he could still feel his limbs as if they were still there.
Then in the distance, a man clad in glowing armor appeared. The being of light towered over Kyle and stared at him with its burning bluish eyes.
The being spoke no words but Kyle could somehow convey whatever it is trying to say. The being bears a gift from the cosmos, from the forgotten gods of chaos and mischief. Power comes chaos and this is where they feed and thrive. With just a will and a connection, Kyle could swap his consciousness with a person. Physical and digital walls - as long as they are thin and unsecured - Kyle can use his powers. There are no goals nor altruism. There is only chaos.
With that, the being was gone in a flash of light. And another flash fished out Kyle from his unconscious state.
Kyle woke up in a broken engine room. It's somewhat assuring to see that the service bots are already doing their preliminary fixes of the ship. But he knew it's going to take more than that. The Fischer Fuselage is leaking for heaven's sake. That alone would take him days to fix.
As much as Kyle wanted to start fixing it, he would rather leave it to the Service Bots to start and worry about it later. The captain would have an earful with whatever in heaven's fuck he maneuvered the ship into. While walking to the canteen, he received a damage report from the ship's AI.
---
"Mason, what's the damage?" Jeremy, the ship captain asked.
"Everything is fucked," Kyle replied while getting an eyeful look from the rest of the crew. Hey! Even the lousy-ass doctor is here. That electrical storm must have hit him in the noggin'.
"Language, Mason. I know everything is fucked. Give me a detailed report."
"The fuselage in the engine room is leaking. The thrust engines themselves are near to exploding but thanks to Astra, it managed to shut it down at the last second. The lightfold engines are down too but not as destroyed as the thrusters. It's just that Polyneutron Core fizzled out of existence."
"Fuck," Jeremy said. "We need to contact the head base right now. We're stranded here in deep space without that core."
"Comms are down too. The entanglement crystals shattered."
"Where's the nearest Republic base, Daniel?"
Daniel, the vice-captain and the ship's navigator, opened up a holographic panel and looked at the galactic map. "Seeing that we're in the Blue-Crab Nebula, the nearest base is 700 light-years away. Without the lightfold engine, it'd take us about 200 years before we get there."
"Where's the nearest planet?"
"There's the planet Akkala a few days away. And there's good news and bad news."
Before the others could ask, Daniel already laid out the good and bad news.
"Good news is, Akkala has a well-known black market where we can 'easily' barter for a Polyneutron Core. And the bad news is, the planet is under the control of the Separatist Movement Coalition."
If anything, Kyle sees those two as bad news. While the SMC isn't in an all-out war with the Galactic Republic, the tensions between the two can bust someone's nut right off the hinge. The SMC really dislikes the Galactic Republic, and in turn, them.
"Ramsay Thorne is also the planet's overseer."
"How far is the next planet?" Theo, the ship's cook, finally added something to the discussion.
"I was getting to that part, thank you very much." Theo backed out in embarrassment from the comment. "Planet Juris is the next planet which is about 600 light-years away. There's a galactic void between Akkala and Juris."
"So, we have no choice then?" Kyle asked.
"Isn't that obvious?" Daniel replied.
Good heavens, does Kyle really fucking despise this cunt. The only person that guy is lenient to is himself. And maybe the captain just because he is a rank higher. But still, Daniel is a cunt and Kyle would like to burn his smug ass of a face with a torch.
"Then to Akkala we shall head next," Jeremy said. "Conceal everything that would affiliate us with the Galactic Republic. And yes, that includes that GR stamped canteen dangling on your hips Dr. Lenny. Other than that, does anyone have any concerns?"
The others have nothing to say but Kyle feels like he should tell them about his dream. It's strange and quite unbelievable, but there's something about it that pushes him to tell them.