Unable to access companions
The lost of companions in chapter 1 is how the game is designed. If you lost abilities as well make sure you don't have tutorial mode enabled. That hides abilities when you start chapter 1. You can go into your settings by pressing esc and then choosing the disable/enable tutorial to get your abilities back.
In regards to the companion part, as you progress through you'll start getting companions again.
Lastly there are two ways to contact support even if you are not a subscriber. One is to call them as per this link here. The second method is email support@swtor.com. Please know that if you lost your companions as per chapter 1 of the KotFE expansion, support cannot restore them for you and they cannot undo the activation of the chapter 1 which caused companions to go away as there are multiple warnings before you start indicating as such. You need to play through the chapters to get them plus other companions added.
If it's a level or gear issue you can always use your fleet transport to go back to the fleet then run dailies or other missions to increase your level to 70 if you have access to do so. If not then you will need to purchase at least a 1 month subscription to get full unlock access to all chapters and level 70 as proxos666 mentioned and then play through to get them back.
Of course another option is if you have cartel coins, you can purchase through the cartel market one of the companions they have through there. These are available to get and can make the chapters easier if you use one of them.
