Beyond - Legends Invidious Intent (OC - 54ABY)

Set in 54 ABY, an aging Inquisitor, armed with an Imperial Fleet specialized in covert ops and rich in Force Sensitives he has found and recruited over the decades, he charts a new path for his small fleet delving into the criminal underworld that has flourished in the shadows of the Fel Empire and the New Republic.

To those who read this story, I do encourage you to message me your criticisms and opinions of the story... be they good or bad (just keep it civil). I am using this story as a sort of practice run at writing before I push forward on an original novel that I am in the midst of writing. Even if you have little more to offer than thoughts on the characters or the plot as it unfolds.

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Chapter 1​

A grey haired human man stared at the viewscreen, an Asteroid Belt sat just beyond the wall of darkness that lay outside the transparisteel view port to the side of the room. The double blindness of the hibridium cloaking device limited its active combat applications... but the tethered holocams allowed them to retain function in the observational phases of an operation... so long as you could adequately disguise the camera poking out of the cloaking field.

A small clutch starfighter came in from the edge of the view screen... another security patrol no doubt. The tri-winged TIE would have been an odd sight back during the war... but it's been 50 years since the Imperial defeat over Endor. If anything, the clutch was antiquated by now... but even more-so was the Venator-class Star Destroyer the man resided in. It was the largest ship in his small fleet, a relic dating back to the Clone Wars, there was one other hidden among the asteroids out there, along with two Victory-II's and three Acclamators and a pair of Interdictor Cruisers. Imperial Navy officers would probably laugh at his dislike of the Imperial Class Star Destroyers, but they were simply too large for the operations he and his fleet were often assigned to... back during the Civil War.

Now, it was little more than a mercenary fleet... operating independently of the New Republic or Fel's Empire. The small ship sizes proved a blessing with the fall of the Empire, they were easy and cheap to maintain and operate, and most importantly... very easy to hide. It was well within the realm of possibility that the Republic and the false Empire still did not know of its existence. Only a handful in the Old Empire were ever aware.

He began to check off those who knew in his head. "Lumiya... dead, Esht'van... deceased, Kogo... probably dead. Isard Ysanne... reportedly dead, but it wouldn't surprise me if she came crawling out of the grave again." He reached up and straightened the collar of his maroon zeyd-cloth robe. Most of the Inquisitors banded together in their own little group, or went their own separate ways. The important thing was that they rejected the Fel Empire entirely. The few surviving Hands he had worked with also rejected the Fel Empire.

The one that sought to join it had been dealt with appropriately... though not necessarily discreetly. The inhabitants of that world probably could have sworn that an Imperial Fleet was trying to drill a hole through their planet, they focused the combined firepower of his entire fleet at an area measuring three square kilometers.

"Hey old man... you still alive by chance," came a dull thought. No... it wasn't a thought... well, it was a thought, but it wasn't his thought.

Like the Emperor, he had a talent for establishing telepathic communications between himself and other force sensitives. It was helpful in coordinating the operations of his meager fleet under com-silence... but it also helped him with responding to and working with the various Emperor's Hands and Inquisitors that may be near enough for him to aid. While it's been decades since he actively used it for operations with force adepts outside his fleet, they could still communicate with him telepathecally by tapping into the residual force connection between the two, so it wasn't uncommon for one or another to contact him for his counsel on a wide variety of matters.

Frequently it was for insight into an operation they had taken up as a solo mercenary when they've bitten off more than they could handle alone, or facing a situation completely foreign to them. Five times it was for advice on dating... the first one to ask him for help in that area hasn't spoken to him since, but the other four seemed to have turned out okay.

Most often though, they simply wanted someone to talk to... just to feel like they weren't alone in the galaxy. The Hands especially held strong affection for the Emperor... the illusion that they were "The" Hand made them feel as though he held them in particularly high regard. The years of Mara Jade and Lumiya's conflict with each other was particularly frustrating with each Hand he had previously worked with coming to him in anger over the Emperor's deceit... He often scrubbed whole operations because it would become too distracting for him to command his men effectively. It didn't surprise him at all when they failed to flock to the Emperor's side when he returned for a brief resurgence.

"Hey, Grumps... I know you haven't turned in your chips yet... talk to me," came the voice again

And then there was this girl... she was hardly eight seasons at the time of the Emperor's first demise. The only reason he had a telepathic link to her so early into her training was because he had overseen portions of the girl's training. But it seemed strange, he hadn't heard from her for decades. Why the sudden interest... some part of him was genuinely intrigued. He turned to the com panel on the arm of his chair and spoke into it, "Si'Yanvo... I'll be giving you charge of this operation for now."

A grizzled man's voice broke over the comlink, "Is Counselor Ren'Vhan in then?"

"Afraid so... before you ask if it can wait... it's her again," replied the inquisitor in irritation.

"Really? It must be fourty years since you last heard from her… Well... understood, I'll have Kreia relay the circumstances to the rest of the fleet then,” came the other man's reply.

With the efficient operation of his fleet guranteed, he focused his thoughts on the Hand who was trying to communicate with him. He sensed the various strands linking him to Hands and Inquisitors across the Galaxy. He searched out which ever one felt... warm? They give off a cold and dark sensation when disused for a month... so it felt only appropriate to call the opposite sensation "warm", funny as it sounded as he thought on it. The connections within his fleet were much closer to a "Hot" feeling when he searched them out, due to proximity and frequency of use. He sorted through these more active links until he found one that felt like it stretched to someplace distant, and then focused on it, bringing it to the fore of his mind.

"Hey, don't keep a girl waiting, there's something important I want to talk to you about," came the persistent ringing in his head.

"I'm here... and I'm kind of in the middle of something important right now... what is it," he grunted in thought.

"Do you still have that neat stealth fleet of yours..."

"Yes, but if I can't succeed in my current job properly, it won't be much of a 'stealth' fleet for long. Waiting on a shipment of the crystals my fleet uses to maintain the cloaking fields," he answered bluntly. While he still had stores of Hibridium enough to continue uninterrupted operation of his cloaking fields for weeks, he was nonetheless uncomfortable with the prospect of having to carefully ration their use. So he chose to secure shipment of Hibridium from a new deposit the Hutts discovered and intended to trade to the Fel Empire with. He much preferred establishing new supplies well in advance rather than gambling on a successful raiding operation with mere days or weeks of operational supplies remaining.

"Do your ships still have the same crew?" she mused aloud in his head.

"Not entirely, only about a tenth of it is still comprised of Academy Graduates... the rest I've had to... why are we talking about this. What in Chaos do you want with me girl?"

He could feel her thinking, trying to get back to her original train of thought. Dear lord, how did she ever originally catch the attention of the Emperor all those years ago. "Ah... yes.... I have a business proposition for you."

On the Viewscreen he could see a ship rising up from the surface of the planet below, slowly coming into focus. A YT-1250 with what scans indicated to be anti-rad hull plating... someone who preferred dangerous or easily detected cargo no doubt.

"Target located and alligning for hyperspace jump. All the vessels are alligning for intercept jump," came the captain's voice over the ship's general coms. "All Hands prepare for intercept and capture procedures." The Viewscreen's picture shifted as the ship moved, first turning, then accelerating to exit the asteroid belt they had been hiding in.

"I imagine you and your little fleet are currently little more than a band of space pirates now, aren't you," came the voice again. "Raiding for supplies and credits."

"Mostly we do mercenary work... usually through operations on the ground for big names of the underworld," he retorted. "Most of our clients are only aware of our Acclamators... I just haven't the means to get away with operating my Kiloplus Capitals like Leonia Tavira apparently did."

"Want to know how she did it?" teased the voice at the other end of the connection.

Even though none were around to see it, he raised his eyebrows in intrigue. "You have my attention... but be quick about it girl."

"Go to the old entrance of the Byss run, I'll send you coordinates there for you to go to. You'll be able to speak with the woman herself at the final destination."

"Couldn't make it simple could you... well, I guess I'll be seeing you eventually Leshran, but now if I can have your leave, there is an urgent matter I must attend to."

He turned his attention back to the view screen as it first became clear of asteroids, and then went blank all together as the tethered holocams were all recalled back into the cloaking field, and then into the ship itself, their return into their hull ports signaled by a dozen or so low metallic thumps.

He then heard a different voice in his head, this one was that of Kreia, his flagship's Helm Officer, and the only other one in his fleet with a knack for telepathy, as well as incredible situational-awareness through the force. She could guide the fleet with her senses as though the were using Stygium devices... Had she not been such an ace at the helm, he'd have given the woman her own ship to command. "All vessels, prepare to disengage cloakiing fields as per safety regulations and perpare for hyperspace jump on my mark. Unrelenting... course correction two degrees starboard. Umbra, elevate one degree, portside by three and one quarter degree.”

It was standard practice for fleets of ship to synchronize their hyperspace jumps through computers, but with com silence constantly in effect, his fleet had to do things very differently. And lord knows she was good at this. "All vessels prepare for hyperspace jump on my mark."

He went up to the captain's cabin view port and looked on with anticipation. He could hear the hyperdrives beginning to rev up... "Three..." came the beginning of the countdown. He could also hear the powering down of something else within the vessel, and faintly he could see the light of the planet they were leaving behind begin to shine throught the veil of the cloaking field, seeming ghostly at first, "Two..." the stars began to flick into being as the cloaking field near completely dissipated. "One..." and in that moment the stars stretched into eternity and the planet shrank If anyone saw anything, they'd think they'd seen a ghost ship appear from nowhere,and just as soon vanished. A well executed Decloak and Dash. They were able to stabilize the device and crystals enough that there was no risk of explosion when engaging the hyperdrive while the hibridium device was powered down, but they still couldn't risk tandem operation of the two systems.

"Admiral... the Hybridium Freighter will be forced into realspace by the gravity well of the Umbra's raw mass in about ten standard galactic minutes," came Kreia's voice, directed at him now. "Do you wish to handle the Ion Cannon Controls yourself for this?"

"Negative, I'll be waiting in the hangar though," he answered as he stood up from his chair.

"I'll take that as confirmation that you'll be wanting to take command of the boarding party then?"

"A vessel that size, I'd prefer to call it a welcoming committee. Not much there for our boys to board," he replied in thought. He could hear the woman chuckle a little before she shut down the telepathic link. He then made his way towards the door, glancing to the wall next to it. Mounted upon it were a collection of weapons he made use of frequently in his job... Long barreled blaster rifles, a Mandalorion weapons array wrist and it's supporting utility pack, a variety of slug throwers ranging from sniper rifles to small single shot weapons one could hide in the heel compartment of a dress set of shoes that was modified for carrying out assassinations. Nearest the door were his most iconic weapons, the ones his crew identified him by the most... a pair of long handles roughly half a meter in length. The casing formed from the Ultrachrome that he wore for protection against blasters and before that, lightsabers back when there were Jedi to hunt. Two short curves jutted out on either end of the shaft, seeming as a broken hand guard against blows that aimed for the center of the shaft, as well as other small protrusions set at the base of the two curved structures. He picked up one of the elaborate weapons and felt it's energies flow through him. He never really got to use them much to the full potential of its very specialized design... after their construction he only got the opportunity to take down five Jedi that had escaped the initial purge. He thought back on the New Republic that was forming, and Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order. As much as he'd love to go at it with these new Jedi, he knew to actively seek them out would only bring the full weight of the Jedi Order bearing down upon him... likely with their Jensaarai allies in tow. Still, it made an impression on any 'guests' he might have over. He pressed a button on the panel next to the door, opening it before stepping out hastily. he didn't want to be late for anything.

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It had been several minutes since he started to make his way to the hangar bays. He was alerted to the re-entry into realspace by the sudden absence of the light hum the hyperdrive made throughout the ship while it was operating. If their intel was correct on the target smuggler, they weren't able to upgrade their hyperdrive into something faster than he had equipped his little fleet. The ships he requested when he put together this little fleet were indeed obsolete... but they weren't by the time his techs were done refitting them. Experimental technology filled many of his ships, most notably the problematic cloaking devices. Everything else, built to very exacting specifications from schematics stolen from Corellia and Kuat, constructed from materials and resources obtained from raids or salvaged from various wrecks they routinely scavenged for raw materials they could refine into other products at their station of berth. The ships were old, but beneath the aging doonium armor were state of the art machines of war. He would be willing to put even his three Acclamators against a pair of factory fresh Imperial Class. Outrunning a typical smuggler ship in hyperspace was simple.

But precise placement of vessels to force a smuggler out of hyperspace before an Interdictor can bring its Gravity Well Generator's online after a jump required something more. Split among his nine vessels were thirty-two-thousand hands. Approximately five-hundred of them, mixed in among his commando troops, gunners, pilots and the command structure of his various ships were force sensitives he had recruited... originally it had been for the purpose of nurturing their talents for later evaluation to further their training as a Prophet, a Hand, or as a fellow Inquisitor... but since Endor, he's used them to further improve the efficiency of his fleet and ground forces during operations. And part of that efficiency was to precisely position his ships to intercept vessels in Hyperspace without needing to charge up the Gravity Well Generators.

Through the structure of the ship, he could hear the low screams of the Ion Cannons as they surely fired upon the smuggler they had targeted. That he only heard the one set of shots was a clear indication that either the operation already failed and the YT-1250 made an emergency blind jump to escape, or more likely that it had succeeded spectacularly. He stopped a moment, shutting his eyes and focusing his thoughts on the various connections between himself and the force sensitives within his fleet, He could feel the warmth of celebration reverberating among them, as Keira's voice came in through the speakers throughout the ship, "Target has been immobilized, target with tractor beams and bring the Smuggler to the Rejoice's Hangar 2. Troops are to stand-by... but do not knock on the door, Admiral Ren'Vhan would like to welcome the new guests personally."

There's a clear sign of this ship's age... it has a positive sounding name. No attempt at intimidation, it had been built to represent hope. It also was built back when sound military strategy took precedence over the foolish Tarkin Doctrine and obsession with intimidation through brute force. While certainly the existence of the Hands as well as the Inquisitor's represented a more subtle approach, a decisive military victory was all that was needed at Endor to end the Rebellion, but the Emperor wasted the most perfectly executed trap in the history of Galactic Warfare to demonstrate his ability to destroy them at his leisure. "And look where that got him," he thought sarcastically to himself.

Loud bangs reverberated throughout the ship as he continued on his way trough the narrow corridors. The Dorsal Bay Doors were sliding open as the YT-1250 was being drawn in. Down the long corridor he could see on the left side the series of doors that led into the starboard-side hangars. As he reached for the panel, he considered for a moment bringing up his maroon hood, to give him that extra element of intimidation for whoever may be inside the vessel they had found. But just as quickly as he had thought it, he dismissed it by repeating to himself, "and look where that got him."

He pressed a green button on the panel and the door rapidly slid open to reveal his quarry as it hovered into the hangar bay through the atmospheric forcefield separating the hangar from the launch strip. His troopers filed in, most donning only the chest armor plate of their dated stormtrooper armor. Throughout the entire history of his little fleet, he never had his men deployed in full Imperial regalia, they were the fleet kept off the books, the rest of the Galaxy were to only think of them as a rogue militia or a pirate group even when they did deploy en masse.

Even their weapons were varied, and often dated. Though nonetheless they were well maintained to ensure they would function. Weapons that were notorious for their lack of reliability were often tirelessly modified until they could be counted upon in a firefight. Anything they did was not to be traceable back to the Emperor or the Empire by any means.

He watched as a pair of engineers made their way to the freighter's cockpit nacelle with demolition charges, from here he could see that the crew had evacuated the cockpit, likely taking up defensive positions nearer the cargo hold so they could watch all the entry points.

The tractor beam set the smuggling vessel down onto the ground, the ionization prevented the deployment of landing gear. He gestured a hand towards the engineers, they nodded in affirmation and backed off after setting only the one charge on a portion of the transparisteel viewports the crew operated the vessel through. A few beeps later and the device shattered the one pane of the clear material, but leaving the doonium frame around it undamaged.

He stepped closer to the cockpit as he sensed the people inside as they repositioned, obviously reacting to the sound of the explosion near the cockpit. Reaching out with the force, he sought out the mental signatures of those inside... he couldn't communicate with them this way, but he could nonetheless count and locate them. Six... no... seven hands on board. Intelligence on the ship indicated a crew of six... who was this seventh.

Still, he had a job to take care of. He shouted out in a booming voice, "To the captain of the Violet Ray, if I may speak, I wish to propose a mutually beneficial business arrangement."

He waited a moment in silence, sensing that they had heard him, but were uncertain what to do. He stepped in a little closer, and shouted again, "Let me explain your present circumstances then, if it will make it easier for you to come out and talk." The motors roared above them as the hangar doors began to shut over the launch strip, "You are presently in the hangar of a Venator-Class Star Destroyer, even if you got your ship operational, and the atmospheric shielding activated over the breach of your cockpit... you haven't the firepower to blast your way out of the hangar." With one loud crash as if to emphasise his point, the hangar doors finished shutting and the motors that opened and closed it fell silent. "There is no escaping now, so it would do you well to take me up on a second option."

"Whose to say you aren't trying to draw us into the open so you can blast us a safe ways from our cargo," came the captain's angry reply.

A reasonable assumption, and he has heard it many times before. But it truly wasn't his intent. Ren'Vhan reached out with his senses, feeling the uncertainty among the crew. "Well then, perhaps I can explain our interest in your cargo... we make significant use of it and could always use a reliable supply of hibridium. We have as much interest in keeping you intact as we do your cargo. If you come out and..."

"A likely story," retorted the captain.

"Oh how I hated being interrupted, especially by a trapped man hiding behind a shell of false bravado," thought the Admiral angrily. "Your situation is hopeless, if you make things easy for me, you may yet walk away from this alive, and dare I say make a profit from this."

"Argunah would have my head for this," he shouted aloud. "And if Han could escape the Death Star, I could certainly escape an outdated Star Destroyer."

Okay... a demonstration is in order, "I can read your every thought," Ren'Vhan proclaimed boastfully. He reached out to the mind of the captain, probing it for information, any plans he could be formulating. His thoughts were well guarded, but his crew's were not. He motioned to his engineers, as he shouted aloud, wanting the smuggler's to hear every word of it. "Weld the Engine exhaust ports to the hull to prevent powerplant jettison and plug up the torpedo tube beneath the forward airlock."

The captain was now cursing under his breath no doubt. He could sense the frustration as his plans fell flat before any of his crew could move on them. He immediately went to formulating a new plan, the Admiral could counter them in turn, so he turned his focus on the rest of the crew. The co-pilot was a Rodian female who seemed only too eager to mix things up with the suspected pirates, the Navigator and the Coms officer were young human males who were thinking back to family and lovers left over the galaxy and their regrets that they'd never see them again. The engineer was only too eager to leave at a moments notice and was formulating a plan to escape the ship and surrender.

The sixth member was interesting, she was a hired mandalorian who was frustrated about not being paid enough to take on an obviously well coordinated fleet and its compliment of troops. As well as pondering the identity of the Admiral... was he a Jedi, or a fallen jedi, or one of their mysterious armored allies. Maybe the Fel Empire had betrayed the deal and sought to take the rare crystals through force rather than as part of a trade agreement.

And then the seventh... oh... Things just got interesting. Her thoughts weren't on the situation at hand, but nonetheless could prove the most useful to him if the captain continues to be defiant.

A squad commander stepped up next to the Admiral, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. "We could blast the forward air locks open and take them out in a minute, Sir."

"That won't be necessary," he assured the commander. "We have a golden opportunity here to secure a reliable source of hibridium." He then thought back to the seventh person aboard the vessel, "I think I have a solution for our present quandary."

"How do you intend to manage that, sir."

Ren'Vhan looked up towards the cockpit of the freighter again, then spoke instructively to the commander next to him. "Sometimes, in diplomacy it isn't about saying what a person wants to hear, but saying what someone else doesn't want to hear. Stand back and take notes."

The soldier nodded and then stepped back as engineers positioned themselves to the for and aft of the disabled freighter to carry out the previous orders. Sparks illuminated the hangar as the Admiral once again turned his focus back towards the smuggler captain.

He was now busy ordering them to move containers from the cargo hold to provide more sufficient cover against armed entry through the cockpit corridor and had his engineer hard at work trying to get the power back online. "Very good," he called out to the ship, "using the armored crates to provide cover... Gambling we won't fire on the cargo that we desire. Sound strategy indeed." He then gestures to the engineer who was finishing his weld on the plug for the torpedo tube beneath the forward airlock. The man nodded and then took his torch to the airlock itself.

Ren'Vhan reaches out to the minds of those inside once again, the captain was beginning to panic as he scrambled for the rocket launcher

in the ship's armory as the Rodian rearranged the crates accordingly. "Reactivate tractor beams, list the vessel to starboard," shouted the Admiral with urgency.

Immediately the tractor beam projector above hummed to life and the freighter's port side lifted into the air. He could sense the crew scrambling to grab something to stabilize themselves with. The captain however could not find anything to grab onto and he could be sensed tumbling away from the weapon's locker.

The frustrations were boiling over with the crew inside, but so to was Ren'Vhan's patience. Calling out mockingly to the crew's captain, "have you had enough yet, or are you hungry for more abuse in there."

"You can just go kiss a Hutt," came the captain's shout through the small hole that had been hastily cut through the airlock door.

Ren'Vhan exhaled deeply as he thought to himself, "I've grown weary of this exchange."

Stepping closer, he now called in angry retort, "I could, but only after you stop giving the Rodian the same when you are off together on your routes."

He could sense the captain's confusion, "what are you even talking about?"

More importantly, someone else's anger was growing. It has been brewing for some time now, it just needs a little more. "Your wife is just as capable, why else would you have cut her out of your crew for so long, and do explain why you put her up front guarding the the cockpit corridor..."

He paused a moment to feign a moment of thought, the continued as though he had broken the captain's plan, "I see, so you intended she'd die, then surrender the cargo so you could run off with her assets and live comfortably with..."

The sudden scream of a blaster echoed through the ship, followed by the shouts of the Rodian before a pair of shots abruptly silenced her. He could no longer feel the presence of the ship's captain either. He could sense the unease from the communication's officer and navigator. The Malndalorian seemed amused by the Admiral's ability to turn the crew against each other and pondered on whether or not the accusations had any merit. Her suspicions were true of course and the Admiral made a note to speak with the astute mercenary after everything was settled if he had the chance. The engineer meanwhile was struck with urgency thinking the ship had been boarded and fought to get the generators back online. The seventh passenger, now the captain's widow now waited patiently for the power to come back.

The aging man then looked back at the squad commander whom was confused, "don't look at me, I haven't ordered an infiltration mission yet."

"You needn't worry commander," Ren'Vhan assured him. "I just have a deeper appreciation for the wisdom of leaving one's wife at port on these tours."

He then sensed excitement coming from the mind of the engineer. The ship hummed as its systems came back online. The old inquisitor stepped nearer the forward airlock as locking mechanisms around it disengaged. The men behind him raised their blasters to take aim as Ren'Vhan brandished his own weapon, holding it out but unignited... More a signal to his men to lower their weapons than any intimidation tactic for the crew aboard the captured vessel.

The motors hummed as the door slid to the side, revealing a woman in typical Corellian garb, a plain shirt and a dark green vest with a pair of dark pants as she held her blaster proudly and boldly. "I'm the captain of the Violet Ray effective immediately," she proclaimed commandingly to the Admiral.

He went over the woman's mind briefly to check for any plan to turn the situation around. When he was satisfied that she presently had no immediate ill intention, he raised the ultrachrome shaft to the air briefly, and then lowered it and hooked it to his belt. The men behind him lowered their weapons and took more relaxed stances. "We'll then, if you are of reasonable mind, allow me to escort you to my quarters so we may discuss an arrangement regarding the cargo you have in your hold that can satisfy all parties... still involved."

He then gestures to his engineers, "get things patched up, I want it looking like it did when we got it.". The. Tapping his wrist com, he called to the bridge, "Kreia, continue on course to the Imperial space, so we can drop the smugglers off and still have them be on time for their shipment."

He could sense the confusion on the helmsman's mind, but the woman stepping down from the YT-1250 seemed to be onto his little scheme, "so you really weren't lying about being as interested in an intact crew as you were our cargo."

He smiled, of course a cover story would have to be cooked up to explain the loss of two hands, but he felt this woman was someone he could work with. "Indeed, the quantity you have in your hold is but a pittance," he admitted. "I have greater interest in a stable supply obtained by means that leaves the Republic and the Imperials none-the-wiser."

The hangar door slid open as the two entered the hall as the engineers got to work repairing the vessel, with only the freighter's own engineer confused with what occured. He then sent a mental message to Kreia, "Have someone prepare my personal transport and instruct the fleet to return to port after we drop the smugglers off."

"Sir, do you intend to depart into Fel space sir," came the woman's confused response.

He let out a sigh, "yes, meeting up with an old acquaintance who might have some useful information for me... I'd rather not risk the fleet as she's with a very clever woman who happens to own an Imperial Deuce and has made it a habit of shooting men in the back."

 

Ren’Vhan watched from the hangar bay while the Violet Ray aligned itself within the launch strip as the Dorsal Bay Doors opened above it. The blast marks on its hull were superficial, it was the Mandalorian’s suggestion to make it seem as though the ship had been attacked recently and that the captain and co-pilot had been killed during the escape from a pirate capital ship. They delayed their schedule by roughly half an hour to make it more believable. They’d arrive in Fel territory with their shipment of contraband, get their credits and immediately return to Argunah and arrange a deal for the Admiral.

Most were even willing to go through an extra step to improve their ability to have their story pass… though it was necessary if rumors were to be believed that the Fel Empire had begun to actively seek out and employ Force Sensitives. “Still, unless they know what to look for… and are actually looking for it, it’ll be difficult for even a Solo to figure out their memories have been tampered with,” he mused. He’d restore their proper memory back before they’d meet Argunah for another job, “and then the captain… Jalen was her name, would fulfill her end of the bargain.”

“Admiral, you’re thinking aloud again,” came the sweet voice of a young blue-skinned woman walked past with her white hair up in a bun, and her body covered in a grey flightsuit. She glanced over at the older man with her yellow eyes, “Shall we depart ourselves?”

“We… I need you to stay with the fleet,” he instructed the Pantoran.

“What… come on, I never get to visit other worlds with the others,” she protested. “All I get to do is train to steer a ship…”

The Admiral turned towards the doors leading into the vessel’s corridors as he began to look for another pilot. Renten would do just fine.

“Renten can also guide a fleet of cloaked ships just fine as well,” insisted the young woman.

“Kreia, please,” he pleaded, turning around to meet her gaze. “You are too important to the fleet.”

“And you’re not,” she countered. “You’ll be meeting with someone you think might be as clever as you are, and it has you scared.”

Ren’Vhan let out a sigh. The trait about himself that he was most proud of was his intellect, so he found it hard to admit it to himself, more-so to a subordinate, “First off, that Leonia was able to harass the New Republic for years with something as hard to hide as an Imperial Deuce and never get caught is proof enough she’s actually far more cunning than I am. Secondly she is far more ruthless than I could ever hope to be.”

“And that’s exactly why you need me by your side for this,” she commanded. “My senses are ten times as sharp as any one else in the fleet or the auxiliary.” She then reached out and picked at his crimson zeyd-cloth robe, “and lets be honest with ourselves, you aren’t the Jedi hunting myth you once claimed to be.”

An amused “Oooh,” came from the other men in the hangar as she crossed her arms with a smirk on her face. She had the crew’s side and she knew it.

Spinning around and to face the men, she called “What say you then, should I accompany him on his little field trip men!”

Whoops and hollers erupted from the men, though Ren’Vhan remained unimpressed by the display. When she turned back around, she met only his stern gaze. “As I said, I can’t afford to risk you on something like this.”

She raised a hand as if to signal someone. When the General Comms broke in overhead, Ren’Vhan understood she had prepared for this. Si'Yanvo’s voice cracked over the speakers, “Admiral, it would seem your little argument’s been televised to the other ships of the fleet. The rest of the Captains have been expressing their crew’s overwhelming support for the Ghost Princess… and are threatening mutiny if you don’t give in to her demands.”

He shot a venomous glare at the young woman, whose confidence did not wane. “I do love a Democracy,” she declared victoriously.

“Alright then,” he finally submitted. “But while we are out, you do EXACTLY as I say, you got that.” Ren’Vhan lost the exchange, he knew that, but he wasn’t going to let her make him seem weak to his men. He then turned away from the door and walked along the Hangar bay as the men around him shouted cheers for the Princess of the Ghost Fleet.

The craft in his flagship’s hangar were varied, mostly picked to support one deception or another as needed. There was no shortage of Incom’s iconic T-65 X-Wings, a B-Wing prototype, but mostly Y-Wings and Headhunters. A couple of small freighters also occupied the hangar, including a YT-1300 they had intended to disguise as the Millenium Falcon, but lack of reliable intel on its specs until it’s brief internment on Cloud City made a perfect copy impossible until it was too late to make a difference. The revelation that Han Solo was considered more than a sympathetic smuggler to the rebel cause threw any plans at using the copy as an infiltration tool out the window. It has become rather inconspicuous to use it of late as many people who idolize the smuggler buy up YT-1300s for the express purpose of modifying it as closely as they can to the original Millenium Falcon… at least aesthetically. Few had the stomach to deal with critical components constantly breaking down or malfunctioning at the most inopportune moments.

As he continued walking along, he passed by a trio of TIE/In’s that ran the 181st bloodstripes. He never did have actual 181st Squadron pilots. The Emperor did too fine a job making them famous and there was no doubt that Rebel Intelligence tracked the pilots’ movements carefully. These interceptors were painted that way just for psychological effect if the fleet ever did directly engage enemy ships.

Beyond them was a lonely TIE Phantom sitting on it’s lower wings. He never could get his hands on a suitable supply of stygium crystals to keep it operating, so he had the old cloaking device removed and installed a hibridium device. The procedure required the lengthening of the fuselage to accommodate the larger device along with a larger powerplant to allow it to run. They had to remove the wingtip lasers as well to reduce power consumption to acceptable parameters.

“You always had an eye for antiquity,” noted Kreia still following behind him as they passed the old Phantom. She then looked towards what they were heading towards, “Especially with your old girl.”

Ahead sat a menacing looking ship. The ship was about as wide as that of the standard TIE Bomber, but it’s Fuselage was centered, and the cockpit was a narrower design that bulged out in front of the armored hull. Long enough to allow for two crew members to seat inside in tandem, the arrangement of the Transparisteel canopy allowed for limited vision downwards for the foremost crewmember. From the top of the fuselage were long wing pylons that ended in a pair of dagger like solar arrays that jutted out at angles akin to the X Wing design. Attached to the wing pylons to either side of the fuselage sat a pair of large nacelles, though they were not the engine nacelles per se, the engine itself bulged out the back of the fuselage. The nacelles were auxiliary modules that were easy to remove and change as per the nature of the mission at hand. There were a pair of smaller modules just to the outside of the larger nacelles usually reserved for communication and sensor packages.

“I never got the story about how you acquired this one,” admitted Kreia.

Ren’Vhan walked beside the cockpit to where the Transparisteel canopy was slid open, one frame going forward and the other back allowing access for the crew. He pulled himself up into the back seat before looking back at Kreia. “B28 Extinction… Found it on an old Harrower that had been abandoned in orbit around the Rhen Var system when I was on the hunt for Jedi. They often hide around Sith ruins among other things in hopes their force signature could be masked by a Dark Side presence.”

He then shut his eyes as he thought of the age of the ship, “It’s easily over three-thousand years old.” He then opened his eyes and looked over at Kreia as she stepped towards the cockpit entry. “Whole trip was largely a waste. No true Sith artifacts to present the Emperor, no Jedi’s lightsaber to add to my trophy collection… and I had no means to salvage the Harrower itself. So I had my Lambda crews tow a few of the Extinction bombers and Supremecy fighters into my command ship to give myself something to work on during long hyperspace jumps.”

As Kreia climbed into the cockpit, she looked back at Ren’Vhan in the back seat. “You called it a bomber… I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual bomb module on this thing.”

“Yeah… as built, both nacelles were designed to carry a payload of bombs, missiles or mines.” He then glanced out the starboard side to look at the auxiliary module as he said with a smirk, “But my missions rarely require such heavy handed equipment, so I modified the pylons to accept more power consuming devices and had my techs design a number of modules to allow it more versatility. Seeing as it was no longer truly ‘original’, I decided to modernize the rest of its systems while I was at it.”

As she sat down in its seat, the Pantoran woman thought on that word a little. The ships in the hangar, the Venator itself along with the rest of the ships in the fleet, “Well, that is what you do best isn’t it? Take rusty old ships and make them competitive with anything they might run into.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” replied the Admiral as he buckled himself into the seat. A click from the front notified him that Kreia was as well.

She reached for the joystick set into the right arm of her seat, different from most fighter’s centered arrangement so as to allow the pilot to look down between their feet to see down the lower portions of the canopy. To assist in making accurate bombing runs she figured. She toggled a number of switches to her left, sealing the canopy and turning on the power. “So… is that Harrower still there?”

Thinking a moment, he mused “unless someone has a real pressing need to hide in the last place in the universe anyone expects anything to survive… no real reason to go to Rhen Var, so I imagine no one has come across it since.”

As the B28 hummed to life, it softly lifted off the flight deck as the repulsorlifts received power, turning slowly towards the launch strip. “If we ever get the means to retrieve it, want to claim it for the fleet?”

“It’s eight-hundred meters long… I’d need to repurpose an old Lucrehulk ring to salvage it without cutting it to pieces first,” he replied skeptically.

She shrugged as she gently pushed forward on the throttle set to her left, “It was just a thought.”

“Yeah, one that’s gonna have me keeping an eye out for a Lucrehulk,” he joked.

After a little bit of chuckling, Ren’Vhan activated the comms device, “Si'Yanvo, we’re heading out now. Once I jump, have all ships return to the Void Station. I’ll return there once I’ve concluded business with Leonia and Leshran.”

“Very well sir. And if you are not back before the appointed rendezvous with the Violet Ray?”

The Admiral thought on it a moment. He appreciated that his second in command had the confidence in his commander not to consider the worst-case scenario. “Meet up with them as per the appointed time in the Rejoice,” he answered. “Then hold position in cloak outside Y’Toub space and await my signal.”

“I’ll see you then sir,” the Vice Admiral excused himself.

The Extinction smoothly floated into the launch strip and turned looking down the length of the Rejoice. With a jerk, the engines roared to life behind him and the old bomber charged forward and nosed up and out of the dorsal trench that ran the length of the Star Destroyer. Ren’Vhan looked down at his console as he set coordinates for his destination. The Byss run itself was no longer accessible, but finding the old entrance was easy.

Still, it was pretty deep in Republic space. He thought to himself that it may as well be next door to their capital. “Alright, coordinates set, we’ll have to relay towards Empress Teta from Coruscant space though.”

Keira replied, “Gonna have to put us pretty far out to avoid detection.”

“Or close enough to blend in with the usual heavy traffic,” he pondered.

“We are flying an old sith bomber into the heart of Republic space and very deep in ‘Jedi’ patrolled territory… If someone notices, we’ll have the Jedi’s attention.” she remarked.

“That’s precisely why I equipped a Cloaking Module for this trip,” Ren’Vhan states with an air of arrogance.

The Pantoran raised an eyebrow with amusement, “You know, I’ve always wondered what sort of mischief I could cause with a fighter equipped with one of those.”

“Sure, when Xarlan gives up his Phantom,” he stated sarcastically. “Alright, jump is calculated, the Hyperdrive is all yours Kreia.”

She thought for a moment of something to say, a thought had briefly entered her head but she dismissed it saying “couldn’t really do it probably.” She simply reached for a button on the left arm panel and says flatly, “hyperdrive engaged.”

----------------------------------------

“I’d wager an Admiral’s annual salary that it was more of an adventure than you bargained for little girl,” came a rough voice. Opening her eyes, the young girl looked upon a middle aged man standing with his back turned towards her. He held two half-meter long shafts of metal polished metal, from the ends of both extended a meter long white blade surrounded by a red aura that flared and pulsed rhythmically as if made of fire. His appearance should have been nightmarish in the harsh light of the planet’s red sun among the industrial steel the dominated the landscape, but in that moment the blood-red clad warrior seemed a savior.

He turned to look at her over his shoulder as the smoke from the victims of his weapons hung about in a haze. She tried to say something… to beg him to help the others. But before she could, he simply nodded. “Sure thing kid… but only if you promise to follow me afterwards.”

Before she could thank her savior, his voice came again, more ragged and aged, losing it’s comforting tone and taking a commanding one, “Hey Kreia… wake up, we’re almost there.”

The red sun vanished, the dilapidated city faded, and so too the vision of her rescuer, replaced by the blue blur of hyperspace through the transparisteel canopy of the Extinction Bomber. She shook herself awake from the nap she had taken. “I’m up, don’t worry. How long until we arrive?”

“In about two minutes we’ll drop out of Hyperspace,” replied the admiral behind her.

She let out a yawn and reached forward with her arms to stretch, and with another shake she forced herself to focus on the upcoming task. “Are you dropping us close to the planet or further away,” she asked.

“I was thinking on what you said earlier, I’ll be dropping you in closer, let you get a taste of what it is exactly that Xarlan has to deal with in that old Phantom of his,” he stated. She could almost see the mischievous smile on his face. He was constantly training her in the use of her senses, testing her at every opportunity. It seemed at times that he was constantly trying to set her up to fail, and she would always prove otherwise. This time would be no different.

“Alright,” Kreia responded with swelling pride.

Ren’Vhan then warned from the backseat, “Don’t try anything too fancy or risky though. I just want to see if you can handle getting to the point for our next jump without running into anything.”

“I can guide a Venator-Class Star Destroyer through an asteroid field,” she exclaimed.

“With assistance from the gunners” Ren’Vhan corrected. “I won’t exactly be blasting everything that threatens to come close to us around the most populous planet in the galaxy.”

"Good, because I won't need you to," she declared.

Ren'Vhan looked down at his instrument panel, reading the time remaining on the hyperspace jump. "Ten seconds," he informed the young pilot.

Something felt off though as they neared Coruscant, not threatening, but nonetheless as though something about the plan was destined to go awry. He had been taught not to ignore this as both a member of Isard's Imperial Intelligence and as a force user. Still, it was a little late for him to stop the jump by the time he comprehended the sensation. The timer was at its end and the blue fog of hyperspace gave way to the streaking stars as the speckled sphere of Coruscant zoomed into view.

A pair of heavy freighters were nearby, nearing an space station that no doubt handled ship inspections. "Maneuver between the cargo ships so we can activate the cloak out of view and mask our magnetic and gravitic signatures as we pass the checkpoint."

"Affirmative" she acknowledged as she throttled up on the sublight engines. As the ship drifted between the massive freighters, she took a moment to admire the planet far below. "I heard stories of it as a child," she recalled from childhood memories.

"Beauty is only skin deep," declared the man seated behind her. "If you spent as much time hunting quarry in the sub-levels of that planet as I have, you'd understand that the phrase is applicable to any civilization as well."

Still, he pondered on the possibilities, even he had only seen so much of the planet's underworld. Knowing the Emperor had managed to hide an Executor-class dreadnought beneath the surface opened up a whole realm of possibilities of what was hidden and what remains in the ancient underworld. Still, more urgent matters demanded his attention.

Shutting his eyes, he focused on numbing his physical senses and sharpening his mental senses. More a state of meditation as he reached out through the force to sense those minds nearby. Closest was Kreia who pondered on the possibility of visiting the planet far below some time before she sensed his presence on the surface of her mind.

"Sorry, couldn't help it," he apologized. "But you do need to prepare your senses soon. She excused him with a sigh before she started her own meditative prep.

The Admiral then shut out her presence to focus on those in the freighters to either side. The one on the port side was largely automated, so aside from the security officer watching surveillance monitors, he had no real reason to worry of being spotted. He went over the man's mind and found that the hardware was in bad need of replacing. He needed only to reach out with the force and nudge a wire loose to shut the whole system down and no one would be the wiser. Off the starboard was a Mon Calamari vessel, typically meaning a few thousand hands on board. In addition to the usual cargo of food and other consumable provisions, it also took on passengers as well.

This was a little trickier, after first locating the security officer and putting it into his head the need to reboot the cameras, there were still a couple dozen eyes on the port side of the massive vessel that were focused on the small ship parked alongside. He reached out, going over there thoughts one by one. Some were just curious younglings, some if whom quickly found something more interesting to focus on, others were more interested in looking at the planet that they had arrived at. Another still was a muddled mess of hazy thoughts, clearly a spice addict in bad need of rehab. It's easy to command such a mind but difficult to get it to stick for more than two minutes, and thus he often refused to waste the effort, seeing as no one would believe their claims anyways.

That left a man who was trying his damnedest to ignore the bickering of his wife looking out at anything that wasn't the woman seated beside him. "Just apologize you hard headed fool," thought the Admiral aloud. The man then turned away from the transparisteel viewport and towards his wife with an ashamed expression, as Ren'Vhan pulled away. He hadn't intended to send the thought to the man, saying it only out of an instinctive frustration. Still, the desired outcome had been achieved.

"I see why they nickname you the 'Counselor'" remarked the Pantoran woman up in front.

"Not really the reason why, but it doesn't help my case either," he replied. He then focuses again on the passengers, directing each in turn to turn away one way or another. Still there was one child who was too interested in the small vessel because he thought it was a new TIE model from the Empire. Along with the spice addict, he'd be the only witness to their next trick.

Reaching down to his console, he directed the monitor to bring up the cloaking modules operating system, and tying it into his control board. He went over to the mind of the little boy once again as he flicked a switch. Shortly thereafter the planet ahead and the freighters to either side both faded behind a wall of darkness. He could sense the child jump with jubilation as he watched the B28 fade and then vanish entirely.

Kreia chuckled lightly in the front, she probably spied on his mental connections with her own telepathy. "Don't worry, I won't tell," she reassured the Admiral.

"I'm getting soft in my old age," he admitted regretfully. "The whole damned fleet knows it." He then looked at his instrumentation to ensure everything was working as intended, "alright, everything is green. Just hug the side of the Mon Cal and no one will be the wiser."

"Copy that sir," confirmed the pilot as she gave light power to the thrusters and tilted the control stick to the right.

 

Oh my goodness. I am so glad that I decided to check this out!

I really like Ren’Vhan’s character development. At the beginning, he seemed like a competent but pretty basic Dark Jedi. Then we find out that the former Emperor’s Hands use their telepathic link to ask him for dating advice. All these details just slowly come out that build up to this cookie-baking grandpa of the Dark Side. And somehow it never crosses into making him seem harmless (well, the whole thing where he deals with the smuggler ship’s crew by instigating murder might have to do with that – it’s definitely something that makes one think “would not want to mess with this guy.”)

I’m fascinated by the way that he deals with his crew and Kriea as well as the distant Inquisitors and Hands. He uses a lot more positive reinforcement and respect for his subordinates than pretty much any Darksider that I can recall, and it seems to work. He doesn’t always get his way unquestioned, as we see with Kriea and the “mutiny.” That does not appear to be an especially unexpected or upsetting event, which says a lot about how things are run there. However, they seem to be genuinely loyal, probably moreso than Terrified Lackey #310. There’s a sense of warmth and friendship there that is completely foreign to most depictions of the Empire. Probably a good survival strategy after Endor. Ren’Vhan is thriving where a more rigid personality would have tried to hang on to the “I have a hammer, every problem is a nail” tactics and maintain rule through fear.

It makes me very curious what his history is, since he seems to have learned actual leadership skills and retained them after turning – a pretty unusual and impressive feat. From the way he phrases things, it doesn’t sound like he was ever a Jedi.

Question that might be spoiler-ish and which does not need an answer (I just want to guess!)

Spoiler: SPOILS!

Is Ren’Vhan supposed to be this guy? http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Unidentified_Inquisitor

I especially liked this section:

The management of technical details and strategy is really impressive and reminds me of the Thrawn Trilogy. There’s just enough to explain without getting bogged down. Good work on making it look easy.


I don’t know if you did this on purpose, but there’s something very amusing in a backwards-day kind of way about them sneaking past Coruscant in their itty bitty, ramshackle Imperial fighter scavenged from pieces of ancient ships. It brings up the opening scenes of ANH and ESB where you see the massive, overbearing Imperial ships looming in menace over everything. Now the tables have been turned and they’re the ones having to tiptoe around the dragon.

Another similar thing that I noticed was how familiar the mentoring relationship between Ren’Vhan and Kriea seems. They act an awful lot like a Jedi Master and Padawan, in spite of their definitely non-Jedi allegiance. It’s an interesting subversion of the trope where the Sith/Force-baddies of the week eat their young. Somehow it makes his attitude towards the Jedi amusing in a black-humor sort of way, since he’s oddly akin to them in some things and yet when he thinks of them it’s like Shenzi in the Lion King (“Can’t I just pick off one of the little sick ones?”)

Please add me to your tag or PM list for updates if you keep one.

 

Looking out the transparisteel canopy of his Rendili Core Engineering Inwati Mk.IV, a pale blue Twi'lek shifted the HUD Monocle over his right eye as his ship approached the Coruscant checkpoint. He used to be a high risk smuggler of goods. After upgrading his ship's hyperdrive to a class-half drive though, he took up the business of express deliveries of freight and passengers, he could charge the same as he had done before at only a fraction of the risk.

He looked back at his human male copilot, the young man had only recently reached the age they considered adulthood, and the man's father retired himself from that seat and entrusted it to him. Having brought the boy along for some of their runs, the Twi came to trust the kid's abilities. Being able to complete so many jobs so quickly did require a more proactive pursuit of work though, "Hey Renj, were you able to line up any new jobs on the holonet?"

The blonde boy looked up from his console and met the Twi with his own green eyes. "We might have a few possibilities at the Docks in the Legislative sector, but it is essentially first come, first serve for class three-quarters drives and better. Offer is a week old and the destination is in the outer rim, though planet has not been specified."

"Bah," exclaimed the pilot. "If they had settled for a solid class one, their stuff would already have arrived." But noting in his head the circumstances of the concealed destination, it suggested a fear of possible interception. This meant he could charge hazard pay for a big take. "See if you can line up an appointment, and then check on our passengers, make sure they aren't up to any trouble."

The young human's face turned red at the thought. His voice quivering, he said almost in a whisper, "I uh... I think if they wanted to stir trouble, there isn't a thing either of us could do to stop them."

"Then go back and tell them we've almost arrived at our appointed destination," commanded the captain.

"Uh... Yes Oostfen."

As the young man unlatched the door, the aging Twi'lek couldn't help but think how like his father the boy was. The mere thought of a pretty face could make either freeze in their footsteps regardless of what they were doing. Probably wasn't fair considering the two they picked up on Susevfi.

----------------------------------

A Togruta woman with red skin and alternating black and white vertical stripes along her horns and the outermost of her two head tails looked on as a young pale skinned Dathomirian woman sat in quiet meditation. The two of them wore simple robes though the elder felt exposed with her armor stored away.

The Dathomirian felt comfortable, she had not yet made her cortosis armor yet, and so the condition that they store their weapons and armor in the captain's locker for the duration of the trip struck her as nothing unusual. Nonetheless she could feel her teacher's unease. Her eyes still shut, she inquired "if it bothers much Defender Iunha, why not meditate to take your mind off of the present situation.

"Because I sense deception," explained the Togruta sharply.

The clicks of the locks opening echoed through the cockpit corridor, followed by a door sliding open. Soon after, the young Renj stepped into the recreation room. "We've arrived at Coruscant," he managed with a dry throat.

The Twi'lek's voice then boomed through the corridor, "Once more... With feeling. Project some confidence with your voice boy!"

The young man put his fist to his mouth as he feigned clearing his throat before trying again, "We've arrived at Coruscant and will be landing within the hour."

"Ah, good. Uthierav and I are thankful for your transport," responded Iunha.

The younger woman stood up and bowed to the young man. "Do please extend our appreciation to your captain."

The copilot of the ship turned flush at the gesture, "Uh... Certainly ma'am."

He then turned and vanished back though the corridor, prompting a chuckle from the crimson lady.

The apprentice gave her a quizzical look. "Did you find his demeanor amusing."

"Unprofessional as you may have found it, it is natural for a man to be infatuated with a beauty such as you," she teased.

Uthierav raised an eyebrow. "He hardly knows me, nor is it likely that we will ever meet again," reasoned the Dathomirian. "What purpose does it serve to become sentimentally attached to a passenger?"

With a deep sigh, the woman asked her apprentice, "So does Skywalker squeeze the personality from every Jensaarai we send his way or is it just you?"

"Even Master Skywalker has expressed disappointment in my interpretation of his teachings," she replied flatly. "If attachment is the surest way to the dark side, why should we take the risk?"

The Togrutan let out a deep sigh. Before she could say anything, she felt something wash over her momentarily, and subsided as quickly as a came on. Seeing her apprentice jerk suddenly suggested that it wasn't just her.

"What was that just now, master," inquired the apprentice, clearly unfamiliar with the sensation.

"I'm heading to the cockpit, you wait here," instructed the elder woman as she made her way towards the cockpit corridor.

The young Renj was just then taking his seat beside the Twi'lek captain. Up ahead, they were coming up behind a pair of heavy freighters lined up parallel to the side of a checkpoint station just beyond them. While most remnant forces of the old Galactic Empire have long been consolidated under Jagged Fel's regime. A few wayward warlords remain opposed to surrendering their newfound authority to either the Republic or the Fel Empire.

Presently a pair of them were in a state of war over a mineral rich dark cloud recently discovered just outside the visible edge of the galaxy. Admiral Willhov and Moff Retkin she recalled the names.

Oostfen turned to look over his shoulders with a smile. "Ah, Jensaarai Defender Iunha," he addressed her formally. "It would seem that the beauty of both you and your apprentice..." he began courteously before turning to his own apprentice with a sharper tone, "has led my partner to forget to shut the door."

"I'm sorry," apologized the young man.

"Too late now, if she were a pirate with a pretty face, we'd be having blaster bolts for lunch already," scolded the Twi'lek. He then let out a sigh before turning towards the woman at the door. "I do apologize that you had to witness that outburst. A little bit of embarrassment drives a lesson deeper."

The woman looked back down the corridor for a moment, "I may have to keep that in mind."

He then spun his chair and straightened up in his seat, "so how can I be of service?"

Turning back towards the captain, she then recalled the sensation she had felt just moments ago. "I sensed something amiss just recently," she explained. Glancing past the transparisteel view ports, she could see that the ship was lining up behind the Mon Calamari vessel. Her senses were drawing her attention towards the freighter to the left. But that wasn't exactly it either. Something was off, and she couldn't quite place it.

"What, like an assassin after someone onboard the Mon Cal or something," asked the captain as he glanced at the ship directly ahead.

She stepped forward and leaned in between the pair of men. "No, I get the sense that there may be something between them somehow."

Oostfen looked in the area she indicated, but saw nothing. "Well unless they have a cloaking device I don't see how," he began to reason until interrupting himself. Turning to hi copilot, he began to ask, "Hey Renj... Did we ever manage to get that crystal gravfield trap your father salvaged from that Lightstealth-18 to work?"

"I don't think we ever got a proper opportunity to test it, cloaking field generators aren’t exactly common" explained the copilot as he got up and took a seat at a nearby console.

“Bring it online,” commanded the captain. “Alright then lady, Once we have our turn with the scans, you guide us to our little infiltrator.”

He turned his chair back around just as the two freighters crept forward and past the station, the Twi’lek pushed forward on the throttle gently for a few seconds before pulling back on it to guide his ship forward into the scanning zone. A holoprojection of another Twi’lek male appeared between the front seats in the cockpit. “Hedren station hailing the Silver Regret, welcome to Coruscant,” greeted the holograph. “Taking precautionary measures considering the circumstances between Willhov and Retkin. We do apologize for the inconvenience, but it should only take a moment to run a scan of your vessel.”

“Captain Oostfen Re’dhal of the Silver Regret here, we do understand, please proceed as soon as you can, time means money, and I got a lot of money on the line right now,” replied the ship’s captain holding out his hand, rubbing his fingers to emphasize his point. It would have made more sense to species that still printed money, but the trend that resurged with the collapse of the Galactic Empire has been dying out as the Fel Empire and the Republic stabilized in the past decade.

He then glanced back towards his co-pilot, “how’s the CGT coming along?”

“It definitely seems to be damaged, won’t perform remotely near its original specs but should be good for tracking something within a hundred meters or so,” explained Renj as he looked at the monitor. “Still, we haven’t got a program to translate the data into the HUD accurately.”

“Alright, then, try calibrating it to read Hedren while we wait for the okay from the station,” he commanded. He then patted the empty co-pilot’s seat, “Alright honey, gonna need your help to guide us within range of our sensors.”

As the Togruta woman looked at him skeptically as she stepped forward to take a seat. She then commented, “You certainly are eager to go after invisible prey.”

“It’s all money with him, I’m not really all that surprised” admitted the human as he continued to look at the auxiliary monitor, and then back out the transparisteel to reference the station to what he was seeing on the monitor.

The Twi’lek glanced over at woman next to him, and then explained “Sure, the Republic and the Empire have the capacity to manufacture new Gravfield Traps, but the crystals are hard for either to come by so they remain quite expensive. What’s more, their value increases five-fold on the black market.”

The Holographic Twi’lek appeared again over the console, “Alright Silver Regret, you are cleared to go.” Then it gave a courteous bow, “and welcome to Coruscant.”

When the Holograph faded, the captain throttled up towards the planet as the Togruta shut her eyes. “They have pulled away from the freighter and begun to take an eastward course,” she said, guiding the pilot.

Oostfen gently turned his ship by the woman’s direction as the human at the auxiliary console took one last peek at the station before it vanished from view. One last glance out the transparisteel, he looked back down to make a few more adjustments, “Okay, it should work, but I can only really tell where something might be, but I won’t get a detailed image from it.”

“Baa,” cried Oostfen in frustration. “Won’t be able to get full value on it, oh well… lets give it a test run at least… if anything, we could get something out of our little smuggler.”

Iunha focused more on her senses, she could sense it’s location plain as day, but she couldn’t describe it as precisely as the captain could handle. She currently regrets shrugging pilot training courses some of the Ring Defenders had offered her. “A little more to the left,” she said. When the ship shifted a little more, she then instructed the pilot “stop the turn… and adjust up a little.”

The human chuckled a little from just behind her. “Someone clearly hasn’t learned much about flying.”

“Give her a break,” pleaded Oostfen. He then reassured the woman, “You only have to get us close enough for Renj to pick them up. He can take over after that.”

The woman nodded in reply as she remained focused on the unseen vessel. “They are maneuvering around that cruiser,” she noted.

“Alright, going to pick up some speed,” replied Oostfen as he pushed forward on the the throttle.

The engines began to roar through the hull as Uthierav appeared from the corridor behind the cockpit. “Have you given chase,” she inquired.

After a moment’s pause, Oostfen answered her, “Don’t mind the others, they’re focusing on finding whoever it is that’s hiding out there.”

“Slightly to the right… and a little bit up,” continued Iunha from her meditation.

“Why don’t you take a seat, things may get shaky for a bit,” Oostfen said to the apprentice Jensaarai.

Without a word, the Dathomirian took a seat where a map of the local space hung over the console as a hologram, ships appearing and disappearing with the Silver Regret fixed as the center point. Like her master, she too focused on the force and martial training and understood only little more than her master of starship control.

A few moments later, Renj shouted loudly, “Got something on the screen. Port 15 Depress 11.” Oostfen responded by dropping the nose slightly and shifting the ship left. The human continued directing from his console, “Return to original heading on my mark… three… two… one… MARK!” In that moment, the Twi’lek snapped the ship opposite the earlier maneuver.

A loud beep was emitted by a screen next to human prompting him to glance over, “Chemical sensors on the hull are indicating we just entered into a stream of chemical products consistent with a specialized tibanna-based ion drive… however they read cold, but I don’t get it.”

“Should be warm in that sort of concentration, right? Most likely tibannaX then,” the captain speculated. The captain then throttled up on the ship, “Gonna see if we can get close enough for tow cables.”

A sensation washed over the pair of Jensaarai, similar to the previous sensation. “I think they know we’re following” concluded the apprentice.

Moments later, Renj called out from his console, “They are accelerating!”

“Not so fast,” Oostfen cried out excitedly as he shoved the throttle forward. “It’s all on you now Renj!”

“Affirmative,” responded Renj as he focused on the console before him. “Ten degrees starboard.”

“You two just relax,” Oostfen instructed the two women. In front of him was a lane of large freighters getting ready to dock on a Sutifaun-class Commerce Station. A ring like structure that ships docked with and a large spherical center that detached to descend to the planet surface with cargo from the docked freighters unable to make an atmospheric landing themselves. Another pair of similar spheres were above the station ready to dock in turn when the presently docked core detached and made its way to the planet’s surface.

“They are going to try to lose us in the traffic,” Oostfen concluded.

”Can’t take a shot at it yet,” informed Renj. “It’s a very small target… maybe little larger than a fighter? They are nosing up, 10 degrees per second.”

The Twi’lek pulled back on his control stick, carefully gauging the rate of the turn.

“They’ve straightened out… they are rolling in preparation for turn… to starboard, 85 degrees,” continued the young man. The Twi’lek followed the instructions with seasoned mastery over his ship’s controls. Iunha couldn’t help but admire the skill of the pair. Still, the ship was approaching the station and the traffic around it as Renj continued to call out directions with Oostfen following them precisely.

A hologram appeared over the communications console, this time the pale blue figure to appear was that of a Bothan in a Republic uniform, “Silver Regret, this is the Rutifan Station, what are you doing? You are flying like you are hyped up on spirits!”

“Your esteemed Republic Navy allowed a cloaked vessel of unknown origin to enter Coruscant controlled space” explained the Twi’lek. “We’re just fixing the mess your people allowed through.”

The Bothan’s brows furrowed, “That’s quite impossible. The Fleet has full coverage of the area around Coruscant with gravfield traps. Now cease and desist or we will be forced to disable your craft forcibly.”

“lower pitch by five degrees and fire cables” cried out Renj.

Oostfen nudged the stick forward, lowering the nose of the Silver Regret and slamming a button to his left side. A loud boom echoed through the cockpit and a sliding metallic noise rang through the air as a large metallic cylinder with an attached cable shot out from the hull just to the left of the ship. Flying out about 70 meters, the end of it vanished. A fraction of a second later, it seemingly reappeared out of nothingness as it continued on its route, but most curiously was that the cable seemed as though severed for a few meters… with the distance between the two ends rapidly shrinking before seemingly becoming a single strand once again.

“Ah hell, they maneuvered out of the way,” exclaimed Renj as he watched the monitor.

Oostfen however was undaunted as he stuck another button on the panel and reeled the cable back in. “Alright mister doesn’t believe me. I know you just saw what I did,” proclaimed the Twi’lek to the Bothan hologram. “Do we have permission to continue pursuit without intervention?”

“Your attempt at interdiction of a cloaked vessel is novice,” the Bothan explained with an unwavering voice. “You may continue tracking the vessel until more specialized units arrive.”

With that the Hologram vanished as Oostfen looked over to Renj, “What say we get it before the cavalry arrives?”

“Pitch up ten degrees… roll to port 43,” instructed the ship’s copilot. “Suppose there’d be a bounty for it?”

“Someone breaking the treaty, we’d be treated as heroes,” Oostfen proclaimed.

The ship maneuvered wildly as it merged into the traffic around the space station. Renj was having greater difficulty sorting the signature of the pursued ship from the various other masses that were now immediately surrounding them, but he kept his captain on course, waiting for another opportunity to guide a shot.

Uthierav and Iunha felt another presence wash over their minds, unlike the previous one that could be felt washing over their body as a whole, this one seemed more invasive and focused less instinctive, as though it had purpose. But in a moment it the sensation faded. The two couldn’t help but feel that it was still there somehow, but couldn’t tell what it was for.

Renj guided his captain into going beneath a three-kilometer long freighter and then over a Mon Calamari Cruise Liner of similar design to that of the legendary ‘Home One’ before guiding him in a loop around and under as the unseen ship tried desperately to shake its pursuer. Before them stood empty space leading back to where they had come from.
However, both Iunha and Uthierav instinctively looked toward the back of the ship. They sensed their quarry did not loop back around after the Mon Calamari ship in spite of what the sensors seemed to say. But there was something else that was bothering them.

“They’ve straightened out, pitch up 3 degrees and yaw to port by 2 degrees and try a second shot,” expained Renj.

Iunha looked forward to see the starlit expanse of empty space before them, as Uthierav glanced down at the navigation console. “Pitch up half a degree per second and fire on my mark captain,” came Renj. Uthierav glanced out the front of the cockpit and back to the console, “Three…” The Dathomirian got up from her chair and lunged roughly towards the captain’s “two…” A moment later, she reached forth with both her hands, focusing on the control sticks and willing it to pull back back and pitching the Silver Regret sharply up.

“What the…” cried out the Twi’lek as he staired at his control stick in anger. He looked first to the right to the Togruta before looking pulling back on the throttle and turning to the pale woman behind him.

“I’ve lost them,” explained the human from his console as he pounded a fist on a solid panel with his right hand.

“Well there you go,” exclaimed the captain. “We lost them.”

Iunha shook her head, “No, like I, she sensed we lost them some time ago, but that does not explain my apprentice feeling the need to usurp control of the ship from the captain.”

Shutting her eyes, Uthierav pointed back at the navigation hologram, a long vessel that instruments identified as three-kilometers long situated directly behind the centerpoint representing the Silver Regret. “I just saved us.”

----------------------------------

Kreia was grasping the controls tightly. She didn’t know what was more frightening, flying in among all those large ships around the station while blind, or seeing that tow cable appear briefly in the pale light emitted through the canopy from the cockpit instruments when it had breached the cloaking field. She was drawing in long deep breaths trying to calm herself down as sweat rolled down her cheeks. She felt a hand fall on her right shoulder and she glanced back, at the Admiral’s face. She expected disappointment, but all she could see was his pride.

“I’d wager my annual salary that it was more of an adventure than you bargained for little lady,” he said at last.

She let out a relieved exhale and let out a laugh. “I can’t believe you still remember those words, old man.”

Letting go of the controls, she then leaned back in her seat looking into the darkness beyond the canopy, “Still, I only lost them because of your intervention.”

The Admiral smiled as he leaned back in his own seat, lifting his hand from the Pantoran’s shoulder. “Yeah, regardless, you exceeded my expectations, this was just supposed to be casual stroll through Coruscant Space, not a high speed chase through heavy freighter traffic,” he explained. “If there is anyone I should be disappointed with, it’s myself… because I overlooked a minor detail, our pursuers survived.”

“Well, that’s not like you,” she remarked. She then took the controls again. “Lets get going before they sniff us out again.”

“Releasing jamming chaff” the Admiral informed his pilot. A short series of bangs echoed through the cockpit as smoke and metal flakes were released to block sensors and visible spectrum observation of the ship’s location.

A click came from Ren’Vhan’s console as he shut down the cloaking device. “Course plotted Lieutenant.”

The stars flicked into being as the darkness of the hibridium cloaking field’s double blindness faded. Kreia glanced back, thinking on her pursuers, she was curious who they might have been, it felt a very different experience than other attempts at detection of the fleet she has dealt with. It was as if someone could truly see them without the benefit of sensors somehow. She shook her head and focused forward as she initiated the hyperdrive. “Next stop, Empress Teta.”

The stars stretched out to infinity before her and then the whole range of view was filled with the blue glow of hyperspace.

 

This chapter is easy to visualize playing out in a Clone Wars style animation for some reason. The overall pacing makes it seem TV-like (in a good way.) The shift between sets of characters works very well where it was placed.

I’m not sure what to say about the new characters since we haven’t seen very much of them yet, but hooray for Jensaarai. Alternate kinds of Force-users are fascinating. I like that Iunha has concerns about Uthierav’s philosophy, and that the Jedi training is having some unforeseen consequences for this particular student. Blending two (well, three given her Dathomiri heritage perhaps?) traditions would not necessarily always go smoothly. It’s refreshing that the Jedi are apparently neither a perfect influence nor all the way responsible for her issues – in fact, it sounds like Luke tried to talk her out of the fearful attitude. I’m curious to see what’s behind that attachment to anti-attachment, given that it’s not entirely how the NJO runs; then again it could just be her personality. People are surprising and often very stubborn. Give a big enough crowd a rule – any rule – and you can almost guarantee that someone will latch onto it ferociously, while someone else will rebel against it with the passion of a thousand blazing suns.

 

This is great! Keep it coming!

 

"Well, that was embarrassing," commented Oostfen as he stepped out of the interrogation room. "But thankfully there was ample evidence proving we were chasing something."

Renj stood up from a chair across the hall, gesturing with his cuffed hands, "so does that mean we are free to go then?"

A Republic Navy officer stepped out behind the Twi'lek, commanding the officers keeping watch, "they are free to go."

One of the guards pulled out a remote, and with a short sequence of beeps, the cuffs clicked open, releasing the remaining suspects. Uthierav opened her eyes as she left her meditative state and stood. The guard nearest her looked relieved, having been nervous she would use the force to escape. Iunha spent her time in the hall pondering on the nature of the vessel they had pursued.

Standing up, she offered a courteous bow to the officers and the crew that brought her and her apprentice to Coruscant. "Now if you may excuse is, my apprentice and I have urgent matters to attend to."

"Been fun," replied the Twi'lek captain. "If you or any of your Jen pals need transport along my routes, I'm more than happy to offer a lift."

Uthierav nodded, "Your offer will be kept in mind until a more permanent solution to our organizations interstellar travel quandary can be found." With a short bow, she followed her master out the spaceport's security offices.

Catching up with her master, she asked her master with curiosity, "What do you suppose it had been we were chasing?"

Continuing forward, the Togruta began to reveal some of her thoughts, "It was small, little larger than your standard star fighters, possessed a cloaking field, and an apparent hyperdrive according to sensor footage of the end of the chase."

"Indeed," confirmed the Dathomirian with a nod. "But while the history of the Empire does reveal they are no stranger to cloaking field technologies, they are banned from their use by Pellaeon–Gavrisom Treaty, are they not?"

"It would be foolish to assume an enemy would abide by any set of rules in any time of hostilities," rebutted the master. Then she continued with her thoughts, "But at the same time, it is doubtful that Jaina or any recruits she trains would be train would have used their abilities as maliciously as our unseen friend had."

"You mean the part about trying to crash us into another ship with their illusions," reasoned the apprentice.

"And about the illusions... Whoever it was casting them over us was certainly no novice," continued Iunha. "Not even Master Horn had such mastery as to muddle the instincts of his fellow Force-user so… effectively."

"Which further rules out the Empire," inquired the young woman as the pair stepped out a door leading out to the Silver Regret's hangar bay.

Most of the cargo and storage compartments had been emptied for inspection by the spaceport authorities. Among some of the cargo were laid out a set of dull-red armor and its accompanying mask, it’s chin jutting out like a spike, with a curved horn formed at the forehead to set between the Togruta’s montrals as she wore it. Beside the armor lay a lightsaber shaft roughly a half meter in length, but only a single emitter for the blade when ignited. Further away still were a pair of quarter meter polished hilts with a slight curve incorporated into one of them. A pair of starport guards stood over the weapons and armor as the two women approached.

One of the guards looked up, “Ah yes, we just got word from Senator Runtai’svi permitting your weapons. Wanted me to let you know he looks forward to seeing you soon.”

Iunha bowed graciously before she leaned down to collect her gear, packing the armor in a near by bantha-hide case and stowed longer lightsaber within her robes as Uthierav collected her own pair of weapons.

As they turned around, the Togruta woman continued the conversation, “Not the Empire as it stands now, but perhaps rogues of the former Empire that have not yet submitted to Fel’s rule… or maybe a Jedi that survived the purge and refuses Skywalker’s New Order.”

“Clearly fallen to the dark side if their attempt to have us killed is any indication,” reasoned the apprentice.

The Defender shook her head, “You’ve simplified the universe to simply black and white, haven’t you apprentice?”

“There’s the dark side, and the light side,” reasoned the Dathomirian. “Those who kill needlessly and those who kill only as an absolutely last resort. Those who live at the expense of others, and those who live only to serve others.”

“And countless trillions who simply try to live from day to day,” retorted the girl’s master as they passed a very angry Oostfen as he argued with the Starport Authorities.

"What do you mean you aren't done inspecting everything," the Twi'lek shouted angrily. "You done pulled out everything but the galley sink!"

"Look at him," the Togruta pointed out to the apprentice. "Clearly he is angry, and he expresses it openly. Does that make him one who had fallen to the temptations of the Dark Side?"

The Dathomirian considered the question as they walked along. After a moment, she offered her master a brief opinion, "It is more likely that he is temporarily, though severely, inconvenienced by present circumstances."

"That is one way of putting it," remarked the Defender. "At present he is suffering a sensation all beings can be subjected to, including our hidden visitor back in high orbit... Desperation."

"He expresses it through impatience and yells," Uthierav pointed out. "Not by trying to kill that which is inconvenient to him."

Iunha shook her head in disagreement as they passed through a set of sliding doors that had opened as they approached, casting the pair in the light of Coruscant's star. "The fundamental basis for it remains. In the case of our friend Oostfen, he senses that profits are at stake and so he expresses it through anger and yelling. In the case of the ship we chased, they may have felt that much more had been at stake, and thus used elevated measures to match our intentions as they perceived them."

As they walked across the starport's main plaza, they made there way to a long, multi-car repulsorlift commuter tram that pointed towards the dome of the Galactic Senate off in the distance. A line formed nearby as a guard clad in blue robes ran a scanner of the passengers waiting to climb aboard... Searching for weapons and identifying each individual in turn.

"I'd be more inclined to agree with you had it not been for the method they chose to attempt our murder," stated the younger woman bluntly. "They were in our heads, they were feeding imagery directly into it, certainly they could have discerned our intentions through that link."

The guard gestured several more through the doors of the tram and began scanning the next group, "Your invitation here states you were to meet Senator Du'sall with another, Renj."

"My boss is busy arguing with customs," responded the familiar voice. "He's having me handle business with the Senator while he clears things up at the starport."

"He's putting a lot of faith in you," comforted the guard. "Du'sall can be pretty harsh, but he does soften up if you subject him to some flattery. Asking about his Millennium Falcon reproduction won't hurt either, but I wouldn't advise it if you are in any sort of rush. He'll talk about it for hours."

"Ah... Thank you sir," the young human offered humbly.

"It would seem our transport has business at the Senate as well," commented Iunha as they moved forward with the line.

As they reached the guard, the man blinked for a moment at the Dathormirian. "Uthierav... Is that you?"

"Look at the scanner's ID and tell me Regis," she offered in reply.

The man glanced down at his scanner, "Galaxy seems smaller as of late."

"A friend of yours from Skywalker's academy" inquired Togruta as she glanced down at the lightsaber hilt hanging from the man's belt.

"'Friend' would be overstating our relationship," he admitted. "But she was a great inspiration for myself and the other students."

Uthierav then had a thought strike her, "So the Republic employs Jedi for security for the senate now?"

"Only temporarily while the crisis between the two warlords resolves itself over rights to that nebula," replied the blue clad Jedi. "The council welcomed the opportunity to expose apprentices and a few of the more aggressive masters, my own included, to diplomacy in practice at the Senate."

"It is good to see the Order embracing every facet of the role of peacekeeper," the older woman remarked with a sense of pride towards the young Jedi.

"Yeah well, wish I had more time to talk. Patience may be a core value of Jedi, but the rest of the galaxy seems to view it as a sin," he finished as he gestured the women towards the tram.

Iunha glanced over at her apprentice who remained silent during most of the exchange. "Well, say something nice at least to an old acquaintance."

"Blue suits you," offered the Dathormirian flatly before she made her way into the commuter tram.

Iunha pinched at the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I do apologize for my apprentice, she really is a piece of work."

"Don't worry, I got used to her lack of emotion long ago," he assured the Jensaarai woman. "Every person who goes to the Academy leaves it different from what they were and different from one another."

"It isn't a lack of emotion," Iunha said with a tone of sadness. "Merely a lack of expression." She then turned fully towards the Jedi draped in the Senate Guard colors and offered him a bow, "I wish you fortune in all your ventures and may the force be with you young Regis."

"Always," responded Regis as he offered a bow in return. with that he stepped aside and gestured the Togruta woman towards the tram door.

Inside the Tram, the pale young apprentice sat alone next to a viewport as she waited for the vehicle to make its toward the Senate building. Uthierav let out a sigh upon seeing that the young woman. She knew there carried a great deal of baggage from a time she lived in the wilderness of Dathomir. She glanced over the seats to see if she could spot Renj out of curiosity, spotting him conversing with another spacer. She only recalled there being the two crew members aboard the Silver Regret, but judging from the smiles and occasional laughter, they were probably sharing stories of close scrapes and embarrassing encounters. She turned her attention back towards her apprentice and resolved to join her at the seat.

Taking a seat next to her apprentice, laying the case containing her armor at her feet, she glanced over at Uthierav who remained silent. "The Saarai-kaar has said that you have more in common with the Jedi of the Old Order than the current generation does."

"I see no problem with that as the Old Order lasted for many thousands of years," responded the young Jensaarai bluntly.

"And it has been recorded on countless occasions that the greatest foes of the Old Jedi Order were their own comrades fallen from the light," explained the elder woman as the tram hummed and sped across the valley separating the starport and the Senate.

The buildings of this region, while massive in height when measured from the foundations, were sparse and thin, allowing the Senate and the nearby re-purposed Executive Building now serving as a collective embassy for Roan Fel's Empire along with several other Imperial remnant domains that refused to surrender their authority to the Empire or to join the New Republic.

Iunha could sense an air of uncertainty over the area, the situation along the edge of the galaxy seems to have everyone on edge. "I'll leave you to ponder on that later. I think it wise to keep our senses about us," the Defender instructed her apprentice.

The Dathomirian reached out with her own senses and could feel a cold sensation about them. "Agreed, master. I sense fear permeating the area."

"I didn't realize that a local dispute between splinter groups of the Galactic Empire could inspire such a collective worry so far away," admitted the Togruta regretfully.

As the tram passed by the Imperial Embassy, a raspy voice from across the center aisle spoke up, "Well, since the Invasion of Naboo, it's been one intergalactic crisis after another." The two women looked over across to see a man wearing a vest clear resigned to hold a wide array of blasters and energy packs, though all the straps and pockets were emptied likely as a condition for entering the Senate Building. His wide brimmed hat suggested frequent work on desert or otherwise scorching worlds, and the scars across the blue skin of his face stood as proof of his experience with dangerous work and the lack of bacta for treating the wounds he often sustained. Lifting his head to reveal his deep-blue eyes and a few white feathers pressed down over his face by his headwear. "There’s been constant fighting, atrocities and power struggles because a few people wanted more than they already had, more than they would ever need. Even the New Jedi Order struggles with their own trying to take advantage of the scramble for power and riches… if the Solo boy was any indication.”

He then leaned back in his seat, pulling off his hat and running the fingers of his right hand through the feathers on his temple as he shut his eyes in contemplation. “Millenia of peace needs only one man to have a goal to bring it crashing to an end.” As the Tram came to a sudden halt, the Omwati man stood up as he placed his hat back upon his crest, sliding it back as he did so to keep the feathers from obscuring his vision.

The Togruta considered the man’s words for a moment. “I suppose all it takes is a vision, and the illusion of a means to convince a man that they could have it all.” Lifting herself from her seat, and grabbing her armor case, she beckoned her apprentice to follow.

------------------------------------

A Pantoran man in a simple black suit sat in a small, though luxurious office as he sorted through files on his desk’s terminal with a briefcase sitting at his feet beneath his desk. His greying brows furrowed in frustration as he glanced over the massive list of meetings and events his secretary scheduled for him. “I don’t know what that woman thinks I am, but filled with boundless energy is not one of them.” He let out a sigh and focused on the nearest of these events. An appointment with the representatives of New Alderaan who were no doubt hoping to convince him to divert Intelligence resources towards locating and prosecuting individuals who were involved in the development and construction of the Death Star. Simple fact was that most of those who were involved were destroyed with the Death Stars over Yavin and Endor, or have since died of old age, or other causes. The handful that were left that the Intel community knew the locations for were now considered key members of the New Republic’s recovery and their identities kept secret. This meeting was just going to be more of the same and he was certain that the other congressional members of the Security Council also found such meetings tiresome.

“There exist more active threats to the Republic than a couple of old men and women trying to distance themselves from Tarkin’s Folly,” he muttered to himself.

A hologram of a human woman appeared off to the side of his desk, “Excuse me Senator Huo Dus, but there are a pair of women from Susevfi here claiming that they have an appointment with you… but they do not appear on the schedule.”

“A Togruta and a Dathomirian, correct,” he inquired of his secretary. When she nodded, he straightened up. “Send them in and inform the Alderaanian representatives that an urgent matter has arisen that I must see to.” With a nod, the hologram vanished and the door opened, allowing entry for the two women as they strode in. as the plainly clothed Pantoran gestured towards the seats before his desk. “I welcome you, esteemed members of the Jensaarai,” he stated as he clicked pressed a button on the holographic projector, popping out its power source. “Can’t risk any unnecessary interruptions.”

As the Togruta stepped around the seat, she pondered aloud, “I wonder what could require such precautionary measures, or such urgency.”

“Well, to begin with, we’ve found that someone’s been maintaining old Iceheart’s spy networks somehow,” admitted Huo. “We’ve come across a cell on Naboo that had been training new recruits for decades… and as far as our own intelligence community is concerned, it isn’t affiliated with the Imperials as we know them.”

“And you don’t believe it is them… why,” questioned Uthierav skeptically.

“That is confidential,” responded the Senator bluntly. “But that is all besides the point.” He reached down to the briefcase at his feet and pulled it up to the desktop.

“I’m rather curious,” mused Iunha as she looked at the laptop. “What could it possibly be that would require the specific services of the Jensaarai across the street that the Jedi watching the doors could not handle.”

“Oh, I have little doubt that the Jedi could handle the task,” replied the man as he popped open the briefcase. When it opened up, he spun it around to show the display terminal inside it to the women. On the left half of the screen appeared an old woman in a comparison shot with a much younger appearing, though similar looking woman in a frame next to it. Lines were drawn between the two pointing out the most blatantly identical traits between the two as DNA sequences of the two profiles sat next to each other before overlapping to emphasize that the two women were in fact one and the same. On the right half appeared an Imperial Star Destroyer Mark II. Boxes were zoomed in detailing particular points on the vessel, revealing battle damage and labeling them with the name of a particular skirmish, along with the name of the vessel or pilot suspected of dealing said damage. Other boxes detailed post production modifications and their suspected purpose, many of which seemed to be the external docking of modified TIE Fighters for rapid deployment after dropping out of hyperspace.

A label appeared beneath the view of the Imperial Deuce, naming the vessel “Invidious” and designating its present captain as “Leonia Tavira.”

“I just feel the Jensaarai would be a little more motivated,” he finished with a smirk.

-----------------------------------

Dropping out of hyperspace Ren’Vhan and Kreia could see the star that Empress Teta orbited shining like a shining beacon distant but prevalent against the space beyond it. Beyond it the stars seemed denser, the Galactic Core seemed more a haze from so close.

“Well… we’re here… now what,” asked the Pantoran as she looked about the canopy trying to see anything out of place.

“That’s a good question,” replied the Admiral as he shut his eyes. He focused again on the connection that he spoke with Leshran through. It seemed much less distant than it had before, but still seemed she was a significant distance of the galaxy away, but his recent usage to receive system coordinates kept it warm in spite of its previously dormant state.

“Hey girl,” he projected through the connection. “We’re at the designated location.”

“I’m here old man,” came the voice in his mind. “What took you so long?”

“We had some bounty hunter or other track us in the Coruscant traffic, so we had to spend some time to shake them,” he replied to the distant Hand. “Now about those coordinates?”

“Standby… can’t wait to see you again,” came Leshran’s voice in his head.

After a few moments, a small beep came from his console, as the scanners picked up a shuttle dropping out of hyperspace just above their own craft. Kreia looked above, and saw three wings jutting out from a wide, central body. “Lambda-class shuttle confirmed approaching. Is that our guide?”

Reaching across the galaxy, Ren’Vhan inquired the Hand, “So let me guess, I’m gonna be slaving my navi-computer to that Lambda and it will take us to the meeting spot?”

“That is the jest of it,” she responded. From the sensation, it was apparent that Leshran herself was not aboard the shuttle, rather it was some lackey who was trustworthy in the eyes of his commander. Glancing over the man’s mind, it was apparent he was excited by the prospects of the glory days of their vessel.

“Setting up communications with the vessel,” the Admiral at last said, confirming Kreia’s previous assumption. “Lambda pilot, can you read me.”

“Loud and clear sir,” replied the pilot. Ren’Vhan could almost see the man saluting in his mind. “The Admiral has instructed me to guide you to Rud-Ibasl… says you and your fleet may be able to return to us the capabilities that were lost when the Jensaarai were released from their service by the Republic.”

The Admiral listened carefully, as he glanced over at Kreia in the seat ahead of him. She was visibly shaking at the controls, no doubt the result of the mention of that dreadful planet. He turned back to the comms console, “While I can tell that such a prospect excites you, she certainly has an interesting taste in hideouts.”

“The Republic’s not bothered the area and the pickings, though slim, were easy… but most of the True-Invids are eager for bigger quarry, as is Leonia herself… wants to make herself relevant again,” came the confident voice.

The old inquisitor nodded and flipped a few switches to his right, and inputted varying sequences as he identified the Lambda’s navigational frequencies and encryptions. “Very well then, connecting our navi-com to yours, and linking hyperdrives. Should be set to go in about thirty seconds. I’ll give final confirmation then.”

When he finished speaking with the Lambda pilot, he flipped a switch to cut off holonet communications and looked forward at Kreia whose fear radiated like an aura. “I know you don’t like the prospect of going back there,” he comforted her. “But it will only be for a short while, I promise.”

“That whole world, and the city that envelopes it can crumble into a pile of rust for all I care,” she shouted angrily. “The people there are so slimy, even Hutts can’t stand it.”

“Sounds like you’d have no reservation about launching a Base Delta Zero to it,” he mused aloud.

“Oh how I’d love to… the Venators could do it can’t they,” she pleaded, half laughing. “Melting that whole city, probably would make it look like a planet sized Death Star.”

“Or the greatest mine for metals in the galaxy,” declared the Admiral. A beep on his console confirmed the completion of the link with the Lambda. Flipping the comms back on, he brought the Lambda pilot’s channel back online. “Alright, we got things settled on our end, we’re ready whenever you are.”

“Alright, I got confirmation. Prepare for jump into hyperspace,” confirmed the Lambda shuttle. “It will be interesting to see how a pair of Admirals interact.”

Kreia looked back at Ren, “Well… actually I think Inquisitors have seniority over Admirals.”

“Don’t forget that our Admiral was also a Moff,” countered the pilot. Ren’Vhan was amused by the two subordinates arguing about the seniority of their respective superiors. Truth was, there never was any true regulation regarding Inquisitors in the command structure in relation to the Moffs themselves, though he was definitely under the command of Grand Moff Tarkin before his untimely demise.


“Initiating jump now,” came the other pilot’s voice over the comms. Soon after, the stars streaked and melted into a blue haze.

 

Very interesting. I liked the conversation and their different perspectives. Uthierav seems to have made an impression on people at the Jedi Temple.

Kreia and the other pilot arguing about whose admiral outranks the other is funny. Also funny in out-of-universe context, for those poor fools among your readers (unfortunately for me, I'm one of them) who have ever had any reason to attempt to figure out the Imperial hierarchy. I seem to recall theories that Palpatine made it all confusing on purpose, though that sounds rather inconvenient. Poor bureaucrats.

There's a good impression of the shared backstory between two characters in how they talk about Kreia's hatred of Rud-Ibasl. We don't know why it's loathsome to her, but both she and Ren'Vhan evidently do. Apparently he also knows that the way to cope with her distaste is to suggest planet destruction, because the thought of slagging entire cities makes everything better.

 

The shuttle's hold was cramped as the Jensaarai sat at the end of the hold with the Galactic Alliance Special Forces sat in seats astride the hold. It would have felt spacious if not for the six speeder bikes of different models sitting in two rows of three in the center. The Alliance forces wore a fairly thin set of personal armor so as to be able to conceal it under robes or long coats. Iunha's now donned her own armor save for the mask, and wore a brown set of robes over it while her apprentice donned a long coat similar to several of the troopers.

According to the briefing, the planet they were heading to was a long abandoned urban world that has since become a favored hideout for several underworld figures and pirate groups. Orbital observations also supported the notion that it once hosted several Imperial Fleet bases that were capable of supporting the planet-side maintainence, construction and launching of vessels the size of an Executor-Class dreadnought. Initial scouts had detailed analysis of several massive anti-gravity beam projectors that lined many of the larger docks. most had long been abandoned.

The Alliance Commander in charge of the mission sat to the left of Iunha, looking over a holographic map of the objective. The durasteel beam honeycomb seemed more like a massive project that was still under construction than it did a city world. The defender glanced over the map momentarily before question the commander, "What's the story for Rud-Ibasl anyways?"

"This sector used to be a hotbed for mining," came the answer from the the other side. A young man much more lightly armored than the rest of the squad was the apparent source of the comment as he stood up. "The companies that laid claim to the mining rights picked this world to host the majority of their refining and shipping needs... A sort of relay point between the mining colonies and the markets. They built it all quick, ugly and cheap."

"After they finished mining out the whole sector, they promptly abandoned the planet in search of greener pastures, leaving the planet and the city they built around it to decay for the past five-hundred years or so," continued the Special Forces commander. "Because all the infrastructure, anti-grav units and varied alloys interfere with most varieties of scanners, we can say that it is the ideal location for a hideout for any sort of secret base... Be it criminal, pirate or Imperial holdouts."

The Togruta looked again at the map as it panned along a trench formed between rows of massive skyscrapers that were joined at the base by shared infrastructure. Towards the bottom of one side of the canyon was a cove that seemed to have been cut out from the trench wall, and suspended within it was the unmistakable form of an Imperial Star Destroyer. "If that's all true, how'd we find her on a planet where she could literally have been hiding anywhere," asked the apprentice to the other side of the Togruta.

The man who had stood up earlier had made his way around the speeder bikes, "there's been a cooperative effort between the Empire and the Galactice Alliance to root out rogue warlords, pirates and various criminal groups. The detailed mapping of Rud-Ibasl by our respective intelligence communities has been one such focus of that effort." He pulled out a small holographic projector, that began to project the images of various individuals, "our intel thus far indicates approximately two dozen of the most wanted of these sorts."

A voice came from the cockpit, "seems Iunha's advice to have the other shuttle detour to Birgis bore fruit, two Suarbi Talon fighters and their Jensaari pilots have joined up and are presently en route to the Ibasl system. "They'll arrive about a half hour after we do."

"Very good," commented the Intelligence agent before looking on the seated Jensaarai with a confident look.

"So what details do you know of the target location," inquired the Dathomirian.

"It's a sort of criminal town owned run by the descendants of a Hutt exiled by the Cartel about two-hundred years ago, sort of a trading post and repair bay," explained the man. "Organizationally, their armed guards are... Functional. The group is notable really, only for their technical expertise and their logistical ingenuity."

"In other words, they are very good smugglers," summarized commander.

"That's a good way of explaining it Reinsal," commented the embedded agent. "Not much is expected in the form of resistance from the locals, though they can still alert the Invids to our presence if we aren't careful."

"And the Invids themselves," came the voice of Uthierav.

"While equipped with largely aging and obsolete weaponry, from our pictures of the Invids hull, it can be assumed that all their equipment is reasonably well maintained aside from superficial damage to the hull plating." The hologram then shifted depicting a variety of young men in old Imperial uniforms. "These individuals were seen entering and leaving the Invidious itself, so it can also be safely assumed that Leonia has been able to actively recruit young blood to her crew... Though we do not have any clues regarding the quality of training or the level of discipline or experience, we will presume full operational functionality of the Invidious and treat their ground forces as a high level threats... And though Corran Horn and the Jensaarai who once served aboard the vessel indicated the absence of medium or heavy vehicles, she's been MIA for an awfully long time and has demonstrated a great deal of resourcefulness in the past, so we've packed some heavy weapons as an insurance policy." One of the troopers, upon hearing this tapped on a rocket launcher latched to the wall next to him to emphasize the agent’s preparations for the mission.

"Sounds reasonable enough," concluded the Jensaarai defender. "Having a pair of Talon fighters available will provide a nice contingency in the event that they are needed," she added. She then looked over the map, focusing on the town that had sprung up along the walls of the repair bay. "That woman is supposed to be in the town presently?"

The young man had the hologram scroll through various profiles until it stopped at a hovering vehicle with a pair of large barrels sticking out from a revolving turret with an elderly woman poking out of the commander's hatch and what appeared to be an oversized slug on the front of it. "Indeed, two weeks ago she led a detachment of troops out to tackle a Hutt that had hired mercenaries to try to hijack the Invidious during its repairs about a week ago. When she came back, she had the Hutt's corpse strapped to the front of her personal repulsorcraft. She has since been seen wandering the town from time to time looking over people defecting from her vanquished rival's faction." He the scrolled over several profiles, "some appear to have been slaves for entertainment, others were formerly hired muscle or secretaries... But it does appear that she is actively recruiting from them right now and overseeing the selection personally."

The hologram then switched over to a young human female with long hair, sporting dark armor partially concealed by a long dark robe, "and this here is the big unknown. She's been witnessed meditating in a Jedi like fashion, and before the report was compiled for physical transport back to Coruscant, she cut down one of our agents who had infiltrated the town with a lightsaber without prior provocation."

"In other words, the whole operation could be compromised already, and the Invidious long gone by now," reasoned the younger woman as she looked over the hologram.

"Two minutes until we drop out of hyperspace," the pilot informed the passengers.

"Thank you lieutenant," he responded as he turned around to make his way back to his own seat. "Indeed, but if they have not already left we'll be counting on you to handle that girl if she is what we fear she might be."

The hum of the hyperdrive ceased shortly after the agent retook his seat and buckled himself back up. "Five minutes to planet surface" came the pilot's voice. "Seems a rust storm has picked up around the objective, get your breath masks ready."

"Alright everyone," called out Commander Reinsal. "We'll delay putting out most of our speeders and focus on securing the landing zone and finding our way to the target level." He then looked over to the two women to his side. "If you are up to it, you can take a pair of speeders ahead to the town and get a better look at security. I feel it is doubtful that the men already on the ground would have risked putting out another agent."

"I recall that the handler of the surface operations was specifically instructed not to risk any more men or alerting Tavira that we were onto their hideout," explained the Republic Intelligence agent. "Speaking of whom, they should be under com silence until my return... I'd appreciate it if someone could give me a lift to the operational nexus as soon as possible."

Uthierav nodded affirmatively, "I can take you there under the cover of the storm if you can tell me the way."

Iunha nodded in agreement, "It would be problematic if my apprentice and I arrived at the same time anyways."

"Thank you very much," replied the officer. The hum of motors filled the hold as everyone equipped their masks. Although Iunha's Jensaarai mask also included an air filter, she opted for a basic face mask for now so as not to reveal her Jensaarai heritage by any measure should she encounter any of the Invids.

A metallic scraping sound filled the air briefly as the ship touched down. As the engines dulled, signaling a successful landing, the intel agent got up and unhooked several latches that secured the bikes to the floor of the holes. Uthierav got up and made her way to that bike as well, taking the front seat. Iunha got up and telekinetically freed a second bike before mounting up. The rest of the troopers got up and prepared to file out after the two Jensaarai left. As the chin ramp of the shuttle opened, the hold was immediately filled with a blinding red cloud of rust. The sound of the speeders immediately filled the hold, and quickly became distant in the blinding storm.

------------------------------

She never wanted to see that big ball of rust again. But there it was, far below... And she was going to be going down to the surface. She glanced back at the Admiral seated behind her as he looked over maps and coordinates that were being transmitted over a short range channel and comparing it to an archived map he had on the navigational computer. "Well looks like Tavira has been busy," he commented at last. "You won't believe this Kriea, but the Invidious is hiding in a cove that's been torched into the base of the buildings along one of the trenches."

The Pantoran raised an eyebrow, "and you believe that, sir?"

"She's a clever one for sure, I can certainly learn a few tricks from her," he remarked. He flipped on the channel to the Lambda pilot, “We’ll set down near the canyon town.”

“Looks like a rust storm is kicking up, and it would probably be a good idea to shake off the Imperial drab before you go to meet her,” recommended the Lambda pilot. “Just getting word that the girl who recommended you rooted out a spy while I was away. No idea who they were with, and there is no reason to believe they don’t still have eyes on the area.”

“The advisory is much appreciated,” replied the Admiral. As he looked forward as they entered the dusty atmosphere of the planet, he tapped on Kreia’s shoulder. “Breathing masks were put on board, correct?”

Kriea tapped a storage compartment door built into the headrest of her seat, “Air masks are in the cockpit compartments, fresh tanks. Si’Yanvo also saw to the equipment in the storage compartment, said he prepped gear for a broad spectrum of scenarios, since we had no idea where the final destination would be.”

“Ah, good man,” he said, praising his second in command. He shut his eyes and reached out to the minds of those force sensitives among his crews, determining their general location from his knowledge of the ship’s orientation, the direction the tethers that bound him to his crew were, and how distant they felt to be. “They’ve just about reached Beacon.”

As she guided the ship into the atmosphere, it seemed little more than a red planet, but as the ship drew closer to the surface, shadows from the light of the red sun slowly revealed the details. What seemed as mountains were in truth skyscrapers, long abandoned and in disrepair. Though resilient and strong, they were covered in a thick layer of corrosion. The outer panels of the massive buildings have mostly fallen to the unseen depths of the trench far below, revealing the Durasteel skeleton of the city’s landscape. Some buildings were tilting, others have fully collapsed and dragging down their neighbors. Every once in a while, one could find an ornate structure in seemingly perfect condition, having been built of more expensive metals that were resistant to corrosion in even the long term.

“I don’t get it,” pondered the Pantoran. “People built a city to cover an entire planet, and didn’t even bother to design it to last, why go through all the trouble? Why not make everything from something longer lasting like at Coruscant or Beacon.”

“They had no need to,” came the Admiral’s reply. “The Trade Federation backed a major mining operation on many of the surrounding systems. This planet was simply a convenient place to link the mining colonies of the sector with the Veragi Trade Route, it was cheaper to bring the ores hear, smelt them into usable bars and ship them off elsewhere rather than make smelting facilities and foundries on every world they were operating on around here. The rest of the city sort of got built around the industry. When the mines finally dried up, everyone left Rud-Ibasl for greener pastures.”

Up ahead, a great red cloud slowly rolled across the cityscape as it blew along the massive trench. Ren’Vhan let out a sigh at the sight. “I’ll be scrubbing the rust off the ship for weeks.”

“You really should let the techs manage the maintenance on this,” she scolded her superior. “You have a fleet to run, several secret bases to manage…”

“And nothing to really do during hyperspace transits,” he said, cutting her off as the ship became enveloped by the rust storm.

The transparisteel view ports seemed to be painted red, and darkened as they went further into the storm. Kreia reached out with her senses to guide the ship through the darkening storm as the sensors began to malfunction from the interference outside.

A voice entered Ren’Vhan’s head once again, “You are certainly putting a lot of trust in her ability aren’t you grumps.”

The Admiral shut his eyes and focused on the telepathic link between himself and Leshran, “She’s better at it than I ever was,” he informed the woman at the other end.

“I’m not entirely sure I’m still speaking with Ren’Vhan… I remember you being arrogant, certainly skilled enough to back your claims… but you seem almost… humble right now,” observed the woman’s voice.

“I just give credit where credit is due,” he retorted. He reached out with his own senses, feeling the walls of the city’s trench around them. He could feel Kreia nose the vessel down to go under a partially collapsed tower that leaned across the span. She couldn’t see anything, and wasn’t using the scanners or the maps. She flew by feeling alone right now. “And this one deserves lots of it.”

Up ahead, he could sense the massive cove that someone had carved into the side of the trench using plasma cutters and fresh beams to prevent collapse. The Invidious lay suspended within it with its starboard side to the opening, kept aloft by a battery of anti-gravity units that lined the corridor. He could feel the people who lived aboard the ship, and those living in the nearby town. He could also sense Leshran’s presence in one of the buildings that had been erected into the aging city foundations.

“Well, seems you’ve found me at last,” she said, her voice filling his head.

“Wasn’t looking for you,” he replied as he continued to feel out the surroundings as Kreia brought the ship to a crawl.

“I think I found a good spot… ten degrees off the port side of the Star Destroyer,” reported the pilot. Ren’Vhan sensed out the spot instinctively. A small little landing pad that had a variety of mechanical arms around it… probably used to help modify the remaining compliment of fighters aboard the vessel itself. It seemed to be large enough to accommodate even a Lambda shuttle with it’s wings extended for effecting repairs.

Satisfied that it would fit, Ren’Vhan tapped Kreia’s shoulder, “Take her in nice and slowly.”

“Yes sir,” she replied as she throttled up a little. As she maneuvered, she could see an eerie red glow from the left side of the canopy as they passed over the Invidious, light from its view ports cutting into the darkness. “It’s huge… even the Venators pale in comparison.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t like them,” came a spiteful voice. “Sure, their good in a pitched battle, but that’s not the sort of thing the Ghost Fleet was put together for.”

He could see his pilot shrug in the seat ahead, “I certainly won’t complain about having a ship of the line among our roster though.”

As the lights faded, darkness once again prevailed, but he knew the target pad was up ahead, and that Kreia would guide the ship in safely. “I’m going to head into the rear hold and get into something less conspicuous … don’t scratch my ship.”

“All this rust blowing around will do more to your precious coat of paint than any of my landings would,” replied the Pantoran with a tone of sarcasm.

He unbuckled, hit a pair of latches on the back of his seat and lowered it, revealing a door leading into the original cockpit entry and maintenance corridor. After releasing a latch, he pushed the door open and crawled through, shutting the door behind himself. The walls of the corridor were lined with small doors, and in the middle sat an old modified BARC speeder bike held still by latches along the floor of the corridor. He thought a moment of pushing it out to give himself room to really sort through his options on clothing, but figured that trying to see through the dust when it blew in would be more inconvenient. He squeezed by making his way to the lockers towards the back of the ship, pressing a simple button to cause it to slide upward to reveal the contents. He shook his head, and sealed the locker once again and checked the one next to it. He pulled from it a set of metal gauntlets that kept the fingertips exposed… somehow it felt appropriate… no… that wasn’t right. It was more than that… it seemed necessary.

A few minutes later, he opened the hatch wearing a long brown leather trench coat with a hood, the open fingered gauntlets with a simple black shirt and brown pants beneath, and a pair of crossing bandolier beneath the coat. The holster on his belt carried a T-6 Thunderer, he opted against fetching a carbine as the larger weapons locker opened outward due to the thickness of the safe door and thus could not be opened with the speeder in the hold.

“You look like a seasoned criminal from the most festering depths of Nar Shadaa with that get up,” commented Kreia as she kneeled in the front seat, her arms wrapped around the head of her seat as she looked back expectantly.

“Your turn” stated Ren’Vhan as he stepped to the side, making room for the young woman.

“Alright then,” she replied as she climbed over her seat and squeezed by her commander and through the door. As she shut the door, she spouted a warning, “Don’t you dare try to sneak a peek while I’m changing… and you know that I will know if you do.”

“I don’t think I ever was that sort of guy,” retorted the man as the door shut.

“Every man is that sort of guy,” came the muffled shout from the hold.

Ren’Vhan merely rolled his eyes at her accusation as he climbed up front to sit in the pilot’s chair. Anyone who has known some of the women he’s met would probably lose enthusiasm for entertaining oneself with the female form. His training under Isard to incorporate himself and his fleet into fulfilling the new role the Emperor and Tarkin had envisioned for them had been particularly traumatic. The men of Imperial Intelligence that simulated torture to train him and his crew to resist interrogation treated it as a mundane task… simply a job. Whenever it was Isard who was administering it… he could distinctly remember the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth as she did so. She took great joy in torturing people… even if it was her fellow Imp on the table.

And then there was one of the Emperor’s Hands, Reantis Halcyon… that human lightning rod has tried to kill him on several occasions… usually disguising the attempt as part of collateral damage as she used her mastery of force lightning to blow a hole through a nearby wall trying to hit him with debris from the explosion. As much as he… and indeed several other Inquisitors who had also worked with her wanted to see her punished for it, she was of particular interest to the Emperor who no doubt wanted to see what new uses she could find for lightning techniques and thusly beyond the reach of the Inquisitorius’ wrath. She vanished awfully quickly after the Emperor died above Endor. He hoped one of the Inquisitors took advantage of her loss of the Emperor’s protection and did her in, but felt it more likely that she had fled the moment she realized she was suddenly vulnerable to the revenge of her superiors.

“What is the meaning of this,” came an angry shout from the rear hold. “Oh… if I could choke Yanvo from across the Galaxy, I’d do it right now.”

The woman’s yelling broke Ren’s line of thought and prompted him to raise an eyebrow. “What’s the matter little lady?”

“I’ve checked all the clothing lockers… the only things my size are…” she started and then he could feel the embarrassment on her mind just thinking of it… and then a thought struck him.

“You didn’t actually include him in your little scheme to force me to let you come along didn’t you,” he commented. He could sense her thoughts, she had actually been worried that Si’Yanvo would tip the Admiral off to her preparations to broadcast the hangar argument and get the crews to back her desire to be part of an away mission. He let out a laugh, thinking back to all the pranks the two had played on each other going all the way back to their days in the Academy. “He’d have loved to have taken part of it, and probably would have included his own flair to the whole affair. Of course he’d find a way to get back at you for denying him such an opportunity.”

He then thought on it a little more, and was now curious as to what exactly it was that Si’Yanvo had done to exact his revenge for being left out of the loop on Kreia’s scheme. “So… what is it exactly that he did.”

When the door opened, it became apparent. The entire time he’s known her, she rarely wore clothing that much more than her hands and face. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time she wore short sleeves. Now she stood in an outfit with her right leg laid bare for all the world to see right up to her hip as the slitted silk blue dress concealed the left leg. Her belly exposed and only a small silver flower clip at the center of her chest held the two sides of the upper portion of the outfit on the front together. Ren’Vhan let out a short gasp at the sight of her. Her arms were largely revealed, only thin strips of blue cloth hung from a golden collar around her neck at one end and bracelet around her wrist at the other.

“Not a word about it… to anyone,” she threatened.

“I imagine that was the least revealing outfit you could find in there,” he guessed. “He only packed slave outfits didn’t he.”

She let out a nod as the Admiral let out a sigh. It wasn't an act she could convincingly pull off… her dancing had all the grace of a nerf, and she’s always been defiant and independent. She couldn't play the role of a submissive slave. “Among my coats should be a wampa pelt coat,” he explained. “Should fit right into the whole slave-girl get-up, but gonna warn you that you’ll have to show off your outfit at some point or anyone with functioning neurons would figure that you aren't actually my slave.”

She let out a sigh as she vanished back into the cargo hold. He popped open the head rest compartment and fetched the breathing masks within, placing one over his face as he pulled a wide brimmed hat from under his coat and placed it over his graying hair before climbing back over the seat and entering the cargo hold. The Pantoran already had the coat over herself and was freeing the BARC bike from the latches in the floor as he entered. He popped open one of the smaller compartments, fetching a pair of collars each with a 15 cm long cylinder hanging from that could glide around the collar freely. They were energy leash projectors, though in truth they were composed of a cleverly arranged set of lightsaber components. By twisting and locking the shafts, each of the cylinders would become a fully functional shoto. They weren't his preferred form of lightsaber, but they could do in a pinch and he could walk right through most security checkpoints with them with no one batting an eye.

He tossed one of them over to Kreia and instructed her to put it on.

“You can’t be serious,” she exclaimed.

“You’re a pilot, so you’ve never seen how covert operations are carried out… here’s your crash course,” came the man’s rebuttal. “Now remember my one condition on letting you pilot for me… you are to do exactly as I tell you.”

The woman shut her eyes, now regretting to agree on those terms, even if they had been reasonable at the time. “Yes sir,” she replied reluctantly as she clipped the collar around her neck above the one that held her top up to maintain what little modesty the outfit provided.

“Another thing, you’ll have to address me as master while we’re out there,” he continued to instruct her as he pulled out the leashing handles that corresponded to the two collars. He activated on which caused the rotating component on Kreia’s collar to spin until the cylinder on it pointed towards the man, and a beam of energy lit up between the two devices. Giving it a slight tug, he saw the Pantoran get jerked towards him slightly.

“Ugh… yes… master,” she said sarcastically as the beam dissipated.

“And none of the attitude either,” he scolded as he climbed into the front seat of the bike, activating the repulsorlifts to clear it from the ground, leaning forward to avoid smacking his head into the ceiling of the cramped hold as it rose. He then tossed the second breathing mask to Kreia, “Climb on, we got a meeting to make.”

“Alright Admiral,” she said as she slipped it on and stepped over to the door. Ren’Vhan raised an eyebrow to her, prompting her to correct herself, “yes my master.” She punched a button next to the door indignantly, causing it to tilt outward, opening from the top. She sidestepped around the speeder and climbed onto the bike’s extended seat. One of the first modifications that had been done to most of the Admiral’s speeder bikes was to make them capable of accommodating two riders.


“Hold on tight,” he instructed her as she wrapped her arms around him from behind. He powered up the engine and heard it hum from behind. With a twist of the grip, the bike sped off into the darkness.

 

Iunha sped along in the darkness, from as best she could tell, the corridor had been used as a power grid maintenance channel if the cable conduits running along either side were any indicator. It had been built of material that protected the electrical equipment adequately against the elements for a time, though the ceiling had collapsed in places after the world had been abandoned. The floor was in good shape in spite of the dust that had blown in through the occasional holes, and there existed occasional lights that tapped into the old powergrid… someone was going through the trouble of keeping things working well enough. Up ahead she could see a red haze beaming through a hole in the ceiling… she recalled the sun for this world had been red… the storm was at last letting up.

As she rode further along, she could feel the presence of life up ahead. The town from the briefing was coming up ahead, and she felt it would be incriminating to ride in during such a blinding storm as this, and came to a halt around fifty meters from what seemed to be a checkpoint and dismounted. Keeping the repulsorlifts active, she walked along side the bike, tugging it along as she made her way out of the tunnel and into the daylight. The wind pulled at her robes immediately. She could see the ghostly shadows of durasteel framing as they cast long shadows through the cloud of red dust, but slowly the red aura around her grew brighter as less and less of the obscuring storm stood between herself and the planet’s sun.

As the wind died down, the landscape around her was revealed dully as the dust settled. To her right, what was once a great tower had collapsed into a great tangle of mangled beams, and to her left she could see the edge of a great trench. Before her, a network of pipes that appeared to be in much better condition than the city all around stood as an oasis of coppery green among the rusted red of the rest of the cityscape, according to the intel, the town was built within an old water treatment plant that remained stable over the centuries due to the more corrosion resistant materials that had been utilized throughout the structure.

A pair of flashing lights towards the top of the facility caught her eye as she continued to walk along in the clearing dust, no doubt a sentry whose macrobinoculars caught the light of the clearing sun and was now observing her approach. Sensing no threat, she continued to walk towards the mountain of green piping. A man stepped out from the cover of rusted beams that were piled around the facility, dragged perhaps from one of the fallen towers. She waved a hand at the man as she continued to come closer. As she neared, she could see he was armed with a blaster rifle, but his stance was relaxed enough that he didn’t seem to be threatened by the new arrival.

“Hail,” she called out as she reached earshot. “Walking through that storm with a speeder’s worn me out, I wouldn’t happen to be able to stay for a time here could I?”

The man looked back towards where she had glimpsed the the lens flash. A rugged looking human man stepped out into the sun from his lookout. “With the mess with Tolura settled by Tavira, I don’t see much sense being paranoid.” He then gestured the Togruta closer, “Come on, lets get you settled in before the next storm blows through.”

Iunha pressed on with her bike towards the facility. The man watching the ground level stepped aside and punched a nearby button, lifting a sheet metal door upward to reveal a cramped corridor as the man from above stepped down from a staircase. “Been getting a lot of traffic… people joining Rujidan the Hutt after his guest put his rival on ice.”

The sentry that watched the door let out a laugh, “most probably think she did it on the Boss’s orders.”

“What a shame… the Hutts are probably an improvement to the looks of Rud-Ibasl,” commented the woman jokingly.

“You’re telling me,” laughed one of the men as he led the way. “Nothing but rust and decrepit buildings as far as the eye can see.” He opened a door revealing a modest turbolift. The two men remained outside the turbolift as Iunha went along with her bike. She was impressed that the platform could accommodate the full length of the speeder. “Head on down to the commerce level, should be able to find an inn, but no promise on their being vacancies. A lot of Tolura’s old men have been coming around.”

The Togruta thanked the men as they vanished back down the corridor, no doubt to continue their lookout. She pressed a button that had been labeled as the ‘Commerce’ level and the lift immediately began its rapid descent. At first the view was dark as the lights from the entry level rapidly vanished above, but soon she saw a cavernous expanse beyond the transparisteel walls of the lift. Lights were abound as many buildings, much newer than the infrastructure above, glowed with life and people filled the streets. At one end of the cavern she could see what was clearly a palace built from quarried stone, though where they got the stone on this planet of rust was beyond her. She could see that beams and piping were still very much prevalent along the cavern walls, so it was likely this whole cavern once served a purpose itself back when the planet was alive with activity.

As the turbolift came to a halt, the Transparisteel walls slid open, and she pushed out with her bike once more, amazed that what was a city in its own right could have flourished in the corpse of a rotting ecumenopolis. As she walked by, she glanced inside the shops that lined the streets, their goods were varied… from weapons and armors, to gemstones and jewelry. Some shopkeepers stepped out to try to advertise their goods to her or other passersby. Some of the establishments offered services of a wide spectrum, such as vehicle maintenance or modifications.

She continued on walking towards the end of the cove that connected to the anti-grav dock, where most of the spacers concentrated. As she did so, she noticed that the quality of the buildings and the goods offered within were of greater quality. Where before the walls of such buildings often seemed salvaged from the collapsed buildings from the nearby cityscape above, these seemed to have been constructed of freshly manufactured materials if not shipped in from off planet entirely.

Stepping out into a wide plaza, she got a clear glimpse of a long street leading to an extravagant palace built into the corner of the cove… roughly cylindrical in shape with a few balconies jutting out from the side, it appeared to have had several slight bumps built into its walls. That it was chrome plated for the practical purpose of defending it from corrosion, the highly reflective material reflected a wide array of colors from the lights of the buildings around it, suggesting the dings and bumps of the palace had been incorporated purely for the aesthetics.

If any place might host the Pirate Admiral, especially if she did indeed defeat a rival of the city’s owner, it would be the Hutt’s palace. “Or at the very least, she would be close by.” She continued along, looking towards the far wall of the cove, a blue glow emanating from behind it in small gaps… apparently the atmospheric containment field on that end wasn’t built in a place to protect the dock itself as it risked detection from orbit if it had been, and instead protected the city from the dust that blew into the docking cove since the wall separating the city from the docks was full of gaps. The city was found by scouts who set up observation posts along the trench after it had been noted that several ships would enter or leave the trench along seemingly random points, most likely with the intention of keeping the precise location of it a secret.

She started to push along the street, but as she did so, she could sense a heavy air of fear and sorrow. Glancing around, all she could see were jubilant smugglers and mercenaries… most inebriated on spirits. She forced herself to push on, at once trying to ignore the sensation, yet unwilling to write it off entirely. But as she pushed on, she could only feel it more clearly in the air around her.

Iunha then noticed that the nature of the shops were drastically different from those of before. Inns and cantinas were sprinkled in modestly among the weapons and parts shops… but she was then approached by a Troydarian from one of the inns.

“Ah… I see you have a nice swoop there… room for two me thinks,” observed the winged creature. “Judging by your armor,” he continued, gesturing towards the armor beneath the Togruta’s robes, “You be a bounty hunter or other mercenary, no?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed on the creature as it hovered around her, as if to eye him suspiciously, “What’s it to you.” Having met many Troydarians before, she had a rather low opinion of them as a race. A step above the Hutts they often served mind you, but unlike many races, she found herself unable to give them the benefit of the doubt unless they first proved themselves worthy of any level of trust. That they were immune to any sort of mental manipulation made them troublesome to deal with in any scenario.

“An extra hand, I think, would do you well if you have room for it on your ship,” replied the creature as he gestured towards his shop. “My wares have a wide array of skills that may be of… benefit to you, no?” Sensing no threat and that such a detour would only strengthen her cover to any observers, she decided to humor the creature, but kept her senses about her. As she neared the door, she slid the bike near the wall and disabled its repulsorlifts to prevent theft before following the Troydarian inside.

As she did so, the dark feeling in the air seemed to engulf her, and soon she understood why. Bound and chained to the floors and walls were people. Many races were represented inside the small building, and most seemed to have broken spirits. The few men in the room were muscular and well built, and seemed savage as a result of certain physical features such as horns that were common to their races… but most of the sentience in the room were female. Their clothing was sparse, leaving little to the imagination, their primary purpose was only too clear, the were to be sold as entertainment to the many men who entered the city or to local inns who advertised ‘additional’ services. The skin of many were marred with scars, a testament to the effort spent to break them. Iunha felt as though her blood were ready to boil in her veins at the sight, she absently reached into her pocket with one hand, grasping a handful of creditsticks. Walking among the slaves on display were several armed guards.

“While I do primarily cater to the need for entertainment and… companionship; I do make the effort to broaden their horizons,” he stated as he hovered among the many slaves, gesturing first towards a Twi’lek. “Feluha here for example, is quite good at slicing. I’d swear that binary was her first language at times.” He then moved on to the next woman in line, a human. Iunha deeply desired to launch her credit sticks at the man with her force powers. “Satean is quite good at maintenance, modifying and repairs on ship components, and skilled as a pilot in a pinch.”

Shutting her eyes, the Jensaarai woman tried to restrain her emotions as the voice of the Troydarian grew muffled to her ears. However, as she did so, she felt a great darkness approaching. Unlike the fear and pain that surrounded her, this felt like a disturbance in the force itself, a nexus of malice feasting upon the fear as it approached. While concealing her force presence was drilled into her to be instinctive… to the point of hiding it even as she slept, she nonetheless found herself consciously making sure she was still concealing her own presence before following the Troydarian as he began to showcase a pink woman, a Zeltron who stood unbound there and with a smile. But if anyone could find joy in such a predicament, it would be a Zeltron. “And this one is quite good the clothes designer… almost want to keep her for myself.”

“Look sir,” Iunha finally said, courteously as she could manage in spite of the anger welling up within her. “I need someone who can work with a ship or a blaster, not a pair of clothing scissors.”

“Oh… do pardon my straying,” he said apologetically as he rubbed his hands.

Iunha glanced down a corridor she had not seen previously. At the end, chained to the floor on her knees was a blue skinned woman whose hair… no, her feathery crest, was a vibrant mix of violet in the center and white towards her temples. Unlike the rest of the women, she was well dressed in a fancy black and white gown that covered her from the neck down. “What's the deal with that one,” inquired the Togruta as she looked at the woman who seemed so out of place in the slave shop.

“Oh… the Omwati girl? Freshly captured from a cruise liner… she’s got a lot of spirit in her so I still need to break her,” he explained. “Think she may have a mutation, explains her multi-colored crest. Rujidan the Hutt has already expressed interest in her… but wants her skin unscarred.” The aggravation on the Troydarian’s voice as he finished was evident.

That he felt inconvenienced on being denied torture as a tool only angered the Togruta more. But frightening was the prospect that the poor girl would be owned by a Hutt of all things. When the young woman raised her head, her face wore her desperate plea for help.

When the Jensaarai woman looked back toward the Troydarian, she noticed a terrified expression on his face and instinctively spun around, realizing that the dark presence she sensed before was just behind her. There, she saw another young human woman standing there, dark armor beneath a robe with an open front. Her raven black hair hung around her face in curls. Her smile could be described as sadistic as her eyes narrowed on the Troydarian.

“That is most unfortunate,” commented the young woman. She gestured with her right hand towards the Omwati woman at the end of the corridor. “For you at least, but it should be interesting for me.”

Iunha looked towards the woman, expecting that the dark side adept would have had the chained woman’s neck in the unseen grasp of the force. Wanting to act, but unable to, she watched helplessly as the woman lay there on her knees helpless to defend herself. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the dark clad woman twist her hand upward. The Togruta shut her eyes, not wanting to see the helpless Omwati die just then, wanting to say something to drown out the inevitable cracking sound of the womans neck. Instead, she heard the clanging of metal chains as they fell to the floor. Opening her eyes slowly, she saw the white and purple crested woman still kneeled there with a wide eyed expression on her face, the shackles opened and laying uselessly on the floor around her.

“Leshran,” shouted the Troydarian in fear. “What are you doing!”

“I’m bored, so I came out here to find entertainment,” she explained. Leshran smiled wickedly, “You do specialize in ‘entertainment afterall.” The dark woman glanced over at the Omwati who still was on her knees, eyeing her wrists in disbelief. She then gestured towards the door “Don’t just sit there, get running.”

“Don’t you dare,” shouted the winged creature as he reached for a small blaster holstered on his back and his guards moved to stand between their boss and the mischievous young woman. Leshran promptly whipped out a lightsaber from within her robes, shoved Iunha out of her way and bolted towards the Troydarian like a blur, slicing one of his bulkier guards in two with a rising slash and shoving the severed halves towards adjacent guards before bringing the red blade’s tip to the Troydarian’s neck before he could finish raising the blaster.

Iunha felt welt on her back from being shoved into the nearby wall, and heard rapid footsteps coming towards her. Opening her eyes, she saw the Omwati dashing down the corridor, and turning towards the door, having to hold her dress up slightly to avoid tripping on the hem.

The one called Leshran held the slaver at the tip of her lightsaber, his guards frozen, fearing for the safety of their employer if they tried anything too suddenly… to say nothing of having just witnessed the woman slice one of their comrades in two before he could even raise his weapon enough to intimidate anyone. As the fleeing footfalls faded, the darksider lowered her weapon and stepped aside, speaking threateningly towards the slaver, “I imagine that Rujidan will be none too pleased to find out his favorite piece of eye candy has escaped.”

“Only because you let…” he began but voice was choked off when Leshran made a casual gesture with her hand.

“Your best course of action isn’t to try to make excuses,” she responded as the creature fell to the ground before her. When she lowered her hands, he gasped deeply for air as he looked up with a terrified expression as the guards backed off. “It’s to recapture her… remember, not one scratch on her perfect skin, or the Hutt will be most displeased.”

Anger filled his face, but a sense of helplessness overtook him as he glared at the woman before him. He then looked around at the guards, venting his anger towards them, “well, you heard her… go catch the girl or I’ll have your necks before Rujidan has mine!” The guards then shoved their way past the slaves throughout the room as began to chase down the girl. As the Troydarian passed the woman, he paused a moment to glare at her, a smug expression on her face. At once, he wanted to keep an eye on his shop to keep the girl from releasing any more of his precious merchandise, but at the same time knowing he would be helpless to stop her. He opted instead to assist his guards in tracking down the escapee. At least Rujidan’s wrath could be stayed that way.

Leshran then looked down at Iunha who still stood up against the wall she had been shoved into during the brief scuffle. “Ah, almost forgot you were there.”

Stepping away from the wall, Iunha dusted herself off. “You’re a mischievous one aren’t you,” inquired the Jensaarai as she adjusted her belt, rotating it to put her lightsaber to be more around the back and out of sight in case her robes shifted too much. She was certain the other woman didn’t suspect that she was a force user, but also couldn’t risk her cover being blown.

“Waiting for an old friend to arrive, grew restless, came out to greet him,” she replied. “Ah, I should apologize for shoving you into the wall like that… wasn’t certain if you’d jump in if given the chance, so I denied you the chance.”

Iunha smiled, looking down at the shorter woman. “Credits never hurt” she replied as she patted her pocket, thinking the role of a spacer motivated by simple greed was her safest bet.

“Ah… yeah… Leonia hasn’t paid me my first paycheck yet,” she explained a little embarrassed as she stared at the floor. Shen she looked around, “Oh, I can give you one of these slaves… what say you to that?”

Not wanting a slave, but given the possibility of freeing at least one of them felt favorable to doing nothing at all. She glanced back at the slaves the Troydarian had mentioned earlier. She pointed to the Twi’lek who wore a jealous expression on her face as she looked at the door the Omwati escaped through. “How about her,” she said.

“Hm…” replied Leshran as she strode up to the Twi’lek. “Any particular reason why?”

“The slaver explained that Feluha was a good slicer,” Iunha began to explain. “A good mechanic is easier to find because its easy to train, and as cheap as hydrogen and TIEs. Slicing however, is a very difficult talent to learn, and expensive to hire.”

The dark side adept shrugged, “Can’t argue with logic like that.” She then ignited her lightsaber and sliced the chains with two swift motions. She then gestured towards Iunha as she looked the Twi’lek in the eyes. “You serve her now,” she stated. “Do you understand?”

The woman nodded nervously before turning her eyes towards Iunha.

Leshran looked towards the undecover Jensaarai woman, “Hey, I hope to see you again Miss uh…”

“Iunha,” replied the Togruta instinctively before she could catch herself. She silently cursed to herself for stating her true name so openly, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but think if she had tried to lie, Leshran would have caught it.

“Alright… well, I have a show to catch and a man to meet,” explained the young woman before running out. Iunha glanced out the door and spotted Leshran leap to the rooftops and vanish. She then let out a deep sigh, before looking back at her new “slave” who was biting her lip in frustration of being cut free only to be owned by a new master unlike the Omwati girl who at least had the chance to run away.

“Come on… lets get you some real clothing,” Iunha said as she gestured towards the door. She looked back at the rest of the room, the still appeared downtrodden and defeated, and Iunha wished desperately that she could release them all. But something more important lay ahead, and she couldn’t let her personal feelings stand in the way.

--------------------------------

Riding through the streets of the hidden city was a welcome change from the almost kilometer of rust filled air outside the atmospheric shielding. Ren’Vhan glanced at the sleeves of the arms around his waist, the few minutes in the storm definitely left a mark on the Wampa fur coat, though the high speed had blown much of the rusty dust off. It still had a notable red tint to it though. He looked forward, the streets were full of activity, but at the same time it wasn’t choked as many a major city would be. He slowed down significantly to get a good look at the shops, he could see that they sold what many would expect at a smuggler’s outpost like this. Weapons, jewelry, companionship and slaves… your typical black market merchandise. He came to a stop in front of a shop with a small lot filled with speeders and speeder bikes, looking over them as he inspected them.

“Um… master,” came Kreia’s hushed voice, as the Admiral dismounted his bike. The Pantoran got off as well and walked close to his side as he made his way to the lot. “Might I remind you that we came on the Extinction, not a Lambda? We barely have enough room for the BARC.”

“I can buy a Lambda and have you pilot it back to Beacon,” replied Ren’Vhan as he looked over the speeder bikes. “Oh, that’s a classic.”

“You look like a man half your age, and you act like one a quarter of it sometimes,” complained the Pantoran as she crossed her arms.

“None of the attitude,” retorted the man as he got on a knee to take a closer look at the bike that caught his interest. “For all the cons of coming to a smuggler’s den, the fact that you can always find aging bikes sold somewhere in them has always been a highlight to visits.”

Kreia let out a deep sigh, then instinctively looked towards an alley exit. She couldn’t tell why she felt the need to do so until she heard angry shouts approaching from the alleyway. She sensed people were coming, and that it had caught the Admiral’s attention as well, prompting him to stand up. “Take off your coat and hand it to me,” explained the Admiral.

“What,” Kreia replied as she spun around blushing heavily. “You’re going to show me off to all those men?”

“Just trust me,” replied the Admiral. “Besides, they are too busy with something else presently to pay you any mind.”

Letting out a sigh, she slid the coat down, her arms slipping out of the sleeves before handing it over to Ren’Vhan. She felt practically naked, she was so glad the rest of the fleet couldn’t see her right now… it was bad enough that her CO would have the image burned to his memory for the rest of his life.

The Admiral took the coat and started to approach the alleyway as the sounds of pursuit grew louder. As Kreia was about to ask the man what he was doing, he grasped a blue woman who ran out from the alley and swung her around, wrapping her up in the coat as he did. The woman was screaming in another language as he wrapped his strong arms around her tightly as he tried to shush her. After a few moments, the woman grew silent… seemingly defeated as she realised the man who caught her was too strong for her to escape. When she looked up, she saw a calm expression on Ren’Vhan’s face. “That’s a good girl,” he said quietly as he reached for the hood and lowered it over the woman’s crest. The angered shouts were nearly upon them and he could sense the significant fear in the woman he held in his arms. When the slaver’s guards appeared around the corner, the looked at the human who had a woman in a wampa fur coat in his arms, her face hidden by the hood.

One of the rough looking men approached the pair, before asking harshly “You there… we’re chasing an escaped slave… an Omwati girl… you wouldn’t be trying to hide her would you… or perhaps you apprehended her for us.”

Ren’Vhan smiled as he turned, looking over the group. He thought this was too easy as looked over the men. He reached out with the force, touching the minds of all the men as he approached them, dragging the frightened Omwati woman with him. He could sense her mind, she thought in an entirely different language, one he never learned, nor has she ever learned the Galactic Standard. But nonetheless, her emotions were quite clear, and it was easy to piece together what she was thinking. He looked the man standing at the front in the eye as he focused on an image in his head, then projecting it into the minds of the guards. A small and simple change that required little effort to put into the minds of several beings. He yanked down the hood, the Omwati was trembling as he did so and nearly screamed. “This is clearly my Dathomirian wife,” he explained with a smile. “The Omwati ran that way,” he said as he pointed the other way. “Perhaps you can still catch her.”

Most of the guards immediately spun around, one of them shouting “There she is!” before running off, with the rest of the guards in tow.

“What a bunch of weak willed buffoons,” came Kreia’s excited shout as she laughed. The Omwati girl looked on wide eyed, uncertain of what it was that just happened.

“What,” came an angry shout from above. “She’s right there, what are you guys… blind?”

A Troydarian came down from above, having witnessed everything. He then turned towards the human and the Omwati, the latter of which shrieked in fear, grasping the coat tightly as she backed up against her rescuer. “You there… I don’t know what you did, but it won’t work on me.”

“Troydarian hunh… yeah, my illusions won’t work,” the Admiral explained as he walked back towards his bike, guiding the Omwati towards it.

“Don’t you ignore me,” called the hovering slaver angrily.

“Ushritan,” called out a merchant from the building adjacent to the speeder lot. “Don’t be causing a ruckus again.”

The slaver drew a blaster, and shot haphazardly at the door, a warning shot towards the intervening merchant before turning it towards the Admiral who reached his bike. “Now you… hand over the girl, or I’ll blast you so full of char they’d think I roasted you over a fire.”

Kreia stood back, as she watched carefully. Her movements caught Ushritan’s eye, prompting him to glance over, “You know what, that pretty little thing over there would fetch a pretty trogut… I think I’ll just blast you anyways and take them both.”

The Omwati girl saw a smile spread across the aging humans face as she saw the Troydarian take aim at the man’s back. The human spun around as his airborne adversary took three shots, but each bolt of energy was intercepted by the backside of Ren’Vhan’s Ultrachrome plated gloves as he motioned them with practiced precision before they met anything unprotected.

The Troydarian let out an angry shout, raising his blaster again to shoot at him as the Inquisitor drew the thermal energy that filled the small plates in his gloves into himself, then reached out with the force, yanking the green little man from the sky and into his grasp… dropping the blaster out of surprise as the humans hand squeezed around his neck. The Omwati looked on in amazement as the nearby Pantoran looked on in expectation.

“No no no… please…” he began to plead.

Ren’Vhan looked closely at the Troydarian’s eye as he reached for one of his saddle packs, opening it up to reveal a small cooler with fresh food in it. With his free hand, he fetched a small red fruit, “The problem about dealing with Troydarians is that because I can’t employ my usual trickery, I have to resort to either bribery to keep them quiet…”

“Yes… yes… please,” he began to beg.

“Tell you what,” Ren’Vhan began to explain. “I give you this Ukartan apple, and you never utter a word about anything.”

The Troydarian nodded desperately. “Yes… not a word.”

Ren’Vhan casually handed Ushritan the apple he took a bite out of it, caring little of the possibility that it may be poisoned, chancing that it might not be over the certainty of being choked to death. When he felt the bite sized chunk of the Ukartan apple rapidly make its way to the back of his mouth before he had a chance to swallow it, he panicked.

Ren’Vhan’s hand went along the bottom of the Troydarian’s mouth as he guided the chunk of fruit to the back of the throat, and then down the neck and into the chest before holding it in place at the point where the esophagus opened up to incorporate a pathway to the lungs, and then held it there. He could feel Ushritan struggle, first to try to force his breath out… this he allowed. But when the small man made an attempt to breath in to make another effort to dislodge the chunk of food, he plugged the windpipe, preventing the winged creature from inhaling. He struggled in a vain effort to breath as the Inquisitor dropped him to the ground, keeping his free hand focused on the fruit within. Kicking and scratching at the dirt beneath him, he felt his chest burning and his heart racing in panic. His mind grew muddled as he tried to pound his chest, his vision blurred and he turned towards a blue blur that was approaching. He reached out, desperate for help, any help. He could barely make out that the figure was kneeling next to him.

“Apparently, the problem with bottom feeding slaver scum like you,” came the sharp tone from the Pantoran, “Is that you don’t know how to chew.” Soon after, darkness filled his vision, and his movements stopped.

The Speeder merchant looked on in shock as Ren’Vhan stepped over the warm corpse and towards him. “Uh… please sir… don’t… don’t kill me, I can be quiet.”

“That’s okay,” explained Ren’Vhan as he reached out with one of his hands. As his fingers touched, the Admiral’s mind was filled with his thoughts and memories. He focused on the most recent. “Because all you’ll remember is what I imagine for you.”

-----------------------------

“He really always was a sloppy eater,” explained the speeder salesman as he kneeled over the cold corpse of the Troydarian. “Never really liked, but was good at what he did.”

“I shouldn’t have shared my food with him,” lamented Ren’Vhan. “But I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later, if what you said is true.”

“Yeah… I suppose so,” replied the salesman as he stood up, looking back at the trio. “Now, I couldn’t help but notice that you were looking at that old Aratech Sand-Serpent.”

“Ah yes,” the Admiral responded joyfully. The Omwati woman looked on in confusion over everything that had happened as she sat on the back seat of the BARC Speeder while Kreia stalked back up to her leader.

She projected into his mind her own voice, “Might I remind you that we don’t have the space on our ship right now.”

“Might I remind you that the BARC only seats two,” retorted the Admiral, prompting the Pantoran to look back at the Omwati who clung tightly to the Wampa coat wrapped around her.

Looking back at the Admiral, she gave him a dirty look as she replied through their telepathic link “You planned that didn’t you.”

“Not necessarily” came a new voice to their ears… prompting the pair to look over as Leshran rounded the corner to the alley. “When he sees an opportunity to get something he wants, he’ll jump on it.” The young woman smiled. “It’s been a while grumps, but I see you still have a soft spot for a slave with a pretty face.”

 

Uthierav looked around the smoky room. Scorch marks from energy bolt impacts peppered the walls and ceiling. The bodies of roughly a dozen men and women littered the room… and though all were dressed in plain clothing, she knew they were members of Republic and Imperial Intelligence agencies. The Republic agent that she gave a ride to leaned over the body of an old man who had been apparently been thrown into a console with enough force to bust the maintenance panel loose from its brackets and deform it.

“That woman… she found out somehow,” muttered the agent angrily as he passed his hand over the commander’s eyes to shut them.

The Dathomirian looked around, a heavy durasteel door had been knocked in, crushing the base’s sentry beneath its weight, the lack of scorching on it suggested that explosives hadn’t been used. The presence of blaster bolt impacts on the ceiling were testament that someone had the means to deflect shots somehow. Some of the victims also appeared to have been cut in half or stabbed by a weapon that generated a great deal of thermal energy. “A force-user with a lightsaber is the only way to explain most of the damage we see her,” reasoned the woman as she used the force to lift the door from the sentry’s body. “For now, we’ll have to assume it was the woman who killed your undercover agent back before you left.”

The agent stood up and inspected most of the equipment, “See as whoever did this also made sure to knock out all of the surveillance equipment as well… we won’t know for sure, but I’d say it is a safe assumption.” He then looked back at the room with a pained expression. He tapped onto his wrist communicator, “Reinsal, can you hear me?”

“Yes sir, our reinforcements have just arrived and have begun their descent,” came the voice over the communicator.

“That’s good and all,” replied the agent. “But we have a serious problem… the Joint Intelligence Outpost was hit, no survivors.”

“Do you suppose our operation has been compromised then?” inquired the Commander.

“Personnel arrival and departure information is not kept on site as per standard procedure,” explained the young man.

Uthierav tapped on her wrist com to join the conversation, “However, there is significant evidence to suggest a force user had been involved… most like the same woman who rooted out the spy.”

“In other words, she could have tapped into their brains to find out about my leaving with information on the Invidious,” finished the agent.

“In other words, the operation could be compromised then” reasoned Reinsal.

“If we proceed, we will have to do so on that assumption… but they are your soldiers, I leave the decision to you.”

“We’ll proceed then… we got four Jensaarai to their one force user,” replied the commander. “I’ll inform the other squad when they touch down and we’ll begin to move right away. It’s unlikely that they’d reason that we’d use a small group of ground forces to detain Leonia. They would however be making immediate preparations to leave out of fear of fleet action.”

“Very well then, move out, but do so with extra care.” He then looked again to the bodies strewn about the room. “And remember, do not engage their force user… leave her for the Jensaarai.”

He then turned around and began to walk back towards the door, passing Uthierav who turned and followed. She could sense a great deal of anger from him, and regret. But something in her gut told her something else was wrong, that circumstances may be worse than they presently seemed.

------------------

Kreia rode along the streets of the city on the freshly purchased swoop at a slow pace… a snails pace compared to what she’d prefer but she had the feeling the engine couldn’t take it, but also that Ren’Vhan’s friend couldn’t keep up. To her right, Ren rode on his BARC. He had shifted back in his seat to allow the Omwati girl to sit in front of him in the safety of his arms, looking admiringly at the small golden cylinder afixed to the front of the collar that Ren’Vhan put on her neck before they all got going. Running between the two was the woman named Leshran who was running alongside the Admiral on foot and made it seem effortless. She glanced down at her speedometer… 100 kilometers per hour, and she had been able to maintain this running speed for at least the past ten minutes.

“Prolonged use of the force to improve her physical performance was her specialty,” commented Ren’Vhan as he looked over at Kreia. “You’ve not seen any of the others back home maintain such a speed for an extended period because I’ve been trying to get them trained in a general manner.”

“Are you saying it’s the only thing she can do,” replied the Pantoran.

“The Emperor wanted dutiful servants, not potential challengers, so none of us Inquisitors or Hands ever received the full spectrum of training,” explained the man. He then gestured towards himself with his left hand, “yours truly only got the basic lightsaber training, absorption techniques and mind reading and tampering instruction from the Emperor and other Inquisitors… I figured telekinesis out more through instinct than training.”

Leshran glanced over, “I received training regarding the use of the force to improve physical peformance in addition to advanced lightsaber training and mind reading abilities, though not necessarily the tampering part.”

Kreia then rolled the information around in her head, thinking of what they were saying. “So just like how you are virtually unrivaled in mind manipulation, she excels at using her force energy to improve physical performance and healing wounds.”

“That’s exactly the point,” confirmed the Admiral. “It was an unforeseen side-effect of his efforts to avoid training someone who could topple him, but the Emperor was delighted to see the phenomena manifest itself among his adepts.”

He then gestured towards Leshran, “It would also explain her youthful appearance at almost fifty years of age.” As he finished talking, he sensed a nervous aura coming from the woman running alongside, and he could here her footsteps losing pace as she fell behind, prompting him to slow the BARC down rapidly, pivoting it around as it came to a stop and looked towards the young Hand. The embarrassed expression on her face was all he needed to figure out what was on her mind.

Kreia looked on with amusement, “Looks like someone got slabbed.”

For her part, the dark clad woman began to raise her hand in a threatening gesture, but she felt a growing danger as she did so, looking instinctively towards the Ren’Vhan. Already his hand was on his holstered blaster pistol, and the leg on the far side of the bike was raised, his body scooted back some to clear him from the Omwati girl in front of him, and ready to leap at a moments notice. The message was clear, and she lowered her head in defeat. “Yeah… I’m afraid so,” she conceded.

The Admiral relaxed, releasing his blaster and gripping the handlebar once more. “We can discuss it and catch you up on things when we have time for small talk after meeting with Leonia,” he said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He then pivoted his bike back around and continued on, slowly at first waiting for Leshran to get back up to speed. The two other women followed shortly thereafter, Leshran opting to run alongside Kreia, looking at the Pantoran with a degree of curiosity. A little angered, but certainly intrigued. But it should be expected she supposed. Leshran had been far removed from him for decades, of course he’d value the life of someone he’s been around more often in recent times over herself.

She looked on, as Rujidan’s Palace towered above.

-------------------------

Iunha was little more than a block away from the Hutt palace at the corner of the massive cove, inspecting the Twi’lek as she spun before a mirror, admiring the clothes her new ‘master’ had purchased for her.

It certainly wasn’t anything fancy, a bantha leather set of boots, pants and a vest with a black shirt beneath, but she appreciated all the pockets for tools in the vest and belt. She also enjoyed being significantly more modest than what the Troydarian forced her to wear whilst on display. She looked back at her master and bowed deeply in gratitude to the Togruta. “I am deeply indebted to you master,” she stated as bowed.

“You don’t have to call me that,” Iunha replied as she got back on her bike, gesturing the Twi’lek woman to join her. She had every intention to free the woman the moment they were on a shuttle to leave. But for now, she did need to maintain appearances. All the more so that the Darksider would now be expecting that the Togruta have a Twi’lek slave on hand if they end up running into one another again. As she felt the other woman’s arms wrap around her, she sped a little more towards the Palace, stopping at a luxurious looking inn just before it just as she heard her wristcom beep. The two women got off and she nudged her bike into a parking cove before disabling the Repulsors.

Satisfied that it was secured, she pulled a com device out, configuring its audio to feed into an earbud before removing the bud and placing it in her ear. “Iunha here,” she said, starting the call as she dismounted with the Twi’lek.

“This is Reinsal, got some info you may need to know,” came the gruff voice over the channel.

“As do I, but you go first,” instructed the Jensaarai woman as she looked back at the slave, gesturing towards her ear to let her know that she was on a call and avoid confusion.

“First off, the other shuttle has arrived, we’re set to rendezvous at the chasm to the north of the cove… Ring Defender Atrunas and his apprentice are with them,” the man stated informatively. “That’s the good news.”

“Please tell me that’s the only sort you have right now,” she stated with worry.

“I’m afraid not, the Agent and Uthierav made it to the Intelligence outpost just a little while ago,” he replied regretfully. “apparently it had been hit hard by our mystery girl with the lightsaber.”

“Speaking of whom, she is definitely force-sensitive with formal training,” she replied.

“I imagine that means you encountered her,” came the man’s reply.

As if on cue, Iunha sensed the woman was drawing near, prompting her to look back to witness a pair of speeder bikes ride by. An aging human man piloted the lead vehicle with a small Omwati woman in his arms… the very same she had witnessed Leshran release for her own entertainment. She felt bad for the poor woman, someone had caught her and was now bringing her to meet her originally intended fate. But yet she seems calm now, when only a little while ago she was terrified.

Still, the man holding her on the bike caught her eye, he was clearly aging, as evidenced by his graying hair, but his body seemed to be in fit condition. His gloves backhand plating appeared to be constructed of a lustrous metal. She couldn’t help but feel that he was a man of experience. The clothing of his Pantoran slave suggested he was a man of wealth and success at whatever it is he does.

“The poor girl,” commented Feluha. She was clearly thinking the same thing as Iunha. “I feel a little guilty for hoping she’d get caught before that woman cut me free… now she’s going to be the plaything of a Hutt of all things.”

Iunha ignored the Twi’lek’s comments for now, “We may have a new player on the board… Leshran is with a spacer who is keeping an expensive looking slave.”

“Leshran, ma’am?” came the confused Commander’s voice.

“Our mystery girl has a name, see if Intel can dig anything up on her,” replied the horned woman. “I’m out, I’ll wait for your signal to move on the Hutt’s palace.” She then turned towards the Twi’lek, “What do you know about her, anyways.”

“Human, female, showed up shortly after the Invids killed Tolura the Hutt. Has everybody on edge,” explained the Twi’lek. “Especially when she killed Zaliomau in broad daylight, that poor man had been here for months, really nice guy. Her only excuse was that she had a bad feeling about him.”

The description of the murder was enough to make Iunha think of the spy that the woman had murdered before the agents sent the info back to Coruscant.

“Leonia apparently offered her a big salary to keep Leshran on her side, and I hear that when Rujidan offered to pay her double, Leonia then doubled his offer,” she finally finished. Iunha recalled the stories her own parents told her of Tavira’s successes as a pirate when she had the Jensaarai under her control. That she was desperate to keep this force sensitive loyal in spite of the efforts of a Hutt to outbid her seemed proof enough that ‘Admiral Tavira’ was wanting to get back to her old tricks.

She then turned her thoughts towards the Avian girl that Leshran had freed. “The other girl she released, what do you know about her?”

“Omwati, so freshly caught she doesn’t even understand the standard language yet, I don’t even know her name,” the Twi’lek informed her master. “Apparently kidnapped by pirates en route to Coruscant… Falien’s gang I think. Knew right away they had a big seller so they brought her here in as pristine condition as they could manage. Rumor had it Falien had his first mate executed when he was caught trying to sample the goods.”

Togruta raised an eyebrow towards Feluha, “You’re awfully well informed.”

“I’ve been loaned to the shipyards on occasion to fix any programming errors for some of the crews that frequent this place,” the woman said with an air of pride. “Allows me to mingle with some of the crews for gossip, also kept me out of the brothels or the Hutt’s Palace.”

“I find it amazing he never found a customer for you,” replied Iunha.

“The only two who could afford the buying price on me in this big bucket of bolts is Rujidan and Leonia,” explained the woman arrogantly. “That Hutt has no need for a slicer, so I’m just overpriced entertainment to him. And Leonia has been pooling her credits so she could afford black market fuel.”

The Jensaarai woman couldn’t help but feel that her gift from the darksider could prove very helpful in the short term. She then thought back to the young Omwati girl, she had a collar around her neck that matched that on the Pantoran. “The man we saw with that girl… who is he?”

“I don’t recognize him,” replied her companion. “But Leshran did mention she was out to meet someone didn’t she? That was probably him.”

“She had a collar that matched that man’s Pantoran Slave’s… you don’t suppose he intends to claim her for his own do you” Iunha observed.

Thinking on it a moment, the slave commented “That would be a very bad idea on his part, though for her, it’s preferable to being Rujidan’s. That said, he’s probably just using the collar to restrain her until he delivers her to the Hutt.”

The Togruta nodded, feeling sympathetic for the girl and made a mental note that if she was still in the Palace when they stormed it, she’d make a concerted effort to find the Omwati girl and get her out to safety. She then turned and gestured the Feluha to follow her as she entered the inn. “Come on, I need to get some rest, I got something big planned for later.”

-----------------------------------

The Dathomirian sped on with the Agent’s arms wrapped firmly around her waist. They couldn’t risk the official entry into the hidden city, the landscape around it was too exposed to move a squad against it. Instead, they moved around towards one of the collapsed buildings that struck the foundation with such force that it punched through and tore into the infrastructure underneath. At the base of the crater she could see a handful of men gathered along with a shuttle and a pair of the low sitting Talon fighters that were a familiar sight within the Suarbi system.

She could feel relief coming from the Agent behind her at the sight, in light of what the one adept did to his comrades back at the nexus. Four-to-One odds were in their favor, but she still couldn’t help feel as though they were overlooking a crucial detail somewhere.

As they arrived, she saw Reinsal stand at attention, “Everybody’s assembled, Atrunas and his apprentice are moving ahead with one of the squads to make sure the way isn’t trapped or under surveillance while we prepare our more… volatile equipment for movement.”

Dismounting the pair looked to the side as she saw one of the commandos carefully checking the caps on the rocket warheads before placing them gently in a large hard backpack designed for handling the explosives. Uthierav nodded as the Agent replied “Very good… though hopefully we won’t have need to use them much.”

“If nothing else, it’ll be nice to have them for Leshran… the woman who took out your outpost,” he speculated aloud.

“You’ll want to be careful about using rockets against her though,” came a youthful voice as a young human man stepped out from the crater. “She can shove it rack down your throat if she’s skilled with telekinesis.”

“Faltouna,” stated the Dathomirian. “Shouldn’t you be up ahead with your father?”

He then began to brief Reinsal, Uthierav and the Agent. “We’ve cleared a route, he’s keeping it secured… leads right up to the back wall of the third floor on the Palace… rewired the surveillance to loop the footage so we should be good.”

The Agent now allowed a concerned look on his face, “Any visuals on activity around the Invidious?”

The Commander activated his comlink. “Thomaus, report?”

“Set up in the foundations across the trench from the dock, they’ve been loading up fresh fuel it looks like so they are definitely aware they’ve been found and are prepping for launch,” came the staticy voice. “If we want to get her, we’ll have to make our move soon.”

“That fits into our scenario that she’d be fleeing an expected fleet action,” commented the Agent. “And based on the lack of increased security measures around the city, I can be reasonably certain she isn’t expecting any sort of infiltration action.

Faltouna nodded and turned back towards the crater. Before heading on, Uthierav looked towards the Agent, “You were worried about something for a moment… what was it?”

“I was worried that Leonia and Leshran were not aware of their discovery,” replied the agent as he followed the other Jensaarai apprentice.
It seemed a strange answer to her, so she pressed on with the thought, “Why would it be worrisome that they don’t know?”

He shook his head, “I’m trained to be paranoid, because if they weren’t aware of their discovery, it would mean another person with force abilities and a lightsaber attacked the outpost… but that’s not the case if they are preparing to flee right now. We just have to worry about how much time we have before we lose her for another fifty or so years.”

She nodded, accepting it as a reasonable answer before stepping to the lip of the crater. The mangled rusty durasteel beams pointed in random directions, with pipes and duracrete slabs distributed throughout. Some sewage pipes jutted out from the cratered wall, having long ago gone dry in the wake of the city’s abandonment. They were to climb through the infrastructure beneath the building foundations to sneak right up to the back side of the Hutt’s Palace and through it’s outer shell to get in. She was concerned that they were working on intel last updated over a week ago, but it was their best shot for now. Dutifully, she started to take short leaps down the crater’s wall, following her fellow apprentice and the Commando squad.

The possibility of additional force wielders among Leonia’s forces was a frightening possibility, but she felt it doubtful that it would occur. Besides, it was still four Jensaarai, and she knew the two masters were trained to very high standards.

She focused again on the Agent, wishing dearly that she knew his name, but understood it was the standard operating procedure of spy agencies to use assumed names or no names at all.

-----------------------------

Iunha sat in the inn room, looking eagerly at her wristcom as she sat at the table. Feluha was resting on the nearby bed, enjoying the comfort of a proper mattress perhaps for the first time in years. Seeing the slave taking great joy in something as simple as a good night’s sleep made her think back on the other slaves that were at the shop… and the Omwati girl. She wished to have been able to bring a fleet over to liberate the city as a whole rather than a limited effort to kill or capture just the one woman. But she understood the political complexities of the situation better than had been covered in the briefing. On the one hand, the Republic was not allowed passage of combat vessels through Fel controlled space, that much was apparent. But what wasn’t said was that the Empire had an interest in recruiting Leonia Tavira and her crew to learn the secrets of her success as a Pirate back in the chaotic days of the early New Republic.

It was apparent that Jagged did not underrate the capabilities of the New Republic during that timespan and understood that something else had been up that he wanted to know. It had been an unwritten rule not to mention the Jensaarai’s involvement in the old Invid Raids to outsiders, so it was unlikely any outside Corran Horn, Republic Intelligence and Luke Skywalker were aware of that shameful portion of their history… and he couldn’t think of any reason for Luke to mention it to his niece Jaina.

And so it mostly came down to the Republic wanting to apprehend her before the Empire has a chance to figure on a sensible way to approach her to attempt to recruit her, or at the very least buy off her knowledge on the matter.

A single beep went off on her wrist, a weak one, as had been anticipated from the interference from all the material that surrounded the cove. She looked down, waiting patiently as she counted down the seconds… after five seconds, she received an additional three beeps that came in a rapid sequence, prompting her to stand up. The signal to get ready. She got up and went over to Feluha and left a small piece hologram with a recorded message for her before making her way for the door to leave the room. Whether Iunha lived or died, she wanted the slicer to know she was a free woman now.

----------------------------

Thomaus looked back through the his macrobinoculars and across the trench, into the cove in which the Invidious resided. He couldn’t see hoses connecting the ship to the walls around it, or the fog of escaping fuel vapors that would undoubtedly result from a backwater fueling station’s lack of quality resources. He didn’t understand what he had said… why did he say it… and why did his head feel so fuzzy. The scout tried to get up, but his arms felt weak. But no… that wasn’t the right thing to do… not now. He reached for his wristcom again, somehow he had been compromised but he wasn’t sure how. As he turned to look at the wristcom, he saw a boot next to his hand. Frightened, he rolled to the side, away from the stranger, but the rapid movement blurred his vision, he clumsily tried to reach for his blaster rifle… but it wasn’t where he felt nothing against the wall in the small cove he had set up in. As his vision cleared, he saw something vaguely shaped like his rifle up against the wall behind the other mysterious man who had joined him.

The man let out a sinister sounding laugh as he watched the Galactic Alliance Commando fumble about. “Can’t seem to focus can you,” came the grim voice as it stood up from its chair and made its way over. “That would be the spice that my men pumped you with when they found you hear.”

He saw the man reach down and pull the wristcom off him. When it struck him that he hadn’t already messaged his comrades about his lies regarding the Invidious, he felt panick racing through him. As he tried to get up, he only managed to stumble and fall to the floor again.

The man’s voice rang in his ear again, “Now that your friends are entering into an area that they can’t reliably get a signal through, your vitals flatlining on the monitors in the two shuttles won’t allow them to warn your friends in time.”

He felt a sudden sting in his chest as a red beam came from the other man’s hand it seemed, and promptly vanished. Thomaus was suddenly aware that he was dying, he continued looking up at the other man… his murderer. As his vision cleared, he saw a bald human in a blood red zeyd-cloth robe with metallic looking shoulder pads. His face cracked by age and scarred by combat. He reached up, almost wanting to beg to be given life, but the unmerciful expression on the mans face turned away as he headed back to his seat and looked back across the trench.

As his vision darkened, he could hear the other man’s voice once more, but it was no longer directed towards him… it seemed he was only thinking aloud now, “Well then Inquisitor Admiral Ren’Vhan. Let us see if you still have it..”

 

Wow, this is moving at a breakneck pace. Awesome! Things that seemed noteworthy while reading:

* The atmosphere of Rud-Ibasl. Unpleasant place to visit, but the red light and general decay makes for a striking mental image.

* Iunha's investigation and attempts to make sense of things; it's pretty clearly all going pear-shaped before she started, but she does a good job of responding to the sudden changes. That hints at a lot of adaptability on her part. It was amusing that she managed to wrangle a bribe out of Leshran without apparently giving away her identity.

* The part with the Toydarian getting choked. Quite creepy, especially that they were so easily able to pass it off as an ordinary accident. I like seeing a Darksider or two that is chilling in that camouflaged sort of way -- after all, Sidious managed it for decades. Surprising how few seem to pull off that kind of subtlety given their press. Hard to see, the Dark Side too often is not. These kids these days always get it tattooed all over their faces...

* Kreia (Kriea?) and Leshran's odd almost-competitive reactions (hmm, hadn't really thought that they were either attached to Ren'Vhan in the sort of way that it seems to imply, so it was interesting that they seemed to be sizing each other up that way.) Leshran does seem oddly young in behavior for her age -- kind of impulsive. It makes me wonder if her training/specialized abilities somehow accentuated that personality trait. I'm curious what she's after in getting involved with Tavira's group and all of this. She seems so uncontrolled (or is that an act? Possible...)

* The other Inquisitor, who as far as I can remember has never appeared before. Definitely knows who he's after, but where did he come from? Someone in Tavira's employ, or something else? If female, I would think it was that lightning thrower that was mentioned some time earlier, but apparently not.

 

Reply to Readers:

Physically, she is still quite young... mentally... she is still quite young as you'll see a partial explanation for her lack of maturity in spite of her age in this next chapter... If you can read between the lines, you might be able to figure out her motivation for working with Leonia as well. Leshran and Kreia will be competitive with each other for Ren'Vhan's affections... but not in the romantic sense. It's more that they see him as a father figure and want to earn his approval rather than to pursue some romantic interest in him... though Leshran does remember how he looked back 50 years ago even if she was only 8 at the time. Her specialized abilities did however give her a sense of boundless energy, so it does feed into her personality to a great degree.

The other inquisitor will play a more active role in future chapters. As will Reantis, when she eventually enters the story.

Chapter 8​

The air was rather humid, a sharp contrast to the dry air just outside the palace. Ren’Vhan was reminded briefly of some of his missions to swamp worlds. He honestly couldn’t recall a single pleasant memory from any such experience. That Hutts prefered such environs only served to lower his already very low opinion of the creatures. The loose stone bricks along the stairs seemed out of place though. Looking on as Leshran led the way in the hazy entrance, his instincts were telling him that something was up. He shut his eyes and focused on sensing for minds around him to see if someone were hiding out of sight in an ambush position. He could feel Kreia leading the Pantoran woman, still wrapped in the wampa fur coat, by the hand just behind him. Leshran was up ahead, climbing the stairs that ascended towards the local Hutt’s.throne room. Just beyond the doors stood a pair of Weequay guards. Further into the room were an additional six guards, all Weequay. Their placement was fairly standard for bodyguards, though their numbers seemed relatively sparse. He could also sense the presence of a Hutt in the room beyond, casually lounging in the back of the throne room with a Cathar woman standing off to the side, with a Ranth male standing before the pair discussing a target for apparent capture.

“You’re paranoid,” commented the woman ahead, noticing that he had been gazing over the minds of everyone nearby and was glancing at him over her shoulder. “He’s proven to be trustworthy… at least as far as Hutts are concerned.”

“I’ve worked with enough of them to know they aren’t to be trusted,” stated Ren’Vhan scornfully.

“Only ever met one, and that is all I needed to know that they are the lowest scum of the galaxy,” came Kreia’s agreement.

The Admiral turned around and gave the girl a disapproving look. “While it’s fine to lower the act around Leshran as she’s been quite aware of you for some time, try not to speak without my expressed permission while you are supposed to be a slave.”

“Alright… master,” she replied with a sarcastic tone.

His eyes then settled on the Pantoran woman, and he realized he didn’t even exactly know who it was she was fleeing from in the first place. He turned towards Leshran and focused on her mind as she crossed her arms, giving him a mischievous look, “figured it out I see.”

“That’s sort of something important that you should tell me,” replied the man as he turned around, reaching towards the Pantoran girl who wore a confused expression as he pulled the hood of the coat over her head once more. “I’d rather avoid unnecessary trouble with the local leadership, regardless of where I operate.”

He then focused his attention back on the Ranth bounty hunter in the room ahead. As he suspected, his objective was to retrieve the escaped Pantoran who was previously in the care of Ushritan. He then turned back towards the door and gestured to Leshran. “Lead the way and introduce us then.” With his mind, he instructed Kreia to guide the Pantoran around to keep her face concealed from the Hutt. He could fool all the rest of the room into believe she were someone else… but he was certain he could not pull the deception over on the Hutt through the use of the Force. As the door opened, the pair of Weequay guards that were posted at the door were standing to the side, holding the door open as the Ranth man stepped through.

The group stood off to the side as the bounty hunter made his way passed… too eager to get on the trail of his quarry by starting at her last known location to think to suspect anyone to be her between here and there. As he vanished, he began to cast his influence over the other guards in the room, has the Cathar Majordomo, though he could sense it would take a great deal of effort to deceive the Cathar… it seemed that rather than go through all the effort of breaking her, the Hutt implanted an explosive tracker inside her to motivate her to obedience through fear than a lacking strength of will.

As he stepped into throne room, taking care to keep himself placed between the Hutt and the Pantoran, he allowed Leshran to introduce them, “Oh Great Rujidan,” she began as she gestured back towards the Admiral. “May I introduce to you my guest…”

Ren’Vhan took off his hat and bowed slightly, “Sivrejan, weapons smuggler,” he said, recalling the name of the former wearer of the very clothes he wore now. A memory of the smuggler’s final moments flashed in his head. He found it useful to keep the names and replicas of clothing of outlaws he captured, killed or recruited for future use as aliases… with special attention paid towards those who resembled either himself or some of his commandos.

The Hutt began to speak as the Cathar listened attentively, whilst wearing a disgusted expression. When he finished speaking the woman began to translate for him, “Then you are the associate of Leshran’s that Admiral Leonia Tavira has been wishing to meet then.”
The man stepped forward, to the side of the dark robed woman who had led them here. “Indeed… The Invidious, while quite well armed for a Impstar Deuce, just isn’t quite up to snuff compared to the modernized Galactic Alliance and Empire,” he began to explain. “Leonia is quite eager to fix that… and I’m eager to make big credits on her desires.”

The Hutt began to laugh, the deep and rhythmic notes echoing throughout the chamber before speaking again. Gesturing towards a hallway situated to the side of the throne room, the Cathar translated once more, “So long as installation of the weapons are handled by his dock workers, and thusly the service charge for the work goes to him through his dock workers, he invites you to discuss business arrangements with the good Admiral.”

Bowing once again, he returned the wide-brimmed hat to his head with dramatic flair, “Indeed, and afterwards, I do look forward to arranging business with you.” He then gestured to the two women behind him to follow. The Pantoran didn’t understand, so Kreia subtlely nudged her shoulders to get her to turn and began walking. Ren’Vhan waited until the two were already turned before he himself began to make his way towards the hallway, now feeling the danger of the Hutt seeing the face beneath the fur hood was the Omwati had now passed.

He could see human guards up ahead in old Imperial Uniforms, but the men wearing them were of a very youthful complexion. They nodded briefly to Leshran and stepped aside to let the group pass by with disciplined precision.

Walking passed the Invid guards, Ren’Vahn couldn’t help but feel that a new chapter in his life was about to unfold before him. Trained to fulfill a passive role as a covert fleet commander under the doctrine of Imperial Intelligence instead of the Navy after his training to be an Inquisitor, he hated to admit it, but he had always desired a more active role in the Galaxy. Now he stood with the hope, and indeed certainty, that Leonia Tavira had knowledge of the means to achieve just that.

As the doors swung open, he saw before him a woman in a Navy Officer’s uniform whose rank insignia denoted her as an Admiral. Her hair was cut to shoulder length, and though her face betrayed her age, her physique was relatable to a woman half her age. But most important was her broad smile. It was appreciative, as though handed a great gift as she looked upon her fellow Admiral. It was apparent to the Inquisitor just then that just as much as he now needed Leonia to become a force to reckon with in the galaxy, she needed him for the same reason. Was it his fleet she needed… no, she could raise a fleet of pirates at a moments notice using her reputation alone if she so desired.

“Welcome Inquisitor Ren’Vhan,” she greeted him. “I quite look forward to employing the talents of yourself and the other adepts under your command.”

-----------------

“So that’s all you really did,” explained Ren’Vhan as he paced the room. Leonia sat at the end of the empty conference table with only Leshran serving as her guard. Kreia had begun to contemplate killing the other guards when she caught them thinking of her after they became convinced that Ren’Vhan wasn’t a threat to their beloved Admiral. “You had these… Jensaarai peek into the future for threats before committing to a raid.”

“Indeed,” she replied confidently. “Or rather, as it was explained after a mess over Xa Fel, they sensed any threats specifically directed towards myself or my men. A combat group in an area for any reason other than to challenge me escaped their senses.”

He pondered on the thought, it seemed fairly in line with the basic defensive instincts of force users, though admittedly better refined if they could sense the threat hours in advance of a raid in a strategic sense rather than the tactical sense as most force sensitives were capable of instinctively. He then sat down and brought his hands together as he went through the information in his head while Leonia looked on expectantly. “While it is true what Leshran spoke to you that my fleet employs significant numbers of force users… I cannot say for certain that they are able to repeat the precognitive feats that the Jensaarai were able to do.”

“Really,” inquired the woman from across the table.

“To be entirely fair… as far as I am aware… the Republic, and the Rebellion before it were never even aware of our existence,” he said. “We never had to deal with a threat directed specifically towards us, so I’m not sure who is able to identify threats hours in advanced… assuming anyone in my fleet is even capable of it.” He then reflected on the lacking of specialized training. “And even if we were able to identify someone who had a knack for it… it would still be unreliable.”

“That would be an issue,” Tavira said as she shut her eyes with a disappointed look.

“It was by the Emperor’s design… because we operated for extensive periods of time without interference, he limited the base of knowledge we could draw upon so we couldn’t broaden our training in secret,” explained Ren’Vhan. “He also required that I keep my telepathy open to his scrutiny at all times so I couldn’t exchange technique knowledge with any of those whose abilities were expressly forbidden to me.” He then thought on some of his fellow inquisitors. “On the few occasions that I specifically needed a skill outside of my allowable skill spectrum, he’d assign someone like he did Renel when we had to specifically pull a ship out of hyperspace from the center of the Rebel Fleet when they were on their way to Endor.”

“Well… the Emperor can’t stop you now,” reasoned Leshran, and the meaning struck the man like a durasteel beam to the head. “Why can’t you recruit the other Inquisitors and exchange techniques in the manner that the Emperor had previously forbidden you from doing in the past?”

He put his hand over his face in frustration at himself momentarily as Leonia laughed. It was a simple idea, but one he had never previously considered. Perhaps it was his obsession with keeping his fleet forever hidden from everyone… or maybe it was such a simple thought that he, in all the complexity that were the trademark of his plans and schemes, would never had considered had someone never blatantly just suggested it to him as they do so now.

“So do you have the means to contact this Renel person still,” inquired Leonia with a critical look on her face. She narrowed her eyes as she continued “And if so, could you convince him to provide training to yourself or some of your adepts.”

He thought on it for a little bit. Renel wasn’t a very agreeable person, but he got along with his younger brother reasonably well and he had been similarly skilled. “If not him, I know someone else who would likely help… but I’m rather curious as to why these ‘Jensaarai’ are no longer under your employ.”

“They haven’t been for some time now,” she began to explain as she leaned back away from the table. “But the short answer is that the Jedi intervened… and terminated the Jensaarai’s contract to me… in a manner of speaking.”

“In other words, you threatened them with annihilation to obtain their obedience, and the Jedi liberated them,” he said as he crossed his arms and shot a glare across the table.

“Well, I can’t exactly threaten your people now can I,” she reasoned. “You got better guns and more of them, I hear.”

He then leaned forward, his gaze fixed on the aging woman. “So now you’ve found a lead on a new group of Force-Sensitives who hold the possibility of allowing you to repeat your previous success…”

“Not repeat,” she cut him off. “Exceed.” Her smile was broad and sinister. “You have at your disposal, hundreds of force users of varied and specialized skills, and an array of vessels designed for the purpose of covert operation, men trained in espionage.”

She then detailed the circumstances of the criminal underworld, “The Hutts are in chaos with the deaths of many of their Kajidic leaders since the start of the Rebellion, as well as the losses suffered in the Vong invasion and Jacen’s civil war, the Black Sun is in tatters for the first time in millennia, and Zann’s Consortium has utterly fallen off the map,” She then stood up and began to walk around the conference table. “I’m not speaking simply of a return to piracy, but to erupt on the galactic stage from beneath… and the best part is that if done right, hardly a soul would ever notice… and even if they did, only the Jedi would ever believe.”

Mention of the Jedi sent a shiver down Ren’Vhan’s spine. They were certainly something to fear. Certainly ‘he’ could handle an isolated Jedi or two. For a time, it was even his job to hunt them down. But the Jedi had returned in force under Luke Skywalker’s care. There was no getting around the fact that any sizeable criminal organization would draw the attention of the Jedi, but to employ Force Sensitives to the underworld dealings en masse would demand their concerted efforts once discovered. It wouldn’t be like dealing with them when the Jedi were exiled and absent any hope for outside support. “Skywalker’s Jedi will be a major threat to any criminal ambition you have for me and my fleet… but only I have any actual training or experience in dealing with Jedi. Conflict with them will be inevitable.”

“Then why don’t you train them in how to handle them in the event that such a contingency becomes necessary” reason the woman.

“He is just one man,” came Kreia’s voice from the corner. “And he was successful at fighting Jedi primarily as a result of talents that no one else in the fleet has even exhibited proficiency with.”

Ren’Vhan wanted to chastise the young woman for breaking character in front of someone who should not be in the know on her status, but he couldn’t refuse the point she was making, but it was then that he saw Leshran shake her head. “Are we forgetting about me… or Renel and his brother. How about the many Inquisitors and Hands he’s known and maintained telepathic links to as he had done my own?”

Instinctively he shut his eyes and began to focus on the connections he had built over the decades aside from those to his own fleet. Most were cold from disuse, one seemed warm from proximity alone, but surprisingly few were severed, either by the demise of the individual, or the result of a determined effort to break the link as he knew was the case with Reantis. “I’d say there are a good eighteen people I could try to recruit,” he said. He felt his cheeks begin to curve into a smile as Leonia now stood over him. “It will take some time to make thorough preparations… but I think if I can get at least six of them to join in on this little enterprise, we can get things to work out.” He then stood up and looked Tavira in the eyes. “Alright, lets try it… but remember…”

“I’m going to be working with over half a dozen people at least that will be able to kill me with but a thought,” she explained sarcastically. “How am I possibly going to be able threaten you or your men with only a single Star Destroyer to my name.”

He smiled, glossing over her mind, he could see that she accepted that she had no cards to play at this point and was accepting a subordinated position. “Very well then, I’d suggest you get your men prepped for launch immediately. We should get moving as soon as possible if we are to get you to our main base without issue.”

Touching a com, Tavira brought her wrist to her mouth, “Captain Vordu, get the ship ready, we will be leaving shortly. Tell the men that it’s a go.”

“Yes milady” came a voice over the communication device.

Ren’Vhan then walked back towards the women who came with him when he was struck with a pang of curiosity.

“Is something the matter, master” Kreia asked as she stood up. The Pantoran stood up shortly thereafter, apparently taking to simply following the other woman’s lead.

“When I was checking the connections… I sensed that one of them was nearby,” he answered. “Perhaps… hold on a moment.” He then shut his eyes as he focused once again on his connections with fellow force users. He found the one of interest and reached out through it. “Hello… Ren’Vhan here… who else could possibly be on Rud-Ibasl.”

Whoever it was, they remained silent, not even so much as a command to be quiet. He found the thought disquieting, but left it be as he stepped out. Someone he knew was nearby, and while he wasn’t replying, it didn’t feel as though there was any effort to sever the connection either. He’d ponder on it later but for now, he needed to return to his ship. As he stepped back into the corridor leading to the Hutt’s throne room, he heard a muffled rumble echo from up ahead, and the Invid guards immediately looked alert. After a moment, he could hear blasters whine as they fired.

-------------------------------

Uthierav followed through the beam framework of the ecumenopolis foundation. For the most part they walked atop piping and electrical conduits where stable catwalks were unavailable. From time to time, she spotted a surveillance camera that had been rewired by the advanced unit to loop video data after a careful approach. But after a half hour, she could see a solid wall that stuck out by how new it looked in the midst of all the rusting Durasteel around it. She could also see the imposing figure of Jensaarai in full armor. His mask resembled a Narglatch, with armored spikes jutting out the back of the helm to emulate the mane of the males. She could see that several charges were set against the wall. When the man saw Uthierav approach, he gestured towards the commandos around him to stand back.

“The charges are a contingency,” explained Faltouna in a whisper. “Cutting through with a lightsaber is preferable, but if anyone inside spots it, we’ll need to get in quick… my father’s idea.”

“Good idea,” remarked the agent. He then gestured around the building before them, “I’m going to take up a position to oversee the entrance and cut off any escape by the target if it comes down to it.”

“Iunha should be waiting up there as well, so you can count on her to step in if it is needed up there,” stated Uthierav. She then made her way carefully toward the wall. “Valor, thanks for coming out this way.”

“Don’t thank me,” came the man’s reply. “Just settling accounts with the Imperials.”

She let out a sigh, such was the dangers of connections she reasoned. And this man was one such piece of evidence of her own cold approach to the force. There was a perpetual darkness looming over him, and none of the Jensaarai had the heart to tell him to let it all go. How could he. He constantly obsessed over killing Imperials when the Inquisitor known only as the K-Blade Killer arrived on Susevfi and murdered his parents and sister during one of the Jedi Hunts that occasionally took place on his homeworld while it was still under Imperial rule. To him, Leonia was just another Imp.

Hearing a sudden clicking noise, everybody turned around. A camera nearby had a slicing device hanging loosely from it, dangling before something unseen yanked it away. Valor deactivated his lightsaber and looked on with fierce anticipation at the camera, he could hear its motors whirring and grinding as it began to twist in its mounting. Soom the mounting itself was bending as someone was forcing it to look their direction. “The witch knows we’re here,” he declared as he lept away from the wall. “Detonate the charges and move in!”

A commando pulled out a small remote detonator, and with a click, the wall erupted in flames. Through the smoke came a loud metallic clang. “Move in, now!”

Valor ignited his lightsaber, revealing a yellow blade and dashed through the smoke, followed by the forward most of the commandos. Faltouna and Uthierav followed soon after before the rest of the squad could squeeze through. She instinctively raised her green bladed lightsabers, igniting them within the smoke as the first blaster bolts began to scream passed her. Once she cleared the smoke, she could see that the man who led the charge had already dispatched the palace’s defenders that responded to the sudden explosion. “I sense the force-user nearby, Faltouna and Uthierav, come with me… we’ll engage her as soon as possible. Commandos, secure the throne room and the lower floors and cut off any route of escape.”

Uthierav sensed Iunha taking up a position in the courtyard just outside. “My master is in position… we shouldn’t have to worry about them escaping any time soon.”

With a nod, the Ring Defender dashed around the corner, with the two apprentices in tow. They encountered meager resistance, a paltry five guards were encountered, taking cover behind overturned tables in the servant’s mess hall in among panicking laborers. When one of the slaves. Valor deflected the shots that were haphazardly aimed his way and lept over one of the tables, striking with a stabbing motion as the man tried to turn. Uthierav used the force to shove the table that another was taking shelter behind of, knocking the blaster loose from his hands. One of the commandos took an accurate shot, destroying the blaster of a third guard. Upon seeing three of the five guards disabled so quickly, nearby slaves pounced on the remainder of the distracted guards, seizing their weapons. As the commandos and the Jensaarai dashed passed, Uthierav could hear one of the men begging for their life, as they rounded the corner into another corridor, she could hear the echos of blasters repeating behind them.

Faltouna’s unease at leaving the disabled guards to the slaves was apparent, a discomforting aura. With a shake of his head, he brought his focus back to the mission at hand. Rounding the corner next corner, they were confronted with a half dozen Weequay guards who showed some degree of discipline, but more importantly a pair of Imperial officers taking cover around a corner at one end of the room. The Hutt’s throne was pulling free from the ground on repulsorlifts as a Cathar woman began operating the controls on it. Before any shots could be fired, an energy field materialized around it. The Weequay began taking shots at the corner the Jensaarai were at, forcing them back up momentarily.

“Lets wait here a moment… I don’t think the Hutt is interested in sticking around with his guard detail,” he observed.

A feminine voice called out “we’re pulling out as well, come with me.” When they heard the woman call out in a command, the urgency changed.

Glancing around the corner again, he saw that the nearest Weequay were backing up towards the protection of the Hutt’s shield and mounted the edges of the hovering throne. Beyond, he could see the two Invid guards escorting an old woman in an Imperial Admiral’s uniform protectively flanked by a young woman in dark robes with a red lightsaber. When she saw the masked face, the Admiral called out, “Jensaarai, watch your shots.”

The leader of the present Jensaarai pulled back away from the corner. “Change in plans, we’ll have to engage them now.” Bringing his lightsaber up again, he dashed around the corner with the apprentices just behind, their bold move answered by a hail of blaster fire… between the three of them, they had four lightsabers against eight blasters. But the shots, while accurate were only roughly coordinated. But the cover they took was effective enough to prevent deflected blaster fire from hitting them. What appeared to be a smuggler stepped out shortly there after leading a pair of slave girls as they all took cover behind the Hutt’s shield as he made his way towards the exit of the room. At around this point, his commando’s entered the room and began to engage the Weequay guards who were performing rear guard duties.

Valor gestured one of his men to throw a Thermal Detonator towards the staircase that the Hutt and his men were leaving through, answered with a pair of the explosive devices flying through the air and into the throne room’s exit. One of the Weequay lunged forward over the crest of the staircase, covering his head as an explosion erupted behind him. Valor dashed for a nearby wall and with a circular motion cut a hole through it and vanished through it while Faltouna dashed for the Weequay who had taken cover in the throne room to escape the explosion, and kicked away the man’s blaster. One of the commando’s followed up shortly with a pair of bindings, cuffing the man as the rest focused suppressive fire on the well to cover the Jensaarai apprentice and the supporting commando as they secured the captive and dragged him into cover.

When he sensed that most of the Hutt’s entourage made it down the staircase, he signaled the commando’s to advance. Four of them dived towards the top, taking a prone position at the crest of the staircase, taking shots on the Hutt’s shielding in hopes of forcing it to break. Uthierav peeked around the corner as they did so, watching as the shots were absorbed by the energy shield. She saw the smuggler turn around with a look of concern as the Cathar woman reported that the energy shields were draining to critical levels. The darksider nearby then dashed back to the rear , and let the shield move passed her as she reignited her weapon and brought it up to deflect the shots aimed at the Hutt. The man in the rough coat and wide hat also left the shield, bringing up his metal gloved fists.

“Take out the smuggler,” came the shout of one of the commandos as more came to join the trio at the top of the steps. To their dismay, he dodged a portion of the first barrage, deflection three of the bolts. “Force user!” came a shout as the man gestured forward with his hand, kicking up a wave of dust. One of the men taking cover at the top tried to stand up and move away, but was knocked back by an unseen tidal wave of force, as the others flinched as though hit with a ferocious wind.

Upon seeing this, Uthierav called out to Faltouna and the pair lept over the line of commandos and into the stairwell, at first deflecting the shots from the the Invid and gang guards, and demanding the attention of the brawler and the robed adept. Faltouna challenged the woman directly, while the Dathomirian found herself faced with the long coat clad old man. When a familiar sensation washed over her mind, she thought back to Coruscant. She looked closely at the man, “That… was you,” she whispered to herself. Instead of an answer, the man came at her.

She swung her right lightsaber and saw it deflected by a backhand from the man, and took a swing towards her face, prompting and instinctive swing towards the man’s arm beyond the armor. For his part, he pulled the punch back, bringing the armor back into the way of her swing, and after the blade made contact, pushed his arm out, forcing the Dathomirian to take a step back from the force on her arm as it passed through her lightsaber. The man shifted his balance to his left leg as he stepped forward and she reversed the grip on her left lightsaber. As she did so, the man’s right leg swung out in a ferocious kick. The blade of her lightsaber howled as the kick connected to it, and forced to move in the direction of the forceful attack. She sidestepped as the man’s foot connected to her side, dissipating the force of the blow to keep her from being injured to heavily by it as the man recovered his balance and stepped back, bringing up his fists in time to absorb another two shots with the armor covering them. On his right leg, there was a hole his pants where her lightsaber struck in futile effort to block the kick.

“Keep firing on him men,” came the call from Reinsal, now standing over his troops with a pair of blaster pistols. “It’s Ultrachrome, shoot it enough and it will melt.”

Faltouna was himself engaged in combat with the Leshran, but it was clear he was on the defensive the whole time. The dark woman’s attacks were stronger and swifter than his own. Even when her defenses were left open to a swift counter attack, the apprentice was usually still staggering from the previous blow.

Uthierav pointed towards Leshran, “Faltouna needs your help more than I do,” she commanded as she retook her combat stance. If she remembered correctly, Ultrachrome dispersed energy evenly… which meant his defenses couldn’t last much longer, she could already see it began to glow a dull yellow from all the energy from the blasters.

She put her offhand blade before her as she recalled the previous exchange of blows. She couldn’t expect her lightsabers to block any of his attacks, they just had significantly greater energy behind them. She had to connect after his fists lost momentum, and keep it on it until the glove melted over his hand. She dashed forward, swinging with her offhand. He cooly allowed the blade to glance off the back of his right fist, forcing it upward as he stepped back into his next attack. She read the man’s motion, allowing her momentum to carry her passed the man as she spun around, stepping back as her face entered the Hutt’s forcefield just before the fist connected. As the man’s fist connected, just as she hoped, the high energy state of the glove reacted to the field and was stopped fully.

She swung up with both her blades, towards the mans extended arm as she stepped forward. It was either lose an arm or block the blow with the glove. But this time she had the momentum to prevent him from stepping back from the strike once the connection was made. As the blades continued upward, she simply saw him smile.

------------------

Leshran was laughing with glee as she and Ren’Vhan ran down the corridor to try to catch up with Rujidan and Leonia. “How long before they realize that they are fighting an illusion,” she inquired.

“Shorter than I’d have hoped, but longer than I expected" he said. He knew that the Dathomirian would break the illusion shortly as she brought the blades up into the illusionary version of himself he was feeding into her mind. The boy that was fighting alongside her however, may as well have been casting the spell upon himself. He allowed the first few strikes he received from the true Leshran leave a lasting impression on him and now the force of the blows he was feeling from his illusory opponent were now born purely from his expectation.

“So why didn’t we just up and kill them, would have been like shooting fish in a bucket,” she asked the inquisitor.

“I can muddle their senses at best. I can’t straight up shut them off… the moment you try to make a move to strike them, their instincts kick back in and set their senses right again,” he explained. Up ahead he could see the Hutt’s hover-throne making its way towards the gate. It was much faster than he led the Republic forces believe through the illusions. He focused again on the woman whom he had fought against, she was now in the process of literally slapping the senses back into the men back in the throne room. It was then that he heard the distinct sound of a lightsaber cutting through metal. Up ahead, he could see the sparks showering the hall up ahead, with a distinct yellow blade coming down through the ceiling. “Keep running,” he commanded Leshran as he stopped just passed the yellow blade, then reached up with his gloved arm and put it up against the blade, and pushed it back, trying to prevent it from cutting more along the hole the man above hoped to create, and momentarily he was able to force the blade back. He heard the man’s boots re-position as he took a new stance above, and then felt the blade push back against him. After a few seconds, he released the blade and allowed it to over-cut , slashing a large gash through the ceiling as the man above stumbled by the unexpected release.

Rather than wait to see if the man grew wise to how to properly counter such interference, Ren’Vhan continued to flee towards the courtyard, in time to see a Togruta woman in a mask finish dispatching the last of the guards around Rujidan and Leonia. The Cathar woman stood triumphantly beside the new woman, a small device in her hands, and he could hear her cheers of freedom. Kreia was behind the pair of women with the Pantoran and near the speederbikes. The Jensaarai stood boldly before Rujidan and Leonia with her lightsaber pointed towards the pair. He could sense the temptation on Kreia’s mind to pull the shoto from the collar around her neck and try fighting.

“Don’t even think it,” he commanded her telepathically. “You’ve got no training in them.” He then focused on the dull burn from the ultrachrome panels in his gloves… he drew the energy into himself as he stepped forward. “I’ll retrieve the shotos… when I do, I want you to take the Pantoran on my BARC and make it to the ship. If you keep suppressing your force signature, and go together as if from fear, they’ll assume you are just slaves escaping captivity and focus on me and Leshran. Bring the ship back here… blow a hole in the wall if you need to, but when you get back, drop off my favorite weapon and retrieve Leonia if she’s still here.”

He then looked over at Leshran, “And you… just focus on surviving, don’t expose yourself too much by being too offensive… if the cutting man is too much for you to handle, just switch with me.”

Leshran nodded and looked back towards the entrance of the palace. Ren’Vhan ran forward and towards the Hutt and Admiral Tavira.

--------------

Iunha could feel the absolute joy in the Cathar slave beside her. It was evident that Rujidan sought to break her with the fear of death, but now the decision to take her as a Majordomo without properly breaking her will was now biting him in his massive Hutt tail. Beside him was a woman that looked like the older appearing woman from the intelligence case she saw back on Coruscant. She saw beyond them the Omwati girl that Leshran had released earlier out of amusement, as well as the slave that had been riding the other bike alongside the unknown man. They were taking cover by the nearby bikes… she felt a sense of relief that the two were okay.

The Hutt seemed angry, both that he lost all his guards, and that the weapons smuggler had apparently claimed the Omwati girl for his own. And then he was most furious over the victorious display of his slave.

And then Leonia appeared calm and collected as she stood there, looking defiant even in apparent defeat as she stood before the Jensaarai woman with her arms crossed and a smile on her face. “So then, have the Jensaarai replaced the Jedi as the enforcers of Republic Law while I was away, or were you just so eager to get revenge that you couldn’t stand the Jedi making the bust.”

The woman shook her head, “Not really, but the politicians who knew about our relationship with you felt we would have more drive to succeed here than the Jedi.”

The Imperial chuckled. Iunha sensed a disturbance and looked over at the slaved huddled next to the bikes, and saw the cylinders on their collars both raise up on their own and rotated towards the palace as they began to spin in place. Distant footfalls warned her of someone’s rapid approach as the cylinders came loose from the collars. The wide brimmed hat concealed the man’s face but it was apparent it was the man who had ridden by with Leshran earlier. He dashed around as the two halves of each cylinder spun in opposite directions, causing the shell to open up with portions of it sliding beneath the other pieces before the remaining outer shell came back together to form a thinner cylinder before they reached his hands.

He pointed ends of both of the devices towards the Defender as the material at the ends began to glow white hot. Sensing danger, she lept to the side as molten material flew out the shaft, passed her and struck the nearby wall with a sizzle. In their place, there were two red lightsaber blades as the man continued to charge the woman. She grasped her large lightsaber hilt with both hands and ignited, revealing a two meter long iridescent blade, causing the man to stop in his tracks. Glancing over, she saw the two slaves were mounting a BARC and starting it up. Sensing movement, she swung her weapon in a left to right swing with both arms while leaping back, forcing the man to block the strike with both of his blades while sidestepping away from the strike to disperse the energy of the attack.

He lept back to clear himself away from the reach of the Jensaarai weapon as a speeder bike zipped passed and out of the gate. He tapped one of his gloves with one of the energy blades as if to signal. She glanced around looking for who it was he intended to send a message to. When her eyes came back to the man, he had spun around and was in the middle of throwing one of the shotos towards the durasteel frame near the walls of the palace. She instinctively ran forward and set her lightsaber to a more traditional meter-and-a-half length before engaging the man, now armed with a single shoto who finished his spin to block the hasty strike. Her eyes glanced back up towards where the man threw his other weapon and could see the Republic Agent they had come with staggering back just before the energy blade slice the tip of his blaster rifle’s barrel, rendering it useless.”

“Leonia, get going now!” he commanded as he used the back side of his glove to push back on the other end of his own lightsaber blade. She shoved herself back and tried to spin around to get a strike on the repulsorlifts keeping the Hutt’s throne aloft. But sensing her foe's immediate threat to her forced her to complete the full spin to bring her blade back into a defensive posture. She could hear the control console of the Hover-throne beep as Leonia began to operate it. She couldn’t let her escape, she stepped back from her assailant and swung mildly at the man before her, whom parried the strike and stepped in closer to keep her committed, pulling his blade away momentarily as he half stepped to the side taking a hip to shoulder swing, forcing her to bring her weapon to a vertical position to defend from the attack. When she felt the strike lacked strength, she realized he struck with only the one hand on the hilt.

His left hand, balled into a fist swung towards the blade with full force, striking her blade and forcing it aside. When she sensed the man shifting his feet for a lunge, the momentum from his punch pointing his blade directly towards her, she leaned back and kicked back on her legs as the man thrust himself towards her, using the force to accelerate her back enough to dodge the stab, but simultaneously put her beyond range to threaten both the swordsman who challenged her, and the criminals as the throne lifted into the air and began to speed off, the Cathar woman cursed Rujidan’s as the Hutt yelled out in joy.

“You know what you’re doing, I’ll give you that,” admitted the man before Iunha as he removed his hat and threw it to the side. “Can’t say I’ve seen someone use a lightsaber quite like yours.” Beyond the man, she could hear the screams of lightsabers clashing from the Hutt’s palace, prompting the man to turn towards it. He was practically daring the Jensaarai to take a strike. But then things felt odd as she felt something wash over her mind, just like over Coruscant.
“You were there weren’t you,” she claimed. “Looking into our minds… mani…”

The man turned around… “That I was,” he declared boastfully. Then in a mocking tone, he claimed “your apprentice was better at resisting me than you were. You’d have been a smear on the side of a freighter right now if not for her.”

She then began to run towards the entrance of the Hutt Palace, the man ran to intercept her by standing in the way. Maintaining her pace, she kept running undaunted by the presence before her, declaring angrily “I don’t have time for your trickery.”

He brought up his lightsaber and swung towards her, but she ignored it, and the illusion washed away from her mind as the weapon should have struck her, instead of the searing pain that is usually associated with being struck by a lightsaber, she felt only the tingling sensation in her mind vanish, and saw the long coat flapping in the wind as the man ran towards Valor who was presently engaged against Leshran. Sensing the intended strike, the tall man spun around to deflect the thrust from the smuggler with his cortosis weaved armor, leaving a long dark gash where the lightsaber made contact. Leshran pressed forward prompting the man to continue his spin and deflect the next blow with his lightsaber. The stranger’s weapon came towards where his first strike had come, hoping to break through the armor with repeated strikes before Iunha was close enough to help Valor.

The black robed woman disengaged from Valor and rapidly ran wide and passed Iunha, forcing the Togruta to stop and face this new threat to herself. Leshran’s face had a wild appearance to it, not anger as one would expect a darksider to wear in a fight against Jedi or their allies… this was a joyful expression. She found excitement in battle, as though it were the very reason she lived.

When her foe suddenly lept forward, her lightsaber held loosely in her hands, a moment before she reached striking distance, her body suddenly twisted her into a horizontal as Iunha brought her own lightsaber to a diagonal position, blocking the first blow, but the woman continued her spinning motion into a second, firmer strike, forcing the Defender’s blade to jerk in her hands. With a kick of her foot, Leshran launched skyward as she kept her blade between herself and her foe who tried for a thrust into the air, but only to have it parried as Leshran slowed her spin using the contacting blades, before pushing herself off the blade, up and away from Iunha.

Iunha took this moment to charge the airborne opponent in the hopes of imbalancing her upon landing, before she could rebuild her momentum. But as her blow struck the younger woman’s blade, she made a soft leap into the air, allowing the kinetic energy from the strike to push her back. Then something strange happened before the woman could touch the ground, suddenly her body’s momentum reversed direction and she was suddenly coming back towards Iunha with the same force she had been thrown back, her blade down swiftly, forcing the Togruta to pull her blade back and up to block the next blow, unable to bring it up to try any follow up attack. The force of the strike forced the other woman into a spin in mid air, when suddenly again her whole body reversed in its direction, this time in addition to her lateral momentum, but also her spin causing her rapid follow up strike to come back on the iridescent blade before Iunha had a time to properly recover from the previous strike, and forcing both of her arms to be yanked to the side from the blow, but not breaking her grip from her weapon as Leshran spun off to the side beyond the reach of either of them.

As Leshran landed, she fell to her left knee as she gasped for breath. “I guess I should have done that,” she stated regretfully as she placed her hand over her heart to check it. “Damn Tolura… I should have guessed being stuck in a block of Carbonite for so long would have done this to me.”

Iunha, recovering her grip on her lighsaber cautiously stepped towards the woman. The logical thing was to suspect it to be trickery, but the distress she sensed felt genuine.

She then sensed something threatening her from behind and spun around in time to strike the second Shota’s hilt as it was thrown at her. He saw the man’s glowing red gloves darken as though the suddenly cooled as he gestured a wide sweeping motion to the side, and from the corner of her eye caught the remaining speeder bike jerking towards the Leshran who struggled to her feet. Before she could act on it, she saw the man lunge at her with his fists at the ready. “Your fight is with me lady,” he declared.

“And your fight is with me,” came Valor’s voice as he swung down vertically.

The mysterious foe sidestepped the powerful swing and spun around, swinging his leg straight for the other man’s head. With a twist of his head, Valor brought the spikes on the back of his helmet into the way off the leg, but the armored shinguard smashed through a portion of the spikes, bending them noticeably and knocking Valor onto his side, before kicking off with the leg that was still on the ground to launch himself in Iunha’s direction.

The growl of a speeder marked Leshran’s getaway as the smuggler cautiously stepped in a wide circle around the remaining woman. Their quarry had all escaped saved for this one man, but it seemed strange. The scraping of metal on metal signaled Valor’s getting up to his feet casually. She sensed something about this man. The Dark Side flowed about him, giving him strength, that was certain. But he seemed to be in full command of it. Not once did he lose focus, constantly aware of his surroundings even if there was something that was not an immediate threat to him. Yes, he literally threw away both of his lightsabers, but each one served a specific purpose, allowing a comrade who was no longer useful in the fight to escape. The agent still making his way down from the framework wall was a testament to that. And now he would continue the fight with nothing but kicks and punches. She didn’t feel particularly comforted by the prospect, even against both of them.

Cautiously, she took a step forward and she focused on her self, she could feel his presence in her mind. Not as obvious as the sensation when he’s feeding false sensory information into it to produce his illusions. No, he was probing it for information, and likely was doing the same to the Valor as well. When the male Jensaarai took a step forward, the smuggler reached under his coat and drew a heavy blaster pistol and pointed it to the side and fired a shot, prompting a pained scream from the Cathar slave as she fell to the ground grasping her left leg in anguish. “The next shot will be fatal,” declared the man.

“I’ll curse your name to the end of time Sivrejan,” declared the Cathar venomously.

Always aware of his surroundings, thought Iunha again. She then heard more lightsabers ignite from nearby and glanced over to the Hutt Palace’s entrance and saw the two apprentices step out. The rest of the commandos were sure to follow shortly. Their imminent arrival was surely the catalyst for Sivrejan declaring the Cathar his hostage.

As the soldiers arrived, Uthierav motioned them to halt before they were able to step out.

“Now then…” came the man’s voice. “It’ll be a little bit… how about a short little chat then to pass the time?”

 

Chapter 9​

It certainly wasn’t his preferred position. Leshran had to break from the fight because she used her inertial reversal technique before her heart could fully recover from her long-term hibernation sickness.

He enjoyed being in control of a situation, to be sure. But Ren’Vhan felt that this was most certainly ‘not’ in control. He didn’t have to peer into any of the minds of the Jensaarai present to know what they were all thinking. That he was desperate, that this was a last ditch effort to stave off inevitable defeat. They’d be right in thinking so had Kreia actually been his slave.

The women, and the young man were easy to read to be sure, and could easily be fed false visions. But the man in the wolf-like mask was different. He shrugged aside the mental intrusion almost the moment the Admiral tried. If not for that one detail, he’d have been able to form an illusion on them all and been well on his way back toward the ship. The last time he ran into someone who could do that, he had to construct an entirely new weapon to combat the man.

Still, they weren’t cold and heartless, extinguishing their weapons as they stood down from their combat stances. The Togruta took a few steps back, “Alright, you have our attention.”

“Lets start with you two,” he began. “What are you exactly… I can’t recall Jedi wearing masks before.”

“We’re a splinter group,” came the man’s voice. “Our master’s split away from the Old Order shortly before the Clone Wars began.”

“What about you,” inquired the masked woman. “I’ve not seen someone fight quite like you do.”

“I have,” came the younger woman standing at the entrance of the Palace. “You’re Mandalorian aren’t you.”

He smiled as he looked the Dathomirian in the eye. “Someone’s been travelling.”

“Still, I’ve not seen you attempt a genuine grab of anyone’s blade,” explained the masked man.

“It’s no true crushgaunt,” Ren’Vhan admitted. “At best, a cheap imitation.” Of course, his last statement wasn’t wholly true. The gloves were designed with crushgaunts as inspiration, to be sure. But it was specifically tailored to his talents.

“So how’d a Corellian like you end up on Mandalore,” inquired the masked man.

Confusion struck Ren’Vhan and he resisted the urge to ask that the man explain, instead he answered, “The way most offworlders end up there… have the misfortune of having both my parents die in a battlefield somewhere.”

“You’re being awfully honest,” observed the Togruta.

With his free hand, he tapped his temple, “I know how things work. Spoken lies are easy to sense.” Lowering his arm, he shook his head, “One of the first things any sensitive notices.” He then looked over the group. “So then, what about all of you, where are you from.”

“Susevfi,” replied the woman. “From the Suarbi system.”

This struck a chord in him, “Susevfi you said?” He felt a growing dread within himself. He could sense that Kreia was getting closer, she had made it to the ship and managed to get it through the gaps between the wall and the docking cove without the need to blast anything open.

“Change in plans,” he projected to the mind of the Pantoran as she approached. “Situation’s changed, give me an evac.”

“You’ll have to delay them a little longer,” came the womans telepathic reply.

What could she possibly mean by that. “Leshran’s already out of here, I’m the only one left to evac” he shouted in his mind.

“The Invidious has only just now started to get underway,” came Leshran’s voice.

“So they might eat a rocket or two,” he cried out sarcastically in his mind. “What did she use, premium paint she doesn’t want to have scratched.”

The wolf masked man replied “Yes… we survived the Emperor’s Jedi Hunters for decades… though sacrifices had to be made from time to time to keep them convinced that there wasn’t a Jedi base hiding there.”

“Could you calm down a moment and listen…” continued Leshran in his head. “Until the Invidious clears the trench, it won’t be able to keep aloft under its own power… so you can’t allow them near the Dock’s anti-grav units until then.”

He desperately wished to scream out in anger aloud at this point… but could only settle on mental venting, “I feel I am reasonably calm given my current situation… you know… faced with four force sensitives on my own… two of them equivocal to a Jedi Master, because a certain someone wrecked her own body trying to rush a kill.”

“But…”

“And then I have to worry about a squad of Republic Commandos with itchy trigger fingers just waiting for the chance to open up on me,” be continued to say, his frustration increasingly evident in his mental voice.

He then turned to regard the man who was speaking the history of the Jensaarai, a tone of curiosity in his voice. “You make it sound like you knew some of those who lost their lives trying to protect your people’s secret.”

He then went back to his mental conversation, “And then to top it all off…”

“Not only did I know some of them,” the man answered as he reached up to his helmet.

“One of them is immune…” Ren’Vhan continued to mentally rant. “... to my…”

As the man lifted his helmet, the Admiral was suddenly both speechless and thoughtless. A prosthetic jaw was clamped to the lower part of his face, his left eye a cybernetic implant, and several burn scars crossed the man’s left cheek.

“I was supposed to be one of them,” finished the man as he dropped the wolf-like helmet to the ground next to him.

Ren’Vhan stood there, his eyes wide in disbelief. Sensing that the man had at last dropped his guard, the Togruta acted immediately, reaching out with the force and yanking the man’s blaster away, causing him to stagger forward before he lost hold of the weapon. Immediately the four Jensaarai reignited their weapons, the apprentices dashing out into the courtyard as the commandos filed out of the palace.

The Admiral stumbled back as the apprentices flanked him, the Togruta took up a position near the fallen slave and stood between the Cathar and Ren’Vhan protectively while the cyborg reignited his weapon and continued to stand there.

“I know my appearance is shocking,” explained the man. “But it usually doesn’t prompt that strong a response.”

Ren’Vhan glanced around him as he tried to shake himself of his shock, then Kreia’s voice came into his head again, “Admiral… above you… CATCH!”

“Wait… Kreia… NO!!!” he cried out desperately.

Guided by his senses, he spun, reaching up to catch the ultrachrome shaft as it fell nearby, igniting the pulsating end blades and finishing the spin in time to intercept the charging strike of the cybernetic human. He leapt back, using his gloved free hand to block a strike from the male apprentice before flipping backwards onto the wall surrounding the palace compound. Looking to his right, he saw the Togruta woman leap on the thin wall as well.

She then glanced to the side, it was clear she sensed something was awry, “Valor… are you okay?”

Ren’Vhan stood there, the red blades coming off the ends of his weapon pulsed and fluttered like fire. Between the two nodes that jutted from the main shaft had a third blade connecting the two, creating a lethal hand guard. And then jutting outwards from the base of the two handguard nodes were a pair of short, thin crossguard blades, giving the weapon a roughly K shaped appearance.

Seeing this, an aura of anger choked the air as Ren’Vhan turned towards the Jensaarai Defender down below, grasping his weapon firmly in both hands as he met the furious man’s eyes.

“I fear that I did something terribly wrong just now,” Kreia apologized telepathically.

“Not your fault” admitted the Admiral nervously. “I realized myself only moments ago just how bad an idea it was to bring this weapon to me.”

Valor’s eyes met his own with murderous intent behind them… and then his upper lips twisted into a disturbing smile, “Oh how I looked forward to this day.”

Then in a flash, he saw the cyborg thrust his hand forward, prompting him to jump back. A moment afterwards, the wall exploded from the force of the telekinetic wave that Valor struck it with. Valor surged forward while Ren’Vhan was still airborne. A few of the commandos took aim and tried to shoot him as though they were at a skeet range. The broad blades easily deflected the shots that were genuinely a danger, and he deflected one of the shots into the torso of one of the rifleman. As he touched the ground, he braced his arms as the cyborg took a fercious swing at him from a low angle. Ren’Vhan’s arms buckled against the force slightly, and he felt his feet leaving the ground.

The man had gone berserk at the opportunity to seek his long awaited revenge... And Ren'Vhan was not eager to try matching the man in a test of strength.

The Admiral spun around, driving a telekinetic wedge into the building before he slammed into it, tearing a hole in its wall before coming into a rolling as he landed, and jumping out the window and into the street beyond it putting the building between himself and the raging Jensaarai.

The cyborg effortlessly leapt to the building's roof as Ren’Vhan kept his eyes on him. He could see prospective blaster fire coming from the palace courtyard as the commandos sought to hit whatever had dropped Ren’Vhan’s weapon from above, but he could sense that Kreia had cleared the area when they were too distracted trying to shoot him. “Kreia, how much longer until the Invidious is at safe altitude?” he demanded.

“If you can hold them off for 15 minutes, the Invids should be clear,” came her reply. “Are you going to be okay down there?”

Valor leapt down from the building and squared off with Ren’Vhan. The sounds of people fleeing the combat zone could be heard. “I’ll answer you in fifteen minutes.”

--------------------------------------

"Don't worry about the cloaked ship," Iunha commanded the commandos as she got up from the Cathar's side. "See if there is anything you can do about the Invidious' launch!" Spotting the squad's medic, she gestured the man over, "See if you can't do anything about this woman's injuries."

Uthierav and Faltouna were running up, Valor's son wore a worried expression. "Why did my father go berserk like that just now?"

"That man is an Inquisitor," she said informatively. "The one who killed your father's family while he was still young."

She could sense the hateful aura coming off of Valor off in the distance. "Come on, we have to calm your father down before he does something he'll regret."

She then sprinted out into the streets of the city. It was easy to sense where the two force sensitives were, Valor's anger called to her like a furious beacon. A cloud of fear surrounded them as residents fled in fear. As she ran along one of the streets, she saw the upper floor of one of the shops had been partially demolished. It was easy to see why people would be fearful.

She looked back and caught the concerned eye of Valor's son. "Is this what it feels like when someone is falling," he asked.

She couldn't bear to answer him, but he deserved to know just how serious the situation had become, and so she answered with a nod. As she came upon an alley, she felt danger ahead and stopped short as the inquisitor flew through the air backwards, rolling backwards on his feet when they met the ground, and finishing the roll upright with one of his gloved hands tearing into the rusty soil of the ground to aid in slowing his momentum before slamming into a wall behind him.

She felt the apprentices try to advance on the man but held her arms out to halt them as Valor came running through the alley, his lightsaber held firmly in both hands prepared for a strong horizontal attack. The move having been forecasted so far in advanced, it was no surprise the the Inquisitor dodge it effortlessly by jumping in a high flip overhead.

Valor spun around while the momentum of his charge kept him going towards the wall that his quarry had previously been backed up against. With a thrust of his hands, Iunha sensed a great burst of force energy launch from it towards the airborne opponent, who crossed his arms protectively over his chest and face as the wave of force struck him, launching him further into the air. Into the direction of one of commandos that were approaching the Invid dock. She looked back towards Valor as he began to sprint after the Inquisitor once more.

"This is bad," she shouted aloud as she began to run after the rampaging Jensaarai. "He's become too focused... He can't see beyond himself and K-blade killer!" She cursed that man in her mind. From the beginning of his renewed engagement with Valor, he had been avoiding a match of strength, instead allowing himself to be knocked back by his foe's strikes, conserving his own strength, avoiding injury and depleting Valor's stamina. She could also sense that the man was withholding his telepathic illusions during the fight. Certainly in his present, Valor should be susceptible to it, so why was the man holding back.

She then suddenly found herself able to sense the Inquisitor's force presence. Up ahead, Valor increased his speed as his fury flared, and Iunha was no longer able to keep up. She watched helplessly as the cyborg disappeared around the corner. "There's nothing we can do for those commandos," she declared as she turned around. "Come, we have to get to the other groups before the Inquisitor reaches them."

The two apprentices stopped and nodded. Uthierav immediately turned around and began to make her way to another squad. Faltouna hesitated a moment, a sorrowful look on his face before he turned around and followed Uthierav.

For her part, Iunha spared a regretful glance in the direction of her raging comrade before continuing on after the apprentices."

---------------------------

Ren'Vhan twisted his body in the air as he approached the Republic commandos, allowing him. To deflect the shots coming from the men below. He sensed that Valor was still hot on his heels so he had to make this quick. As he landed atop one or the troopers, he rolled and spun, taking the legs of one man and cut through the torso of another. Continuing his spin as he got on his feet, he deflected the blaster shot of one man into the squad captain beside him. He turned to the side and saw a man prepare a rocket launcher, aiming squarely at him. He projected imagery into the other trooper's mind making him believe that Ren'Vhan had moved between the last two troopers as the heavy trooper pulled the trigger, letting the rocket fly. Turning the other way, Ren'Vhan nudged the rocket towards the other commando as he let loose a burst of blaster fire at the Illusion, passing through it and into the man who laughed the rocket. The rocket continued on it's altered course and into the chest of the last soldier still standing, the man vanishing in a magnificent bloom of fire.

Ren'Vhan gestured his hands, forming a weak telekinetic wedge between himself and the explosion, the concussion struck him lightly as pieces of the rocket's casing grazed his leg, causing him to wince slightly. He sensed his time was up and leapt back as the cyborg came crashing down where the Admiral had been standing just moments before.

The Admiral smiled as he turned and sprinted off as his opponent recovered from his landing. He could sense the man was finding strength in the Dark Side, but it was also weakening him as well... He could sense that the Jensaarai's mental barriers had all but collapsed. But Ren'Vhan didn't dare resort to his preferred methods yet. If he didn't use it at the right time, he risked snapping the man back to his senses, which was when he would be a greater danger to the fleeing Inquisitor. He was beginning to wonder why he ever worried about the man becoming enraged in the first place.

He went on to sensing the other commandos and the remaining Jensaarai. He could sense them grouping up, now, and it was evident that they figured out his objective. That was going to make things tricky. He glanced back at Valor still chasing furiously... Still susceptible to his manipulations. "That's what I'll have to do."

He reached into the man's mind as he rapidly approached the second group of troopers.

-------------------

"Here he comes," shouted Iunha as she stood in the middle of the six commandos lined up in a firing line. The apprentices stood at either end of the line, their lightsabers ready. She saw a sheet of durasteel peel away from a wall in the alley just as the Inquisitor rounded the corner. Blaster fire filled the alley as the man ran through, using telekinesis to keep the makeshift barrier between himself and the soldiers, absorbing he shots that were otherwise meant for him.

With a shout, the soldiers adjacent to her dived to the sides as she jumped, avoiding the piece of sheet metal as it tumbled by.

The Inquisitor had jumped as well, thrusting at her from his side wih a sweeping motion with his unique weapon. She deflected the strike with her own weapon, her weapon jerking as it ran along the grooves of the man's main blade. He continued his sweeping at her until the crossguard met the woman's iridescent blade, jerking her arms to the side. She saw the red energy blade making up the handguard in the center of the shaft and realised that it was just as much an offensive blade as it was protective when he started pivoting his weapon around to bring the central blade towards her face. She brought her leg up and kicked herself away, his swing accelerating quickly as the iridescent blade came clear of the crossguard and main blade, the tip of the opposing main blade grazing her mask.

As the two landed, the Inquisitor brought his weapon into a vertical position, stabbing down into one of the soldiers who had dodged the sheet metal before he could bring his weapon up on his assailant. He began to lean back as an angry aura began to fill the air and leapt back and to his right. As he did so, Valor came sprinting through the alley, practically ignoring the Inquisitor who brought his lightsaber staff up to deflect blaster fire from the other five troopers as the two apprentices moved to either side of him. The Togruta felt a sense of dread as the man wound an arm back for a swing and she realized that the Inquisitor had latched a powerful illusion of the man, making him believe Iunha was his foe. She side stepped the first blow and brought up her lightsaber as Valor spun into a second strike, causing both her arms to jerk under the force and pushing her back a short distance. With a short step back, she brought her arm up to bring her lightsaber into a horizontal block as Valor came down with a vertical swing. Her arms stung under the strain of the forceful blows, and she could appreciate the strength that the man’s prosthesis afforded him.

She heard Faltouna call out for his father to stop, and saw him beginning to approach, but the Inquisitor took advantage of the reduced pressure that the second assailant placed on him, and pressed an advantage against Uthierav, first striking her lightsaber with a main blade, then thrusting forward until the cross-guard struck it, then reversing his swing to yank her lightsaber away from a protective posture as the other main blade came towards her, forcing her to roll away from the attack.

Iunha blocked a horizontal strike from Valor, and spun away from the follow-up thrust before pleading for her hallucinating foe, “Valor, please hear me, that man is fooling with your senses!”

Replying with a growl, he took another mighty swing as Iunha braced herself against it’s power, the lightsabers howled as he struck and the Togruta felt something give in her arms as she was flung back into the entrance of a nearby building, her head jerking forward as her montral struck the ceiling over it and sending a sharp pain through her mind. Looking up as her vision became fuzzy, she could see Valor no longer looking her way as he lunged off somewhere else… into the direction of the apprentices engaged with the Inquisitor. She struggled to get back up to her feet, stumbling in a daze.

-----------------------------

She could recognize the Inquisitor’s incorporation of Shien and Ataru techniques into his fighting style. He kept his movement minimal when he was deflecting the strikes from the two apprentices. Whenever one would make a motion for better positioning, he’d strike with a strong blow to imbalance the one he was presently engaged against and immediately dash around, or flip over the recovering combatant to keep the two of them in front of him at all times. Earlier, he had used his acrobatic skills of repositioning to kill two more of the commandos before Reinsal called the other two to withdraw from the fight.

Faltouna made a vertical strike down towards the Inquisitor as Uthierav simultaneously did so with one of her own lightsabers, the two striking down on both blades of the Inquisitor’s weapon. Her offhand remained free and she attempted a thrust underneath her opponent’s weapon, prompting him to leap back a short distance, their weapons screeching as they parted once more.

“You two are going to keep trying that until it works aren’t you,” came their opponent’s voice as his darted from one to the other.

Uthierav thought more on how to break the man’s defenses. While training under the Jedi, she had the opportunity to train against lightsaber staves, and back then the concept was simple, if you can’t break their defense, break their weapon. But this man’s weapon deviated from the basic concept of a staff significantly enough to make it it’s own class. The crossguard blades had demonstrated a marked improvement in the ability to control her own weapons if he thrusted and twisted got get his weapon to grip her blades, and the hand guard protected a significant portion of the shaft… not to mention that the metal used to construct it had proven resilient to direct strikes the few times she was able to achieve them on the braces for the hand guard.

She glanced over to Faltouna… the other apprentice made probing stabs at the Inquisitor, seeing if he could provoke the man to over-react and create an opening for Uthierav to take advantage of. For his part, the Inquisitor gently deflected the blade tip, neither considering it a serious threat, but neither willing to give the apprentice an opportunity for a clean stab at him. Uthierav walked, trying to get around the man, or force his back against the nearby wall. When she was on the opposite of the man from her fellow Jensaarai, she struck with her left saber with a downward slash, prompting the man to pivot his staff to deflect the blow to the side. Faltouna came in with a two handled horizontal slash as he stepped in, but was stopped short as the Inquisitor’s leg came up, glancing the blade and deflecting it upward as the foot struck the young man in his chest, knocking him back and to the floor.

The Dathomirian surged forward, hoping to take advantage of the man’s reduced footing from the kick, swinging in low with her right hand. Pivoting the staff while recovering from the kick, he was able to bring the staff to block the low blow, and kicked back as the handguard blade began to fade, exposing the center of the staff.

Uthierav stepped back as she prepared her strike, then leapt forward as she brought both her blades into a vertical swing as she spun her body. As she did so, she saw the Inquisitor smile as he thrust the hilt of his weapon upward to meet the blow. Both blades struck the shaft, but failed to cut through as the man stepped forward himself. She smiled herself as she felt the man was playing right into her hand as he pivoted around her, and started to shove her against the wall.

“It shouldn’t take long,” she thought to herself as she focused on the ultrachrome shaft. She sensed Faltouna getting back up and preparing for his own strike against their opponent. The weapon’s shaft started to turn red, then orange against the heat of the two lightsabers against it. When it turned yellow, she felt victory was inevitable as she looked up to meet the man’s eyes when a voice filled her head.

“It isn’t that simple,” came that man’s voice, though his lips did not move. Suddenly she was aware that the man’s weapon hilt had suddenly turned back to it’s original lustrous appearance as he glanced to the side towards the advancing young man. A wave of dust blew his direction, and the man was knocked back when it met him. He then looked back towards the woman, and she felt a hand in the center of her chest, and then an enormous stinging sensation struck her as her breath left her, before she felt something slam against her back… no, she had slammed against something, she realized when her head jerked back from the momentum and struck the same wall she had been backed against.

The man took a step back as the pale woman slid down against the wall, but she didn’t hold his attention as he turned to meet a renewed offensive from Faltouna, and just as his comrade had done, he struck down against the ultrachrome shaft. Uthierav struggled to find the words, to warn him… “no…” she said weakly. “It… won’t work…”

Hearing her warning, Faltouna tried to pull away with a backwards leap, but a jolt struck his arm as though something yanked on his lightsaber blade. He looked at where it met the Inquisitor’s weapon… the handguard had reactivated, and his blade was caught. The old man twisted the shaft downwards, pinching the young man’s lightsaber blade between the ultrachrome shaft and the handguard blade, preventing the Jensaarai from sliding the blade free.

Faltouna struggled against the man’s superior leverage over his blade. The man before suddenly furled his brows menacingly as he stepped forward, pulling his staff up, and Faltouna’s blade along with it, twisting his body as he raised one of his legs, and kicked down into the younger man’s thigh, dropping him to his knees. With a yank, he forced the Jensaarai’s blade to the side and let go with his left hand, bringing it to the kneeling foe’s shoulder and focused a blast of telekinetic energy into it, dislocating it and knocking him to the ground.

Faltouna let out a short pained scream but did not lose his grip on his weapon. He forced his body to twist and slid it down the length of the hand guard that entrapped the blade, jerking the older man momentarily. At last, he relinquished his weapon, and leapt into a tack from his kneeling position, knocking the Inquisitor off his feet before the two came crashing to the ground. He heard the two weapons clatter to the ground nearby as Faltouna balled his hands up into fists as he sat up on the older man. The Inquisitor crossed his arms high over his head defensively as the young Jensaarai wound up for his first punch. Noting that his opponent’s face lay exposed, he knew where his first punch was aimed as he heard Uthierav shout suddenly, “Valor… NO!!!”

----------------------------------------

Ren’Vhan lay on his back in the dirt with the young man on top of him, intent on punching him into submission. He heard the young woman shout “Valor… NO!!!” and saw the young human try to turn… but he had hardly rotated his head ten degrees before a yellow beam cut through him from the top of his head to the bottom of his neck before the blade was stopped by the ultrachrome gloves that Ren’Vhan was protecting himself with. His arms stung from the force, and a bit of wind was knocked from his lungs, but otherwise, he was okay.
Valor on the other hand… He could sense what the Jensaarai cyborg was suddenly realising, that he was seeing the vision of the illusory Ren’Vhan fading into a mist, replaced by the back of the young man’s head, cut in two by his own hand.

He could sense the disbelief, the emptiness in his mind born from the shock. The Dathomirian had fallen forward, having attempted to step forward to try to black the cyborg’s strike, to snap him to his senses… something… anything. But now she looked on with a shocked expression.

Feeling the heat on the back of his hands, the Admiral decided it was time to pull out as he shoved back with both his hands, forcing the lightsaber off his gloves as he quickly absorbed the thermal energy that filled them and held his hands out towards the warm corpse atop him, sending a strong wave of energy outward, knocking the body back against the shocked cyborg and knocking him back.

“Kreia… open the rear entry hatch,” he commanded mentally as he rolled over and got up on his feet. He glanced back and saw his weapon still on the ground, but he had used up his absorbed energy on that last force wave. He considered momentarily going back to retrieve it but when he saw the Togruta stumble into the street, he decided against it. He looked forward as blaster bolts zipped by him, the three surviving soldiers had rejoined the fray. He cursed under his breath as he sensed out Kreia’s location. He climbed a stack of crates and jumped to the roof of a small building as he spun around, intercepting a bolt of energy with his glove. Before he could reach out to retrieve his weapon, he saw the commander of the soldiers firing a rocket off in his direction. With a sweeping gesture, the rocket veered downward and struck the ground twenty meters from the soldiers, knocking them back.

Glancing back, he could see the Togruta was now full on sprinting before he turned back around and continued running. He made a leap to a higher roof and ran along the rooftop, before leaping off the end towards an empty courtyard. Then he was suddenly surrounded by darkness as he reached forward, grasping the ledge of a ramp as it hung down from the back of the B28 Extinction. He struggled to pull himself up, his arms worn from the prolonged fighting, but when he got fully up on the ramp, he felt the ship begin to move. He pulled himself up into the entryway as a wave of anguished feelings washed over him. Valor finally came to grips with what he had done. Didn’t matter to Ren’Vhan… Valor should have learned his lesson about letting his anger ruin his focus when they first met six decades ago. He was actually surprised to see that boy survived his injuries.

He pushed a button next to the doorway and shut the hatch as he struggled to get around the BARC. That it’s front was pointed inward meant it couldn’t be latched properly, but he couldn’t complain. It meant that Kriea spared no time getting the ship underway, and he could be proud of that. He activated only two of the six ground latches, everything else wasn’t aligned properly and then made his way to the front.

Popping open the door, he was met with the gaze of a young blue skinned woman with violet and white feathery crest on her head wrapped up in a Wampa fur coat as her seat was turned sideways. Kreia’s voice came from the unseen pilot’s seat further up, “Sorry Admiral… it’s a little crowded up here.”

He raised an eyebrow before shutting the door again and leaning up against it with his back. “Just get us to the Invidious… they better not have left the Sand-Serpent down there.”

-------------------------------------------

Valor cried into the air as he held the lifeless body of his son as Iunha approached. She wished dearly to be able to console him, but knew it would be in vain. Reinsal came walking along with the agent who cradled his own arm, likely injured when his weapon had been destroyed. A medic was flashing a light into Uthierav’s eyes checking for signs of a concussion. They had lost seven soldiers. One man lost a leg, another unconscious from the other group of soldiers. And Faltouna… his father’s blade cut down through one of his eyes, his other still wide open as though himself shocked by the outcome. Tears ran down from his father’s organic eye as he stared up into the sky.

As the medic stepped away from her, Uthierav looked over at the ultrachrome shaft beside her and grabbed it loosely. Her eyes struggling to focus still as she examined it, her head still throbbing. And nearby, Faltouna’s lightsaber hilt lay abandoned in the rusty grit of the Rud-Ibasl street.

It then struck the Togruta that ultimately, they had achieved nothing. The Invidious escaped, as did Leonia Tavira. Her mysterious new force-wielding allies had both vanished along with her, one of them the infamous K-Blade Killer from the era of Imperial control over Susevfi… they couldn’t even catch the Hutt that had been sheltering them. All that loss of life, for nothing. Iunha then fell to her knees weakly prompting concerned shouts from the surviving troopers as they rushed to her side.

 

Well, I don't know about the Jedi but they've certainly ensured that the Jensaarai will hunt them down with everything they've got. Of course, there aren't that many Jensaarai. Still. Making friends and influencing people there. And apparently carrying around very distinctive murder weapons, in Ren'Vhan's case.

Interesting action scenes and good use of all these various combatants as they beat the stuffing out of each other. Poor Faltouna. That's got to be an awful way to go, and it's made grimmer still by the evidence that Valor's reaction will probably be the last thing he would have wanted. Valor doesn't strike me as having much in the way of coping mechanisms... "kill more things" seems all too likely of a response to his grief. Interesting that he just happened to already have a grievance against Ren'Vhan. I don't see him letting go of that case any time soon.

Leshran was put in carbonite by a Hutt? I wonder how that happened. It explains a lot.

 

Leshran sat up on the hospital bed as the medical droid continued to analyze her vital signs, most of its sensors focusing around her heart. The pain in her chest had subsided, but only after her heart rate had begun to slow. She could sense Ren’Vhan’s presence aboard the ship, having arrived ten minutes earlier in the secondary launch bay as near she could tell. From their last telepathic conversation, she knew he was furious”. A nearby door slid open, allowing the entry of the aging Leonia Tavira and a pair of soldiers. Her face twisted into a scowl.

“Could you explain to me why you had to leave Ren’Vhan back there alone,” inquired the Invid leader angrily. “Had we lost him, I’d be right back at square one.”

The medical droid turned around, “I apologize for the interruption Mistress, but the patient has suffered injury to all her heart valves…”

Raising an eyebrow, Leonia turned towards the droid, “Are you saying she was forced to withdraw through no fault of her own.”

“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t at fault,” admitted the young woman as she looked down at the floor. “I tried to use a technique that I hadn’t mastered yet, and that’s where the damage came from.”
“You’re right,” came Ren’Vhan’s voice as the door slid shut behind him… his own face twisted into an angered expression. “That you are aware of the inherent risks of full inertial reversal, I’d wager that Toluhm warned you of them when he taught it to you.” The male Admiral strode up to the side of her bed and raised his left hand, and slapped Leshran hard enough to leave a stinging sensation on her right cheek.

Before she could bring her face back around wearing her shocked expression, Ren’Vhan had already turned around and made his way back towards the door. She could already tell he wasn’t going to listen to any protests she had right now. “I guess we’ll discuss it later,” she said softly.

“You just focus on recovering, Leshran,” he replied. He then turned his head slightly, “We aren’t unquestioningly loyal servants of the Emperor anymore… try to think for yourself… and of yourself.”
“For now, rest, the fighting’s done,” commanded the older woman as she stepped towards the door after the other Admiral.
Leshran nodded as she reached towards her cheek with her hand, feeling the sting from Ren’Vhan’s strike, wrapping her mind on his last bit of advice.

---------------------

Leonia walked down the halls of the Invidious with Ren’Vhan at her side. He was still in his smuggler disguise, in spite of his strike on the young woman, she could tell he was concerned enough for her well being to have not bothered to change into more formal attire after arriving on board. According to the young Hand’s initial account after arriving at the Docking Bay, he had used telekinesis to move the last remaining running vehicle at the courtyard to her to allow her an escape.

Before she could put her suspicions into words, Ren’Vhan gave her the answer, “Yes, I’ve been told I treat some of the people I train like they were my own children… Leshran is one such individual.”

Tavira let out an exasperated sigh, “I’m gonna have to ask you not answer my thoughts like that… Some of the Jensaarai used to do and I found it disturbing to be constantly reminded that someone is poking around in my brain.”

“Given your reputation, I feel justified in ‘poking around’ in your brain,” he said with a harsh tone.

“Afraid you’ll wake up being serviced with vibroknife acupuncture,” she remarked sarcastically. “You don’t have anything to fear, I never killed anybody that I still needed.”

“That’s very reassuring,” he replied, his own tone hinting at sarcasm.

Leonia smiled wickedly as she countered, “Besides, you hold a much better hand than I if Leshran’s description of your fleet is accurate.” Stepping out in front as she spun around with her arms held out as if to gesture at everything around them, “All I have is this… a single ImpDeuce, and its crew.” She then pointed to her fellow admiral. “But you… Seven Venators, nine Victory-Deuces, twelve Acclamators and a host of support craft… all equipped with experimental tech, not to mention the hundreds of force sensitives you have amongst your crews… how could I possibly threaten you and your fleet with only the Invidious to my name.”

“You fail to realize just how powerful you are,” remarked Ren’Vhan. “Your name alone commands respect, the legend of the Invidious remains an object of great admiration among those pirates that remain in force.” As he caught up with the woman, he looked her squarely in the eye, “Most would join you in a heartbeat if only you would give them the word.”

As he walked past, Leonia thought a moment, “You’re afraid I’d reform my pirate coalition and try to threaten you into submission afterwards… aren’t you?”

Raising a hand in affirmation, “That’s exactly the issue.”

“Well then… you’ll just have to take a chance with me then,” she replied as she started walking once more. “But for now, my first concern is finding a new port for my ship.”

“No, you first concern will be to rendezvous with my fleet,” he said.

“Ready to jump ship,” she said disappointedly.

“No, I’m willing to take a risk with you… like you, I’ve been itching to become relevant in the Galaxy once again,” he said, dismissing her accusation of cowardice. “I’m going to have to get you to familiarise my crews with your methods first… as well as gather the extra help I’ll be needing to train a sufficient number of precogs to carry out your ambitious designs.”

At this moment, a Pantoran stepped out of a doorway along the side of the hall dressed in a Imperial Lieutenant's uniform with a small datapad in her hand, “I downloaded the astrogation charts as per your request,” she reported dutifully. “Are we really going to let them go to the Beacon?”

“That’s right… but first we’ll group up with Yanvo at the edge of the Y’Toub system,” he replied. He then turned to Leonia, “But make no mistake, you start plotting behind my back…”

“And you’ll resort to old Imperial Doctrine,” she said with a smile. “I’ve nothing to fear then.” As they stepped into a waiting turbolift at the end of the hallway.

Ren’Vhan turned around and saw that the Omwati girl had been following just behind Kreia, wearing one of his lieutenants spare uniforms, apparently slightly too large on the avian girl. He turned his eye to Kreia who raised an eyebrow to him as the door shut behind them. “After the catcalls the guys in the hangar gave us, you really expected me to leave her alone there?”

He let out a sigh as Leonia laughed. “Who is she anyways,” inquired Leonia Tavira.

“No clue… can’t even read her mind… she doesn’t even know the Galactic Standard… must have been freshly plucked from Omwat,” he answered, just as confused himself. “I’ll know more when we get back to Beacon and get the girl together with Zu Shaule.”

The lift rapidly reached the bridge level and opened up, revealing a short corridor before the bulkheads separating the turbolift shafts from the ship’s bridge and other critical command rooms. Leonia stepped out first, with Ren’Vhan and his companions following. “Now I heard you mention Y’Toub, you got business with the Hutts?”

“Indeed I do, they recently uncovered resources I am particularly interested in and I’m quite eager to negotiate a trade agreement with them over a steady supply of it,” he explained. “I’ve already made arrangements to have someone speak with them on my behalf, but they’ll need to have their memories restored in order to remember our deal.”

“You’re talking about the Violet Ray, right,” inquired the Pantoran.

“Yeah, I left the Mandalorian’s memory intact, she could walk away from questioning by Imperials without question, feign looking for another contract, and return to the Violet Ray when it was ready to head back to Nar Shadaa,” Ren’Vhan explained. “She could guide the ship to the rendezvous we had arranged and I can set the rest of their crew’s memories straight.”

As the doorway to the bridge opened, Leonia stroked her chin; “erasing memories to prevent discovery… along with your ability to communicate telepathically… what other neat tricks do you know?”

“I’ll have time to explain that in greater detail in the future,” he replied as he gestured towards the crew pit. “Kreia, hook the datapad up.”

Turning towards Leonia expectantly, she was already in the midst of doing what he wanted her to do as she shouted to the crew, “Prepare all hands for Hyperspace Jump… destination, the Y’Toub System.” She then gestured towards the Astrogator as Kreia came up beside him. “Let the Pantoran set the coordinates… and make gunnery aware that we are not to fire upon vessels that we may encounter.”

“Madam, we’re serving as a taxi for a Hutt,” complained one of the crewmen in the portside pit.

Ren’Vhan raised an eyebrow, “You brought the Hutt on board?”

“I never killed anybody I still needed… he’s been a great source for cheap fuel, you should talk to him,” she replied.

A deep voice came from behind him, raspy and accompanied by a slimy sound as it drew near from behind, prompting them to turn around. While small for a Hutt he’s met, the Inquisitor was still impressed that he had managed to fit in the Turbolifts. The Hutt crept across the floor as he gestured his arms angrily towards the Omwati before pointing to Ren’Vhan angrily, prompting Leonia to chuckle before explaining “Rujidan… if not for him, you and I would be dead… or worse, rotting slowly for the remainder of our lives in a Republic jail. I think even a prize slave such as her is a small price to pay for our safety and freedom.”

The Hutt rolled its eyes and turned around as it continued on ranting to itself.

“Pay him no mind, he’ll be reasonable when he’s calmed down from this whole affair,” she explained.

“Coordinates set Admirals,” came Kreia’s voice in the pit. The Invid Astrogator turned around to look at Ren’Vhan in the face in confusion, “Are you certain you want to go there, that’s a good 9 lighthours from any civilized world in the system.”

“Yes, I’m certain,” he explained. “I want our rendezvous with the smugglers I made arrangements with to go unnoticed, it’s why I picked a place so far from prying eyes.”

“Yes sir,” came the young man’s reply as he spun back around to his station.

Another man called into a microphone “All hands prepare for hyperspace jump… Destination… Destiny.”

Ren’Vhan felt a wave of excited emotion sweep over him as every crewman in the ship heard the announcement. A little more dramatic than he’d have done for an announcement, but it wasn’t just to prepare the men for a hyperspace jump. It was to rouse the spirits of the men aboard… and it certainly achieved that.

“It’ll take us about Twenty-Six standard hours to arrive” the Astrogator informed the Admirals.

Kreia held out her fingers as she counted down to herself. As she reached the end of her personal countdown, Ren’Vhan turned around and began to make his way to the doors, “I’m going to head on back to the hangar.”

“I’ll keep you informed if anything comes up Admiral Vhan,” replied Kreia as she climbed on out of the crew pit. As he vanished behind the sliding doors, she looked towards Leonia. “He likes working on ships during lengthy hyperspace jumps… he can’t explain it, almost an instinct to him I guess.”

“I’ve heard that some people have odd habits to cope with long trips in hyperspace… at least his can be productive,” mused the remaining Admiral. She then called out to her crew, “Okay men, you heard Brenson, I’ll want a shift change in six hours… the next shift takes over for eight.”

“Yes Ma’am,” came their collective response as she stepped out, gesturing towards Kreia, “In the mean time, you and I can have a little chat in my quarters.” She glanced over at the violet and white plumed girl standing beside the Pantoran, “You can bring the bird with you.”

--------------------------------

A young man with blonde hair entered the hangar, still groggy from waking up, his face still rough from the stubble on his chin and cheeks. He had be allowed to sleep when the alert was rescinded upon their hyperspace jump, and he welcomed the comfort of his bed over waiting on standby in the seat of his Tri-Fighter. Still, a course adjustment lingered ahead, and Pike Squadron was expected to be on standby in case any pirates were waiting there to ambush unwary travellers. While doubtful that a ragtag band of pirates would engage an Impstar Deuce, the Invidious didn’t last this long by being careless. Up ahead, he spotted the other pilots of his squadron standing around the strange new ship that had landed itself in the hangar shortly before the Invidious left Rud-Ibasl’s atmosphere.

He could understand their curiosity towards the ship, he hadn’t seen anything quite like it before it floated in and landed across the hangar opening from his Clutch. He forced his way through the crowd of pilots and turned around, holding his arms out as he shouted out, “Okay guys… we got a job to do. Get into your ships, and make sure the support crews have your ships ready and standby for launch orders.”

He heard a few protests as they wanted to get a closer look at the new ship as the Pike Leader let out a deep sigh.

The old crew chief remained as he continued to look on in wonder at the strange ship.

“Hey Chekr,” came the pilot’s voice. “My ship ready for take off.”

Chekr let out a short chuckle, “Didn’t get the memo? The spare is ready for you to launch Charlton.”

“Wait… the spare?” he shouted in exasperation. “What do you mean I’m flying the spare?” He looked across the Hangar opening to look upon his own fighter. He could see a man sitting on a repulsorlift board just beneath the cockpit ball, a portion of the hull armor laying on the floor nearby, along with a mess of wires. “Hey… you,” he shouted out angrily as he made his way around the hangar. “What the hell are you doing to my fighter!"

With a tap of a button the board lowered and tilted, righting the man and putting his feet to the floor as he pushed himself say from it. "I can ask you the same thing," came the man's reply as he wiped his hands with a loose rag.

"I don't recognize you... Who are you" Charlton demanded.

"Admiral Ren'Vhan... Leona's guest, and thoroughly disgusted with your fighter," the man explained. He pointed to the base of one of the wings, "Never flew in an atmosphere without your shields... I can tell because if you did, rolling any more than ten degrees to starboard in seventy-five percent standard atmosphere would tear your port wing off its struts, and your last thought would be whether or not you could keep your lunch down before you hit the dirt."

Charlton's eyes narrowed on the man, "okay, it may have some bad welds."

"If only that were the only issue," retorted the Admiral as he gestured towards the wires piled beneath the cockpit ball. "You got half a kilometer of pointless wiring in there... Connecting to nothing in particular. Not even serving as redundant power sources for your critical systems... It's like you removed modules and was too lazy to go in and remove the wiring, and too dense to hook them up to your new systems."

"But I was..." Charlton began explaining before Ren'Vhan shushed him.

"You were gonna get around to it eventually, right" stated the Admiral, not at all amused. "Like you were gonna get together with Chekr over there to fix the power bleeding issue with your shield generator months ago?"

Charlton was now speechless as Ren'Vhan shook his head in disappointment at the young man. He then waves the blonde pilot off, dismissing him, "Go get into your squadron's spare... It's more combat ready than this funeral pyre waiting to happen was." With that the old man backed up against the repulsor board and hit a button, letting it sweep him up and laying him on his back as he pulled himself back to the opening at the bottom of the cockpit ball.

Shaking off his initial shock, Charlton turned around and approached the spare clutch, bringing his helmet over his head and snapping the life support hoses into place before climbing a ladder to the cockpit entry hatch set off to the side. He looked back at his personal fighter as he saw a small cylinder crash to the floor beneath it, sending a pang of anger through the young man.

"Don't worry," came the crew chief's voice over the comm's unit in the helmet. "Your old girl will be fine, the man knows what he's doing if he got that ancient Galactic War bomber into flying condition."

Letting out a sigh, Charlton replied frustratedly, "The Civil war may be old news but I'd hesitate on calling anything from it 'ancient'."

"Kiddo... I was talking about the war that took place three-thousand years ago."

"Wait... What?"

"Hey lead..." came another voice over the link. "You see the two cute girls that came with them?"

He recalled that he had seen two women in the cockpit of the old ship as it landed, they certainly weren't dressed like pilots, and he could hardly call what the Pantoran was wearing at the time 'clothing.' As he began to speak a voice came into his head, feminine and threatening, "Don't you dare tell them what you saw."

"Alright, was that you Sasha," he remarked.

"What was me," came the reply through his headset.

"No, it was me..." Came the voice in his head again. "You know... You can hardly call what I was wearing 'clothing'?"

His eyes widened in shock, and he barely suppressed the urge to shout.

Sasha came in over the channel again, "you okay their captain?"

"Ah... Yes... Rough night sleeping," he said as he shut his eyes, trying more to convince himself than his squadron mates.

He let out a deep breath to calm his nerves, until the voice came again, "by the way... I think my commander would like a word with you when you are done sitting standby."

He shook his head trying to dismiss the voice. He began to try to rationalize it, too much sleep? Too little... Perhaps it was a case of hyper-rapture... He knew he shouldn't have been staring out of the hangar bay during hyperspace travel. He then heard a knock on the transparisteel viewport of the clutch, prompting him to open his eyes. Ren'Vhan was sitting on the repulsorboard just in front of Charlton's cockpit... The man's face a grin. He heard the man's voice once again, but his lips unmoving, "Takes more than a passing glimpse of a speck of space and time stretched before you to induce rapture there son.

------------------

"I can in fact confirm that Captain Charlton is a sensitive," announced Kreia proudly as she opened her eyes. "It takes considerably less effort to establish telepathy with a sensitive than it does a non-sensitive."

Smiling, Leonia leaned back as an announcement rang though the ship, announcing the Invidious arrival at the hyperspace relay point as it ended the jump. "He had a natural talent for flying, always seemed unnatural to me, like he saw things coming that he shouldn't."

Kreia stretched out her arms as she let off a yawn. "Well, I'm about to crash and burn... Got any spare quarters I could use?"

Leonia tapped a nearby panel before she issues an order, "Lieutennant Putrin, could you make arrangements for rooms for our guests... Set the girls' next door to The Admiral's if you can."

The door slid open as a tall muscular Cathar man stepped through, gesturing the Pantoran follow. When they looked back at the Omwati, they saw she had already crawled under the covers of Leonia's bed.

"Leave her be," Leonia said as she stood up. "I really need to be on the bridge anyways."

"Yes ma'am," replied the Cathar as he stood off to the side of the door. His eyes fell upon the Pantoran as she got up, "if you would follow me?"

Kreia smiled, "I didn't realise that pirates could be so polite."

Chuckling at first and then laughing, Admiral Tavira could barely respond, "he's the only one with any sense of class."

-------------------

Leshran sat alone in the sick bay. Ren'Vhan's words flowed ceaselessly through her mind. Think for herself... And of herself. He was telling her to pursue what she desires, to go after those things she wants, she was sure of this. But what exactly was it that she wants. Credits... No, it wasn't something materialistic... Perhaps it was fame... She wanted to be known perhaps? No, that seemed too empty... And yet it felt close somehow. She thought back to her time training as the Emperor's Hand. Something back then made her happy, and it was neither fame nor fortune. Indeed, most of what she'd have done would never have been known to the greater galaxy.

The vision of a several men and a woman all in red Zeyd-cloth robes standing around her filled her mind, as one of the men lowered his hood before addressing her in a rich, formal voice, "when you are done with your training under us... The Emperor shall guide your actions as finely as he moves his own hand. Through you he will cast his judgement upon the enemies of the Empire from the shadows... You will never know what it is to be wealthy, and your name will never be celebrated for the missions you accomplish... But by your hands... The Hand of the Emperor, shall the course of history be guided."

She smiled to herself... It was simple in her mind now... She wanted nothing more than to have a purpose... To be important. She brought herself to her feet weakly and slowly made her way to the door.

She thought back to the conversation between Leonia and Ren'Vhan, the implications once again setting in. She smiled, if she could help them bring new life to the Invids and the Ghost Fleet... Her legacy would stretch on into eternity.

 

Kreia still felt groggy from waking up just half an hour ago. The cup of caf hadn’t quite kicked in and she couldn’t help stretching her arms in the crowded turbolift as it made its way up to the command deck. It was apparently about the time for a shift change and she managed to get stuck among the replacement shift for the bridge.

“Someone forget to put an hour between waking up and starting their shift,” accused one of the men jokingly.

“You’re the one that tagged along with that new mechanic,” inquired one of the men around her.
One of the women laughed, “That man who showed up in the hangar, I heard he’s actually the Admiral that Leshran was telling Leonia about.”

“What do you know about him,” inquired one of the younger women as the turbolift doors opened up to the bridge level, allowing the crewmen to step out, sweeping the Pantoran up along with them.

She laughed nervously as they showered her with questions, uncertain of what to do, but one caught her attention. “Why’s he so interested in the leader of Pike Squaron?”

“Because Captain Charlton is sensitive to the force,” she replied nonchalantly. That half of the people around them were stopped in their tracks indicated to her that it was a bigger deal than she took it for.

The group stood in silence as several other crewmembers halted and turn around. Only two of them continued on beyond the bulkhead, too lost in their own conversation to care for anything Kreia was speaking about, but she had the undivided attention of the rest of the crew. It remained quiet enough to hear a pin drop until one of them finally asked, “Wait… so he’s like one of those Jensaarai our parents once worked with?”

“Well… to a degree, yes,” she replied. “Though he does lack training to refine his connection to the force. Up to this point he’s only ever tapped into his potential out of instinct.”

One of the women’s eyes grew wide, “If he gets training, would that make him a better pilot?”

Kreia let out a sharp laugh. They had been told stories of the Jensaarai to be sure, but it was apparent that they knew little about the force and the potential of those who could wield it. “Of course it would. Luke Skywalker became a legend as a pilot before he became a proper Jedi afterall.”

She then crossed her arms with a smug smile, “The name ‘Charlton Rutone’ could one day be held up alongside such names as Luke, Wedge and Soontir as one of the greatest pilots to have ever graced the Galaxy.”

“I would certainly hope so” came an aged woman’s voice from the back of the group, prompting the men and women to spin around and stand at attention. “Get to the bridge and relieve your crewmates already.”

The people now excused, immediately rushed past Leonia and through the doorway to the bridge as Kreia stood there before the other admiral. “Yes, I really think he could achieve such a status.”

“Could you… not do that whole ‘answer questions others are thinking’ thing,” responded the older woman.

“Sorry, the Admiral and I do it so freely with the Ghost Fleet crews and Beacon,” replied the Pantoran with a slight smile. “So how’d you get sleep with the Omwati girl in your bed?”

As she turned around to walk past the bulkhead, she replied “caught a few hours of sleep in the old conference room.” She turned to make her way to the Captain’s Quarters. “Just to let you know… I intend to keep Charlton as part of my crew.”

“I doubt Ren’Vhan will argue with you on that,” the Pantoran indicated. “I do imagine however, that he’ll want to get him together with Renten and Dushone to hone his connection with the force and train him to better apply it to his piloting.”

“So he keeps sensitive pilots as well I see,” mused the old woman as she looked back over her shoulder.

Kreia nodded, “Our reliance on Hibridium cloaking systems required a reliance on sensitives for guiding our fleet and directing our guns while effectively blind from our own cloaking devices.”

“I do remember Leshran mentioning that,” replied Leonia as she opened the door.

The Omwati woman was sitting on the floor in front of an array of viewscreens depicting various parts of the ship. Her attention seemed focused on one that was set to one of the hangars.

Leonia stepped in as she spoke out loud, “Ah, good to see you’re awake.”

The young woman stood up, startled by the sudden presence as she spun around to look at the two women.

“No no… it’s okay,” Kreia said softly to calm the other young woman down, prompting Leonia to laugh. The words weren’t important of course… neither could understand the other, but she felt a soft tone would be enough to get the message across.

As the Omwati calmed down after she took a moment to look at the Pantoran’s face, she let out a sigh. She then looked off to the side as she began to think before she looked at the two women and held her hands up, level to her head butt held out wide to either side as she gestured as though grabbing something with her hands and gestured a spinning motion around her head.

Kreia smiled as she observed the woman’s attempts at communicating her request. “Ren’Vhan?”

The Avian woman thought a moment, as if trying to recall her memories, then shook her head with her eyes shut, clearly frustrated.

“Oh… right…” Kreia responded. “He introduced himself to the Hutt as Sivrejan.”

The Omwati girl immediately perked right up at the mention of the alias that Ren’Vhan had used. Kreia gestured for the woman to follow along. “If you’ll excuse me Admiral, I’ll be getting this one out of your hair.”

“That would be much appreciated,” replied Leonia as she walked over to the viewscreens. “Oh, and when you see the Admiral, tell him I’d like him on the bridge before we drop out of hyperspace.

“Will do,” replied the woman as she vanished around the door, with the other blue woman in tow.

“Evuzhi Huun,” she heard the Omwati’s voice. She looked off to the side as the other woman, with an inquiring look on her face as she gestured towards herself with her hand as she repeated the words “Evuzhi Huun.”

After a moment, it clicked in her head, and she pointed at her companion as Kreia said, “Evuzhi Huun,” prompting an excited nod from the Omwati.

After a moment, Evuzhi pointed to Kreia as an attentive look spread across her face. This caused the Pantoran to laugh in spite of herself. “I suddenly feel like a primitive,” she said as she recalled the numerous similar scenes she had watched on holonet shows and movies that involved first contact with primitive cultures. Usually it was the more advanced races that used the combination of gestures and names to exchange identities.

When she looked back at the Omwati woman, she was pointing at her as she repeated “I suddenly…”

“Oh… no no no,” she said as she interrupted the woman. Gesturing towards herself now, she corrected her companion, “Kreia.”

Taking in the correction, Evuzhi repeated “Kreia.” She then let out a smile as she let the Pantoran lead the way into the ship’s tram to the Hangar.

As the stepped aboard, Kreia found herself looking forward to getting the woman to see Zu Shaule. She seemed friendly enough.

-----------------------------------------

Whenever he had it… it was always the same.

The air felt on fire around him, and the ground had turned to liquid fire beneath him. Great bolts of energy rained down from high above, sending up cascades of spark as they struck the molten earth around him. Great pillars of lava reached out into the sky in great, elegant curves. Sharp bolts of pain shot through him, stinging him throughout before the focused on a single point on the surface of his skin before it felt searing, followed by sudden, numbing sting as a bolt of jagged blue light shot out from his skin and into the air around him. Pain wracked his body as it threatened to tear itself apart, so distracted by this pain he would be that he never noticed the moment the great bolts of blue energy ceased. He’d miss the pillars of molten earth cool into dark, jagged spikes that reached until the ends vanished from sight.

Only the pain and the jagged blue streaks would matter… until he could hear the igniting of four lightsaber blades in sequence. Before he could look up to see the source, only ever seeing one blue aura’d blade, he would feel the numb sensation upon the back of his head, the blanking of his mind… and wake up.

He woke up weakly, his mind still feeling numbed from the dream as he looked up from the back seat of his B28. He struggled to recollect his thoughts. He had been given a room, why had he slept in the aged bomber? Ah, he remembered sensing a desire among several pilots to return the favor for his tinkering with some of their uglies. He knew they didn’t fully know what they were doing… he’d seen evidence enough of that when he was tearing their craft apart. They’d thank him enough for putting their ships together the right way whenever they got the chance to fly them… but until then, he knew they’d be spiteful. He’d even put on his Admiral’s uniform to give extra weight to his authority just in case.

Then he was suddenly aware that he had company. He looked off to the left, meeting the eyes of a blue skinned woman with white hair as he raised his hand to shield his eyes from the light. “Who is it,” he called out.

“Had that nightmare again,” inquired the blur. “Admiral, its me… Kreia.”

He shook his head, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision before it all came back to him. “Ah… right… I’m sorry.” He tried to recall the dream he just had, but all he could draw was a blank, only an awareness that he had had it once more, and that it always remained the same. “The nightmare I have so often, and can never remember.”

He then turned towards the young lieutenant as he probed her mind briefly. “I’m wanted on the bridge then… and… you got her name?”

He then shifted forward to look down around Kreia, seeing the Omwati girl. He then gestured towards himself as he set the woman straight on his name, “Ren’Vhan.”

Evuzhi’s expression changed to one of confusion, “Sivrejan je wunah?”

He shook his head before repeating once again, “Ren’Vhan.” He then pointed to the young woman with a smile as he identified her name, pulled from the mind of the Pantoran, “Evuzhi… correct?”

Her eyes widened, impressed that he knew here name before he had apparently been told.

“That’s a dirty way to impress the ladies you know,” commented Kreia.

Ren’Vhan stretched his arms as he let out a long yawn before replying. “Zu Shaule will set her straight eventually. Lets get going though. Yanvo’s been updated on our situation. Brought the Valorous as extra insurance.”

As Kreia climbed down the ladder, she thought on it, “You didn’t warn him I was going to kill him yet, have you?”

“I’ll let you shout at him, maybe a slap, he’s certainly deserved that,” he said laughing as he recalled the skimpy outfit that the blue woman had been forced to wear. “But you may not kill him, the fleet adores you, but they respect him enough to not forgive you of such an action.”

A blush came across her face as she glared at the Admiral, “I won’t hesitate to kill you if you tell anybody about it.”

“I’m nervous enough dealing with one homicidal woman in Leonia… not to mention Zu Shaule finds a new reason to punch me every month. Trust me, I’m not exactly eager to provoke you,” he replied jokingly as he climbed out from the cockpit.

His feet on the ground, he saw hangar erupt with activity as pilots and crew filed in to get the clutches prepped for launch. He never was much a fan of the “Uglies” trend that exploded in popularity in the wake of the Civil War’s conclusion… but he did appreciate the uniformity that could be found in the ‘tri-wing’ configuration of the TIE among the better organized pirate groups. Only a three of the ships he had overhauled were in particularly bad shape. He caught the face of Charlton as he ran by, and he could sense the anxiety in him that Ren’Vhan tinkered with his ship. “That fool will be thanking me soon enough,” he said with a smile. They arrived at the tram station as the next batch of pilots filed out, their insignia patch depicting a trio of long spear like objects jutting out forward from the profile silhouette of the Invidious, indicating their membership in Pike Squadron.

As he stepped into the tram, followed by the two blue ladies, he couldn’t help but be impressed by Leonia’s willingness to spend the extra coin on such a small thing.

“Why do you suppose she’d do that,” inquired Kreia.
“Extra sense of identity for her crews, gives them something to be proud of, reinforces their confidence in her as a commander, letting them believe that she cares enough to regard them as individuals, without actually needing to do so herself on a personal basis,” he explained. “She didn’t command the obedience of her pirate allies back in the day… she commanded their loyalty and respect.”

He then input the commands for the tram to take them directly to the Bridge lifts. “She reached the height of her popularity shortly after one of her allied gangs ran into trouble over Kessel while she and another one of her gangs were engaged on another raid. She left the one group to clean up while she rushed to the aid of her pirates in the Kessel system.” He thought, recalling the reports he received from his remaining intelligence contacts at the time. “She became the poster girl for piracy after that. Pirates across the Galaxy started to migrate towards her sector, hoping to catch her attention and be allowed to join the Invids.” Suddenly chuckling, he recalled, “The Holonet became flooded with holos of her in an apparent recruitment drive by various pirate groups… the New Republic had a vote to ban her likeness from the net to stem the tide of recruitment among impressionable young men and women into criminal organizations.”

Sounds like she became something of a superstar.

“Yeah,” he admitted, feeling a pang of envy. “But she practically fell off the star map shortly thereafter. Rumors had it the Republic finally caught up, or that she had been betrayed… the most popular theory among the holoboards was that piracy had become so easy that she simply grew bored of it.”

“But the truth was simply that she lost a critical piece to her methods apparently,” recalled Kreia as she thought back on the meeting on Rud-Ibasl. She then looked back towards the Admiral, “Have you started contacting your old friends in the Inquisitorius?”
He shook his head, “Calling them friends would be quite the stretch with most of them, among the Inquisitors, I could only consider three of them to be friends.” He then crossed his arms, “To be honest, I’m not trusting enough of Leonia to try to go into meditation here… I’m going to wait until we are back aboard the Rejoice.”

"Alright then sir," she replied as the tram stopped and the door opened up. "Speaking of which, how much longer until we meet back up with them?"

The three stepped out, immediately making their way to the turbolifts. Ren'Vhan pressed the button to go to the bridge. "They'll arrive about ten minutes after we do... No guarantees on the 'Violet Ray's arrival time," he informed the Lieutenant.

As the door opened up to the command deck, Leonia Tavira stood there waiting. "Ah, just who I wanted to see."

"I'm here as requested," he informed her as he stepped out. "Have you ordered your gunners to stand down in the event of a the appearance of a fleet led by Venators?"

"One better, weapons are powered down, shields are up at full strength," she replied. "Also got a stand down order for the smugglers you are expecting."

He was pleased with Leonia's efficiency in spite of her unorthodox entry into her various posts of the authority. The bridge opened up as the a voice echoed through the halls of the ship, "We'll be coming out of hyperspace in ten seconds... Fighter squadrons standby for launch."

Shortly after, the viewports lining the bridge went translucent, revealing the blue haze of hyperspace. The men and women of the bridge crew remained in the pit, but it seemed the previous shift remained on the bridge. A quick glance over their minds revealed that they were eager to see this Ghost Fleet they had heard of from Leshran. Most felt it was unlikely that someone could have kept a fleet not only hidden, but active for all this time.

"She doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut, does she," inquired the Pantoran.

Letting out an exasperated gasp, Ren'Vhan replied simply, "you have no idea."

The blue haze soon turned to streaks, and then pinpoints of the stars. Now it was time to wait. Ren'Vhan shut his eyes, "excuse me a moment... My mind is needed elsewhere for a moment."
------------------------

The Jensaarai women sat there at the edge of the massive docking bay. Large enough to accommodate an Imperial-class star destroyer with room to spare. It was empty now. After the disastrous operation, they had gone back to the shuttles and the fighters, only to find that the ships had been destroyed, and the men left to watch over them had been slain. Once again they had apparently been taken out with a mixture of blasters and lightsaber strikes. By the time they had returned to the smuggler's den, it had been deserted, save for slaves that were apparently considered not to be worth the trouble. The Alliance medics busied themselves with treating the ailments of those who were left behind.

Out in the middle of the empty docking bay, a pillar of smoke rose up from a funeral pyre brought together from bits and pieces of wood pried from where ever it could be found. Uthierav heard an approaching speeder bike, and instinctively looked towards the trench entry to see the intelligence agent riding towards them.

She could sense the news he had wasn't good. Iunha stood up to greet him, as he came to a stop nearby, "you got any word from our scouts?"

"All of them dead, just like the men we left with the ships," he said frustrated. "Thirty-one dead in all." He then looked across to the funeral pyre and the cyborg tending to it. "How's Valor doing?"

"He's devastated," replied Iunha. "I heard the stories about how he ended up that way... One man with a strange weapon butchered him and killed the entirety of his family when he was young."

"Was that smuggler him," the agent asked as he looked on in pity.

Iunha nodded. "Valor's reaction to seeing the weapon, as well as that sense of recognition I felt from the smuggler before his weapon was dropped does suggest he was the K-blade killer."

"I think we were dealing with at least three sensitives here," observed the agent. "The chronos issued for this operation were programmed to stop when vital signs ceased... The men watching the ships were hit at the same time that we were engaged with the K-blade."

"I would up that estimate to four..." replied the Togruta. "I felt a presence above us when the staff was dropped down from above and I doubt Leshran was in any condition to continue fighting."

Uthierav nodded, "We had Leshran, the smuggler and his accomplice in the ship to be sure, but who hit our ships in the midst of all this."

"I'm also interested in finding that out," came a masculine voice from behind the Dathomirian. She spun around to see who had spoken, but saw no one.

Iunha spoke up with concern, "Is something wrong?"

Uthierav looked back to her master, confused but excusing the voice she had heard. "I just thought I might have heard something is all... I'm sorry for worrying you."

"Well... Our primary concern now is going to be getting off this rock," commented a man from behind. They all turned to see the trooper commander walking towards them. "Iunha, your new slicer friend is pulling what info she can from the Hutt's palace, but according to the Cathar woman, it's not going to be much... His critical files are going to be in that throne of his, so I'm afraid our trail is going to go cold."

The Togruta let out a deep sigh as she turned back towards Valor. "We won't be finding a way back here... All the merchants and pirates evacuated the moment they saw blaster fire. Once word spread that lightsabers were drawn, it would have been easy to assume that the Federation had found the den."

A low hum filled the cove as a small speck became visible in the trench off into the distance... Soon it was followed by a pair of larger vessels as it approached rapidly. The agent nearly turned to Reinsal to order a withdrawal before Iunha grabbed his shoulder to calm him. "They aren't pirates... They're mercenaries, and I'm certain they are in the employ of the Federation presently... We might be able to hitch a ride."

The agent considered it a moment before turning to the commander, "have your men prepare the wounded for moving, but also have them make sure their weapons are in order."

"Yes sir," he replied before turning away and running off.

Uthierav pulled out a pair of macrobinoculars and pointed them towards the approaching craft. At the head of the formation, she could see a heavily modified YT-2400. Zooming in on the transparisteel cockpit, she could see a blue faced man with a wide brimmed hat with small tufts of feathers coming down slightly over a face. "Now that's a familiar face," she informed her master. "It's the Omwati from Coruscant."

 

Yay! (Okay, so I suspect that's not what Iunha and company are thinking...) I liked seeing some insight into Leshran's thoughts, the slightly more formal introduction of Evuzhi, Ren'Vhan chastising the pilots about their mechanical carelessness, and the fact that Uthierav apparently now has a voice in her head. *waves "hi" to the voice in Uthierav's head* We also got a bit more on Tavira and how she works, which was interesting.

 

Charlton sat in the cockpit ball of his own TIE Clutch as the notification that the Invidious left hyperspace rang over his comms unit. All the squadrons had been informed that they would be flying picket until Ren’Vhan’s fleet arrived, as well as a YT-1250. “Pike Squadron… launch,” came the order from the fighter command. He flipped on his fighter’s Repulsorlift and fed a little power into the engine with his left hand as he grasped the joystick. He got shoved back into his seat before he tilted the joystick to invert his craft and pulled out of the hangar.

He couldn’t help but be impressed. Chekr had warned him that the ship may be a little more responsive than he was used to and told him to be a little softer on the controls. Also told him not to adjust his inertial dampeners until they had time to properly train himself to interpret any new settings. The pilot considered not adjusting them at all at this point… he liked feeling the improvements.

“You’ll definitely want to adjust them before flying in any gravity wells though,” came Ren’Vhan’s voice over the comms. “Pulling the hardest turn you can in that in one-and-one-half gravity will knock the wind out of with your current inertial settings. The important thing is that you fly feeling things at a rate you are attuned to in the event that something does come up.”

He tilted over his ship over as his headset was filled with the voices of other pilots who had benefited from the Admiral’s recent tinkering. One person complained about nearly steering right into the platform before the hangar door because it turned much more sharper than they were used to. But the general consensus was that the pilots were pleased. He heard the envious calls of Blade and Sword squadrons who watched in awe, some of them calling back to the bridge of the Star Destroyer pleading to him to give their fighters a look over.

A laugh filled the comms unit. “Your predecessors really never had the opportunity to fully appreciate what they had stumbled onto with the tri-wing layout,” explained Ren’Vhan. “Now then, the Lambdas will be launching soon. Escort pilots prepare to take up formation around while they position for passive detection mode.”

“Pike Lead, copy that,” called Charlton. He heard the other squadron leaders also call in their confirmation as he turned his fighter back towards the Invidious, coming in from behind and below as he saw one of the shuttles descend from the secondary hangar as its wings folded down. He maneuvered around it to take a position ahead of it. Glancing out the starboard window, he saw his wingman still with him. Glancing down at the radar revealed that the two four-man flights took up finger-four formations to either side of the Lambda while the remaining two pilots took up a position to the aft of the ship.

"Hey Cooper," he called out to the Lambda shuttle. "How was your little field trip to the Core?"

"Oh, you know... Spent countless hours in hyperspace with only Sasha to keep me company," he replied. "De-icer is completely shot from trying to keep the cabin warm with her around."

"You sure it's safe talking about her when she's sitting right next to you," came Charlton's wingman over the channel.

"I don't really care," came the Lambda's copilot. "But you guys oughta be keeping your heads on a swivel rather than engaging in this pointless banter."

"Copy that Ice Lady Lead," replied Charlton.

"You could just call me Ice Queen you know," retorted the woman at the other end of the line.
"Okay, destination reached... Stabilizing hull and initiating scanner sweep for Cronau signals."

"This is Pike Lead, we're set up over here, how are the rest of you fairing?"

"Sword Lead copies... Tuorin will be set up in a moment."

"Blades beat you both to it," came a confident woman's voice. "Best part is we left last."

"Not a race Blade Two," came the leader's voice. "But as she said, we're set up over here."

Ren'Vhan's voice broke in over the comm unit. "Pike, you'll likely spot the Violet Ray... Adjust your scanner to point ten degrees off the eastern edge of the Galactic Core."

"Copy that," replied Cooper. "Adjusting sensor alignment now."

"What about your fleet," inquired Charlton. "Which vector would they be coming from?"

"Even if I did say, I really couldn't be trusted seeing as I don't fully trust your Admiral yet," he replied.

Charlton wasn't particularly happy with that response. "Leonia... Not entirely comfortable with the situation... How do we know he's not leading us into a trap?"

"I've gone into this assuming he'd lead us into a trap... No... Rather that he'd lead us into a situation where he'd hold the tactical advantage to ensure his own safety," came Leonia Tavira's reply. "This whole trip is a gamble really. I can offer no assurances that he'd honor any arrangement we make with him... Only that the opportunity exists."

He found that he didn't much like that response much either.

"What's your gut telling you," asked the male Admiral.

"It's telling me there's a reason no one has heard of your fleet," He began to reply before Ren'Vhan interrupted him.

"No... That's what your head is telling you. That is your assumption based on your reasoning of the situation. A logical conclusion, mind you, drawn from your understanding of the circumstances. Clear your mind of those distractions for a moment."

"What do you mean that they are distractions... Such simple logic..."

"Is deafening you to the whispers of the force," the Admiral interrupted once again. "Stop thinking... Just for a moment. Let yourself exist purely on raw instinct... And then you would understand that I have l little desire to view you as loose threads as you were in the midst of accusing me of scheming."

It sounded ridiculous to him. As he was about to tell him to go to all 9 of Corellia's Hells, Leonia popped into the conversation once again.

"Charlton... Do as he says," she commanded the pilot.

"Very well then, Pike Three... Take point for the formation" he replied reluctantly. He then rolled off to starboard, clearing himself from the formation so that he didn't need to worry of collisions with his squadron mate whilst he 'meditated.'

He sat there in his cockpit as he brought his ship to low thrust. He thought briefly to unbuckle his seat so he could cross his legs, but Ren'Vhan cut in, "that really isn't necessary for this simple exercise... Just shut your eyes and clear your mind... Take deep breaths... Most find that concentrating on their breathing helps them to clear the head of the rest of the noise."

"What are you... Some sort of Jedi Master or something," he retorted sarcastically.

"No, but I used to make a living of hunting them down and killing them," came the reply. "Now... Eyes shut, deep breaths."

He shook his head, he had many things he wanted to say to the man. Come to think of it, he probably heard them all anyways.

"You're right," came the rugged voice again... This time crisp and clear as the he spoke from right next to him. "With that settled, clear your head now."

"Alright, alright," he replied in thought, fully aware now of Ren'Vhan's telepathy. He then shut his eyes and took in a deep breath. He felt out the darkness that filled his vision.

"Focus on your breathing... Not what you’re seeing with shut eyes," came the voice again, now clearly aggravated.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, he took in another deep breath, focusing on the sound the air made as it passed through his nostrils and throat. The cooling sensation in his chest and the stretching feeling of his chest. Letting out the breath of air, he felt its warmth fill his throat and nose and the relief of the muscles as they released their tension. He repeated this several times... Until he felt something strange. A tingling in his mind... A sensation that seemed to stretch beyond his physical body... As though he had suddenly grown another limb from his head.

"That's the force connection that I established with you for the purpose of facilitating telepathy,” the Admiral informed the pilot. “Usually it takes many years of familiarity for such a connection to naturally establish itself between any two beings.”

“If that’s so…”

“I can’t do much in the broader spectrum of what the force makes possible… but what little I do… I do very well,” he said interrupting the man before he could finish his thoughts.

“I bet you understand why I hated it so much back then,” came Leonia’s chuckling voice. “Now continue on with his lesson.”

“I want you to focus on that tether, until it leads you to me. We’re near enough so even a first timer like you should be able to expand your senses that far,” came the next instruction.

Charlton felt a wave of confusion wash over his mind. “What do you mean we’re near enough, I’m about three Imperator Lengths away from the Invidious.”

“Indeed… you are… but if you focus your senses on the single tether in the force, this distance should be short to your senses,” Ren’Vhan replied informatively. “There have been many instances where a Jedi who has such a connection to an apprentice or a master could sense their fate and general location from halfway across the Galaxy in times of uncertainty or peril.”

“Okay,” replied the pilot as he concentrated on the strange sensation. He could sense it lengthening, reaching beyond the cockpit ball of his fighter. Is it stretched further, he felt himself becoming increasingly numb to the sensations of his body and in a state of initial panic, he withdrew his senses and his eyes flew open as he instinctively looked to his arms.

Ren’Vhan’s laughter filled his head. “Nothing to worry about, it’s all still there kid.” After a momentary pause, he then instructed him “Alright, try it again… this time don’t worry about the numbness.”

“Don’t think I want to try,” he said, clearly shaken from the numbing sensation that overtook him previously. “I could lose myself…”

“While there are certain places, both in the physical universe, and within the vast reaches of the force that one’s spirit can become severed from the body… I can assure you that neither is here,” came the old man’s reassuring voice. “Now… try it again.”

Shutting his eyes once more, Charlton focused again on the strange tether. This time, shoving his concerns aside as his body grew numb, reaching out, he could sense the general direction, the direction that the Invidious was in. He found that it fit what he knew of the Admiral’s present location. But he didn't understand how it was supposed to reassure him of Ren’Vhan’s sincerity of wanting to bring no harm to the ship or its crew.

“That will come shortly… now, I’m going to open up one of my other connections to you… you already have a connection between the two of you, but for now, I want to see if you can feel her presence through me.”

“Isn’t that a little advanced for a first timer,” came the Pantoran woman’s voice.

“I can hear her talking to you,” Charlton answered.

“Ah, nice… can you tell where I’m standing then?”

Focusing on the tether between himself and Ren’Vhan, he sensed a bend in the connection… as though it reached a certain point before jetting off in another direction. “You’re standing to his left…”

Ren’Vhan’s voice then came in over the comms channel rather than in the pilot’s head, “Very good… now one last exercise… I am going to open up a large number of my connections to you… try not to panic.”

In that moment, he felt a wave of sensations erupt from the central point going off in various directions. It seemed as though a star had suddenly exploded in his mind, snapping him out of his meditative state. He shouted into his helmet comm, “We’ve been surrounded… he’s got men above and below us!”

As he reached for his thrust control, he saw a ship materialize ahead, it’s broadside battery of 5 laser cannons accompanied by the dual laser turret on the top and the one at the bottom pointed towards the Pike Formation. The Crusader had been there most the whole time. out the side viewport of the cockpit, he could see the Invidious still unmoving as a pair of Venators hung above it like daggers. Another pair pointed towards it from below, each accompanied by a number of the smaller Acclamators… it seemed the Invidious had become trapped in a great maw and he cursed to himself.

“This is Admiral Ren’Vhan to the Ghost Fleet…” came the old man’s voice over general communications. “Allow me to introduce you to my new friends… the Invids.”

With the announcement, Charlton saw the Crusader’s guns shift and rotate until all were pointing to toward the ship’s bow… their apparent default and he let out a sigh of relief as its thrusters propelled it forward and away from its threatening stance.

“Nice to hear your voice again Admiral,” came an aged male voice over the comms. “Will you be transferring over to the Rejoice soon?”

“Very shortly Yanvo,” came the Pantoran woman’s voice.

“Ah, Kreia… how was your little field trip?”

“She wants to kill you, ya know,” Ren’Vhan warned the other man, prompting laughter from the man with the Ghost Fleet.

Charlton couldn’t help but laughed a little nervously to himself before chiming in, “Hey, I’m just happy nobody wants to kill us right now.”

“Not to interrupt your little get together,” chimed in Sasha from the Lambda. “but sensors picked up Cronau radiation spike from around where you said we’d see it.”

“Hey there Sabo… Good job guiding the ship here,” Ren’Vhan said over the channel. “Nice to see you again Jalen… we’ve got much to discuss.”

“I remember your fleet,” came the Violet Ray captain’s voice. “Helped us out with those pirates that jumped us.”

Charlton could hear the man’s laugh inside his own skull, somehow the connection between them was still active enough to allow echos of the man’s thought to leak through. ”I’ll meet you aboard the Rejoice, we can get caught up there. Charlton… would you be so kind as to serve as escort for my personal craft?”

“Uh… sure,” he said a little nervously.

Leonia’s voice then filled the channel, “Cooper, report back to the hangar to transport Ren’Vhan’s extra effects to his flagship.”

“Yes Ma’am,” came the young Lambda pilot’s dutiful voice.

Rolling his fighter over, Charlton looked about the local space, he could see that numerous fighter squadrons had been deployed, formations of X-Wings, A-Wings and Y-Wings filled the area along with various makes and models of TIE.

“Its like being at a starfighter museum,” commented his wingman. “Most of them are easily older than the majority of us!”

“You raid the junkyards for your fighter arm?”

“Most were captured or bought brand new,” came Ren’Vhan’s voice in his head. He was probably away from the bridge right now, and telepathy was his only method of communications with the pilot.

“Bought… new? What exactly was your fleet put together for?”

After a momentary pause, the old Admiral replied through thought, “There’s a very good reason no one has ever heard of us… because that was exactly our mission.”

---------------------------------

The B28 settled softly inside the empty hangar of the Rejoice. The only other ship that had landed being the Smuggler’s YT-1250 and the Millennium Falcon replica that sat neglected in the far corner of the main hangar. Kreia opened up the canopy as the hangar crews rushed to the old bomber. Ren’Vhan was busy shutting down the last of the auxiliary systems and prepped the cloaking pods for detachment as the ground crew positioned the pod trolleys beneath them. With one last click, the pods detached and settled onto the waiting trolley before being rolled away. Satisfied that everything was shut down, he climbed out of the cockpit himself as the Pike Squadron’s Lambda entered the hangar next to his ship, followed shortly thereafter by Pike Squadron’s lead. Looking across the entry strip in the center of the ship revealed the crew of the Violet Ray stepping out as his maintenance crews went to look the ship over.

“Where’d all this rust come from,” a familiar voice came to him. Looking toward the voice, he saw Si’Yanvo nearby inspecting the B28… and Kreia making a beeline straight for him. A loud smack filled the air shortly thereafter as Ren’Vhan crossed his arms with a smile while Kreia turned back and stormed off towards the Lambda shuttle. Yanvo simply chuckled as he admitted “Yeah, I deserved that.”

“If I pulled a stunt like that, Zu Shaule would give me a swift punch to the stomach.”

Si’Yanvo straightened up as he crossed his arms behind his back. “Speaking of whom… she was none too happy to hear that you brought Kreia along on a trip so filled with uncertainty when she lacks even basic hand to hand combat training.”

“Even if it were her own idea… yeah, I can see the old bird being quite crossed with me for that,” explained the Admiral as he looked back towards the Lambda shuttle to see Leshran rolling out the speeder bike he had purchased back on Rud-Ibasl as the fighters began landing back in the hangar bays beyond.

“She’ll let you have it when we return to Beacon,” warned his second in command, prompting the Admiral to spin around.

Raiding an eyebrow, Ren’Vhan asked “If not for this reason, she’d of found another.”

“That has been the pattern it seems,” replied his friend as they turned towards the corridor door as Ren’Vhan walked up beside him and the two made their way towards the bridge.

“Well, I’ll need her services shortly… I picked up another stray,” commented Ren’Vhan as he stopped to turn around to see Kreia greet Evuzhi as she stepped down the shuttle ramp.

“Ah, an Omwati girl… maybe the old bird might like having another of her own kind to keep her company,” noted Si’Yanvo.

Ren’Vhan explained as he turned back around and continued on his way to the bridge, “I’m more concerned with teaching her galactic standard. I’ll speak with Zu Shaule to see if that much could be arranged… in the mean time, I’ll see if Rushtean can dig anything up on her.”

“Is she still our prime source of intel with that spy ring of hers?”

“Yes… thankfully she was one of the few Inquisitors I could even bother calling a friend… be ready though, I may be calling in some favors with the others… including those that were openly hostile towards me.”

“Would that include the Halcyon girl,” inquired Yanvo nervously.

“I said openly hostile, not actively trying to kill me” he replied hastilty. “And even if I wanted her to join up with me I wouldn't know how to get in touch with her, she managed to sever our connection moments after the Emperor died.”

As they arrived stepped into the lift, Si’Yanvo came to the conclusion, “Sounds like you want to found your own force group to compete with the Jedi.”

“To do things that Leonia did back in her prime days… we’ll essentially have to further develop our training regimen back at the Beacon,” he explained as he pressed the button for the bridge level. As he did so, he could sense that Leshran and Charlton had left the hangar and were well on their way back to the Invidious. “Long story short… we should get some rooms prepared for a lot of guests.”

The elevator opened up to a short corridor before the bridge, the holo display showing the relative arrangement of his fleet and the Invidious, small specs streaming towards many of the ships as they retrieved their fighter compliments. “Renten, bring the fleet to vertical heading. Once I’ve finished with my arrangements with the smugglers, we’ll take the Planar North Leth route back to the Beacon.”

“Yes Admiral,” came the reply from a Twi’lek standing at the helm. “Though… the captain of the Valorous did request a detour to Hope Cove if our route took us near enough… said it’s been a few years since she’s visited her husband.

Ren’Vhan stood silent for a moment as he shut his eyes. “Send her my approval.”

He then turned around as the turbolift doors opened up to reveal the crew of the Violet Ray. “Yanvo… if you could direct Jalen’s crew to my quarters?”

“Yes sir,” he replied with a nod before turning back to the Violet Ray’s crew as he directed them to one of the adjoining halls.

The Mandalorian remained, waiting for the others to pass as she strolled up to the Admiral. “All this time I’ve been away… I’ve been trying to figure out what you are exactly.”

He smiled as he turned around to face the rest of the bridge. “I was once someone who stood at the center of the Emperor’s grandiose plans… the solution to those problems that, for one reason or another, Tarkin’s methods alone could not solve.”

One of his men came up carrying a small black orb approximately 10 centimeters across and handed it to Sabo. “A Krayt Dragon Pearl… should be easy to sell and untraceable… most will assume you killed one yourself. A great way to add to one’s reputation without needing to say a word.”

“Interesting advice,” she said as she took the pearl and examined it. “But I imagine it’s pocket change compared to what you have planned for us.”

“What I have planned for the rest of them is truly profitable… but you are possessing of admirable qualities… I may have much more significant ideas for you,” explained the Admiral as he turned around. “To begin with… you’re quite brilliant, that much was apparent back when I was probing your minds when we first met.”

“Speaking of which… I was always curious,” she began to say.

“He actually put her there because she trusted her marksmanship… he was actually a devoted husband,” he explained. “But we’ll keep that between us.”

She simply smiled wickedly as she followed the Admiral to his quarters.

------------------------------------

The Violet Ray made ready to leave the Rejoice once more, the crew’s memories restored, heading straight up upon leaving the launch bay as the fleet made ready to make a hyperspace jump above the Galactic plane. Someone familiar with the resources that were at their disposal was assigned to the smugglers to aid in negotiations with the Hutts in regards to price. The Mandalorian was entrusted with coordinates to where the crystals could be shipped if an arrangement could be settled on.

All Ren’Vhan had to do now, was wait for the Violet Ray to arrive at the appointed rendezvous after negotiations came to a close. He was eager to hear of its success, but knew it could take some measure of time. Until then, he had other business to attend to.

“Admiral Ren’Vhan,” came Kreia’s voice from the helm terminal. “The Fleet is aligned and prepped for hyperspace jump… have to keep astrogation channels open though, we don’t have one of our own at the helm of the Invidious.”

“Not ideal to be sure,” he reasoned. “But unavoidable lest we leave one of our men at the mercy of Leonia.”

Kreia shrugged, “I actually kind of like her.”

“Yeah, well… you’re not a man with authority,” came a snarky reply from elsewhere in the crew pits.

“All ships, prepare for hyperspace jump,” commanded Si’Yanvo authoritatively. “Rejoice Hangar… prepare to host the Admiral… it’s going to be a very long trip.”

“Uh… yes sir…” came a nervous reply.

Raising his eyebrows in concern, he commented, “Usually they’re excited to get to spend time with you, Ren.”

Already, Ren’Vhan was making his way back to the turbolift. “You needn’t worry yourself, I’ll see what’s up down there… one of them probably bumped a cart into the B28.”

Kreia then said, “Or discharged a laser cannon into that YT-1300.”

Ren’Vhan chuckled a little to himself, “if that were the case, they’re probably worried I’d be upset that they didn’t hit it with something with a little more bang.” With that, he directed the turbolift to take him to the hangar deck as he mulled the possibilities in his head. “Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

--------------------------

“Could you please not do that,” pleaded a man as the Admiral entered the hangar bay.

“What’s going on here” the Admiral said, demanding an answer as he approached a group of men gathered around one of the Incom T-65s.

One of the maintenance crews turned around, “Sorry sir… but Kreia threatened us if she found out any of us touched the new girl.”

The men parted just in time to see Evuzhi pull a panel out from the bottom of the rear fuselage. He saw several other maintenance panels had been removed, but as near as he could tell, nothing had been tinkered with.

“Don’t worry about it…” he assured the men. “I don’t think she means any harm. Just seems curious.” He walked up as he waved the men off, “I’ll keep an eye on her, you guys see to the other ships.”

He knelt down nearby where the Omwati girl was laying on her back looking up into the open panel… probing her mind briefly. Thankfully she was thinking in images rather than words. He could in her mind that she had been carefully brushing wires aside to look at mechanical components or carefully inspecting circuitry. She was comparing the craft’s appearance now to what she had seen while she was on the shuttle from the Invidious. It was apparent she was studying the ship… looking for something. “Evuzhi?”

She startled from the mention of her name as she jolted up a bit, nearly hitting her head on the armor of the X-Wing.

“Oh, no no… you aren’t in trouble,” he tried assuring her, though that it was his face seemed enough to calm her down some. He then gestured his hand towards himself, prompting the Avian girl to scoot out from underneath the craft as he walked back behind the old fighter. Picking up a motorized driver from the floor, he tapped the back of the ship’s fuselage. “But I think I can show you what you’re looking for.”

 

Many of the slaves thanked the Alliance soldiers as they filed past and into the corvette. Mercenary soldiers and uninjured members of the Alliance commandos, chiefly those who kept guard of the hole that had been blown into the back of the palace at the start of the incursion were sweeping the city looking for any other stragglers. With bandaging around her shoulder to treat the bruising on her back, Iunha watched her wristcomm eagerly awaiting news on the Omwati girl and the Pantoran that had made a run for it in the courtyard.

Feluha walked up carrying a few briefcases along with the intelligence agent who carried one, his other arm in a cast. “I heard all the slaves at Ushritan’s were freed… apparently the floating roach didn’t bother taking any of them with him.”

“The slaver was found dead,” explained Iunha. “Choked on some food apparently while he was chasing the Omwati girl.”

“You sound as though you don’t believe it,” inquired the Twi’lek woman.

Iunha stood up, wincing a little before Uthierav patted her to get her master to sit back down before standing up herself to begin explaining in her master’s stead. “The man who had taken possession of her before everything went south turned out to be a well trained force-user.”

“You’re afraid he’s still in possession of the girl then?”

“All signs point that way,” explained the agent beside her. “Evidence suggests a speeder bike made its way to a ship on the shuttle maintenance platform and boarded a ship that had been there according to some of the reports… it’s possible the Pantoran was an accomplice or at the very least, a very compliant slave… speaking of compliance, how’s the prisoner.”

The Omwati man leading the mercenaries stepped out of his freighter as he took off his hat. “Singing like a canary after injecting him with a few chems. He knows quite a bit about about Rujidan’s operations on Rud-Ibasl… that’s about it. The slug’s clever even by Hutt standards. Uses a different set of bodyguards to escort him on his ship to prevent any planetary personnel’s capture from compromising operations elsewhere.” He then turned to Iunha anticipating her next question, “No, the Cathar woman doesn’t know where else that Rujidan operates on… never learned to read Huttese on the ship displays apparently.”

“What do they know about the Invids,” inquired the agent eagerly.

“The Cathar was a little more helpful about that,” replied the Avian man. “Mostly been knocking out Rujidan’s rivals or anyone who might stumble upon some of his operations. None of the crime syndicates or pirates operating in this sector can really compete with an Impstar-Deuce… the pirates mostly comply with her commands without the need for firing a shot... The Hutt’s operations aren’t compromised, and he doesn’t lose any of his customers so he’s really benefitted from Leonia’s reputation.”

“And what of this Sivrejan,” Iunha questioned the man further. “Do either of them know anything about that Inquisitor.”

“Today was the first either of them ever saw of him.”

Iunha shut her eyes as she thought back to the dark haired youth. “Leshran and Sivrejan… where did they come from.”

“Leshran was found hanging on the wall of Tolura’s throne room like carbonite sculpture along with several other would be assassins,” explained the mercenary leader as he sat down on the ramp to his ship. “Sivrejan apparently claimed to be a weapon’s smuggler who was interested in dealing with the Invids.” Turning towards Iunha, he then asked his own question. “Any news on Evuzhi Huun?”

Iunha shook her head.

The agent then explained his own thought, “worst case scenario… and perhaps the likeliest is that Sivrejan’s Pantoran slave led her to his ship and was aboard the cloaked vessel that retrieved him.”

The mercenary leader nodded to the agent in agreement. “My men are scouting the perimeter. If they can’t find any signs of anybody leaving the town by speeder, we’ll be heading off within the hour to see if we can get any leads before they go cold,” the Omwati said. “I’ll message one of my other ships to send a team down to continue looking… I want to catch the trail while it is still hot, but at the same time, I don’t want to leave her out in the wasteland if we were wrong.”

“How do you intend to do that anyways,” inquired Iunha.

The agent thought a moment before asking the blue man, “you got a mobile star-telescope don’t you.”

“Yeah, It’s already positioned a little more than a light-week away from here and should be stabilizing its orbit and calibrating the sensors” replied the man. “Figured out who I am haven’t you.”

“Heard stories from comrades who have worked with the Blue-Wing Omens and their leader, Seevin Taunj,” replied the young man. “Specialized in hunting down slavers and the pirates that deal with them. Well equipped seeing as you are funded by the government of Omwat and many wealthy idealists.”

Seevin nodded. “I imagine then that you are also aware that we place a high priority on recovering Omwati that are taken by slavers then?”

The agent shook his head. “Never got a full briefing on your organization… never had a need to work with or around you before… but I feel as though that may change shortly.”

Utheriav raised an eyebrow. “Why would that be.”

Iunha stopped to think a moment. After a bit she then turned towards the agent, “How much time was spent dedicating a search for Leonia before the Republic gave up on finding her?”

“The spent twenty years trying to find her, and several million credits in both man hours and equipment costs, both procurement and maintenance,” he explained. “As much as some in the community desire to bring her to justice, or simply deny the Empire access to her expertise in employing Force-Sensitives in Naval operations… Most aren’t all that eager to spend that much on finding an outdated warship and its captain who has all but faded into obscurity.”

“However,” interrupted the Omwati, “If there is sufficient reason to believe that a person of interest to another party is being held by the Invids or someone associated with them, you could tag along with our pursuit of Evuzhi and benefit from our own efforts to achieve your own ends.”

“Unfortunately,” said Iunha with a sigh. “We’ll have to first report what occurred here to our respective superiors. Additionally, the Jedi must be made aware of the evolving situation.”

She then looked out across the vast empty docking bay as she saw the distant figure of the cyborg at last turn away from the fading flames. “They must all know what it was that we faced here today.”

Uthierav placed her hand at her thigh as she felt the long ultrachrome shaft. It was heavy as a result of its size, and its odd shape made it sway awkwardly whenever the handguard nodes rubbed against the inside of her cloak. But there was no doubting that it was an effective weapon. She couldn’t help but feel that it was built for the singular purpose of fighting against other lightsaber weapons. She recalled how time and again he gained superior leverage against herself and the others with a twist of the shaft or a thrust. And that striking it when the handguard-blade was deactivated proved to be little more than a trap that she had been baited into.

And that when it seemed his weapon would at last fail, he absorbed all the heat that had previously threatened to turn the shaft into so much slag and used it in a series of potent telekinetic waves that turned the fight around in an instant.

“Master,” she said solemnly. “This man we encountered… he was a Jedi Hunter… wasn’t he?”

Letting out a sigh, the Togruta nodded. “Like I said before, he’s the one that killed Valor’s parents and sister, and left him crippled.”

She then pointed to the weapon that hung from her apprentice’s hip. “And he did so with a weapon very much like that.”

The agent let out a sigh of his own as he pulled out a golden shota. “Seems he’s got a lot more toys than that big old thing.” Grabbing it with both hands, he give it a rough twist, causing its casing to open up, revealing several other golden plates before they compressed back into a cylinder, albeit a thicker one. “He threw this one at me when I was about to take out Leonia… used to be on the collars the Pantoran and the Omwati were wearing.”

Seevin turned back towards his ship as he spoke over his shoulder. “Well, I’d guess we should get you back to Coruscant as soon as possible then.” He then placed his hat back on his head, over his forehead before sweeping it back to keep his crest feathers out of his face. “It’d be best to get our collaborative efforts made official as soon as possible. I’m not particularly confident in taking on a force-user who could still manage to get a kill in a fight against four other sensitives.”

He then walked up the ramp as Iunha stood up to follow. Utheriav groned as she stood up, her back and her head still aching from her impact with the wall. She looked forward to resting on the way back to Coruscant… though what lay afterwards filled her with a sense of uncertainty.

----------------------------

Ren’Vhan had spent much of the day taking apart the X-Wing’s armor panels and carefully moving circuitry and wiring to allow the Pantoran an up-close look at the mechanisms that opened and closed the X-Wing’s S-foils. He remembered the excited look when he the fighter’s pilot come down and locked the S-Foils into attack position. He was now finishing a demonstration of similar mechanisms on the ARC-170 that was in the hangar bay across the launch pad from where he had started. She had a very focused look on her face, as though thinking intently. When he probed her mind, he found that she had gone back to thinking in language rather than images again, giving him a slight headache in the process.

It was like the time U****’Yar assigned Ren’Vhan, Rushtean and Talk’fone to oversee Tarkin’s little project on Omwat in its early stages. After realizing the limitations of their telepathy on sentience that spoke in no language the telepaths themselves knew, learning the Basic language was forcefully made mandatory on the planet by Tarkin’s decree.

Seems that decree has lapsed in places at some point after Tarkin left the world when he claimed his prize. He looked at the Omwati girl. There was no doubt Zu Shaulle would explain to her what he had done, and how she ended up in his service.

“First off… I don’t think the Old Bird ‘serves’ you… really seems quite the opposite at times,” came Kreia’s voice in his head. “Second off… I never did get told the story of what happened between you and the Old Bird.”
“And you never thought to pry it from her mind or my own,” he replied with a sigh.

“You think I haven’t tried,” she exclaimed. “You both have that story under stronger security than the vaults of Muunilist… the only thing you keep better hidden is your true name.”

Ren’Vhan chuckled… then laughed. Evuzhi looked at him with a great deal of concern, unaware of his telepathic conversation, or of his abilities to begin with. On her part, Kreia’s mental voice suddenly sounded confused. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh… I just find it amusing that you tried looking for my true name in the last place in the Universe that I’d ever expect to find it.”

“Wait… what,” she replied in disbelief.

The Admiral then recomposed himself as he walked up to the young Pantoran, putting a hand on her shoulder to assure her that everything was alright as he gave her a soft smile. “If I can recruit some of the others from the U****’Yar group, you’ll probably hear about it from them.” He then turned around and gestured the girl to follow. Some gave a quick nod to some nearby mechanics who immediately went to the ARC-170 and began the process of putting it back together after the pilot closed the S-foils.

“The U****’Yar group,” came Kreia’s confused response.

He smiled to himself as he sensed her uncertainty. “The people outside of the fleet that I worked most closely with back during the war.” He then thought back to Grand Moff Tarkin and his Death Star. And his Tarkin Doctrine. “My boss as it were, High Inquisitor U****’Yar felt it was evident from the very beginning that there were some very serious shortcomings to ‘Rule by Fear of Force’ that the Emperor intended to use. We were gathered, equipped and organized to be a patch to cover up for its flaws.”

“What sort of flaws,” she asked.

He instinctively thought back to the words of his old instructor and leader. “Can’t just go and slag a planet like Kuat just because a group is hiding blasters alongside picket signs in their’ friend’s garage.”

“Isn’t that…”

“It’s exactly what Tarkin did at Alderaan,” he replied to the obvious question with a tone of anger in his mental voice. Taking in a deep breath, he thought back to all the Alderaanians whose memories he had to rewrite before the rumors spread throughout the fleet. The countless hours he spent probing the minds of his crews to ensure that the destruction of Alderaan did not compromise their loyalty, and altering the memories of those who were thusly affected by the news after it became common knowledge. That was to say nothing of the wracking pain he had personally felt the moment it had happened.

Desperate to change the subject, he then found himself asking the Pantoran, “How long was I in the Hangar anyways?”

“About eight hours… we still have quite a ways to go. You should get some rest sir.”

“I suppose so,” he said as he and Evuzhi entered the turbolift. He turned his head towards the young woman who stretched and yawned as he reached for the panel. “You may like me now… but you’ll probably hate me after Zu Shaulle’s finished telling you about me.”

The doors shut and it sped up to the deck below the command deck where his personal quarters resided. He’d probably have the Pantoran bunk in Kreia’s quarters for the trip. But at least he now knew how to keep her preoccupied and out of trouble… and thankfully it was something he did often to begin with.
Still, it was apparent she was familiar to some degree about engineering, and it did peek his curiosity about the young woman.

He then thought back to the weapon he left behind on Rud-Ibasl. “I should probably check in on her shortly.”

----------------------------

The room was small and cramped. The walls did little to dampen the sound from the engines. Uthierav lay on her side on the bed. Her gear lay up against the wall along with the Inquisitor’s unique weapon. She thought back to its appearance when fully ignited. The way the blade pulsed with grooves along the length of both end blades. She hadn’t heard of any crystals that produced such an effect before.

Rolling onto her back, she stared at the roof. Her shoulders stung briefly with the shift but she ignored it as she thought more on what had occurred. As she shut her eyes, she saw Faltouna’s face in her mind.

She hardly knew him. Sparred with him a few times but mostly merely exchanged hellos in passing. Why was she now thinking of him so vividly.

“It’s only natural,” came a young man’s voice within the room.

Startled, she shot upright in her bed and glanced around the room. But there was nothing in there with her.

“But then again… you aren’t truly yourself… especially whilst dreaming,” the voice explained. “But to see proof of that, you need only open the door.”

She shook her head, thinking her head may have been hit harder than she had thought and thinking to try to sleep as she lay back down.

“But as I explained… you already are asleep… your mind has already begun to drift between itself and the pathways of the force open to you.”

Getting back up, she then shouted, “Who are you!”

“Hoping to call attention to your master whilst also demanding an answer from me, but the former will not work. And the latter will mean little with only a name with no face… with no context.”

“Why not just show yourself to me,” she asked.

“Because you must know if you are Jedi… or Jensaarai… or if perhaps you are something else entirely.”

“That I must know,” she asked with confusion.

“By what code do you live by…”

She let out with a sigh, before responding to the voice, “Of course I know that, I follow the Jedi Code, the Jensaarai were misled from their very founding.”

“Do you follow Luke’s code… the old code…”

With certainty she began to respond, “The old…”

“...Or the original code,” finished the voice.

She blinked. A little disbelieving to hear of it. A third version of the code?

“But I suppose that matters little in the way of proving that you are Jedi,” spoke the voice flatly. “Afterall… in all variants of the Jedi code, the pursuit of knowledge is fundamental.”

She was at last compelled to stand up from her bed as she made her way towards the door. Tapping a button on the panel, it opened up into a vast field of blue and violet grass the likes of which she had never seen. Ahead stood a figure in a green robe, the hood down to show his black hair.

As he turned towards the woman, she could see red piping going down the side of his robe starting from the belt-line. As he finished turning, she saw the man’s face fully, his face was young, his expression blank, yet his blue eyes seemed to exude wisdom.

“So you are Jedi afterall,” he said before turning back towards the fields. “Ritusan… my last memories of my own are of this strange world.”

Uthierav raised her eyebrows to the comment. “You’re own last memories?”

Starting to walk forward, he began to explain, “Of course… it was the world where I took in my last breath.”

She noticed that he spoke, but did not breath… he was either illusion. Or more likely it seemed to her, that he was a ghost.

“It is where a Sith forcefully removed me from my body. Where… from a traditional point of view… I died.” He then turned around once more, his face still void of emotion. “But now that you have context… let me give you my name, now that it has proper meaning. I am Larushe Halcyon. And I’ll need your help, as you will need mine.”

“Why should I trust you,” she asked suspiciously. “How am I to be certain that you aren’t somehow some sort of illusion of Zivrejan.”

“Because the name you know is itself an illusion,” he replied. “One mask among many I know him to wear.”

“You know him,” she said as she walked towards him. “How?”

He turned, his eyes filled with concern. “You are right to believe that I have come to you from him, though it is not in a way that you would expect, or in a way you’d ever believe.

The sky suddenly turned dark, the fields began to vanish from the distance, replaced by darkness, until the darkness was at her feet. But her eyes were set only upon Larushe, taking in every detail she could. She felt the need to investigate the man as soon as she could after reaching Coruscant. When at last the man faded, she woke up back in her room. She glanced around the room, first towards the door, then to the foot of her bed.

Then she heard Zivrejan’s voice from nearby, “So… he does have a name.”

Glancing to the side of her bed, she saw the duster clad smuggler leaning against the wall beside her bed. She instinctively reached out with the force and drew the nearest weapon to herself and igniting with a slide of her thumb around the center of the shaft, clicking a pair of smooth switches that were built into shaft. The red blades ignited, pulsing like fire from both ends of the shaft, the end of one of them stabbing through the man.

He responded with merely a smile as she looked on in disbelief. Somehow he was still able to invade her mind and influence her senses. His phantom vanished before her as the door swung open as Iunha ran in.

“Uthierav,” shouted her master. “What happened?”

“Zivrejan,” she exclaimed as she calmed her breathing. Shutting her eyes as she shook it. “He’s in my head somehow.”

She shut her eyes for a moment to try to sense anything amiss. “He might have…” She searched out the local area with her senses to see if he might still be nearby Rud-Ibasl. But she felt no other strong sensitives. Yet, she felt his active presence… it just wasn’t nearby. She then touched her apprentice in the forehead and focused on the Dathomirian’s mind. That was when felt the presence of a tendril. Thinking for a moment that she may have found a means to track the man, it suddenly seemed to whip around, changing where it seemed to be coming from, then coiling around before splitting and then recombining. It then settled on a new direction before it shifted once again.

She could hardly follow it for a kilometer before it violently shifted again causing her to lose it momentarily and then she found herself back to trying to find where it was going from her apprentice again.

“How is that even possible,” she thought to herself.

Zivrejan’s voice then came in through the erratic tendril of force energy, “You have more urgent matters to attend to.”

The Defender’s eyes snapped open as she was assailed by the smell of burning flesh and turned towards her apprentice. “Turn that weapon off,” came the Togruta’s voice urgently as she instinctively reached for Uthierav’s hand.

At first, Uthierav tried to use pull her thumb back in an opposite motion to turn it back off, but the cog did not slide back into its original position. As she looked down, she realized that Zivrejan was still tampering with her senses when she saw the shaft between the two blades was glowing bright yellow. Her skin blackened where it met the ultrachrome. As she was about to drop the weapon, the yellow shaft lost its cylindrical shape. The ends drooped towards the ground as some of the molten metal flowed down into some of the internal components of the weapon. The burning sensation suddenly struck her as she stepped back, trying to swing the material away. arcs of electricty shot out from the blades momentarily, and then a flash of bright light filled her view. She was suddenly aware that she was looking up at the ceiling as Iunha looked over her with growing concern. She could feel many small specks of pain throughout her body. Some of it burning, some of it… felt wet and warm.

But her hand… her hand felt as though it were on fire. And she couldn’t move her fingers. She reached up with her to see if it was alright. What she saw seemed to be a metallic river flowing over her hand. It had webbed and weaved its ways around the contours of her palm and between her fingers. Problem was that the lustrous material was no longer flowing.

She saw Zivrejan out of the corner of her eyes again. A smile on his face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll live… consider it a reward for doing me a great favor… or rather two.” The magnitude of the pain finally was too much for her as everything turned dark.

 

Ooh, many mysteries! I thought I knew what was going on with the whole voices thing, but now I’m not sure… Uthierav sure got the short end of the stick there. Poor kid. That’s gonna smart. I'm following the development of these characters and their histories with great curiosity.

 

To my readers... I'm going to be introducing a mess of characters in a couple of chapters. More characters than I have names prepared for. It would be greatly appreciated if some names could be suggested to me for use.​

Also, to anybody reading my story, I am still quite interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on locales, characters, or the story in general in comments or messages.​

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Chapter 14​

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Stepping onto the bridge with a cup of caff, Ren’Vhan struggled to shake away the drowsiness from just waking up as he rolled his shoulders to loosen them in his Inquisitor outfit. He mulled over the name he heard through the Jensaarai woman when he invaded her mentally. Larushe Halcyon… “I wonder if he’s related to Reantis,” he said to himself.

“You say something,” called out Kreia from the helm.

“Finally got the name of that ghost that’s been following me around,” replied the Admiral. “Seems he’s finally picked someone else to haunt.”

“With all due respect,” replied the Pantoran as she turned away from the controls with a mischievous smile. “You can be a real bore sometimes.”

Raising his mug, he took a sip from it, enjoying the bitter taste before he drew the conversation to more immediately important matters. “How long before we get to the relay point?”

“Already did that sir. We’re currently diving back into the galaxy towards the Beacon,” replied Si’Yanvo from the front of the bridge. “I do apologize for not waking you, but we did try and all we got from you was ‘just five more minutes.’ I imagine you partook in a mentally exhausting exercise before finally getting to sleep so I gave up on you.”

“Ha” the inquisitor chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose I did, but it was necessary. They won’t be getting any secrets from one of the weapons I had left behind.”

“Ah, so you tricked one of them into leaving it on,” mused the Vice Admiral.

“Unfortunately, she was still holding it when it went critical,” he replied as he stepped onto the command walkway running down the center. “Still, she’ll be alright in the long run.”

“I see someone’s intrigued you when you poked into their mind then,” inquired the young Pantoran. “If it’s yet another young woman, people are gonna start talking.”

“Oh please,” laughed the Admiral. “Rumors about that have been flying around the fleet practically from the moment I first brought it together.”

----------------------

A woman with raven black hair with silver strands mixed among them slung over her left eye stepped out into the dark hangar. The old TIE Defenders sat motionless, their outlines dimly lit by the pale blue glow from the magcon field at the end of the bay, and the stars that lay beyond it. She looked through the information on her datapad, occasionally tapping it and sliding her finger across the screen to scroll the display over to the next page of the report.

She felt a certain excitement as she pieced the details together in her head. Most notably, the name “Zivrejan”… she was now absolutely certain she knew who this man the Alliance commandos encountered on Rud-Ibasl truly was. And Leonia Tavira, there was a name she hadn’t heard of in a long time. Was it true that they had gotten together for something?

The woman usually waited on him to contact her… but the anticipation was too much. She just absolutely had to know. Hooking the datapad to her belt she crossed her arms as she leaned up against one of the solar panel wings of one of the Defenders and shut her eyes, focusing on a singular tendril of the force that connected her to a long time comrade.

As the thoughts on the surface of his mind filled her own, she caught that he was in a conversation with one of his subordinates about the tendency of recruiting mostly female force sensitives on his various forays.

“Rumors about that have been flying around the fleet practically from the moment I first brought it together,” she heard him saying through the connection she had established.

“I recall them starting when you picked up that cheater from the Omwat exams,” she said, projecting the thought across the countless light-years.

She could hear him excusing himself from the bridge of his flagship, and after a moment, his voice filled her head, now directed at her. “Ah, Rushtean… I was wanting to thank you for informing me about the new hibridium deposits that the Hutts found.”

“It’s no big deal… the Empire only wants enough of it to test new detection systems, but they are mostly getting no where on that front,” she explained. “Only logical to direct someone who has far greater need for it to them.”

“It’s a pretty big deal for me, I was finally running low on the stuff,” he lamented from the other end of the line. “But regardless, it’s strange that you’d start a telepathic conversation with me, it’s always been the other way around unless it was something urgent.”

Rushtean pushed herself away from the TIE/D’s wing and began to pace across the hangar, “Oh, its just that it’s come down the pipelines of Coruscant’s intelligence offices that a man named Sivrejan… a smuggler I’m absolutely certain is forty years deceased, was recently spotted in the company of one Leonia Tavira on the biggest ball of rust in the universe.”

“Really… did it include casualties and capabilities as well,” he inquired with false curiosity.

“Oh… a certain, VERY unique weapon and fighting style were both mentioned,” she teased. “You’re usually a lot better at covering your tracks, Ren’Vhan.”

“That whole affair was a mess from the very beginning,” he admitted. “Originally, it was just going to be a meeting between myself and Leonia, but once the New Republic showed up…”

“They call themselves a Federation nowadays,” she corrected him.

“Are they ever going to settle down on an official name,” mused the other Inquisitor from half the galaxy away.

“We’ll see if they can manage more than twenty years without a galaxy threatening peril,” she said half jokingly.

Getting back to the original conversation, Ren’Vhan continued “Anyways, once the Federation soldiers showed up, Leshran messed up her own heart usingToluhm’s special technique, my chosen pilot didn’t even have appropriate close combat training, so I was effectively alone against a pair of Master Equivs and their respective apprentices as well as the commandos that were with them.”

“In other words, you were outgunned and outmatched… still damned impressive you were able to cut one of the sensitives down with those sorts of odds,” she exalted.

“Yeah, but I still had to leave my pulse-saberstaff behind… so I had to take care of that a little while ago,” he explained regretfully. “It was a real shame, killed three Jedi Masters with that one in particular, really grew attached to it.”

“Still, better than for them to find out all its little tricks,” she assured him as she turned towards the hangar exit. “I’ll get you a batch of ultra-chrome to replace it.”

“You’re walking around as though I were right there speaking to you aren’t you,” came the man’s joking accusation.

Rushtean’s mental voice became a whine, “I still don’t get how you don’t act like someone were right there, and I’ve been doing this for over seventy years now.”

The man’s laughter filled her head for a few seconds. After a brief pause, his voice took on a serious tone, “Now why don’t we cut to the chase… what is it about the whole fiasco that happened in Rud-Ibasl has you so intrigued as to prompt you to contact me?”

She smiled wickedly in the pale blue glow of the magcon field. “I happen to be in-the-know as to how Leonia became one of the most successful pirates in Galactic history. Having fallen off the plane of the Galaxy nearly forty years ago, I find it… well, aside from you yet again surrounding yourself with some of the most interesting women in the Galaxy, I also find it intriguing that she suddenly reappeared with a man who commands a veritable army of sensitives and a fleet of his own.”

“Then it won’t come as a surprise to you that I intend to recruit some of the others from the U****’yar group, considering that my own spectrum of talents and skills doesn’t cover the critical ability that Leonia requires,” he replied.

Turning away from the bay exit, she raised an eyebrow with intrigue, “You say ‘some’ as though you don’t intend to settle on just bringing in Renel or Shalwua… the ones with the precognitive techniques that the Invids were once reliant upon to achieve their substantial successes.”

“Lets just say… I may have found an ambitious bone in my body recently, and I do not intend to stop at petty piracy.”

Wringing her hands menacingly, she mused, “The Hutt Cartel all but dissolved, and their countless associated criminal rings in desperate condition. The Zahn Consortium all but vanished and the Black Sun on life support… there certainly is a vacuum in the criminal underworld.”

“I intend to build the means for someone to fill it in, but to do so… we need more than just the ability to avoid trouble,” he explained. “Our people will also need to be able to stir it from time to time. And… inevitably, confront the Jedi on even terms when necessary.”

Hearing him explain his desire, she stared up with a sense of nostalgia. “Oh, I always was curious what a family reunion would be like,” she joked.

“So I’m going to just assume that I have your support on this then, Rushtean?”

She shut her eyes, not so much to think about whether or not she was in, but pondering what she could do to help get the ball rolling. “I’ll have some of my men move to where they can aid in transporting those from the group whom may not have a means of reaching the Beacon themselves… I am assuming you’ll have us gather at the Beacon, correct?”

“Yes,” he promptly replied. “I’ll inform my sentries to expect company after I get there, but it is the best place to establish anything away from prying eyes. I’ll contact you soon once I know who else is in and who isn’t.”

“Sure thing,” she said in a low voice.

“And one more thing… a favor if I may ask,” he said, a little uncertainty in his voice.

“You sound as though you are going to ask me to partake in a menial task,” she teased.

“Well, I’m about to ask a spy master to bend her considerable resources to look into a missing person I’ve come across.”

She could hardly suppress the laugh at the description of what he was about to do. She had networks on the capitals of most every major faction in the Galaxy, plus military academies of all sectors and branches, not to mention major industrial corporations. About the only thing she couldn’t put an ear to were the force-wielding organizations of the Jedi and the Jensaarai. She had little more than rumors to run on that the Fel Empire was founding their own organization under the direction of the Empress. And here the unknown Admiral was, asking about some lost soul he had no doubt pulled from the gutter of another world.

“Name, age and description,” she said mockingly.

“Evuzhi Huun, unknown… Omwati with purple and white plumage,” he replied in a serious tone, catching Rushtean by surprise.

“Well, I thought you were joking,” she said as she shook away the shock of his straightforwardness. “Well, I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll certainly look into it.”

“Thanks,” he replied gratefully. Then the mental hum from the connection ceased and she understood that Ren’Vhan had gotten back to more immediate matters.

She reached down for her datapad and tapped the button to activate the comlink, then entered a name, and soon her screen was filled with the image of a young clean shaven man with short brown hair. “Aloust, contact the branch leaders, I need to hold a holo-conference with everyone.”

He looked off to the side as he began to send notifications to the various leaders. Without turning back to the screen, he asked his superior, “Planning a big operation, ma’am?”

She smiled to herself. The implications of what Ren’Vhan was doing were much bigger than the word ‘operation’ could ever hope to encompass. “No… not necessarily… an old colleague has a great vision of the future… and it will take us in a very different direction.”

She then thought of the name Ren’Vhan had given her… Evuzhi Huun. “Also… could you set up a terminal in the conference room for a secure connection to the holonet, I want to look something up while I wait on the others.”

----------------------------

Ren’Vhan stepped back onto the bridge of the Rejoice just as the blue haze of hyperspace faded from the viewports at the front of the room. But at the same time, the stars did not reappear. A veritable wall of darkness stood before the Rejoice and its fleet, with a great circle of pale illumination ahead.

The holo came on, showing the image of Leonia on the Invidious. “My astrogator has just informed me that we’re about a thousand lightyears beyond Vestar, and three hundred lightyears below the Galactic plane,” she said cordially. “Would you care to explain where exactly it is that we are looking at?”

“I can understand your caution,” he replied. “What you are looking at is primarily a dark nebula that sits just outside the Galaxy, likely material ejected between the arms from novas and star-births.”

“A similar phenomenon to what Willhov and Retkin are fighting over,” she mused.

“Fairly similar, but that one’s a little closer in, and it wasn’t thick enough to promote star creation or planetary development,” he explained.

“Wait, does that mean that…”

“Quite… six stars, between them are eight habitable planets, and twelve not so habitable ones… all hidden by a wall of gases thick enough to block out the light from most angles.”

Then the obvious question, “And so this is one of the few angles it isn’t then?

“Indeed, about a hundred and ten thousand years ago, a wandering black hole punched through from the top,” he began to explain. “This made the gaping hole you see now, and sending a powerful gamma ray burst across the top of the galaxy. We spotted the signal when we were trying to find the extragalactic rendezvous of the Rebels after Hoth, hence the name ‘Beacon’.”

The ships made their way slowly as they better aligned with the passageway. Kreia then came in on the comm channel, “It’s going to be a pair of short jumps, one to get into the cavity, and again to reach the Beacon Garden… Um… Admiral… will the Invidious put in at the orbital station then?”

“Yes, the planetside facilities aren’t equipped for bringing in an Imperator-II,” he said affirmatively. “I’ll make arrangements to give your crew some shore leave, but they had best stay out of trouble.”

“Much appreciated Ren’Vhan,” bowed the figure of Leonia in the hologram. “However… I would like to come planetside with you.”

“Very well then, I’ll permit one of your shuttles to carry you to the surface, but I’ll have to make more detailed arrangements regarding the rest of your crew,” he said with a nod.

“We’re in position for microjump one, and Valorous is making its way to Hope’s Cove” confirmed Kreia before the viewport filled with the brief blue glow of hyperspace. After a moment, the viewports were filled with the orange glow of the nebula walls surrounding the cavity. “Adjusting course for the Gardens now.”

The ship shifted as the array of illuminated clouds scrolled across the viewports, within the cavity, pillars of thick gases stretched down from the ceiling of the great gap like stalactites and columns in a cave. The occasional star visible as great bright dots illuminating the nebula from within. A pale blue one was centered in the viewport before another microjump was made. When once again they left hyperspace, a great green and blue orb filled the viewports. A red moon floated in orbit above it and a simple spacestation floated from a further out orbit.

“Welcome home,” Ren’Vhan informed the crew as he turned to the holonet projector. It soon lit up with the figure of a human male in a lieutenant's uniform.

“Welcome back Admiral,” said the young man as he stood at attention. “I see you procured a new ship.”

“No, I recruited a new ship… make sure they are accommodated at the Azurestar Station,” he informed the man. “And also, I am permitting a single transport for the ship’s Admiral… inform them that I’ll allow Charlton and his squadron to escort her if she desires.”

“Yes sir,” he said as he bowed before vanishing.

He then turned to Kreia, “Inform the Ghost Fleet to prepare for atmospheric descent.”

She bowed at the helm as he walked along the command walkway and to the viewports at the forward most part of the bridge to stand at the side of his Vice Admiral.

For a while, the planet grew bigger in the viewport until it filled them, then nosed up until the curve of the planet’s horizon was all that could be seen. A few minutes later, the glow of the inner walls of the cavity slowly faded behind the blue haze of the planet’s atmosphere as they descended further. Looking off to the side, he could see one of the other Venators descending, flanked by a pair of Acclamators.

Soon, he knew that Leonia would be following, and that she’d probably have a lot of questions.

“Questions even you don’t have any real answers to,” mused Kreia from the helm.

“Oh but how I wish I knew,” he lamented in reply.

---------------------

Charlton and the rest of Pike Squadorn circled beneath the Invidious as Leonia’s shuttle finally descended from the forward hangar, it’s wings opening up as it nosed down towards the green orb below.

“Initial scans say it’s heavily vegetated, but its rivers strike me as rather odd,” came Sasha’s voice. “Tributaries have a lot of parallel lines and right angles.”

“Probably just a lot of irrigation canals,” reasoned one of their squadron mates. “They do have to feed that fleet afterall.”

Up ahead, they could see the descending arrowhead forms of the larger ships of the Ghost Fleet contrasted against the green below them. “Got an estimated arrival location for the fleet yet Sasha?”

“There does appear to be an eroded geologic dome up ahead. It’s center isn’t flooded, so I’d guess that’s where they intend to go,” she replied. “Hm… I think I’ve identified a starport pit in there as well.”

As the blue haze of atmosphere drowned out the glow of the Nebula, they started to see finer details in the terrain below. It was as Sasha said, the water below ran in near perfectly straight lines, from above, it seemed as though much of it was grid like. Between the rivers stood great pillars of greenery. Branches seemed to stretch out from the sides of the peculiar formations and out over the water far below. Trees grew broad and thick at the tops of the pillars. The overgrown formations appeared to be on average one-hundred meters thick.

“That’s strange,” came Sasha’s voice. “Hold on a moment, going to send a request for system data that the Invidious has been able to gather through scans.”

“What’s caught your attention,” came Charlton’s wingman. “Hold on, visual on Bogey’s… looks like Defenders.”

Ren’Vhan’s voice then interrupted them over the channel, “Their just the Combat Air Patrols we’ve maintained since the Vong. We get the occasional holdouts crawling out of the nebula that aren’t aware of their people’s defeat in the Galaxy proper.”

“So you had problems with the Vong as well, Ren’Vhan,” inquired Leonia from the shuttle.

“An advanced scouting element entered the artificial entrance into the Beacon, likely caught the same signal that led us here while they were still in extragalactic territory,” he explained. After a moment's pause, he continued solemnly. “After we took them out, the fleet they were supporting came to investigate… lost a lot of good men in the delaying action while we were using our Interdictors to close up the path through the Nebula… left a few ships behind to make it seem that it was only a small fleet that had been cornered in a cove at the edge of the nebula and they left afterwards.”

Leshran’s voice expressed a sense of awe for the man, “Deception was always your forte, but I didn’t realize you were skilled with it beyond mental manipulations.”

As they continued to reduce altitude, the details of the pillars became more clear. Charlton found himself in disbelief at what he was seeing. “Those… aren’t rock formations are they?”

The trees grew out from countless holes in the pillars separated by vertical and horizontal bars of lustrous metals. Along the ground in the various holes, he could make out shot greenery within and found himself reducing speed so he could see it better out the portside viewport, until he had stopped entirely, staying aloft purely through the power being rerouted to his fighter’s repulsorlifts. The facade of the structure had a vague resemblance to the buildings that still stood on Rud-Ibasl, and those he’d seen in holonet images of Coruscant. But like Rud-Ibasl’s skyscrapers, the windows had fallen out or broke long ago, and each floor now covered with enough soil to support plant life. He even thought he spotted something rush by one of the shattered windows very quickly.

“Is this… an abandoned city,” he asked.

“Whole planet is covered in it… or rather… was,” came an old woman’s voice over the channel, one he did not recognize. “Between massive eruptions, meteor impacts and good old fashioned wind, a lot of sediment has been deposited in most of them, allowing the plant growth you see now. If not for the special properties of the metals that were used to construct the buildings and their foundations, the buildings should have collapsed long ago.”
Pushing forward on the throttle, Charlton rushed his fighter back into formation with the shuttle as they came up behind and below the Ghost Fleet.

Ren’Vhan cut into the channel, “You can give them the in-depth after we’ve landed Zu Shaule.”

“Actually, I’ll give them the in depth after I’ve given you a piece of my mind,” retorted the woman angrily. “You put Kreia in harms way needlessly and knowing full well she lacked any sort of training to protect herself in such a situation.”

“Weren’t you the one who once told me that Kreia needed to get out more,” he replied.

“To safe places, like Coruscant or Empress Theta, even Naboo… but Rud-Ibasl?”

Ren’Vhan suddenly broke out laughing on the com link, and Charlton found himself wondering what the Admiral found so amusing.

When Ren’Vhan finally finished laughing, he finally explained, “I’ve been to all three and trust me when I say that Rud-Ibasl is tame by comparison.”

The leader of Pike Squadron could almost hear the woman stomping off through the com link. One of the Venator captains broke into the conversation, “ten creds says she’ll be waiting for him at the port to give him a swift punch to the abs.”

Laughter from the fleet above filled his ears as the Lambda pitched up above the skyscrapers that had been long overgrown by the planet’s vegetation. Zu Shaule they called the woman… he would have to speak with her about this planet, his interest was certainly peaked.

As they rose up, he could see to port and starboard several formations of TIE Defenders climbing up along with them from among the buildings, some turning back and diving back below to continue their patrols. Up ahead, a massive stony formation spanned most of the horizon up ahead.

Sasha’s voice came in again, “The dome on the surface is approximately one-hundred-and-thirty kilometers across… severely eroded with multiple circular ridgelines.”

The male Admiral noted, “made for a great starting point for building our operations here. Seemed to have been a starport for whoever used to live on this rock and was pretty well arranged to accommodate our ships, not to mention large enough to service all of them.”

“Used to live here,” Leonia asked over the channel.

“Major extinction event hit this and the other worlds in the system, we’ve found no evidence of sentient survivors thus far,” he replied. “We’ve found a rather severe lack of genetic diversity to boot… most of what you see has a common ancestor when it comes to the plant life.”

As they continued to climb, the saw the various round ridges, each a different color representing a different layer of rock, and more of the buildings rising from them. The valleys between the ridges seemed overgrown with plants as well. He could see a large white flat area along the inner wall of the outermost ring. On it, he could barely make out the dagger-like shapes of a pair of Venators and a handful of Acclamators that were docked to terminals stretching out from the valley wall nearby. He could also make out buildings that appeared to have been cleaned of the vegetation that infested all the structures elsewhere on the planet.

“Well then,” came Ren’Vhan’s voice once more. “I suppose I should welcome you to our home.

--------------------------------------------------
Leonia stepped down from the Lambda’s ramp as Pike Squadron landed their TIEs nearby. She could hear the low roar of the last of the Venators passing overhead. Leshran followed her shortly as Sasha and Cooper finished the shutdown procedures for the shuttle. She looked at the starport terminal as the Rejoice touched down several kilometers away. Overhead, TIE Defenders screamed passed.

The woman put her hand on her chin as she thought to herself.

Leshran turned towards the older woman’s smile as Charlton climbed out of his fighter. “You got that scary look on your face right now ma’am.

Leonia disregarded the comment as she looked back along the valley, noting where the restoration and excavations had ended and a forest rose up from the deep sediment deposits on the valley floor. She looked at the outerwall of the next ring inward and could see similar terminal like structures covered in plant growth.

Cooper stepped out from the shuttle with an amazed look at all he had seen up to this point. He ducked in shock when a passing Crusader’s shadow streaked across the ground near the landed craft, prompting a poke from Sasha who followed shortly thereafter.

Leonia finally looked back towards the craft, her voice thick with curiosity, asked the copilot of her shuttle. “Sasha… what do you supposed would the maximum capacity of this starport facility be?”

“The outerwall of the outermost valley is approximately three-hundred and seventy-five kilometers in diamater,” she said as she calculated the dimensions in her head. “When it comes to area, this ring alone could easily service over nine-hundred Venators using terminals on both sides of the valley… the capacity extended greatly through constructing facilities in the center. Through incorporation of Anti-Grave Units, you could service about half that number in Imperators.”

Leonia smiled widely upon hearing her copilot’s answer as she turned around towards the terminal ground floor entrance. “The opportunity here is vastly greater than I had even imagined.”

--------------------------------

Ren’Vhan straightened himself as he tried to ignore the pain in his gut. Before him, a blue skinned woman of wrinkled face and grey, tattered plumage on her head shook her hand, shaking away the pain from having just punched him.

He could hear one person comment “Good thing no one took Captain Volus up on his wager, eh?” A few chuckles erupted among the crowd as Zu Shaule looked away indignantly.

He’d heard the rumors floating around as to why he tolerates the old Omwati’s violence towards him. Some say he enjoyed it, others that they were secretly married. The one that made the most practical sense was that because she had the adoration of the civilian personnel that supports his fleet, he had to or risk revolt.

But no one would ever believe the true reason unless they had been there around the time he had recruited her.

Suppressing the pain in his voice, he put on a smug smile, “Gotten it out of your system yet?”

Turning only an angry eye towards him, she replied courtly, “For now, I suppose. Now, you’ve brought me a new guest.”

“Some new allies, really,” he replied as he thought of Leonia. Hopefully his men would have met them and be on their way to the command tower.

“That’s not who I was talking about,” she said as she turned towards him fully. “You found a little bird that has fallen from its nest, and picked it up.”

“Ah yes,” he said, remembering the young Omwati girl. He turned towards the docking tube as Kreia walked out with Evuzhi being led by her hand whose eyes fell upon Zu Shaule before a wide smile came across her face and she ran across the platform excitedly.

Ren’Vhan crossed his arms expectantly as the older Omwati caught her in an embrace, and he thought he could hear sobs coming from the young girl as she spoke rapidly in her native tongue. The old bird patted the young girl’s plumage lightly as she spoke softly herself to calm the girl.

“It’s too sentimental for me here,” he replied at last as he walked past the two Omwati. Before he vanished into the doorway leading to the main concourse, he looked back over his shoulder, “You can keep her with you, but do please try to teach her some basic… I’d like to be able to speak with her myself some time.”

He turned his gaze away before Zu Shaule could turn to meet it. He knew of course what it would look like, he’s seen it thousands of time, that venomous gaze so full of her contempt. That he only saw people as tools and cogs just as Tarkin had. Probably threaten him with oblivion if he thought to reduce the poor girl to mere entertainment for his men.

She had said much the same when he first came back with Kreia. He walked onward as he made his way into the vast hall that circled the whole of the ring, this area full of friends and family of the crew members, as well as admirers of some of the more well known crew. He slipped through the crowd silently as he cast the illusion that he wasn’t even there to anyone near enough to see him. When at last the crowd erupted in applause, he looked back to see that Kreia had stepped out into the concourse. Her face covered in a blush of embarrassment.

He turned away as he thought to himself, “Princess of the Ghost Fleet indeed.”

 

//“Finally got the name of that ghost that’s been following me around,” replied the Admiral. “Seems he’s finally picked someone else to haunt.”

“With all due respect,” replied the Pantoran as she turned away from the controls with a mischievous smile. “You can be a real bore sometimes.”//

Fantastic. (Incidentally, I’m now very interested in what is up with that ghost. At first I thought it must be Faltouna, hanging around Uthierav because she was one of the last people he saw. But nope. Something very odd is going on there, and I have several theories. Pretty sure they’re all wrong. Must have to do with Ren’Vhan’s missing memories somehow… maybe.)



//“To safe places, like Coruscant or Empress Theta, even Naboo… but Rud-Ibasl?”

Ren’Vhan suddenly broke out laughing on the com link, and Charlton found himself wondering what the Admiral found so amusing.

When Ren’Vhan finally finished laughing, he finally explained, “I’ve been to all three and trust me when I say that Rud-Ibasl is tame by comparison.”//

*cackles* Well, the parts of a planet that one sees as an Inquisitor are probably not the family tourist spots recommended by the guidebooks.



//“Major extinction event hit this and the other worlds in the system, we’ve found no evidence of sentient survivors thus far,” he replied. “We’ve found a rather severe lack of genetic diversity to boot… most of what you see has a common ancestor when it comes to the plant life.”//

Wonder if the native life forms are unusually vulnerable to offworld germs and pests. Sounds like they are flourishing all over the ruins, though. Nice description of the approach to the base. I also liked the explanation of why Hope Cove is so hard for outsiders to find. Cool.



//Leonia finally looked back towards the craft, her voice thick with curiosity, asked the copilot of her shuttle. “Sasha… what do you supposed would the maximum capacity of this starport facility be?”

“The outerwall of the outermost valley is approximately three-hundred and seventy-five kilometers in diamater,” she said as she calculated the dimensions in her head. “When it comes to area, this ring alone could easily service over nine-hundred Venators using terminals on both sides of the valley… the capacity extended greatly through constructing facilities in the center. Through incorporation of Anti-Grave Units, you could service about half that number in Imperators.”//

Oh. My. Goodness. That is wicked.



//He’d heard the rumors floating around as to why he tolerates the old Omwati’s violence towards him. Some say he enjoyed it, others that they were secretly married. The one that made the most practical sense was that because she had the adoration of the civilian personnel that supports his fleet, he had to or risk revolt.

But no one would ever believe the true reason unless they had been there around the time he had recruited her.//

We’re never going to know, are we? Interesting to meet Zu Shaule after all that has been said in previous installments. Looks like they weren’t joking about her temperament. It’s not good to anger a bird…
Really, not recommended.

Oh, and for name suggestions? How about:

Aella - an Amazon from Greek Myth, name means "whirlwind"
Scothliath - Irish adjective, means "greyish"
Dumaresq - name of a river in Australia, no idea what it means but it sounds good
Balaur - a type of Romanian dragon; was also used as the name of a dinosaur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaur_(dinosaur))

 

One of the characters I intend to introduce as part of the U****'Yar group will give some insight into this... a result of a few colleague's curiosity about who he may have been before his memories were erased... even if Ren'Vhan himself doesn't much care about who he was before.

Hunting down rebels, criminals and surviving Jedi, he found it necessary to delve into the shadiest places of the planets he's visited.
He does however, highly recommend Hoth... about the only thing to worry about out there is the wild life if you asked him.

Black hole passed through the Nebula. It didn't just send the Gamma Ray burst over the top of the GFFA, but also filled the nebula's interior with the stuff.

Hypothetical effects of gamma-ray bursts in the future

The greatest danger is believed to come from Wolf–Rayet stars, regarded by astronomers as likely GRB candidates. When such stars transition to supernovae, they may emit intense beams of gamma rays, and if Earth were to lie in the beam zone, devastating effects may occur. Gamma rays would not penetrate Earth's atmosphere to impact the surface directly, but they would chemically damage the stratosphere.
For example, if WR 104, at a distance of 8,000 light-years were to hit Earth with a burst of 10 seconds duration, its gamma rays could deplete about 25 percent of the world's ozone layer. This would result in mass extinction, food chain depletion, and starvation. The side of Earth facing the GRB would receive potentially lethal radiation exposure, which can cause radiation sickness in the short term, and in the long term result in serious impacts to life due to ozone layer depletion. This is in addition to the atmosphere literally being blown away from the planet by the intense blasts of energy from the event until the Black Hole eventually passed through the bottom of the nebula.

This is essentially what happened to all the planets in Beacon. Eventually, the atmospheres were restored from gases from the nebula walls that had been displaced during the event being captured in the gravity of the nearby planets and stars until they reached breathable levels again.

I think you'll love her scheme to fill the vacancies when she gets around to it >=)

Hehe, love that video! As for the reason, it's been hinted at already, but it will become a lot more clear when she has to interact with some of the older members of the U****'Yar group.

Aella would be a perfect name for one of the characters I have planned, as is Scothliath. I'll see about the other two somewhere.