Beyond - Legends There is Something in the Void (DDC-2019)

There is something in the Void
Author: Anedon
Characters: OCs
Genre: Diary, Horror
Timeframe: 42-43 ABY between LotF and FotJ
Summary: A Jedi and his team are send to investigate mysterious disappearances in a forsaken region of space.

Written for the Deary Diary Challenge 2019(second half marathon)

Thanks, so much to my beta @divapilot for the beta and support.





From: Jedi Knight Gaven Seral
To: Jedi Master Chigal
Date: 13.6.43 ABY (CST)
Regarding: The fate of Jedi knight Toris Cealus and his team
Security Level: High

I´m sending this to you as it seems a grim fate has befallen our brother and those who traveled with him. The circumstances we discovered here were shocking to say the least and I fear that the coming days might be darker than we´re expecting. But I believe it's of great importance that what knight Cealus has discovered here should not reach the attention of our chief of state, especially not his diary that could be recovered intact. So far it is the only belonging of the expedition that we´ve been able to discover, there are no corpses, no pieces of equipment or even a sign of their ship anywhere around this strange facility he discovered. The strange circumstances of the diaries discovery combined with its disturbing contents have convinced me that we need to take action on this matter. So I´ve decided to send this diary to you to analyze, in hopes you and the council can decide what to do in this situation. Time is of the essence as I fear Daala agents are monitoring the order. So until the council came to a decision I´ll stay here and make sure nobody else disturbs this place.



(What follows are the recovered diary entries of Jedi Knight Cealus expedition):

Day 1:
Today we left Coruscant and begun our travel towards Corma from which he hope to delve deeper into the wild space to find out more about these mysterious disappearances. It still puzzles me why we Jedi are called in this matter of the remnant, but from what I found out during the briefing the new regent is very disturbed by these occurrences and his regular scouting forces haven´t been able to figure out anything, some of them even disappearing themselves. Went through all of the notes we have on the topic so far. The disappearances seem to mainly occur in the border regions of the remnant bordering the Unknown Regions, it seems to have hit ships from all sizes and backgrounds, not just imperial but also Chiss transports and privately owned vessels. Freighters, star fighters, even smaller military ships. The simple answer would be pirates but nothing was discovered hinting at them. The ships just vanish, no last messages, not emergency signals. From one moment to the other everything seems to be okay and suddenly they are gone. But if it isn´t pirates then who is behind it? Seems we are going to find out. Hopefully we can get more information on Corma itself. it's in imperial territory but held by Talon Karrde´s men, the last bastion of civilization before the Dead Zone, the almost empty part of space between the main galaxy and the Unknown Regions. There are only a handful of lone systems and worlds, all classified dead and with no population, but it seems something is lurking out there.

The Crew seems worried about our mission, but being veterans they take to their work with a calm and stoic attitude that gives me confidence. In total 21 soldiers, technicians and pilots. Each of them has been chosen by the council itself, many of them have fought on our side during the civil war, some even since the Vong War. The team is small for such a risky mission but secrecy is the main concern. Guess this is also why they send and old Twi'lek like me to lead this mission. If one of the masters would be seen this deep in imperial territory it could cause some serious trouble. The only person on board not worried or stoic is Shyn. Is it really just two years ago since her first master was killed during the civil war? It sometimes feels to me as if she´s been my apprentice for a short time. Maybe it's just because we get along so well. We both from Ryloth both Twi'lek in a human lead order. She is close to her knighting; I feel with her age of 23 years. Who knows maybe she will be a council member one day.

 

This is a cool idea - a recovered journal from a Jedi mission gone wrong!
I find it really interesting that Gaven feels it’s imperative that this recovered journal not reach the hands of the head of state. This is something the Jedi want to handle internally. Why would they be so secretive?

I like that Jedi Toris is a Twi’lek, as is his assistant. This will give a different perspective from the usual human point of view.

You’ve got the start of a very I retesting mystery here. What terror lies out there, in the void? What happened to Toris??

 

Glad you like the intrigue, I was kinda playing around with this idea in my head for a while now. Its defenetly something to worry about for the Jedi so they have to keep it a secret.

That was actually a pretty spontanesous idea, at least at first. I usually write human characters so this time I decided to do something different. This idea of an old experienced Twi'lek who has been around throught all the struggles of his people in the last decades as a pretty cool one I think. Also might tie into the future of this story in unique and intresting ways.

Thanks, hope I can make the eventually payoff be worthy of the building up towards it.



Day 3
We´ve finally arrived on Corma. Not much happened yesterday. Spent most of my time training with Shyn and discussing the mission once more. Always hated waiting periods like that, but now we are finally there. Corma is a truly forsaken place. Endless jungles cover most of the surface and constant rain seems to pour down from the dark clouds all day. The smuggler base is small, build on stakes so it towers a bit over the jungle. Karrde´s men are more helpful than I expected. I never trusted smugglers or criminals for the profit they try to make of other people suffering. But I´ve heard some good things about Karrde. Before I became a Jedi, during my time as a medic on Ryloth I´ve heard his syndicate was selling medical supplies to fairer prices than anyone else. But this was so long ago that when I think back to it I start missing more and more details. Maybe I can go back one day, spend my retirement there. I´ve been in this mess for too long. Enslaved by the CIS at a young age, liberated by the republic only to be enslaved once more by the empire shortly afterwards. I guess only the fact that my parents were doctors saved my life. When the empire found out I had medical skills, they trained me as a medic and I was treated a bit better than most of our species. Not that it kept me from joining the rebellion against them. There I eventually discovered I was sensitive to the force and so I joined the new order, learned from Chigal, fought the empire, the Vong and Jacen Solo. And now I´m getting sentimental it seems. Well I´m an old man so I guess that´s only natural.(Note to self, have to cut this part out when presenting this diary to the council.) Back to the mission though, it seems that traders and soldiers aren´t the only ones vanishing in this part of space. Karrde's Crew is experiencing disappearances as well. Experienced smugglers who travel between the remnant and the Chiss have just disappeared without a trace, just like all the others. Shyn asked them about pirates, but they claim they would have noticed pirate activity. Whoever is behind this seems to be well informed and organized, executing these actions without a single misstep so far. And it seems this has been going on for longer than we knew. It seems that ships had been vanishing in this region since the fragmentation of the empire if not even earlier. But then these cases were attributed to slavers like the Vagaari but now that they are no longer active it has become clear that it must be something else.

The smugglers gave us some updated charts of the Dead Zone and we are preparing to head out tomorrow. In addition on the charts though we´ve also taken on a 24th member in our expedition. He calls himself Lysander, a human around forty I would guess, very tall and muscular in build. I first considered him just a ruffian hired by Karrde´s men for security but speaks in a very cultivated way and he seems to know a lot about this region of space. Several of his friends, he told us, were amongst those missing and so he offered his help to finally figure out what happened to them. I wasn´t sure if we could trust this criminal but his soft, friendly voice won us over and when I used the force I could feel no malice in him, just a strong determination.