AN: Sorry for the irregular posting. I forgot to post on Friday before leaving for camp...
Heart's Desire
"Do you ever do anything other than meditate?"
Jacen cocked his head to look at the entrance of the cargo bay and sighed.
"I'm looking for Sekot, Shadow," Jacen said. "It takes a bit of concentration to find a Force sensitive planet that doesn't want to be found."
"If it is still out there."
"If, indeed," Jacen agreed, resuming his meditations.
"We've been sitting here for almost two days," Shadow interrupted again.
"And we'll probably be sitting here for another week if you keep interrupting me." Jacen allowed his annoyance to creep into his voice.
"I'm losing credits here," Shadow said. "I have…"
"Repairs to make?" Jacen asked, finally turning away from his meditations. "Food to buy? What, Han? We just fixed every system on the ship. There's nothing to repair. We have three months worth of rations. Sure they are old Imperial era stormtrooper rations, but they'll keep us alive. Right now, we don't have anything more pressing to do than finding Sekot. This sector of space hasn't been disturbed in years, and nobody is likely to find us here."
"Do you even know where we are?" Shadow demanded. "Ever since you stepped foot on this ship you've all but taken over…"
"I stepped foot on this ship a hundred years before you were born," Jacen interrupted. "I don't have time for this. Get out."
"I will not be ordered around on my own ship!" Shadow pulled his blaster and pointed it at Jacen. "I've had enough of this! The Jedi are gone, and we'll never find them. Both you and Tasha have to let go and get on with your lives."
Jacen got off his meditation container and reached out with the Force. He fired the blaster and caught the bolt on the palm of his hand, dissipating the energy back into the Force. Shadow stared at him in surprise, but did not put the blaster away.
"I haven't tried it with a lightsaber blade, but I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult," Jacen said. "But you're right. This isn't working."
"I'm glad you've finally seen the light," Shadow said smugly, tucking his blaster back in his holster.
"I need Tasha," Jacen admitted, walking past Shadow out of the cargo bay. "I can't find Sekot on my own, but with her help, I should be able to. I won't even bother asking you."
"Now just stop right there," Shadow said. "We're not going after..."
The ship lurched as it jumped to light speed and both men looked at each other suspiciously.
"Wasn't me," Shadow said.
"Me, neither."
They both rushed to the cockpit and found Smoke slumped over in the pilot chair. Jacen put a hand on her forehead to wake her up and Shadow accessed the navicomputer.
"Smoke, where are we going?" Jacen asked as she returned to consciousness.
"Jacen?" She replied. "How did I get here?"
"Navicomputer is blank," Shadow said. "She made a blind jump on a timer."
"I'm not entirely sure about that," Jacen said. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was meditating in my cabin and then I woke up here."
"A vision?" Shadow asked.
"Could be," Jacen agreed. "For now, we'll let the ship guide us. How much time do we have?"
"Eight hours."
The occupants of the Rising Star spent the eight hours in hyperspace fussing over Smoke, meditating, training, sleeping and eating with eager anticipation to find out what awaited them at their destination. Jacen and Womprat used this time to repair the damage the Mandalorian armour took from the Bartokk attack as well as perform some minor repairs on Womprat. After hearing that the Mandalorians were now all but extinct thanks to the Sith, Jacen decided that using his armour as a disguise would have little worth and repainted it with a Corellian Jedi theme. Mostly black, he painted forest green lines around the helmet and down to the ankles as if to simulate a green hemmed robe. As a memory to his former squad mates, he painted gold, red, blue, and black stripes on the left bicep. Inside the bands of colour, he included the names of the Mandalorians he once called friends. On the right bicep, in honour of his family, he included Corellian Blood Stripes and his father's name, and the lightsaber blade colours and names of his mom, Jaina, Anakin, and Tenel Ka.
As if through an unspoken agreement, all of the occupants congregated in the cockpit just before the timer ran out on the hyperspace jump, except for Womprat who took his position tied into the dorsal gunner turret.
"Wouldn't it suck if there was a black hole waiting for us?" Jacen joked as the timer started counting the last ten seconds.
"Not funny," Shadow growled.
The ship tore into real space and Nova activated the sensor suite to determine their surroundings.
"This is the Kessel system," Jacen said, recognizing the cluster of black holes near the distant bean-shaped reddish planet famous for spice – a narcotic excretion from spiders that was mined by prisoners. "Why would we be here?"
"I've never heard of it," Shadow said. "Looks like a horrible place to visit. These gravetic anomalies are off the chart."
"You're a smuggler and you've never heard of Kessel?" Jacen asked. "It's the biggest spice producer in the galaxy."
"Spice?" Smoke said. "Spice has been solely produced on Ryloth for ages. I think I heard about Kessel once."
"Well, we have two options," Jacen said. "We can go down to the planet and see if anyone is there, or we can fly through the Maw and see if anyone is there."
"The Maw?"
"You don't mean those black holes there, do you?" Nova asked. "Did you see these readings? It'd be suicide to go in there."
"There are paths into the middle of it," Jacen said. "But none of them are large enough for Sekot. Unless Sekot moved the black holes."
"You are so full of yourself," Shadow said. "I don't want to risk it. We'll go to the planet."
"As you wish."
Kessel's rocky red ground crunched under Jacen's armoured feet as he bounced along the long-deserted spaceport in low gravity, once again wearing his Mandalorian armour. This time he carried the blaster in hand and his two lightsabers on his belt, as well as several explosives.
"I'm not really sensing anything except the spice spiders," Jacen remarked. "This place is long deserted."
"We're here for a reason," Smoke said from the ship. "I can feel it."
Jacen reached the main entrance facing the spaceport and cautiously entered the facility, blaster at the ready. He explored the offices and made reports back to the ship informing them of his progress, but not even a spider hatchling was to be seen. The glitterstim spiders were hyper-photosensitive and stayed away from light, so it did not surprise Jacen that they stayed within the caves below.
After half an hour of searching the facility Jacen located some rebreather masks and returned them to the ship so his companions could join him. Nova and Shadow followed him back to the offices while Smoke stayed behind to take care of Callie.
"The central database appears to be intact," Jacen noted as he showed them around. "But there isn't any power. Can you see about getting the generator up and running, Nova?"
Nova disappeared down the hall and Shadow glared at Jacen for a moment.
"Yes?"
"Nothing," Shadow said, and followed Nova down the hall. Several minutes later the lights flickered on and the datacore whirled into activity.
"That did it," Jacen reported, already watching the start up procedure scroll before him on the desk terminal. A splattering of long-dried blood on the terminal barely obstructed his view, so he did not bother trying to wipe off any more than the dust that had accumulated. After a few seconds, a login screen appeared with the words 'System in Permanent Lock Down. Please enter administrator login:'
LCalrissian, Jacen typed in on a hunch.
What could his password be?
"Did you get in?" Shadow asked, appearing at the door with Nova.
"Give me a second."
With the Force guiding his fingers, Jacen typed in MillenniumFalcon and hit the accept button.
The screen flickered and provided a list of video entries, the last one dated about eighty years before the current date. He cued it up, and the image of an older Lando than Jacen had remembered appeared.
These Sith bastards have done it again, the image of Lando said. They've forced me to lower production, even though I agreed to only produce medical supplies for them. I swear, the discovery that diluted glitterstim could be converted into a cheap, potent sedative was the worst one I ever made.
They've captured Tendra and our kids. I don't know if I'll ever see them again. With Han, Leia, Jaina, Jacen, Luke and Mara dead, there's almost no point to living anymore. These parasites that call themselves Sith have taken everything worth living for. I don't even know why I'm making this recording. I've decided to run and destroy everything I can on this blasted planet. Maybe I'll meet up with Eriana at her base in the Maw and take that project she asked me to make for her. Smart girl, Eriana. Under the guise of an old pirate group she took over, she has built an organization out of the ashes of Karrde's that would've made Car'das's look like a school yard gang. Just last week she duped the Sith into attacking her base, blew it up, and they completely missed the secondary base she had established deeper in the Maw. Took half the fleet with it, too. There's no way they'd ever find her other base, not with the mind tricks that girl knows. Ever since the Jedi Council was killed she practically took over the Jedi Order herself, hiding it where nobody would ever find it. If the galaxy ever recovers from this Sith invasion, she'll be the one to thank. Who knows where else she hid a base? I just hope I live long enough to see the end of this Darth...
Everyone jumped as a blaster bolt lanced across the screen and caught Lando in the chest.
Traitor! Someone shouted on the recording. The last image they saw was of Lando painfully reaching to hit a button on the console before it cut out.
"I guess the old guy didn't get a chance to destroy the database," Shadow remarked.
Jacen removed his helmet and right glove and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. "No, I suppose not."
"You knew him?" Nova asked.
"Yeah," Jacen leaned back in the chair – the very chair Lando had been killed in. His lungs screamed at the thin Kessel air so he wiped his eyes again and replaced his helmet. "He was like an uncle to us.
"Can we take the database with us?"
"No," Nova said. "The whole thing is tied into this specific power generator. They won't work separately. We can get Womprat over here and download some of it if you want. I suggest we do it quickly. I don't know how much life is left in the generator."
Jacen keyed the communicator on his wrist.
"Womprat, get over here and bring some extra storage. I have a database I need taken with us. And you can blow it up afterward."
Jacen spent the next couple hours scrolling through old entries in Lando's database as Womprat downloaded as much of it as he could. Nova and Shadow returned to the ship, no doubt to argue with Smoke about leaving Jacen on Kessel and finding work – an ultimately futile argument given that Jacen had locked out the engines.
He did not find anything as worthwhile as the first recording they watched. Most of the recordings were about day-to-day operations, messages recorded for Tendra and their child, a young boy named Caleb, or Lando's personal log recordings. He came across one about his sister that he could not bear to watch, so he ensured Womprat made a recording for later.
"Report: Master, I have to check the...er...flow rate on the power generator while this download completes," Womprat said. "I will return shortly."
"Sure," Jacen said, engrossed in an old report on hoverball championships Lando lost bets on. About twenty minutes later, Jacen looked up from the display and noticed that Womprat had not returned, but the portable storage device indicated the download was complete.
"Womprat, the download is done," Jacen broadcast. After a few moments of silence, Jacen disconnected the storage device and left Lando's office. A few doors down he found the power generator, but that room was abandoned.
"Womprat, report in immediately."
"Reporting: Right here, Master."
Jacen spun around, blaster at the ready and pointed at a blaster-wielding red humanoid droid with red eyes. It had broad shoulders, a narrow torso, and the face was the sweeping design from vocabulator plate to the back of the head - a design favoured in droids thousands of years ago.
"Womprat?" Jacen asked.
"Negative, Master. I would prefer it if you refer to my old designation, HK-47. It feels good to be humanoid once again. We must remember to thank mistress Eriana for her part in this. It was her idea to restore me to my old body design."
"Right," Jacen said. "I almost forgot you were humanoid before. Where is your old body?"
HK-47 stepped aside and indicated behind him, where the astromech shell he once inhabited tweeted in response.
"Note of derision: This is our master, fat one," HK-47 scolded. "You must listen to him.
"Explanation: I found my new body complete in a hidden chamber, just as the database indicated. Also within the database was the basic programming for an astromech droid. I made the switch very easily, and reprogrammed this droid with basic functionality. Do not worry, master. I will program him to be just as lethal as I was in his body."
"Great," Jacen said. Owning one assassin droid was tiresome enough. Now he had two. He held out the storage device. "The database is done. Do you still want to blow this place?"
"Statement: Oh, yes master!" HK-47 exclaimed. "I would be most happy to demonstrate the new capabilities of my enhanced body! Please exit immediately and prepare to watch the show!"
"What's his name?" Jacen asked, pointing to the astromech.
"Concerned Query: Are your auditory processors scrambled, master? His name is 'Fat One.' That armour is not too tight on your cranium, is it?"
"Let's go, Fat One," Jacen called to the astro droid. "Don't get caught in the explosion, HK."
A glorious explosion marked the departure of the Rising Star as it left the surface of Kessel, a fitting tribute to HK-47's return to the galaxy. Completely surprised by the appearance of the humandoid form of their beloved astromech, they were only more surprised by his more often referrals to wonton violence and seemingly redoubled loyalty to Jacen. If they did not know any better, they may have thought that the droid was depressed about living in an astromech body for a hundred years.
While HK-47 eagerly worked on his new project, bringing the astromech up to spec with his assassination protocols, the humans gathered in the cockpit to discuss their next destination. Jacen and Smoke agreed they should explore the Maw for the base mentioned in Lando's video while Shadow and Nova wanted to leave and find some cargo to transport. Naturally, Jacen forced the final decision by threatening to lock out the main computer.
After five hours of exploring the Maw cluster, including finding the old Imperial base that had been the decoy base Lando had mentioned, Jacen finally found a tight corridor of black holes that the Force drew him to. In order to successfully navigate it, according to his calculations, he would have to fly right down the middle of the corridor where the gravetic pull of all the black holes combined created a null point of gravity that was safe to traverse. He also knew that he did not have the skill necessary to fly it, even with the Force as his ally.
"So you need my help after all?" Shadow asked. "Big tough Jedi Master can't do everything on his own?"
"We both know you're twice the pilot I'll ever be," Jacen said, not letting Shadow's tone get to him. "Jaina and Dad were, too."
"Why should I put my family at risk in that?" Shadow asked, pointing to the gauntlet of black holes Jacen wanted to fly through.
"Because you're the better pilot, and if you don't fly this ship, I will. That would put your family at more risk, right?"
After about ten minutes of coaxing and debating, a threat from HK-47 promising to "slosh his fleshy, waterlogged body all over the cargo bay floor" if he betrayed the master finally convinced Shadow to pilot through the corridor of black holes.
He eased the ship toward the corridor of black holes and immediately felt the tug on one side of the ship.
"You'll have to throttle up," Nova said, running calculations on the navicomputer. "All the way. The hull won't be able to take it otherwise."
"At that speed, any error would be critical."
"Then don't make an error," Jacen said. He slammed the throttle to full, and Shadow twisted the ship through the gauntlet of black holes. The critical warning alarm bleeped nearly continuously as he wound through the gravetic disturbances, frantically trying to not overcompensate while maintaining a cohesive flight pattern through the maw. They broke through into an open area and a base appeared on an asteroid before them, but Shadow had to twist the ship to dodge a barrage of blaster bolts.
"We mean you no harm!" Smoke shouted at the comm system. "We're friends! Please stop shooting! Our weapons are offline!"
The blaster bolts subsided and Jacen ordered a stop.
"Are you kidding?" Shadow asked. "They'll blast us."
"They stopped shooting," Jacen said. "Throw engine power into the shields if you're worried. I have a good feeling about this."
"Unidentified craft, you will follow the coordinates we provide you and you will dock and prepare to be boarded," A burly voice came over the speakers. "If you power weapons or deviate from the assigned flight plan, we will destroy you."