After they had made sure that every youngling was of the Eclipse-class vessel Daniel had contacted Sheppard who was still on the ground clearing out any Sith forces still on the planet, something which was taking very long considering the fact that they were now pinned between the few Jedi who where still defending the enclave and Anakin's forces who were attacking them from behind.
The surviving Jedi they came across were sent out of the enclave while they cleared out the rest of the enclave, one of the last Jedi to be saved was Revan's wife who were holding out, in their hidden quarters, against fifty or so stormtroopers lead by four Sith. When Anakin told her what had happened to Revan she grabbed Vaner and ran out closely followed by Anakin who directed them to one of the rings instead of the hangar and from the rings she was sent up to the flagship where she made her way to Revan within a minute using directions from the clones around.
When she arrived in the medbay she wasn't greeted by the sight of Revan with a hole through his torso, instead he was sitting there without as much as a scratch on his body, having a conversation with Daniel about the holocron, when he saw her enter he closed the conversation and begun to explain to her what had happened after the stormtroopers had captured him and the holocron the second day of the siege, then he went on to retell what Daniel had been claiming to have been doing since the last time they had seen each other.
When all that was done Daniel stepped in.
"As you can probably tell by now Revan is completely restored." Daniel said as he walked up him and put a hand on his shoulder. "But it did come at a price, his body was healed using nanites, microscopic robots. They are now part of his body and I'm not sure he can survive without them." The last part was somewhat a lie, but at least at the moment he wouldn't survive for long.
"So what?" Bastila said. "He's alive and as long as he won't notice these nanites I'm sure we can manage."
"The problem is not if you can manage or not." Daniel said. "The problem is that I'd rather not see that anyone ran around with these nanites unless the person in question is with me."
"So you're saying that you won't allow us to leave your ship while Revan has these nanites in his body?" She said a bit angrily.
"Darling, calm down." Revan said as he freed himself of Daniel's hand and took a hold of Bastila. "I've already spoken with Daniel about this and come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is to stay with him. You know all to well that I will not leave the Telos holocron in the care of anyone else, but we also just saw what happened when the Jedi tried to protect it, if it hadn't been for Daniel then both I and the holocron would be out of reach."
"So you think that we should just abandon the Jedi and follow Daniel into whatever madness comes next?" She shouted. "Think of Vaner, he'll be all alone here, last time I checked there wasn't a single child in Daniel's care."
"That is another reason for why I want you and Revan to join me, on the Eclipse-class vessel we saved him from there were many younglings looked inside some kind of sphere which blocked out their connection with the force, I've taken these younglings in as a master, but I'm beginning to realize that I might not be able to tech all of them on my own since my knowledge of both the Jedi and the Sith way I limited." Daniel said as he begun to project images of the younglings in his palms. "I need your help to train these children, I can't do it on my own."
"I recognize several of those children, they have been reported missing from several Jedi enclaves or academies around the galaxy." Bastila said as a few tears begun to stream down her cheek. "The Jedi will not accept them back if they were taken by the Sith, but I will not kill them. You have my blade Daniel and if I may talk to the Jedi who survived the attack I might be able to recruit a few more, at least three of those younglings have masters who resided at the enclave when the attack came."
"Your husband mentioned Praxeum ships as a way of teaching the younglings without a full set of teachers and masters." Daniel said.
"That could work if you can get your hands on one." She said as her head begun to run through all the information about them she could remember. "But most of them were abandoned by the Jedi because there's far to few younglings to justify having a fleet of them, last time I checked most of them were flying around on autopilot in an attempt to stop them from being captured or targeted by the Sith."
"I'm sure that I can find one, I have an array of sensors set up across the galaxy, if I can set them to detect the hyperdrive signature of these ships then I'm sure we can not only find one but also track its movements a few months back." Daniel said. "Sadly I've been unable to find such a signature in any of the databases which I have access to, including the Dantooine enclaves archive."
"That's because the signature is not found in the archive, it's stored outside of the archive for safety reasons." Bastila said. "But as its guardian I know were it is."
"I never knew the enclave had access to one of those ships." Revan said in surprise.
"Neither did I." She said. "That is until a few months ago when I was asked to be the guardian of much of the enclaves secrets. Apparently Dantooine had not one but two of these ships a long time ago when it was larger than even the academy on Couruscant, but as time passed one of the ships were destroyed by the Sith and the other was sent away without crew a few years later when the Sith killed or captured almost every youngling who was coming to the enclave, as time went by it was forgotten by everyone but the masters who was on the council and the three guardians, then the Sith returned and wiped out the council before these could pass on the information about how to order the ship to return, leaving the guardians with only the knowledge of the signature the ship carried. The past guardians have of course tried to find the ship but as it is constantly on the move no one managed to catch up to it."
"If you can get me that signature I will get that ship. If you want to go back to the surface you can use the rings, Revan should be able to activate them using the nanites in his body. Both you and the child will have to get nanites eventually too, but not right now." Daniel said as he made a move for the door. "And please don't mention my name down there, I'm trying to keep a low profile. I will leave this ship her for you to ring onto with any Jedi who chose to follow you, Anakin will stay here to assist you in any possible way. Personally I have to return to Couruscant for some negotiations."
"We will join you as soon as we're done here." Revan said as Daniel left the room.
The next time they meet was a few days later when Daniel, Padmé and Ryna returned from Couruscant with a new seat in the senate, after Padmé had begun to negotiate for Daniel the committee had begun to give up some ground every hour and after two days they had granted Daniel a seat in the senate with all the benefits that gave. The remaining days had been spent teaching Padmé how to control an android using the nanites so that she could get some shopping done while she was there without getting hunted by the Jedi.
Upon their return to the fleet Daniel, Revan, Bastila, Ryna and the six Jedi who'd joined Revan and Bastila, begun to gather up the younglings before they sent them through the gate to Dantea were they where directed to rings which transported them to an almost exact replica of the academy on Couruscant but here it was surrounded by desert instead of houses and buildings. During that day there were many emotional reunions between masters and apprentices and also between younglings who believed that the other had been killed, while the Jedi didn't allow emotions Daniel had told them to use their good emotions to grow stronger so in the end many masters ended up crying on the shoulder of their long gone apprentices. But only a day later they had all settled in and the first lessons begun. Unknown to the Jedi Daniel was following those lessons live from the fleet, following every step the masters showed, this practise would continue during all coming nights when those around him was asleep.
But during the days Daniel continued to capture slaver worlds with the fleet, sometimes joined by Anakin, Revan or Bastila and in rare cases one of the other masters would take their Padawans with the for some field practise, this continued for almost three months before things were set in motion again, this time by McKay who reported to Daniel that he had managed to learn a single thing from the machinery on Kessel, it was transmitting something to another facility in another part of the galaxy, he had also managed to get a set of coordinates for the receiving end, so without hesitation Daniel gave the order for the entire fleet to meet there, including the ship at Kessel, who would bring McKay along.
An hour later most of the fleet dropped out of hyperspace only to find themselves in a battle between a large group of Sith cruisers and star destroyers and a small group of Republic cruisers who were in a bad shape, taking a decision in a matter of seconds Daniel threw his fleet at the Sith forces who were now losing badly, within five minutes only a handful of cruisers were left and these jumped away. After getting quite a few thanks from the Republic forces Daniel convinced them to get their ships repaired while Daniel's fleet guarded the system for them, this idea was quickly accepted by the captains of the ships who took their ships away from the systems to get these repairs, by the time they returned a few days later Daniel's forces had turned the space surrounding the machinery, which had turned out to be a space station, into a fortress completer with minefields and turrets waiting for any ships to cross the space they were protecting, the fact that Daniel's fleet was nowhere to be found and that the brightest minds of the system was aboard the station didn't make the captains feel any better. But after trying to force their way through the defences of the station a few times which only resulted in their ships being destroyed they gave up on the station and begun to patrol around the station and the system.
While that was happening McKay was busy working on the machinery inside the station along side some of the other scientist from the expedition who had lost the will to stay on the same planet with nothing to do, the scientists who had been on the station before McKay and his crew had been left on the planets of the system after they had given Daniel and McKay every piece of information they had on the station. Apparently it was called Centerpoint station and was built by the Celestials a long time ago and it could move massive objects using tractorbeams across the galaxy, the last piece of information was the entire reason for why Daniel had chosen to fortify the station, he didn't like the thought of someone throwing around the planets of the galaxy at their will.
After taking the station and removing the people inside Daniel had returned to Kessel to fortify the space around the planet just as heavily and even more fortifications were put up in the immediate area around the machinery in case anyone already on the planet tried to get to it. Then Daniel took a break and returned to Dantea, it had been almost four months and they still hadn't found a single trace of the Praxeum ship except for a two and a half year old sighting of one in a part of the galaxy were Daniel's network of probes were very thin, but because there hadn't been any traces of it after that it meant that it was still there somewhere, the only problem was that the area of space were the ship could be was almost an entire sector Daniel hadn't been bothered to attempt an expedition to find the ship himself, but as it was his patience was running out, so at the end of the week which marked the fourth month of his search for it he gave Anakin and Padmé a single ship with the others to find and bring back the ship at any cost while they improved the grid in that sector.
While Anakin and Padmé did that Daniel continued to hunt down the slavers, which had by now changed tactics and tried to stay away from them by keeping in motion on their ships, so Daniel paired up his ships and sent them after the slavers ships while he took the flagship to clear any slaver worlds still working before he joined the chase for slavers.
This was Daniel's occupation for the month that Anakin and Padmé was flying around in the sector looking for the lost Praxeum ship. But after that month of searching they finally found the ship trapped in the gravity well of a black hole going neither inside nor leaving it.
Seeing the situation the ship was in Anakin and Padmé didn't hesitate when they begun to haul the ship away using tractorbeams, since the Praxeum ship managed to keep its distance from the hole by itself it wasn't hard at all to pull it away from there, while Padmé was handling the control of the ship Anakin hurried to the hangar were he took a Eta-2 Actis-class to the Praxeum ships hangar, just in case the ship tried to jump away, also he wasn't to sure about the intentions of whoever was on the ship and he could feel that someone was there, no doubt about it, but he couldn't tell if it was Jedi or Sith.
Behind him two drop ships followed and left a sixty clones strong compliment before returning to their own ship. With the clones in tow Anakin left the hangar and took a left, making his way towards the area were he felt the presence and it wasn't long before he saw two figures which came at him, one using a blue and a green lightsaber and the other two red ones, before he had the time to react a blast door shut between him and the clones, from the other side of the door he could her the clones preparing breaching charges, but he knew that Daniel wanted the ship in good condition so he ordered the clones to find another way around, then the two enemies were upon him.
The first one with one blue and one green blade he sidestepped and force threw into a wall with ease, almost predicting his enemies moves, second one was harder and it wasn't before Anakin visibly fainted to the right and the shield received two heavy blows from both of his enemies lightsabers that he managed pin his enemy to the floor, but just as he was about to run his lightsaber down into the body he was attacked from behind by the first enemy who had now resorted to using hands and feet.
While he was tearing of the attacker which had lodged itself to his back he could hear the sound of the clones approaching and just as he freed himself and sent his attacker flying into a wall they came into the corridor from the far end with their rifles raised and took up firing positions.
"That's better." Anakin said as the still hooded attacker who'd used red lightsabers simply sat up on the floor instead of attacking again. "Now slowly remove you hood so I can see your face."
Following Anakin's order the figure slowly raised her hand and pulled down the hood, the moment the hood begun to slide of what had previously been a black void became filled with light revealing the face of the attacker.
"Ventress?" Anakin said not a little surprised when he recognised the woman he'd fought so many times before. "So you're taking apprentices now?"
"You know my name." Ventress said. "So not only is the clone using lightsabers and the force it knows my name too."
"But I'm no clone Ventress." Anakin said and removed his helmet.
"Anakin." Ventress said with a growl. "So you're here to bring us two in for justice?"
"No, I'm not with the Republic any more." Anakin said. "But I still think we have an interest in you."
"You? Left the Republic?" Ventress said. "I find that hard to believe, especially when you run around with their clones and in their armour."
"These are not clones of the Republic and this armour is far more advanced then anything the Republic could think of." Anakin begun before the other attacker begun to groan and move.
"Master?" It said in surprise as it turned around and saw the other two. "I will not return."
"Ashoka?" Anakin said even more surprised as he recognised the voice. "Is that really you?"
"I'm afraid so master." Ashoka said as she removed the hood and stood up. "And I won't go back to the Jedi or the Republic alive."
"We're not going back to the Republic, as I was trying to explain to Ventress here I don't fly with the Republic any more." Anakin said as he ordered the clones to stand down and sweep the rest of the ship. "You know how I've felt about Padmé right? Well the Jedi found out and chased us away, had it not been for the one who the clones belong to we would not have been alive right now and the only reason we are here is so that we can acquire this ship to teach the younglings we have rescued from the Sith on it."
"Really? Someone has paid the Kaminoans enough credits to lose a ship full of clones?" Ashoka said sceptically.
"Not just one ship, more along the lines of an entire Clone Corps." Anakin countered.
"The Kaminoans sold over thirty six thousand clones under the table?" Ashoka said.
"Yes, but I have to say that I think they ripped of Daniel, he paid many times more than the Republic paid for the entire army in the end." Anakin said.
"So you're effectively a mercenary now." Ashoka taunted him.
"Far from, grey Jedi is more like it." Anakin said. "But that doesn't really matter, what does is if you're coming with us or if we should dropped you of at some planet you chose."
"I can't come with you master." Ashoka said sadly. "Ventress is a Sith, she'd be killed there."
"I know that she's a Sith." Anakin begun before really shocking the others. "Which is all the better, at the current academy there is only Jedi masters but we need a Sith to really teach the kids both sides of the force."
"You mean I would be welcome to stay with you?" Ventress asked in surprise.
"Yes, you would be more than welcome to stay with us and teach at the academy." Anakin said. "And so would you be Ashoka, you two might even get your own padawans."
"I can't decline that offer." Ventress said.
"And I guess I'm coming too then." Ashoka said.
"Sounds good." Anakin said. "Since you're the Sith here I believe Daniel will be the most interest in you, so get to my ship, there's an Eta-2 in the hangar if you need, and Padmé will take you to Daniel." Anakin said. "I've got some things to clear up with my padawan while we get this ship back to Daniel to refit it."
"I'll see you later then." Ventress said and ran of towards the hangar.
"Yes you will." Ashoka shouted back.
"So care to tell me how you two came to be on this ship together?" Anakin asked as the duo walked of towards the bridge which the clones had secured long ago.
"Well I guess there's nothing else to do." She said before she begun her tale.
When she had left the order she wandered the galaxy for a long time, helping the people she could. Then one day the Praxeum ship had arrived in the system she was in, out of curiosity she had entered the ship which had detected her as a Jedi, so using the automated programs she had begun to train once again, then one day when she was about to take one of the more advanced training courses, meant only for Jedi knights, to test herself but she found there to be a little problem, at the far end of the room a ship had crashed through the wall, thankfully the shields had sealed the breach so there were plenty of air in the room.
Upon closer examination she recognised it as one of the Republic's transports, so she had opened the door and the smell that had hit her when she did so still hadn't been cleared from the room, but thankfully the worms which had inhabited the transport after the clones inside had died had passed on, leaving the floor full of flies and the seats and the floor full of skeletons wearing clone armour. When she finally reached the cockpit of the ship she had sensed a faint presences in the force and had managed to find Ventress in a healing trance, while Ventress wasn't Ashokas favorite person her Jedi training took over and she moved Ventress to the medical facility were she managed to get the Sith into a Bacta tank and after a few days she had awoken.
In the beginning they only talked when absolutely needed but as time passed they begun to give each other tips on how to do things before they started to train and spar with each other. Eventually they had begun to consider each other close friends and then the ship had gotten stuck in the gravity well of the black hole a few months ago, since then they had tried to get the ship out of there using all kinds of tricky manoeuvres but they had only gotten closer to the event horizon so they had stopped trying to get lose and instead they simply aimed the ship out and put the engines to max power. Then they had waited and trained.
By the time that Ashoka had finished her story they had been on its way for several hours and she felt the need for sleep crawling up on her, so she decided to go to sleep while Anakin went to help the clone engineers who were using their nanites to refit the ship as best they could. By now they had slightly improved the forwards facing cannons and some of the smaller anti-fighter turrets, but before Anakin were able to get to them the ship violently left hyperspace and was almost immediately graced by a red beam was removed the shields and created a long line along the right wing, but before the second and third beam could hit or grace the ship the navigational computer had begun to perform evasive manoeuvers.
By the time Anakin had reached the bridge the twentieth beam sliced through an asteroid to their right, sending debris flying into the ship, but still it kept flying. As Anakin sat down behind the controls the ship willingly turned over control to him and with a few manoeuvres he had managed to get the huge ship inside the asteroid field and were using them for cover from the beams which was still trying to find its way to the ship, towards the back of the ship Anakin could feel the clones running around, but with the beams flying by he didn't have the time to see what they were doing, instead he tried to come up with a plan to take out the hostile ship which had turned out to be a Harrower-class ship, but his planing was interrupted by the feeling of five clones no longer on the ship and a minute later the pursuing ship flew by the area were the five clones had left the ship.
From their hiding place among the asteroids the clones watched as the Harrower flew by the, it's anti fighter turrets working hard to keep the asteroids away. Just as the ship passed them the clones they took aim and shoot the ship with grappling hooks which went clean through the shields and attached themselves to the hull of the ship, then the clones attached the cables, which sat on the end of the hooks, to their belts and a small engine begun to propel them towards the ship, within seconds their feet touched the ships hull and they begun to move from the back of the ship towards the front were the beams were coming from, on their way there they came upon several of the turrets which were busy trying to clear away the asteroids and at each they left a small gift in the form of a very potent explosive which would rip away the turret and create a hole through several decks, while they were making their way towards the front they could see several beams flying by their ship, one of which graced the back of the ship and caused it to tilt over slightly before it limped forward with one engine less.
After a minute the clones had reached the front of the ship and begun their climb down between the two sections which made up the front of the ship, after planting some explosives around the device which created the beam they hurried away from it and pressed the detonator which created an explosion that shock the ship so violently that it sent the five clones tumbling out into the asteroid field.
Back on the ship Anakin watched as the clones set of the explosives and the Harrower was ripped apart, but what followed was even more violent, from the Harrowers right a swarm of asteroids which the anti fighter turrets had kept in check before now approached at a staggering speed and before the ship managed to launch any fighters to intercept them they crashed into the ship and pulverised it. But what concerned him the most was were the clones had ended up, while their armour would keep them safe from harm they would still die from starvation out in the void.
But thanks to the nanites and some flares the clones were retrieved in a few hours time and they could meet up with the ships Daniel had dispatched to save the ship just outside the asteroid field who then proceed to escort the ship back to the supergate were a dry dock had been built to first refit the Eclipse they had previously captured and now the Praxeum ship.
While the Praxeum ship was being refitted Daniel left the Eclipse to guard the installation and took the rest of the fleet to find and acquire the facility which had produced the ship which had managed to take out the shields of a ship by only gracing it, something like that powered by a ZPM was a truly terrifying weapon, but first he had to find it, so with the fleet in tow he returned to the asteroid field were the fleet cut its way into the field to recover the debris which had once been the Harrower, both the clones explosives and the asteroids had done their part and one of the few things they managed to recover and restore in some manner was the navigational computer, but at least that gave them some sense of the route the ship had taken.
So they begun from the beginning of the ships life, not surprisingly they found a poorly defended Sith shipyard which quickly feel to the fleet, at the shipyard the fleet stayed for a few days while Daniel drew what information he could from the computers and the engineers built a hyperspace cradle around it. Using the hyperspace cradle the shipyard was then moved to the supergate to be refitted with Ancient technology.
From the shipyard he had learnt that the ship had been coming and going from the shipyard several times, using it as a home port, but sadly he hadn't managed to crack the encryption on the dates, so there was no telling when the ship had been going were and when it had returned from some other place, but at least his list of possible targets had increased and by comparing them to the navigational computer of the Harrower a somewhat better image of its route begun to form.
THE END
Well that's it for this update.
Now please leave a review, there's been over 250 people reading the previous chapter but only a single review so far, surely there has to be more than a single person who has something to say about the story? So from now on I'll set review goals which has to be fulfilled before I post the next chapter (these reviews have to be a little more than just "Good update."). The first goal which I set for this chapter is 5 reviews, that is as if 2% of the people who have read the previous chapter reviewed.
I know some of you will be a bit upset with me doing this but it is simply a matter of giving and taking, I write about 5000 words for each of these chapters so I only think that it's fair that you give me a return of less than 50 words for each and as stated 5 reviews is not much, it's about 2% of the readers of the past chapter.
By leaving a review you also give me some feedback and that is something I need badly because if you say nothing then I think that no one likes what is written and I begin to lose interest in the story myself, it's because I'm losing this interest that I'm setting up this goal so that the story can be finished sometime soon.
For those of you who read SG:MYW I say that there's a similar goal coming, but since that story has about twice as many readers the goal will be somewhat higher to start with.