-10-
Back on Fi'ar'la, the scene was bleak. The once great Jedi temple was now only a mess of debris. Kevilus Rakter, accompanied by three Jedi, arrived on the scene. The Jedi bowed their heads in recognition. They knew that if they journeyed back to their own home temples, they would find a similar scene.
"Let's get to it, then. Scan for signs of life," Kevilus urged.
Ironically, that same order had been given the day before at this very temple. Hopefully this time, the results would be different.
They set about spreading out amongst the rubble, creating a perimeter and slowly moving inward. They knew they would have to work fast, but the huge fallen temple had left an even larger footprint on the terrain.
As they worked, Kevilus reflected on exactly what he was doing here. What had possessed him to take such a sudden interest in this one person? Guilt? Yes, he supposed that would be difficult to deny.
He'd taken a liking to living in shades of grey. No real alliances; no need for moral high ground. Everything to him had been business. Sure, he looked out for his own - but that clan mentality went back to the very dawn of civilization, even present in seemingly non-sentient beings. It was a matter of survival. It was only when morals became involved that things got complicated.
Of course Kevilus had his own morals - things he simply wouldn't do, unless there was no other choice. He never killed for pleasure. He didn't believe in torture for its own sake. To extract information, it was permissable; but he usually found other effective means in those cases.
He avoided any kind of political affiliation like a plague. Though the prevailing governing body was, and had been the Republic for as long as he knew, even within it there existed different schools of thought, different agendas, not to mention hordes of special interest groups. And then there was the business world. Every bit as political, though it liked to think of itself as more straightforward - but arguably much more powerful and influential. Then the cartels - who secretly had their own stock in everything, perhaps as big or bigger than either of the former.
It was this that made him steer clear of it all. You never really knew who you were working for. Unless of course you were part of the cartels. Then you were about as true to yourself as you could be. The Republic had long been a symbol of all that was good, right, and fair. A well-meaning symbol, if nothing else. But there was always the undertone of corruption, and he supposed it was inevitable whenever any kind of power was made available.
The Jedi, however; they almost had this child-like idealism about them. Like when you're growing up and you're fed all these things and blindly believe in them; the ignorant bliss before your world comes crashing down. To them this was perpetual. They would keep fighting for it endlessly - even die for it. He had to admire that. They were like the driving force that made life what it is, yet they could lay it down just as easily.
The Jedi had changed too, however. And in his opinion it had been for the better. They now embraced broader, more open-minded philosophical views. Despite what the media and the general public had been conveying in the more recent decades, he thought the Jedi were on the right track. Most wouldn't begin to understand - it wasn't common knowledge, after all, Jedi dealings, beliefs and what not. But even though he stayed out of the fray, he remained well-versed in all the goings on of the Republic and its many counterparts.
Maybe Kevilus needed this - a greater purpose. He'd accomplished all a bounty hunter could hope to - became like a superstar, really. He had credits, he had power, and of course the admiration of many. The work he had done for the Guild as Chieftain made him feel good. There were people depending on him. So was this yearning for something more a search for some kind of spiritual redemption for all the killing, all the questionable deeds? Was it guilt? Or was he just bored?
Meh. Either way, he thought.
"Hey Rakter, I'm getting a signal," one of the Jedi, a knight by the name of Ayron Blasphus called out from across the wreckage.
Kevilus and the other two Jedi hurried over, careful to steer clear of the actual spot. Without a word, Kevilus began hefting hunks of debris aside, and the Jedi reciprocated. They lifted some of the more cumbersome pieces jointly or through use of the Force.
When the rabble began to clear, they could pick out the shape of a human form beneath. Unconscious, but still breathing. They started carefully setting aside numerous pieces of rubble to make an opening through which they could get to her. Miraculously, or perhaps purposefully, her position beneath a smashed and bent support beam had saved her from some of the more serious and likely fatal blows to the head.
As they finally made a path and began hefting her up, her body remained limp but for her left hand, closed like a vice. Prying her fingers open, they found a small datacorder.
This could have answered the question of why she'd been here in the first place.
"Let's get her back to the others. Whatever's on this thing better be good, if it was worth risking her tail over," Kevilus declared.
When they arrived on Tomon with Karta, it was to whoops and hollers the likes of which they hadn't seen throughout this whole ordeal.
"What'd they do, win the freakin' war without us?" Kevilus remarked.
"Not likely, but my curiosity is piqued," said one of the Jedi, as he began exiting Kevilus's ship. The other two had already exited their own shuttle.
"Hey - " Kevilus called. "Forgetting something?" He motioned to Karta, who still lay unconscious on a cot inside the cabin.
"We shouldn't move her. I'll send a med droid in to check her over."
"Well alright, but I'm stayin' here till she wakes up. I wanna know the story on that datacorder."
The Jedi nodded, then left the ship.
After a few moments, before the droid arrived, Karta started coming to. She shifted a little, making a few faint groaning noises, and then her eyes began to flutter open.
"Well hey there, sleepyhead. Wakey wakey," Kevilus teased.
Upon seeing him, seated on the bench beside her, she sat up and quickly scooted back, away from him.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Then she looked around, still a little disoriented. "Where am I?"
"You have the privilege of being aboard my fine vessel," he said, waving his hand in an exaggerated gesture. "Thing of beauty, isn't she?"
"So what'd ya do, kidnap me?" She scowled at him.
"Kidnap?" Now he looked defensive. "I was the one what saved your lovely tail. If it hadn't been for me, no one would even know you went back to the temple!"
"Oh. Thanks," she said in a monotone. "Now bring back my husband and we'll call it good."
"Fraid it's not that simple, love. But I will help you." Karta rolled her eyes. "What were you doing mucking around back there, anyway? And what's so special about that datacorder?"
Karta's eyes went wide. She looked at her hands, then began frantically patting all her pockets.
"Relax." He held the datacorder out to her, and she snatched it away from him, then began checking it to verify its contents.
"Yeah, still there. The whole one-millisecond clip," he said sarcastically. "Come on, what's the deal?"
"Don't worry about it," she said, slipping it into her pocket and fastening it shut.
"Look, if I'm gonna be helping you, you have to start trusting me a little."
"Who says I want your help?"
"I say you need my help," he retorted. "My people already rescued your Jedi at the House, and that's a death sentence for me where Tratzel is concerned. So I think it's pretty clear whose side I'm on, innit?"
"It sure wasn't clear when you delivered a Jedi master to the enemy."
"And that led us to his location, didn't it?" he challenged.
"Oh, don't even pretend like that was your plan all along - and I still want those coordinates, by the way!"
Kevilus exhaled, looked away, and then back to her. "You'll get them. And look, Tratzel offered me a payout no bounty hunter in their right mind could refuse. And it's all going to my people. It's enough to keep 'em happy for awhile."
"You worry too much about what your people think." She stood up then, holding up an index finger to stress her next point. "You're a weak, little man." With that she stormed out of the ship, just as the med droid was entering.
"Miss, I need to examine y- "
"I'm fine!" she barked back.
Kevilus threw up his hands in resignation. "Well, guess we'll see what all the hubbub is about out there," he mumbled to himself as he rose to his feet and exited the ship after her.
He quickly found out just what the hubbub was about. Raha Dima's team was back, and had pulled off the seemingly impossible. Two Jedi, dressed as Chrome Guard, had snuck into Galacom Headquarters and planted a remote transmitter on Eos, Tratzel's droid personal assistant, allowing their slicer to tap into its entire system. Its memory had been completely downloaded, and now they could access, in real time, any data sent or received by the droid.
Unfortunately, even Eos didn't know the location of the cloning facility and Chrome Guard homeworld. But what it did know was the location of every Chrome Guard garrison, how many were at each garrision, and even the location of The Omen itself. While this would prove indispensible in planning their strategy, the sheer numbers of Chrome Guard were staggering.
Now, Aysurii adressed the group. "We know the present location of Darth Sceptaurus. That could change at any time, so we must act fast. We will be dedicating a significant portion of our forces to this assault - fighters, gunships, transports, and three capital ships. We face two complications, however. The Omen - we have nothing that can match it. And the fact that these coordinates we've received are in the Unknown Regions."
"And that's where I come in." Another figure stepped out from the crowd. She looked like a spacer, for sure, only much more sketchy. "I'm Harel Sulon. I'm from The Uncharted. Most of you probably haven't heard of my group. Good, we like to keep it that way.
"If you're going to be mounting an assault in the Unknown Regions, you can't just rush in blindly - you don't know what you'll find. And if you want to plan an effective attack, you need to know your surroundings as well.
"My group and I are intimately familiar with regions of space you've never even heard of. It's all we do. So I do know what I'm talking about." She spoke with such authority, even the Jedi hung on her every word.
"Now, nobody goes out into the Unknown Regions for a tea party. If Tratzel's out there - it's for something big. In fact, I'd bet my best ship that that's your cloning facility." She pulled out a small holo projector that lit up, displaying a space chart before them that showed a small portion of the Unknown Regions.
"These coordinates that we received," she pointed to a space on the chart, "lead to a planet called Xadox. Most likely they were purchased from one of our group - and most likely they're dead now, because we have no record of that transaction. We don't like that. We like to keep accurate records - and we like to be paid for our work.
"Now, this back here..." She pointed to another location. "This is the Hades-Rion asteroid belt. Vicious. Journey too far this way and you're space dust. And this here..." She pointed to a huge mass. "This is Gemini. Twin black holes. Wait a couple thousand years and maybe time will take care of Tratzel for you."
The whole time, Karta had been studying the chart, contemplating. "And where would we be - in relation to all of this?" she asked.
"Right around here." Harel pointed to somewhere off the map.
"What if there was a way we could lure The Omen into the black holes?"
"And how do you plan on doing that? Dangle a Jedi from a stick?" Kevilus joked, then looked around at his present company. "Sorry."
"Maybe we can dangle you from a stick," Karta retorted.
"Hold on." Harel put up a hand. "You might be on to something. There is a gap between the event horizons of the two black holes, where the gravity is weak enough to fly a small ship through."
"But not The Omen," Karta put in, smiling deviously.
Harel pointed a finger at Karta. "Yes."
"But how do we get the Omen to follow us into a black hole?" one of the Jedi asked. "It'll be a little too big to miss."
"I say we just come at 'em from all sides," Kevilus put in. "We might lose a few ships, but The Omen can't be everywhere."
"Or we could do both," Karta said. "We 'leak' the trajectories of one of our fleets to their intelligence. Allow them to put a trace on the fleet. We use the gap in the black holes as one of our 'staging areas' - line up the fleet, single file, right smack in the middle. Once they confirm our location, they'll make a jump to surprise us. But we'll have a bigger surprise for them."
"You're insane!" Kevilus remarked. "I like that."
"It is a risky maneuver, but it may be our only chance. Kevilus, do you have a fleet at the ready?" Aysurii asked.
"My people are at your service, Grand Master."
"Excellent. We have established contact with a few fleets from the Republic Navy. They actually reached out to us. We are still unsure if this is one of Darth Sceptaurus's tricks, so we will not reveal our plan in full, but instead deploy them opposite our decoy fleet. So remain watchful.
"I will contact the others and together we will coordinate the siege. Again, time is of the essence. Be ready when you are called. We will be organizing several other strike teams to attack various Chrome Guard garrisons as well. Good luck in advance, and may the Force be with you all."
Cheers erupted from the mixed group of Jedi and bounty hunters, then they broke away, to ready their gear and their ships.
"Karta," Kevilus called out as the ruckus died down. She stopped in her tracks but didn't turn to look at him. "Why don't you come with me?"
She turned around. "Why in the stars would I want to do that?!"
Because I can get you in - I'm the best man for the job, and you know it." He looked to the ground for a second. "And I wanna make things right."
"I still don't know if I can even trust you."
"Fair enough. But what have you really got to lose?"
She appeared to consider it for a moment. "Alright. But I'll be watching you. And be warned - I put up a good fight. Try anything and I'll make you sorry."
"Well, if your skills are as sharp as your tongue, I don't wanna find out."
"Let's go then." Without another word, she walked past him and headed back toward the ship.
When Darth Sceptaurus's shuttle had arrived on Xadox, Vhinh had no idea what to expect. But when he was led down the shuttle exit ramp and into a dark, murky corridor, he sighed. Yeah, should have known. They never bring you to any sunny, tropical world.
He had absolutely no idea where they were, but judging by the length of their journey, it was far.
The corridor began to widen, and soon they reached walls that were plated with durasteel, giving the corridor a more mechanical appearance. Vhinh didn't know which was more unsettling. They passed an intersecting hallway, then came to a huge transparisteel window. Darth Sceptaurus stopped, and the guards ushering Vhinh along did as well.
"Welcome to my home," Sceptaurus announced. "And future capitol of the New Sith Empire." Out the window, a vast open area could be seen, lined with rows of towering structures. Construction droids were hard at work building more, drilling and blasting through rock, taking readings of the terrain and moving debris. Darth Sceptaurus was building an entire city - a very large city - beneath the surface of whatever world they were on!
"Fitting," Vhinh commented. "You're trying to rule the galaxy and yet you still feel the need to hide underground like the worm you are."
"What can I say? I just feel more at home in the shadows." Sceptaurus smiled contentedly. "I would really like to show you the rest - but there is someone here who has been dying to meet you."
"Hello, Father."
Vhinh nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the chilling voice behind him. He hadn't even realized anyone had been there.
He spun around to see its source - a black-robed figure whose hood shrouded his features. The figure then removed the cowl to reveal a face that Vhinh had seen only in his visions. It reminded him of his younger days. He could see himself in the young man, still in his early twenties. His hair, slightly curly like Vhinh's, had the color of his mothers's; black as deep space - or the darkness that surrounded him.
"Koren..." A wave of emotion swept over Vhinh at seeing his only son for the first time. In his face and his heart were only love.
In the eyes of the young man before him, there was none. "That is no longer my name," the man responded. "You may refer to me only as Darth Zin."
Vhin shook his head. "As I have feared, my son. What have they done to you?" he asked in a deeply concerned tone.
"My master has shown me the path to unimaginable power. Enough to destroy you. You, whohave robbed me of the only person who ever truly loved me." Zin was no longer afraid to reveal this connection - Darth Sceptaurus could no longer punish his mother for that.
"What are you talking about?" Vhinh asked, dumbfounded.
Darth Zin paid him no mind. "Guards," he said as he removed a lightsaber from his belt. "Free him."
Zin ignited the lightsaber, and its red glow came to life with a pulsating hum that quickly overwhelmed the silence of the room. The guards did as instructed, and Vhinh began massaging his newly freed wrists.
"Here. You may need this," Darth Sceptaurus said, smiling wickedly as he tossed Vhinh his lightsaber. Vhinh caught the weapon, but did not activate it.
"I will not fight you," he said to Zin.
"Then you will die!" Zin shouted as he made a mad rush for Vhinh.
Igniting his own lightsaber at the last second, he met that of the Sith lord's with a deafening crash that lit the room around them. Next Zin launched into a flurry of successive strikes from various angles, almost too fast to see, which Vhin blocked with precision.
The exchange continued, Zin mixing it up with a kick here and there, which Vhinh blocked, responding in kind. In addition to being incredibly strong in the Force, Vhinh's many added years of experience and dedication to his training made him a formidable opponent for even Darth Zin. But he knew the dark power Zin drew from his unadulterated rage would eventually overcome him. If he could somehow outmaneuver him, weather the storm long enough to get Zin talking, maybe he could find out his motivation.
Zin seemed to have some kind of vendetta against him, so it wasn't just blind lust for power that warped his senses. Maybe he could somehow reason with him, uncover some semblance of love or compassion buried beneath Zin's dark exterior. He had to try - this was his own son. And if it came down to it, even bound by his duty to the Jedi Order, he didn't know if he could strike Zin down.
But who was this person Zin spoke of - the one Vhinh had robbed him of? Another trick of Darth Sceptaurus, no doubt. Where - or who - was Nea, and where did Sada Ilaros fit into the whole picture?
Not accustomed to such a lengthy, well-matched battle, Darth Zin quickly grew bored and abandoned the duel in favor of other tactics, using the Force to rip a good-sized mechanical component from the wall and launch it at Vhinh's back. The Jedi managed to side-step it just in time, forcing Zin to slice through it with his own lightsaber.
Zin began hurling more projectiles in Vhinh's direction, which he blocked, dodged or cut through, though with increasing difficulty as they became more and more frequent. Despite the fact that Zin was destroying his equipment, Darth Sceptaurus wore an amused smile, more interested in seeing his prodigy at work at the moment.
Finally, Zin uprooted an entire command console and sent it flying toward Vhinh. It, too, missed its target - and instead crashed through the large window overlooking the fledgling city below. Vhinh, weighing his options, then followed its path through the new gaping hole left in its wake. Darth Zin was right on his tail, but when the four Chrome Guard started after them, Darth Sceptaurus put up a hand in protest.
"Let them go. They need a little father-son time."
In between Gemini's two event horizons, a large mixed fleet of Jedi and Guild starfighters began to gather. Exiting hyperspace well inside the outer reaches of the twin black holes' masses, each ship quickly made its way further in, allowing the next to enter, until they had amassed a sizable fleet within its safe zone - a fleet too large for Darth Sceptaurus, and The Omen, to ignore.
They had allowed Sceptaurus's forces to pick up a signal, tracing the fleet's actual shared nav network. Darth Sceptaurus would know the coordinates of each and every ship in the fleet, including where they left hyperspace. He wouldn't, however, know what actually lay within those coordinates, other than enough space to accommodate an entire fleet.
The Jedi and their forces had already engaged some of Sceptaurus's largest fleets on other fronts, even if in futile effort, in order to narrow down his viable options.
If everything went according to plan, Darth Sceptaurus would see no option other than sending his flagship to engage this fleet, before they launched their inevitable attack on his base of operations. He would opt for a flank attack, saving The Omen from any damage this fair-sized fleet may deal it in a head-to-head encounter. He would think their single-file formation was to hide their numbers, and expect this to be the only trick up their sleeves. He would take a well-calculated risk in order to put a stop to them, then and there. The Omen, though astronomically expensive, he would reason, would not be irreplaceable, but his home world may be. So, he would commit to this tactic - and The Omen would be swallowed by Gemini.
If everything went according to plan.
There were so many variables. And those variables were like dark shadows looming over every single member of the fleet. What if Darth Sceptaurus had another, larger fleet already waiting for them on Xadox, and chose not to engage at all? Or what if he sent several other fleets instead? What if The Omen was accompanied by another fleet? This was almost a given. But what if that fleet went in first, then sent word to The Omen to abort?
And perhaps the scariest possibility, one in the back of the mind of each and every Jedi: what if the bounty hunters, or even the Hutts, were in league with Sceptaurus? That could end things right there. This was a fight the Jedi could not win alone. Even with the help of the Guild and the Hutts, and the valuable stolen intelligence, the odds were still stacked against them.
But there was no turning back now. They had laid the trap; all that was left to do was wait.
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone!