Chapter 11

Talia glided the Oni's Star into one of the large docking bays that encircled the orbiting ring around the planet. The ring was a huge diamond-shape in profile, which was split into upper and lower sections with docking bays of various sizes dotted between the sections. The top and bottom corners of these sections were of a darker grey colour and rotated in opposite directions to each other.

After crossing through the magnetic shield, large doors slowly closed over the opened end of the bay, as the ship extended its claw-shaped landing struts and gently landed on the hanger floor. Exiting the cockpit, she made her way into the living area where Aria was projecting a view of the exterior for the others.

"I need to go and deactivate some of the planetary defence systems, Mira you're with me. You are welcome to explore the station if you wish, there are resting facilities in the hallway to the left if you need them. I have already checked the logs and nobody has discovered this place since Yoda and I were last here, so it is quite safe."

Padme was hesitant to leave the newborns on the ship, until Aria managed to convince her and Anakin that she could look after them while they explored the station. After gathering their personal supplies and descending the boarding ramp, Obi-wan opted to tag along with Mira and Talia as they entered a turbo lift. Taking note of the architecture of the station, Obi-wan was eerily reminded of his tour of Tipoca City on Kamino.

"How old is this place?"

"To be honest, I don't actually know."

Mira looked at Talia surprised, until a glance from her provided an explanation.

"Throughout our history, this orbital ring station has always been here. From what we do know, we summarised that our ancestors built it to protect us from any debris from the asteroid fields by projecting a gravitic shield around the planet."

"So it wasn't an asteroid or something that killed everyone?"

Talia sighed at Mira's curiosity, she knew Mira had a right to know what happened but she still didn't like to talk about it.

"No, our own fears and arrogance did that."

The lift chimed as they arrived at their destination. The doors opened to allow them into the control room, which itself opened out into a huge room. At the centre of the room, a huge mechanism which consisted of three slowly rotating rings orbited a collection of scarlet crystals. The crystals hovered within the mechanism and glowed when a ring passed over them. At the very centre was a scarlet orb the size of an astromech droid, which glowed with inner energy.

Talia walked straight over to the centre console, which sprang to life and projected holographic controls and displays of many colours and patterns around her. After pressing on a few holographic buttons, a large three-dimensional wireframe display of the planet illuminated next to them. The surface of the planet had numerous red dots littered in random groups, as Talia's fingers flew over the controls they turned to a green colour. Mira tore her attention away from her study of this large projection and turned to her.

"You still haven't really explained what happened."

She grit her teeth, the tip of one of her fangs digging into her gum painfully. After a deep breath, her fingers danced over the controls for the memory logs. The projection of the planet changed from a wireframe to a much more detailed real-time view of the surface and orbital station.

"Ring, transfer accelerator ring project to the viewer and expand."

"Acknowledged."

Obi-wan noticed that the station's computer voice sounded very much like that of Aria's as they projection expanded to fill the control room, showing the asteroid field near the walls. Two small rings appeared above the north and south poles of the planet, in-line with the orbital station above the equator. A third ring of equal size to the smaller rings appeared near the asteroid field. Talia withdrew from the holographic controls and slowly walked over to the display of the planet. In place of the dark planet of before, the surface had a region of volcanic activity encircling the equator. The upper and lower hemispheres had oceans and landmasses with cities strewn randomly, some of which on the oceans.

"This is Draconis as it was a millennia ago."

Mira and Obi-wan studied the planet, neither of them had seen anything like it before, even without the station encircling the planet. Talia turned back to the display before she continued.

"As our people and technology thrived, The High Council thought it to be in the best interests of our race to join the Republic and open trade agreements with the other members. The first and largest obstacle however, was the asteroid field which prevented anything other than a Draconian ship with its unique manoeuvrability from passing through safely. Using our knowledge of this station, we theorised that using two rings to manipulate the gravitic field and a third to target it, a safe passage through the field could be formed."

Obi-wan was stroking his beard as he absorbed this information.

"Quite impressive."

"Yes, well, after the Senate had voted to assist us with the project, we had our best and brightest scientists working alongside the scientists from the Republic. After copying one of the thirteen graviton generators found in this station, each ring was built with four generators each. However, unrest came from our people. As the project came to completion, a xenophobic faction developed that resisted our step to join with the rest of the galaxy, claiming that our technology would be abused and that we as a race were not yet ready to expand into the galaxy. When the accelerator rings were first activated, the power consumption required that the rings could only remain active long enough for a single freighter to travel through the field, before they had to recharge for a day. Ring, display file footage of the Heaven's Keep."

A ship appeared, Obi-wan assumed it to be a medium-sized freighter, travelling between the planets upper ring and headed towards the asteroid ring. As had come to be typical with Draconian ships, it was of smooth lines and several glowing panels for its propulsion.

"This was the first ship to cross through the asteroid field in this way. It was carrying explorers and scientists, eager to test the new method of transport that promised to liberate our race from our asteroid prison. Little did we know that some of the factionists were aboard."

As the ship crossed through the asteroid ring, explosions began erupting from the hull. Scarlet lightening arced from the drive panels to the asteroid ring, which began exploding internally. As the ship finally exploded, the ring glowed brilliantly before it too exploded and sent an angry ring of energy back to the upper planetary ring. The upper ring exploded, simultaneously joined by the lower ring.

A shockwave of energy from those explosions rippled around the planet and back to the orbital ring station, which glowed as scarlet lightening danced over its surface. After a moment, the energy was released down to the planets surface, where it separated at the volcanic region at the equator and spread itself over the entire planets surface. It left darkness in its wake until the energy finally dissipated at each of the poles.

Mira and Obi-wan were shaken from their entrancement of what they had just witnessed by the sound of soft sobs from Talia. The amber-eyed Draconian gently wrapped her arms around her as tears began to roll down her cheeks, which she slowly returned. After a moment, Talia gestured to her with a nod before she continued.

"Later in the design stages, a group of scientists theorised that the reason why this ring has an odd number of generators is to balance out and dissipate any excess power flow. They were shunned when they spoke out to the Council and dropped from the project. The four power generators on the rings that we constructed could not handle the overload and once it began, the computer on this ring could not control it and shutdown to preserve itself."

Mira withdrew from her, but remained holding onto her upper arms as she stared at her confused.

"But if the computer here was not working and there were no other ships, how did you know all this?"

Talia looked up at her before smiling slightly.

"Look behind you."

Mira let go from Talia as she turned around. Noticing a small ship a few feet away from her, she walked closer to it to gain a better view. Floating stationary there was the familiar dagger-shape of the Oni's Star. She whirled around back to Talia, her mouth hanging agape.

"Because I was there."

Mira didn't understand, she had said that all of this happened a millennia ago. How could she have possibly been there? She looked only around ten years older than herself, no more than her late twenties in standard galactic. It simply wasn't possible.

"Mira, may I ask you a personal question?"

She nodded dumbly.

"Roughly how old are you?"

That question came to be the bit of surprise her mind needed to snap her out of her reverie.

"What do you mean a personal question? I'm eighteen, nineteen in a few months, how is that personal?"

Talia walked over to look at her eyes as if studying her.

"We are generally not very fore-coming about how old we are to other species, with good reason. Didn't your parents ever tell you?"

Mira just looked back at her with a confused expression spread across her face as she slowly shook her head. Talia glanced over to Obi-wan, who was studying them both with some interest. She doesn't know. Leaning her head in beside Mira's face until her mouth was level with her ear, she whispered so Obi-wan couldn't overhear.

"Draconians live for roughly five thousand years, I am three thousand, one hundred and twenty nine."

Mira's eyes widened as her mouth dropped open in shock. Talia smiled gently as she withdrew her head from beside Mira's. She continued to look at her eyes.

"So now you know, although you're still technically an infant, I'm unsure of your natural lifespan given that you're only half-draconian."

Mira could only blink as her mind struggled to absorb this information. She knew she and her mother were different from other people, to the point where her family had been chased out of the system that much she could remember. Memories of her father dying aboard their ship and her mother dying in her arms weeks later resurfaced until she mentally pushed them back down into the back of her mind. Live for the here and now, but don't forget the past, her mother had always told her. Talia sensed her inner struggle, but Mari's expression was what caught her eye.

"You're the daughter of Tera Onari, aren't you?"

Mari blinked as she heard her mother's name.

"How would you know that?"

"You have the same innocently-lost look about you, other things I have noticed also. You're hair is styled the same as hers was and I'm sure that is the same bag she took with her when she left the last time I saw her. If it weren't for your eyes, you'd look almost identical to her when she was your age. We were good friends, how is she?"

Mari diverted her eyes sullenly to the ground.

"She died, ten years ago. I've been travelling ever since then."

Talia closed her eyes, tears threatening to form again as she thought of her lost friend. Thoughts of seeing her again were washed away as she managed to slowly force out a question she wasn't sure she'd like the answer to.

"How?"

"Mom and Dad were smugglers, I went along with them for as long as I can remember. They were checking on the cargo when it leaked out poison gas. Mom sealed the cargo bay when the alarms went off. I watched Mom holding Dad from the window as he died, she opened the door when the filters had cleared the room. Mom got sick a few weeks after, she just kept getting weaker no matter how much blood she drank. Doctors said she had terminal blood poisoning, nothing they could do for her. I was there when she died, doctors said it was painless, wasn't for me."

Talia slowly nodded as tears ran from her eyes.

"After she died, I went after the people that hired us to take that shipment, killed them all for taking away my family like that, turns out somebody else hired them to do it. I've been running from them ever since then. The last thing Mom told me to do was to seek out Master Yoda and that he could help me get home, but it looks like I'm not as alone as I thought I was. Which reminds me…"

Mira unhooked her bag from her shoulder and started un-strapping a large object that was wrapped with cloth from it. After she had freed it, she began unwrapping the cords that secured the cloth around it.

"Mom gave this to me before she passed away, she didn't say what it was, just that it belonged to me. I've been trying everywhere to find out what it is, was hoping somebody like me would know, but you're the first I've found."

When she had removed the last of the cloth that hid it from view, she held up an intricate hilt just shorter than her arm. Two orb-shaped scarlet crystals were held at each end, one slightly larger than the other. Through the elaborately-made shining metal that linked the two crystals together, another thinner but longer crystal could be seen held in the centre. Talia's eyes went wide as she stared at it, her body frozen in shock at the sight of it.

"I figured it was some sort of a weapon, but there's no button or switch on it. Every weapons dealer I've met couldn't tell me anything, one suggested it was a Jedi's lightsaber, but I've seen them before and this is different. Looking at those things on your sides, you might know. Any ideas?"

"I know exactly what it is. It's a Spirit Lance…"

The crystals on the hilt that Mira held suddenly glowed.