Though they were less than an hour into their hyperspace jump to the Rishi System, Horatio had already retreated to the far corner of the main hold. Away from his nephews who had wordlessly positioned themselves at the controls of his own ship, and away from his former partner who would insist on talking to him the entire trip, if he gave her the opportunity. He had so much new information to process, he needed the time to himself as they prepared to confront a terrible ghost from his past.
Such monumental guilt had settled on his shoulders, knowing that his choice to betray the Huxnel years ago had put his daughter and his son in so much peril, and it left him numb, occasionally forcing him to remind himself to breathe. It was his deepest, most painful fear come true, even though he thought he'd taken the necessary precautions to prevent it. His efforts had all been for naught, nearly taking his son from him, and he had no idea how to even begin to beg for forgiveness from Wil. Would Wil even want to speak to him again? His children both deserved better than what he had given them, better than the horrible mistakes he'd made, but how could he protect them when he'd run out of options? He was the common denominator, the sole detriment to their safety, so...he needed to remove himself from their lives completely, he reasoned. If Azira was to be found on this excursion to Rishi, he decided he'd have an opportunity to do just that.
Again interrupting his thoughts, Mand strode up and sat beside him, silently holding a ration bar out to him. He stared at it for a lengthy moment, letting go of a weary, defeated breath.
"Not hungry."
She persisted, practically placing it in his hand resting on his lap. "Horatio, you need to eat. I kept you sleeping for almost two days. You need protein to continue healing."
As much as he wanted to refuse further, he knew it was a fight she would continue, wearing him down even more. He tore a few disinterested bites from the tasteless block to appease her, faintly hoping she would leave him be once more, but she remained. They sat together for some time in the quiet as he continued to eat meagerly, with only the sound of the hyperdrive humming underneath them framing the moment. His hand throbbed as he gripped the ration bar, but thankfully not nearly as bad as it had in the past, and his side, he suddenly noticed, was nothing more than a dull ache. Whatever she had done while he'd been sleeping had helped him tremendously. In a way, he came to recognize, he no longer had need of her...
"You should have gone home, Kil."
Still looking at the floor between his feet, he felt her gaze on him, though she said nothing in return. Did she feel the same way?
"We did what we came to do," he continued weakly, "we found Jewel. She's back where she belongs now. You should be with your family, too."
Another brief silence stretched between them, and though Mand drew in and released a lengthy breath, she seemed to study him even longer before responding.
"I came to see this through with you," she breathed with care, placing her hand lightly on his thigh. "Besides...you're not the only one here who's crossed the Huxnel. I'm sure you remember that I'm the one who left you behind, years before you gave them up to the New Republic. Azira has just as much reason to come after me and my family as she does yours. Like Max said, she needs to be stopped."
He hadn't intended to speak his doubts aloud, especially not to her, but the words came anyway. "If she's even the one who's actually behind all this."
"...you don't believe him?"
Frustrated with his dilemma, he tossed the remainder of his ration bar aside and brought his hands up to his face, hunching over to support himself on his elbows. He massaged his forehead, deciding how best to respond.
"...I don't know if I can believe either of them, Kil. I know next to nothing about them. About their lives, about the men that they've become over the past thirty years, at least beyond what they've told me, if any of it is even true. They're my blood, my sister's sons, but...for them to have both come back to me at this exact moment, at the same time, when I'm at my lowest, most desperate... I don't know if I can trust them."
Her voice was so delicate against his strained exasperation.
"Trust never has come easy to you. I remember that very well." She paused a moment, her words hardly audible. "...can you trust me?"
Looking over at her for the first time since she'd sat down with him, he lowered his hands and studied her eyes, her face he'd known longer than any other constant in his life. Once begrudging partners who then quickly bonded over dangerous and nearly disastrous missions for the Huxnel in their teens, then foils on opposite sides of a number of offenses on Paneau as young adults, they now sat together as equals, no longer intent on edging the other out or deceiving each other. The wise Jedi Master had shown him nothing but compassion since rescuing him from near death within his own home, reacting at a moment's notice to a call for help from his son, though he still didn't feel he deserved it. He had lashed out at her repeatedly, out of anger and fear of losing his children, but she hadn't yet abandoned him. More than anyone else he could have at his side as he faced a long-forgotten enemy, his former partner was the one he realized he needed.
His nod was small but sincere, and it brought a faint smile to her face as she nodded, too. Their relationship had begun long ago on the rockiest of foundations, but aside from the mother of his daughter, Mand had become the closest thing he had to a friend, and the feeling left him finally...relieved.
"Coming out of hyperspace," Max called back toward them needlessly, as the telltale whine of the slowing hyperdrive would have alerted them anyway. Mand gripped Horatio's shoulder briefly as a wordless gesture of support before she stood from his side, making her way up to the cockpit behind the two younger Sheridans. Horatio followed after a moment, watching his nephews warily as they navigated his ship, Wil's ship, with ease.
"We finished our jump on the other side of Rishi," Aalon informed them, pulling up a holomap of the system as he pointed out their target destination behind the blue-green world. "The planet's interference should have hidden our arrival from the station. There's not much traffic out here, except for whatever Azira's team is moving in and out, so we don't want to be spotted just yet."
Horatio furrowed his brows. "So how do we get into the station?"
"We could time our approach," Max offered. "There aren't that many ships coming and going. We could move in when the last one leaves and before the next one arrives."
"There's no way Azira wouldn't have a dozen sensors scanning for an errant ship heading her way. She'd be prepared for that, and she'd destroy us before we got anywhere near the hangar."
Just beside him, Mand answered him with a distant tone, her gaze fixed out the viewport. "Not if the sensors didn't pick us up in the first place."
The three men turned to look at her simultaneously, and Max almost laughed. "I hope you're not suggesting we leave the ship here and spacewalk the rest of the way."
But Mand remained resolute. "Shut down all of the ship's systems, everything electrical. I can get us there without any propulsion, and their scanners won't detect a thing. Even if someone is looking this way, they won't see this small ship until it's too late."
Max and Aalon exchanged uneasy glances, and Horatio couldn't help but look to her with doubt, as well. She met his gaze, though, with a fire and a surety in her eyes he had seen only a few times before.
"I can do this."
Hesitating only a moment longer, Horatio nodded to Max, agreeing to her plan. Max returned to the controls, preparing to power it all down.
"Going dark..."
The Shadow Nova shuddered and reluctantly whined to a complete halt, every light dimming as all electrical processes were turned off in succession. Complete silence lingered in the cockpit for a long, tense moment before Aalon stood from his seat at the controls, wordlessly offering it to Mand. She took it gracefully, and Horatio watched her intently as she closed her eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath. Her hand floated up as she extended it forward, her expression remaining serene as she concentrated, and within seconds, the Shadow Nova gently drifted ahead, stealing Horatio's attention.
Coming around to Rishi's shadowed side, they could see the station Azira had taken over, a derelict refueling depot left behind in the Clone Wars, hovering just beyond the planet's moon. It wasn't a very large structure, but it had a substantial communications relay mounted at its top. The relay's durasteel appeared newer, less weathered by time, so perhaps it was a custom addition by Azira herself. The station's hangar, where Horatio assumed they were headed, was open and seemingly empty, even as the Shadow Nova closed in on its containment field. No new ships were leaving, and none were arriving, except for one unexpected guest...
Horatio returned his gaze to Mand, surprised to see beads of sweat already forming above her brow. Her hand, still outstretched, trembled faintly as she remained deeply focused on her task, but it was the only movement she made. The Force was guiding the ship along its gentle, silent course, and Mand was its conduit. They were so close to the station already, just a few dozen kilometers from the hangar, and Horatio couldn't help but pull his blaster from its holster at his thigh as a reflex. His nephews had the same thought, he noticed, as they, too, armed themselves for a fight they could sense coming.
As the hangar slowly began to fill the viewport, Horatio noticed just a handful of smaller vessels docked within it, and thankfully they were all similar in size and appearance to the Shadow Nova. There were no identifying markings or color schemes on any of the craft or the cargo crates stacked nearby that he could see, meaning their ship would blend in with the others just fine for the time being. Until someone got a closer look at its occupants, the four of them could remain within the station undetected while they made their way to Azira. Their plan was little more than infiltrate and attack, but it didn't need much else, did it?
Ending the intense silence, Mand's outstretched hand slowly lowered as she eased the ship down and a noticeable thud echoed through the entire hangar when it settled on its base. She relinquished her hold through the Force and nearly collapsed in her seat, finally heaving deep, labored breaths as she recovered from the exertion. Though he lightly gripped her shoulder to support her from his seat beside her, Max kept a sharp eye out the viewport and monitored for any alarms or any activity around the unannounced arrival, but amazingly the hangar remained silent. Once she was finally able to raise herself back up, Mand looked to the others expectantly, still calming her breathing.
"Your turn."
With a faint grin, Max held out his palm, projecting a holomap of the station into the air between the four of them. "I was able to find this on my father's network when I was out here yesterday. It's probably outdated, and it definitely doesn't have any of Azira's modifications on it, but I think it's safe to assume she'll be somewhere near the communications center," he indicated a room towards the top of the station. "It could be heavily guarded."
Mand's gaze had become distant once more. "The majority of what I'm sensing is below us, not above. If she is up there, we shouldn't meet too much resistance."
"What kind of operation, exactly, is she running in this facility anyway, Max?"
Horatio's question brought all eyes onto Max, who hesitated briefly as he powered down the projector in his hand. "I don't know. All I observed yesterday was a handful of ships leaving, and a different handful of ships arriving. She's got to be moving something in and out of here, but I don't know what it is. She's kept it quiet."
"We should get moving," Aalon redirected, nervously glancing out into the hangar as his hand gripping his blaster twitched. "The longer we sit here, the greater our chances of being found."
Though the lack of information didn't sit well with Horatio, he had to agree with Aalon; they were wasting precious time when they had already been afforded an unexpected advantage over their target. He looked to Mand, briefly assessing her state of recovery. Would she recognize the question he'd left unasked? "Can you keep us ahead of any patrols or anyone who might spot us?"
The look in her eyes as she met his gaze told him she understood, and she nodded gracefully to answer him. Of course he knew she had the capacity to sense their surroundings and know well ahead of time if they were about to encounter a sentry; his question meant something else entirely. He couldn't have been more appreciative of the communication skills they'd perfected together years ago, allowing them to share thoughts with each other without fear of eavesdroppers catching on to their plans.
His nephews seemed none the wiser as they moved towards the rear of the ship, expecting them to follow, and Mand joined them a few seconds later. Horatio, though, had to pause a moment, looking around the cockpit in a daze as memories hit him out of nowhere. He suddenly saw his son Wil seated at the controls, wide-eyed and elated at being gifted the ship just a few years prior, well before Horatio had betrayed him and changed his life forever... He released a short breath and quickly shook his head to clear his mind, catching up with the others as the ship's loading ramp lowered. It was far too late, though, to remedy the awful feeling he'd been left with in the wake of his bittersweet memory...that he'd seen his son and the Shadow Nova for the last time.