EPISODE III
Chapter 1: Disciples
The galaxy has changed! One year has passed since the end of the Valkoran War. The Galactic Alliance is caught in yet another galaxy-encompassing war, this time with the extragalactic invaders known as the Forceless Collective, which seeks to subjugate this galaxy as part of its more ambitious goal of subjugating the universe.
Despite a loose alliance with the Seferite Order, a defected splinter faction of the Valkoran Empire under the leadership of Arcidus, the battle with the Collective seems never-ending, thanks to the group's surplus of cults and servants gained over millennia. And the Collective has earned many more since by conquering worlds throughout the Outer and Mid Rims and possessing their populations, getting ever closer to the Core Worlds.
Zolph Vaelor and Hiriss Moraana - Jedi Knights from Luke Skywalker's academy and heroes of the Valkoran War - have been dispatched to the desolate desert planet, Blenjeel, to aid the Alliance in the siege of a Valkoran base, hoping to turn the tide of the invasion however slightly they can…
In orbit over Blenjeel, a fleet of Galactic Alliance warships headed by Admiral Cephal's flagship, Harmony was engaged in combat with a fleet of Valkoran starships, a mix of familiar designs such as the Obliterator-class Star Destroyer and Firaxa-class starfighter in combination with Collective space beasts such as Levioths and new ships introduced since the end of the previous war. Since Machinus defected and deprived the Empire of his technological expertise, these new ships were very unusual, hybridizations of basic starship parts and Black Matter, making it unclear which were Forceless cyber-beasts like the Eyewing or just starships with organic components. No doubt, the Valkoran Empire – now named the Valkoran Order - dropped all pretense of having any sovereign power independent of the Forceless Collective.
From Admiral Cephal's perspective, his forces had much more to worry about. This wasn't the same Valkoran Empire that the Alliance was fighting in the Valkoran War. What once seemed to be another theocratic superpower bent on taking over the galaxy now had the backing of extragalactic alien invaders more frightening than the Yuuzhan Vong. In addition to dying as expected in war, they also had to worry about the threat of being possessed and turned against those they fought for, all while being aware of their possession. And the Forceless were more than happy to send boarding parties in naval warfare.
However, some hope for the Alliance forces jumped out of hyperspace in the form of the Manthis, a modified next-generation X-Wing fighter that belonged to the Jedi Knight, Zolph Vaelor. Shortly after their arrival, Zolph contacted Cephal.
"Did someone call for two Jedi and a killer R9 unit?"
"It's about time your team showed up, Vaelor." The Mon Calamari admiral responded. "This campaign is going as smooth as per this war's standards."
As Zolph set his fighter's s-foils into attack position and split the two wings into six, Hiriss Moraana, Zolph's half-Mirialan companion commented on the situation. "In other words, pretty bad. How can we fix this mess?"
"Can Zolph absorb Forceless and turn into the Silver Seraph through the cockpit?" Cephal asked.
"Can you, Zolph? Because that would be amazing if you could." Hiriss repeated to Zolph.
"First off, Force-channeling affects only me, and not the fighter. Second, I highly doubt my piloting skills would benefit much from it, and even if I could survive in space as the Seraph, there are some complications to doing so. Not counting the emotional restraint required to become the Seraph, I would need a lot of Black Matter to keep the form up long enough; and the Matterbugs would know by now not to infect me, go after Hiriss instead or just straight up kill me, as has been their goal for ages." Zolph answered both Hiriss and Cephal. "So, short answer: No, I can't."
"All I'm hearing is speculation. Have you even tried it, before?" Cephal asked.
"No, but I would be more comfortable trying it when I don't have a co-pilot with me."
R9-C4 disappointedly chimed in. "R9-C4 = Still here. / No co-pilots = Seefor included?"
"Okay, make that pressure-sensitive co-pilots."
"Very well. The old-fashioned and practical way will do for now." Cephal replied disappointedly. "Anyway, two of our torpedo frigates have been taken over by those blasted parasites. The least you could do for those poor souls onboard is spare them the pain of being forced to fight against us. A few other ship types have been possessed, but those frigates are the biggest threat to us right now."
Without Jedi assistance, identifying Forceless-possessed ships was almost impossible without being attacked first, as their transponder codes still identified them as friendly ships. Along with this invoking friendly fire among unpossessed ships, this has led to many victories for the Collective just because of the chaos it created.
The frigates in question were MC30c frigates – better known as Mon Calamari torpedo frigates – lightly-armored ships armed with many proton torpedoes for taking out capital ships and cluster bombs for fending off fighter squadrons. In the terminology of balancing strengths and weaknesses, they would be considered glass cannons.
"Understood. I don't think we'll be able to save everyone, but let's keep alive and unpossessed as many as we can." Zolph replied.
The Manthis boosted towards the first possessed frigate, the Kolina, all while gunning down intercepting Eyewings and Bio-Firaxa fighters. With the addition of a newly-added tail-gun as a feature for the co-pilot, Hiriss assisted Zolph by covering his flank. However, this feature sometimes felt redundant to Hiriss as Zolph was so used to dodging laser fire, he ended up throwing off her aim.
"Zolph, can you please at least acknowledge that you now have a gun on your butt?!" Hiriss complained. "You're making those credits go to waste!"
"No, getting blown up makes them go to waste." Zolph quipped back before Hiriss killed the FIE Interceptors – a biological mimicry of the Galactic Empire's TIE/IN interceptor with two pincer-like wings with contrastingly mechanical laser cannons on the tips, a single eye in lieu of a viewport and an ion engine grafted into the rear of its pod-shaped body - tailing him. Rather than a burst of Black Mater, the explosions created by their deaths were the same as those of any other Sienar-made TIE exploding due to the mechanical components.
Suddenly, the Kolina ejected what looked like a metallic egg, which then exploded into a cluster of smaller magnetic bombs that homed in on them.
"Cluster bombs!" Zolph panicked.
Hiriss immediately shot down the bombs tailing them.
"Okay, I take back what I said." Hiriss commented.
Some of the other mini-cluster bombs destroyed a few A-Wings and X-Wings, but in the process, also destroyed some of the Valkoran fighters and Forceless cyber-ships.
As the Manthis got closer to the Kolina, it released another cluster bomb. However, just as it was released from the frigate, Zolph shot down the base bomb before it could detonate, generating a chain of explosions that immediately obliterated the Kolina.
"One down. One to go." Hiriss pointed out.
Zolph and Hiriss repeated the process on the second frigate, this time with just a few well-placed proton torpedoes into the frigate's own torpedo launchers, igniting all the ordinance within the ship. While Mon Calamari torpedo frigates were surprisingly fast and had enough punch for taking out capital ships despite their smaller size, they were still relatively frail and were essentially flying powder kegs.
"The torpedo frigates have been destroyed, Admiral." Zolph updated Admiral Cephal.
"Very good." The Admiral replied. "But now we need to eliminate what got us into that mess in the first place. Obviously, they brought some Alpha Matterbugs along with them. Killing them would ease some of the psychological burden on our men."
Going by experience, Alpha Matterbugs were significantly larger than the specimen used for possessing starfighters. Equating to the size of a shuttle, the Alphas were designed for quickly taking over ships that required large crews to operate. In regards to the Valkoran's affiliation with the Forceless, the Alphas have nearly phased out their usage of the Mailoc-class boarding craft.
R9-C4 detected six of the massive, wasp-like insects flying towards the Harmony. "Giant Forceless Bugs = Heading for bossy fish man's ship. / Seefor + Sidekicks = Exterminate Giant Forceless Bugs and save bossy fish man," the droid beeped.
At the same time, however, a few squadrons of Demolusks and Shyrack-class bombers were charging for the other Alliance capital ships as a diversion.
Admiral Cephal barked orders to the other fighter squadrons. "Blade Squadron: Concentrate on the Demolusks. Green Squadron: Focus on the Shyracks. All other squadrons: cut off any interception. Let Commander Vaelor worry about the Matterbugs."
Blade Squadron was a B-Wing squadron mixed with some A-Wing escorts, with enough firepower to punch through the squid-like Demolusks' tough, rocky hides. Green Squadron was an all A-Wing squadron, fast enough to quickly eliminate the Shyracks, which were lighter-armored but faster in comparison to the Demolusks. X-Wings provided cover fire for both squadrons.
While Green and Blade Squadrons dealt with the bombers, Zolph quickly picked off five Alphas that were trying to land on the Harmony. However, one more was just about to inject its stinger into the ship. Just as it thrust its tail downward, Hiriss used the Force to redirect its sting parallel to the ship's surface and yanked the tail off in the process. As the last Alpha bled Black Matter out of its posterior, Zolph finished it off before making a close flyby to allow Seefor to incinerate the excess Black Matter so it couldn't sneak into the hangar.
"Your ship is clean, Admiral." Zolph announced to Cephal. "What's next?"
"Now that you've killed the plague spreaders up here, I think we can handle the rest up here. General G'Jan could use your help down on the surface. In case you forgot to equip EM shields on your ship, be careful about the storms as you enter the planet's atmosphere; that's just one of the reasons Blenjeel was put on the NRGD's planets-to-avoid list."
"And thankfully, one of the only ones now since the Valks got rid of the other big reason for it."
What Zolph was referring to was the maugra – or sand burrowers as they were once simply called – large but stubby sand worms with multiple rows of teeth belonging to the same family of animals as the vixus, rathtar and sarlacc. While they didn't have tentacles like their other genetic relatives, they had the same habit of swallowing prey whole and overpopulated the entire planet, even possibly overhunting other indigenous species. The galaxy at large didn't know how dangerous Blenjeel was until one Jedi became the first person to escape the planet almost two decades ago. Since then, the Valkoran Empire took advantage of the public avoidance and bombed the planet from orbit to make it safer before setting up base.
Hiriss then called Zolph. "You're thankful for an entire species' potential extinction? That's not very Jedi-like."
"When all a species seems to do is eat people and render a planet almost inhospitable, it's hard to be sympathetic to it. Not even animal rights activists are complaining. Besides, maugra are hermaphrodites, so any survivors will repopulate the planet within a few decades."
As the Manthis entered Blenjeel' atmosphere, multiple bolts of electricity coming from the clouds wrapped around the ship, but the electromagnetic shields prevented the bolts from destroying any vital systems and causing a rough landing. After bypassing the storm clouds, gunning down some Eyewings in the night sky and striking a Valkoran Modular Anti-Air Defense pod on the ground with a proton torpedo, Zolph was forced to retreat from the nearby Valkoran base after some other MAAD pods fired their missiles, despite the earlier catharsis. Zolph then flew towards the Alliance base in the recently-named Jeela Badlands.
Observing Zolph's descent from atop the Valkoran base's outer wall was a Forceless-possessed female humanoid covered from head-to-toe in archaic black armor with red and gold decals and a closed helmet with two blade-like fins wrapping around the cheeks like insect mandibles, similar in design to the helmet Emperor Valkor wore. Agnasur - another Forceless-possessed, four-armed, serpentine Valkoran commander with a vaguely humanoid torso and a lipless, toothy mouth surrounded by four oddly-formed pincer-like mandibles - approached the woman.
"Zolph Vaelor's here now. Are you happy?" Agnasur hissed at the woman with contempt.
"It is satisfactory for the time being." The woman responded. "But I wish to engage him directly and analyze him further."
"I wouldn't be too bold if I were you, Cina. I don't need to remind you that Vaelor already killed Emperor Valkor once."
"You continue to refer to that metallic toy on Ockla Prime as your Emperor? What you called 'Emperor Valkor' was merely a symbiote-filled puppet. I know the true Valkor personally, and not just one of those cheap dolls he uses to reach out to foreign disciples like you."
"You think you're something special just because you're from our Emperor's homeworld, don't you? I don't care if that cult you were part of is older than the Collective. That doesn't make you equal enough to patronize him, you old hag."
"Your sycophantic blabbering means little to me. Regardless of how much you fear him, now that Vaelor is here, an attack on this base is imminent. Prepare the troops while I commune with Terraris."
Agnasur begrudgingly nodded in agreement with Cina and slithered away.
The Jeela Badlands were notable for being rather flat compared to the dunes that made up most of Blenjeel, suggesting that the area was relatively untouched by maugra activity even before the Valkoran bombardment. However, the presence of maugra corpses encased in glass formations indicated they still visited the area occasionally.
The Alliance base camp was not designed with any intent of staying long term and built into a large plateau with a shield generator and a landing zone installed on top, a carryover tactic from their days as a low-budget rebellion that typically built their bases around natural or artificial but abandoned landmarks. Outside the plateau, the Alliance soldiers took advantage of rock spires or glass formations from the bombardment to use as lookout points and trenches dug up by excavator droids.
Zolph landed the Manthis atop the plateau alongside some other fighters and transports, but standing out among them was an aging Corellian YT-1300 freighter. As he, Hiriss and Seefor disembarked, they watched a female Kel Dor sergeant and her squad of troopers emerge from a turbolift.
"Sergeant Kass Choi reporting." The Kel Dor greeted them. "General G'Jan is waiting for you in the briefing room on the fifth floor. He also wanted me to inform you in advance-"
Zolph then interrupted her. "Hold on. Are you related to General Ven Choi?"
"Now is not the time for a long talk about how you knew my uncle. I've had over a year to mourn his passing." Sergeant Choi continued with her report. "As I was saying before you interrupted, General Solo and Organa have also joined in on the campaign."
This threw the team for a loop, but at the same time answered their question about the freighter's presence despite not being a military vehicle.
"Wait, as in Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo?" Hiriss asked before shrieking with excitement she almost only showed off the job and shaking Zolph. "Do you know what this means?! We're not only meeting two veterans of the Rebellion, we're finally meeting Master Skywalker's sister!" She then stopped shaking to Zolph to ponder. "Although I keep wondering why she doesn't use the Skywalker name when their relationship is public knowledge."
"And that explains why a museum artifact is sitting on top of the base." Zolph voiced his contempt for the designs of older Corellian freighters, while recovering from the shaking.
"You would be better off asking her yourself, Commander Moraana, because I don't know either." Kass calmly answered Hiriss. Underneath that stoic façade, Kass was put off by the Mirialan's suddenly upbeat behavior, as Uncle Ven gave her the impression that Jedi were all emotionally reserved. "Anyway, I wouldn't keep the generals waiting. This campaign has gone on long enough as is."
Jeela Base's briefing room was a series of crudely set-up display screens, terminals and holo-projectors in a rocky cave lined with lamps. Inside, Zolph, Hiriss and Seefor met up with the Bith general, Birik G'Jan. Accompanying the general were a middle-aged human male and female, about a decade apart from each other.
The male, General Han Solo, was dressed like a Corellian smuggler, a holdover from his pre-Rebellion career. The female, Leia Organa, had her hair styled in a way that was elaborate but simple by Alderaanian standards and appeared to be nearing her sixties despite only being in her early fifties. Accompanying the couple was a gold-plated protocol droid with a mismatched part or two.
The protocol droid greeted the Jedi. "Greetings. I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. I present to you General Han Solo and Princ- I mean, General Leia Organa Solo. You must be Zolph Vaelor, Hiriss Moraana and R9-C4. I also happen to be a long-time acquaintance of Master Luke. I have known him since he was a mere farmhand."
Seefor sassed back at Threepio. "R9-C4 = Doesn't care. / C-3PO = Needs to shut the kriff up."
Zolph then scolded his droid. "Watch your vocabulator, Seefor, or I will reinstall the censor system next time we get involved in politics." Zolph pointed at Threepio. "He helped save the galaxy from the Empire and the Yuuzhan Vong."
"You're too kind, Master Vaelor. I'm not much of a fighter and more of an interpreter. Now, I mostly help by leading a droid spy network. And don't worry about Seefor. I've known plenty of astromech droids as vulgar as she is."
Han butted in. "Alright, that's enough, Professor. These kids have some work to do before we can leave this formerly worm-infested dust-ball."
Leia took the moment to comment on the two Jedi's appearances, both looking different from the holo-images she had seen of them. Zolph had a drastically shorter ponytail and was growing a beard. Hiriss's red-hair, while still sporting her hairband, was a now little longer and curly and she had a few more Mirialan cultural tattoos added to her face since then. However, Leia wasn't too surprised since she also heard that Hiriss was a little bit of a fashionista even when she knew her occupation involved getting dirty a lot of the time.
She first addressed Zolph. "Zolph, I see you finally got a haircut. And that beard looks good on you."
"Yeah, someone finally got the idea to pull on my ponytail in a fight. So, I decided to make it less of an obvious target." Zolph said.
Leia next addressed. "Hiriss, you look adorable today. Word of advice: for practicality and time's sake, stay away from Alderaanian and Naboo royalty hairstyles, and especially don't do twin spirals. You'll look like you got caught in the crossfire of a bakery fight."
"Um… thanks?" Hiriss responded awkwardly. "Anyway, quick question. If you being Luke's sister is public knowledge, why aren't you called Leia Skywalker, marriage aside?"
"Three reasons." Leia answered. "One: I was raised as an Alderaanian princess. Two: I'm all that's left of House Organa despite not being related by blood, so I continue using that name out of respect. And three:" Leia took a deep breath before explaining with a sheepish look on her face. "There was a one-time thing that happened between me and Luke that was somehow made public, taken out of context and the both of us are having trouble living it down even after over twenty-five years."
Threepio tactlessly blurted out. "Do you mean when you kissed Master Luke on the lips before either of you knew you were siblings back on Hoth?"
"Ew!" Zolph and Hiriss projected in unison. Seefor - oblivious to organic relationship taboos – did not understand her partners' disgust while General G'Jan and all other personnel in the room tried to maintain an image of professionality.
Leia defensively lashed back at the droid. "I was trying to make Han jealous!"
Han smirked. "Even after so long, that hasn't gotten old."
"Shut up, Han!" Leia snapped back.
"You brought that on yourself, sweetheart!"
"Reminds me of when I first learned that Grein is my great times 'x' grandmother and what her day job in Hutt Space was." Zolph remarked. "But that's enough small talk for now. We've got work to do. G'Jan?"
"Of course." General G'Jan replied. "I'm assuming you tried to fly over to the Valkoran base?"
"You know me too well, General. And as usual, they have a base shield and anti-aircraft. What else is there to know?"
"Even with the near-extinction of the maugra, getting to the base on foot isn't any easier. The Valkoran have air superiority, and the Collective has supplied them with Planara Manos. So instead of vicious but unintelligent sand burrowers that would cause problems for both sides, we now have sapient sand burrowers loyal to the Collective to deal with."
"And if there are any surviving maugra on the path, the Forceless could have just possessed them." Han pointed out.
"We've taken that into account too." G'Jan continued. "The commander overseeing the base is a Lindorm named Agnasur."
"Lindorm?" Zolph asked.
"They're listed in galactic databanks, but they aren't a well-known species." Han answered Zolph. "Their homeworld is somewhere in the Unknown Regions, but a few colonies of them have settled throughout the galaxy. Chewie and I had a few encounters with them in the Outer Rim back in my smuggling days."
"And as we recently learned, the Lindorm homeworld is within range of the Valkoran Empire, which would explain how they were able to recruit some of them despite the species' stereotype for hedonism." G'Jan added. "As for Agnasur, he was once an acolyte in the Church of the Forceless, but is obviously now in a leadership position."
This meant little to Zolph and Hiriss considering what they have faced before. Given that most of the high-ranking Force-sensitive Valkoran leaders have either died or become part of the Seferite Order, a lowly acolyte that was once tasked with worshipping and summoning Archfiends was hardly a threat.
"Scraping the bottom of the barrel as usual, I see." Zolph replied. "Nothing we can't handle."
"I wouldn't be too overconfident, Zolph." Leia warned him. "I sensed a powerful Force presence around the Valkoran base, much more powerful than the former acolytes that we've been fighting over the last year. I also sense a greater Forceless presence than normal. Perhaps one of the remaining Archfiends?"
"It might be, seeing that they've summoned a few more since the end of the Valkoran War." Hiriss answered. "Either that, or there's just a lot of lower-ranking Forceless."
"So, a powerful Force user and a possible Archfiend. I'll keep that in mind." Zolph said. "Now, Hiriss and I just need a speeder bike to give us a mobility advantage against what's on the ground and in the sky."
After making the necessary preparations for the trek across the desert and the sabotage of the Valkoran base, Zolph and Hiriss disembarked from Jeela Base on a speeder bike – with Zolph as the driver and Hiriss riding behind him to provide some defense – and made their way across Blenjeel's dune sea.
As they were warned, Zolph and Hiriss had some encounters with the snake-like Planara Manos. However, as intelligent and adapted to the sand as they were, the speeder bike was too fast for them to catch with their finger-like mandibles. They also faced attacks from Shyrack bombers, but their bombs were easily evaded as well.
Once they got close enough to the Valkoran base, Zolph decided to destroy the MAAD pods that had caused him and Hiriss trouble earlier. Thankfully, there were very few other land vehicles to defend them, as the Valkoran Order had lost a large percentage of them in the bombing of Ockla Prime, but on the other hand, they still had support from Forceless-possession hosts small and large. Hiriss slashed at the MAAD pods' fuel tanks with her green double-bladed lightsaber as Zolph drove by each of them, causing them to explode after a few seconds and take out any defenders with them. With the pods eliminated, the Jedi had finished the first step of enabling an airstrike on the base.
After stopping at the entrance of the base's outer wall and disembarking from their speeder bike, two Planara Manos emerged from the sand, one of them grabbing the bike and then crushing it to pieces. However, the giant snakes were no match for the Jedi, as both Zolph and Hiriss took them down in a single stroke to the single eye in their "palms".
"Let's now add 'steal a vehicle' to the things we need to do before we leave." Hiriss said.
After cutting through the main gates, Zolph and Hiriss were greeted by a platoon of Valkoran troopers armed with blaster rifles, flamethrowers and mounted repeating blasters.
Following the Battle of Ockla Prime, the Valkoran had repainted their standard trooper armor from predominantly light gray with black decals to predominantly dark gray with red and black decals to reflect their allegiance to the Forceless Collective. To distinguish them from the similarly-colored Shadow Troopers, the Shadow Troopers now wore tight-fitting masks over a balaclava instead of recolored helmets.
However, accompanying the troopers were Forceless-possessed Galactic Alliance soldiers, displaying various mutations beyond unnaturally blackened skin and glowing gem-like eyes.
Ever since Ockla Prime, Zolph and Hiriss were slightly more hesitant to kill possession victims than they were already. If the host was killed through conventional means such as a blaster shot or a lightsaber slash, the symbiote would break down the corpse if left alone and imprison the host's essence in a dimension known as the Pool of Souls. There, they were kept from becoming one with the Force and truly escaping the Collective's grasp so they could be revived later for further use. This moral dilemma didn't feel quite as big in space battles since the symbiote was usually vaporized alongside the host in starfighter combat. In the case of larger ships, however, their crews being absorbed if they were exposed to vacuum or if the vessel wasn't quickly obliterated didn't feel much different from killing hosts on foot.
Publicly, the Alliance military has decried this claim of soul imprisonment and the ability to resurrect them as propaganda from the Collective to keep their forces from being further discouraged against fighting the Collective, and to keep others from being lured by potentially false promises of resurrecting lost friends or loved ones. On the other hand, parts of the Alliance's political system – despite blatant evidence by refugees from invaded worlds and impartial reporters - has tried to deny that the greater Forceless Collective exists and claim the Valkoran Order are still an independent sovereign power and the greatest threat to the galaxy. At best, these politicians were trying to avoid a mass panic, or at worst, they were desperately trying to portray themselves as strongmen to distract from their own inadequacies. Nonetheless, killing possession victims was a reality the Jedi and the Alliance military had to come to terms with lest themselves or other innocents be killed or possessed by the Collective.
The gunners immediately opened fire on the Jedi, but through quick Force-enhanced reflexes, they deflected every single shot back at all other troopers in the squad despite the weapons' quick firing rate before killing the gunners. Afterward, they cut down the Forceless-possessed Alliance soldiers. Zolph and Hiriss then remorsefully tried to kill as many of the symbiotes as they could before their allies' bodies could be consumed, but not all of them could be saved.
"You know what's funny, Hiriss?" Zolph asked. "Even after a year, I still hate that I can't save everyone from possession, and I constantly worry about becoming too desensitized to killing otherwise innocent people. Even when I have the power to potentially do so, it comes at the cost of possibly drawing close to the Dark Side."
"That's the dilemma all of us Jedi face, Zolph." Hiriss answered. "Our most basic principle is to feel compassion for others and protect the innocent, but conflictingly, we're also taught to put our emotions aside so we don't act too hastily or we aren't prevented from acting when necessary. And the war against Valkor is testing this ideology to cruel extremes. As for great power, we're encouraged to use it when necessary, but we also need to balance its use so we don't abuse it or become afraid to use it at all."
"It's like what Grein and the ex-Jedi in the Seferite Order tell me: the worst Jedi tried too hard to be the extreme opposite of the Sith in every way, and ironically enough, the religious dogma made them seem just as dysfunctional."
Hiriss then got them back to the task at hand. "Anyway, now that we're in the fallen empire's base, we just need to place some charges on the power generator, capture or kill Agnasur, and get us a ride out of here before the Alliance blows it to hell."
Within the walls of the Valkoran base, Zolph and Hiriss almost effortlessly plowed through enemy troops and vehicles to reach the power generator. The generator itself was guarded by two possessed, massive insects that they only knew by the name "Juggernaut Beetle".
"Two of these guys?" Zolph asked. "Well, Hiriss, we know what to do."
As one of the beetle's tried to face the nigh-invulnerable shell-shield on its upper body towards Zolph, Hiriss leaped over it to get at its vulnerable spinal column while it was distracted. However, the second beetle moved right behind its partner to cover its back. As the beetles covered each other by bending their spines, Zolph and Hiriss backed away from them in the hope that they could separate them since their only obvious weapons were their long, sickle-like arms and the horns on their shells, apparently lacking ranged options. To their surprise, however, the beetles spat out a black digestive acid at the Jedi's positions rather than separate.
"Have they always been able to do that?" Hiriss asked with astonishment after avoiding the acid. "Or is this another recent genetic modification from the Collective?"
"Whatever the case, this proves they're a lot smarter than they look. However, their double shield approach isn't foolproof. Did you pack any extra charges?" Zolph asked her.
"In case any of them were duds." Hiriss understood what Zolph was planning, but didn't elaborate directly since any creature possessed by Forceless – even non-sapient animals – could understand Basic and catch on to their plan.
As Hiriss pulled a charge from her munitions backpack, she observed the Juggernaut Beetles' defensive formation, noting that they would always try to keep their shells facing their opponents. In past encounters, the beetles have shown awareness of their own weak points and were quick to react to flanking maneuvers such as throwing a lightsaber like a boomerang, but they couldn't handle simultaneous attacks from multiple directions. When alone, the closest they could get to protecting from all other directions was hunkering down to have their recently-reinforced shell protect their entire body even from bombing runs, but doing so limited their offensive options and didn't protect them from underneath.
While Zolph was trying to keep his respective beetle focused on him, Hiriss activated the charge on a timer and tossed it up into the air so it would land on top of the beetles. Recognizing the thrown object as an explosive, the beetle focusing on Hiriss reacted to it by facing its shell upward. Before the charge descended, Hiriss threw her lightsaber directly at the beetle in a spinning motion. As the beetle's face was looking towards Hiriss when the shell was facing upward, this prompted the beetle to position the shell back towards Hiriss, but this was exactly what she was planning. As soon as the shell was facing her, Hiriss Force-pulled her lightsaber back before it could even connect with the beetle. The charge fell between both beetles and promptly detonated, pulverizing them.
With the Juggernaut Beetles dead, Zolph and Hiriss immediately started planting some of the remaining charges on the power generator, and they still had some charges left over.
"Next up: Agnasur." Zolph muttered.
Zolph and Hiriss continued fighting their way through base, even as some Valkoran forces fought to disarm the charges. Eventually, they made their way into the command center and came face-to-face with Agnasur, along with a trio of Shadow Troopers, waiting at the other end of the holographic display table in the middle of the room.
"So, it's come to this." Agnasur hissed at the Jedi in contempt. "You, the one who defeated our Emperor, have come here to tear apart what's left of the great Valkoran Empire?"
"Spare me the pretentious whining." Zolph answered. "Your 'great empire' is nothing more than a cult that now has even less power on its own than the Black Sun crime syndicate did in its prime. That the Forceless Collective's extragalactic forces are now fighting alongside you says as much."
"Why are you so opposed to galactic peace? You Jedi constantly preach about keeping it, but for thousands of years, your Order and every other major government has failed to make it last. Under Emperor Valkor, it could last forever!"
"You want to know who else said that?" Hiriss rhetorically asked. "Emperor Palpatine. Valkor may be thousands of years older than him, but he isn't the first known rising dictator who's tried to present himself as an all-powerful figure that can bring an age of greatness and awed others into supporting him through populist appeal. What then follows is setting up a totalitarian regime, waging a war or oppressing specific groups as scapegoats in the name of peace and order."
Zolph followed up. "Your Emperor's idea of everlasting peace is having everyone but a select few individuals either robbed of their free will or brainwashed into believing in his cause. And considering that he went through the trouble of killing a planet and trying to torture me before killing me, I'm sure that claim is nerfshavit. As for you, you might as well just be a mutated, malnourished Hutt."
Agnasur visibly didn't take the insults well, particularly the one insinuating that the Emperor he was taught to worship his entire life was feeding him lies and the one implying that he's trying to seize Valkor's throne.
"Guards! Kill these heathens for your Emperor!" Agnasur shouted to the Shadow Troopers.
The assassins drew out their mocksabers – crude, mass-produced imitations of lightsabers built with only a basic understanding of laser technology - and failed to impress Zolph and Hiriss once again. As they charged towards their targets, the Jedi activated their lightsabers, but Zolph faked out the Shadow Troopers by then drawing his blaster and shooting two of them down. When the last one got close enough, Zolph simply slashed the trooper across the chest with his lightsaber.
"Surrender, Agnasur!" Zolph demanded the Lindorm while pointing his blaster at him. "You're about to lose your shields and turbolasers, your base is about to be bombed, and you're not even half as powerful as the other Force users that once led your vestigial empire. I'd cut my losses if I were you."
Agnasur angrily drew out four light blue-bladed lightsabers – one in each hand – and retorted as he slithered onto the display table. "Do not compare me to those traitors or that lunatic!"
Agnasur then charged at the Jedi with all four sabers crossed in front of him before slashing outward at them. The Jedi blocked two of the blades, but Agnasur tried to chop them with his free arms, prompting them both to dodge backward.
While Zolph and Hiriss put up defensive stances, Agnasur twirled the sabers in his upper arms like rotary fans while quickly slithering around the Jedi in a circle. Once the Jedi were forced back-to-back, the Lindorm wrapped his tail around their ankles and threw them out of one of the command center's windows. Agnasur then jumped out the window after them, aware that such a maneuver rarely kills Jedi.
As Zolph and Hiriss were recovering from the landing, Zolph caught sight of Agnasur burrowing into the sand.
"It seems we may have underestimated him, Hiri." Zolph said.
Suddenly, Agnasur emerged from the sand under Zolph and ensnared him with his pincer mandibles.
"So, now you admit that I'm as powerful as those that came before?" Agnasur smugly asked.
Zolph responded while wincing in pain. "No, I'm just…ow… admitting how crafty you are. And we were…ow… unfamiliar with Lindorms up until now."
Hiriss tried to attack Agnasur from behind, only for him bend one of his arms backward to block her strike. He then tried to trip her with his tail, only for her to activate the other blade on her saber and cut it off.
While Agnasur screamed in pain and his severed tail writhed around before going limp, he accidentally released Zolph from his grasp. Zolph took advantage of the opportunity to stab Agnasur through the chest.
"Damn you, Zolph Vaelor!" Agnasur cursed as he was slowly dying. "You may have killed me today, but as long as Emperor Valkor lives, he can resurrect me without cease thanks to the blood he has blessed me with!" Agnasur then stopped breathing and collapsed, and the Black Matter inside him quickly broke down and absorbed his remains, not giving the Jedi enough time to prevent the absorption.
After shooting at and evaporating the Black Matter puddle left in Agnasur's place, Zolph and Hiriss were alerted to an unfamiliar voice.
"Not bad, but I was expecting more."
Zolph and Hiriss turned around to see a tall, armored humanoid female armed with a double-bladed metal glaive standing atop one of the outpost's sentry towers and wearing a helmet that looked familiar to Zolph. They could also sense she was much stronger in the Force than Agnasur was, comparable to the Force users that once led the Valkoran Empire. She jumped down from the tower towards the Jedi.
"But on the other hand, Agnasur was not the greatest challenge any of you two of have faced."
"Great. Another fanatic. And this time, she's a cosplayer." Zolph dryly addressed her. "Well, you got a number of details wrong and Valkor was kinda hunched over… or at least his avatar was."
"This is actually a common design trait from where Valkor - and I mean the real Valkor – comes from, and I come from his homeworld as well. I will admit, the Rakata and their slaves did a passable job when it came to avatar design accuracy compared to the avatars from other galaxies." The woman answered.
"Enough about that. Who are you, and what is your deal?" Zolph asked.
"I am Cina Onae, and I am one of Valkor's oldest followers. Word is that you are one of the few who have destroyed any of his avatars, or more accurately, his symbiote's avatars. I want to know how powerful you really are."
"I didn't survive this long on just power alone. Besides, I'm not even the strongest Jedi this galaxy has ever known."
"You underestimate yourself. You've become feared throughout the Forceless Collective, so much that they will do anything underhanded to dispose of you, and not because you're merely immune to possession. They perceive you as a natural predator."
"Enough trying to butter me up! If you want to fight me, just say so!" Zolph demanded.
"Oh, don't worry. I intended to fight you anyway." Cina drew her glaive from the scabbard underneath her cape. The metal blades were then enveloped in purple plasma energy. "How else would I get a good read of your capabilities if that snake man was so inept?"
"That weapon technology reminds me of Emilin's lightscythe." Zolph noted.
"You mean Mortaqa's lightscythe? That weapon was built using similar methods to this plasma glaive. The only practical reason I can think of wanting to build a weaponized scythe with an archaic construction method opposed to having her use a lightsaber is for psychological warfare."
Referring to his late, distant aunt by an alias while possessed by Facadma elicited a reaction from Zolph.
"Do not. Call her. By that name." Zolph projected with tranquil fury and ignited lightsaber.
"Calm down, Zolph." Hiriss warned him. "She's trying to provoke you. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book for fighting Force users."
"You think I don't know that?!" Zolph snapped at her.
"You're not helping yourself by responding that way." Hiriss replied, even though she was put off by his response. "Please, if this is too much for you, let me fight her for you."
Cina replied to Hiriss. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mirialan, but this is between me and Zolph only. By intervening on his behalf, you defeat the purpose of this test." She then used the Force to throw Hiriss against one of the walls and then used the joint pieces from the legs of fallen Gundark walkers to shackle her limbs to the wall.
"If you hurt Hiriss, I will kill you." Zolph warned Cina.
"No harm will come to your woman. This is merely intervention insurance. Now, show me everything you have."
Zolph sloppily chopped at Cina, only for her to nonchalantly to dodge to the side. Zolph then tried to slash at her a few more times while Cina parried all of his blows, with her eventually using the Force to lift Zolph up in the air before slamming him into the sand.
As Zolph got up and spat out some sand that got in his mouth, Cina telekinetically uprooted one of the sentry towers and tried to crush him with it. Zolph responded by using the Force to catch it and throw it at Cina, only for her to slash it in two.
Zolph tried rush at Cina one more time, only for her to push a veil of sand in his face and rush through it to cut his prosthetic hand off.
"Shavit! Not again!" Zolph cursed.
"I'm disappointed in you, Zolph. I know you're capable of much more than this. Didn't Maesterus teach you that anger can lead to sloppiness, and for Force users, potential insanity? But then again, it is the nature of intelligent creatures to fall back on what they've learned because of their emotions. Ignoring that and as angry you are right now, I know you're holding back on what allowed you to defeat that avatar. Perhaps you are afraid of your own power?"
"That power is potentially addictive and dangerous if abused. That's why I was holding back. Besides, it's not like I could use that power anytime even if I wanted to."
"There were plenty of symbiotes for your power around this base, yet you were perfectly content with letting people you wanted to save die or be absorbed rather than accept the risks to yourself? That sounds like something an ineffectual Jedi Council member would do."
"Even if I could save them without risk, Forceless can mutate people into being dependent on them. I still wouldn't be able to save them all!"
"All being the key word. You're just making excuses."
"Besides, there are barely any Forceless in this base left besides you."
"I'm not out of ammunition yet." Cina used the Force to levitate Zolph off the ground and a stinger oozing with Black Matter ruptured from her left palm in a way that reminded Zolph of his first few encounters with Maesterus.
"No! Don't do this! You don't know what you'll get yourself into!" Zolph begged.
"You act like you're concerned for my well-being, but it's obvious you're more worried about what will happen to yourself."
Hiriss protested from the wall she was shackled to. "Leave him alone! Zolph has enough reasons to fear his own power besides Jedi superstition!"
"If he has suffered pain because of this power before, he must learn to overcome it." Cina then jabbed her stinger into Zolph's chest, retracted it and dropped him to the ground before backing away.
For the first time in a year, Zolph felt his body devouring the symbiotes that were injected in him and converting them into Force power. In a flash of light, Zolph had been transformed into a naked humanoid figure that resembled a Forceless-possessed creature and his right arm was restored, a form Zolph had labeled the Black Berserker.
"You shouldn't have done that." Zolph told Cina in a distorted, angered tone.
"I can sense a lot of power from you now, Vaelor. But something's still missing: you don't look like you can fly, and I heard reports of you doing that on Ockla Prime." Cina replied.
Suddenly, Zolph used the Force to slam Cina against a wall so hard it left a big crack in the duracrete. As Cina got back on her feet, Zolph created an aqua-green energy blade around his right arm, raised it in the air and extended the blade to ten meters in length. Zolph then chopped downward as Cina moved out of the blade's path and the wall was split in two.
As Cina dodged charged Force blasts and energy blade slashes from Zolph, she came to the realization that she might not have thought her plan to analyze Zolph through, as he was now both powerful and angry enough to kill her with ease.
"I see now. It's not the pain of your power that worries you; it's the pain that you carry inside of you."
"Enough of your philosophical nerfshavit! Just die, you Forceless witch!" Zolph shouted at her as he fired another Force blast at her.
However, Cina used the Force to deflect the blast right back at him, sending him flying into the walls instead.
Cina both complemented and scolded Zolph at the same time. "You are indeed powerful, Vaelor. Poweful enough to maybe destroy Valkor's replicas with ease, but not powerful enough to defeat that symbiote avatar when it had turned into the giant from Ockla Prime."
"What do you know, schutta?!" Zolph shouted while recovering from the blast.
"Your pain and anger limits this power. I can now understand why you fear it: it turns you into something you detest if you can't control it. That is why the Collective went through all the trouble of breaking you if it didn't make you take your own life. However, I know you have overcome your pain and anger before, based on the reports from Ockla Prime. Even when the symbiote had just murdered Maesterus in front of you and was prepared to devour you and your allies, you overcame it. Perhaps some motivation will give me the results I want." Cina then shouted into sky. "Terraris! You may now attack the plateau!"
Suddenly, the ground started to shake violently, and Zolph and Hiriss watched a Planara Manos a lot larger than the ones they were used to fighting emerge from the sand outside the Valkoran base and then start tunneling in the direction of the Jeela Base – especially surprising to Zolph because if her claim was true, not only was Terraris somehow back from the dead, he was brought back stronger and larger than before.
"You won't be able to catch up to Terraris in time with any of the vehicles here, and don't bother trying to alert them either; the Alliance won't have time to completely evacuate. Either you show me your true potential or your allies will die."
"How do I know you won't hurt Hiriss if I leave you alone with her?!" Zolph asked with suspicion.
"I never said she was a hostage. Like I previously mentioned, I was just keeping her from interfering with my test."
"Don't worry about me, Zolph." Hiriss assured Zolph. "I can take care of myself if she backs out on her word. You just worry about that Archfiend."
Zolph calmed down and begrudgingly accepted Cina's challenge. "Fine, I'll take your word."
Suddenly, Zolph started brimming with Force energy once again, this time turning him into a more angelic, silver-skinned humanoid with four wings, a form that Zolph and the rest of his allies had labeled as the Silver Seraph. Cina watched in awe as Zolph flew away from the base at high speed.
Cina turned around towards Hiriss, only to notice that the half-Mirialan had broken out of the makeshift restraints on her own.
"Oh, I was just about to release you, but I see you've already done that yourself."
"It looks like either no one told you or you forgot how difficult it is to hold a Jedi captive." Hiriss snarked back before activating her lightsaber.
"Put your blade away…. Hiriss, was it? I got exactly what I wanted, and I have no quarrel with you." Cina started walking away from Hiriss.
"Excuse me? You just ordered an Archfiend to attack the Alliance."
"An Archfiend which I have confidence Zolph Vaelor is going to destroy in time. Besides, I thought I heard the power generator exploding during our fight. You might want to leave before your bombers show up."
Cina then used the Force to leap a great distance over the base walls while Hiriss retrieved Zolph's severed hand and lightsaber, and made her way for the Valkoran speeder garage.
Meanwhile atop one of the spires surrounding Jeela Base, Sergeant Kass Choi was keeping watch for any enemy attacks when she caught sight of Terraris attacking Alliance and Valkoran forces a few miles away from the base. Even though she wasn't anywhere near as strong in the Force as her uncle, she could sense that something was off about this creature.
She immediately pulled out her commlink. "General G'Jan! We've got trouble! There's a gigantic Planara Manos attacking our forces not far from here. It's swatting our vehicles away like flies and throwing everyone around with sand geysers!"
"If something that powerful is here, we need to retreat, and you should do the same, Sergeant." G'Jan replied. "I'll send some fighters to distract it. They may not be able to kill it, but they will buy us time to evacuate and have a much better chance of surviving it."
"Understood. Sergeant Choi out." Kass put away her commlink, headed for the airspeeder that got her atop the spire in the first place and flew back to the plateau. Meanwhile, several pilots on top of the plateau scrambled for their fighters.
Inside the base's briefing room, General G'Jan was prepared to recommend Han and Leia to retreat as well.
"I'm not going anywhere, G'Jan." Leia defiantly replied before G'Jan could even make the recommendation. "We're too close to winning this battle."
C-3PO protested Leia's bravado. "Mistress Leia! Are you out of your mind?! The chances of us surviving a battle against such a powerful creature are three-million-to-one!"
"I sense a disturbance from this creature, perhaps what we thought was an Archfiend earlier. And if I remember correctly, I heard that one of the Archfiends that Zolph defeated was a Planara Manos. Whatever the case is, we cannot leave this thing to its own devices."
Han butted in it. "I love your determination, Leia, but I have to agree with Threepio on this one. You may be strong in the Force, but you're not your brother. Going up against that freak head-on would be suicide. If you want to fight it, at least do it from a position where you won't get flattened."
Threepio was annoyed at Han's interpretation. "That is not what I meant, General Solo." But the droid's complaint was ignored.
"Got any bright ideas?" Leia asked Han.
"Yeah. We're taking the Falcon for a ride."
As the Alliance fighters tried to keep Terraris away from Jeela Base, the Millennium Falcon joined in on the action, with Han serving as a pilot, Leia as his co-pilot and two Alliance gunners manning the quad-laser turrets. Thanks to her Force-sensitivity, Leia helped Han evade some attacks from Terraris that would have otherwise hit a ship their size.
After doing little damage to the beast, Leia sensed a powerful presence approaching quickly and saw a four-winged, silver-skinned humanoid charging at Terraris. The figure punched Terraris in the head at super speed, causing the beast to recoil despite the massive size difference. Despite only looking vaguely similar, Leia could sense and recognize this character as Zolph Vaelor.
"We should pull back for now." Leia relayed to the fighter squadron. "If this is the Silver Seraph, we shouldn't get in his way." The Falcon and the fighter squadron promptly pulled away from the fight scene.
As Terraris came back to his senses, he noticed Zolph hovering in front of him, only looking vaguely familiar to him.
"Hello, Terraris." Zolph addressed the creature. "Do you remember me? I'm the guy who killed you before. I may have learned your name and you were made bigger since we last met, but I've also learned many new tricks."
Terraris hissed at Zolph in anger.
Zolph replied. "So, it really is you. And you're still not much of a talker compared to the other Archfiends. But then again, the rest of your species isn't so talkative either."
Terraris tried to make a charge for the Alliance base while he could, but Zolph simply used the Force to yank the giant serpent out of the sand and throw him miles away from the base.
As Zolph charged for Terraris again, the beast started summoning many large boulders from the sand to throw at Zolph. Zolph responded by doing the same, except he also summoned the wreckage of starships that were buried during a time when the maugra ruled Blenjeel. Both entities started throwing their projectiles against each other, until one of Zolph's boulders smashed Terraris in his finger-like mandibles.
Zolph flew towards Terraris with two moderate-length energy blades formed, but Terraris retaliated by grabbing Zolph in his mandibles, interrupting his attack. As Terraris tried to crush Zolph between his mandibles and his crystalline eye, Zolph created another blade of dagger-length and stabbed into Terraris's eye.
This triggered a roar of pain from Terraris, provoking it into squeezing even harder. After pulling his blade out, Zolph started repeatedly punching the eye until it was shattered, blinding Terraris. Afterward, Zolph created a longer blade and sliced off all of the mandibles.
As Zolph backed away to prepare a final attack, Terraris prepared for a last stand despite being crippled. Terraris summoned two large boulders and aimlessly tried to throw them at Zolph, but Zolph used the Force to catch the boulders and violently smashed Terraris's skull between them.
With Terraris's skull reduced to barely functional mush, Zolph formed two massive energy blades and rapidly sliced Terraris into thousands of pieces, so much that the symbiote inside him was destroyed as well, and the chances of a second resurrection were almost impossible.
However, Zolph realized his time as the Silver Seraph was almost up and immediately flew for Jeela Base.
Zolph arrived on top of the Jeela Plateau just as he turned back to normal. As he tried to activate the terminal for the turbolift, he just remembered that he was still missing his right hand. Zolph sheepishly withdrew his wire-filled stump and activated the terminal with his left hand and headed down into the base.
As Zolph reunited with Generals G'Jan, Solo, Organa and R9-C4 in the operations room, he was also overjoyed to see Hiriss alive and well. He didn't hesitate to run up and hug her.
"I'm glad you're safe." Zolph told her.
"I told you I could handle it." Hiriss responded before holding out Zolph's severed robotic hand with a cheesy grin on her face. "Need a hand?"
"Very funny." Zolph half-heartedly replied. "I take it you defeated that Cina Onae lady?"
"No. We didn't even fight at all. She got what she wanted, let me go, and went off on her own. As for the Valkoran base, the bombers have done their job and what's left of the Valkoran Empire is further shrunken down. But again, how long are those incompetent senators going to keep their head in the sand and continue to claim that the Valkoran are still a relevant superpower?"
"I'm worried that if we get to the point that the Collective runs out of their Valkoran followers, the head-in-the-sand guys will try to pick a fight with the Seferite Order under the pretense of them being ex-Valkoran, even though they've been pardoned. They would rather make unnecessary enemies than climb out of their comfort zones and try to deal with a more threatening, unfamiliar enemy. The last part especially ironic because we were at war with another group of extragalactic invaders for five years."
Leia replied to the two young Jedi. "I agree with your sentiment. That kind of obstructiveness and willful ignorance is why I retired from politics in the first place. But let's not forget that the Vong invasion also left a lot of emotional wounds on us, and some of us just aren't ready to deal with that again so soon."
Zolph responded. "Don't get me wrong. I understand that some of them don't want the rest of the galaxy panicking or giving into despair while we and the military deal with the Collective ourselves. Hell, as much of a pain in the Jedi Order's backside as he is sometimes, even Chief Omas is secretly willing to acknowledge the Collective as a serious threat. But some of the politicians in question are just sleazy cowards who are interested only in keeping their seats and making themselves look more effectual than they actually are."
Zolph then changed the topic.
"Annoying politics aside, Cina Onae is very unusual. If she was only interested in testing my ability to Force channel and not trying to kill me or Hiriss, is it possible she's a case of Forceless immunity like Seferin?"
"What do you mean by that?" G'Jan asked.
"She looks like a possession host, but she's allowed to act independently and do things that would be counterintuitive to Valkor's plans."
"It's not a good idea to immediately assume she's just like Maesterus." Han chimed in. "For all we know, she could just be trying to make an analysis of your powers so the Collective can counter it later."
"She also claims that she's from the same world as the real Valkor and referred to the avatar we fought as if it were a separate entity from him; that it was actually an extension of Valkor's symbiote."
"That just means she's not a sanctimonious idiot that practices idolatry like the other cultists." Han continued. "But if she is from Valkor's homeworld, she might be a good lead to ending this war."
G'Jan responded. "That is again, provided that those idiot bureaucrats don't send us on another wild bantha chase against some insignificant cultists. And then have them whine and yell at us just because we happen to be fighting Forceless at the same time."
"This might be something we'll get better results with if we're working closely with the Seferite Order." Hiriss commented. "Besides, considering their previous connections with Valkor, it would be a good idea to inform Arcidus about Onae… and that creature Zolph just killed."
Hiriss had to choose her words carefully, as any word of Archfiends being brought back from the dead could cause the military's attempt to undermine the Collective's claim to fall apart. Thankfully, Terraris was larger than before and the only eye-witness accounts of Terraris's original form were with Zolph, the Jedi Order and members of the Valkoran Empire; but it was only a matter of time before Collective propagandists would spread the word over the HoloNet and the Collective starts unleashing Archfiends with more public eyewitness accounts. On the flipside, this revelation added some credibility to the claim that Dynn Manthis was brought back too, but again, there was no telling if this claim was true or merely bait for Zolph. Han, Leia and G'Jan could tell Hiriss and Zolph knew something they weren't willing to tell them in front of the rest of the personnel, but kept silent when they also knew that they were fighting an enemy that could weaponize truths laced with false promises.
"The bureaucrats won't like the idea of you working with groups outside the government, let alone former Valkoran agents, but this may be our only option for any meaningful progress." Leia told them. "You two and R9-C4 should visit the Seferites alone if you want some effective diplomacy."