By the time Luke and Siley got to the village the Wookiees had fashioned an improvised basket wench to pull the pair of them up from the forest floor through the hole that Jyr had cut in the understructure. Aer-ki met them there and quickly took a stammering Siley to the med facility.

Without time to heed social taboos the two Jedi cut her out of her clothing, attached the breathing apparatus securely around her head, then delicately dunked her in the emerald fluid. The nearby Wookiee medic input several commands into the tank's control panel, which activated the interior lights and began to administer secondary medications through her mask.

A diagram of her slim form appeared on the side of the tank and monitored her vitals as well as recorded the location and interaction rate between the Ryll and her body's cellular structure. A large portion of her head glowed red on the diagram.

The medic rumbled a short line of invective.

"We know it's bad," Luke answered, "how long do you think it will take for her to recover?"

The Wookiee cocked his head askew then whined a reply.

"The ship should be ready before that," Jyr commented as he glanced at her nude form inside the glowing tube. "We may have to pull her out prematurely. Is this tank mobile?"

The Wookiee answered a short negative.

"Prepare as much portable gear as you can to treat her condition. Inform us of any change in her vitals," Jyr said before walking outside and glancing down the walkway to the landing pad. Luke followed him out.

"That was too close."

Jyr glanced at him. "You got her here in one piece. Thanks, by the way."

"No problem. Where do we stand on getting out of here?"

Jyr pointed to his right. "We have three hopefuls being worked on now, but we've really only got one chance, that Corellian cutter that's been serving the Wookiees as a storage shed. The other two ships have been cannibalized for various parts and I doubt they can be made serviceable again."

"What about the enemy's transport?" Luke asked.

"There is none. The Wookiees say a large ship dropped them off up here then landed elsewhere, so that's not an option…and the nearest village is too far away to consider."

"How much time do you think we've got before they send reinforcements?"

Jyr frowned. "I don't know. I've deployed a sentry line to watch for their return, but it appears they're quite busy elsewhere," he said, signaling for Luke to follow him.

He led him into a nearby building/hut where the enemy's personal weapons and other gear had been gathered and laid out for inspection. Luke immediately noticed the collection of comm devices being dissected on the far table.

"We've been able to pull some preliminary position data from their communications traffic. It appears they're attacking all over the planet. Snippets of Wookiee comm chatter have confirmed this, but most of their communications grid has gone dark. We did, however, intercept an ultimatum delivered by the enemy, in basic, demanding the surrender and submission of the Wookiees to the V'tol or they would suffer the annihilation of their species."

"The V'tol," Luke said as he ran the name through his memory. "Never heard of them before, but if they speak basic then they're probably from some part of this galaxy."

Jyr shook his head. "More likely they studied us for a few years before they attacked. The Insectoids want us for food, but if these V'tol want slaves then they'll have to communicate with them."

"The fact that they transmitted in basic means they're after more than just the Wookiees," Luke added ominously. "We've got to get out of here and warn the rest of the galaxy."

Jyr sighed. "I know. We're working on it."


Three and a half days later the Wookiees sighted a V'tol scout in the forest, which Jyr made quick work of, but the spiked brute meant that their time here was almost up, and the cutter was barely spaceworthy. Never the less, they couldn't risk another battle that could permanently damage the spacecraft, so they loaded up all the villagers and enough mechanical and technical gear so that they could continue their repairs enroute inside what once had been a Corellian Alliance patrol ship.

At some seventy meters long, the Nova 68 provided adequate space for the 64 surviving Wookiees, two Jedi, and one unconscious pilot that was still recovering under the medic's watchful care. What the ship didn't currently provide for were weapons or shields, which the mechanics were hurriedly trying to repair or freshly install from the cobble of equipment they had ransacked from the village.

With Jyr at the helm, the stubby cutter lifted off from the landing pad and drifted over the treetops to the south, scraping bottom every now and then as they searched for a suitable clearing to put down in and continue repairs. As of now they were nothing more than target practice should they try and break orbit. It would take at least another two days to get the shields working again, which was the minimum Jyr demanded before trying to make the run to hyperspace.

A few hundred klicks later he spied a narrow ravine with a dry gravel bed just wide enough to accommodate the ship. He scraped and broke branches on the way down due to a misfiring thruster pack, but eventually the landing skids made contact and the little junk pile settled into its camouflaged niche.

"Luke, perimeter sweep. I'll guard the ship while the Wookiees work."

Luke nodded once, popped the boarding hatch, and ran off in the nighttime forest. Jyr dropped a meter and a half to the ground then backed up against the slowly lowering ramp. He settled down into a relaxed hunch and began the long, monotonous task of guard duty.


Over the skies of a captured Coruscant a tiny enemy transport emerged from hyperspace and joined the mass of V'tol ships engaged in the chaotic orbital cleanup tasked with clearing battle debris before it fell down onto the planet and caused further damage. The V'tol wanted the planet as intact as possible, and had already begun integrating the planet's infrastructure and population into their slave workforce.

"General, we have a problem," Revan said absentmindedly as the pair of Jedi starred out over what had once been the capitol of the Republic.

"What now?" she asked, starring in awe at the assembled enemy fleet and the giant spherical ship that hung perilously low on the orbital track.

"I don't know," he said as he pulled up the ship's navigational map. It had major hyperspace routes listed for a hundred or so planets, but most of the galaxy was inaccessible. "It's possible that all of these systems are under enemy control."

"Or soon will be," she said ominously. "This invasion is only a few days old. The enemy fleet is still holding in blockade formation. If they'd secured the surface by now that wouldn't be necessary."

Revan nodded in agreement as he scrolled through the short list of systems. "Should we flip a coin?"

She reached over and tapped the glowing dot that represented Kuat. "If we have to run through the entire list we might as well start with the ones nearby."

"Plotting course," Revan said as he flipped the ship around and gently nudged it away from Coruscant's gravity well. After a few moments the alien navicomputer signaled it was ready and the two wayward Jedi jumped back into hyperspace.