Entry 91

I stewed all the way from Indupar to Coruscant. I was mad with my father for keeping secrets from me and I was irritated with my mother for helping my dad do so. But I am really, really pissed at the seers because I know they are probably responsible for any scheming going on. I just hope they haven't manipulated my son into doing anything criminal or immoral. He's only a boy. It's not hard to fool an innocent child. They probably got him conned into doing their bidding. I don't trust those soothsaying, manipulative, camelid-face jerks.

As I dropped out of hyperspace I observed a Lancer-Class Frigate with the symbol of the Indupar crown worlds painted on its hull. I was expecting to see the King's flagship, a newly renovated Vengeance-class dreadnought, but my scanners didn't pick up any ship of that size in orbit above Coruscant. I guess Marcus thought arriving in a two-hundred-and-fifty meter ship would be less frightening to the Chief-of-State than showing up in a nineteen-kilometer warship.

I flew toward the ship while hailing with my transceiver. "Indupar Lancer-Class Frigate this is Talon Tantiss, son of Master Mark Tantiss—Commander of the King's security, requesting permission to land my shuttle in your ventral docking bay."

There was a long pause before I got an answer. "Uhh…no. Permission denied."

I found their response unusual. Not necessarily the docking denial, but the lack of questions. There was no, "State your business" or "Is Master Tantiss expecting you?"

"Is my father there? Is Master Tantiss aboard? I need to talk to him." I reached out with the Force but couldn't find my father. I did notice there were areas of the ship that appeared to be Force voids. There were ysalamiri onboard, of that I was sure. "Can I speak to your King?"

"King Marcus is currently meeting with the Chief-of-State onboard the Star Destroyer Errant Venture. He is unavailable at this time."

"Then let me land and I will wait to talk to him or my father."

"Permission to land is denied," came the voice over my radio.

"Well I am going to dock, no matter what you say." I positioned my shuttle so I could easily swoop into the bay.

"Jedi Tantiss, our shields are up. The impact will damage your ship…possibly disable your life support."

"Then put the shields down," I told the unknown individual.

"I'm not authorized to do so."

"Well get authorization because I am coming in."

I lit up my sub-light engines and headed toward the shielded docking bay. I knew my dad wouldn't let me smack against the shielding. As I quickly approached the bay I could still see the shimmer of the shield. When I was about two hundred meters away I started to wonder if my father was on board. He should have dropped the shields by now. I powered down to docking speed, but the shields remained. It wasn't until I was less than ten meters from the ship that the shields dropped and I entered the ship's docking area.

Over the radio a different, but vaguely familiar disembodied voice said, "You are one dumb kriffnut."

I ignored the insult, powered down the ship, lowered the boarding ramp and rushed out only to be greeted by a platoon of Void Jumpers, fully armored, and pointing blasters in my direction.

"Whoa," I said while raising my hands. "No need to shoot." I couldn't feel the Force, so I knew there were ysalamiri nearby…making my lightsaber nearly useless against these men. Not that I wanted to fight Indupar soldiers. I noticed two of the jumpers carried lightsabers. I turned to address them. "I assume you two are in charge here. Where's Master Tantiss?"

The lightsaber carrying soldiers looked toward each other and then shook their heads. The one on the left opened up his face shield and spoke to the other. "I always knew you kriff'n spooks were crazy."

The other jumper raised his face shield revealing my father's face. "Talon, why are you here?"

I had to laugh at the absurdity of the question. "Why am I here? Why are you here?"

My father attempted a shrug in his armor, but he couldn't quite pull it off. "I'm here with the King to do negotiations regarding the protection of Ec Pand."

I waved a hand dismissively. "No, no…no more half-truths. I know about the mimetic suit in your room and the amber lightsabers. I want to know why you are really here. How are you involved in the anti-slavers and the Vong Void Jumpers?" I paused for a breath. "And are you the mimetic man seen with the Chief-of-State on Corellia?"

My father blew out a breath as he lowered his head. "Talon, you shouldn't be here."

"I want to know what's going on?" I insisted.

"I can't believe your kid hasn't figured it out yet," the other man said with a caustic chuckle.

After a moment I recognized him. "Deke? Deke Tavik?"

"Finally the kriffnut recognizes me." Deke turned to the platoon of blaster carrying Void Jumpers and dismissed them with a flick of his gauntlet.

My dad then motioned for me to follow him. "Walk with me." He gave me a sideways glance. "Talon, we don't want Jedi involved in case things go sideways."

"I'm not a Jedi. I quit, remember." I said pointedly as I fell into step next to him. "Mom says she heard you talking to the head Seer about wanting the Jedi off Coruscant. Why? What do you plan on doing?"

As I followed my father into a cargo area, I slowed when I smelled a familiar musty scent. As we turned a corner I saw six cages containing snarling vornskrs. When they saw me and my father they practically went mad in rage."

I pointed to my father. "You're responsible for the attacks on the slavers, aren't you?"

"Not me," Dad said as he threw a thumb in the direction of the vornskrs. "These monsters hate me just as much as Princess hates you."

"I have to take credit for that," Deke commented as he walked behind my father and me. "Hanna should have told you the man she attacked wasn't a Force user. So how could it be your dad?" I bristled slightly at his sarcastic tone. "Gods, your kid has the intellect of a box of rocks."

"Knock it off Deke. If I remember correctly you didn't know the whole story until recently."

"Yeah," he grudgingly admitted.

As we put distance between the docking bay and us I felt the Force slowly return. Obviously the ysalamiri were housed in one of the bay storage units.

"I keep telling your cousin Hanna to stop following me, but she is a tenacious, albeit beautiful, little stalker," Deke said as he put his hand to his armored chest plate and gave me a wink. "I can't blame her, though. I'm drop-dead gorgeous."

My dad made a grunting sound before he smacked Deke's helmet with the backhand of his gauntlet. "Don't flatter yourself."

I was becoming infuriated with this conversation. "Will somebody tell me what exactly you two are doing and why? And how does Marcus and the Chief-of-State fit into this?"

"I guess there is no reason not to tell you at this point," my father said as we entered the flight deck. "There are Sith on Coruscant…a lot of them. There is also an abundance of Force-adept criminals. They need to go. We are going to Force sterilize them with the virus, but I can't start the mission until Luke and his Jedi are gone."

"Sith?" I looked at my father in disbelief. "The Sith are no more. Lumiya was the last of their kind."

"No, I wish that were true, but it's not."

I grabbed my father's armored shoulder and pulled him around to face me. "Dad, if there were Sith on Coruscant why not just tell the Jedi and let them handle it?"

My father heaved a sigh. "Luke thinks all Sith are redeemable. If he tries to capture them without the virus there will be a lot of blood shed. We are going to neutralize them first, take away their Force abilities, and then the Coruscanti police will arrest them. I doubt they can wield a saber with any accuracy without the Force."

"If it is that easy then why the lightsaber resistant armor? Why the vornskrs? And why not just let Uncle Luke know? It sounds like you plan on capturing them anyway, Luke wouldn't have a problem with that, even if you used the virus."

My dad reached up and removed his helmet. "Because we don't know how well the virus will work on these people. They have lived for over five thousand years in isolation. They may be immune…and if they are…well then we have the reason why I don't want to involve the Jedi. I will send my Vong warriors with vornskrs planetside where they will track down every Sith and kill them." He gave a caustic chuckle. "I am fairly sure Luke would not go along with that plan. He made it quite clear that he doesn't like genocide."

I put up a hand in a halting motion. "Wait, how many Sith are on Coruscant?"

"About fifty."

I scoffed. "Dad, that is far from genocide."

He nodded solemnly. "True, but once we are done here we are going to their home world of Kesh. There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Sith on that planet. They recently escaped the confines of their world and have been pirating ships in the outer rim. We are going to bombard their planet with the virus, destroy their ships and strand them on their planet for another 5000 years."

My head was beginning to hurt from thinking too much. "Kesh? I've never heard of it. How do you know about this planet and the Sith?"

"The Seers knew the Sith were here, but they didn't know where they were coming from, but I do." My father said with a tight smile. "You remember when I killed that Sith Meditation Sphere?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. "The one where you claimed you didn't get any knowledge from despite the fact you suddenly gained the ability to freeze blaster bolts."

"Yes, that one," dad said a little sheepishly. "Okay, I admit, I lied." He tapped the side of his head with the index finger of his metal gauntlet. "I gained a lot of information from the sphere along with the location of the Sith planet." My dad made dismissive wave of his hand. "But, forget about Kesh for a minute. Our major concern is Coruscant. The Sith were coming to the planet and using their Force skills to move into political positions, the media, and other key governmental offices. They wanted to take over the government, but they knew they couldn't hide forever as long as the Jedi were on Coruscant. Therefore they have been using their sources in the media to make false and damning accusations against the Jedi. At the same time, some of the Sith have recruited and organized weak Force adepts and encouraged them to commit crimes using their Force abilities. They hoped to get the public to turn on the Jedi Order. They were somewhat successful."

I put up a hand to make my dad pause for a moment while I tried to process the information. "How does Mokk Streke fit into this? Are you the mimetic suited man?"

"I am the man you saw in the Corsec video. As for the Chief-of-State, we need him for various reasons to include using Galactic Alliance funds to create the virus and to authorize the use of the weathernet to disperse the virus on Coruscant."

"So, he knows he's working with you?"

My dad shook his head. "No, I always wore the mimetic suit and disguised my voice when I dealt with him. He thinks he is dealing with members of the Order of the Canted Circle," he said with a chuckle.

"The Canted Circle? Coruscanti's oldest and most influential secret society?" I muttered. "Why would he believe that?"

"Because that's what he's been told since he was a low level, rimworld, planetary governor." My dad grinned, "Who else could have helped him rise to the level of power he's achieved. It had to be a secret society because he doesn't know about the H'Drachi seers."

"Damn it, I knew the seers were involved."

"Of course they are involved. They saw the danger and they want it resolved, but it is hard to prevent a coup if you don't have the cooperation from the Chief-of-State."

"Does Streke know why he is doing what he's doing?"

"He does now. It is hard to hide the truth when a Sith tried to kill him in his own quarters." My dad snickered under his breath. "Lucky for him I was there to save his rear."

"You're the one who blanked out the cameras and snuck into his apartment?" I shook my head in disbelief. "He knows what you look like. If you saved him he would have recognized you."

My dad shrugged. "As I said earlier, I always wear a mimetic suit when around him. I blanked out the cameras as an added precaution. The seers knew the general time frame but not the exact time and date of the attack. That's why I kept going back day after day. I brought a ysalamiri. This gave me the advantage. I could use the Force, but the assassin couldn't."

My father walked over to a crew member wearing the uniform of an Indupar Naval Officer. "Has Chief-of-State contacted the Grand Master yet?"

"Yes Sir. All remaining Jedi on Coruscant were ordered to Ec Pand to stop a second Nagi invasion."

"What?" I looked to my father. "I thought there wasn't going to be an invasion. Mom said the seers weren't concerned."

"There isn't going to be an invasion, but we want to get the Jedi off planet as soon as possible and have them gone for a long while. Once the Jedi are gone the Chief-of-State will officially and very publicly sign a treaty with the Indupar Crown Worlds to base the Jedi out of Ec Pand to defend the crystals just in case a problem arises. It will make sense to the Galaxy. Indupar refuses to have an occupying army on the planet or a GA Fleet in their space to protect the crystals…but it is well known that the ruler of Indupar trusts the Jedi. The Jedi protected his mother while she was pregnant with him and he has a former Jedi as an advisor. Stationing the Jedi Temple there will appear as a reasonable compromise. This way Streke can't be criticized for running the Jedi off Coruscant because they are desperately needed on Ec Pand. The crystals must be protected because any military force in possession of the crystals would become almost invincible."

He turned to his communications officer. "Any word on the status of the Jedi?"

The man put a hand up to his earphones. "The message was delivered and acknowledged."

"As soon as they are gone the operation will begin," my dad said matter-of-factly. "If I sense any Jedi remaining…then I may have to call Luke and tell him something that will encourage the remaining Jedi to leave."

"Tell him something…you mean lie to him."

My dad blew out a frustrated breath. "I've lied for Luke," he whispered. "Why is only okay to lie when Luke wants me to?"

"Sir," the ship's captain called out. "We have StealthXs scrambling from the Temple. It appears to be thirty…that is the amount of Jedi believed to remain on Coruscant."

My dad slapped a gauntlet-clad hand on my shoulder. "Help me reach out and try to sense if any remaining Jedi are on planet."

"Sure." I closed my eyes and concentrated. I extended my Force senses and felt weak Force adepts, but no Jedi. "People who are minimal Force users are probably are not going to be happy about this."

My dad nodded. "Probably not, but it's for the best."

I wasn't sure if I believed my father, but I also knew I was in no position to stop him. "Does Marcus know about you and the seer's plan?"

My father made a face of incredulity. "King Marcus is a Seer and a postcog. He can perceive the past, present and future. Of course he knows."