Chapter Six
Ruusan
They found themselves on the Reena Trade Route. A sensible option, and one that Akrem might have picked. And Yularen got his choice, which was good for their working partnership, if nothing else.
Daily life on the Resolute was odd; Akrem had never existed in a space where she was the ultimate authority. And time - weeks, so far - where she had no one to answer to, other than occasional reports-in with Obi-Wan. There was no one to scold her for her lack of neatness, or for her constant desire to take things apart and figure out how they work.
She had personal quarters - currently filled with junk - a cleaning droid, a blaster, and R2-F11. She had spent almost a week on the Sunsets II, which was the orange of Tatooine's sky, and had all the modifications that the first had, and more refined blasters, as well as a more sophisticated targeting system.
And she spent a few hours in the crew quarters, with the 501st and her lightsaber, set to a lower stun setting.
That was, until the transmission came in from Nexus Ortai. A Separatist fleet had invaded the system in force. They were three hours out, and they flashed into the system. Five of the Banking Clan's Munificent-class frigates loomed over the planet, and swarms of droid starfighters.
The Resolute was already geared for battle - all officers were at battle stations, and Captain Yularen was at the helm.
Akrem was in the front of Pitch Squadron, in the Sunset II, first out of the hangar. She was only limited by the slow, rumbling doors opening.
They dove out of the breach. Her fighter was much quicker than the others - and most of them had a fraction of her reflexes. The V-wings that the clones used, behind her, were fast, but they did not have half her speed. A compliment of ARC-170s, as well, brought up the rear.
"Pitch, with me," she urged. "We'll focus on the starfighters. That leaves Ghost and Sphere to focus on the command ships."
"Understood, General."
She refocused on the other troops. Droid starfighters were light and agile, but if she put the throttle on full-speed, she could sideswipe them with all four of her laser cannons. They just simply didn't have the target acquisition for such a thing.
She chuckled to herself. The war so far had been frustrating. She'd been so full of doubt. But there was nothing - not a thing - that was truly like this. Full speed, in a cockpit of a starfighter of her own creation, with an army at her back.
And a viewscreen full of targets.
Yes, the war was much simpler now.
No sooner had they finished the battle at Nexus Ortai, one frigate fleeing into hyperspace, than did the call come.
Captain Yularen appeared via holocom, in her starship. "General Skywalker. The call has come out - General Kenobi has issued the command that we are to go back to Bothawui. Apparently, he heard through an underground source that the planet is going to be attacked."
"Of course, Captain. Issue a recall, to regroup back in the Resolute."
"I am doing so, as we speak."
"Then I leave you to it," she said, nodding, and pulling her thrusters.
"As you say, General." His transmission cut.
More action, then. It seemed as if the Separatists were out in force.
Yularen was firm, as he briefed them on the command deck.
"The attack is not yet under way. We have the advantage," he declared. "For once, I'm looking forward to having time to prepare."
They were in hyperspace, and Akrem had barely enough time to get back to the ship before they were racing to the next engagement. Yularen had a more measured presence - he was more open, and he had something like a smile on his weathered face as she came onto the bridge.
She smiled, grimly, at him. "Do we have any numbers?"
"The fleet is supposedly of a decent size, but it sounds like a similar fleet to the one we just fought," Yularen said.
"That's good, no?"
"Hrmmm. While we did win our last engagement, we have suffered some hull damage. I am worried that another battle might prove catastrophic," he said.
She drew back. "So we'll need to prepare an ambush. The Force is with us, then, that we have time to do so."
"Agreed," he said, nodding. "Have you any thoughts?"
"Golm was very close to Bothawui," Akrem murmured. "And it had a number of moons and asteroids. I think an ambush might be very appropriate."
"Yes." He nodded, and turned to one of the men in the pits. "Lieutenant! Find me a map of the Bothawui system. We can plan from there."
When the six Munificent-class frigates came into the system, the Resolute was nowhere to be seen. Akrem had to wonder, from the cockpit of the Sunsets II, just what the strategy here was. Did they not expect the Venators? Or was there some other design to their attacks? If so, why not send both fleets, at once, and be sure?
Akrem could not say. She did not have the big picture. All she had was the Resolute, and a determination to win.
And, thanks to Obi-Wan, an eight-hour warning. That was long enough to set the trap. The six cruisers dropped out of hyperspace, the rotation of the asteroid belt had them positioned perfectly. The trap was set.
As the ships came into the system proper, they waited. As the ships passed Golm, the purple gas giant, they waited. As the ships came into orbit, between the two planets, they waited.
Only when they split, as if to commence a landing operation, did they strike.
"All units, attack," Akrem ordered. Her Pitch Squadron, as well as Ghost, Sphere and Amber, detached from where they were hiding among the asteroid belt. Three regiments of the 501st, too, opened fire from AT-TEs and SPHAs, all perched carefully amongst the belt.
And, of course, the Resolute itself appeared from behind a small moon, turbolasers flaring in blue.
The Separatists didn't have a chance.
Akrem had a moment, during the fight, when the Force called to her. The massive, lumbering beast reared its head, erupting up from the depths, and she could hear, for a brief yet unmistakable second, the crunching of heavy boots on the snow.
When her awareness cleared, and she could see, she saw a small, personal starfighter fleeing towards the edge of the system. The craft was one that she didn't recognize, and it was obviously fleeing.
Why would a droid flee? The Force urged her to chase, and so she did.
"Captain," she spoke into the comm. "I'm pursuing an unknown vessel out of the system. Hyperdrive route locked. My beacon is active. I leave the rest in your command."
"Damn it, Skywalker," he muttered. She cracked a smile. "Must you?"
"The Force calls, and I must follow," she told him.
He muttered something about mumbo-jumbo, before correcting himself. "Understood, General."
"You'll do fine, Captain. It's what you wanted, right?"
"If you say so. Stay in contact."
"I shall," she said, and signed off.
Flying through hyperspace was like swimming in the wake of that Force. It writhed, and tunnelled, and shook her very awareness with its motions.
It was impossible to tell if it was pleased, or something else.
Rex, CT-7567, watched as they dropped out of hyperspace. The General had taken off, with her ship, chasing a retreating fighter.
He could support that kind of thinking - a lone, manned fighter was already an oddity amongst Separatist forces, and one important enough to flee during battle must have meant something indeed.
Of course, he was not in charge, so his opinion, such as it was, didn't matter. While they were fighting in space, it was not his jurisdiction.
Still, by the time they'd gotten all the artillery off the asteroids, and all the fighters back into the Resolute, they were almost a day behind Skywalker.
They followed her beacon, almost halfway across the galaxy. Captain Yularen complained the whole time. He spent a good ten minutes - Rex timed him - muttering about how the Jedi were reckless, and he'd been given one of the worst ones.
Rex wasn't sure about other Jedi, but General Skywalker was somewhat reckless. Or, maybe it was better to say that she was supremely confident. As far as he could tell, she could reasonably expect to fly into a fleet of enemies and come out unscathed, in that fast little ship she'd modified. He wasn't a piloting clone - he didn't have that same expertise, but he did think she was quite skilled.
Captain Yularen, however, contacted Kenobi. The older Jedi had just rubbed his face, and sighed, and shrugged. Akrem was going to do what Akrem thought was right, he said. But she had a habit of leaving after the Force told her things, Kenobi explained. Apparently, it wasn't an uncommon occurrence.
When they arrived in the system - Hoth's Brand, named after the star, which Rex's mind supplied was named after the Jedi Lord Hoth, one of the heroes of the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, a thousand years ago.
Skywalker's ship was listed as landed, on the planet Ruusan, itself. A transmission beamed itself into the system, as they dropped out of orbit.
"It's from Skywalker," Captain Yularen commented. "Display it."
The hologram flicked to life. Skywalker had her hood up, and was clearly standing outside the ship.
"Captain." The wind whipped at her robes. "I have tracked the Separatists to a base hidden orbiting one of the moons of Ruusan. It's tidally locked, and the moon has a dense atmosphere, so you might not notice it, on normal scanners. That's an advantage, but I believe that we have the advantage of surprise. They might notice you arriving, but they haven't noticed me yet."
She paused, and looked to the side, off at something they couldn't see. "That's the important thing. But I was guided here by the Force, and therefore I cannot ignore its warnings. That's why I came to the Valley of the Jedi. My R2 unit has a lower-range communicator, so I'll be notified when you arrive. I'll come back as soon as possible, but given the Separatist station, I leave it to your discretion whether you want to assault it without me. The best look I got was that it was a Lucrehulk core, modified for communications.
"It seems likely that they were relying on it remaining hidden - no one comes to Hoth's Brand anymore, and I wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't looking." She frowned, and something caught her attention. "Well, my time seems to be up. I leave it up to your capable hands. Skywalker out."
"Damn this Jedi. Of all the things - Force visions? Valley of the Jedi? Yes, exactly, the middle of a war is the perfect time to go on a mystical journey. Why, oh why did I get stuck with her?"
Rex wasn't quite of the same opinion on Skywalker in general, but he could agree that this was one of her more ill-advised stunts.
Akrem's commlink beeped. The Resolute was in-system, then, but she couldn't worry about that now. This was too important.
The Valley of the Jedi's power thrummed, beneath her, as she walked, like a heartbeat. The wind was ever-present here, whistling through the deep valleys and churning around her.
"How much farther?" she demanded.
The ghost in front of her turned. He was a human man, with dark hair and a sly grin.
"Almost," he agreed, and they stepped around a corner. A cave loomed, the dark shadows thickening.
She followed him, as he crossed the threshold. The wind died, and the Force felt thinner, here. Nothing like the blazing bonfire it had been.
The cave was deep, and the shadows long. She glanced around. One of the perks of being a Twi'lek was the excellent night vision, so she could see the winding, rocky walls of the tunnel.
He led, she followed.
The oddness of this reached a fever pitch, as they stepped around into a low cave. Candles lit the chamber, and she was reminded of that awful tent, what wasn't more than a few months ago but felt like ages. Back where she'd spent the last few minutes she'd ever get to spend with her mother.
The chamber itself was empty, except for an altar, with a crystalline, egg-like frame within it. It looked like the castoffs of some creature. Maybe this was what a rancor's egg looked like.
She looked at her guide, the strange Jedi ghost that had guided her here. "What is it?"
He tilted his head, curiously. "What does it look like?"
She folded her arms. "You know, I thought Force ghosts were supposed to be more direct."
He laughed, a warm, rich sound. Whoever this ancient Jedi was, he had charisma in spades.
"Of course, of course. I just wondered… this device changed galactic history forever. You're looking at the Thought Bomb."
"The Thought Bomb…?"
It looked a little bit mundane. There wasn't much power in it, now, at least. Just a crystalline frame, abandoned on the ground.
"My greatest failure, and my death." The ghost held out a hand, smiling now. It looked a little sly, a little odd. "We were lied to, you see. The bomb was only supposed to kill all the Jedi, and none of the Sith. It was foolish," he mused, and his smile turned wistful. "I wonder how things might have been different, had the battle been truly fought."
"You're a Sith," she said, slowly. His wording was not lost on her.
"Yes," he said, freely, opening his arms. "You might know me as Skere Kaan. Though I will admit that I was a Jedi, once. A very long time ago."
"Skere Kaan was the leader of the Brotherhood of Darkness, the last true Sith in the galaxy."
"Well, that's not quite true," he countered, still smiling. "Do you believe me?"
"I - I thought you were a Jedi," she admitted.
"No." His face turned hard. "I'm not. It's best you keep that in mind."
"Why, then? Why any of this?"
"The way of the Sith," he said, patiently. "Is betrayal. This is revenge, Jedi."
"So this is some sort of… revenge… on the Jedi?"
"No," he said. "Any revenge I might have wanted for them has already been carried out. Your order is dying, Jedi. Anyone can see that. The fact that I am here, a Sith in the Valley of the Jedi, is proof enough."
"How?" she asked, desperate. He gave her no answers, however, only grinning ferally. Now, she could see the Sith in him. How had she not seen it before?
"I'm not doing all your work for you. You may have some potential, but you're no Sith," he snarled. He drew something from his cloak, and tossed it at her, before vanishing.
Reflexively, she caught it. It was a heavy, four-sided pyramid, black, with ridges. It felt cool to the touch, but not painfully so.
"What?" she asked, feeling like a fool. What did any of this mean? Was this the thing the Force had drawn her here for?
She glanced down. It felt odd, and a sinister red light began to glow, around the corners. Whatever it was, it was of the Dark Side.
She stowed it, carefully, in the folds of her cloak, and stalked out the cave.
The burn of shame followed her. Why did the Force speak to her so - only to give such terrible visions? Why did she dream every night of death, of murder, of the lives of millions snuffed out? A lush green planet, torn apart by a massive superweapon?
What was the point, if she had force visions draw her to a holy place, only to bequeath darkness, and tear her down with visions of angry Sith spirits?
She was starting to think she was cursed.
Akrem glanced between Yularen, and Rex.
"It's obviously a Separatist space station. Blast it."
And that was that. The station didn't have much in the way of defenses.
They had just finished up - scouring the moon and the surrounding system for any escapees. The station was lightly armed, and could only muster a handful of defensive fighter class.
It was clear, at least, to Akrem that this was clearly not a military hard-point, instead, it was a stealth station. Good that she had the Force, then.
They were two jumps back towards their assigned sector of the galaxy, back down the Trax Tube, when they dropped out of hyperspace to find a message, from Obi-Wan.
His hologram beamed into the Resolute's command bridge. He looked more tired than she'd ever seen him, even through the hologram. Akrem had always had dark circles under her eyes - the hallmarks of a poor sleep schedule.
"Akrem. Captain Yularen. We've just received word from Senator Organa. He's on a humanitarian mission to the planet Christophsis. He reports that Separatists have invaded the system, trapping him and his staff in the system. The High Council has requested we help."
He straightened up. "I am en route to the system now, with the Fourth Reinforcement Fleet. Our battle-group has been successful enough that the higher-ups have taken notice. Some more Venators are being assigned to the 13th Sector Army. I need you and Captain Yularen to go to Allanteen Six and meet with the new ships. Captain Yularen is to be promoted to Commodore, and will be in command of the new squadron, with your existing command and the new ships."
"Congratulations, Commodore. The Grand Army High Command is impressed with what you've accomplished so far, so they don't want to split a productive partnership up, so you're still assigned together. For now, proceed with all due haste to the Allanteen system, rendezvous with the reinforcements there, and reinforce us in Christophsis." He paused, and smiled, sadly. "Be well, Akrem. May the Force be with you."
Akrem turned to Captain - now Commodore - Yularen. "We have our orders."
He nodded, and went to the speaker. "All hands! Be ready for transport to the Allanteen system, with all due haste. On the double!"