Author's Notes:

Technobabble! I'm also a secret Trekkie, and I eat this shit up. So it's in here for my own entertainment, and maybe it will amuse you too. Yes, it's also relevant to the plot, though strictly speaking I could have been MUCH more efficient with my words. But that's why it's called technoBABBLE!

And we find out what happened to Mission and Dustil. Were they abducted as part of a fun surprise vacation prank? No. No they were not.

Carth entered the bridge of the Tarisian Dream at 14:35 ship time. "Admiral on the bridge!" one of the bosuns announced. The crew snapped to attention at their stations; those that were seated stood.

"As you were," he acknowledged perfunctorily.

He hated that ritual. He had enjoyed it when he'd been a captain and the bridge truly felt like his, but as an admiral – whose role was mainly observer – it just reminded him of what he no longer was.

"We'll be arriving at the group's last known location in two minutes," Captain Hyteru approached and informed him while he stared out the viewports. The swirling lines of hyperspace were all that stared back.

"The Aikrey's group is in position?"

"Yes, sir. They're waiting for our signal."

"Good." They stood in silence for a minute.

"Real-space in 60 seconds!" a crewman announced. Hyteru took her captain's chair while Carth took over a small computer terminal on the wall behind her. He pulled up a sensors screen that would remain blank until they dropped out of hyperspace.

There was a gentle but definite shudder and suddenly the stars reappeared. As was his longtime habit, Carth first surveyed everything that could be seen through the viewports before turning back to the sensors. It matched what his eyes had reported.

Nothing.

They were at the outer fringes of an unremarkable, uninhabited star system. A trio of gas giants and their moons were the only nearby objects, and they were several hundred million kilometers distant.

"Perform a full sensor sweep," Hyteru ordered. "Go out to a quarter lightyear. Bring in Aikrey's group to help." She rejoined Carth and gestured out the viewport. "Beautiful, isn't it sir?"

Carth followed her gaze to the crimson and purple nebula off their port bow, still several dozen lightyears distant. He hadn't stopped to appreciate the natural beauty of space in many years, only cataloging things in his mind for their tactical or strategic importance.

"I suppose it is," he mused.

"This sweep could take a while. I can inform you if we find anything," Hyteru offered. Carth wondered if she just wanted him off her bridge.

"Thank you, Captain. I'd prefer to stay and look over the data as it comes in.

In all honesty, he was a lousy sensor analyst, but he was itching to do something that didn't involve sitting behind the desk in his quarters. Hyteru nodded graciously and returned to her work.

Carth stood for the next hour at the same sensor station while the Captain directed a multi-ship search pattern and reports gradually came in with little of note. He began to think that maybe he would actually enjoy the work waiting on his desk more but resolved to stick it out another half hour at least.

His tenaciousness was rewarded after only a few minutes.

"The Elegin reports wreckage, ma'am," was the news an ensign delivered to her captain. Hyteru quickly plucked the datapad from her hands.

"Admiral!" she called over to Carth, who had already been eavesdropping. "We've found something." She led him over to the planning table where a detailed map of the search area and their ships was projected on its surface. She copied in a set of coordinates from the datapad and a yellow dot appeared several thousand kilometers from the blue wedge that indicated the Elegin's current position.

"It took them a while to confirm, but it is wreckage from a Republic vessel. They found it here," Hyteru pointed at the dot, "and it was moving pretty quick."

"Did they get an origin trajectory on it?" Carth asked.

"Only a partial one," Hyteru replied irritably. "Apparently they tractored the debris before astrogation was done collecting data."

"Sloppy," was all Carth said. He made a mental note to reprimand the Elegin's captain.

"We've been able to calculate a range of origin points," Hyteru continued. She entered a few commands and a large orange triangle appeared on the display. Its tip was at the yellow dot and it swept outwards away from them for nearly a lightyear, in the general direction of the nebula that was still shimmering through their viewports.

"It couldn't have traveled that far in two weeks," Carth commented skeptically.

"It was traveling very quickly. When they found it, the debris was moving at half the speed of light."

"How?" Carth wondered.

Hyteru didn't have an answer.

"Grab the best techs in the fleet and get them over to the Elegin," Carth ordered. "I'll go there myself."

"I'd like to join you, sir," Hyteru added, her interest clearly piqued.

"Granted, on one condition," Carth said with a grin. "I fly."

Carth was the first to emerge from the Dream's shuttle, followed by Hyteru and a group of engineering techs.

"That was certainly the fastest shuttle ride of my life," Hyteru commented, her tone tightly controlled.

The small hangar bay of the Elegin was now crowded with debris, organized into different collections for analysis, but Carth had managed to squeeze them in between two other shuttles. The hanger chief had refused to give him clearance until Carth made his rank known, and then he had only dropped the shield reluctantly.

"Being admiral has its perks. Not getting dressed down for flying like a nerf-brained hotshot is one of them."

"Yes, sir."

Carth threaded his way through the minefield of debris and equipment until he reached one of the larger pieces. It was perhaps a square meter in size and was blackened and warped beyond recognition. There was a group of techs clustered around it, and they seemed to be in a heated discussion. Nevertheless, his presence was immediately noticed and they snapped to attention.

"At ease, gentlemen," Carth said. "I'm interested in intel, not protocol. What have you got?" They glanced at each other nervously before one of them, a junior grade ensign, spoke up.

"It's a duranium plate, sir, definitely Republic manufactured, though we haven't been able to find any clues as to which ship it was on."

"Was this part of the debris group that was moving at half of light speed?" Carth queried.

"Yes sir," the tech replied.

"Any idea how it ended up moving so fast?"

"Well, a very large explosion, sir."

"What explosion could create that much force?"

"A starship fusion core would probably do it, if the object were near the core and didn't hit other objects on the way out. We think that's what happened, actually."

"I thought you said this was duranium?" Carth asked. Duranium plating comprised the outermost sheath of most starship hulls.

"Yes, sir. Duranium plating is also used around reactor ports," the tech explained to justify himself.

"So you believe the core went critical and ejected this piece into space at half the speed of light?" Carth summarized.

"Yes, sir."

At that moment Hyteru joined them with the section chief. "Lieutenant Pell informs me that they have weapons evidence."

Carth perked up. Certain weapons left distinctive effects on their targets – they might get lucky in identifying the attackers. Pell led them across the cargo bay to another hunk of debris; the ensign followed. This piece appeared to be a structural rib but was just as badly warped and blackened as the other debris.

"This comes from one of the electrostatic discharge vanes near the sensor array," Pell reported.

"How do you know?" Carth asked, not doubting his accuracy but genuinely curious.

"It's got radtran on it. Every external component near the array gets coated in this stuff to reduce signal refraction. Ensign Conyers can explain more," he said, gesturing to the extremely young man that had explained the duranium plate for them.

Conyers stepped forward to point out the locations where the weapons damage could be seen. To Carth, the visual evidence was barely discernible from the general melted, blackened state of the rib.

"These were some strange weapons, sir. There's extensive thermal damage to this rib. The metallographic analysis shows that it got hot enough to change the crystal composition of the metal. And the radtran was burned off on about 80 percent of the surface."

"What makes that unusual?" Carth wondered.

"A typical laser blast leaves a highly concentrated energy distortion at the site of impact, along with trace radiation from when the blast energy ionizes elements in the hull metals. The laser doesn't cause a lot of thermal damage because the heat dissipates so rapidly in space. When you do see a lot of thermal damage, it's usually because something behind the hull plating combusted."

Carth was beginning to see where this led. "But out here on the electrostatic vane, there's nothing to combust."

"Yes, sir. But there's a lot of thermal damage and no trace radiation. You can see the whole thing is melted to kark." The officer blushed. "Excuse my language, sir."

"If you had to guess at what sort of weapon causes this damage, what would that be?"

The ensign concentrated furiously for a moment. "I suppose it would have to be a plasma-based weapon, sir. Or something else that I can't even imagine. Even if it was plasma-based, I'm not sure how it would work."

"That's fine. Take all the data you can and get me the report. And include your guesses, as well."

"Yes, sir." Pell and Conyers gave crisp salutes and left.

Carth and Hyteru spent the next half hour wandering through the wreckage, listening to brief reports but finding nothing so substantial as what they had already seen. After a while, he decided there was nothing more to be gained by being aboard the Elegin.

"Let's return to the Dream¸ Captain. Order Aikrey's group to start searching the trajectory paths of this debris."

"I took the liberty of issuing those commands before we left, sir," Hyteru responded.

"Good. I'll join you in the shuttle in ten minutes." The captain nodded and left to prep for flight. Carth went the opposite direction and exited the hangar bay. He would have to have some private words with Captain Bkeb before leaving.

Mission awoke in near-total darkness. She could just discern Dustil lying on the floor a few meters from her. She scooted over to him, an awkward task with her hands bound behind her.

"Dustil!" she whispered at his back. He rolled over to face her.

"Keep it down," he replied. "I'm trying to enjoy the only clean detention cell I've ever been in."

Mission kicked him affectionately. "Have you been in many?"

She looked around the room. There was nothing in it. No furniture, no bench, no cot or bunk, and no dirt or dust. As far as she could tell in the dark, it was spotless. The only light was entering through a small rectangular window in what she assumed was the door, though she couldn't see any seams or hinges. Whatever was beyond the door was a dimly illuminated space.

"That bastard sold us out," she muttered angrily.

Dustil sat up slowly; his hands were also shackled. "I never sensed any deceit from him," he said in a deeply apologetic tone.

"Don't worry about it, Dusty," Mission soothed. "He's probably had training on shielding his thoughts. Whoever he's working for must know he's around Zayne and they prepped him."

"Yeah." They sat in companionable silence for a minute before Dustil added "I think I fused my stun cuffs trying to open them with the Force."

Mission rolled her eyes. "I can teach you everything I know about hacking and slicing and lock-picking, but I can't teach you to finesse." She scooted closer to him. "Stun cuffs, huh? Let me look at yours. If they use a polarized shock band, I know how to short 'em out."

"Without any tools?"

"I've always got my –" Mission paused, then heaved a sigh. "I suppose they found it all, didn't they?"

"I woke up while they were running me through a scanner," Dustil explained. "It caught everything I had hidden. When they rolled you through it lit up like Coruscant. They were finding stuff I didn't know you carried."

An uncomfortable question entered Mission's mind. "Did you see them do anything… creepy to me while I was out?"

Dustil shook his head. "Trust me, I was ready to do something dramatic and stupid if they tried to violate you. But it was a good thing you don't keep anything in any sensitive areas."

"Well, I didn't this time." And probably never again, she thought. "Wait, how did they find everything? My splice tools are in a shielded pouch, a really, really expensive one."

Dustil shrugged. "I guess Adascorp security has some really, really expensive counterespionage equipment."

"We were picked up by Adascorp, huh?"

"Well, they were referring to themselves as 'Armsec' over the comms, but it sounds like they work for Adascorp. Explains how they had so many guys. And why that knockout gas was so effective. I held my breath but it still worked."

Mission nodded. "ArMSec is basically Adascorp. And if Tarcen works for them, they must know who we are. Adascorp has never been friendly towards Jedi."

A shadow eclipsed what meager light was entering their cell.

"Let's ask this guy what he thinks of Jedi," Dustil said with a growl. Mission nodded and began to work her shackled hands underneath her butt and down her legs. The instant that the door was fully open the guard was thrown violently backward to crumple against the corridor's opposite wall. His belt was ripped from him and pulled straight to her waiting hands.

"No keys," she said, pulling out the guard's blaster and dropping the rest of it. Shouting could be heard in the hall, which was quite bright and sterile-looking. The window in the door had been heavily tinted.

"I bet somebody out there can hook us up. I'll go first."

"Oh, so you can absorb blaster bolts now?" Mission asked sarcastically.

"Shouldn't have to," Dustil said and then he was out the door. Mission was less than a heartbeat behind. A wave of Force energy sent a squad of guards off their feet. She blasted each of them after they were down, hoping she had correctly guessed the gun's stun setting.

The pristine white corridor was curved, which surprised her considering their cell was square. It was a standard prison design, though, and it kept them from seeing who might be approaching.

Sight wasn't everything, however. "There's three about 20 meters ahead," Dustil reported, "and a bigger group coming up behind us."

"Let's rush 'em." They leaped over the unconscious guards and sprinted headlong into the next group. Dustil bowled into one of them and Mission shot the other two.

"Turbolift," Dustil nodded towards the wall next to them as he maneuvered back to his feet. There was a simple control panel and a door with nearly invisible seams. Mission looked at the blaster in her hands, then at the panel, then at Dustil's arms that were still behind his back.

"I sure wish you were more flexible," she grumbled as she dropped the weapon and started to enter commands.

"It's not about flexibility, it's about proportions. And gender." Mission just rolled her eyes and kept working, but in seconds it was apparent that she needed to get behind the panel to override security.

"Can you rip this panel off?" she asked Dustil.

"Without taking all the wiring with it? I can try."

The panel was just beginning to wiggle when an arrogant voice erupted over some sort of loudspeaker system.

"Save yourselves the trouble and give up. We can flood this corridor with knockout gas in a second. It passes through the skin and enters directly into the bloodstream. Got any Jedi tricks to stop that?"

Dustil and Mission exchanged glances. They could hear the larger rear squad meters away now. She sighed and kicked the blaster around the bend. Someone could be heard speaking into a comlink and then the group cautiously approached, rifles pointed at their chests.

Mission worked hard to suppress a grin. All this for two prisoners that were still wearing their fully functional stun cuffs.

While the squad of ArMSec soldiers surrounded her and Dustil, the group's commander approached the turbolift panel and entered a lengthy code. The door hissed opened and they were ushered inside.

"Seriously?" Mission asked. "You just came to escort us where we were already going?" No one replied, and the lift ascended for several minutes in total silence. The length of the ride made her suspect that their prison was deep underground. Coming from a prison block, this destination was the last sort of place she expected to see.

"Nice digs," Mission commented as they were shoved out of the turbolift.

Dustil let out a low whistle.

They had entered an exquisite atrium with arching, vaulted ceilings below which hovered enormous crystalline chandeliers. Their light bounced off the rippling waters of the large fountain that stood to one side, creating a dazzling pattern of reflections on the nearest walls. Flowering plants, large and small, were strategically scattered throughout the room, and she noticed a pair of brightly colored birds flitting from one leafy shelter to the next.

"Better than Kartok's place?"

"Better? Too soon to say. Definitely classier."

The troops herded them towards a point near the middle of the room and formed a semi-circle behind them, clearly expecting them to face towards the massive alcove on one side. It was filled with a raised dais, and the surrounding wall was opulently decorated, but Mission could see no purpose to it. Then a section of engraved paneling slid away, revealing a flawlessly concealed passageway. From it emerged two individuals – a tall pureblood Arkanian woman dressed in the finest robes and who carried herself like royalty, and a male pureblood whose face was barely visible underneath a dark cloak.

"Madam," the squad leader addressed her with a bow. "These are the insurgent collaborators that we captured in the city. We've identified the Twi'lek as Mission Vao. The other is unknown, but he was armed with a lightsaber, and Vao has had Jedi connections in the past." He nodded to one of his soldiers, who approached the woman with a bow and handed her a datapad.

The woman's face broke into a brilliant smile that was at once charming and ruthlessly calculating. "Ah, Jedi! What a delight," she exclaimed with zero warmth. "I have never met one. I can't even begin to imagine what we might learn from you." Here she sent a look at the man who stood off to the side. He nodded in return. "Do you have the Jedi's weapon?" she asked the squad leader.

"We have it secured in the prison, my Lady."

"Ah. A wise choice. It's a pity we meet on these terms, Jedi. I have never seen a lightsaber in person – I would have very much enjoyed a demonstration of your skills. Torval is something of an enthusiast for bladed weapons," she said, indicating the hooded man.

"Oh, I'm not very good. Somebody would probably get hurt," Dustil replied with a glower. Torval bared his teeth in a silent, snarling response. It seemed like a very un-Arkanian display.

"Are you going to introduce yourself, or do you never stop with the useless chit-chat?" Mission goaded.

"Useless chit-chat is part and parcel with the circles of power, my dear girl," she responded smoothly, "and I have spent my entire life in the circles of power. In fact, you might say that on Arkania I make the circles of power."

Mission rolled her eyes, though inwardly her instincts warned not to underestimate this woman. "Let me guess. Your last name is Adasca."

The woman's impeccable posture somehow grew even more haughty. "I am Karlyen Adasca, the president of Adascorp and head of the Adasca family. You are here because you contacted the insurgent movement. What have you come to our planet for?"

"The beaches."

Adasca merely arched an eyebrow, then looked at Torval. Before Mission could blink he had produced something from under his cloak and whipped it at her. She cried out and blood was running down her arm where a deep gash had been opened. Torval didn't look as if he had ever moved.

Beside her, she could practically feel Dustil gritting his teeth as he racked his brain for ideas, but after a moment the pain subsided slightly and she knew he was helping her body heal with the Force.

"Fine," Mission gritted out, changing her tact. Sometimes the best lies included some truth. "We came here to talk."

"Let's talk, then," Adasca said, now approaching within a couple of meters. She clearly didn't fear Dustil's Jedi powers, and that scared Mission. "Zayne Carrick and that offshoot whore sent you to the surface for something. What was it? I know you were returning to our datalink relay."

"What, your little mole Tarcen didn't tell you?" Mission taunted through gritted teeth.

"Unfortunately he was killed in the collateral damage of your fight with our security forces."

"I'm sure he'll be missed."

"Hm," Adasca observed her as if determining how to crack a puzzle, one that could be solved just by finding the right surface feature. "Torval here is something of a xenobiologist. He has all manner of interesting creatures that make excellent conversation starters," she smiled at Mission, "since you did come here for the conversation, after all."

Torval descended the dais to stand immediately before Dustil. He lifted one side of his cloak to reveal an arm wrapped within some sort of bizarre, organic-looking coil. It was dark gray in color, with a ridge running the length of the coil as if it were a spine.

Then suddenly it moved.

The thing extended itself straight at Dustil with unbelievable speed. His reflexes allowed him to barely twist out of the way in time, but as the serpent-like weapon retracted its end formed into a hook that caught one of his cuffed forearms and swiftly squeezed with terrifying force.

He cried out and Mission heard the sickening wet snap of his arm breaking. Dustil dropped to his knees and Torval kicked him onto his side before returning to his previous position behind his mistress.

"It's going to take more than that," he grunted out as he struggled back to his feet with Mission's help. His broken arm was now at a slightly perverse angle in the cuffs. "By the time you can make us talk we'll be too far gone for you to get anything out of us."

"Perhaps," Adasca allowed unconcernedly. "And perhaps you are wrong. Just as you have never seen the weapon that Torval just used, he has many more at his disposal that are most… creative at causing pain, at mutilating the body without leaving you incoherent. And we have all the time in the world. Your insurgent friends are incapable of breaching this compound. We should know – many are the times we've caught and broken their agents attempting just that. Now, what do you think?"

"I think," Mission replied with all the bravado she could summon, "that if you went with a more muted color palette, this place could be truly elegant."

"I actually like these colors," Dustil added, "but the fountain has to go."

Adasca's face finally shed her carefully composed neutrality and assumed a mask of pure malice. "You are dismissed," she ordered the guards, her gaze never leaving the two prisoners. The security unit turned without question and filed back into the turbolift.

The lift closed and Dustil unleashed a blast of Force power –

– that went nowhere. Almost before he began to call upon the Force, Torval was upon him, throwing him bodily meters across the room into a statue. He crumpled to the floor amidst a shower of stone fragments. In a single leap, the Arkanian closed the distance to land on his chest and place a savage blow into his throat.

Mission scrambled towards the brute, blinded by rage. Almost casually he produced two disc-shaped objects and sent them hurtling toward her at blaster-bolt speed. She cried out and collapsed headlong into the floor as they knifed into her legs. There was an enormous amount of blood pooling around her knees.

"Don't get carried away, Torval," Adasca cautioned casually. "They need to be able to talk, at least." With that, she swept from the room.

Torval stood over Dustil, again making a silent snarl. "I will enjoy breaking you, Jedi," he said, speaking for the first time. Through blurry vision, Mission could see that her lover wasn't moving. After a moment Torval turned and stalked towards her.

He only made it a few steps before he was sent flying by an invisible blow to his back. Dustil unsteadily got to his feet. His arms were now free, the stun cuffs having been destroyed against the statue.

Torval somehow managed to land on his feet, albeit across the room. With a roar he charged at Dustil, his serpent-like weapon now rigidly extended and wielded as a staff. The unarmed Jedi didn't stand a chance. Though he tried to block the weapon with his good arm, the Arkanian quickly landed several blows that sent Dustil flying to land heavily beside Mission. She tried to stand, but her legs had stopped responding and her vision was starting to darken. She dimly realized that she had lost a lot of blood.

"I think..." Dustil coughed out weakly with wheezing breaths and blood, "I think he's a Sith." And then Mission passed out.

Notes:

I really like writing Mission with absolutely anyone. Mission with Dustil. Mission with Bastila. Mission in a box. Mission with a fox. Part 1 doesn't even include her best material. Just wait until we get to parts 2 and 3.