Part I: The Ties That Bind

27 ABY

neutral space

east of Mandalorian territories

The old shuttle groaned as it lurched out of hyperspace, slowly, but with determination, approaching a similarly dated star destroyer- an Imperial I, by the looks of it. It was by the order of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker himself that he had been called all the way out here to the middle of, in the fullest sense of the word, nowhere.

As he neared the coordinates given to him, though, Cassis couldn't help but feel apprehensive, and his Master's own hesitance with passing on the message played no small part. She tended to be more headstrong, more arrogant, and she and Skywalker butted heads regularly...but this was different, out of the ordinary. She hadn't been there in person, but he knew his Master well, and he could all but feel her nervousness across the stars and through the holoprojector.

After a brief moment of internal conflict, he chose to at least attempt to push such thoughts to the back of his mind. He knew this sort of thing would pick at his mind quite violently, quite relentlessly, and he preferred to not be distracted while hearing potentially vital orders. Aside from that, while it wasn't a full break from the war, it was much better than being on the front lines, and he planned to take advantage of it as much as he could.

"This is Star Destroyer Evader. Please identify yourself," a voice came over the radio. "Repeat, please identify yourself."

"Jedi Cassis Tovar," he replied. "Skywalker called me here."

"Ah, of course. The starboard hangar will be open for you, sir."

As he landed and came down the ramp, his Master was there to greet him, her stark red eyes shimmering in the hangar's beaming fluorescent light, contrasted by her deep blue skin. Adari Kassal had, for over a decade, been somewhat of a parental figure to him. When he and his sister had first been transferred to Yavin IV from their home on Naboo, she had been the first to greet them, to introduce them to their new life, and as her Padawan, he had always sensed a rather strong Force bond between them; though at least some sort of Force bond was quite regular among Masters and their Padawans. If he were to have children, he sometimes considered, Adari might be a grandmother of sorts to them.

"Master, it's good to see you again," he said. "You're still alive."

"Did you think I wouldn't be?" she asked, letting a moment pass before continuing with a slight grin. "I thought not. I'm not that lucky, and you aren't that stupid. At least I hope you aren't."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence."

"That said," Adari continued, "Master Skywalker is waiting for you. You sister and Master Talrand are here as well. Let's get going- we haven't a moment to waste."

Cassis hadn't seen or spoken to Violet, his sister, in nearly a year- something, being twins, they had always thought an impossible feat. Through their childhood on the Nabooan countryside, their basic training on Yavin IV, and even through the later stages of their adolescence, little more than a month had passed without a word exchanged between them. Part of him began to wonder how much she had changed, if she was any different from when he had last seen her, though the rest of him knew -hoped- her stubborn mind was not one to make a drastic change in such a short time. While Cassis was often the more impulsive of the two, she had always been rather stubborn. She had also, from his point of view, at least, always been the more emotional one, contrary as it was to the Jedi Way.

As they continued down Evader's long, winding hallways, he still was unable to shake the feeling that something wasn't right, Adari's subtle, subconscious clues burned into the back of his mind's eye. Over the years, he had begun to pick up on many of her nervous ticks. The interruptions to the confidently nonchalant demeanor she usually exuded. The way her gaze drifted ever so slightly from his own. The way she pressed the tip of her thumb firmly against the side of her index finger, before releasing it for a brief interval.

"Master," he said finally, "You seemed... on edge, during our last conversation."

"On edge?"

"Right. As if you were worried about something."

"Skywalker and I...did not see eye to eye."

"As per usual."

"Correct."

"But this didn't feel like your usual frustration. It was more...I don't know...trepidation, than anything."

"Perhaps. I wouldn't exactly say I agree with your going on this mission...but you're going to find out soon enough."

She gave him a supportive nod as he keyed open the door to the conference room, and though this only prompted him to realize his own apprehension, he appreciated the kind gesture. The heavy durasteel door slid open to reveal a well-lit room with a round table surrounded by metal chairs- the type that was stuck in place on the floor and gave a soft but definite squeal as it turned, having not been serviced in decades. It reeked of the old Imperial design scheme, which was something he had come to loathe over the years.

Master Skywalker was seated at the table, Master Talrand -a tall, apathetic Zabrak- at his side, both engaged in what must have been some sort of deep conversation. Violet was not at the table, but pacing on the opposite side of the room, her hands clasped tightly behind her back, her eyes locked on the ground roughly a meter in front of her- a ritual she had maintained since childhood. As the door unlatched and slid open, her gaze jolted up from the floor to meet his own, her blue eyes at first startled, then joyful.

"Cassis," Skywalker greeted, "I expect you had a safe journey."

"As safe as a journey can be right now," he replied with a small nod.

"Good. We need you both in prime condition for this."

"Of course, Master."

"Please, take a seat. All of you," he motioned towards the unoccupied chairs, and they obliged. "Now," he began once they were all seated, "Master Ramlar, I'm going to let you take this one."

"I'm sure both of you are well aware of this mission's importance," he began. "I'm also sure your both wondering why, exactly, the two of you were called all the way out here, after all. To cut a rather long, rather expansive story short, there's a Dark Jedi we have suspected to be passing along information to the Yuuzhan Vong. As you can imagine…"

And so, Ramlar's speech began, with all the wit of a lobotomized nexu cub, all the vigor of a tree. The Zabrak's lukewarm, monotone voice washed over Cassis' ears with such indifference he began to seek out the ship's ambient noises, if only to contrast it. The thrusters' majestic roar, although significantly dampened, still managed to permeate the ship- all sixteen-hundred meters of it. It must have been a miracle the engineers hadn't all gone deaf by this point; but then again, he had never really spoken to any of them. Perhaps they had all gone deaf, and he just hadn't noticed. He gained a certain level of relative enjoyment from imagining the engineers, with their large muscles and boiler suits, waving frantically to each other in lieu of speaking.

His mind drifted to a particular project he had done in school as a child: a research project on the Imperial I. Of course, in retrospect, it was quite rudimentary, merely an introduction to the concept of research- they had only been eight or nine, after all- though at the time, it had felt like one of the most daunting tasks he had taken on up to that point. Although many of the details had been lost to history, having had taken place nearly a decade and a half prior, there were still several that stuck out in his mind.

The Imperial Star Destroyer has a 1 Class hyperdrive, he had written. He remembered having been quite proud of himself for spelling 'Imperial' correctly. Although it had been little more than a lucky guess, Violet was the only one who had been aware of this; and he ensured that the rest of his class would not find out- which they never did.

"You didn't listen to any of that, did you," Violet said once they had left the meeting room and were strolling through the halls.

"Most of it. Something about a Dark Jedi, something about the Vong...I was just going to ask Master Kassal about it afterwards. Her tolerance is much higher than mine."

She sighed, shaking her head. "I'll have to fill you in on the way there."

Mandalore

Adari had informant, he was told: a Twi'lek man who goes by Kel. He was one of many people in a large network of spies and bounty hunters commissioned by Adari with help Skywalker's wife, Mara, who herself had a number of connections within the underworld. Kel would be waiting in the bar next to Kal's Inn, a motel in the outer reaches of Keldabe. Violet had provided little in the way of information, but, he supposed, there was little else he needed, or cared, to know at this point.

It was an hourlong journey to Mandalore. As the shuttle emerged from hyperspace, Cassis felt himself being tugged forward the slightest bit as the small vessel slowed to what seemed like a halt- a feeling he got each time the ship stopped to readjust between hyperspace transits. It was, he was sure, a result of the old, weakening inertial dampeners. He glanced up to see the blue-green form of Mandalore on the other side of the viewport, looming in the distance.

Glancing at the map on his control panel, he saw that Keldabe was directly ahead of them. He cursed quietly under his breath, pulling out of their descent towards the ground. The shuttle being in as much disrepair as it was, he usually made sure to manually exit hyperspace a fraction of a second earlier than was predetermined by the navicomputer. Upon finishing a hyperspace transit, it was often moving too fast, often giving too little time to get the proper angle for entry. Too sharp and they'd slam into the atmosphere like a speeder into a duracrete wall. Too wide and they'd bounce across it, like a stone skipping across water. He'd have to make a loop around the planet. Parallel to the equator and opposite the planet's rotation was the fastest.

They touched down at midday in Keldabe Spaceport. It was a large field, consisting of a grid of permacrete slabs. In the south were smaller slabs for shuttles and starfighters, while in the north were larger ones freighters and corvettes. Upon closer inspection, one could see a network of pathways, along which ran a small army of taxis moving people from the landing pads to a large, gray and white building off to the east. As he and Violet exited their shuttle, one of the taxis came to meet them. The driver, an older man named Jaka, spoke with a thick Mandalorian accent. He had been a taxi driver at Keldabe Spaceport for thirty-eight years, first starting around the time the Clone Wars had begun. He remembered, he said, seeing an interview with Chancellor Palpatine regarding the Battle of Geonosis on the day he had applied for the job. The Clone Wars, Cassis noted to himself, had occurred much longer than thirty-eight years ago, though he neglected to say anything about it.

Jaka wished them a wonderful stay on Mandalore, before driving off and leaving them at a door, above which was etched 'Reception' in Galactic Basic and Mando'a, as well as in a variety of languages in smaller text- only a few of which he was able to pick out. Naboo he and Violet had spoken as children, and Shyriiwook's distinct characters were instantly recognizable.

The inside of the building was clean and minimalist, like much of Mandalore's modern architecture. The smooth, gray tiled floor was complemented by white walls and wooden ceiling. The receptionists' desk was fifty paces ahead of them, manned by three women in thinning blue uniforms.

"Can I help you?" one receptionist asked, her voice bearing a crisp Mando'a accent. She nearly had to yell over the noise of the crowd.

"A map, please," he said. She nodded and began sifting through a drawer.

"What brings you to Mandalore?"

"Jedi business," came Violet's absent reply.

"Ah," she produced a datapad from the drawer, setting it down in front of them. "Good luck, then, Masters Jedi."

On the datapad was a map of Keldabe in a language of the user's specification, as the woman had shown them before sending them on their way. For seventy-two credits, they rented a speeder from the lot across the street. It was sleek, red, with a closed top. Violet took the driver's seat.

Speeders drove on the right side of the street, like many places throughout the galaxy. Mandalorians, being as stubborn as they tended to be, made for a less than enjoyable time slogging through the city traffic. Not helping was Keldabe's rather tedious layout. The streets had a maze-like quality matched by few others.

"Vi, do we have to go through the city center," Cassis pleaded as they drew closer to the more modern areas.

"The streets are straighter and wider there," she argued, not breaking her concentration.

"Right, but if we go around it there won't be as much traffic."

"There'll be traffic either way, we might as well have something nice to look at. After all, we're gonna be spending the whole trip in the slums anyway."

Cassis conceded and allowed her to continue driving. The city center, as he expected, was fairly dense, in spite of the wider streets. Having been recently renovated, it more closely resembled Sundari, the world's previous capital, than what came to mind when he thought of it. That image was reserved for the city's impoverished outer sector, with its rundown bars and tenements, its nigh ancient bare wooden structures, kept up only as necessary to continue standing.

It was twilight by the time they reached Kal's Inn. It was a small, cozy establishment located on a quiet street far in the west end of the city. The bar, fit snugly between the inn and another restaurant, was quite lively. The double doors were propped open with two hooks on the underside of the awning. As they entered the bar, a distinct musty smell washed over them. The wooden floor creaked loudly under their boots, though the bar's patrons paid them little mind.

Cassis scanned the bar for any signs of the informant. As had been promised, he was seated at a table near the back of the building, a mug in his hand from which he took occasional sips. His left hand was encased in a leather glove, while his right was cybernetic up to just above his wrist. His eyes darted over to them as they approached.

"Kel?" Violet asked.

He looked back ahead and leaned back in his chair. "You're Adari's people, I take it?" His voice was hoarse.

"That's right. We're told you have information for us. About the Dark Jedi."

"Indeed. Sit," he smacked his gloved hand down on the table, "We've got a lot to talk about."

Kel, they learned, was an old friend of Adari's. She had saved his life years ago, from a rowdy band of slavers on Ryloth, and he had offered her an enormous favor in return- though at the time she had simply given him a rain check and sent him on his way. That was until two months ago, when he received a message from a certain familiar Chiss Jedi requesting his services. Being a man of his word, he had requested that it be counted as payback for letting him live through the ordeal with the slavers, though he was certain Adari, being the kind woman she was, would insist on paying him either way.

The Dark Jedi, a Zabrak man named Yacco Tharo, was first discovered almost a year prior when a strike team vanished on Felucia. Their ship, Kel had been told, dropped off the scanners as it was going in for a landing. The men were found days later inside their ship, which had crashed thirty kilometers off-course. Many died in the crash, the rest were sliced up. He was last spotted yesterday in Sundary leaving a small spaceport on the north end of the city, in an old Corellian YG-4210 light freighter- the same he had been travelling in for the last eighteen or so days, according to Kel's informants. They suspected he would be travelling to Serenno to meet with an alleged cohort of his: The Slayer.

"The Slayer?" Cassis asked.

"Yeah. He's a local mercenary who supposedly lives on Serenno. Well, we know he lives there; we just haven't pinned him down."

"That name's a bit gaudy, don't you think?" Violet asked.

"Eh...I didn't pick it," Kel chuckled, slurping away the last of his drink and setting the mug back down on the table. "Anyways, that's all I've got. I can come with you to Serenno if you want, but I gotta be back here by this time next week. If you guys want to leave, we oughta do it soon. It's getting late, and we don't want to be out too late in this part of town. I, ah, I assume you guys have a ship, right?"

"We have a shuttle," Cassis said. "It's just a beat up old Lambda, but does fly if you believe hard enough."

"What do you have against Lambdas?" he leaned forward in his chair, his eyes narrowing as they darted between the two Jedi. Kel let out a hearty laugh before standing up and motioning for them to do the same.

"We've got a speeder too," Violet said. "It's parked right across the street."

"Gotcha. Hey Jazi!" he yelled to the bartender. "I'm taking these kids to Serenno. Put the drink on my tab." Jazi smiled and nodded as she waved him off, her attention taken by another customer.

The speeder, much to Cassis' relief, was still in the same spot across the street his sister had parked it half an hour earlier, its striking red paint and its swept back windshield both still intact. Also to his relief, the ride to Keldabe Spaceport was much faster than it had been previously. To humor him, Violet took the route he had originally suggested, going around the city center rather than through it. She insisted the shorter time was due to lighter traffic at night- but he knew better.