Star Wars: Rise of the Sith

Chapter 8

The part with Tahiri is just so you know where she's at in life.

Tahiri Veila woke up to her beeping alarm comlink and moaned. Waking up was not something that she wanted to do. She stared at the beeping com for a moment before she felt the form next to her being to stir. Knowing that he had been flying straight for the past three days, she didn't want to wake him up.

Tahiri got up and pushed her blond hair out of her face, picked up the com, and headed out of the room, out onto the balcony.

"Veila here," she yawned into the com.

"Good morning Tahiri, sunshine in my sky," Tahiri rolled her eyes and the voice of Garik "Face" Loran.

"I'm going back to bed now," she informed him.

"Wait, wait," he laughed, "We have a meeting."

"Oh really, just like the last meeting we were having?"

"Hey, that whole Ewok council deal was all Janson's idea," he said defensively.

"Yeah, whatever," she said with a smile. She felt someone at her back, and leaned against him as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Jaina Solo's calling it and requested you be here," Face explained, "which means you come or Her Ex-Goddessness with drag you there."

"Got it Face," Tahiri replied, "I'm off station right now though, so it'll take me a few hours."

"Yeah, right, it takes fifteen minutes to get here from the atmospheric line, so you be here in…oh, I'll give you an hour, just because I'm nice. And Jak, if she's a minute late I'll sic Han Solo on you."

Jak jumped back from Tahiri so fast that she almost fell backwards.

"Bye Face," she said, and cut the connection. She turned around, smiling, to she Jak Ryker, her longtime friend and, the current "king of Tahiridom" as Jacen had onetime joked. For Tahiri though, he was the only "king" that "Tahiridom" would ever have need for.

"Jumpy aren't you," she teased. He smiled and stepped over to her.

"You would be too, if people kept threatening to sic Han Solo on you," he replied with a smile. He a black hair that was cut short, but not short enough so that she couldn't run her fingers through it. His deep mahogany eyes sparkled as he looked at her, and it made her heart skip a beat.

She had always known that after Anakin Solo there would be other men she was attracted to in her life, but everyone of them she had compared to Anakin. With Jak she hadn't. She had fallen in love with him, not the traits that made him like, or unlike, her first boyfriend.

It's probably because you were such an ace-pilot jerk when we first met, she thought, and allowed him to kiss her. She kissed him back, with intensity and passion that had never been for any other man. And never would be. She was so completely, and totally in love with Jak Ryker, that it made her entire body tingle and her heart race every time they touched.

She pushed herself up against him, deciding that an hour was enough time to make love, get dressed, and get to the space station. But to her surprise, he pulled away from her.

"Umm…." Was all he said.

"You okay?" She asked him, thoroughly confused. Jak was a great man, but he was a man, and a Corellian one at that, and he would never pass up a chance to have sex.

"I gotta ask you something…um…tell you something…um…" Tahiri raised an eyebrow. Jak was never like this. He was the epitome of a cocky, hotshot pilot, and never once, since she had known him had he missed a beat or seemed nervous.

"You're not going to die or anything are you?" She asked him. He looked quite taken aback by that, but shook his head quickly.

"I love you, Tahiri," he told her. She tried to smile, but found that she couldn't, being so unsure and scared of what he was going to say. "And I want to be with you forever." He tilted her head to look at him and they leaned their foreheads together, and Tahiri suddenly knew what he was doing.

"I want to marry you," he told her. She couldn't stop her smile from spreading across her face. It was so like him. Never scared to say what he wanted.

She kissed him hard and fully, knocking him forcefully against the wall behind him.

"I'll take that as a yes," he replied.

"I can be late for the meeting," she said in a gasp between kissing him, "if you need me to explain it further."

"That's very tempting," he replied.

"Well, I'd like to think so," she laughed, and then pulled back from him, growing serious, "So you really want to marry me? Even with the whole Yuuzhan Von-"

"Will you let the Yuuzhan Vong thing go? I mean, I'm starting to feel jealous that you're a raging psycho path and I'm not," he said jokingly. She smiled again at him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I love you," she told him before kissing him again. This time he let his hands slide down her back to her hips, and pulled her towards him.

"So, do you still want me to be on time for that meeting?" She whispered in his ear as he kissed her neck.

"Ahn-uh," his voice was muffled, but she knew that it was a negative.

Nike stared into the glowing yellow eyes, and felt her life flash before her own. She wasn't an expert on animals, but she was pretty sure that when there was a creature with glowing yellow eyes that was considerably larger then you, that could probably see in the dark and you couldn't, that even if you could get to your blaster and fire a shot, one shot wasn't going to take this thing down, and that you were officially "the living dead."

The creature, whatever it was, lunged forward at her, and she quickly dropped to the ground and rolled herself forward. She heard the thing hit the door that she had just been standing against as she pushed herself to her feet. She tried to run, but found herself slammed against a wall instead. In the dark she had no idea where she was going!

The creature was obviously having no problem though, because he easily picked her up and threw her across the room. She hit the wall on the other side of the room, and then fell onto her stomach. She moaned and rolled over, hating that stupid creature.

She suddenly felt the creature stick it's nose in her hair, and being to stiff it. She struggled to get up, but was pushed back down by a hairy paw with long claws that were set carefully around her, so not to hurt her.

And then she was hit in the face by a big, thick, wet, tongue.

She would have been less shocked if that had been Soontir Fel licking her. Which wasn't something that she ever wanted to imagine again.

She jumped back, and the creature let her go. Her first thought was that it was just testing her taste out. The creature stuffed its nose into her hands and she shoved it back.

"Get your fat nose out of my face," she snapped. The creature snorted and shook its head. It then let out a loud bellow, and suddenly all the lights began flickering violently on and off, and until with a loud screech, they stayed on.

Now Nike saw it completely. The creature was covered in thick fur, with four legs and paws, pointed ears, a long snout with two long fangs hanging out of it's mouth, and one long, whip like tail.

And it was no smaller than an X-Wing.

"By the Force," Nike breathed, chocking on her own words. She had never seen a creature like this. It took a step towards her, and she backed up to the wall, her mind scrambling for a way to escape. The creature put it's nose against her face, took a deep sniff, and opened it's mouth.

Nike closed her eyes, and braced herself for pain, waiting for the creature to bite into her, and praying that it would be over quickly.

Moria decided very quickly that it was very unfair that boys were naturally built stronger then girls, and the speed difference between sixteen and seventeen year old boys, and a twelve year old girl, are great.

They were running underground, on ice, which she guessed was not the smartest thing they could get around, but it worked, and no one had slipped yet. Dame was leading them, followed closely by Ben and Sylor, and Moria was a good ten yards behind them.

"We're here," Dame said as he slid to a stop. "The room is right above here." He took out his lightsaber, and it snap-hissed as the red glow emerged from it. Without another word he began cutting the ice ceiling. The others quickly joined in with him.

Flashes of purple, red, green, and blue, along with melting ice shards filled the corridor. Once there was a hole big enough to fit through, Damian leapt through it, followed closely by the others.

They found themselves in an empty cell.

"Well where is he?" Moria demanded.

"I thought he was in here," Damian replied just as sharply.

"Calm down," Sylor ordered, using the Force to cool their heating tempers, "we are Jedi now, so let's just feel for him through the Force."

"Smart thinking, Hall," Ben nodded.

"Yeah well, I can't get by on only my handsome looks," he replied, winking at Moria, who blushed uncontrollably.

"Alright you old smoothie," Damian said, rolling his eyes, "so let's feel for him."

The four closed their eyes and felt with the Force. At first Moria could only feel the strong presences of the boys around her, then as she branched out she could suddenly feel a dark and frightening coldness, which radiated off all of the Sith. She looked past them, and found Nike, burning like fire, like some Forceless people did. Her cousin was frustrated, but besides that Moria couldn't feel tell much about her. Beyond Nike Moria felt some kind of familiarity. Not Anakin, but someone…

Moria's eyes flew open and she gasped loudly, jolting the boys from their thoughts.

"What is it?" Be asked worriedly.

"I-I think I…Corran and Kyp are here," she told them.

"What?" Sylor asked.

"Where?" Ben demanded.

"Who?" Damian questioned.

"They can't be," Ben said.

"Well they are," Moria snapped back, "I felt them."

"Who are you talking about?" Damian asked again.

"Something must be wrong with your senses," Ben replied, "because I didn't feel them."

"Feel who?"

"Well where do you get off being so high and mighty?" She snapped, pushing him back, "just because I can sense a presence you can't makes it not real? Is that it?"

"Hey, just calm down," Sylor said, stepping in between the two.

"I'm the stronger one," Ben snapped back, "If I don't feel something, then there's no way you could."

"That's not true!" Moria cried.

"Someone's going to hear you guys," Sylor reasoned.

"Will someone just tell me what's going on?" Damian asked. Moria huffed at her brother and spun on her heal to face Damian.

"Master Corran Horn is one of the best Jedi Masters in the galaxy," Moria informed him.

"So is Master Kyp," Sylor pointed out.

"Sure he is," she rolled her eyes.

"She only doesn't like Kyp because Mom doesn't," Ben explained to Damian. "He's not my favorite guy in the world, but he's still a great Jedi."

"Whatever," Moria said, "that doesn't change the fact that they're here."

"What would a couple of old guys be doing here?" Sylor asked.

"They're not that old," Ben said.

"Possibly the same thing we're doing," Damian said.

"Looking for Anakin?" Sylor asked.

"No, dope," Moria replied sharply, "they're checking out the cloning."

"Oh," Sylor said, "that makes sense."

"Alright, one second," Ben said, "let's just say, for Moria's sake, that Corran and Kyp are indeed here, maybe we should communicate with them and see where they're at so we can join up."

"That's the smartest thing I've heard you say all-" Moria's sentence was cut short by a sudden pain in her head. The pain that came just before she Saw something. She grabbed her head with both hands, and screamed from the unbearable pain as images flashed through her mind.

A prison. Strange contraption. People chained to walls by organic materials. A long dark hall. Sith guards. Black doors. Corridor after corridor. A line of doors. The room they were in.

Moria grabbed the oxygen back into her lungs with struggled coughs. She opened her eyes to see three faces huddled in front of her, and three sets of extra large, worried eyes.

"Sith spit Moria I thought you were dead!" Ben cried, grabbing her into his arms.

"I know where they are!" She wheezed out.

"What?" Ben asked. "You almost died and you're talking about Corran and Kyp?"

"I know where they are," she persisted.

"Um…okay…" Ben said.

"They're in the prison chambers."

"Prison chambers?" Sylor asked. "This place has prison chambers?"

"Of course," Damian shrugged.

"Well how do we get there?" Ben asked him.

"I don't know," Damian shrugged, "I never had to go there."

"Well fat lot of good you are," Sylor snapped.

"I do!" Moria declared happily.

"You do what?" Sylor asked.

"Know how to get there."

"How?" He asked, skeptical.

"What does it matter if I know?" She asked. "We'll go get Kyp and Corran and Ben and Dame go get Anakin."

"Now wait," Ben said, "who put you in charge?"

"No one's in charge you over competitive bantha fodder, just get to it before the Sith come in here and kill us all," she snapped.

"When we're done we'll meet back out at the cave entrance," Damian said.

"Got it," Ben and Moria said together.

"What about Nike?" Sylor asked.

"We'll get her on our way out," Damian assured him. "Now let's go."

"Wait," Moria said, "do you even know where Anakin is?"

"While you were off playing mind finders with Corran and Kyp, we were sticking to the original plan," Ben rubbed in her face. Moria didn't answer, but stuck her tongue out at her brother as she left the room.

Nike sighed as she plopped herself down into a padded wheeled chair that sat in front of eight computer screens of varying sizes.

"Finally," she heaved, "it took us long enough to find this place." The creature blinked at her and sat. It had turned out that not only did the animal have no intention of eating her it also was very intelligent. Intelligent to the point where it could speak. Telepathically of course, but speak nonetheless. It was called Rhonka and was from the planet Zorn, which Nike guessed was probably in the Unknown Regions.

"You humans are the laziest most impatient beings I have met," Rhonka informed her.

"Yeah well, you haven't met a Hutt yet," she muttered back as she began to press buttons and turn knobs, trying to get the ancient machines to work.

"What are you trying to do?" Rhonka pushed his face over her shoulder to get a better look at the screen. "You can read this?" He asked.

"No," she answered, "the screens off."

"Oh."

"There," she flipped on a rusted switch and the screens and pads came to life.

"So what are we doing?"

"Finding friendlies," she explained, "someone we know is bound to be around here somewhere. We contact them, and they get us off this snow globe."

"And what if you can't reach any 'friendlies?'" He asked.

"We'll find someone."

"Does that mean you don't have a back-up plan?"

"Exactly."

Nike watched the screen as hundreds of numbers ran by. They were registration numbers being scanned off all spacecrafts in the system. On a screen next to her pictures of the ship models.

"Looking for someone in particular or are you always this picky?" Rhonka asked.

"Will you-oh my…YES!"

"I take it you found someone."

"Not just someone, the BEST someone I could ever get!" Nike jumped up, smiling broadly at her success.

"Well where is he?"

"Just inside the system, headed this way actually, I better set up a com system…" Nike got to work quickly, attaching cables and setting up a headset as Rhonka watched in curiosity at this two-legger's strange ways.

Nike set up a private line, and began to connect to the ship.

"Um….Hello?" She asked into the com she held in her hand, realizing while she spoke that she wasn't sure what to say.

"Hello, can anyone copy?" For a moment there was no answer, and she began to think it wasn't working, when all of a sudden there was burst of loud static, then a voice, forthright and clear filtered through.

"Who is this?" The voice-a young woman's- demanded.
"This is Nike Solo," Nike snapped back sharply, "And I want to talk to Karrde, do put him on."

"Solo?" The woman laughed, "How in all Corellia's hells did you end up in the Hoth system?" Suddenly Nike recognized the voice as not that of woman, but that of a girl little more then a year older then she was herself.

"Antilles?" Nike asked, shocked to find the rebellious, smoking, cursing, teenage Rayla Antilles, the daughter of Wedge and Iella Antilles, aboard the Wild Karrde.

"That's my name, so Solo, what kind of fodder have you gotten yourself into this time?" If the saying "there's one in every family" was to be applied to the Antilles Family, then the arrow would point right to Rayla. She had run away a few standard months before Nike's escapade to the Death Star and her meeting with Damian.

No one had been able to find Rayla, but seeing who her parents were, there wasn't a whole lot of surprise there. Rayla got in more trouble in a week then Nike did in two, and she didn't even seem to care. Rayla did everything in her power to oppose her parents, and Nike wasn't sure why, but she always had wished that she had Rayla's nerve.

"You're working for Karrde?" Was all Nike could think to say.

"No, I'm working for the Queen Mother of Hapes, but on Karrde's ship," Rayla said sarcastically, "what do you think, Solo?"

"My bad," Nike muttered, "anyway, yeah, I'm in fodder up to my knees."

"Ew."

"Yeah. Exactly. So can I talk to Karrde or what?"

"HEY KARRDE!" Rayla hollered, not even bothering to take her com away from her mouth and practically blowing Nike's eardrums up.

"Rayla Antilles this is not a playground!" Nike smiled, hearing Karrde in the background, "this is a civilized ship and I will not tolerate you yelling across it."

"Yeah, okay, sure, com's for you," Rayla replied dryly. "It's Solo."

"Well thank you for narrowing it down there."

"Nike."

"Ah." If Karrde was at all surprised that it was Nike on the link, he didn't show it, he just picked up the com and asked, "What can I do for you?"

"Hello Karrde," Nike said conversationally, "how are you?"

"I'm fine. But why are my sensor's picking your com frequency from Hoth?"

"Well, it's kinda funny actually. I'm kinda stuck here."

"That is quite funny. Of course unless you count the number of Sith ships in this area."

"Yeah well, I was wondering if you could swing around and give me a lift back home," Nike said.

"You're expecting me to just drop everything I'm doing and just come and pick you up."

"Me and my friends, yes I am," Nike said, "but since you just dropped off a load, and are heading back to Corellia to pick up some more supplies from Booster Terrik, so I can't see why you can't just bring me along."

She could tell that she'd stumped him by her knowledge of what he was doing, and it took him only a moment to reply.

"You know kid, one of these days I need to consider hiring you."

"Yes you do."

"Give me seven hours."

"You got it."

Ben and Damian ran after Anakin and the Sith, being led only by the Force as to where they had taken him. There were droids all over the place, and so the boys had had to leave their normal clothes for Sith uniforms found in a young, and now unconscious, Sith's quarters. Only once had they had to pass actual beings on their run, a Rodian and a Twi'lek, both probably in their early teens and too unattuned to Ben and Damian to tell any difference.

"This Anakin guy better be worth all this trouble," Damian muttered. "I about peed my pants when those droids asked for our ID."

"Yeah well, you didn't have to dice them to dust," Ben pointed out, "once someone finds that they'll put this place under a lockdown, and then not only you and me will be screwed, but Moria and Sylor will be as well.

"And Nike, Force only knows what she's up to," Damian replied.

"Probably hatching a plan to get us off this hunk of ice," Ben answered.

"Is she capable of that?" The other asked doubtingly.

"We used to have two sayings about Nike. One, she could talk a Hutt into loosing weight. And two, give her a day in the Unknown Regions and she'd have enough 'connections' in an hour to start a trading business and become the richest being in the galaxy by midnight," Ben replied, "she'll get us off this rock."

"Those are weird sayings."

"Yeah, well, you should hear the ones we made up for Sylor."

They slowed as they turned a corner and found themselves in a dead end, with one door.

"Well," Damian said, "guess this is our stop." Ben nodded and felt the door, with his hand and with the Force, and listened inside the room.

Anakin was in there, in incredible pain, lying on the floor.

"Well, let's get this over with," Damian said, and the two ignited their lightsabers.

They had bloodied him up pretty bad before dumping him on the floor, and Anakin guess that those chemicals they were mixing up for him over there weren't to heal his wounds.

The words that the Sith were saying weren't making any sense, but Anakin guessed that was because of the melon sized lump on his head.

Suddenly the two Sith looked up, and two strong Force presences entered the room. He heard the hum of lightsabers and saw the red and green flashes. The Sith didn't stand any sort of chance, and a moment later, a blurry face was peering into his own. The blob's mouth moved, but the words were incomprehensible.

"Wha…?" He murmured, trying to make words.

Are you okay? The voice asked in his mind. He tried to nod, but was too tired, and so tried and answer instead.

Yeah…Who…

I'm Ben Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you.

FINALLY!!! I know it's shorter and took months to get up, but whatever, here it is. Please review.