To Lexington's Hammer, and anyone else who may wonder who this Emperor Anakin Solo may be, wait and find out. It's a fairly integral part of the story that will be revealed as the story goes on.

Original vessels introduced this chapter:
-Aryianrod­-Class Commandship
-Chandrilla-Class Destroyer
-Ruhiger-Class Frigate
-Zephyrion­-Class Carrier
-Hawkner-Class Interceptor

Angels and Demons: Searching for Elysium

Chapter 3

The Deep Core. The very center of the Galactic Empire, an untamed area. Filled with star clusters, primordial black holes, and the Godhammer. At least Katel hoped so.

She stared out of the bridge viewport, at the distant glowing cluster that was the Deep Core. The special nav-computer designed just for a trip into the Deep Core was finalizing the least dangerous course into the Deep Core, having detected an empty space they could stop. The enhanced sensor arrays designed to pick up dangers from incredible distances had detected the area and indicated that it would be the most probable location of the Godhammer.

"Admiral, how is it proceeding?" snapped Katel moodily. She was in another of her bad days, and wasn't in any state to be patient. Admiral Trask growled slightly, and then pressed his comm unit.

"Status report?"

From the comm came a slightly tinny voice, warped by all the hardware between the transmission and receptor points.

"Nav-jump programming is 93 complete. It's going to be an arduous trip. The density of the Deep Core is going to turn this trip from an eight-hour trip to at least three weeks." The comm crackled and fell silent. Admiral Trask nodded to himself and issued some more commands.

"The computations will be complete within a quarter of an hour. Begin charging the grav-deflectors, the inertial-compensators and the localized ray-shield modules." Admiral Trask gave these orders to a man behind him, who moved away. A deep hum began to resonate throughout the Nova as the hemispheres attached to the hulls began to prepare for their own purposes.

Captain Richards glanced at the status monitor, musing as he did.

This ship is incredible. It must generate enormous amounts of power in order to run these devices. After all, repressing the gravity of black holes and star clusters isn't easy to do. I'm actually amazed that this ship is a fully operational warship. If someone had told me what was needed for a trip into the Deep Core I'd have said they'd need something at least 50 kilometers long, with almost all of the ship being devoted to surviving the Core. The size of this technology is amazing.

"Anything of interest Richards?" came the soft voice of Katel from just behind him. Richards turned calmly and indicated the monitor.

"Just checking the progress of the… generators preparing for… the… jump…" Captain Richards' voice slowed and became unsure as he felt a touch on his mind, and stared into Katel's deep ocean-green eyes. He could feel her poking through his mind, searching for something. Or maybe just browsing him, curious as to what made him tick.

"Ahem… Katel, what are you doing?" asked Richards boldly, knowing he should show more respect, but being blunt anyway.

"None of your business!" shouted Katel as she backed away and then thrust her arms forward, palms out. Dylan gasped as he felt a wave of force lift him off his feet and throw him bodily through the air, straight into a console.

"Never presume to question me Captain Richards. I own you, not the other way around," stated Katel coldly, and then strode out of the bridge, heading towards her command room. Dylan rolled over, clutching his bruised sides, and stood up, gazing at those looking at him.

"Ow…"

"Ma'am… I apologize, I mean Katel… the Nova is ready for hyperspace. Make the jump?"

Katel, who was curled up in her big comfy chair, sighed and put aside her nail file, then clicked the intercom.

"Yes, yes… make the jump." Katel rearranged herself in her chair as she felt a slight tug rumble through the superstructure. The Nova shimmered a bit, and stretched into the realms of hyperspace.

Twenty-three days… great. I'm stuck doing nothing on this damn ship for over three weeks. Since that idiot Trask takes care of all the mundane parts of commanding this ship, what the hell am I supposed to do?

Drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair, Katel suddenly brightened as an idea occurred to her. She moved towards a locker on the wall of her command center, and snapped it open. She picked out her lightsaber, fingering it gently. It was longer than a normal lightsaber, but there was good reason for that. The lightsaber she wielded was of the double-bladed variety, a training device used by Jedi long ago. It was a difficult weapon to use, but she had mastered it, becoming a vortex of doom. She smiled at the thought and plucked her other lightsaber from the locker. This one was the normal variety, although somewhat simplistic, as it only had a single length and power intensity setting.

Weighing both in her hands, she strolled back to her chair and activated the intercom.

"Captain Richards, report to my command center. Now." As she ended the transmission, Katel stretched, and began to flex her arms, swinging her deactivated lightsaber in sharp arcs.

A few minutes later, the door to her chamber whirred open, and Captain Richards stepped in. He was caught by surprise as something was hurled towards his face. He snatched it out of the air, looking down at it. It was a lightsaber. He looked back up to see Katel launch herself from her chair straight towards him, another lightsaber activated.

Richards yelped and ducked to the side, barely avoiding the arc of her lightsaber. He fumbled with the one he held, trying to work out how to operate it. He held it out in front of him, still trying to turn it on, when Katel swung around. Her hair, which she'd braided into a single heavy plat, slammed into Dylan's face, sending him sprawling on the ground. She raised her lightsaber, ready to cut him down, when he rolled slightly so he could see her. He held his hands up in a warding off gesture, the useless lightsaber clutched loosely in one hand.

The hum of the lightsaber in Katel's ear, she swung it down towards Richards. She wouldn't kill him of course; the blade was only set to the lowest intensity. He'd just get a bit of a burn where she hit him. The blade came crashing towards Dylan, who was sure he was about to die. He yelped again, and instinctively clutched the lightsaber he held a little tighter. There was a flash of light and a brilliant yellow blade leapt from the lightsaber just as Katel's fell towards him. The two lightsabers clashed and the intensity of the hum deepened as they made contact.

"Good. Your reflexes are as good as I expected." Katel shut down her lightsaber and then prised the other from Captain Richard's hand, shutting it down as she did. She looked him over. He was sweating profusely, and seemed tense, but that was hardly surprising. A nasty bruise was starting to appear on his cheek where her hair had struck him down.

Captain Richards stared at her, surprised and angry. She had been playing with him.

"What… why did you do that Katel?" asked Richards earnestly. He was the only person in the chain of command that seemed to have no problem calling her Katel.

"When I probed your mind I felt that you have a level of Force sensitivity that might be handy. We have three weeks doing nothing, so I thought I might show you some things. I needed to test you out, and…. You passed," she finished grudgingly.

"Oh…" Dylan paused, thinking for a moment. "YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME FIRST!" he shouted at her suddenly. He'd been scared out of his wits; he was willing to admit that. And the fact that she'd been playing with him boiled his blood.

Katel backed up a little, surprised and shocked. Someone had shouted at her. No one had ever done that to her before. She had no experience with people being angry at her, and she dealt with it in a manner that many would consider rather childish. She slid to her knees and began to cry.

Richards stared at her, slightly surprised. She was crying. This hard, menacing girl was crying! Then he recalled that she was a girl. Just a girl, barely sixteen years old. She'd probably lived a very sheltered life, with little experience of anger directed at her. Dylan started to feel a little bad for what he'd done, and ran his hands through his hair. He walked over to her, and tentatively placed his hand on her shoulder. She stiffened slightly, her hitching whimpers halting. Without warning, she lashed out, sending Dylan flying across the room with a Force push. He slammed straight into a repeater station and snapped it off its pylon, then fell to the ground. He lay still, clutching his bruised chest.

Katel swiped her hand across her eyes, clearing them of her tears, and shot an angry glare at Captain Richards. How dare he presume to tell her what to do? She was going to teach him a lesson. She was going to- she was going to train him in the way of the Force. Yes, her original plan. She was going to play him, teach him the ways of the Force for a few weeks, find Godhammer, a few more weeks of training coming back, and then never see him again. Just something to occupy her time while they had the dull hyperspace transits.

Yu'han Meshik kicked a piece of metal piping, cursing softly. He'd hoped to be able to scavenge something from the Twyleth Teg but so far he'd found nothing. He stared across the docking bay, where big piles of the remains of the Teg had been placed. He watched his crew scurrying over the piles of junk, hoping for something they could salvage and either sell or use to modify what they owned.

Yu'han was a smuggler. Actually, he was more than that. In the Rosh'tok sector of the Chossok Region he was the king of crime. His fleet was the biggest privately owned in the Chossok Region. The only fleet that was bigger than his was that of the Chossok Republic. But they'd never really disturbed him. He and them had an unspoken deal, that allowed the Republic to go about its business while he went about his. But now something had happened. Something bad. Outsiders had entered Chossok space.

Granted, their ships were weak, but that wasn't the point. The point was that they had found the Chossok, and had managed to find the map to the Godhammer, if the information he'd received through the grapevine was correct. And that was very bad.

Yu'han paused to stare at himself in a reflective piece of junk. He was a huumen, as were the majority of the Chossok. The outsiders looked very similar to huumen Chossok, except that huumens had dark reddish skin, and completely black eyes and all had raven black hair. Other than that these outsiders looked exactly like huumens. Yu'han reflected on his purpose as a Chossok. According to legend, the Chossok had been chosen to protect the Godhammer and its ilk from people who would misuse it, like these outsiders.

The Chossok went about their everyday lives, quite content with their little piece of space, all the while maintaining the secrets of the Godhammer. That was why they had never bothered exploring the rest of the galaxy. Had they spread word of the Godhammer would have spread along with them. By not traveling, they ensured secrecy. Until now, anyway.

Yu'han tossed the piece of junk he held back on the pile, and headed towards the transporter. He stepped into it and was transposed into sub-atomic particles, then was reassembled almost instantly up in his command room. Was he worried that every time he did this he effectively killed himself? No, of course not. He knew that no matter how many times the physical avatar was killed the soul lived on. The avatar was a mere shell.

He looked around his command bridge, smiling. There were fifteen others there. Most were huumens, but there were two Krimgorfs and a Moncali amongst his crew. The Krimgorfs were similar to huumens, but had folded, creased brows, and were much hairier. The Moncali was an amphibious creature, with brown leathery skin, and great bulbous eyes on either side of his head.

He walked up to the main helm of his ship, and placed his hand over one crystal, shifting it slightly. His ship, the Aswan Specter, began to slowly turn in space, to face his other ships that were pulling in junk.

The Aswan Specter was an Aryianrod-Class Commandship, armed to the teeth. It was a two kilometer long split W shape, with the main bridge located between the two wings that extended backwards. Located to the left and right of the bridge were two of the five hundred meter long Obelisk Cannons, the heaviest conventional weaponry in the Chossok arsenal. Studded along the wings were over a hundred Pyrebeam Obelisks, and it had twenty tachyon missile tubes. It also had powerful shields, and good sublight engines. Overall, the Aswan Specter was a ship that symbolized all the power and influence Yu'han wielded.

Looking out the viewport, Yu'han could see the cylindrical shapes of several Ruhiger-Class Frigates, the U-shape design of two Chandrilla-Class Destroyers and one hulking pyramidal shape that was a Zephyrion-Class Carrier. The pyramid seemed to have ants swarming all over it, but Yu'han knew these to be his Chesler-class shuttles hauling in whatever junk they could locate. If nothing else, Yu'han could sell the raw materials he had and at least double the traveling costs he'd had to pay.

"Yu'han. Here's your report on the state of the material."

Yu'han turned to face his second-in-command, Angelus. It was a curious name, very foreign sounding. Yu'han had no idea how her parents had come up with the name, but Angelus didn't seem to mind it. She was slim and athletic, and had her hair cut to just above her shoulders. She wore a bio-organic fibersuit, and strapped to her waist were several implements, and one heavy Craker pistol.

He took the datapad from Angelus, nodded, and began to peruse the details. It seemed there was more salvageable material than he'd expected. Of the sixteen obelisk cannons that the Twyleth had possessed, four had been found to be pretty much intact. One part of the pulsar bow cannon was also intact, and would sell for a pretty penny. The best part had been the discovery that when the Twyleth Teg had been destroyed the left wing had broken cleanly before blowing up, and the break had been right along the hangar. Thirty four barely damaged Hawkner-class fighters had fallen right into his lap. A very good day's work in fact.

As the Specter continued to rotate, the orb of Dov'nik II came into view and Yu'han immediately sobered up. The planet still glowed red from whatever had been done to it, reducing the crust to molten slag. Yu'han couldn't believe that anything would have that much power, unless it was a lot of ships working in tandem. And even if they had done it, it was more the viciousness behind it that stunned Yu'han. Why would anyone want to destroy a planet full of innocents? It didn't make sense. Yu'han's heart went out to those who had been punished by these outsiders.

The Chossok Republic Senate wouldn't take this lightly. He wouldn't be surprised if even now a declaration of war was being drawn up and the fleets prepared. Yu'han intended to stay out of this conflict though. He actually believed it was foolhardy. Dov'nik II had been destroyed. The map of the Godhammer had either been retrieved or destroyed, and either way it was too late. Why stir up more conflict? And taking ships packed with Godhammer technology into regions where they could be captured surely wasn't the wisest idea.

"Yu'han! Yu'han! We have something you might want to see! It's from Jaz," snapped Angelus from another point on the bridge. She handed him a mindcrystal, and he clutched it in his hand. In his mind a fuzzy image appeared, and then began to sharpen. The image bobbed a bit, but that was normal. After all, Yu'han was now looking through Jaz's eyes, hearing with his ears. Jaz was the commander of the Bas Perquait, one of the Destroyers.

The image was that of a type of ship that Yu'han couldn't identify. It had a ball-shaped cockpit, with a hexagonal viewport in the front. The ship sported three large panels, roughly triangular in form that extended from the hull at measured distances around the perimeter. They were black, and reminded him of radiant heat sinks. It didn't seem to have visible engines, but then neither did Chossok ships, so that was no matter. The whole thing looked a lot like a three-fingered hand holding tightly to a ball.

The view bobbed a little more as Jaz approached the ship. He was cautious, and he held a snub-rifle in his hands, the tip wavering slightly. He peered into the cockpit, and spotted the prone form of a pilot sprawled in the pilot's chair. There was a slight stirring inside, and the pilot raised his helmeted head. Suddenly, a shout vibrated through Yu'han's head as Jaz roared orders to people in the docking bay. There was a faint hum, and then energy lanced from the tips of the three panels, and Yu'han heard explosions. Jaz hefted his snub-rifle, aimed, and fired at the cockpit. The bolt hit the transparisteel and bounced off, into the floor, but it did get the attention of the pilot. There was a small moment as the pilot fiddled with something in the cockpit, and then a laser bolt blasted from the top panel at an unusual angle, straight at Jaz. The link the mindcrystal provided Yu'han fizzed out, and he cursed loudly.

"Damn it! We have a live and very dangerous outsider. Get me to the Perquait, now!"