This isn't the greatest chapter, but it is pretty good. SPOILER ALERT! The next chapter opens with Nnohe in her starfighter, out kicking butt. So those of you who are fans of the X-wing series will like the next chapter very much!

The Calling Kurtzen

Wind whistled through the squat trees, lifting branches high and rustling them together like a llrktv bird's wings. The trees' huge leaves made a musical, melodious whirring as they touched and brushed; a unique sound even across the entire galaxy.

Turning in a slow circle and staring at the cerulean sky, Nnohe Henip tried to place the world in her mind.

Unique musical trees in spotted forests, deep indigo sky, whispering winds that seemed to speak…

Uumbian, Vyy System, Kwoq Cluster, Expansion Region. Yes, that was it.

She'd visited the truly unique world once, long, long ago. Beautiful, rich, pro-Republic: it was a truly model world.

But how did she get there? Hadn't she just been on Nar Shaddaa at the Black Maw criminal organization base?

A voice interrupted her thoughts. "Master Henip?"

Nnohe whirled. She'd not gone by her real name for many months, and only thirteen people in the entire galaxy knew the Black Maw operative known as Hesje Dyjyrn was in fact galaxy-renowned Jedi Knight Nnohe Henip.

Standing there was a young Kurtzen, probably fifteen years old, quivering as if he were cold. His aqua skin was far paler than it should have been, indicating that he was either terribly frightened, or ill.

Nnohe did not straighten from her defensive crouch. "If you call me by that name, you will give me yours and your reason."

He didn't answer immediately, but waited for about twenty seconds. And then when he opened his mouth to speak, a loud alarm blared from somewhere. The Kurtzen either didn't notice the sound, or just completely ignored it, and so he spoke despite the wailing alarm.

"Help me!" he whispered, mostly drowned out by the noise. "You're the only one who can."

And abruptly, he and everything around him faded away.

Nnohe came fully awake and sat up quickly, reflexively drawing her lightsaber out into a defensive position.

She realized as sleep disappeared that she was lying on a soft, familiar bed in a roomy suite that was equally familiar.

It was her Black Maw-granted Nar Shaddaa suite!

And the wailing alarm was Black Maw's intercom/alert system.

"Attention: prepare for fleet departure within the hour," a flat voice echoed through the speakers placed in every one of Black Maw's base's rooms. "Raid commencing on Uumbian, Vyy System. Repeat: all pilots and deckhands, prepare for departure!"

Nnohe moaned as she threw her legs over the bedside. That included her: she'd signed on to Black Maw as an assassin, but instead of taking assassin's jobs, she'd mostly just done pilot and raider work. Still, she'd managed to work her way up to being a squadron commander.

Standing, Nnohe groaned again. Black Maw's leaders had a bad habit of calling raids in the worst times: according to her chronometer, it was just past three in the morning.

Still, she dressed and prepared to leave within ten minutes. She threw cold water in her face, pulled back her dyed hair, and slid into her cobalt blue flightsuit, with her lightsaber carefully hidden inside of it. Grabbing a bag, Nnohe threw in some necessities and grabbed her helmet.

The wake-up message continued to repeat itself every two minutes as Nnohe hurried down the winding corridors to the launch bay.

Just as she stepped into the launch bay, there was a different message however. First, there was a wrestling sound and the alert-caller's voice said, "Sir, I can repeat the message!"

And then a different, gravelly voice said, "Give me that microphone, idiot!" Then came the sound of someone clearing their throat. "Attention! This is Commander Niverwaltt! Get your stinkin' lazy butts up and to the launch bay! When we say prepare to leave, it means get up and move!"

Nnohe chuckled and shook her head. Niverwaltt was quite a character.

Nnohe was the second of eight squadron commanders to arrive in the bay. None of the others were Human, and only one other was female.

And as soon as the other commanders were there, they followed procedure and boarded the center of Black Maw's fleet: the Lorinar Capital Battle Cruiser known as the Annihilator.

Thirty minutes later, after checking out all eleven of her subordinate squad-mates and making sure they were awake and prepped, Nnohe fastened herself to her ECHO—an acronym for Expanded Cargo Hold Operator—Starfighter's chair, running diagnostics on all of her systems. Everything checked out perfectly.

Nnohe glared out of her wide cockpit viewscreen at the other ninety-odd starfighters—ECHOs and others—docked in the bay as she said, "Corusca Leader/One, all systems go."

"Corusca Two, go."

"Corusca Three, all go."

The other squad-mates checked in similarly. Then came the call for the full squadron.

"All starfighter squadrons: check in."

"Massassi, go."

"Glitterstim, go."

"Corusca, go," Nnohe answered in turn.

"Savrip, go."

And Mynock, Keshel, Rancor and Dessiar squadrons all checked in perfectly too.

"Escorting ships: check in."

Nnohe barely listened as the four escort corvettes Never Defeat, Luck's Beloved, Leaper and Maw's Guide checked in and received acknowledgements and jump coordinates from the Annihilator.

Again, all ran perfectly smooth.

There was an acknowledgement that all was go for the fleet from the Battle Cruiser's bridge, and then the countdown until the fleet's jump began. "Ten minutes till jump."

Nnohe settled herself comfortably in her seat. The gravity compensators in the launch bay were not exactly top-notch. She formed a protective bubble around herself with the Force, to keep herself from bumping around too hard.

The display timer on Nnohe's control board ticked steadily downward.

"Five minutes until hyperspace entry. Two hours, fifteen minutes until re-emergence to realspace, Vyy System, Kwoq Cluster."

The timer continued downward.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

"Mark," Commander Niverwaltt's voice echoed through the Annihilator as it jumped into hyperspace.

Nnohe was bumped around in her cockpit by gravitational forces as the ship's hyperdrive accelerated the huge mass into the awesome dimension known as hyperspace. She glanced as well as she could around her squadron's docked starfighters toward the wide transparisteel launch doors at the lines of hyperspace.

The compensators caught up with the ship and Nnohe released her Force-bubble. With a wide yawn, Nnohe snuggled further down into her seat and recalled the dream she'd been having before the wailing alarm awoke her.

But try as she might, she couldn't fully recall the Kurtzen's face, though she could totally recall his message.

He'd clearly said, "Help me! You're the only one who can."

Frustrated that she couldn't recall his face, Nnohe grumbled and searched for a way to see where else the dream was going. She knew there was more to the message than "Help me!" There had to be! Dreams did not come to the Jedi unless they held a message, and the message had to be more than what Nnohe had heard.

Perhaps if I tried to slid into sleep again… Or maybe I should just put myself in a Jedi trance. That would probably do it.

So once again, she grunted and snuggled far into the chair, loosening the heavy restraints. She submerged herself in the Force and turned herself inward into the well-known trance…

Nnohe slid into the trance easily, finding herself in the dream-world within about thirty seconds of turning inward.

But this time she wasn't on Uumbian, not at all. She was instead in a large void, floating around aimlessly.

Obviously, this isn't going to work! Nnohe thought as she began to pull herself out of the trance. Or I could just time my sleep and wake just before we enter realspace…

So she decided she'd do just that.

But then something appeared in the void…

Nnohe had to squint to see what it was, and still couldn't really see it…

And then realization struck her. It was the Kurtzen she'd seen in her dream!

Across the void, his voice echoed over and over again, "Master Henip, help me! Help me! Only you can! Help!"

And once again, Nnohe was abruptly awakened.

She grunted angrily as she sat up straighter in her starfighter's seat, flexing her taut muscles. Somehow, that short time she'd spent in the trance's dream added up to two hours in the real galaxy.

Commander Niverwaltt's voice echoed through the Annihilator again. "Attention! Ten minutes till realspace! All fighters begin start-up procedures and prepare to disengage from docks as we leave hyperspace. Squadron commanders, you will receive your individual missions and agendas momentarily."

With yet another groan, Nnohe slid on her helmet and sealed it to her flightsuit's neck. Once in space's vacuum, the ECHOs didn't use much life support, only a bit of air cyclers and heat distributors, and the slightest puncture to its cockpit would deactivate those.

Nnohe flicked on system start-ups with both gloved hands, touching buttons on a 180-degree console. And as the engines started and the readouts welcomed her, she opened the shutters across the viewports, giving herself a 200-degree field of vision.

Off to her left, Nnohe saw her eleven subordinates starting up their own systems, some of them groggily, some of them with the utmost awareness.

Nnohe turned back to her displays as her squadron's instructions scrolled across. She read them silently, then opened her squadron's private channel.

"Look alive, Coruscas," she said in a gruff voice. "We've got front-line duty today. Looks like we'll be taking care of some planetary defenses first, then we'll be on particular pirating duties."

The timer on Nnohe's board declined steadily, counting down the minutes until the Annihilator dropped out of hyperspace back into realspace and the starfighters spilled out of the bay into the space surrounding Uumbian.

Nnohe read onward as her engines whined to life and her displays came fully on-line.

"We've got first launch out of the bay," she announced to the squad. "Double-flight beside the Mynocks. Pair off with the Corusca fighter next to you. Me and Two, Three and Four, all the way down to Eleven and Twelve. Got it?"

All eleven of them acknowledged.

Nnohe's timer hit zero and the commander's voice whispered, "Mark," in her helmet.

The entire launch bay, docks and all shuddered slightly as the Annihilator emerged into realspace, to the probable surprise of Uumbian officials.

"Starfighters, you have your missions, now launch according to the order you have."

Nnohe settled her hands on the steering handles and touched the ECHO's docking cable releases with one finger. Throwing slight power to the engines, she slid out of the docking slot with Corusca Two's angular shape right beside her.

Wiping the dream and the Kurtzen's message from her mind, Nnohe steered her fighter out of the launch bay and into open space.