Chapter 24: Some Doom
A/Ns: this one's to Kevin J. Anderson, for the praxeum and a bunch of cool stuff about Corran.
Update: Abominable spelling excised.
"So, where've you been?" Corran asked Kell. She seemed to have a destination, and he was out of it enough to just follow.
"Busted out of a detention block, busted into a comm room, wandered around mindtricking scientists until we found you."
"Ah." Corran said. "Sounds fun."
"Republic forces on Kessel and Fwillsving are on their way." De'shar said smugly. "They'll get through the black holes in a few hours."
Kessel yes, but the others would take more time, in which the Jedi team didn't have much to do but hang around an unfriendly station. Kell was obviously ruffled by De'shar's statement; Corran could imagine some conflict had grown up between them over the issue of calling outside forces. Kell was strict with working in small, easily understandable groups like hunting packs. But apparently the agent's logic had won out.
"Paqs here has a ship." Kell said, and the alien gave a nod. "Once the station's secured we're taking the scientists out for questioning and vaping the place. There aren't that many people here. Less then there were what Daala stayed here."
Sounded good to Corran, except for the part about sitting around until the fleet arrived. There were still things to do here.
"I have to go after K'Saavis. He made it out."
Kell raised her muzzle as if sniffing. "You're right. De'shar, Paqs, get to the ship and wait. We'll be back."
"I think I should go alone. I know how the machine works, it won't take long, and you need to call Coruscant and Yavin."
She nodded. "Go be the hero then." There was some worry in her voice, but her own state of suppressed independence made her feel for him. He snapped off a salute and ran.
He could sense K'Saavis and his fear, and took to unfamiliar hallways, running past empty rooms and eerily vacant corridors. The inventor had not expected to be infiltrated like this, or there would be more like those Wiphids. The place had been used as a passive attack against the Republic, shipping most of the new developments out to the dwindling Remnant.
Close to his quarry Corran crossed over a transparisteel bridge to another asteroid, and saw a group of those insectoid ships that had blasted the room he had been held in. They didn't fit into the picture. He had seen no hangers to dock them or pilots to fly them, but there they had always been. And they had taken out Sidi Driss, a Jedi apprentice with shipboard skill, so they had to be good. Where did they train?
Corran left these thoughts for the final approach to K'Saavis' hiding place. The door of a large and empty laboratory room was wide open, and he cautiously looked inside.
He was either to late or just on time, he wasn't sure which. K'Saavis was standing with his back to Corran, but as the older man turned to look at him he could see the silver machine in his hands. Then, slowly like dissolving or sinking into murky water, the inventor disappeared.
Blast. Corran walked over to the machine now sitting on one of the long white tables. He pressed his hands to the table surface and looked down at the machine.
Apparently one of the weaknesses of the thing was that it universe-traveled its user but not itself. K'Saavis had gone somewhere, but he couldn't come back, but that wasn't a problem for him because his operation here was doomed. Working like he would have in a CorSec investigation, Corran figured that the destination had been the Imperial-controlled AU they had tested. K'saavis would live quite nicely in the Empire he supported, and discover whatever he wanted about the matching of people that seemed to happen when universes were crossed. And was that the same universe Luke had been taken to, those weeks ago? Something told him it was. Though neither memory or other data supported it, it made sense that the universe the first machine had found, the easiest to get to or 'closest' and that that the machine Luke had used was set to, would be the first one K'Saavis would test out on the new machine. Following the inventor would therefor solve more than one problem.
The activation button was clearly marked, and the incomprehensible louver controls remained set the way they had been when the Imperial left. Corran pressed the button, gritted his teeth and disappeared.