To Svenion: You say that's the worst protection program you've ever seen, but I think the FBI protection program for Hector in Payday 2 is way worse. You have this gang of criminals who are known for doing insane shit (torture, knocking over the Benevolent, stealing a cursed diamond, stealing samples of a zombie plague, transporting nuclear warheads, downright fucking TERRORISM, etc), so the FBI decided the best course of action to protect Hector was to lock him in a vault type that the Payday gang had chewed through numerous times before, with nothing but hired mercs and basically mall cops to guard him, and a couple of tactical teams ready in the houses nearby. Keep in mind, this is the PAYDAY gang, not your average criminal group, so that protection program isn't excessive enough. I will admit, however, that I probably didn't clearly think the protection program out when I initially wrote it, but hey, more stuff to change when I rewrite Tatooine, I guess.

To Callsign Shadower: That's entirely fair. I'm not too familiar with Palpatine's aides aside from Mas Amedda (who wouldn't have fit at this point) and the Umbaran chick (who I'm fairly sure was dead), so my brain defaulted to Palpatine for the public address. Although, I do think it makes sense for him to publicly address a massive string of bioterror attacks considering it's fucking CORUSCANT, and letting one of his aides do the talking could be interpreted as him hiding away from the issue, which would undermine the control the Empire has in the first place. Remember, pre-Alderaan Empire is all about optics, and the supposedly all-powerful Emperor hiding away from mere terrorists is bad optics.

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Nax pulled the BARC into the refit hangar and quickly shut the bike down so that he and Lexi could dismount. One of the Ascendancy's engineers pulled himself out from the tarp covering the ship and waved them over. "Hoy!" he shouted, obviously very young for the kind of work he was performing. "Your ship's almost done!"

Nax nodded in acknowledgement, and a few minutes later the Chief Engineer, an Ascendant by the name of Tarantus, came out, tapping away at his datapad. His entire body was covered in standard Ascendancy red and gold, with a slight addition of silver to said gold trim. His face also wasn't visible, covered behind a plasma cutter mask. "Let's see here…" he droned, sounding like an incredibly bored protocol droid. "We've replaced the hull armor with a lighter material so she does better in-atmosphere, cranked the hyperdrive up to a point seven, tuned the engines for performance, added flares and chaff, uh…" he rattled off, not paying any one change particular mind. "Oh, we fixed your shield generator, too. Thing was basically on its deathbed anyways." Tarantus noted, trading glances with one of his underlings coming out from under the tarp. "We've also added null bolts to the laser cannons – really nice to have when fighting bigger ships, same with that light turbolaser you wanted. Also threw a new reactor in it to keep most of this stuff powered."

Kyra shot Nax a surprised look. "You had them put a turbolaser on the ship?" she questioned, finding the very idea absurd.

Nax responded with a sheepish smile. "Hey, last thing I want is to be forced into surrender by some boltskull pirate in a corvette. Null bolts just wont cut it for pushing our point across." he half-joked, internally very aware that others associated with Lostur could come after them. Nax looked at Tarantus. "So, how much is this gonna cost?"

Tarantus gave him a half-cockeyed look. "For you? Zilch. For Nevda? Five hundred thousand." he answered, and the trio almost choked in response. "Yeah, I know, but ships aren't exactly cheap, buddy." Tarantus quipped, looking distracted momentarily. "…Hey, did you ever name your ship?"

The three of them were confused. "…No? Should I have?" Nax asked, and Tarantus just laughed.

"Well, considering what you three have pulled off, I'd say now would be the best time." Tarantus said, before stashing his datapad away. "I've been trying to get someone to name their ship Oka Nieba, but I doubt you like that name, so I'll leave it to you."

It didn't take long before they were throwing ideas out on the floor. "How about Path's End?" Lexi put forward.

"Lostur's Fall?" Kyra suggested.

"Great way to get a target on our backs, Kyra." Nax said, chewing her out a little. Names of lesser import were consistently thrown around, but none of them could agree on a name. That was until Nax came up with something. "…What about Coruscanti Knight?"

Kyra and Lexi paused, and then slowly nodded. "I like it." Lexi responded, satisfied that they finally came up with a name for the ship.

Tarantus crossed his arms and looked over at the tarp. "I'll have the boys put it on your transponder, then." he said, before disappearing where his men were working.

Nothing else of note happened for the next few hours as the Ascendants finished their work, so the three were more or less left to their own devices. They all took the time to effectively blow off steam and talk about miniscule things that had crossed their minds. Eventually, the Ascendants wrapped their work up, and the newly christened Knight was ready for the trip to Tatooine.

"Surprised we're going back to Tatooine so soon." Kyra commented as the Knight broke atmosphere. She turned to Nax, halfway asleep. "Even more surprised that you're so willing to go right back, considering how bad you wanted to leave."

Nax smirked at her. "Well, if you don't want to go to Tatooine, we could always parade you around on Alderaan and hope someone recognizes you." he remarked, poking her shoulder to tease her.

"Hey, hey!" Kyra shouted defensively. "I never said anything about not going there!" she continued. Before they could go on, the closest Golan gave them clearance to jump to hyperspace, so Nax put the coordinates for Tatooine in, and they simultaneously pulled back the lever to enter hyperspace. The stars turned to lines, and in the blink of an eye, they were already far away from Coruscant. "…Can I ask you something?"

"What's up?"

Kyra briefly debated actually talking to Nax about this, but she figured the damage was already done, so there was no harm in going forward. "The Pather leader, he had this, I don't know, energy blade on him. I took it to maybe sell it, and when I showed it to Kelah and Nevda, they called it a lightsaber."

Nax raised an eyebrow – he had heard whispers of lightsabers, but was otherwise unaware of their significance outside of being relics from the Republic. "And what did they say about it?"

"To not show it to anyone that I didn't trust with my life." Kyra answered flatly, staring out the viewport. "They told me if I showed it to anyone who I didn't trust, we would be hunted down by the Empire."

"...Why?"

Kyra sighed and crossed her arms as she sat up in her chair. "Because lightsabers were weapons of the Jedi, whoever they were. The Empire considers them enemies, so anyone with a lightsaber might as well be a Jedi, and that's a good way to get twenty city blocks locked down, an armada of Star Destroyers in orbit, and enough bucketheads that you'd drown in them."

Nax clasped his hands together and turned back to see Arfive staring at basically nothing. "Is that a joke?" he asked, and Kyra's flat expression told him all he needed to know. "…All those resources for one person? Sounds… excessive. What did you do with the thing, anyways?"

"Vopa has it." Kyra responded curtly. "I asked him to find a buyer for it."

"Does he know about the risks?" Nax questioned, and then immediately backpedaled mentally. Vopa would know the risks, he ran a smuggling gang, for Sun's sakes. "How much is he going to sell it for?"

Kyra turned her attention to Arfive as well, observing the droid click and whir away, totally idle. "With the risks attached to it and its value as a collector's item? Probably one, two million credits? We get half of whatever he sells it for."

Nax whistled, and before he could continue the conversation, Arfive suddenly spurred to life, creating a hologram on the floor of a male Zygerrian and a female Twi'lek, both clad in similar looking robes. Both had a lightsaber attached to their belts, and the Twi'lek had some sort of small chain dangling off one of her lekku. The Zygerrian had his arms crossed in a kind of proud stance, watching over the Twi'lek as she seemed to meditate on something. "Begin." the Zygerrian said in a heavy, almost hostile tone, and the Twi'lek jumped into action, activating her lightsaber and immediately deflecting five consecutive blaster bolts that had been heading straight for her, almost as if she knew where they would be before the shots were even fired.

The exercise was repeated two more times with identical results, and as the recording reached its end, a clone wearing a Phase II variant designed for orbital drops approached the Zygerrian with a datapad and handed it over, and the recording ended there. "…Were those Jedi?" Nax asked, staring at Arfive.

Arfive chirped an affirmative in response, and the terminal next to him began to print a message. 'Jedi Knight Plaaru Ar'ai and Padawan Sawei Klorr, former commanding officers of the 52nd Helljumper Legion of the Grand Army of the Republic. Currently MIA, alongside the rest of the 52nd Legion, but were declared as traitors by the Empire regardless.'

Incidentally, Katy had strolled in and overheard Arfive's binary, so she twittered a question at him pertaining to the 52nd. 'Yes, I did say that.' Arfive answered, possibly forgetting that he was still printing to the terminal. They then chattered back and forth before leaving Nax and Kyra to themselves in the cockpit, staring blankly at the space the droids had occupied.

"…I have so many questions." Kyra commented, resting her chin on her hand as she looked over her shoulder. "Like for example, how did he get that recording?"

Nax shrugged in response to her question. "I think a better question is why he didn't purge it from his memory. Keeping even a recording of Jedi sounds pretty dangerous to me, Kyra." he noted, before getting up out of his chair. "I can't be assed to question it right now, though, so I'm gonna go bust out dad's whiskey." Nax said, before half turning to Kyra. "Care to join me?"

Kyra briefly considered it, and then jumped out of the co-pilot's seat. "Sure, got nothing better to do anyways." she replied, following after him.

That night, perhaps by chance, or more likely, her drunken stupor, Kyra dreamt of the ringworld from when they had just arrived on Coruscant. Instead of being situated inside the Knight like last time, though, she was standing in a large hangar bay, her nose practically touching the barely functional shielding that separated her from the void. Directly across from her hangar was an identical hangar that looped around a large command core. Hesitantly pressing her fingers against the shield, Kyra sat against a damaged Vulture droid and quietly observed the ringworld.

It still had the malignant presence from her first dream of it, but now she felt something entirely different alongside it - a lingering sense of hopelessness and loss, as if something down there had just given up on life and accepted its circumstances. As she stared down at the megastructure, Kyra spotted some debris floating past where she was – the aft section of an Acclamator, to be precise. More bits and pieces flew by – some of them Republic, more than a few CIS ships, and even a handful of ships bearing the insignia of the Empire. There were even ships she had never seen before, both new and old judging by the shine or grime, respectively, but there was one thing they had in common – they were all bearing marks of battle damage and heavy turbolaser scoring along their hull plating.

Kyra would have ruminated more on the debris field she was now in, but two sets of roaring engines further back in the hangar caught her attention. She turned back, only to catch the barest glimpse of two identical fighters. They were a fair bit longer than an ARC-170, and in fact, looked more like atmospheric fighters than starfighters, yet they were cutting through the ether like nothing else could. Each fighter had two oversized engines providing thrust, but perhaps most strikingly, they had forward swept wings that seemed to fold into and out of the craft as necessary - an odd choice for starfighters, and even more abnormal on an atmospheric fighter.

In her focus, Kyra barely picked up a set of heavy footfalls from back where the fighters came from – metal on metal, as if a load lifter was walking towards her. Ever cautious, Kyra reached for her blaster pistol and pointed it into the darkness. Whatever the source of the noise was, it was getting closer, and Kyra broke into a cold sweat from the uncertainty. Suddenly, it stopped moving, and Kyra lowered the pistol for but a moment, and then raised it again at the sound of someone coughing and wheezing through a vocoder. Someone very, very familiar, and that terrified her.

There were four snap-hisses from that same distance, and four lightsaber blades began to glow in the darkness, two blue, and two green, arranged in an almost spiderlike fashion. Kyra was so panicked that when she tried to pull the trigger on the blaster, she forced herself out of the dream and jolted up in a cold sweat.

Trying to catch her breath, Kyra held on to the support for the top bunk and just sat there in her skivvies, barely managing to keep her heartrate down. As the mental haze cleared, she turned to check on the others, only to find Knockout staring directly at her, completely and utterly silent except for the soft chirps and whirs coming from inside his casing. Wordlessly, Knockout exited the room and into the corridor, and Kyra suddenly felt very, very heavy, and she collapsed back onto her bed, quickly falling asleep.

There was one thing before it was lights out for her, though – an intrusive thought of sorts. 'The Builders await your arrival, Dreamer.' a husky, distinctly alien voice said, but Kyra barely paid it any attention.

The group stood in front of the Mos Eisley garrison, patiently waiting to be cleared for entry. Eventually, the troopers patting them down gave the all clear, and they were led inside to Gaffi's office, his adjutant buzzing them through. "Surprised to see you three back here so soon." Gaffi remarked, getting up from his desk to shake Nax's hand. "I trust this isn't just an excuse to talk to me, is it?"

Nax shook his head. "Nope, we actually wanted to know what happened to the Bantha." he answered, before gesturing to Kyra. "I'm trying to help Kyra find out who she was – we've got some decent leads, but we figured that Lostur might have kept records of slaves on-board and wanted to look for ourselves."

Gaffi looked down at the datapad on his desk and tapped away to find something he was looking for. "…Standard operating procedure for captured pirate vessels is to take them to the nearest available holding area, wipe the computers, and then either scrap them or refit them for service." Gaffi read off, before looking up at the group. "The Bantha was taken to Bestine, but from what little I know, the garrison there hasn't wiped the computers, something about a backlog alongside the usual bureaucratic incompetence." he continued, before grabbing a datacard and swiping it against his datapad, and then handing it off to Nax. "Technically, I'm not authorized to give this to you, but you've done a good turn by me, and I doubt my superiors here care enough to go after me for this."

Nax took the datacard and stashed it. "Thanks, Gaffi." he said appreciatively, before turning to leave with Lexi.

Gaffi focused his attention on Kyra. "I hope you find what you're looking for." he wished, before turning to his work.

"I hope so, too." Kyra responded, following the others out of the garrison.

They all mounted up on the BARCS and swung around to head back to the docking bay. They didn't get far, though – they got flagged down by a rather familiar looking Rodian in front of the Lucky Despot. "Hey, you!" he called out, sounding hoarse. "You three are bounty hunters, right? I need your help." the Rodian continued. The group remained silent as the Rodian fished out a datapad, tapped at it, and then handed it to Nax. It was a missing persons poster for Blii Rurmiid. "My wife went missing months ago, and-" Phaz started, and before he could continue, Nax took his helmet off. "-You!" Phaz hissed in anger.

"Sorry to break the news to you so late, Phaz, but Blii's dead." Nax said plainly, crossing his arms while the girls looked on. "She joined up with an insurgent group and died in an Imperial retaliation attack." he revealed, and Phaz froze up, giving Nax an icy glare as his world came crashing down around him. "Don't bother with payment."

Phaz balled his fists up in a rage. "You… bastard!" he seethed, taking a step forward, causing Kyra to subconsciously reach for her blaster. "I worried for months about Blii! You came along, gave me some false sense of hope, and then disappeared!" he raved, getting dangerously close to catching a right hook from Nax. "And then you have the nerve, the absolute nerve to show up out of nowhere and tell me she was dead all along!"

"Bite me." Nax snapped back angrily, already tired of Phaz's tirade. "When you get kidnapped by pirates, have a friend shot in front of you, and then almost die yourself, telling a guy that his wife is dead doesn't exactly strike me as the most important of priorities." he continued, clearly bitter.

"I don't care!" Phaz replied, his rage boiling over. "I hired you to do a job, and you disappeared!" he continued. Surprisingly, Phaz had the gall to try and hit Nax with a right hook, but Nax had been anticipating this, so he simply caught the punch and socked Phaz square in the jaw, sending him to the ground.

"And neither do I, jackass." Nax dryly commented before putting his helmet back on. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw a small group of Valarian thugs heading for the trio, bearing long, blunt weapons. "Time to go." he said, before revving the turbines and sending his BARC far away from the Despot, Lexi following behind in hers.

Just under the roaring engines could Nax hear a set of additional speederbikes closing in fast. A single look over his shoulder confirmed his suspicions – Valarian's men were coming after them for knocking out Phaz. Blaster bolts zipped between Nax and Kyra, singing their dusters as they made a mad dash for the Knight.

Already having had enough, Kyra pulled her '44 out, turned around in the sidecar, and carefully took aim at the turbine on the closest speeder. Holding her breath and staying calm despite the incoming fire, she slowly squeezed the trigger and sent a single, precise shot into the bike, instantly wrecking the engine and causing a crash that caught two other bikers in the ensuing wreck. The remaining three or so bikers easily went around the mess, but quickly decided it was better to cut their losses and head back to the Despot before they, too, got a mouthful of hot plasma. "…Looks like we're in the clear." Kyra called out after a short pause, before holstering the blaster and turning back around.

When they got back to the Knight, they wasted no time in taking off for Bestine. Zeethree, for whatever reason, had decided he was going to be in the cockpit with Nax and Kyra alongside Arfive. After what was barely an hour-long flight, the Knight arrived in Bestine. Spotting the Imperial scrapyard from the air wasn't hard, but getting there would be a slightly different story.

For supposedly being the center of Imperial authority on Tatooine, Bestine looked like a hellhole compared to even Mos Eisley. There was barely a stormtrooper to be seen amongst the shady characters, letting the illusion of anything resembling an Imperial presence slip into nothingness. Gaffi at least ran a tight ship – Nax couldn't say the same for whoever was in charge of Bestine.

Lexi had to fend off many unwanted gazes, and even a few hands that got too close for her comfort, but those in the crowd slowly realized who her travelling partners were, and very wisely decided to give the supposed Mandalorians a wide berth. After a time, they finally found a stormtrooper patrol, but weren't ignored like they thought they would've been. "You three!" one of the troopers called out, pointing to the group. "Identification. Now." he demanded.

Nax complied and pulled out his bounty hunting license Gaffi had issued from what may as well have been a lifetime ago. The stormtrooper took the license and gave one look at it. "Strag, huh?" he dryly said, before looking up at Nax. "You're wanted for robbing Gryson's Droids last month, and if I were you, I'd come quietly." he suggested, gesturing with his blaster. "'Course, you could always slip me a chit, and I can look the other way…" the trooper trailed.

The three of them instantly picked up on what was going on. Nax got rather close to the 'trooper' and stared down at him. "We haven't been on Tatooine in months, and I've never visited Bestine before today." he declared.

"The warrant doesn't lie." the 'trooper' replied. Nax held back his urge to beat the hell out of the con-artist, and instead gave Kyra a knowing nod. "Now, are you coming along, or do I gotta blast you?" he continued.

Nax huffed and crossed his arms confidently. "Ten credits says the three of us are better armed than the goons you have here." he bluffed, knowing full well that they were potentially outnumbered and surrounded, not to mention the repercussions of shooting someone dressed like a stormtrooper. Even though this guy was either corrupt or posing as a trooper, Nax had a gut feeling that the real authorities in Bestine wouldn't care. "We could dome you, loot your body for evidence, and then make a run to the garrison to snitch, and your crew wouldn't even be able to lay a finger on us."

Even though his face was obscured, Nax could tell the conman was rolling his eyes in frustration. "Sithspit." Nax heard the 'trooper' curse quietly. "…Alright, name your price." the trooper said in a much quieter tone of voice.

Nax was surprised the bluff even worked in the first place, but he quickly recovered. "Tell me everything you know about the salvage yards here in Bestine." Nax demanded, and the conman almost seemed… perplexed?

"…Look, buddy, I'm just a shakedown guy." the conman admitted, hesitantly looking over his shoulder. "I don't know much about the other rackets here, but I can take you to our guy that runs the yards." he offered, hoping to compromise.

"You lead us into a trap and we'll turn you into womp rat bait, grinder." Nax threatened, gesturing for the conman to get a move on, and he wisely did so. The whole way there, the trio were making sure that he wasn't going to lead them into some dank, dark alley and ambush them – main streets only. After what felt like forever, they finally arrived at the salvage yard, and the conman went in first. "Hey, dumbass." he crudely called out to the junior officer manning the desk. "You've got visitors."

The officer, who went from a very relaxed position to sitting at attention in record time, was very clearly not cut from the military cloth. Dark circles ran under his eyes, and his hair was a dirty, unkempt mess. "That's no way to address a superior!" he shouted in anger, before actually looking at the conman. "…Oh, it's you." he said in a defeated tone. "Your IFF is still on, skagbrain."

The conman stopped, paused for a second, and looked at his utility bracer. "Oops." was all he said, before stepping out.

The officer then turned to the group, very much annoyed that his rest had been disturbed. "I'd ask if you guys had salvage you wanted to sell, but you sure as hell don't look like the type." he commented, clasping his hands together and leaning back. "What brings you to our little shithole in the dunes?"

Kyra stepped forward. "We're looking for access to The Cranky Bantha." she said frankly, and the officer huffed in response.

"You mean that pirate corvette that got fragged by an Interdictor?" he questioned, already knowing the answer. "We've got her alright, but I can't let you onto her – Imperial protocol and all."

Lexi shook her head in annoyance. "You guys sure as hell don't seem to care about protocol if your goons are shaking people down in the streets." she noted dryly, and the officer looked to her.

"It's all about maintaining appearances, doll." the officer replied, throwing his hands behind his head. "Credits ain't gonna cut it for getting on, but there may be another way. If you're up for a little treasure hunting, that is."

"…Name your price." Nax said, waiting expectantly.

A wily smile grew on the officer's greedy mug. "Tell me, Mando, have you ever heard of the ZRV Void Charter?" he questioned as he produced a puck and slid it over to Nax. "It was a zoological research vessel with the stated missions of indexing and cataloguing as many forms of life as possible over a ten-year period, but it vanished within the first three years of its mission. Old Republic peacetime bantha dung, like the Outbound Flight."

The vessel certainly sounded familiar, but it all came sliding into place once Nax clicked the puck on. The Void Charter had been probing the Unknown Regions for signs of new, undiscovered alien life, and then disappeared with all hands, taking her very valuable research data and specimens with her. "If you bring back copies of the databanks, some specimens, or even better, the Void Charter herself, I'll give you access to the Bantha so you can do whatever it was that you wanted." the officer continued, pleased with the offer on the table.

Nax rolled his eyes. "Unless you have a lead on where the Void Charter is, you might as well send us out to look for the Katana fleet, 'cause at least there's more ships to stumble across." he chided, more than ready to leave empty handed.

That was, of course, until the officer produced a datacard. "Oh, I have more than just a lead, Mando." he replied, placing it on the table. "That right there is an entire writeup on the Void Charter, including a suggested place to start looking. Take it, or don't – it's your loss, not mine." he continued, looking over his shoulder towards the wall, roughly back where the Bantha was. "That 'vette'll be scrapped in two months' time, anyways."

Nax cautiously grabbed the datacard. "We'll consider your offer, then, but I don't recall catching your name." Nax said as he put the card into a pouch on his belt.

"And you won't." the officer responded rather smugly. "But for the sake of business, call me Garuda."

Nax nodded. "See you soon, then, 'Garuda'." he finished, and the three of them left almost immediately, their task clear. They didn't loiter long in Bestine, just a straight shot back to the Knight, and then they were gathered in the crew lounge, waiting for Arfive to pull the info off the datacard.

The droid gave an affirmative whir, before displaying a room-sized hologram of the galaxy and its major hyperlanes. A small, red dot appeared on top of Corellia, before tracing along the Corellian Run and merging with the Hydian way and heading up until it hit Taris. Then, the dot veered off towards Iridonia, and then it headed off into the Unknown Regions, finally disappearing a good distance away from the last charted planet, being replaced by a question mark that proceeded to turn into a slowly growing circle, an indicator of the thirty-some years that had passed since communication was lost with the Void Charter.

Lexi toyed with her hair as she watched the search area grow. "…That's awfully deep into the Unknown Regions." she pointed out, wary of the job. "Actually, that looks like it's bordering on Chiss space." she continued, pointing out towards Csilla, which was relatively close to the search area. "Are we sure the Chiss didn't just blow the Void Charter out of, well, the void?"

Nax paced around the hologram, keeping his attention laser focused on the map. "It's possible, but that's a pretty barren area of space. It's more likely some sort of anomaly in the Unknown Regions got to the Void Charter." he theorized, before looking over his shoulder at Kyra. "If we follow the trail, we'll need to be stocked up on a few months' worth of supplies and fuel. What do you think, Kyra? Alderaan, or the mynock chase for the Bantha?"

Kyra remained silent, staring at the portion of the zone that was towards the galactic southwest. Lexi had to snap her fingers in front of Kyra to get her attention. "Let's go for the Void Charter, Nax." she said, sounding rather resolute in her decision, which caught Nax off guard considering her being distant just moments ago.

Clapping his hands together, Nax nudged Arfive to get the Knight ready for takeoff. "It's settled then. We're heading for Iridonia."

After about two days of travel, the Knight dropped out of hyperspace rather close to Iridonia. Instead of initiating the landing procedures, he opted to pull the Knight in to dock with one of the orbiting stations locked in geosynch, the nearby bulk freighters making Nax feel rather insignificant among the ships docking in orbit over Iridonia. It wasn't exactly Coruscant, but for a Mid Rim planet that was rather out of the way, it felt incredibly active.

Offloading the junk in the hold wasn't hard – what was hard was getting some decent meals in bulk for the trip. Iridonian rations had a certain reputation to them, namely for being either totally bland or absolutely revolting with little room for an in-between, similar to the garbage the Empire churned out for their grunts. Thankfully, relief came in the form of a smuggler who claimed to have just come from the Corporate Sector, and had a freighter full of rations that weren't total garbage. A quick inspection lead to Nax buying about a quarter of what the smuggler had on him, which would last a good three or so months if rationed properly. Extra fuel, emergency supplies and survival equipment were considerably easier to come by, alongside some carbonite slabs to freeze themselves in if they somehow ended up stuck in deep space. Outside of the necessities, they snagged some extra things to keep them entertained – games for the holotable, a library of holovids to watch, and four datacard's worth of music that Lexi had 'borrowed' from the station's guard barracks. All in all, they were pretty well stocked for the journey ahead.

As Nax and Kyra sat themselves in the cockpit and prepared to undock from the station, Nax glanced at Kyra. "Last chance to back out, Kyra." he warned. "We can still go straight to Alderaan instead of finding the Void Charter."

Instead of answering him, Kyra just looked at him, smiled, and went ahead with the undocking procedure. "We'll be fine, Nax." she answered, utterly confident that they would find the ship.

One week into the journey, and the Knight was within the search area for the Void Charter. Three days later, and the ship jolted hard while Nax, Kyra, and Lexi were all sleeping, giving them a rude start as the Knight's emergency klaxons began to blare. "What the hell was that?!" Nax shouted, now wide awake.

In the brief confusion, Kyra caught the sound of the hyperdrive spooling down. "Did we hit a gravity well?" she questioned. As if to answer her, Arfive and Katy careened into the crew quarters, blathering in unintelligible droidspeak, before taking off towards the cockpit, so the trio quickly ran after them.

Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw outside the ship. Two massive rings that intersected with each other were sitting in perfect orbit around the nearby planet, which the rings utterly dwarfed in size. The rings appeared to have planetary features on their interiors – mostly ocean, but with significant landmasses, and that wasn't even mentioning the massive graveyard of starships that had massed around the rings.

Kyra quickly picked up on the malignant presence from her dreams, except it was unfathomably strong in reality, leaving her totally unprepared, causing her to develop a pit in her stomach and to unconsciously start sweating. "…This place…" was all she muttered, before suddenly falling weak and slumping into a chair, unresponsive.

"Kyra!" Nax shouted, immediately rushing to her aid. He quickly made sure she was still breathing, and then looked her over for signs of injuries she may have sustained with the sudden drop from hyperspace. Despite her unconscious state, she was in otherwise peak physical health. "…We need to get out of here." Nax resolved, jumping into the pilot's seat and setting his hand on the lever to initiate the hyperdrive. Lexi quickly joined him, and on the count of three, they pulled the levers back.

For a brief moment, the hyperdrive seemed like it was going to jump, but it just as quickly spooled back down. "What the hell?" Lexi questioned in frustration as Nax looked over to the scopes.

"…There's an interdiction field covering the entire system." Nax realized, running his hand through his hair. "More than just the system, actually. From the looks of things, it'd take us months to get out of here on sublights." he tacked on, before looking over to Kyra. "And I'm not about to take a risk like that."

Lexi crossed her arms and looked out at the debris field surrounding the ringworld. "So, what's your plan, then?"

"We land on the ringworld. With this many destroyed ships, there's bound to be survivors." Nax reasoned, before letting down on the Knight's thrust. As the freighter travelled through the debris field, there was a looming sense of dread that crept up on Nax and Lexi. There were a lot of destroyed CIS ships in the field, and quite a few of them were carriers – Lucrehulks, Providences, and so on. Even though the likelihood of them still being active was minimal, the thought kept swimming around at the back of their minds.

Eventually, their fears were soon proven correct as the scopes lit up with two incoming fighters moving at impossibly high speeds for what they could have come from in the fields. "We've got two fast movers heading-" he tried to get out, but was cut off as two missiles flew ahead of the Knight and blew up into massive fireballs that quickly clustered out into many smaller explosions, breaking off pieces of some of the nearby corvettes and shuddering against the Knight's hull. "Shit, these guys mean business! Arfive, blast 'em!" Nax ordered as he tried to evade the fighters as best he could while Lexi held on for dear life. Instead of doing as was ordered, Arfive gave a negative chirp and printed out a message on a console in Nax's peripheral vision. "What do you mean you have no control?!" Nax demanded to know, before quickly changing the subject. "To hell with it, we'll figure it out later. Lexi, get on the top turret and shoot them down!"

Lexi nodded and immediately ran for the turrets, trying to keep from falling off balance. On the way there, she ran into Zeethree, who she knocked out of the way, receiving the typical prissy response that she now had no time for. Practically having launched herself onto the ladder, Lexi climbed into the top gun seat and grabbed the controls, swiveling the turret around to get a bead on the craft.

Both fighters were identical, both in craft and flying style. Utterly perfect in their movements, Lexi could barely get a shot off on them, and the adrenaline high was so bad that she didn't have time to notice the red glares on top of the fighters that were beginning to intensify.

Soon enough, the Knight was sent flying down to the ringworld in a trail of fire and debris. On the way down, Kyra had begun to slip in and out of consciousness, barely long enough to recognize what was going on, but an entity used the time it had to whisper its devious thoughts directly to her. "You are the blood that will set this Construct alight, Dreamer." it whispered, almost sounding maniacal in its tone.

Kyra blacked out again once the Knight broke into the atmosphere of the ring.

And that's this chapter wrapped up, and not a fucking moment too soon.

So, who wants to hear some trivia? The Void Charter was not the original name for the thing Nax and the others would be chasing this arc. In fact, it was actually supposed to be the ZRV Darkstar, after the Half-Life mod of the same name.

There was also a segment where Kyra sung 'The Journey Home' from AC5, but I couldn't find a way to fit it in properly.

For those who are already theorizing on just what the ringworld is, I'll throw you a bone – it's not in any way a ripoff of the Halo installations. While the two rings are almost identical in terms of diameter and surface width to Zeta Halo, they share entirely different functions. I may be an unoriginal hack, but even I'm not so brazen as to just rip off Halo CE's plot. No "lol galaxy ending superweapon" shenanigans here, that gets saved for basically anything the Empire pulls out of their ass post-Endor.

'Till next time.

-Tweak