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Chapter 12: Stranded

It was a few seconds before Leia dared opening her eyes again. However, when those moments had passed and she still existed, as far as she could tell, and had not been torn to pieces by a rogue black hole or uncharted star, she breathed a sigh of relief and took in her surroundings. Just like she was now doing, Harry was still sitting in his pilot's chair, gasping for air after his incredibly risky, spur of the moment plan to simply do a blind hyperspace jump without prior computation…

"That was a really stupid plan, you know?" the princess questioned archly, looking at him with a single raised eyebrow. "I might have to start calling you something like… I don't know; Laserbrain, maybe Quickshot."

Though he was obviously still on an adrenalin-high (as was she, so being overly harsh right now was only the stress talking), Harry obviously had it in him to laugh, even if it sounded somewhat pained and forced. "I can deal with Laserbrain, but don't call me Quickshot; Mercer would never let me hear the end of it. And it worked, didn't it?"

Choosing to defer comment to a later point in time when hopefully neither of them would be high on stress hormones, Leia instead turned her attention to the instruments before her, and what she saw was far from good. Where fuel levels were being monitored, on the meter that had originally (like, right before they had taken off on Bimmisaari) shown almost 90%, the value was now at 50%, and falling quickly.

"Looks like that hit wasn't all that superficial after all," she observed, before adding in the direction of the astromech, "Go patch up that leak, please."

The droid beeped an acknowledgement and began moving toward the airlock, closely monitored by the two humans manning the bridge. There was a, perhaps unwarranted, feeling of suspense as the R3 unit left behind the confines of the ship and closed in on the slightly nicked fuel tank, did the job it was supposed to without incident and then returned just as quickly.

"That was anticlimactic…" Harry commented, as he began working on a new jump, while Leia continued monitoring their, galactically speaking, immediate surroundings. It was as she increased the energy flow to scanners, now that they were no longer leaking fuel at an alarming rate, that she noticed something in the distance, on the very edge of their sensor range; it looked like an inert object, possibly an asteroid that had been catapulted out of its star system eons ago and was now tumbling through deep space, or possibly a comet. Something about the shape was off, though, something was pulling on her senses, telling her to investigate. It almost felt like what Obi-Wan had been trying to teach her in listening to the Force, yet not quite that.

"Harry, take a look," she called over to her boyfriend, though she was not quite sure what the hoped-for end result in all of this was. Did she want for him to say it was nothing and validate her initial idea, or did she want him to give her a reason to investigate beyond the simple feeling of 'something's off'?

Obviously, he was not really sure, what to make of the mysterious sensor contact, either; from what could be gleaned at this distance (they were still a few light seconds out) the object was stationary, which would heavily contradict the theory of it being a displaced comet, pointing more toward the idea of something artificial. Yet, it was still completely inert; there were no emissions, not in the visual range, not in the ultraviolet range, so it was no warmer than the cosmic background.

"Hey, are you feeling… weird, as well?" Arden's voice echoed through the cabin, shaking Leia out of her stupor. "Like something is…"

"Like something is pulling on you?" Harry questioned, visibly worried, thereby creating a certain feedback loop with her own worry all of a sudden. "Yes, and I don't like it. I've seen something like that before and I want nothing to do with it this time, either. R3, are we ready to jump?"

A few noises came from the small, cylindrical droid that were anything but hopeful, and it was not like her boyfriend's reaction had not unnerved Leia enough, already. She watched, riveted, as his eyes rapidly followed his focus while he read the translated binary.

"What is it?" the Dathomirian asked, looking rather frayed now as well; it seemed neither of them were comfortable in seeing Harry so distraught.

"R3 says we can't jump, something's keeping us pinned down, like a weak version of a tractor beam," the captain explained, before turning attention to the controls. With a grip that looked almost painful in how hard it was, he gripped the flight stick and eased up the acceleration, steering them away from whatever they had found there, floating in the depths of space. Only, nothing seemed to happen, or rather, the accelerator worked, but the steering did not.

"We're being pulled in, closer," Leia announced after a quick check of the sensor screen. "What in the name of Bogden's moons is that thing?"

By now, that feeling she had in the beginning struggled to characterised was becoming more apparent. It was vaguely like when she used her magic, with the key difference that usually, when she herself decided to cast a spell, it was a pushing sensation, in which she would gather the energy inside herself before then expelling it in the form she wanted, be it a simple trickle of power to activate one of Harry's enchantments or the nebulous form he had assured her would at some point become a patronus; now, though, that trickle was not leaving her body of her own volition, but it was being sucked in by something else, something… wholly alien to her being.

The sensor screen now discarded, for the weird, unknown object had finally come in range of the visual scanners, the four of them were staring at the viewscreen. Before them, floating in the depths of interstellar space, lay a ship of a design completely unfamiliar to Leia. Bordering on 900 metres in length, it consisted of three prongs held together at around a fifth of the ship's length from the stern. Its hull, illuminated by the powerful light-enhancing technology built into the visual scanners, was a menacing anthracite, and a yawning hangar bay had opened up at the side of the vessel, ready to accept the comparably tiny assault ship in its dark innards, like a mouth waiting to swallow its prey. But perhaps the most disconcerting thing about it all was how utterly still everything but that hangar door was. The windows she guessed housed the bridge were devoid of light, as were the large engine arrays at the back of each of the three prongs. The impressive rows of what looked like defensive turrets, akin in purpose if not design to standard laser cannons, made no effort of tracking their approach.

"We need to find the core of whatever is draining on us, using us as power sources…" she heard Harry mumble, almost as if thinking out loud. No, exactly that; she had heard and seen him do it before. Usually, it preceded either a hare-brained scheme or a valuable insight, sometimes a combination of both. "We destroy that, and we'll have all the time in the world to find out, what's going on here."

"Credit for your thought?" she interrupted what seemed like increasingly circular thoughts, as he began repeating himself.

"Sorry," he mumbled distractedly, before taking a deep breath and looking at each of the three others in turn. "I remember something like this, or at least somewhat similar. Over the time of a year that thing drained the little sister of a friend of mine. The difference was it required her to actively invest emotionally…"

"That diary you mentioned once," it immediately dawned on Leia. "What did you call it?"

"A horcrux," Harry replied darkly. "Twisted little things they were. I thought I had seen the last of stuff like that, draining people for energy."

They fell silent for a few moments, as the ship was pulled closer toward the wide hangar bay and swallowed by the shadow it cast, somehow even deeper and darker than the interstellar space they had been travelling through before.

"Over a year, you said?" Arden questioned as Leia was making ready to land; no reason to give whatever was pulling energy for them more time than was necessary. "So, it's something different?"

"I really don't know," the wizard answered. "Whatever it is, we need to find and destroy it as quickly as possible though; the longer we wait, the stronger it gets."

Without any more comment, he once again donned the helmet he had only minutes earlier taken off and strode toward the ladder that would lead to the lower deck where the exit ramp was located. Leia, herself once again wearing her helmet, was hot on his heels. His expression, the last one she had seen just before his face had vanished behind the mask, worried her; it was like something haunted him, something he had obviously thought he had left behind. Seeing him like this was not something she particularly liked, she found.

"So, we blow the whole thing up?" the Dathomirian, now dashing along beside her asked, sounding a bit more jovial than she probably should have. "Maybe the entire ship?"

"No," Harry announced tersely, more gruffly than he probably would have been in most other situations. "If this thing is anything like what I've seen before, it's incredibly sturdy. If we just blow up the ship around it and don't destroy the heart, we'd still have the same problem, only then we'd have to sift through a whole lot of debris to find it. We go in, find whatever is doing this and then see what we can do about it."

Without waiting for confirmation, not that he needed it, given the situation they were in, he slid down the ladder, hands and feet on the rails, not bothering to actually use the rungs, and waited for them at the portside exit ramp. A decisive nod the mode of acknowledging their presence and continued support, he pushed the button to open the ship.

As the quartet stepped out into the darkness, utter silence engulfed them. There was no sound to be heard, save for the hollow thud of their steps on the dark metal decking. It was not a peaceful silence, though, or at least it did not feel like that to Leia; the emptiness all around was watchful, patient, malevolent in its intent akin to what she had felt in being close to Darth Vader, only much more all-encompassing and ancient. Maybe less anger and more of the simple, vicious savagery only the most heartless of monsters were prone to, were capable of. She could feal the energy of one of Harry's revealing charms wash over her, the gentle wave managing, if but for a moment, to push away the doom and gloom of this ancient construct, for ancient this ship most certainly was. However, there was also something else to the oppressing aura, wafting out of the silent darkness, like the echoes of screams long since petered out in the empty halls.

"We're alone, at least on this half of the ship," the wizard announced, even his whispered voice cutting through the still air (figuratively speaking, they were using helmet comms). "What we're looking for would most likely be in the most secure part of the ship; any ideas?"

"We could split up," Jane ventured, though she sounded anything but certain about the idea. "Cover more ground."

"No way," Leia interjected; the few holo-vids she had seen in her youth, of which horror stories were the least numerous, had still managed to impart one piece of wisdom in her: if you are exploring an old derelict, you do not split up! That was how a decent portion of the galaxy's more cliché stories began and, in a roundabout way, also started to end. "When we get out of here, I'll show you a few reasons, why."

Arden snickered a little, the sound a balm for the princess' ears, somehow strained by the oppressive silence; it figured the Dathomirian would have watched a few of the more successful of these vids. "The most secure place would be right at the middle of that central sphere section, right? Beneath the most plating and behind all the armed guards, presumably."

"Sounds reasonable," Leia replied, nodding her head. She was still not completely used to the extra weight the helmet put upon her shoulders, though if it meant not having to stay behind like a weak little princess, while also being reasonably safe, that was a trade-off she was willing to make. "Just have to leave…"

Before she could get out the words 'this hangar', the large, half-circle doors they were moving toward were suddenly set in motion, prompting four weapons, two staffs and two blasters, to be raised, aimed at the at the yawning hole in the wall. Yet behind the large plates now sliding into the ground, there was simply more of the same dark plating, now interspersed with a metal grid that showed the corridor a floor lower. The only main difference was lighting, with strips of a dull white now starting to flicker into being along the grey expanse of metal that formed the walls.

"Not good…" she muttered, worriedly surveying the suddenly 'awakening' ship.

"It knows we're here," Harry agreed darkly. "And now it has enough energy to reactivate systems."

He nodded in Arden's direction and, in unison, the two pulled up a strong barrier, the air it bisected shimmering with the energy of the magic. Nothing could have protected them from the attack that came at them all though, for it was not on the physical plane; out of nowhere, some deep, dark abyss in the Force, a sudden spear of such deep and utter loathing, such hatred for everything that lived and breathed struck Leia's mind that, with a small cry, she went to her knees. If the scant impressions she managed to catch of the others were any indication, only Harry seemed to be doing any better, if not by much.

As suddenly as the 'attack' had begun, it ended, leaving behind three kneeling figures and one still standing, braced against the wall, staff lying uselessly beside him as the hand not used to hold him up was grabbing at the side of his head in pain.

"What on Malachor was that?" Leia cursed loudly, though still only to be heard by her team members over their helmet comms.

"It was so... dark and sad," Jane agreed, giving the princess pause; if even Jane, who by all accounts seemed to be completely lacking in either a sensitivity to Force or any skill with magic, whatever the link between those two might be, was affected by this, it had to be truly powerful. Then again, had that not been clear when this old, stranded derelict had somehow managed to keep their new, state-of-the-art ship pinned down?

"Whatever that was, it doesn't like us exploring," Harry began, even though Leia was beginning to hear that earlier sliver of recognition become more and more certain, to the point that it began worrying her more than anything she had actually seen on this ship; what she had heard from her boyfriend, scant though as it might have been, about these artifacts he had once set out to destroy, was dark to its very core. And if it was indeed one of these Horcruxes, destroying it would prove to be hard, maybe harder than they were able to crack.

"If it doesn't like what we're doing, we're on the right track," Arden declared defiantly, almost belligerently, pulled herself up by her staff and began striding along the corridor to the back of the ship, back to where the three prongs with their landing bays met the central sphere. And if she was worried as well, that was only apparent by the increased power her shield now visibly held.

Without comment, the other three were now following in the Dathomirian's wake, Harry bringing up the rear, another shield covering their backs; once again, Leia was inwardly cursing that they had not managed to acquire something for her to build a focus out of. It left her feeling vulnerable, maybe a tad useless in this kind of situation, irrational as it was. She was, after all, still an excellent shot and her limited arsenal of wandless magic might well prove very useful, too.

When, minutes or hours later, who knew anymore, the next attack came, it was almost as sudden as the first one, though much different in nature. Where before the strike had been purely mental in nature, this time, it was purely physical. In fact, had their two properly skilled and equipped (she scoffed inwardly) magic users not been holding their shields the entire time, it might have spelled their end. From around the corners of a crossing corridor scurried a number of what looked like droids, though their design was as far from anything familiar as the ship they served on.

Of these droids, four in number, all had a spider-like lower body, though only one shared an arachnid's spindly design, while the other three were bulkier, their upper body vaguely humanoid in shape, if around two times as large, their hands replaced with what looked suspiciously like a pair of very heavy blasters. It was not these three, however, that made the first move; instead, it was the, upon first inspection, less threatening smaller droid, as from a small nozzle in in the middle of its cone-shaped upper body erupted a stream of pure cold Leia only belatedly realised had to be carbonite; the blue stream impacted Arden's shield and vaporised, leaving a thick cover of mist hang inside the corridor.

The four of them did not leave time for the droids to throw a second attack at them; while the witch kept up the defensive, the other three went on the offensive and within short order, not only was there the mighty explosion of one of Harry's magic-enhanced grenades (curtesy of Jane), but the old ship also echoed with the sound of blaster fire leaving Leia's weapon and slamming into the 'head' of one of the larger droids. Why almost all species felt a need to model their cybernetic creations at least partly like they themselves were built, she would never understand. Not that she was complaining, in this instance, for it seemed like the central processing unit of this model was, conveniently, located where a humanoid would have their brain. Thanks to her efforts, the lights on the enemy she had targeted flickered for but a second, then went out.

Most flashy in his efforts though, unsurprisingly, was their very own wizard who, if she knew him even close to as well as she thought she did, in an attempt to preserve at least some of this strange technology for their own use or study, was hitting what remained of their foes with the same attack that she had been told had taken out that very first Inquisitor, the one that had been overseeing production of the very fighters that had then been used to break through the blockade around Yavin 4. Predictably, whatever effort had been made to insulate the constructs against power surges failed spectacularly and, from the tendrils of smoke rising from within the two that had actually remained for him to hit, they would not be moving anytime soon.

They barely paid the disabled automatons any attention beyond making sure they were out for the count, though, as their objective of finding the control centre, or whatever else would turn out to be the heart of the ship, had only gotten more pressing with the arrival of the four fast-dispatched adversaries; on a vessel 900 metres in size, there could potentially be enough of these things to negate any advantage in skill the four of them might have, and it seemed that the longer they stayed, the more of the systems aboard the former derelict were coming online. That observation became even more pressing when suddenly, barely a minute and around 100 metres away from the short fight, the low hum of engines began thrumming through the walls and floor, almost piercing in its surprising emergence.

"I'll try getting us to the middle of the ship," Arden announced when, by Leia's count, they had probably travelled a distance of 500 to 600 metres along the spine of the ship's outer 'prong'; not that she would ever dare questioning the witch's incredibly keen sense of orientation. "Just around this…"

What had shut up the normally unflappable woman became quickly apparent when, following in her wake, the rest of the group stepped into what had seemed like a corridor. Instead, the whole thing looked like it might have been quarters at some point. Now, though, the whole thing looked like an old, long-forgotten graveyard, only without the soil. Partial skeletons of a species unfamiliar to the princess were lying around, intermingled with ones that clearly looked human, or near-human at the very least. Even worse, though, was the observation the Dathomirian made next.

"Someone ate these people," she told the other three, extending a finger in what looked like an attempt to carefully follow the contours of one of the ancient bones. However, her gloved hands were not delicate enough and the brittle structure crumbled to dust under her touch. "All these bones had the flesh cut off; I've hunted and slaughtered enough animals on Dathomir to know how it looks."

Barely managing to keep down the bile that was rising in her throat, Leia was the first to step back out of the room and into the corridor and, though it was physically impossible with the incredible age of the remains, as well as the strong environmental seal she knew her armour provided, she was almost sure the stench in her nose would never, ever go away. Yet maybe the images all those corpses had conjured up were even worse. Whatever had driven these people to cannibalise on their fellow sentients? Was it sheer desperation or was it something darker, more ominous yet? A simple savagery, the kind of malevolence echoing all through this ancient vessel. The others soon joined her, all of them in various states of disarray, judging by their posture and the sounds echoing over the communication system. Arden, unsurprisingly, seemed to be faring the least badly in all of it; growing up on a hard world like Dathomir would jade someone, Leia supposed.

"After we've destroyed the heart of this thing, can we please blow it up?" she questioned, throwing a distasteful glance at the now closed doors leading to the horrible room they had just left behind.

"I don't think that would be wise," the witch counselled, even though she sounded disgusted saying it. "The whole place is steeped in darkness, obviously, but Harry should be able to do something to… cleanse it. And finding technology like this…"

She shook her head slowly, almost like she was considering, what to say next, "…finding technology like this that, quite obviously, runs almost entirely on the Force, or magic, or whatever, doesn't seem likely to happen again, anytime soon. And it appears incredibly sturdy as well. Just blowing the whole thing up seems like it would be wasting a real opportunity."

Though, from what Leia could see of him, he looked troubled, Harry nodded in agreement. "We get this thing up and running, take it back to somewhere a bit less remote, find out everything there is to know about the technology aboard this ship and then I'll happily set it on a course into the heart of the nearest star."

OOOOOOOO