Chapter 1: A New Mission
A young padawan gracefully stood in a small room that was being lit by a hologram; a blue, 3-dimensional display man was relaying information to her through a small device. The padawan, Asoka Tano, stared intently at the hologram as she carefully took in the information. Beside her stood Anakin Skywalker, her master, although even she had to admit that his childish antics would often make her question his age. The two of them stood in a small room, the center of which contained a circular projection machine that held the hologram.
Through the random glitches that would ripple through the holographic form, Asoka and Anakin listened to a friend of theirs relay important Intel for their next mission; Obi-Wan-Kenobi was on the other end of the device, informing the two of them of recent data that was received on his end. Because he was occupied with his own mission in a seperate quadrant, Obi-Wan knew that he wouldn't be able to devote his time to a different assignment; this is the reason he was handing the mission off to Anakin and his padawan.
"We've been getting reports of people going missing in certain territories close to your current location. Many people have claimed that individuals who enter into this area of space never return; it's possible that these people are just paranoid, but it wouldn't hurt to check," Obi-Wan concluded.
"Master," Anakin began hesitantly, "no offense to the people here, but isn't this mission a little too small-scale for the jedi order to be concerned about."
"Under most circumstances, I would agree with you, Anakin," Obi-Wan admitted, "but even certain governments from the planets in this area have directly requested for the Jedi Order's involvement. Since we need to keep our relations with the local governments intact, it's probably best to investigate as best we can."
"Understood, Master," Anakin said, slightly bowing his head.
"Good, I've sent the locations to your ship's computer; some of them may take you to the surface of certain planets, but don't worry, I have arranged for your arrival. Good luck, and may the force be with you."
With that, the hologram glitched one final time before the display itself turned off completely. Looking up from where Obi-Wan's projection had been, Asoka turned to Anakin, immediately noting the concerned expression on his face.
"Is there something wrong, master?" she calmly asked.
With a sigh, the jedi master glanced down at his padawan, "I just hate how the Order cares so much about 'government relations' that they'd be willing to concern themselves with something like this."
"That's just politics, I guess," Asoka said with a slight shrug.
"Yeah, I guess so," Skywalker admitted, followed by an even deeper sigh.
"Anyway, Captain Rex, do we have the coordinates that Obi-Wan sent us?" he inquired, turning to a Storm Trooper beside him.
"Yes sir," the soldier responded, quickly typing something onto a keypad in front of him.
Almost immediately, a miniature map of a small sector of space popped up in front of the two jedi; the map, like the first hologram, was also 3-dimensional but it slowly rotated around an invisible axis.
"We are located here, coordinates M-16," Rex explained as he pointed to a red dot that levitated on the map, "The coordinates that Commander Obi-Wan delivered are somewhere around here: the Bonzhee sector – specifically in the Belsavis system, around L-18."
An area on the map gently flashed blue as Rex gestured to it; Anakin stared at the map in front of him, examining the display.
"How long will it take to get there?" he asked, intently looking at the clone.
"Give or take 6 to 8 hours, sir," the Storm Trooper responded with a nod.
"Set a course there immediately," Anakin instructed, "the faster we get there, the faster we can get this mission over with."
Nodding in compliance, Captain Rex left the two Jedi alone as he exited the room.
Putting his weight onto his hands as he leaned forward against the console, Anakin stared down at the ground with the look of concern still plastered on his face.
"Is something wrong, master?" Asoka asked worriedly.
She was normally quite used to seeing Anakin unhappy with certain missions; in fact, she knew him so well, she could probably guess which missions he wouldn't like before he would even say anything. This time seemed no different, although she had to admit that his sudden brooding mannerisms were off-putting to say the least.
"Master?" she asked again, realizing he hadn't responded to her initial question.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, Snips. I just need….a little rest," he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Asoka could understand his plight for rest. During the past few weeks, he had been attending to a number of solo missions assigned to him by the council; it couldn't have been easy on him – he hadn't had the chance to get much sleep.
"Well, like Rex said, we have about 2 to 4 hours of uninterrupted travel time ahead of us. Getting some rest is probably a good idea," the orange-skinned padawan suggested.
"Yeah, I think you're right," he conceded, massaging his eyelids with his index finger and thumb.
The master and student then bid each other adieu as the two of them wandered off to their respective bedrooms. The ship they were on wasn't exactly gigantic, but it held enough space on the inside for most rooms to be quite comfortable.
Coming to his room, the brown-haired Jedi placed his hand onto a panel attached to a wall to activate the opening door. Lazily entering into his room, which was relatively empty aside from a simple bed and bathroom area, Anakin wandered over to his mattress and sat down on the edge of it. Carefully removing his boots and setting them on the side of the bed, he spread his body down across the sheets and stared up at the ceiling. Because the lights had not been turned on, the surrounding view of the room was awfully dim and hardly lit. The Jedi's vision soon began to darken as he drifted off into sleep.
The onset of a dream slowly overtook his consciousness, yet he was completely aware of his slip into this trance. His mind consisted of pure darkness at first, but soon the formation of a vision permeated into his slumber. The color red entered his dream, but it was incomplete – almost like it rested on top of something. There was a figure to, that stood somewhere in the expanse of his mind. There were no features on this figure – no eyes, no mouth, no nothing – the only association he connected to it was the color red. Almost as quickly as these images emerged, so too did a sudden and unavoidable fear. The figure, entirely without a face, felt as though it was a threat…but not a threat to him. It was more so a threat to someone he knew, someone close to him, but he couldn't exactly identify to whom this feeling was targeted.
It didn't matter to him who this strange figure was because his need to destroy it was so great that he didn't care about much anymore. By this time, more emotions began to flood into his mind: distain, pride, betrayal, friendship – all of these conflicting feelings mixed chaotically within his psyche. Then, his mind became blank as one singular thought echoed in his dream.
"What is the point of good if evil is much better?"
An immediate feeling of clarification overwhelmed him as the frantic Jedi quickly sat up from his bed. His deep, rhythmic breaths were only heard past his beating heart.
What was that? Was that a dream?
Anakin's panting began to slow down and his body started to relax; placing his face deep into his hands were the only way to calm himself down and rid his mind of the images from his dream. Finally catching his breath, the Jedi quietly looked around his room, as if expecting some hidden figure to emerge from out of the darkness. Thankfully, his room was just as empty as it was before – just as silent.
Letting out one final sigh, ridding himself of the rapid breaths from before, Skywalker placed his feet on the floor as he stood up from the bed. Rotating his torso and stretching his arms, Anakin attempted to release the tension that had accumulated in his body during his sleep. Smacking his lips a little bit to regain their lost viscosity, he proceeded to slide his feet back into his boots that remained on the side of his bed. Then, walking over to the door, he pressed a button on the side and watched as the door slid open. Emerging from his room, Anakin walked down the hallway and headed for the control room.
The visions from his dream were still clear in his mind, and a flood of thoughts entered his brain as he considered its meaning. Was it a vision of the future, influenced by his connection to the force? Or was it nothing but a silly dream? Either way, the emotions he experienced in the dream were very real.
His eyes were still glazed over in thought as he entered into the control room; Asoka was the first one to notice his presence and walked over to him.
"Hey, how was your nap?" she asked with a smile.
Turing his attention to his padawan, Anakin shook away his thoughts over the dream and answered her with a clear mind.
"Well, I'm not at a hundred percent, but it'll do," he said with a chuckle.
Asoka couldn't help but chuckle along with him before she gestured behind her to the control panel, "It's a good thing you woke up when you did. Rex says we're about 15 minutes away from our destination."
"15 minutes? How long did I sleep for?" Anakin joked.
"About 6 and a half hours or so," she informed, "I was actually going to go wake you up in a few minutes."
"Didn't feel like that long," the male Jedi muttered, scratching the back of his head.
"Maybe you had a really good dream so it felt shorter than it actually was," Asoka wondered.
"Yeah….a good dream," Anakin repeated, although he didn't mean it in even the slightest sense.
"Sir, I'm getting readings of a spacecraft headed in our direction," a Storm Trooper informed from the helm.
"Is it Separatist?" Anakin asked.
"Negative. It looks to be some sort of prison ship, but I can't ID it; it's not anywhere in our databases," the trooper stated.
Anakin tilted his head in thought before he crossed his arms in front of him, examining the situation. The region of space they were in was partially controlled by the Republic, so it was unlikely that the craft would be hostile to them considering the position of the local governments.
"Try to establish a connection with them. I want to talk with whoever is the commander of that ship; maybe they can provide us with information regarding the missing individuals in this area," Skywalker said.
"Understood, sir," the trooper responded before turning back to his control module and quickly pressing on some buttons.
Anakin stared out through the control room window at the vast, dark space containing irregularly dispersed stars; a small object appeared in the distance as the Republic ship approached it. The object became more visible as it got closer, revealing more details of the craft.
"Oh, sir, I'm getting something," the same Storm Trooper noted, turning back around, "although the ship's ID was difficult to track, there is a name associated with the last purchase of it."
"What's the name?" Anakin wondered, stills staring out the window.
"Hando Ohnaka," the trooper said.
Recognizing the name, Anakin swiftly turned around in slight shock, locking eyes with a just as surprised Asoka. The two of them knew that name all too well.
That ship belonged to Pirates.
End of Chapter 1
Author's Note: Hey, guys. I hope this chapter, technically being the first one, was relatively interesting. Obviously, the story is going to pick up, but I just wanted to say that I'm thankful you even made it this far. If you've read any of my other stories, you'll know how important commenting is to me, so please leave your thoughts.