CHAPTER FOUR
Jacen awoke to darkness so thick that one could have cut it with a knife. He opened and closed his eyes several times, but couldn't even tell whether they were open or shut. Something was humming steadily in the background, something that sounded almost as if a swarm of Yavin IV's piranha beetles were nearby.
That thought made him practically fly out of his bunk, with the result that he slammed his head into a hard, cold surface above himself. Rubbing his head, he considered the situation. If there were somehow piranha beetles nearby, he had a serious problem indeed.
Then, finally, he let out a nervous laugh. "Room, lights full," he ordered, and the bunkroom was instantly bathed in light. There were no piranha beetles-the humming was that of the Rock Dragon's machinery, propelling them through hyperspace toward Dathomir.
He quickly swung his feet off the bunk. The entire week before they had left Yavin IV they had been preparing, and that entailed a lot of work. First they cleaned up and sealed their quarters, which took a couple of days. Then they'd had to stock, fuel, and prepare the Rock Dragon, which took several more days. And the trip to Dathomir from Yavin IV was another day and a half because of the route that had to be used, which had plenty of obstacles in the way.
Once Jacen had finished dressing, he stepped outside the bunkroom and walked toward the transport's small hold. He found everyone sitting around a hologame table off to the side.
"Playing Dejarik again, sis? How badly did you get beaten this time?"
Jaina turned to face him, a triumphant smile on her face. "I didn't." She stood up and stretched. "I was wondering when you would wake up, anyway. We're about half an hour from Dathomir now."
"That close, huh?" he asked. As she nodded her agreement, he sat down at the end of the bench and watched the current game between Lowbacca and Tenel Ka. "I'll play the winner," Jacen offered after some time.
"You?" his sister chortled in amusement. "I thought you hated dejarik."
He shrugged. "Maybe I do, but it's better than nothing."
"You won't have enough time," Tenel Ka finally said during one of Lowie's turns, her eyes focused on the board as the Wookiee made his move. "Ah. Aha." She tapped the controls briefly, and one of her smallest holographic characters jumped across the table, knocking down a much larger character. Lowbacca made a surprised noise as the redhead leaned back contentedly.
"You were focusing too much on offense," she offered. "Anyway, I believe we only have about five minutes left. Would anyone care to come to the cockpit?"
Five minutes later, the cockpit of the Rock Dragon was at its maximum rated capacity, with all four seats filled. The cockpit, located at the very front of the transport, had a viewing arc that was completely unobstructed-unlike that of the Millenium Falcon, whose loading mandibles blocked a good portion of the view. At the moment, the viewport was showing one of the oddities of hyperspace, a swirling maelstrom of blue-shifted light that seemed to defy conventional astrophysics.
Not that its occupants were interested in the view, of course. They were no strangers to hyperspace travel, and had seen that 'sky' any number of times. Of course, they were somewhat concerned about where the undefined lanes of hyperspace were taking them; Jaina's hand rested above the manual override, "just in case" as her father had said so many times. Even so, there was really no danger of navicomp failure.
"Right on schedule," Jaina reported as the navicomputer pulled them out of hyperspace. They were instantly greeted by a multicolored orb that seemed to hang in space-Dathomir. Dominated by browns owing to its mostly desert-like terrain, the planet had large patches of blue scattered across its surface. High clouds obscured a third of the visible area, although Tenel Ka didn't have to see it to know what was there.
Tenel Ka was silent for the longest time as Jaina began running their approach vector through the navicomp. It had been almost two years since she had visited her home; she wondered how much it had changed in the time she had been away. Probably not by much, she eventually decided. Although there had been radical thinkers since the planet's incorporation into the New Republic-the ill-fated Nightsisters were among them-none of them had lasted for very long. The Singing Mountain clan, which her mother's side of the family was from, was indeed the largest and strongest on Dathomir.
The planet below seemed to spin in place as the transport rolled so as to be right-side upon entering the atmosphere. The twisted remains of Warlord Zsinj's orbital shipyards flashed by, seemingly streaked by the speed of their descent, and after several seconds had passed they were arrowing through Dathomir's sky. Although none of them could see it yet, their target was a deep canyon that, because of strong winds, was the safest air approach to the fortress.
Less than a minute later, the Rock Dragon set down on the valley floor, overshadowed by the sheer wall of the fortress. Tenel Ka noted with mild interest that there were some modern orbital defense turbolasers positioned on the turrets overlooking them. The last time she had visited, a team of Hapan engineers had been working on something, but she never had a chance to find out what it was; now she knew.
"I take it we're there?" a voice beside her said, interrupting her thoughts. She turned and saw that it was Jacen, realizing after a moment had passed that he'd never actually visited Dathomir.
"Uh..." Tenel Ka paused to collect herself. "Mostly there." She pointed out the viewport at the base of a stair that wound up the sheer wall. "We still have to climb that."
His jaw dropped. "How many steps is that? A thousand?"
"Roughly," she replied, smiling slightly as she saw his reaction. "It was an old protection against invasion, although not always effective."
"I suppose it keeps your clan in shape," Jacen managed to joke. "Anyway, if it's that far, shouldn't we be getting started?"
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Deep space was not a good place for anyone, Cathi Riclin was convinced. And that was the reason why she, as the co-pilot of a Corellian YT-2400 light freighter named Headwind, had dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of what should have been nothingness, their nearest neighbors lone hydrogen atoms separated by thousands of kilometers.
Imagine her surprise at finding an entire fleet.
There had been legends among spacers for years, of course. The Dark Force, the Old Republic's two hundred ship strong parade fleet of fully-automated Dreadnaughts, was one of the most recent legends. It had been discovered by a smuggler punching random coordinates into his navicomputer around thirty years ago. But the Katana fleet wasn't the only fleet of ships that had been lost over the many eons of hyperspace travel. Every now and then, somebody would stumble across a ship that had been assumed lost.
The only issue was that Cathi couldn't for the life of her remember any cases of Imperator-class Star Destroyers disappearing. Or why an Imperator-class would be in the same formation as an antique Lucrehulk transport/battleship. Or why all the ships would appear to be fully powered on with sublight engines blazing...
Her hands dropped to the internal comm. "Tarv!" she shouted. "I need you up here now!"
The Twi'lek pilot staggered into the cockpit moments later, blinking as he tried to see in the dim light, his lekku twitching uneasily. "What's so important that you had to wake me up?" he asked irritably.
"See for yourself." She gestured out the viewports at the fleet that hung so serenely in space.
"A Star Destroyer?" he suddenly asked, not quite believing his eyes. "Where are we?"
"I dropped out to recalculate our course," Cathi answered. "We shouldn't be anywhere important."
"Well, what are we still doing here?" the Twi'lek demanded. "Don't wait for them to spot us! Get us moving!"
"I would be, if the navicomp hadn't crashed the instant we came out of hyperspace!" Cathi snapped back. "What do you want me to do, make a random jump?"
"Point taken," Tarv replied. "Who are they, anyway?"
"They're not broadcasting any sort of IFF that I could pick up," Cathi answered. "I've never seen any Republic or Imperial warship run that way."
"I've never seen any Republic or Imperial warships out in the middle of nowhere like this," Tarv agreed. "So, what then? Rogue warlord? Pirates?"
Cathi shrugged. "Who knows. Tarv, I told you weeks ago that the navicomp was going on the fritz. I thought you had it checked?"
"I didn't know any techs I could trust at our last stop," Tarv shot back.
"Translation: you were too cheap to hire anybody."
"We don't have time for this," the Twi'lek snapped. "We're sitting here helpless with a full load of illegal ryll. I'll take over things from here, you go to the hold and get ready to jettison the spice if things get dicey."
As she affixed another remote detonator pack to one of the spice crates, Cathi heard quiet footsteps coming down the hallway. "Tarv?" she inquired without looking. "What's the matter?"
"I just came down to tell you that that fleet went to hyperspace. You can stop putting the detonators on now."
"Oh." She carefully deactivated the detpack and placed it atop the spice crate, then turned around-
-to find herself staring directly into the barrel of Tarv's blaster. "W-wait, what?" she stammered.
"You're fired," Tarv replied, tightening his grip on the blaster pistol.
"Oh come on," Cathi protested. "If you wanted to fire me, you could have just dropped me off on Nar Shaddaa. What the hell's gotten into you?"
"How am I supposed to know that you haven't rigged something on this ship?"
"Maybe I did."
"I doubt it," Tarv said, and Cathi saw his finger move closer to the trigger. Her mind began racing, trying to figure out a way to stop him...
... when the ship suddenly lurched as if from a turbolaser blast, throwing Tarv off balance and sending his shot wild. Her adrenaline kicking in, Cathi lunged for him and swatted his blaster arm aside. The Twi'lek was nobody's fool, though, and as she brushed past his head he used his sharpened teeth to tear a gash across her arm. She screamed in pain, and promptly punched him full in the face, breaking his nose.
Breathing heavily, Tarv threw her off and tried to bring his blaster to bear again, but she swung out from her prone position, brought her boot behind his knee, and kicked hard. There was a sharp crack as the bones broke, sending him sprawling. He still clutched the blaster in his hand, and let off an accidental shot that brushed past her.
Cathi dove for the blaster, but the Twi'lek rolled over and hit her in the face with its butt. She cried out and redoubled her efforts, landing an elbow in one of Tarv's sensitive head-tails. In reaction to the pain, his grip on the blaster relaxed slightly, which she then kicked out of his hand. With the Twi'lek in hot pursuit, she scrambled over to where the blaster had landed, picked it up, and fired just as he lunged for her.
As Tarv slumped down to the floor, Cathi leaned back against the wall and considered the situation. Ever since she had started working for the Twi'lek, he had taken every opportunity to belittle her. Sometimes she even wondered why she had bothered sticking around as long as she had, but the payout from a successful spice run was often well worth it.
She started dragging his limp body to the nearest airlock. Halfway there, a tinny sounding voice interrupted her.
"What is the matter with Master Tarv?"
"Just a sudden case of death, Orb," Cathi answered the archaic protocol droid. An Orbot model 19 manufactured by Serv-o-Droid before their bankruptcy some four hundred years ago, Orb claimed to have had changed hands exactly three hundred and seventy-nine times (although memory wipes tended to mess that sort of figure up).
"How unusual!" the droid exclaimed.
Cathi rolled her eyes. On the one hand Orb knew millions of languages and the specific place settings to be taken if one was to eat with Seoularians, provided one found a way to travel back in time to a point where it was possible to find a living Seoularian to eat with. On the other hand, he could be extremely naïve and oblivious.
"I don't suppose you could give me a hand here," Cathi said.
"Must I keep reminding you that I was not built with manual labor in mind?" Orb retorted as he stiffly bent to pick up Tarv's legs.
"That's funny, because you seem to do just fine hauling loads."
"My servos are producing 11.6% less torque than factory spec and generating more noise."
"I thought that was normal for droids of your age," Cathi replied.
"Not with regular maintenance, of which I have been severely lacking."
"Then we'll just have to replace your servos with binary load lifter servos, won't we?"
Orb tried his hardest to look haughty. "Binary load lifter servos lack the precision necessary for my operation."
"Right," Cathi nodded, "as if you're going to be performing brain surgery anytime soon. Come on, we're almost there."
When they reached the airlock, Cathi slapped the controls to open the inner doors and then struggled to stuff Tarv's body inside. After closing the inner doors, she then activated the outer chamber doors and there was a quiet hiss as the airlock vented.
She arrived back in the cockpit about a minute later and went back to work on the navicomputer. After several minutes, one of the panel alarms went off, causing her to look up and nearly jump out of her skin.
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By the time the four Jedi reached the top of the stairway, Jacen was wishing that he'd brought a speeder bike or something. He was already exhausted from the walk, and beads of sweat dripped down his face. A quick glance at Tenel Ka told him that although she might have been tired, she definitely wasn't showing it.
At the gate, they were met by two athletic young women, dressed in the same style as Tenel Ka. When they saw her, they nodded and let the group in.
"We should see my great-grandmother first," Tenel Ka said as they walked through the fortress. "She will likely welcome us."
Too thirsty to speak, Jacen merely nodded and followed her through the maze of passages inside the fortress until they came to what he assumed was the chamber of the Council of Sisters. As they stepped inside, everybody came to their feet, and a very old woman at the far end came to her feet.
"You have returned, Tenel Ka Chume Ta' Djo," the old woman, who Jacen realized a moment later was Augwynne Djo, said in a motherly tone. "How are you?"
"I am well," Tenel Ka simply replied as Augwynne walked over and embraced her.
The matriarch turned her attention to the rest of the Jedi. "And these are...?"
"Jacen, Jaina and Lowbacca," she responded as she pointed to each of them in turn.
"Ah, so this is that handsome young man you told me about," Augwynne Djo said as she looked Jacen over. He was painfully aware of the fact that his face was turning a bright shade of crimson as the wizened old matriarch spoke, and hurriedly attempted to run through a relaxation technique. Although it was successful, he realized that he hadn't been fast enough as she noticed the look on his face.
"Don't be ashamed, young man. Tenel Ka has excellent tastes in whom she chooses. You're the first man she has captured."
Jacen realized that his face was probably as red as Tenel Ka's hair by this point. He bowed his head and let out a slight chuckle, then looked back up in an attempt to regain face. "I am... honored?" he replied.
"As well you should be. Now, my great-granddaughter," she turned to Tenel Ka, "do you wish to have a marriage ceremony performed while you are here?"
Lowie let out what might have been the Wookiee equivalent of a chuckle, while a look of horror came across Tenel Ka's face. After a long, awkward pause, she burst out into peals of laughter. "Great-grandmother! I have no plans to wed Jacen. He is merely an old friend from the Jedi Academy."
"Ah, pardon my misunderstanding, Tenel Ka," Augwynne replied. "I had forgotten that you dislike many of the old customs. Still, one could say that there is more to the two of you than meets the eye."
The two Jedi exchanged nervous glances as Augwynne cleared her throat. "What is your full name, young man?"
"Jacen Solo," he nervously replied.
A look of puzzlement came across her face. "Are you related, then, to Han Solo?"
"He's my father."
Augwynne chuckled softly. "Then you must know that your mother was made an honorary member of our clan."
Jacen's eyebrows shot up. "No, I didn't," he admitted.
Augwynne smiled again. "It does not matter too much now," she said, turning to face Tenel Ka again. "So, great-granddaughter, what brings you back here?"
"We are going to meet with a fighter squadron led by a Jedi, and then continue on to investigate some strange attacks in the Outer Rim."
"Explain."
Tenel Ka paused for a moment. "There has been a string of attacks on planets and ships through the Outer Rim, but nobody knows what's been causing them. That's what we're going to try and figure out."
"A dangerous task," Augwynne mused. "How long will you be staying here before you leave?"
"Less than a week," Jaina replied, feeling somewhat left out. "Perhaps five days."
"Ah," The matriarch nodded. "In that case, you are most welcome to stay and rest. I believe you will need it."
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As Cathi sat staring at the fleet that had somehow come within spitting distance of Headwind, the comm suddenly came to life.
"Attention unidentified freighter, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Magistrate. You are in restricted space. State your intentions or you will be boarded."
Rubbing her head from where she'd bumped it on the panel a moment before, Cathi hit the comm's transmit switch. It wasn't very hard to sound intimidated when an entire fleet was hanging over you and escaping to hyperspace was out of the question.
"Magistrate, this is Cathi Riclin of the freighter Headwind. My navicomp malfunctioned and I was unaware of the status of this area."
She released the button and took in a deep breath. The spice in the hold was enough to land her in prison for life on most Imperial worlds. But with the Star Destroyer hanging overhead, dumping it now would be too obvious. Best to play along...
The voice on the other end of the comm was as unperturbed as ever. "Freighter Headwind, are you in need of assistance?"
Cathi's mind raced as she tried to guess how they would be gaging her response. "Magistrate, thanks for your offer but I think I'll be OK."
"Acknowledged, freighter Headwind." There was a brief pause on the other end, and for a moment Cathi thought they were going to leave her alone. Then a new voice came over the comm and her heart sank. "Freighter Headwind, we will need to ask you some questions. Shut down your engines, lower your shields, and prepare to dock."
"I copy, Magistrate," Cathi replied, crestfallen. As she ran through the docking routines, she idly wondered why the Imperials had taken an interest in an otherwise empty region of space.
The freighter momentarily shuddered as a tractor beam from the Star Destroyer latched on, and she watched the hangar bay grow to fill the cockpit viewports. A slight bump later-the tractor beam operators were pretty good, she decided-and Headwind was resting on the hangar deck.
"Come out of your ship unarmed," an amplified voice boomed from outside. She stood up in the cockpit and tried to look for the source of the voice.
Stormtroopers.
She frowned as she looked over the perfectly ordered platoon. According to most sources, the stormtrooper forces in the Remnant were a pale shadow of what they had been during the heydey of the Empire. Between the original clones getting too old for front-line service, the quality of recruits slipping, and the cost of producing new sets of the plastoid armor (which had to be custom-fitted to each trooper), most Remnant forces had focused more on the regular Imperial Army troops.
Which meant that to find such a disciplined platoon of stormtroopers was a rarity.
Resigned to her fate, she dropped the main ramp and walked down.
"Welcome to the Magistrate," a gray-clad, middle-aged human officer greeted her. "Please follow me."
As she began walking, she glanced back at the ship, wondering if they were ever going to let her leave.
After being left alone in a sparsely furnished room for close to an hour, the door hissed open and two stormtroopers entered, taking up guard positions on either side with their rifles held ready. She blinked; that was something she hadn't noticed earlier. The powerful DC-15 rifles of the Clone Wars had been dropped in favor of smaller, more compact E-11 carbines throughout most of the Empire. Yet these troops carried the old-style rifles.
What really got her attention was the officer who entered next. His uniform was as unremarkable as any other Imperial officer, but his skin was unusually blue, and his eyes... She had only heard of one Imperial officer matching that description, and he had been dead for close to fifteen years. At least that's what the New Republic said.
Her eyes dropped to his rank bars and she took a moment to count. If she remembered the ranks correctly... that would make this alien a... Commodore?
The commodore glanced down at a datapad. "Cathi Riclin, captain of the YT-2400 light freighter Headwind. Is that correct?"
She nodded, unable to find her voice.
"From what I understand, you are 25 standard years. Isn't that a little young to own your own freighter?"
She shrugged, wondering if he'd checked the ship's registration. Probably not. "Age doesn't matter much if you're good at sabacc," she replied.
"Ah." He looked her up and down. "I would not have guessed you were a card player."
"Well, you know what they say about appearances," Cathi said with a laugh that she realized moments later didn't sound very sincere.
"Indeed." He looked back down at the datapad. "My men tell me that your ship's hold is filled with first-grade ryll spice. You are aware that the punishment for smuggling spice in both the Empire and the New Republic is life imprisonment, correct?"
"Yes, Sir," she acknowledged, her head dropping. This wasn't going to end well, she decided.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "But I am forgetting my manners. I am Commodore Mantrel of the Imperial Navy. The Magistrate is my flagship, and you are my guest today."
"I am?" she asked, puzzled.
"Of course," Mantrel replied. "I'm sure you will agree that life imprisonment is quite a waste of resources. So, I'm prepared to offer you a deal."
"And that is?" Suspicion was beginning to kick in.
"We will repair your navicomputer and take you to a destination of our choosing, after which you will be free to go."
Cathi frowned. It sounded suspiciously generous, particularly for an Imperial. "In exchange for what?"
"Merely information," Mantrel replied. "Who you are working for, your navigational logs, et cetera."
"I see." She considered the unasked questions... "And what about my cargo?"
"Per Imperial regulations, we must confiscate your cargo. I'm sure you understand."
She swallowed and nodded. The amount of spice they had been carrying was enough to buy an entire city's worth of land on some planets. The commodore's generous offer, then, basically amounted to a death sentence from the Twi'lek clans.
"The troops here will escort you to your quarters while we repair your ship," Mantrel concluded as he rose to his feet. "In the meantime, I have other matters to attend to. Farewell."