"Poor Moresk," Tycho Celchu said as he watched two members of Alliance Intelligence interrogate the Bothan. An inches thick piece of transparisteel absorbed all sound waves, blocking a person from hearing anything that occurred on the other side. Even though Tycho and the rest of Rogue Squadron, save the still recovering Luke Skywalker, couldn't hear a word that was going on in the interrogation room, the body language used was able to tell a story.
The two interrogators walked around the room, making their power well known. Moresk, however, sat almost motionless in his chair, either completely ashamed of what he had been forced to do, or grossly apathetic. A few slight twitches of the fur near the Bothan's neck pointed towards something near anger, however. The target of the anger was unknown, however.
"Whatever they did to him, they did it well," Airen Cracken, head of Alliance Intelligence said as he watched. A small set of headphones placed on his head allowed him to listen to the entirety of what was being said in the room, but any information that he heard were for his ears only. "That's completely unofficial, however," he added.
"I didn't hear you say anything," Wes joked, letting the much older officer know that whatever they heard wouldn't be repeated to anyone else.
"That's good," Cracken replied. "I also won't say that it's going to be difficult to break through whatever they did to him."
"What'll happen if you aren't?" Hobbie asked, a hint of pessimism in his voice.
"I can't give that information out," Cracken replied. "Even unofficially. I'm sorry, but I do hope that whatever treatment he gets is able to help him."
"This is bad," Wedge whispered to the core group of Rogues as they rode a turbolift towards the simulator room.
"Very," Hobbie added. "It almost sounded like that they would kill him if he couldn't be cured."
"That or make him be all but dead," Tycho responded. "Keep him under a very strict form of house arrest, essentially make him have no life at all."
"I wish I could say that it would be for the best, but I can't," Wes said as the turbolift door opened. "How would any of us feel if we were punished for essentially being used as a puppet?"
"But if he can't be cured, he would be a threat to everyone on this ship," Wedge added, slipping into the role of Sith's Advocate. "Even if it isn't his fault."
"I hate moral dilemmas this early in the morning," Wes spoke up, rubbing his eyes with his fingers.
"It's good to see you in one piece, Princess," Han Solo said, a mixture of his usual cockiness and genuine concern in his voice as he saw Leia Organa step off her Corellian-made shuttle. He ignored the two Jedi stepping off of the ship behind her—save a look of puzzlement as a freakishly tall, green and bipedal frog followed a dark-skinned man out of the ship—and focused instead on her. During the mission to recover the Jedi, he found it strange whenever he was in danger, he often found himself concerned over her safety. She didn't have the years of hardened combat experience that he had. That was, however, no disrespect on her obvious ability to handle herself in a firefight, she had proven herself to him during the escape from the Death Star.
Great, he thought. All of Chewie's talk about his family is makin' me soft.
"Why the surprise?" Leia replied.
"Imperial trouble on my side of the mission," Han answered. "I figured that you'd have the same problems."
"And you're implying that my crew and myself couldn't handle ourselves?" Leia asked, bemusement creeping into her voice.
"I didn't say anything about that, your highness," Han answered. "I was just making a simple statement about your well-being and how happy I am to see that you—'re passengers managed to avoid the Imps." Han mentally gave himself a good verbal lashing. He had almost done an extremely foolish thing and admitted his feelings for her. He did, however, give credit to himself for the good save.
"Nothing you say is a simple statement," Leia interjected, leaving Han wondering if she hadn't gone Jedi on him.
"That's not true," Han casually replied as he and Leia paced around their immediate area, not hearing the faint popping sound of another ship entering the hangar. "I say a lot of simple statements."
"Name one," Leia challenged, a victorious smile spreading across her face.
Han thought a minute, knowing that he had more than likely been beaten. "What is that smell?" he finally said.
"What's tha--?" Leia began to ask before a completely rank smell filled the air next to her. "What is that?" she asked, beginning to hold her nose.
"Great, now you two are doing it, too," the voice of Kyle Katarn followed the stench. The former Imperial Stormtrooper and current trainee of Obi-Wan Kenobi walked past them. He stopped for a second, a movement that caused the smell of sewage to almost congregate in the area. "I've heard nothing but wisecracks from Jan the whole trip back. I'm going to need some industrial-grade cleaner to get rid of this smell," his voice began trailing away as he made his way out of the hangar.
"What the hell was that all about?" Han asked. "And what was he crawling in?"
"Fortunately, I think that's classified," Leia replied after finally giving up on holding her nose.
"You Rebel scum will never get a word out of me!" the others in the room heard an unfamiliar male voice cry out from further back in the hangar.
"I have a perfect way to get info out of you," Jan Ors replied, leading the stuncuffed Rebus out of the hangar bay. She raised the volume of her voice, making sure that her intended target could hear what she would say next. "There's a medication out there to enhance your sense of smell. We'll give you that and then stick you in a room with Kyle!"
The Jedi, who by now had managed to get together in a group next to the shuttle that had brought in Qu Rahn and Yoda, looked amazed at the events of what just happened. Han and Leia had started up their somewhat friendly argument again, leaving them feeling somewhat ignored.
"So," Quinlan Vos whispered to the rest of the Jedi, finally breaking the silence. "Who wants to place bets on who gets together first?"
"Find Obi-Wan ourselves, we apparently must," Yoda said, ignoring Quinlan's rare attempt at a joke as he began to walk out of the hangar as well.
"Some welcoming committee," Khaleen Hentz muttered as she followed Quinlan and their son, all three of them following the diminutive Jedi Master out of the hangar.
"Blame them do not," Yoda said after hearing Khaleen's complaint. "Blinded by the moment they are. More to worry about we have."
"Like the Imperials that attacked us, Master…" Korto trailed off, trying to remember the name of the small Jedi that he was speaking to.
"Yoda," his father supplied.
"Master Yoda," Korto finished his sentence.
Inside of his black mask, Darth Vader narrowed his browless eyes as his lightsaber cut through the body of a rebel soldier with no resistance. The sound of blasterfire filled the area, the sound of two sides of soldiers as they struggled to remain alive. A red bolt burned towards him, only to quickly rebound towards the ground as Vader subconsciously raised his lightsaber towards it. It hit the ground a meter in front of him, only doing as much as to stir up a slight amount of dirt.
This particular band of rebels was a small and independent group, one that probably didn't even know of the existance of the Alderaanian/Chandrilan cell that was giving the Empire the most trouble. One that would be easy to destroy. One that wouldn't combine with another group or get a lucky break. No, this one would be dealt with swiftly.
"Run away!" he could hear a rebel say off in the distance. That rebel didn't last long enough to follow his own advice, however. A missile fired from the side launcher of an AT-ST exploded a few meters away from him, sending his dead body flying towards the Imperial forces that had killed him. The rebels that were near him but far enough to escape the blast unharmed slowly backed away from the steadily advancing Imperial troops, hoping to reach one of the ships that were escaping the battlezone.
Vader cut through another rebel soldier that had foolishly decided to stay too long, the anger inside of him always hovering near the brink of him losing his control over it. It was easier, he thought, to fight like this than to think about the things that were bothering him. He had always found that using his anger was easy, always. And every rebel that he killed temporarily took his mind off of his son. The son that even now was being corrupted by Obi-Wan. When they finally would meet, Luke would hate him. Vader ignored the tiny voice in his head telling himself that he should be hated, it was almost drowned out by the animal violence that swirled through him at the moment.
"Look out, Lord Vader! They're targeting you!" Vader could hear a lieutenant warn him. He looked ahead and saw what the new threat was. A large laser cannon, its barrel wider than the barrels of 3-4 blaster rifles, was aimed directly at him. A quick sense of the area using the Force told him that the AT-ST was too busy chasing ground targets than to deal with this heavy threat. If he was to survive, he would have to save himself.
The barrel flashed and the cannon moved back very slightly due to the recoil of firing. The red bolt of energy raced towards Vader, the shot itself enough to instantly vaporize the majority of a human upon contact. Darth Vader raised his lightsaber towards the cannon fire that sizzled the air around him and prepared for what would happen.
They're weren't many Jedi that could accomplish what happened next. Only one with significant power could actually even attempt it. Darth Vader was one of them. He felt the Force, a dark and violent energy opposed to the calming aura that the others would use, flow through what remained of his organic body, strengthening him, preparing him. His lightsaber hit the shot from the laser cannon, his arms—and their mechanical prosthetics—strained against the velocity of it. The few milliseconds that passed felt like minutes as Vader attempted to deflect the blast back to the laser cannon that fired it. The blast finally rebounded off of his lightsaber and soared back to its point of origin. The white emplacement that housed the laser cannon exploded as its own shot hit it, sending chunks of durasteel flying into the rebel army. The shrapnel generated by the exploding emplacement killed or wounded an additional seven rebels.
"Sithspawn, did you just see that!" a Stormtrooper next to Vader exclaimed as he slowly got up from the ground, having hit it as soon as the emplacement fired. Vader ignored the trooper's profanity and trudged back into the fighting, breathing hard and heavily fatigued from the feat that he had just accomplished. Already he could see rebels frightened of his display of power throw down their weapons and raise their hands in the near-universal sign of surrender.
"Take care of them, lieutenant," Vader instructed. "Make sure their surrender is sincere. I shall return to the forward command center, contact me immediately if you require my assistance."
"It will be done, Lord Vader," the Stormtrooper lieutenant said with a salute. "Keep those hands up!" he yelled as he walked towards the surrendering rebels, his voice being artificially amplified by his helmet.
Chapter 28Obi-Wan Kenobi stood inside one of the many conference rooms inside of the Mon Calamari-made space cruiser Home One, a simple holoprojector on the table next to him. He had no idea how much of what happened during the past twenty years that the other Jedi in the room knew, and he hoped that he didn't have to make any really shocking revelations again. It was too hard the last time, and there was still one left to tell. In a way, Obi-Wan thought as he looked over the three Jedi Masters and the son of Quinlan Vos, it was kind of like a new Jedi Council. Although he hoped that it wouldn't be a formal part of the Jedi Order that he had created.
"Let me be the first to say that it's good to see all of you alive," Obi-Wan began. "A lot has happened in the past two decades," he added. "As you all may know.
"I guess the most important thing to tell you is the identity of the female Force-sensitive that escorted you to this vessel."
"You mean the one who kept arguing with the smuggler that brought in Quinlan and his family?" Qu Rahn asked.
"That'll be the one," Obi-Wan replied. "I'm sure that you heard her name as Leia Organa. She is, however, only the adopted daughter of the late Senator. Her real parents were Padmé Amidala and…" Obi-Wan paused for a minute, not knowing what Quinlan and Qu knew of the young woman's true heritage. "Anakin Skywalker," he finished, noting the reactions of the three potentially unaware Jedi. Qu Rahn had no look of surprise on his face whatsoever, and his body language seemed to suggest that was aware of the secret. Quinlan, on the other hand, obviously hadn't heard of this cosmic revelation previously. The Kiffar Jedi Master let out a low whistle, figuring out the potential Force potential of the young woman known as Leia Organa.
"She isn't the only one," Obi-Wan added. "Anakin and Padmé were the parents of twins. The other child is currently the leader of Rogue Squadron, one of the Alliance's top starfighter groups."
"Like father, like son," Quinlan replied, having seen what the Jedi now known as Darth Vader could do behind the controls of a starfighter.
"Given time, he might just be better than Anakin," Obi-Wan replied to his old friend's statement. "At least as a pilot."
"Good morning, sir," the 2-1B droid responded as Luke Skywalker woke up inside of the medical bay. He had been sleeping for the past nine hours, under heavy surveillance from the medical droids. The throbbing pain in the back of his head had now all but disappeared.
"What happened?" Luke asked, the memory of the event still slightly hazy in his mind.
"One of your ground personnel, a Bothan named Moresk Lim'nef, attacked you, sir," the medical droid replied. "You were brought here where you were diagnosed as having a mild concussion."
"Where's Moresk?" Luke asked, anxious to hear about what happened to the brainwashed assailant.
"He is currently being seen by Alliance Intelligence Operatives. That is all I know."
A look of worry crossed the young Jedi's face as the medical droid mentioned Moresk's interrogation. "So, there's been no new news?" he asked.
"Unfortunately not," the medical droid replied. "You are free to go," he added, getting back to his primary function. "You are not, however, cleared to fly for at least a week."
"I'll inform Wedge," Luke said, not very enthused at being grounded for five days. "Looks like he's going to be Rogue Leader for a few more days."
Captain—and secretly Grand Admiral—Thrawn stared out of his viewports towards the small Imperial fleet that he had command of. He had been promoted to that rare rank nearly three years previously, the thirteenth member of a group that only officially numbered 12. He was a Chiss, a blue-skinned humanoid species that lived beyond the Outer Rim in an area unknown to most galactic scientists. He had been exiled from his home planet many years previously; exiled on a planet and then found by a member of Palpatine's Empire, where he had made his home for the past 15 years.
The Imperial fleet that had been placed under his command consisted of Vengeance, and two smaller Victory-class Star Destroyers.
"Are you certain that the Rebels will be there?" Thrawn asked, not even bothering to turn his head towards the Dark Jedi "in command" of the vessel.
"I have foreseen it, and the Emperor shares my optimism," the black-and-red clad form of Jerec, one of the Emperor's many Dark Jedi cohorts, said.
Thrawn slowly turned his head around to view the old Dark Jedi behind him. He was sitting in a command chair near the crew pit of the vessel, dressed—as always in his black and red colored robes. A thin strip of leather covered where the eyes of a normal near-human would be, but beneath it was nothing. The old man looked cadaverous, like a somehow still animate corpse sitting in the chair. Looking upon the Dark Jedi sent a chill down one's spine, a chill that even slightly disturbed Thrawn, himself. Thrawn had heard from the Emperor about Jerec's possible move for power, and was assigned by the Emperor to personally keep an eye on the former Jedi Master. Any sign of rebellion was to be reported directly to the Emperor himself.
"As you say, Lord Jerec," Thrawn simply replied. He had had a few experiences with Dark Jedi in the past, and his last encounter wasn't entirely successful.
Jerec regarded Thrawn slightly differently than most other Imperials did. They usually regarded the blue-skinned Captain as somewhat lesser than them, on account of his non-human heritage. Despite his talents, he would always be considered a second-class officer. Yet, to him, Thrawn was a threat. A tactically superior officer that put the good of the overall Empire ahead of the good of the Dark Side; if there ever was a split between Palpatine's Dark Side elite and the overall Empire, it seemed as if Thrawn would quickly join with the Imperial loyalists. Despite the Force, if he commanded their troops, the Empire would surely win. He seen this in a vision that had come to him a few days after the rebels of Sulon had been dealt with; a vision that showed Thrawn in command of an Empire without the Emperor. An Empire ruled under the hand of Thrawn.
Yet, despite their mutual fear and mistrust of each other, the two would have to work together. An Empire divided would lead to the Rebels winning, a fate that neither of the two wanted to happen. And this mission: a strike against one of the Rebels most powerful space vessels.
"If I may ask, Lord Jerec, where did you get this information from?"
"The Force sometimes leads us to what we seek," Jerec replied, wishing that it would provide him or the Emperor with the location of the new base that the Rebels had to have set up, or provide Jerec with the location for the one place that he wished to see the most…
The Force… Thrawn had little experience with the mystical energy field that the Jedi and the Sith used to their own great advantage. Yet while he placed his trust in simpler matters: strategy, cunning, and tactics, Thrawn knew that the Force had its place, at least for now.
"Set course for the ambush coordinates," Thrawn ordered the helmsman, and it wasn't long before he was seeing the stars in front of him converge into the blue brilliance of hyperspace.
"Ready to know the truth, they are not," Yoda insistently stated, rapping his gimer stick cane against the table to animate his adamant stance on the issue being discussed. "At risk Leia already is. To know the truth now, send her down a dark path it will."
"What will be worse?" Quinlan Vos asked. "Her learning the truth from us—people that she knows that she can trust—or learning it from an Imperial?"
"I agree with Master Vos," Qu Rahn stated. "You've said that the Empire has captured a few of the Alliance's top personnel, ones that can likely point to the identity of Anakin's children. When Vader or the Emperor hears of this, there are two things that can be done, none of them good."
"They can send assassins, which you've said that they've already tried, or they'll try to turn them to the Dark Side. We can't afford for that to happen," Quinlan replied.
"Indeed we can't," Obi-Wan stated, agreeing with Vos' comment, "that is why we must wait for at least a while. If they would be told now, they could easily fall."
"This seems like an almost lose-lose situation," Korto Vos said from his chair far away from the conference table. As the three Jedi that didn't train him had just officially declared him a Jedi Knight, he was the only non-Jedi Master in the room. He had been listening to the debate silently, not officially being allowed to take part in it due to his not being a Jedi Master. "You tell them now, they may fall; the Empire tells them later, they may fall…"
"Hence the whole debate," Obi-Wan replied. "Since it appears that we're deadlocked, what do you have to say about this?"
"I have to admit that I see the reason why you are," Korto replied. "It does seem like a hard decision to make." Korto thoughtfully rubbed his chin, almost as if he was trying to think of an answer right then. "I know that my father," he motioned to Quinlan, "told me about his struggle with the Dark Side during the Clone Wars, but I doubt that anything that he did can compare with what Vader's done. No offense, father," he quickly added.
"None taken, and I happen to agree with you."
"I do, however, have to agree with Masters Kenobi and Yoda when they say that we shouldn't tell the younger Skywalkers about their heritage as the heirs of Darth Vader just yet."
"Well, our majority that appears to be," Yoda replied. "Unveil their heritage at another time we will, but hope I do that not too late it will be," he warned.
"Same here," Quinlan said, even though he had argued for telling the two Skywalker heirs of their connection to Vader. The rest of the Jedi in the room quickly agreed.
"Now that we've agreed to wait, what do we do with our time?" Rahn asked.
"I've slowly been trying to get them ready," Obi-Wan answered. "I've gradually been slipping in stories about how good of a man Darth Vader was before his fall to the Dark Side. In Luke it seems to be working, but Leia is obviously having some difficulty with that fact."
"Tortured by Vader she was," Yoda said. "Forced her to watch Alderaan's destruction, Vader did."
"That is the primary reason why I've waited to tell them the full truth," Obi-Wan replied.
The Mon Calamari ship Independence, sister ship of the mighty Home One, floated alone inside of a desolate system in the Outer Rim. Like its sister ship, she carried the many bumpy growths along her hull—a functional part of the design and one carried by almost all ships made by the aquatic rebels.
Admiral Hallos sat in his command chair, wearing the white uniform common amongst the Mon Calamari officers. His eyes stared at computer readouts that were optimized for his species, the deep salmon-colored barbels on his throat moving slightly.
"Admiral! We have multiple contacts coming out of hyperspace!" an aide shouted from his partially portable station. "Looks to be Imperial!"
"We're still caught in the gravity well of the planet, sir," the helmsman said, relaying the horrible news in a matter of fact voice.
"Shields up!" he commanded, hoping that he could fill the role of Ackbar, the former commander of this vessel. "Alert Blue Squadron and the others. Tell them to launch fighters!
"And get us out of this system as soon as possible," he added, not knowing the tactical genius of the man that he was about to face in combat.