The only sound that remained on the bridge of the Chimaera was that of the ship's idling engines as they sputtered from heavy damage sustained in battle. Every eye of every officer locked onto the same thing— they all beheld the sinister scene of their commander, Grand Admiral Thrawn, lying in a pool of his own blood as his killer, the Imperial renegade and Dark Side protege, Aclik Karanlik, stood over him.
Aclik turned from the limp, lifeless body of Grand Admiral Thrawn that bled out just a few feet from him, the dead Chiss's bright blue skin turning ashen as the minutes passed. The Chimaera's first officer stood in Aclik's way.
"Do something with him." Aclik carelessly gestured towards Thrawn before storming off towards the depths of the ship.
"And what of the damage we've sustained?" The first officer called.
Aclik paused. "Have it repaired." He disappeared into the Chimaera's dim corridors.
Aclik clutched the cool metal of a datastick he'd looted from Thrawn's corpse. He plugged it into the port outside the Grand Admiral's office and the wide, heavy door slid open. Aclik sauntered into the office of the high-ranking Imperial strategist. Rare art hung from the walls and perched on pedestals all around the room. The tastefully carved crest of the Chimaera hung centered behind the wide desk that Aclik could now call his own. Aclik slid into the executive chair and reached into his pocket. Out of the fabric emerged a glowing red cube— a special memento that Aclik had cherished for decades— a Sith holocron.
Aclik stared into the Sith holocron. Its red glow seemed to grow and a vision materialized before Aclik's eyes. Aclik had been just a lad from a poor family. He had taken a job cleaning for a small restaurant to help with his family's expenses. Aclik had worked at Flora's Bistro for years. The proprietor had taken kindly to him. He had promoted Aclik from busboy to cook.
The job at Flora's bistro had grown to become much more than a paycheck— it had become a passion. As Aclik grew more confident as the sous chef at Flora's Bistro, an undercurrent of rebellion against the Empire began to simmer on Naboo. Stormtroopers soon occupied the streets. Business melted away. Flora's Bistro endured, but one fateful day, the restaurant closed for good.
Aclik locked the doors of Flora's bistro for the last time. He trod the derelict streets of Theed as he made his way home. He passed shuttered shops that just two years prior had been vibrant with life. Aclik creaked open the door to the dark and empty tenement he called home. After the Imperial occupation, his parents had fled Naboo to stay with family on Alderaan, leaving Aclik with the promise that once they had procured the funds for passage on a starship, they would send for him.
Depressed by the loneliness of his home and the loss of his job, Aclik departed his apartment to once again wander the streets. A crowd gathered in the city center. Drawn by curiosity, Aclik approached. People thronged a parade route. Aclik stood in an alley off to the side of the procession. A regiment of stormtroopers marched down the cobblestone street, heralding an ornate speeder that carried Emperor Palpatine himself.
Despite weak applause compelled from the crowd by stormtrooper guards, a tense quiet fell over the people. The quiet carried with it an animosity and an awe for the man who rode in the speeder—the same animosity and awe that Aclik felt within himself.
The speeder passed and Palpatine seemed to stare at Aclik. The Emperor looked into Aclik's eyes, into his soul. A covetous grin spread across Palpatine's face as if he'd seen a gem of great value that he had to have. Palpatine nodded slightly to his guard. The guard nodded back and spoke into his comlink.
Palpatine's speeder passed. Another regiment of stormtroopers marched behind him. A dance troupe made up of the children of Naboo's rich followed, performing their routine dedicated to the greatness of the Galactic Empire.
Aclik felt a presence, a heaviness behind him. He whirled around. There, standing over his shoulders were two figures clad in dark gray Imperial armor. Aclik recognized these figures— or at least he'd heard of them from the anti-Imperial patrons that had frequented Flora's bistro. They were Inquisitors— the Emperor's own Force sensitive elite Jedi hunters.
What could they want with me?
Aclik thought as he stumbled back in shocked terror. Wordlessly the one Inquisitor reached out her hand and laid her long fingers on Aclik's forehead. His senses went
Niko and Amberlyn peered up at the grand facade of Sundari Royal Palace.
"Here we go." Niko quipped optimistically. He started up the wide duracrete staircase that led to the palace.
Amberlyn followed. "I really hope he says yes this time."
Niko paused on the landing of the staircase and turned to face his sister. "I'm not sure though. I'm not sure the Mand'alor will allow us to reopen the club. We haven't figured out who poisoned the death sticks yet."
"People need entertainment, and we need the credits." Amberlyn said as she passed her brother on the stairs. "It's worth a try."
Early afternoon sunlight spilled through the high crystal windows of the Mandalorian throne room. Mandalore was finally at peace. Din Djarin sat upon Mandalore's throne. After years of running and fighting for his life, Din didn't mind peaceful days such as this, attending to a few bureaucratic matters but mostly spending time with his son, watching him grow stronger in the Force.
Axe had just left a proposal to upgrade Sundari's infrastructure. Din tabbed through the datapad of schematics when a sharp ping off of his breastplate drew his attention to the left of his throne. Grogu hunkered in his pram, giggling. The control knob from the Razor Crest bounced to the floor. Din huffed a chuckle as he picked up the knob. "Alright kid, we can practice your Force powers now."
Beneath his beskar, Din smiled as Grogu waddled about the throneroom wielding the Darksaber, battling blaster bolts from the training remote that Skywalker had left with them. A glint of light caught Din's eye as sunlight shone off of beskar at the far end of the throneroom. Niko and Amberlyn approached.
"I suppose this is about the club?" Din assumed.
"Yes." Niko answered cordially. "We want to reopen."
"I can't let you reopen." Din ruled. "The death sticks were an Imperial attack."
"How do you know?" Niko questioned."
"Fett told us." Din admitted.
Amberlyn looked to her brother. "Maybe we pay a visit to Boba Fett."
The distant clash of loud music echoed off of the duracrete corridors that led to Mandalore's subterranean hangar. The music grew louder as Niko and Amberlyn walked closer. The music came from the Millennium Falcon.
"Iggy!" Amberlyn shouted from the bottom of the Falcon's ramp.
"Amberlyn! Good to see you again!" Iggy's baritone voice bellowed back as he rounded the corner onto the ship's ramp. "What brings you below ground?"
"We need passage to Tatooine." Niko informed.
Kintsugi Flora emerged from the Falcon's fresher smelling anything but fresh. "Only if you help us install our new vacc tube."
Niko and Amberlyn exchanged glances of disdain then of necessity. "
Aclik choked back phlegm as he awoke on a cold duracrete floor.
"What's your name?" A harsh female voice demanded.
Young Aclik clawed to a half sitting position. He had been locked alone in a bare detention cell. The stern Inquisitor from the parade stood on the opposite side of the cell's ray shielded door.
"A.. Aclik... Aclik Karanlik." The lad stammered.
The Inquisitor flicked her eyes at a data pad then tucked the device away. "That's right." She deactivated the ray shield door and stepped halfway into the cell. She crossed her arms across her chest, making her silhouette even more imposing.
Aclik squirmed towards the back wall of the cell.
"You are strong in the Force." The Inquisitor stated. "We're going to need you to work for the Empire."
Visions of shuttered shops and scattered family crossed Aclik's mind. "What? No! No way!"
"If you won't cooperate willingly, we'll have to do this the hard way."
A squad of stormtroopers flanked the Inquisitor.
"Take him."
Before he could fight back or even react, the stormtroopers had marched into the cell. They seized Aclik by the arms and pulled him to his feet. They half dragged him as he half stumbled into Fortress Inquisitorius's torture chamber.
The squad of stormtroopers slammed Aclik against the cold durasteel of an Imperial interrogation table. They snapped tight cuffs around his wrists and legs. Metal electrodes inside the cuffs pressed into Aclik's skin. Aclik snarled and thrashed at the troopers, but there were too many of them. As the table tilted back, the stormtroopers melted away into the darkness.
"Do your duty to assist the Galactic Empire and this doesn't have to hurt." The Inquisitor's voice boomed from behind a control panel across the room.
Aclik held his peace in silent defiance.
"Fine then," the Inquisitor mocked. "I see you've made your choice."
Power jolted through the electrodes on Aclik's arms and legs. He fought against the pain of burning skin and seizing muscles. Visions of shuttered shops and the ache of faraway family strengthened Aclik's hatred for the Empire as the electric shock wore on.
The electricity stopped.
"One last chance, Aclik!' The Inquisitor teased.
An interrogation droid hovered closer, its long needle at the ready, glinting in the dim light of the cavernous torture chamber.
"No!" Aclik shouted, memories of his family and his homeworld steeling his resolve to maintain his integrity.
The sharp stab of the droid's needle piercing Aclik's skin was followed by the burning pain of its sinister solution trickling into his neck. A dizziness came seconds later. Shapes of the room's long pillars deformed into frightening hallucinations. A sensation of falling startled Aclik, the feeling of suffocation stole the air from his lungs.
The Inquisitor stalked closer, the drug morphing her into a monster. She held a second syringe.
"Pledge to the Empire and I can make it stop." She teased, waving the syringe of antidote in front of Aclik's fluttering eyes.
"No!" Aclik gasped.
The droid's drug took hold further. A fiery pain started at the tips of Aclik's fingers and toes and burned towards his core. He groaned in agony as the searing, prickling pain intensified and numbed his mind.
The Inquisitor feigned sympathy. She set the syringe of antidote aside and pulled up a chair beside the table where Aclik lay. "This is the worst part." She admitted. "I'll stay with you."
Aclik whimpered in addled assent as every nerve in his body raged in pain.
"Let's talk to keep your mind off of it" the Inquisitor suggested tenderly. "You have family? A job?"
The burning pain began to cool into a careless numbness.
"I have family." Aclik slurred. "They left for Alderaan a while back."
"Why's that?" The Inquisitor asked, manufacturing innocence.
"Credits. Not enough of them and Naboo's too expensive."
"You working?" The Inquisitor continued her line of questioning.
"I was." Aclik's words melted together as sleep beckoned. "I was a chef. I liked my job but the restaurant closed."
The intoxicating effects of the interrogation drug pulled Aclik into unconsciousness. The Inquisitor leaned back in her chair and smiled, satisfied with the information that she had confirmed.
"Third Sister!" The reprimand echoed through the torture chamber. "You've shocked him and given him interrogation serum? You're too aggressive!" The Grand Inquisitor scolded as he approached. "You're going to kill him and he'll be no use to the Emperor!"
"Troopers!" The Grand Inquisitor barked. "Take him away!"
The stormtroopers that had dragged Aclik into the room emerged from the shadows and carried him
Hyperspace already streaked by the cockpit windows of the Millennium Falcon when Amberlyn emerged from the freshly renovated fresher.
"It had to have taken half the Falcon's water supply to shower away the grime from installing that new vacc tube." Amberlyn griped.
"Better not have." Iggy remarked, his eyes fixed on the Falcon's controls. "You know how hard it is to get water on Tatooine." The ship dropped out of hyperspace " By the way, we're almost there."
"Do they know we're coming?" Kintsugi asked as the desert planet loomed in the windscreen.
"Yeah." Niko affirmed. "I told Drash before we left."
Black Krrsantan led the Mandalorian delegation from the Millennium Falcon to the throne room of the Mos Espa palace.
"I hear you're still having some trouble." The Daimyo drawled from his seat of power.
"Yes." Amberlyn spoke up. "The death sticks. We still can't reopen."
"They were cut with spice." Fennec said as she leaned against Boba's throne "I've never seen spice that pure.
"None of the syndicates could have made it." Boba thought aloud. "Only Imperial labs have the technology to make spice that pure."
Drash reached her cybernetic arm to rub her chin in thought. "I might know someone who might know something."
The harsh chill of the detention cell's floor woke Aclik from his drugged slumber. He squinted his eyes open. Shards of pain stabbed within his skull from the light of the glow disks above. Aclik willed his sluggish, leaden muscles to push himself up from the floor. Deep aches radiated from his limbs, his back, and his sides as his tortured body protested the command to move.
The click-clack of feminine footsteps echoed down the detention level hallway. The Inquisitor darkened the door of the cell. With a code punched into the keypad on the wall, the ray shield door evaporated and she stepped in. "Aclik, I'm glad to see you're awake." She stooped down to where her prisoner lay. "What you told me about being away from your family and losing your job made me sad," she lied, "so I'm going to help you out."
Aclik blinked the fuzziness out of his vision as he tried to focus on the Inquisitor. For some reason she now seemed to be friendly.
"I'm going to make sure you get a job, and maybe you'll even make it back to your family on Alderaan." She assured.
Visions of the dark, empty apartment that his family used to share filled his mind, the pain of being apart from them filled his heart, and the thought of working his way back to them swelled as his desire. Aclik glared at the Imperial before him with disgust. He could either take the inquisitor's offer and be with his family again— surely they would forgive him if his intentions were right— or he could die alone in this prison. The choice grew clear as Aclik's heart grew heavy with guilt.
"I'll join you." He muttered.
"Follow me." Came the Inquisitor's simple command.
The Empire's newest recruit, Aclik Karanlik, followed the Third Sister through Fortress Inquisitorus's labyrinthine corridors and up a turbo lift. Inside a cavernous chamber, Inquisitors sparred.
"Do I start training?" Aclik asked.
"No." The Inquisitor answered as she dipped into a vacant office just behind the main hangar. "You're not training with us." She gathered a bundle of black clothes from a shelf and shoved them into Aclik's arms. "Put these on. The Emperor wants to train you himself."
The Inquisitor left the room, her cape sweeping behind her. Aclik examined the bundle in his hands. Exquisite yet agile pants the color of midnight, a long thick robe with a billowing hood, and what looked to be a chef's tunic embellished in crimson embroidery awaited him. As Aclik ran his fingers over the delicate red trim on the black chef's tunic, optimism replaced the dread within him for the first time in a long time. He stripped away the torn garments he had been wearing and donned his Imperial regalia. Aclik straightened, his shoulders back as pain gave way to purpose. His reflection gleamed in the glass door of the office in which he stood. He smoothed his hands over his robe. Aclik smiled. He would become great, he would save his family, he would yet live his dream.