Kamino was an ugly sight. Seen from orbit the planet was merely eerie, a sphere of dark-blue water, placid yet ominous against the starless black above the galactic plane. The ugliness came from the orbital halo of gnarled debris left by the recent Rebel attack. The decapitated command tower of an Imperial star destroyer drifted lightless through space, trailing debris from its severed neck. A Nebulon-B frigate's broken halves fell slowly further apart. A broken Corellian corvette tumbled through space, gouged open by laserfire and ringed by the bodies of its crew, each flash-frozen in a different expression of dying agony.
The images from the surface, relayed from scout ships to the bridge of the star destroyer Magic Dragon, were just as gruesome. Where once an entire city had stood there was now a wreck. Elegantly curved structures and ethereal towers had once risen from the endless ocean on kilometer-high stilts; now only a few gnarled pieces drifted with the waves, along with shattered shards of angular star destroyers which must have been dropped into the sea, creating a tsunami that shattered Timina City and sent most of it plunging into the depths.
As the images and post-battle surveys came in, the bridge of the Magic Dragon fell into a grim silence. Grand Admiral Miltin Takel couldn't blame his crew for their shock; he felt it as well. He'd always believed that, unlike so many naval officers, he treated the Rebel threat seriously and refused to underestimate the scrappy, resourceful terrorists. Still, he'd never imagined they'd have the ability to pull off something like this.
He told himself that if he'd been present for this battle, he'd have turned the tide and defended the planet. He was after all a grand admiral, though just a year after getting promoted to the newly-created position he wasn't entirely certain what it meant. Oh, the coronation ceremony on Coruscant had been lovely, and his gold-and-white ensemble was at least a welcome break from drab olive-green, but his duties hadn't seemed to change so much.
The Magic Dragon had been on patrol near the Rishi Maze when they'd been told to go directly to Kamino. The order had come from Imperial Center and been authorized with the seal of the Emperor himself. The details of his instructions had roused more questions than answers, but when your orders came direct from Palpatine you didn't ask for more. You did what you were told and prayed you did it to his satisfaction.
Takel badly wished he could retreat to his cabin for a bit of the sansanna spice he kept there, but he'd have to power through this grim scene without it. To rouse the crew he said, "Look lively, gentlemen. We're supposed to pick up a package on the surface. Scanners, can we pick up its signal?"
"We are picking up a transponder," his sensor officer replied hesitatingly.
"Is it the right frequency?"
"Yes. The signal is weak, but it does match." The lieutenant shook his head. "I just don't understand how anything could have survived that wreck, sir."
"There's only one way to find out. Tactical, designate a shuttle to those coordinates and see if the package is still intact. I want reports from our recovery teams in orbit, too. I want to know about functioning ships, life signs, anything."
"They're working on it, sir," said his tactical officer. "First reports are… bleak."
"I'm aware of that, Lieutenant. We still have a mission to accomplish."
"Or course, sir."
Takel still itched for spice, but he kept himself planted in the center of the bridge, doing his best to inspire confidence in his shocked crew. Per the Emperor's orders, his only real task here was to secure the package. After that, it seemed, his duties lay elsewhere. The entire picture of what he was expected to do was still fragmented. Takel dearly hoped the pieces would come together soon.
After a few minutes, the tactical officer reported, "Admiral, our team had found the package."
"Is it intact?"
The man blinked as he read his screen. "Ah… yes, sir. The package is intact. Somehow it was sheltered by the wreckage when the tsunami hit and didn't sink."
"Then get it in the shuttle and get the shuttle back here. Put it in the forward hangar and place the hangar under security lockdown. Nobody goes in or out without my permission. And hurry up with the orbital survey. If there's nothing else to recover, our job here is done."
The crew looked at him, worried and confused, asking for clarity. Takel had none to give, not yet. He walked over to the comm station and bent over the shoulder of its lieutenant.
"Have you patched in the encrypted signal like I ordered?"
"Yes, sir. We're ready to open a hail whenever you'd like."
"I'd like it now." He tugged the hem of his uniform jacket, pulling it straight, then flicked a few tassels of those annoying epaulets to make sure they dangled straight off his shoulder. He still had to wait a full minute for a response to his hail.
Then the holo appeared. It was the shrunken image of a man encased in armor, a short cape dangling off his shoulders, with rocket pack and spear-like missile jutting off his back. His face was totally occluded by the T-visor helmet of a Mandalorian. Takel was familiar enough with those: his homeworld of Gargon was located on the edge of Mandalorian space and growing up he'd seen his share of down-and-out Mandos pining for the good old days before the Empire conquered their savage backwater and turned it into a productive industrial center.
This man, despite his battered armor, was not one of history's losers. According to the Emperor's own briefing, this was Boba Fett himself. The sight of him gave Takel tingles, like a minor spice-high. Most Imperial officers looked down on the galaxy's fringers as trash, but Takel had followed rumors of this bounty hunter for quite some time. Resourceful, deadly, relentless, always mysteriously encased in that faceless mask, he was a figure designed to incite speculative awe. Thanks to his contacts in the Mandalorian sector Takel knew more than most, but it didn't take away his excitement to be dealing with the infamous rogue.
"Master Fett," he said, "I am Grand Admiral Miltin Takel. I come to you with the Emperor's personal respects."
"I was told you'd be contacting me," said the gruff voice. "I'm in the process of completing the job our mutual employer assigned me."
Mutual employer. An interesting way to put it. "Then you've been tracking your target?"
"I'm following the signal through hyperspace."
"You're sure they won't discover your homing beacon?"
"It's not a homing beacon. Those are too easily detected." Fett sounded slightly offended. "I've sliced a subroutine into their comm system. Every time they use it, a duplicate transmission gets sent to me along with the ship's current location data. Every time I make a call, I'll know where they are."
Takel was impressed. "You're quite resourceful. Contact me the moment you locate the shuttle's final destination."
"I will."
Boba Fett inclined his head in a tiny nod, then killed the transmission. Takel felt a little come-down; they'd always said Fett was laconic, but he'd have appreciated a little more talk. More later, perhaps.
Takel tapped the comm lieutenant's shoulder. "Keep this quiet for now."
"Of course, sir."
The grand admiral walked into the center of the bridge and raised his voice. "Is the package locked down in the auxiliary hangar?"
"Yes, sir," reported the tactical officer. "We've also located some survivors aboard a drifting Carrack cruiser. Should we bring them aboard, sir?"
"We have a little time. Bring them in. Try to locate officers for debriefing. If any equipment looks salvageable, take that too." Takel glanced out the viewport and eerie, wreckage-ringed Kamino. "After that, prepare for departure and put troops on yellow alert."
"Should we begin plotting a course?" asked the helm officer.
Takel shook his head. "No destination available yet. But be patient, it will come."
Then would come the real challenge: retrieving Darth Vader himself from Rebel capture. Hopefully the package would do most of the work there. Takel had the feeling that, white uniform or no, his career and possibly his life would be determined by this coming mission. It was enough to ruin any man's nerves, and while the recovery teams got to work on the Carrack, the grand admiral politely excused himself to the bridge and hurried back to his cabin for something he needed very badly.
-{}-
Shenandor was a great marble of inferno resting dead ahead. Sitting in the pilot's seat with Starkiller looming over her shoulder, Juno Eclipse input her clearance codes into the Rogue Shadow's comm system. The Rebel base on Shenandor Prime wouldn't even acknowledge them unless they identified themselves first. From this distance the planet was just a tiny speck of black against the star's burning red whorls.
They waited a long time for a reply, and to break the silence Starkiller said, "You're right about this base being secure. I can't think of a better place to store our passenger."
"That doesn't mean it's a good one," Juno said, "but I'll be happy just to get him off our ship."
Once they did, she and Starkiller could really talk about all that had separated them. They could really be together in a way they hadn't been since their visit to the Death Star, and before then they'd been too busy or reluctant to admit their feelings to each other.
When the comm system pinged, she leaned eagerly to read the message on screen. "We're clear for inbound," she said. "We'll rendezvous with the shieldship. It just ignited its tracer beacon."
"No face-to-face call?" Starkiller asked.
"Shenandor Prime is too close to the sun. Radiation garbles complex calls from the base- we call it the Furnace- but we can pass through compressed text messages. It's enough." She took the throttle and edged them forward.
Quiet until now, PROXY said, "Pardon my asking, Master, but did your opening missive inform the Furnace where we have come from or what our cargo is?"
"No," Juno admitted. "I didn't want to risk even that."
"Then we're in store for an interesting conversation when we land," Starkiller said.
Juno only nodded and nudged them further toward the bright stellar fire. She dimmed the transparisteel to make it possible to see through the brilliant red glow that soon filled the entire viewport. Against such raging inferno it was difficult to spot the shieldship until they drew very close. Juno had never been the Shenandor and never actually seen a shieldship up close. She'd heard of custom-made escort craft designed to ferry vulnerable ships near volatile stars, and she knew they were essentially high-powered thrusters attached to reflective armor overloaded with cooling equipment. The one that appeared before them was a slightly-convex rectangular slab four hundred meters wide and two hundred high, with a small crew cabin and five powerful sublight engines attached to the starboard side. It looked supremely ungainly, yet it moved smoothly against the sun's glare to meet them.
"I'm surprised that thing can fly," Starkiller said.
"Flying's easier than you think," replied Juno, "especially if you just need to get from Point A to Point B without shooting anyone."
"I'll have to take your word on that."
"You'll find out for yourself one day." Once they got rid of their cargo, she hoped.
A voice, blurred by interference, said, "Approaching ship, this is Aurek-Cresh-Five-Seven-Eight."
"And this is Besh-Seventeen-Twenty-one," Juno repeated her clearance code. "We're ready for you to take us in."
"Please power down your engines. We'll hold you close with a tractor beam and tow you the rest of the way."
"Understood. Powering down now."
Juno killed the comm, then killed the engines. They felt Rogue Shadow drift just a little beneath them, then the tug of the tractors. Soon the starfire in their viewport was utterly eclipsed by the blackness of the shieldship's cool, concave side. Without an exterior view it felt like they were stuck in black nothing, and Juno couldn't help but feel a spike of irrational helplessness.
She looked at Starkiller, who still hovered over the back of her chair. "Getting any feelings?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
"Then we'll assume no news is good news." In a needless whisper she added, "Anything from our cargo?"
"He's there, he's awake… but I have no idea what he's thinking." Lowering his voice too, Starkiller confessed, "I never have."
"Well, someone can figure that out. Just not us."
She was hoping for vocal agreement, or just a nod. Instead Starkiller stared into the shadow beyond their ship, deep in thought.
No one talked until the shieldship pulled them into low orbit over Shenandor Prime. Its pilot signed off and released the tractor, allowing Juno to fly the short distance toward the airless, rocky planet's nightside surface. Dark stone, pocked by craters accumulated over eons, swelled in front of them. Peering into the darkness, she could make out a few artificial additions to the landscape. She spotted the smoothness of a metal dome, totally dark, without glowing viewports to mark habitation. Not far away there was a trio of rectangular, flat shapes. When the Shadow reached an altitude of just two hundred meters, four lights shone on the surface, marking the corners of one of those rectangles. The Furnace must have had three separate docking bays, and Juno maneuvered their ship carefully before lowering them into the open one.
As soon as they were through the portal, heavy doors sealed them in the black-box hangar. No atmospheric energy shield here; Juno figured the doors were there to protect the hangar from heat and radiation, though she imagined they'd be good against heavy weapons too.
But it wasn't going to come to that. Even if the Imperials found this supremely well-hidden facility there was no way they'd even reach it without a shieldship of their own.
As soon as they set down, Starkiller said, "I'm going to prep our cargo."
"PROXY, go with him," Juno said.
"As you wish, Master," the droid said, and followed Starkiller back to meet Vader.
Juno forced her thoughts away from that confrontation. She shut down the Shadow's key systems, save for its comms, and did a quick post-flight check. Through the viewport she could see beings filing into the hangar from a single door. She spotted a dozen soldiers with white helmets and black vests, typical Alliance infantry. In the lead was a light-green Nautolan with head-tails dangling down the back of his a khaki uniform, rank indistinguishable from here. A short grey-skinned Aleena was bringing up the rear, also in khakis.
Juno rose from her chair and left the cockpit. Three short strides brought her into the hold, and then she froze. Starkiller stood between her and the black-metal shape of Darth Vader's cage, but Vader stood before him. Man and monster looked each other in the eyes but neither reached for his weapon; on Starkiller's face Juno saw only curiosity.
She didn't understand, so she reached for her pistol. She hefted it, aimed at Vader, and shouted, "On your knees! Now!"
And then, with a flicker of light, Vader was gone. No; Vader was trapped in his cage, as he should be. The figure standing with Starkiller resolved back into PROXY, minus his holographic shroud.
Juno lowered her pistol and willed her heart to stop pounding. "PROXY, give me a damned warning before you do that."
"I'm s-s-sorry, M-Master." His mechanical voice stuttered. "I th-thought I had c-c-conquered this particular malfunction."
Since she'd repaired and reactivated PROXY, the droid had been periodically, and apparently unwillingly, activating his holo-shroud and taking the appearance of other people. He'd taken the forms of Vader, Princess Leia, Bail Organa, Rahm Kota, Juno herself, and even Starkiller, which had been most unwelcome during the heart-aching period when she'd thought him dead.
Holstering her weapon, Juno said, "Maybe sticking pieces of broken droids into your system isn't the best way to fix yourself."
"P-Perhaps you are right."
"They might have a droid tech here, PROXY," said Starkiller, "They can take a look at you."
"Very well, though I d-doubt they'd be familiar with m-m-my model."
"Good thing we have plenty of partials they can get acquainted with."
Juno stepped between them, closer to Vader's cage. They'd moved the Sith Lord so he faced the raised and sealed landing ramp; Juno was glad not to have to look into his hideous mask. The constant rasp of his breath was bad enough.
"Alright," she grunted, "Let's get on with it."
She slammed the controls and the ramp creaked down. The exterior flight deck and sets of waiting boots came into view, but no one stepped closer. Starkiller took a remote control for Vader's cage in hand and directed it on mini-repulsors down the ramp. He, Juno and PROXY followed right behind it.
By the time the welcome party came into view, every one of them had weapons raised and shocked expressions on their faces, even the Nautolan officer in the lead.
Juno held up a hand. "All units, hold your fire. I'm Captain Juno Eclipse." With her other hand she tapped the rank insignia clipped to her belt.
The soldiers didn't shoot. They also didn't lower their weapons. The Nautolan wrenched his big black eyes from Darth Vader to her. "Captain… am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
"You are," she nodded. "This is Darth Vader in the flesh—
and the metal. We captured him during our raid on Kamino."
"We heard about Kamino. It just came through the wire. But Vader..."
"I'm sorry for the short notice, Commander..."
"Hiskar Yast," he replied, but didn't offer a hand to shake. Both were tight on his pistol. "This is my facility."
"I apologize for springing this on you suddenly. We needed to move Vader to the most secure place possible for his interrogation."
Yast's head tipped back to Vader. "You think you can get information from this… thing?"
"As soon as he's secure here I'll notify Alliance command. They'll send people to extract information from him."
Starkiller made an uncomfortable sound but added nothing. That was enough to draw Yast's attention, and the Nautolan's face went slack with renewed shock.
"That weapon… is that Vader's lightsaber?"
Starkiller had it hanging visibly from his belt. The two repaired weapons were kept in a sealed pouch right beside them. He and Juno agreed it was best for him to look relatively innocuous.
"For safekeeping." He put a hand on the weapon.
Yast looked back to Vader. "Is he… conscious?"
"We believe so," Juno said before Starkiller could answer. "I know this facility has many storage vaults. Can you please clear one we can use to seal Vader?"
"Yes, of course." Yast lowered his weapon, finally. His soldiers did not, and he didn't signal them at ease. He took out his comm but before flicking it on asked, "Are you sure that harness can hold him?"
"Durasteel cuffs. Magna locks. It's held him so far."
That was not a definite answer and everyone knew it. Yast said, "If you don't mind, once we get him in a vault, I'd like my chief engineer to take a look at it."
"I can look at it now," added a falsetto voice. The Aleena she'd seen earlier approached cautiously on stubby legs. His beaked head was tilted back as the stout engineer looked up at Vader's menacing, caged form.
"Never thought I'd see the day," the Aleena said, then glanced at the other new arrivals. "Specialist Krevkee. I'm a droid-maker by training but with our limited staff I wear a lot of hats."
"Ah, then you are just what I needed." PROXY shuffled forward. "Once you are finished with D-Darth Vader, m-my systems are in need of diagnostics. I hope you can advise."
Krevkee's big eyes took the droid in. "You must be rare. I've never seen the likes of you before."
"You're in luck then," said Starkiller, "because we've got a bunch more of him in our hold. Only those ones are in pieces."
"I am his creation," PROXY tipped his head at Darth Vader. Krevkee stiffened, but the droid added, "I am of course no longer in his service. Vader destroyed me, as he eventually does all his tools. Captain Eclipse rebuilt me, though my reassembly did not reestablish more core function, and I have been liable to errors since then."
Krevkee looked to Yast, then back to PROXY, then finally to Juno. "You people must have one hell of a story."
"You might even hear it someday," she said. "But first, let's get Vader to the most secure room you have."
"Agreed," Captain Yast said. He thumbed on his comm, made the call, and got everything moving. Starkiller handed off the cage's remote control to the Nautolan, the soldiers surrounded Vader with weapons still raised, and they slowly and carefully escorted him through the door, down the hall, and deep into the Furnace.
Starkiller watched them but didn't move feet to follow. Juno placed a hand on his arm and said, "It's done. We need to inform Rebel command and await their instruction." She paused. "Unless you're getting another… feeling."
"Nothing," he said, though his voice trembled from memory of his Force-vision. "If we're going to contact someone… call Kota."
"Why him, specifically?"
"A feeling. Plus, we still don't know how the Imperials found Salvation in the Itani Nebula. But I was with Kota the whole time before that, so I'm sure it wasn't through him."
"All right. Kota it is."
He was still looking at the door through which Vader had left. She reached out and stroked his hand, but he still watched the door. Vader was off their ship but they were still in his shadow. Juno supposed she'd been foolish to expect anything else.
But at least it was a start. Leaving Starkiller to himself, she removed her hand and walked back into the Shadow to do what had to be done.