Thanks Onimiman :)
Sioux: just a reminder that the Jedi Temple was built on Coruscant, blasted off into space in Face of the Enemy, and was refit by the Remnant in Dawn of Chaos. It has been on the run for a while and has finally settled on Zonoma Sekot for now. And I thought I was going a bit slow easing y'all in! Writing the memorial wasn't easy...that kind of stuff never is, so I appreciate that you felt some value in it.
Chapter 3: Discovery [[[[#]]]]]]]]=(=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Solo Quest dropped out of hyperspace near the shattered moon of Kessel and looped around it on course to the Maw. Consisting of hundreds of black holes all in the same area of space, the Maw created plenty of gravetic and temporal anomalies to set off more alarms in Jacen Solo's head than lit up on the sensor suite behind him. Once housing the Empire's most top-secret research and development centre on a large asteroid facility deep behind a series of black holes, the Maw had remained empty for many years. Knowledge of the Maw base had become far too widespread for anyone to use it as a secret base anymore...unless they knew what Jacen knew. The last time Jacen had been this close to the Maw was approximately a hundred years in the future and he had his crack-pilot great-grandson flying. This time, he had most of his family with him. Anakin and Allaya were far too young to be of any help, and even if Tenel Ka was any bit a pilot, her mind was still fractured from the abuse she suffered during her kidnapping. Even though months had passed since her kidnapping and torture, she still woke up screaming in the middle of the night or curled into a ball crying at the slightest trigger. Even though he saw glimpses of the strong warrior underneath the psychological damage, such as when he told her about the mission to take out Krayt and she encouraged him to go, he worried that he would never again see the same Tenel Ka he married.
As the ship drew closer to the dark space of the Maw, Jacen reached out with the Force and let it guide him to the path leading to the old Imperial base. About twenty minutes later Jacen received a message through the Black Vornskr background radiation communication unit – a clever design of Lowbacca's to use variations of background cosmic radiation to communicate in locations where discretion was warranted. To any other sensor package it would look like the black holes were distorting the space around them. To this piece of equipment, affectionately called the BRCU, the radiation said "Transmit your authentication code."
Jacen removed his Black Vornskr Corusca gem ring from his finger and placed it in a spectral analysis unit on the BRCU. The ring glowed a faint purple for a second while it was scanned. A few moments later navigation instructions appeared, directing him to the landing bay on the old Imperial Maw Installation.
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A stout angry-looking older man with a giant grey moustache greeted Jacen and Luke at the bottom of the boarding ramp of the Solo Quest. Without preamble, Jacen raised his right fist and activated the small holographic image of the Black Vornskr crest embedded into the Corusca ring. The older man displayed his gold ring and activated it in turn.
"So you're the abnormality we discovered," the man said, his angry demeanour all but vanished at the sight of Jacen's ring. "May I ask who you are?"
Jacen looked around the hanger to think for a second. He took in the activity of the hanger bay around him with some measure of interest. He noticed that nearly every ship was a fighter or troop transport – small ships that were, at most, three quarters the width of the Solo Quest. Everything looked heavily armed. Or, illegally armed, in some cases. He recognized at least one of the unorthodox modifications on an X-wing – quad particle accelerators instead of blasters. If the Bogan fleet decided to attack this location, it was in for a hell of a battle.
"You know who I am, Colonel," Jacen replied elusively. Despite the outfit Jacen took from his Dad's things that made him look like a smuggler, and the goatee he started growing a couple days before, only two rings like his own existed. Any true member of the Black Vornskrs knew to fear the wearers of those rings, or at least treat them with respect. At the same time, Jacen did not want to make unreasonable demands. "I need to contact Eriana immediately."
"Please follow me."
Jacen and Luke followed the colonel, who identified himself as Surs Klek, through the hallways and listened to a long narrative about the defenses the Vornskrs had put into this location. Most of the Vornskrs on this base were copper rings, the lowest rank, and were unaware of any Jedi ties to their pirate organization. Any Jedi that Jacen recognized around the base, like Kyle Katarn and Jaden Korr, were wearing casual clothing, more fit for pirating than defending galactic justice, and were given other rings to help them blend in. They practically ignored him, and they were granted the same courtesy.
Luke and Jacen eventually arrived in the main operations room, a giant circular room protected by a solid grey durasteel supported duracrete dome. Six evenly spaced hallways were connected to the room like spokes on a wheel leading to various areas of the base as indicated by a name over the archway. An outer walkway inside the dome surrounded a ring of technicians at computer terminals. In line with the six doorways were six paths toward the central area of the Ops room which consisted of a large holographic display of the Maw and every asset and ship within sensor range. Colonel Klek led the way around the outer walkway and proceeded down one of the corridors labelled 'Command,' stopping only to whisper a command in the ear of one of the technician. Through the door they found themselves in a small conference room alone with the Colonel.
"Eriana warned me you might show up," Klek said. "We'll have to fix that ring of yours if you're going to stay among the Vornskrs. I'll get my technicians to make up a Bronze for you. Keep that chunk of rock hidden from the regulars. We're not a Jedi base here, and we don't want to spook the lower ranks. Just seeing it creeps me out, and I know who you are."
"I need to talk to Eriana."
"Yes, you said that," Klek said with a hint of irritation in his voice. "I've put the call out. She's a very busy person. She might be a few minutes. This terminal will activate when she calls in. The call will be secure."
"Thanks," Jacen said and sat on the conference table. "One more thing – I want a full set. Copper, Silver, Bronze, Gold and Platinum for myself and two friends. Give me another couple other coppers and silvers too."
"What do you think we are, a jewelry store?" Klek snorted his disapproval. "We don't even have Platinum blanks. If I issued a Gold or Platinum, she'd have my head on a platter."
"Let me worry about Eriana," Jacen said, holding up his fist with the glittering ring on it. "You can consider that an order from your CO."
Klek disappeared and Jacen smiled to his uncle.
"She runs a tight ship," Luke remarked, crossing his arms over the blue mechanic's jumpsuit he decided to wear as a disguise. "The Vornskrs are loading up with some impressive weaponry. Not even the Rebel Alliance had access to the type of hardware they're packing."
"That's the benefit of being a pirate organization, I suppose," Jacen said. "Ideally we'd like to turn it into the basis of a rebellion, but the pirates aren't much of freedom fighters. If we can use it to fund and equip a rebellion without them knowing, that'll be good enough to start."
"And I thought we were through with rebellions," Luke said sadly. "We lost so..."
"Hey, guys," Eriana's voice came from the wall terminal interrupting Luke. "I hear you're looking for me."
"Hi Eriana," Jacen said somberly. "I have some bad news to report."
Her face hardened and she nodded. He suspected that she already knew at least half of his report.
"Dad had a stroke and...he didn't make it," Jacen reported with a heavy heart. He waited for Eriana to absorb the news, but continued before she could say anything. "And the entire Hapes cluster has been destroyed too. I barely got out with Tenel Ka and the kids. I need somewhere safe for them, and I know the Maw base is safer than anywhere right now."
"Absolutely," Eriana said, her moment of shock passed. "I heard about Hapes. I'm glad you made it out with the family. I'll make arrangements for them in our most comfortable quarters. Will you be joining them?"
"No," Jacen said. "I need you to join us."
Eriana sighed and looked to her left at something off screen. Her eyes settled on Luke after she read something for a couple heartbeats. "You're going after Krayt."
"He needs to be stopped," Luke said. "If we're going to hit him, we may as well hit him hard with our best fighters."
"The team will be us, Mara, Kyp and Octa," Jacen continued. "I don't think anyone else has a chance of surviving. Kyp and Octa are gathering intel on Krayt and will join us when we have a plan."
"They won't find much," Eriana cautioned. "I've been scouring everything I can to find stuff on him. However, Karrde sent me a report this morning placing one Darth Krayt on his personal Obsidian-class destroyer en route to Telos. That's what they're calling the giant double parallelogram ships that destroy everything in their path. The Telosians are putting up a hell of a defense and they're expected to hold out for quite some time, so Krayt seems to want to lead his troops into battle himself. I should be able to sneak us onto Telos through the Vornskr network, but we'll need some way of getting onto his ship when it arrives. His ship left Coruscant yesterday, so we need to leave today to beat him there."
"I've asked Klek to issue me some extra Vornskr rings to help us blend in among the lower ranks of the Vornskrs without rousing suspicion."
"Good call," Eriana replied. "I think I'll do the same, but don't bother with the Platinum. There are only six of them and any more would create suspicion unless you're planning on showing up somewhere with an entire fleet."
"Good point," Jacen conceded. "When can we come over?"
"Any time," she said and turned to the Grand Master. "Luke, whatever you do, don't let him fly. The gauntlet makes the rest of the Maw look like a walk in the park."
Luke chuckled, but said nothing.
"It's not a joke," Eriana warned him. "I don't even fly it. How is Tenel Ka doing? Any better?"
Jacen just looked at her with sad eyes and sighed. "She has her moments."
"She's strong," Eriana reminded him. "She'll pull through. It'll just take time. Don't worry, there's nowhere safer than here."
Jacen nodded and, to Eriana, looked uncharacteristically weak and confused.
"We should, um, go find Klek and collect the rings," Jacen said. "Thank you. For everything."
"What are friends for?" Eriana asked. "Tell Klek to give you a larcy module, too."
"I will. See you soon."
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The Millennium Falcon gracefully slipped through the atmosphere of Csilla under the command of her new pilot, descending toward the coordinates provided by the air traffic controller. Jaina's journey to the Chiss homeworld involved many stops and searches by the notoriously thorough and precise Chiss border patrols. As instructed by Luke and Jacen, and constantly reminded by Danni, Jaina made sure to clearly state her intention to speak with the office of the Chiss Expansionary Defence Force intelligence division as a representative of the Jedi Council without dropping any names. Each ship captain and commander she encountered accepted her credentials and sent her along. Even though she knew they had called ahead to forewarn the next commander of their arrival, she was treated as indifferently as the first time the Falcon was searched.
As the Falcon neared the designated coordinates on the surface of Csilla, a pair of large doors hidden under the snow levered open to provide a safe berth out of the elements. Jaina gently eased the Falcon into the berth, half expecting to hear the gut-wrenching sound of metal scraping as she landed her father's ship for the first time it was hers. The Falcon settled onto the ground as if it was landing on a pillow, and Jaina finally exhaled the breath she did not realize she was holding.
"Are you going to do that every time you land the ship?" Erinn asked tentatively, still not sure how much she could joke around with her master. At seventeen years old, and having only been among the Jedi for a year, Erinn was still learning protocol that other Jedi her age were exposed to from a much earlier age. Her introverted nature often kept her apart from other Jedi students on the few occasions she had met them, and all of her training was being done by Jaina.
"I'm used to X-wings," Jaina protested, oblivious to Erinn's apprehension as she quickly ran through the shutdown procedure. "The Falcon's a lot bigger."
The roof closed over the old YT-1300, casting the hanger bay into darkness until lights on the doors triggered on and illuminated the underground hanger with a soft blue glow. Two figures appeared at the entrance to tunnel at the corner of the hanger bay as Jaina finished powering the ship down, each in cold weather gear not too dissimilar to the outfits that she saw of her parents in from holos of when they were on the rebel base on Hoth. She grabbed her new LinkCom communicator from the charger on the dash, noted that the Chiss home world surprisingly had reception, and stuffed it into her pocket.
"How do you like the LinkCom?" Erinn asked. "That's the new one from Synergy Technology out in the corporate sector, right?"
"Yeah, it's nice," Jaina said as they exited the cockpit. "You can access the holonet almost anywhere. I don't know why they didn't think of it years ago. A graphical touch display to access data, having voice and written messages sent do your hand, a holoprojector to make calls, local maps that can tell you where you are, and you can play games on it. It even has a holocam on it. It's brilliant. Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara got them when they saw mine. Jacen said he didn't want one. He said the data plan costs too much. He can be a real tightwad at times."
Jaina and Erinn found Ben, Danni, Leia, Lowbacca and Threepio waiting for them by the boarding ramp, and Leia held out two heavy jackets similar to the one she and Ben were already wearing.
"You'll want these," Leia said. Danni was wearing a heavy sweater with the letters CU embroidered on the front, and Lowie looked comfortable in his own fur and his syren belt. Erinn and Jaina took the jackets and put them on without question. When Jaina finally hit the button to lower the boarding ramp, a cold blast of air rushed in and seemed to cut its way directly to her bones despite the added insulation.
"Danni and I will go first," Jaina suggested, barely suppressing a shiver. They marched down the ramp together followed by Erinn and Leia, and finally Ben, Lowie, and 3PO brought up the rear. The two Chiss that Jaina had noted earlier were waiting for them a few metres from the bottom of the ramp. Their red eyes glowed under their hoods which otherwise hid their faces from view.
"I'm Jedi Master Jaina Solo representing the Jedi Council on a diplomatic mission," Jaina stated, even knowing that they likely knew why she was there. "We'd like to speak to Director of Fleet Intelligence."
"The Director has been notified of your approach. Please follow us," one of the Chiss said curtly and started back toward the tunnel. Jaina glanced back to see her mom activate the Falcon's security system and the ramp start to close before setting after the two Chiss.
The tunnel itself flickered to life as soon as the party entered it. Immediately warmer inside, the Chiss removed their hoods and the Jedi unzipped their jackets. Force fields flickered on and off, following them as they walked through the tunnel, preserving the heat around them as they walked through the smooth tunnel bored through the ice centuries ago. The walls soaked in the blue lighting, giving the ice the reflective appearance of polished glass and allowing Jaina to see a ghostly image of herself staring back at her from inside the dark ice.
"So how soon can we see the Director of Fleet Intelligence?" Jaina asked as an uncomfortable silence stretched between them.
"When the Director is ready."
Exchanging glances with her mom, Jaina and Leia shrugged at the same time and made an unspoken agreement to not ask any more questions. Several minutes of walking in silence brought the party to a large underground dome that stretched up well over a hundred metres above their heads. Completely invisible to the outside world, the Chiss engineering marvel spanned over the incredible collection of beautiful cylindrical buildings towering above them, each one looking like a giant ice stalagmite stretching from the ground all the way to the dome that protected them from the frozen conditions of the planet above. Between the buildings flew many hovercars, skittering about their daily routines in neat orderly lines while people walked between the buildings.
"Here," one of the Chiss barked impatiently at the Jedi who were gawking at the city like stunned tourists. He pointed to a hovercar parked nearby and the group piled in. They all stared out the windows as they sailed between the tall buildings, marvelling at the simplistic beauty of the construction before them while Threepio inundated the silence with his fears about flying and questions about the structural soundness of the dome.
Before they knew it, the hovercar was landing in a docking bay about half way up one of the large bleak buildings and they were being ushered out of the hovercar.
"Three of you may go," one of the escorts said in a no-nonsense voice. "The rest must remain here."
"Can we bring the droid?" Jaina asked, gesturing to Threepio.
"'The droid?'" Threepio asked with an indignant tone. "Mistress Jaina, I protest your reference to me..."
"Only if he's quiet," the escort said, silencing Threepio.
Ben and I will stay here, Lowie offered.
"I'll stay," Danni said. "You guys go have fun."
Jaina shot her a look of annoyance – they all knew how "fun" the Chiss could be – and turned on her heel to follow their escorts.
They travelled through the hallways, all of which looked the same to Jaina as they trotted along. White doors and walls were accented with black tiled floors and door frames, each door evenly spaced down the length of the hallways that either curved to follow the shape of the large cylindrical building or ran straight like spokes on a wheel. The white doors were all adorned with the Chiss Fleet Intelligence logo and a title, but no names appeared on any of the doors.
At a door not unlike any other they had passed, the Chiss escorts stopped and stood on either side of it, silently taking up their positions without a word. Jaina translated the words "Director of Fleet Intelligence" on the door from her rudimentary knowledge of Cheunh and looked for a way to open it. Before she could ask, the door smoothly slid sideways, revealing the Director standing at the door.
"Hello, Jedi Knight Jaina Solo," Jagged Fel said. "What brings you to Csilla?"
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Klek escorted Jacen and Luke to the ring technician personally and gave her the order to issue one of each rank they had available to them. She was a cute, innocent-looking young human girl, maybe fifteen years old, but she knew her way through the computer system with deft ease and had all the rings prepared within ten minutes. Jacen felt a little bad about performing a memory rub on her to forget their interaction, but her black silver ring meant that she did not have the clearance to know anyone was authorized to have more than one rank amongst the Vornskrs. As they exited the technician's room he replaced the Corusca gem ring with the silver ring that denoted him as a Captain and told his uncle to put a bronze Major ring on. Together they found their way back to the Solo Quest, mostly by locking onto Mara and Tenel Ka's presences and homing in on them. The promised larcy module was waiting for him and, after loading it, they departed for Eriana's secondary base.
Heeding Eriana's advice, Jacen allowed his uncle to pilot the Solo Quest through the gauntlet of tight black holes. The tense five minute journey at top speed ended with the Quest bursting into a spiralled collection of fifteen thousand high-power turbolasers mounted together in a cylinder of potential destruction. Having transmitted the proper code, the turbolasers rested in standby mode and allowed the Quest to pass. Coming out of the tunnel of turrets, the large asteroid with the hidden Black Vornskr base came into view.
"It's impressive that they built all this using small ships to bring the parts in," Luke remarked. "No capital ship could ever get in here."
"The one place that Krayt's minions will never be able to touch," Jacen said. "Only Eriana's most trusted people even know about this location. Lowie told me that he and Ben put half this facility together themselves."
"The things your kids do when you aren't looking," Luke commented.
"Could be worse," Jacen said. "He could be doing deathsticks. Building secret bases in the war effort to usurp a Sith Lord seems a bit more...honourable."
Luke just rolled his eyes.
"Landing instructions are coming in," Jacen said and pointed at one spot on the asteroid. "Port seven. It's the one blinking yellow right there."
"Got it," Luke said and changed the ship's course. "It looks like they only have standard connection tubes for debarkation."
"Gravity interchanges would require a different setup," Jacen said. "It's a bit tricky going from ship to base, but easy enough if you know what to expect."
"I thought you hadn't been here before," Luke said curiously. He finally docked the ship against the designated port and activated the latching mechanisms.
"I went to a similar location not too long ago," Jacen said, avoiding the full truth of his time travel. "Basically the same setup. Bigger than this one."
Luke put the engines into standby and powered down most of the nonessential systems while Jacen went to the airlock and finalized the pressure equalization. When the pressure indication light changed from red to green he opened the hatch. At the same time, the docking tube hatch opened, blasting Jacen with cool, fresh air. He hopped from the deck toward the tube, easily adjusting his fall to land on his feet with the change in gravity. Eriana was waiting for him alone. She stepped forward and embraced him.
"I'm sorry about your dad," she whispered.
"Thanks," Jacen whispered back and released her. "Is everything ready for Tenel Ka?"
"Yeah, but we don't have much here in terms of luxury," Eriana admitted. "The biggest luxuries we have are a good air purifier, lots of turbolaser turrets, and a crack doctor."
"We'll take it," Jacen said. "Can you get away for a couple weeks?"
"The admirals can take care of things while I'm gone," Eriana said. "Don't worry, we're all anxious to see Krayt buried."
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"Jag?" Jaina blurted, all thoughts of their mission forgotten at the sight of the tall handsome man who had flown on her wing during the Yuuzhan Vong war. She blushed when her mind immediately rushed to the last time she had heard him use her full formal title - a very informal celebration that had taken place in her bunk aboard Admiral Kef'rey's command ship right after the end of the war. "You're the Director of Fleet Intelligence?"
"This isn't a good time for stupid questions," Jag said loftily, ignoring her embarrassment. "Garkin, Horcha, please find our guests accommodations in the diplomatic suites at the Bsetahah K'un'cin'i. I'll visit when I'm free."
"Yes, sir," one of the escorts said - Jaina could not tell if it was Garken or Horcha – and the door slammed shut in Jaina's face.
"But..." Jaina sputtered, barely noticing that Leia had taken her hand and was pulling her along the hallway following one of their escorts. It took until they were half way to their ride that Jaina recovered the ability to speak.
"How could he do that to us?" Jaina finally asked.
"It was a pretty high level meeting we were interrupting," Leia said as quietly as she could, even though she knew their escorts were monitoring every word. "He'll come to us when he's ready."
"I think a better question is," Erinn smirked. "How could you have slept with that guy? He's colder than Hoth."
Jaina whipped around and looked at her apprentice with horrified anger, startling Erinn, but Leia's unsuccessful attempt to hide a laugh behind her left hand caught Jaina off guard. She turned to snap at her mom, but she noticed that the two escorts were also laughing at her expense, finally having broken their stoic fascias. Only Threepio's look of ever-puzzlement saved Jaina a shred of her dignity.
"He's not that bad," Jaina snapped, her face turning bright red. She turned around and marched past the escort, deciding to lead the way back to the hanger as quickly as possible.
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