Galen was sitting by one of the many terminals that was spread out through the Jedi library. He was gazing through it and flipped through the files that were on the terminal searching for the one that he wanted.

He always did this before a big mission, always buried himself in a book or a terminal and loved to reflect and review on history. And the history of the current government.

It always put things into perspective.

Especially given that he felt something, something just beyond the edge of his perception. A dark storm cloud was just over the horizon, he could not see it, could not make it out, but he knew it was there. And it made him shiver.

But he went back to the terminal and continued to skim through the files, and viewed the themes in history.

A Jedi Librarian came up behind him.

"Master Zaun, may I help you with anything?" She asked concerned.

"No I am doing fine." He smiled up at her.

She left and went back on to check on the other Knights in the room.

He sighed and then stared at the screen, until he found the file he wanted, he highlighted it and then selected it bringing it up.

Recent history was what he was focusing on.

After the New Republic was formed and fought the Vong, the Empire, and many other governments and threats over the course of nearly a century, eventually the strain was just too much.

The Government fractured and the people formed local governments. Right down to the Planetary level. Galactic government was scorned and hated by many people, there was no Jedi, or no authority on that level. A few planets formed coalitions.

Eventually Imperial Forces formed and forcibly tried to unite the Galaxy, freedom loving coalitions formed and more planets banded together to fight the threat. Until a stable Republic was reformed, and the Jedi order was recreated.

And then went back to serving the people as the guardians of peace.

Several wars, piracy and bounties broke out through the years, but eventually the Galaxy was more or less secure. As secure as it ever was.

And out of this feeling of good times came the reinvigoration project, re-colonizing many of the worlds ravaged of late, and then the inter galactic hyper drive project.

The Jedi went to the other neighboring galaxy with the Republic and found it oppressed, and divided, they came in and after wars fought, slowly started to unite it. Only just doing it if they wanted it, carving out their own niche.

That was about three hundred years ago. And since then peace mostly reined, and the Republic went to more domestic concerns, only exploring the shallow ends of the Galaxy. Not going much beyond its own outer rim.

Of course beyond that was unknown, only rumors and myths that much of the evil went there to hide and bide their time, but that was unconfirmed.

Zaun sighed to himself.

Apparently it was not such a rumor after all, something was obviously stirring, though it was not a time for supposition, but cold hard facts, he needed to find out what was going on and what was happening.

So he had to find out what it was and get to the bottom of it, assigned to by the council. And again he could not shake the feeling that this was merely the start of something. That what he was starting would change things.

And he got a pang of conscience that his son may grow up in this world.

Well it was his duty to try and head it off at the pass, and stop it before it got any worse.

And of course he was not alone in doing so. The order was stronger then it had ever been in recent history.

There were now over four thousand eight hundred and twenty seven Knights.

Two thousand two hundred eighty seven Masters. That number included the council.

Now over one thousand padawans that were currently apprenticed, and another eight hundred of them that were waiting in the wings.

And countless younglings, and other personnel throughout the order that was apart of its many centers throughout the Republic.

Though they did not have much help. They were again pretty much responsible for the peace and security of the Republic at large.

The Republic military was only a token force and the majority of its equipment, training, and tactics was over three hundred years old.

And while the Republic allowed for a Planetary Guard that was responsible for the majority of the defense of the planets. And specifically the Core Worlds like Kuat, Deneba, and a few of the others banded together and formed a military defense alliance that rivaled the fleet that was the official Military.

The few of the notable exceptions were Corellia that valued its independence and its home guard status too much. The other major system was Coruscant, who had as its protection the bulk of the Military.

However, most of the Defense Forces were parade forces. Ceremonial forces, they could not react. Most of them were not responsible for police work, most of them could not, and did not want to invade any other planet.

So they were relegated to a tourist trap, to parades, and to reenactments of battles past of the Clone Wars and the Vong Conflict. That was also the way most of them got their training.

Now the one thing that was going for the Republic and its guard was that they had massive stockpiles and reserves of firepower, supplies, and equipments, and while most of them needed to be updated they had enough to make a fight of it.

They were placed all throughout the Outer Rim in giant depots guarded by Regiments of soldiers, and other stockpiles.

The final bit of the military situation was that their plans were being constantly being updated.

Even though the Politicians had dropped the Military, the Military had not forgotten about the Politicians.

Throughout all of this though the Republic was suffering a massive recession, were many people were out of work, and Planetary economies were coming to a halt.

Even in the Core with Corellia and Kuat being the hardest hit. Corellia not because of its market policies, but because they were a heavy importer of goods.

While the Kuat Drive Yards just did not have any business with several shipping companies going out of business, and the Military moving their efforts to places like Mon Calamari, Fondor, and even Ord Mantel.

This left local governors in quite a bind and left governments all over scrambling what to do about it. Though in the event of a crisis Kuat's facilities were likely to be the first to get their military contracts back.

The only ones slightly benefiting from this was the Hutts, but even they were really feeling a pinch in some areas. Still not recovering from the last one thousand years.

This contributed to create a tense and complicated political climate that left all sectors of the Republic on edge, especially on the Outer Rim of that New Galaxy, exploration was put on hold, except for a few brave private individuals. Most of them did not make it back.

All of this could be contributing to his mission. It was easy to understand why he had an uncomfortable feeling about what was going on.

All this situation needed was a match, some people were looking for that excuse. Not to say that there was not a legitimate threat out there.

This made his mission of the gravest importance.

He checked the time code on his terminal and saw that he was running late, he logged off, got up, and then said good bye to the librarian as he left the room.

He got to the fighter bay and stroked his droid. "Well, R-9, its time for us to go."

His droid twiddled at him sadly.

He got in the fighter and ran the pre flight checks.

"This is Jedi Master Zaun to control requesting permission to take off."

"This is Control Tower Jedi, you are clear to launch, take any vector away from traffic that you want they are all clear." A thick voice said to him.

"Thank you." Master Zaun said smiling, revving his fighter up and blasting off for deep space.

The Outer Edge of the Galaxy

His fighter shot out of Hyperspace and swooped in to position right by the edge of the hyperspace ring. In the distance was an ore freighter parked waiting to go through one of the larger hyperspace nexuses.

This area of space was an anomaly, and thus it allowed intergalactic hyper drive. It was a combination wormhole, subspace tear, an anomaly, and it was tapped into by special Hyper Drive rings that allowed you to shoot at high speed, penetrate the energy sheath of the Galaxy, and go to any similar location in the other galaxy.

He docked with the ring, waited for it to power up, and then hit the button. He blacked out as he accelerated.