Shall we go now? Ship asked its human male Sith pilot, Dubloch Velk, who knelt near the front of the Sith Meditation Sphere.
Yes, Velk replied telepathically. No doubt the Jedi will send another to investigate what happened to the one we just killed though.
And no doubt they'll send more than just one, Ship responded. And it may be more than I can handle.
True, Velk thought. You think it's time to return to Korriban to see what happened?
Why would I not?Ship retorted.
Then let's go, Velk thought.
With that, Ship began traveling away from Reonoq to exit his gravity well before jumping into hyperspace.
As the Sith Meditation Sphere allowed for the blue of hyperspeed to pass it by, it left Velk alone with his thoughts. He and Ship both felt the sudden deaths of Darth Krayt and several other fellow members of the One Sith; Velk didn't doubt for a second that the Jedi were involved somehow, even in spite of what they just suffered days earlier in the Reo system. That was why Velk thought that he and Ship, who hid near an area of Reonoq that the Killiks hadn't inhabited, should stay and kill at least some of the Jedi task force that would no doubt come to back to assess what the Chiss did to Thuruht after they left. It was curious that they only sent one Knight, but regardless, Velk had nothing to complain about there.
Still, despite the satisfaction he got from slaying that Jedi with Ship, he obviously couldn't let that overcome the apocalyptic sensation he felt when Krayt and the others died. It was bad enough when Vestara, a former member from the Lost Tribe of the Sith, just like Velk, who was right around her age, perished somewhere else in the Outer Rim. Velk, like his late friend Ahri Raas, who died years ago as part of the strike team against the Skywalkers, which Vestara herself was a part of, aboard Sinkhole Station, felt attracted to the scar-tainted girl ever since they all reached adolescence. It was a shame that she ultimately fell for the younger Skywalker.
One way or another, Velk thought, the Jedi would pay, not only for the deaths of Krayt, the Lost Tribe, and the One Sith overall, but especially for Vestara.
.
Within six hours of General Fel's return from Tenupe with the remainders of his fleet, he sent out a request to the Chiss Phalanx Council. The request was that half the members of his fleet would transfer positions with half the members of the rest of the Ascendancy fleet over Csilla. Normally, such a request would be questioned by all members of the Council, but all it took was a slight psychic nudge on the individual effort of ThurSolo, who, while a mere system away with the Killik members of the nest, was still able to use her overall connection to Thuruht as a mental bridge, thus allowing her abilities to at least manipulate the Council members into approving Fel's request; had she been in the same system, her manipulation could have been stronger, but as it was, the dilution due to distance was something of a hindrance.
Regardless, once the acceptance of the request occurred, it took roughly three more hours for listings of individual members of the orbital fleet to sort everything out before the transfers could actually take place. An hour after the listings were complete, the shuttles that would ferry the unquestioning Chiss soldiers to their new postings launched. Not a single one of them ever knew that they were falling for a Killik trap, nor did any of them have a clue that their secretly hive-minded brethren would only spread that trap.
Upon arrival to the other Star Destroyers, they proceeded to their new postings that didn't differ from their actual functionality. But before any of them reached those postings, they were all assaulted by fellow Chiss who made them sniff cloths of concentrated Killik pheromones. All it took was one inhale from these cloths for each individually-assaulted Chiss, and they were instantly part of the Thuruht hive mind.
Likewise, for those Chiss already part of that hive mind and who were proceeding to their new postings elsewhere, they attacked their individually-minded brethren where they could, without total risk of failure, and made them inhale the cloths of Killik pheromones, making them part of the hive mind in an instant. It took almost two hours for the hive-minded Chiss aboard the other Star Destroyers to complete the process of turning their fellows into Joiners.
It wouldn't be long before those on the surface, including those in the Phalanx Council, would be part of Thuruht.
.
Team Jacen's Imperial shuttle dropped out of hyperspace within the system that Zonama Sekot occupied. Almost immediately, they were hailed by the planet, and Jacen, who was piloting with Nom Anor as copilot and Onimi as navigator, opened up a frequency.
The hologram who responded took the form of Magister Danni Quee. Her initial apprehensive look was quickly replaced with shock. "Jacen! I-I thought you were dead!"
"It's a long story," Jacen said. "But basically, you're right that the Jacen of this reality's been dead for about four years now. I'm from another reality, along with my friends." Onimi and Nom Anor waved at the hologram in greeting. "Anyway, Danni, Onimi, Nom Anor, and I are all looking for a dark presence who Onimi and I traced here."
"Ah, yes, I know who you mean," Danni said in a solemn tone. "We've been told to wait for three people we would not expect to help him."
"Help him?" Jacen asked, concerned.
"Come on down and you'll see what I mean," Danni said before cutting off communication.
.
After the shuttle landed and was parked a few klicks outside the Yuuzhan Vong village of La'okio, Jacen, Onimi, and Nom Anor all walked down the boarding ramp to be greeted by Danni, Ben Skywalker, and two droids that the trio of new arrivals were unfamiliar with.
But when Jacen reached out through the Force, he knew that this wasn't Ben.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The Sith who possessed Ben's body smiled malevolently. "An ancestor of yours," he said. "Of sorts, anyway. I am Darth Plagueis, Master of the one you knew as Emperor Palpatine and the one who manipulated the midi-chlorians to create Anakin Skywalker, your grandfather. In a way, Jacen Solo, I am your great-grandfather." Plagueis executed a bow of introduction.
"Not in this reality, buddy," Jacen countered. "I don't know about who was my great-grandfather on the maternal side, but I sure know it ain't you in this dimension."
"Maybe not," Plagueis replied. "But in either case, you three are here to help me."
"Help you with what?" Jacen asked.
"To save the galaxy, of course," Plagueis answered, his smile still devious.