A little cliffhanger at the end of chapter 1? Here's what happens!

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Chapter 2: Old and New Collide!

Mara let loose several Huttese curses as she unbuckled herself, grabbing her toolkit in the Force while opening the hatch to the hyperdrive. She began barking out orders to the young Jedi. "Kat, I'll need your help in fixing the hyperdrive, because if that goes, then we're about as screwed as the old Jedi were under Order 66. Noslen, you keep the Shadow steady. This ride is gonna be bumpy."

"Yes Master," came the automatic response from both of them. All three of them could sense the danger of this particular hyperspace journey, though a non-Force user could have just simply looked out the viewport and known something was very wrong. In addition to the blue tunnel that was the normal appearance for hyperspace, there were streaks of green, purple, and red among the blue. It made for a colorful display, but the rattling and shaking of the Jade Shadow as it traversed through hyperspace took away any cheer that might've come from it.

"You don't think Grand Master Skywalker is going to be mad at us for taking his wife through this misadventure, do you Kat?" Dan asked jokingly.

"As long as we get back in one piece, I'm sure Farmboy will be happy to see us," Mara shouted from the maintenance pit, "Katerina, pass me that flux capacitor." The work was quiet, tense even for several moments, the only sounds being the rumbling of the Jade Shadow, the complaints of the injured hyperdrive, and the mechanical sounds of a Jedi Master working hard to fix her ailing ship.

"Wish we had an astromech with us right now," Kat grumbled as she worked alongside Mara. The work had left several grease smudges all along her arms and face. A coupling sparked in her face, prompting a Corellian curse to fly from her lips.

Mara chuckled. "This does seem like a job for Artoo, he has a knack for fixing hyperdrives. Still, he's with Luke, so we have to make do by ourselves. Pass me the soldering rod." As Mara began to create a new circuit, Dan was watching the flashing lights outside. He had never been one to appreciate the arts. Training took too much time for that. But the Force was telling him to watch, and so he did. To his surprise, a letter in Basic appeared in front of the viewport. It lingered there for a moment, cycling through the colors visible to humans.

"There's a bad joke in there somewhere," Dannard muttered to himself, grinning despite the grim situation, "But 'D's don't just float around hyperspace for no reason." He wrestled with the controls briefly as the Jade Shadow rocked, tilting towards the multicolored walls that would've ended their journey permanently if not for his actions. He'd heard tales of what happened to those whose ships were unfortunate enough to touch the hyperspace walls from Kat. The witnesses on the other ships had described it as a slow disintegration of the ship and the beings inside. It was safe to say that the young Jedi was not a fan of being disintegrated. Dan kept the ship within the hyperspace tunnel, not without difficulty, but still on course. The letter faded from sight out the viewport, only to be replaced by another letter. The odd process repeated four more times, Dan keeping track of each letter.

"D….I….S….N….E….Y" Dan noted as each letter passed. He waited for more letters, but none were forthcoming. "What is that supposed to mean?" He glanced back at the open hatch where Mara and Kat worked. "Hey, Master Skywalker?"

"Now is not the time!" Mara called back, pausing in her mechanical work. "Unless we're all about to die, then it's definitely the time! I'd like to send a last message to Luke and Ben before joining the Force if that's about to happen." With that, she resumed fusing the two lines together, her quick reparations almost done.

Dan grinned. "Nothing that serious. I'm just wondering if either of you have heard of something called Disney."

Kat poked her head out the hatch, her work on the hyperdrive done. "Disney?" she repeated slowly, the unfamiliar word sounding weird to her mind. "Where'd you come up with a word like that?"

Dan grimaced as he briefly fought the controls once again. "It's weird, but the word formed in the tunnel outside."

Kat looked at him weirdly as she plopped down in the copilot's chair. "Words don't just form in hyperspace tunnels."

"This one did."

In the maintenance hatch, Mara held up two wires, ready to finish her repairs. "This should do it." She connected the two wires and the effect was immediate. Kat watched as the flashing colors faded back to their normal blue, the Jade Shadow's rocky journey smoothing out. Dan no longer had to wrestle with the controls and relaxed.

"Nice work Master!" Kat called back to the Jedi Master. "We're good to go!"

"Like there was ever a doubt," Mara said nonchalantly as she left the maintenance hatch. "I'll be needing a sanistream in a bit, but our hyperspace journey should be safe." She motioned Dannard out of the pilot's chair and took her spot, smudges of grease marking her frame. "How long before we exit hyperspace?"

"About 15 minutes," Dannard replied, "We should be coming out in the Aleemian system, which according to the last reports I read about it, it's a nice planet, if uninhabited by sentient species."

"Stang," Mara cursed, "It'd be nice to have a place where we can make more permanent repairs to the hyperdrive." She sighed. "Well, I'm going to use the sanistream to get this gunk off me, I leave it to you two to begin plotting a course back to Coruscant." With that, she retreated to her quarters, eager to get cleaned. The two Jedi up front shared a glance.

"Well, talk about a crazy day," Kat commented after a few minutes in silence, "We wake up as apprentices, freezing our tails off on Hoth, now we're actually Jedi Knights on a misadventure with Master Skywalker."

Dan met her chocolate brown eyes. "Yeah, we've come a long way since slumming it on Coruscant, surviving the Vong, ever since Master Hamner found us, it's been nothing but training for the past decade or so."

"And getting your butt kicked by several people stronger than you," Kat pointed out with a sly smirk. "Including a certain Wookie."

"Hey, I wrestled Lowie to test my strength," Dan said defensively, "And what better way to see how strong I've gotten than against a Wookie? Master Sebatyne got a good laugh out of it at least."

"As did most of the Temple," Kat said with a laugh. "Meanwhile, I was learning more practical stuff while you got beat up by Barabels and Wookies."

That got a raised eyebrow out of her friend. "You forget how I beat you in our sparring matches nearly twice as often as you beat me."

"Just because you're the better warrior doesn't make you a better Jedi," Kat countered. "Grand Master Skywalker told you that old story about Yoda, how 'wars not make one great.' Right after he took your sparring offer and whooped you easily."

"Like anyone can compare with the Grand Master," Dan snorted, "Can you recall the last time he was bested straight up in a Duel?"

Kat thought for a moment before shrugging. "I don't know, but he always seeks alternatives to fighting." She took a moment to ponder some more. "He told us the story about how Vader thrashed him on Bespin, but I can't think of any other stories where he lost without some form of trickery or deception."

"Exactly, he's helped me several times to become strong in the three lightsaber forms I've chosen to study," Dan explained.

"Ataru, Djem So, and Juyo, all to complement your Jar'Kai techniques," Kat said dismissively, though Dan sensed that his friend's 'dismissiveness' was all in good humor. "Yeah, yeah, so I've heard. He's helped everyone with their lightsaber techniques when he's not saving the galaxy."

"Yeah, I mean, he brought the Order back from near extinction, we have to be strong to survive," Dan continued, "Part of being a Jedi is being strong enough to protect those who can't protect themselves. That's why I focus so much on becoming stronger."

"But there's more to being a Jedi than being strong," Katerina argued, "But not everything can be solved by fighting. A lot of situations can be solved with diplomacy or a subtle Force nudge."

"You both make valid points," Mara interrupted them. The young Knights turned to greet her as she emerged from her personal quarters. Her hair was still damp from the sanistream, Mara was dressed in her form-fitting hunting outfit, a black short-sleeved tunic and black pants lined with several pockets containing several helpful items. She strode forward and sat down in the pilot's chair, preparing her little lecture. "A Jedi needs to be strong to defend others, it's true, but it's also true that pure strength isn't really necessary to becoming a good Jedi. There are many ways a Jedi can do good for the Galactic Alliance without fighting. A great Jedi will find the balance between both methods. You two can learn a lot from each other if you work together. Dannard, you need to work on the gentler parts of being a Jedi. I don't expect you to become the Negotiator, but you need to focus less on training your skills as a warrior and more on working with people across the galaxy." She turned to Kat, who was nodding knowingly. "And you Katerina. Though you've shown great promise in using the Force in noncombative situations and your skills in both Soresu and Makashi are coming along, thanks to your sparring sessions with Dannard by my estimation, but I know several apprentices who could defeat you straight up, not to mention I recall your failure to defeat the training droids I sent against you not too long ago!"

"But Master, ten against one was hardly fair odds!" Kat protested.

Mara gave her that knowing look that Kat held a firm dislike for. "Jedi rarely have fair odds to begin win. You should've seen some of the odds we had to face during the Vong war. Those were grim odds, but we persevered and managed to free Coruscant and the galaxy from the Vong."

"That was a wonderful day," Dannard agreed, eyes glazing over briefly as he recalled the liberation in his mind's eye, "Trying to survive the terraforming of the Vong, scrambling each and every day to survive, when you finally kicked the Vong out, it was like we could finally relax. Then Master Hamner found us about a week later and we began our training. Now look at us!"

"Yes, Jedi Knights in full," Mara agreed, "However, you still have much to learn. We all do. It's a never ending journey for knowledge." A blinking on the console ended her teachable moment. "Looks like we're coming out of hyperspace." She reached for the lever and pulled it back, the blue tunnel of hyperspace streaking back into the familiar stars. The trio beheld a green and blue planet surrounded by a small asteroid belt.

Katerina blinked. "I don't remember this system having an asteroid belt. And what happened to its equator?" She pointed at the scorched trench that made its way around the planet. "Surely some tragedy big enough to cause such destruction would make the Holonet news at some point!"

"More importantly, I though you said this system was deserted Noslen," Mara said as she looked at her scanner.

"I did."

Mara gave him a glance. "Then why do my scanners detect a several starships on the planet, not to mention a base on one of the continents?"

Dan looked at the scanner, confirming Mara's statement. "I don't know Master, maybe it's a smuggler hideout?" His sheepish grin amused the former Emperor's Hand briefly, though there were questions that needed answering. Mara wasn't sure why, but the Force felt a lot darker now that they had exited hyperspace. The light that had suffused the galaxy, even with the recent Joiner crisis, was gone. She cast her senses out, trying to figure out why the Force felt out of balance. To her surprise, she felt the presence of her sister-in-law down on that planet, though something felt off about her as well. The last time she'd felt Leia, it had been this trained, burning light in the Force. Now it still felt like a bright light, but without the discipline that had been drilled into her by Master Sebatyne. What had happened during their journey through hyperspace?

"Master, I'm detecting several starfighters launching from the base on the planet," Katerina reported. Mara tried to get a sense of what was going on from Organa Solo, but she only got confusion and bewilderment from her, not an inkling of recognition coming from her. Mara tried to send reassurance to her, but found herself being rejected and shut out. Mara frowned, wondering why Leia would react so coldly to her. Only adding to the confusion was the arrival of several X-Wing starfighters.

"Hasn't the Galactic Alliance done all it can to prevent X-Wings from being used by smugglers?" Dan asked, looking at the readouts. The comm came to life as the snub fighters hailed them.

"Unidentified Sorosuub Star Yacht, you better give us a good reason why you're here," one of the X-Wing pilots said. Kat noted that it came from the X-Wing with the orange paint job.

"X-Wing pilot, I think its best you know who you're dealing with," Mara replied.

"If you're with the First Order, I'll be happy to blast you out of the sky and get rid of a few more radicals," the pilot said, "You have ten seconds."

Mara frowned. "I don't know what this First Order is, but I promise you, you don't want to blast Mara Jade Skywalker out of the sky. The Galactic Alliance would never let it stand and my husband would leave pieces of you from here to Hapes."

There was silence for a moment from the pilot. "Lady, I have no clue what you're talking about. There hasn't been a Skywalker seen in the galaxy for years and whatever this Galactic Alliance is, it's the first I've ever heard of it."

Mara was surprised by his words, the two Jedi sitting next to her too stunned to speak. Mara retained her composure. "Have you been sucking space? The Galactic Alliance was the only thing keeping the galaxy from being overrun by the Yuuzhan Vong!"

"What in the nine Corellian hells are you talking about?!" The pilot's voice was incredulous. "What's a Yuuzhan Vong?"

"These smugglers have got to be on spice or something," Dan gaped, staring at the speaker. "I mean, I know the Aleemian system is out of the way compared to the rest of civilization, but even they had to hear about the Vong!"

"Smugglers?!" the pilot repeated, laughing now. "You're the ones who're on spice. No, you're coming with us to the Resistance base."

"Resistance?" Mara repeated. The Force told her that this guy believed he was telling the truth, so she couldn't make sense of what this pilot was saying. "Alright then, I'll bite. Take us down to Organa Solo and we'll talk about what's going on."

"Organa Solo? Don't you mean General Organa? Just follow us down, and if you can somehow make sense to the General, we might just let you leave unharmed."

Mara snorted gently as she ended the transmission. "I'd love to see you try make good on that threat."

"Master, what's going on?" Katerina asked, baffled emotions rolling off of her and her friend in waves. "We weren't in hyperspace that long, were we?"

"As far as I can tell, we weren't," Mara answered, though even she hesitated a moment. "Once we meet up with Organa Solo, hopefully we'll get some answers." In her head, she added 'I sure hope Luke and Ben are alright.'

Holy exposition conversation Batman! Yes, I have OC Knights, but I don't want them becoming the focal point of the story. That role is designed for Mara. I realize that I can't do a full insert of The Force Awakens, because there's no way to fit them in the opening scenes logically. No, Mara's come in the middle of the movie, luckily for her she came out of the dimensional hyperspace tunnel by the Resistance base and not some First Order base, right?

So here we are in the Disney-verse. Let the confused stories begin! We're going to get our first look at the new canon cast next chapter!

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Let me know in a review, as I'm always looking to improve as an author.

Until the next chapter my friends!

From your Nutty Buddy,

The Eagle Nut