Out of the Unknown

by axellon2008

Naruto discovers a crashed starship outside his village and his life is forever changed. Under the unorthodox tutelage of a Sith Lord's spirit, he will learn the technology and history of a larger galaxy that he, and no one else from his planet, ever knew existed.

2. Chapter 2

AN: I don't own Naruto, or Star Wars

44 BBY – Current Year

AN: I put a link to a picture of the ship in my profile, so everyone can see what the starship actually looks like.

x-x

Chapter II: The Ship

A few weeks after the previous chapter

x-x

Naruto managed to sneak out of the village again. It wasn't really as hard as he thought it would be. He imagined that the gate guards would ask questions or something but the ninja sitting in the booth at the gate really didn't care.

Making his way back to where the ANBU had found him, Naruto again found the lake that he had fallen into several weeks earlier. He had spent nearly all his free time since then learning to swim and practicing. He even practiced holding his breath in his tub. After initially learning how to properly swim, he then practiced diving as he would need to dive down pretty far to determine exactly what the blinking red light was. He wasn't sure how deep the lake was but he prepared as best as he could for this moment.

Taking off his clothes, he was left in a pair of bright orange swimming trunks. Looking over the area, he found it looked very different from what he had remembered. He decided to swim over to the cliff that he had fallen off of, rather than try and jump off of it again. It took a while to get adjusted to the water as it wasn't very warm but he managed. He had brought a glow stick with him so that he could see better when he was diving. It was currently in his pocket.

Getting in position near where he had fallen off the cliff weeks previously he tried to prepare himself for his dive and began a few breathing exercises while keeping his legs moving and himself above the surface. A few memories of his previous near-death experience went through his mind but he tried to put them behind him. He really wanted to find out what was causing that light. There were many different lights in Konoha but why would someone put one way out here, outside of the village, and in a lake? There were so many questions that he just couldn't get out of his head and he believed they would never leave until he finally found the answers our for himself. There was a good chance that whatever he would find was going to be a disappointment or that he would dive down and the light would be gone but he was still determined to try.

Taking two quick breaths in and out, he took one last breath in before he went under. His plan was to circle the area until he caught sight of the light. If he didn't see it then he would have to start diving down randomly to find out if whatever he saw was still at the bottom of the lake.

It actually didn't take long for Naruto to spot what he was after. It turned out that the light was still working perfectly and he could see it just as well as before. Naruto swam towards the blinking light but he had some trouble judging just how far away it was. Before he had reached it, he was already out of breath and had to surface.

Once reaching the surface, he took another quick few breaths and dove in again. This time he was determined to find what was there. Diving as best as he could, he neared the light and was finally able to make out what it was. What he found confused him. It was a long piece of metal that was sticking up off of what he assumed was the lake bed. The light was affixed to the metal on a small offshoot from the main rod. He inspected it as best as he could before he needed to get back to the surface for air.

Naruto floated on the surface of the water while he contemplated what he had found. It was a blinking light and it was underwater, but he didn't actually know what it was a part of and what it was doing there. The bottom of a lake seemed like such a weird place to put a light and he questioned why was it blinking in the first place. All the lights that he knew didn't blink unless they needed to be replaced. The rod that it was affixed to seemed familiar in some way but he really couldn't place it.

Naruto took another couple of breaths before diving down in the water again. This time he would find out where the rod was coming from. Swimming farther than he had before, Naruto ignored the light and grabbed the metal rod, allowing him to pull himself deeper then he had gotten before. Reaching the bottom of the lake, he took his free hand and tried to dig into the mud only to find that it was less than an inch thick and his hand encountered a very hard surface. Pushing the mud away he uncovered more of the surface. The rod was attached to this surface but Naruto was unable to gather any more information as he had to get more air.

Diving back down again, he tried to determine just how far this hard surface extended and used his glow rod to help him see. At least two hours of diving later, Naruto discovered that the surface that the light was attached to was completely metal and was rather large. It was somewhere around twenty to thirty meters long and had various interesting features along the surface. It had a big dish, a large pronged device, and several different shapes and irregularities. One side had several cylinders attached to it and Naruto had no idea what they did or what any of it did for that matter.

He couldn't believe that he had found something so cool.

Naruto had never seen so much metal in one place before and the fact that it was all part of a single object was incredibly to him. 'How in the world could someone have forged it?' was a thought that kept going through his head. Other questions soon followed. 'What was it for? What did it do? Did it belong to the village or somebody else? What was it doing in the water?' were just some of those questions.

Those questions however came to a halt on his final dive when he found glass at one end. There were several large pieces of glass and Naruto could even see inside. Whatever the object was, it looked hollow. He could see several seats inside but only darkness beyond that. He could also see a flashing red light on the inside that was the same color as the one on the metal rod.

The main question that went through Naruto's mind now was, 'How do I get inside?'

x-x

Naruto made his way back to Konoha before it got dark. He hadn't told anyone about what he had found and he didn't want anyone to find out about it. It was rather difficult to keep a secret like that when he wanted to blurt it out to everyone but he had his reasons. If it was a discovery then it would be his and his alone. He just had to find out what it was that he had discovered and if it was something of importance. He really hoped that it wasn't something that everyone already knew about.

Siting down at his dining room table, he took out his pencils and some paper and tried to draw whatever it was that he had found. The drawing came out looking like a gardening spade with cylinders attached to the handle but from what he had seen, that was somewhat accurate.

He wasn't sure what mysteries would be revealed by putting down what he had found on paper but it gave him a better understanding of where everything was and how it looked from a birds eye view. It was obvious at some point when he was diving that Konoha didn't have anything like what he had found. It was like some type of solid metal tube or something. 'Maybe a house.' as it was definitely bigger than his apartment. 'But why were those chairs facing the window?' he thought as it still didn't make much sense to him.

He picked up one of his chairs and brought it into the bedroom. Placing it facing towards the balcony he sat in the chair and stared out of the open balcony. It was a slightly similar setup as the object had. 'What would this accomplish?' he wondered. The object was underwater so there was no view or really anything to see. The chairs were all facing forward so it wasn't some kind of meeting room.

The only conclusion that he could come up with was that the object was not meant to be underwater but rather somewhere with a view. He thought about it being a boat but he had never heard of one that was completely made of metal, that didn't have a sail, or that couldn't float. A pretty useless boat it must have been and why would a large boat be doing in a lake that was miles from the ocean. He just couldn't think of anything else that it could be that made any sense.

He could have stopped in to see Hokage-jiji about it but he wasn't sure he wanted to. It was something that he wanted to figure out by himself and he didn't want anyone to know yet. If they knew, they might try to take it away from him or claim credit for finding it. It was painfully obvious that few people in the village liked him. They gave him cold glares, all the time. If whatever it was that he had found was valuable, they might claim that he hadn't found it or didn't deserve it.

Naruto always had trouble with money because most places would charge him more than what the items were worth but if he made a lot of money off this discovery, then he could buy whatever he wanted. In around a year he would be joining the academy and he would need all the basic ninja supplies and academy supplies, in addition to anything else that would help him and his ninja career.

He was finally getting tired so he decided to get ready for bed. Naruto thought about everything that had happened that day as he tried to fall asleep. Its not that he wasn't tired but his mind just kept coming up with different scenarios about the object. What it could be, what it could bring him, and how his life might change for the better because of it.

x-x

The next day Naruto slept in, mostly because he had so much trouble falling asleep. The only thing that he had thought of while trying to fall asleep was that, 'Whatever the object was, it was made for people to be inside it.' Based on that thought, he came to a logical conclusion from thinking of his apartment, 'It must have a door for them to enter and exit.'

When he finally did get up, he cursed as he had nearly wasted the entire morning and he had a lot of work to do. He had to reinspect the entire object and look for a door or some kind of opening. He didn't want to try and break the glass because then all the water would fill into the object. However, if there was a door, then water would fill into it anyway, so he kept that as Plan B.

He quickly got dressed and ate his usual three bowls of ramen. Making his way out of the village, he headed back to the lake.

x-x

Naruto had inspected most of the ship without finding what he was looking for. He didn't really know what kind of door there would be and since he hadn't found any knobs or any evidence of a door, perhaps he had been mistaken. However, even with this doubt he was still determined to find something and continued his search.

Most transport ships of that size had several different openings, that Naruto had no idea about. They had two docking rings on either side of the ship, an access ramp, and possibly a freight elevator or even a ceiling/top hatch. The docking rings didn't look like any opening Naruto had ever seen so he paid them no attention and he wouldn't have been able to open them anyway. The access ramp was on the underside of the ship, along with the fright elevator so he wouldn't have been able to even see them or get gain entry through them. .

Naruto finished inspecting the backside of the object. He had thoroughly looked at the large cylinders to see if they had an opening but the object was completely solid and nothing on it would give. After going back to the surface for air, he started inspecting the spade part of the ship when he found a raised circle of metal. A metal band was raised several inches above the area around it while the center of the circle was lower and completely smooth and flat. He took notice of it because the area in the circle had a seam running down the middle. He tried to grab or get his fingers into the seam in the metal but he couldn't. Grabbing onto the raised ring of metal to keep himself from floating back to the surface, his finger depressed some kind of button.

The seam in the metal opened immediately and Naruto was sucked inside the now open circle along with the water around him.

x-x

Everything was pitch black and Naruto couldn't tell whether he was upside-down or not. He was panicking and he was reaching the point when he needed air. Extending his arms outward, he groped in the dark and tried to feel his way around but found that he was in some kind of tube. He tried the ends of the tube but the opening he had come through was shut and the both ends were solid. He was trapped.

His eyesight slowly adjusted to the dark, only to confirm what he already knew. The tube was only about three feet wide and completely filled with water. He found where he had come through and frantically looked for a switch or some kind of button to let him out and back to the surface for air.

He however stopped when a faint blue light filled the tube. Turning his body, he saw that it was emanating from a small square on the wall. Not a moment later, a strange noise filled the tube. Naruto tried to determine where it was coming from but couldn't.

He was surprised and thankful when the water in the tube started to lower. Naruto quickly swam to the top of the water which was slowly dropping and took a much needed breath of air. The tube continued to drain until the water was gone and Naruto was left drenched but alive and sitting on the floor of the tube breathing heavily. When it was finished, the blue light turned off and almost instantaneously, part of the tube opened. Naruto stared out from the tube into blackness.

He was hesitant to move from the tube and waited for a unknown amount of time to see if anything else happened. Everything was quite and both inside and outside of the tube. Naruto shivered as he was still wearing just his swim trunks and still drenched while sitting on a cold metal floor. He decided that he would have to exit the tube and try to find a blanket or else he might freeze. Even his enhanced night vision had trouble seeing very far ahead of him. Everything was pitch black and he could make out only a few feet outside of the tube.

Getting up, he stepped forward to the opening and peered out. He couldn't see that much farther ahead of him and really couldn't make any shapes out in the dark. The air outside smelled rather stale. Naruto started shivering and decided that he had to do something. He took one step outside the tube and instantly something happened.

It started with a low hum and then lights started blinking before they fully turned on. Naruto jumped back into the tube. His senses were completely alert and his heart was racing. 'Was someone there? They must have heard him and turned the lights on? Was he in trouble?' were several of the thoughts going through his mind.

However, nothing happened. He waited as long as he could but nothing else happened. No voices, no other sounds besides a low hum of the lights and no footsteps. Peering out again he looked around the now illuminated room. It had many containers of varying size. Most of them were knocked over but some were still stacked. Several were opened and some contents strewn around the floor. He also noticed a metal device on the far side of the room but he had no idea what it was. It looked like it had a seat on it and handlebars.

The room was large and had two opening that lead into darkness as only the lights in the room he was in had turned on. 'Is anyone here? Why did the lights turn on?' he wondered but he didn't want to shout out because he could be trespassing.

After making sure that no one was around, he walked out of the tube and more thoroughly examined the room. The walls were metal, the ceiling was metal with various pipes and wiring, and the floor was metal too. It all seemed so strange to him. Picking one of the directions to go in, he stepped up to the opening and peeked into the partial darkness. He could make out what appeared to be a hallway but he couldn't see very far as the darkness shrouded most of it but he could make out a faint red blinking in the darkness. Remember the windows and what he had seen through them, he believed that this was that blinking light.

He moved into the hallway without thinking about it and the lights again turned on as soon as he went through the entryway. He was startled again and waited for a moment but nothing else happened. Deciding to continue, he slowly walked down the hallway and stayed to one side so that he could try and hide if needed. He also kept looking back the way that he came to make sure that he wasn't being followed.

He didn't have to go far before coming across two metal doors and a ladder. One side of the hallway had a ladder and a door while the other had just one door. He looked down and up the ladder and saw something but he wasn't sure exactly what it looked like. It seemed to lead to a small room but it was too dark to tell.

Going beyond that, he came to another pair of rooms on either side of the hallway. The one side had seating and a large table with chairs while the other just had some more storage. Moving along, Naruto eventually came to an intersection. Both directions lead to something but his attention was drawn to the blinking light ahead which now brighter than it had been.

He continued forward until he came to an odd door. It looked uneven and a large and thick piece of metal was lying on the floor. Something on the wall next to the door had been ripped open and exposed several wires. He entered the final room along the hallway and just like the other rooms, the lights came on.

Just like he saw from the outside while looking through the windows, there were several chairs. Two were facing forward towards the window while two others were positioned at an angle and faced some of the window. Moving over to the chair with the blinking light he examined what was there. Besides many different switches and buttons and a bunch of other stuff which he couldn't identify, there was one button that had the red blinking light above it. Without really thinking, Naruto reached out and pushed the button beneath the light. It turned the light off and nothing else happened. 'That was disappointing.' he thought and shivered again.

Walking out of the room he decided to explore the intersection. He chose one direction and followed it to four doors, two of which were open. Looking inside he could see alcoves for bunk beds in both rooms. Each room apparently was for two people and had a desk, what he assumed were closets or lockers, and a door to possibly a bathroom. Naruto moved into the room and ignored the light turning on as he went right for the blankets on one of the beds. He wrapped himself in them and tried to regain his warmth.

After what Naruto believed to be an hour. He had warmed up enough to stop shivering and find something to wear. Naruto got out of the bed and rifled through the closets. He found some socks and put them on but the boots he found were much too big so he put on a second pair of socks over the first pair. He borrowed a shirt and put that on and didn't bother looking for pants. The shirt was long enough that it nearly went down to his knees and almost covered up his swim trunks.

Exiting that room, he went to examine the other rooms. It seemed that only two had ever been used and the other two he went in, after figuring out how to open the doors, seemed to be used for storage. He left this area and went back to the main hallway and the intersection. Going down the hallway that he didn't take earlier, he found two rooms that were much larger than the others. They each had a larger desk, a sitting area and a bed. Naruto didn't look through what was there because he wasn't sure if anyone was currently living there or not. Upon examination, one room was rather messy and it looked more empty than any of the others. The closet was empty and things were strewn about as if someone left in a hurry.

Making his way back down the hallway he went to the two doors and the ladder. One door turned out to lead to a bathroom and he climbed up and down the ladder to find a chair with some handles and a screen. He really didn't know what they did so he left them alone.

Naruto went to the panel on the other door and pushed the button to open it. No sooner did it open then he saw something and qiocl;u hid along the wall of the hallway and out of sight. When nothing happened, he peered back in and saw what he did the first time, the outline of a person and a table. The person wasn't moving and looked to have their head bowed.

Not taking his eyes off the person, he stuck his hand into the room and moved it around, working on the theory that the lights turned on when someone walked in. The lights hummed to life and revealed what looked like a piece of metal armor. It was gray in color and had a helmet and everything. The 'table' was longer than it was wide and there was a glass tube on one side of the room with many cords and cables running to it from an open panel on one of the walls. He saw several instruments and devices which he did not recognize as well as boxes that filled up the room. Naruto calmed down as he looked closely at the 'armor'. It had thin arms and legs which Naruto found odd for a piece of armor and made him wondered how a person could properly wear it with those pieces attached the way they were. It also had a strange mask with a tube coming from it.

He stared at it for a while before he decided that it was too weird and he didn't want to look at it anymore. He shut the door and decided to stay away from that room and finish exploring the rest of the object. Walking down the hallway to where he first entered though that tube, this time, he went in the other direction that he didn't choose. He found it slightly disappointing that it didn't go very far. The opposite end of the hallway led to a couple of storage rooms, one room that had many seats but was empty, three doors that wouldn't open and seemingly led out into the water, and a single large room that had several devices and reminded him of the large cylinders that he had seen while swimming around outside.

He went back to the room with the table in it and sat down in one of the chairs. Thinking about everything, he came to several conclusions. The first conclusion was that no one was there. The second was that he still didn't know exactly what the object was. It seemed to be some kind of capsule-like home but he still couldn't think of a purpose for it. The third conclusion was that it didn't appear as if anyone had been there for a while. The air smelled 'old' and it seemed that someone who had been there had left, possibly in a hurry. The fourth and final conclusion was that since he discovered it and whoever had owned it had possibly abandoned it, then it now belonged to him.

x-x

Seeing as he believed that the 'object' was now his, he set about looking through everything on it in detail. He started going through all the containers that he could find in the large storage room. He found several different devices which he could not identify, clothing, what looked like survival kits, many different packages with writing and labels that he couldn't read, and what he thought were medical supplies or something of that nature.

He did find a few interesting things though and put them aside in a separate pile for him to further inspect later and take with him. Naruto looked through the room farthest from the glass and chair room but only found what appeared to be tools. Passing by and ignoring the really strange room he went to the bedrooms again. He looked at the smaller sets of rooms first. The less used rooms had some storage but none it was very interesting. It wasn't until he got to the used bedrooms that he found the interesting stuff.

An assortment of weapons were part of the contents of the closets as well as several dirty magazines and clothing. The weapons were mostly knives but a few had some kind of handled metal device. Naruto assumed they were weapons as they were placed in holsters that were attached to a belt. He had no idea how it worked though but wanted to find out.

Before Naruto could fatally shoot himself with one of the blasters, his gaze shifted completely as he noticed a few 'trinkets' at the bottom of one of the closets. They were partially buried under some clothes but a shine of metal caught his eye and he put the device he was holding down and went to look at the new objects.

Removing the clothes, he found a few books, some boxes, and two oddly shaped objects. He ignored the books and went right to the objects. The first was a cube that had metal on the edges and the same metal design on each side with blue glass filling in the rest of each side. He thought it looked like a piece of stained glass and inspected it thoroughly The second was a pyramid that was nowhere near as nice as the first shape, so he didn't touch it. It had two types of metal with different etchings and symbols carved into it.

The three other items that he had found were metal boxes. He opened one to find that it was empty, which was rather disappointing. He tossed the box over his shoulder and went on to the next one.

The second box was larger and more rectangular than the other two but locked so he couldn't get it open. There didn't appear to be a keyhole but several small buttons with unrecognizable symbols on each. Naruto thought it could have been a type of combination lock or something but he wasn't sure.

The third box was open like the first box but it was far from empty. Naruto's eyes widened as he saw the gold necklace that the box contained. It was some type of golden ornament on a gold chain. He lifted it into the air to inspect it and found that it was a little heavy and smiled at how much money he might be able to get from it, especially if it was solid gold. He had heard stories about treasured in buried chests and now he had found some.

Naruto picked up the necklace from the box and put it around his neck. It was rather heavy but that just made him think of the larger stacks of Ryo that it would bring him. He bundled all of the other smaller items together in a blanket so they would be easy to carry and started going through all the other rooms.

x-x

An hour or so later, Naruto had packed up several things that he had wanted to take with him. He was however confused as to how he would get them out of the ship without ruining them in the water. It was during this contemplation that he first noticed that he wasn't feeling very well. He ignored it at the time because he had just found a backpack that would hold all of the items that he wanted to take with him and it actually looked to seal shut and possibly be watertight.

While he was happy at his discovery, the feeling of illness made itself known again. It started as a headache, which he seldom got, about half an hour before but he didn't pay it any attention. He noticed that he was feeling muscle aches while he was packing all of the things into the backpack. It was when he was putting the pyramid shaped object into the backpack that he stopped as he felt warmth run down his top lip. Naruto wiped his nose and found that he was bleeding. He had nose bleeds before but never this much blood and it usually involved him picking his nose beforehand. Naruto was rather confused as to what was happening.

It was only then did he realize how dizzy he felt. Having no idea what was going on, Naruto started to panic. When he tried to stop the blood flow from his nose, he felt warmth coming from beneath his eyes. Checking his cheeks, he found blood there as well. Why were his eyes now bleeding?

Naruto fell to one knee as he started coughing and felt pain in his chest. He covered his mouth but when he removed his hand, he noticed that there was blood on it too. He was hyperventilating now but had no idea what he could or should do. For the most part, he froze. As his symptoms got worse, he suddenly had the feeling that the necklace was causing this.

Despite having no idea where that thought came from, Naruto still followed it. He took off the necklace which now felt rather hot and threw it away. Once it was removed, he did feel slightly better but he was still bleeding and coughing up blood. It now seemed to be coming out of his ears too.

Another thought came to him, which was to go to the room that he hadn't wanted to go back to. For some reason he had the feeling that he might be saved if he went there. Bracing himself against the wall, he stumbled down hallway to the room. He managed to make it to the door and hit the button on the panel to open the door.

He stumbled into the room but managed to grab the table to keep himself from falling. The only word he could get out was, "Help," before he collapsed to the floor. He let go of the pyramid shaped object when he fell and ti landed on the floor near the droid. Had he not been losing consciousness, he would have been surprised by the fact that he had still been holding it.

A moment later, the photoreceptors of the medical droid lit up. It found an injured boy on the ground and quickly went to work.

x-x

The disembodied spirit of Darth Plagueis watched as the medical droid placed the child into the bacta tank. He appeared as a dark apparition above his holocron. After being killed by his apprentice, his spirit had not gone over to the other side. His research and experiments into cheating death had allowed his spirit to remain in the world of the living after the death of his physical body. He had quickly analyzed the situation and attached himself to his holocron, which he had a connection with and which was hidden away in a secret alcove in his chambers. He quickly found that he had very limited abilities but could affect the physical world with his Force powers.

After the reactor was destroyed he had no idea how long he would have to wait until he would be found. He knew about the minor weapons smuggling operations on his planet but didn't know someone was there and were quick to arrive. He purposely unlocked the secret panel which hid some of his most secret possessions so that his holocron would be found as he was not able to move the holocron that he was now attached to.

Though he had no idea how he would accomplish it, Plagueis had begun plotting revenge against his apprentice for killing him and completely disrupting his work only a few minutes after the death of his body. His recent breakthrough on midi-chlorian manipulation was almost forgotten in his anger.

He hadn't counted on the scavengers breaking open the locked boxes that he had. They were locked for a reason as the contents were rather powerful and dangerous, even to himself. At the time he had no way to stop them as he had only recently been a spirit and had no control over his form. The crewman had opened the first box and put on the necklace that it contained and then opened the second and found its golden contents. The human had quickly hid the boxes and items to sell later and keep the money for himself but the effects of the necklace he was wearing were already starting to take their effect.

From what Plagueis had been able to discover, the necklace was for use in rituals and designed to enhance the dark side connection of its wearer. He had discovered it years before but hadn't had much time to study it. The effects that it had on a being that wasn't aligned with the dark side were immediate conversion. However, the effects on a being that wasn't even force sensitive were usually complete madness and conversion to the dark side.

The later had occurred in this case and the effects were stronger than Plagueis thought they would be. He had never worn the necklace as he could not determine if it would be dangerous for him to wear it or not. Many ancient Sith amulets were made for a single user and prevented others from using them. The method of prevention ranged from a curse, conversion to the dark side in the case of a lightside user, a plague, instant death, and possible possession if the amulet still had the essence of its creator.

Given these possibilities, Plagueis had decided to never wear the necklace until he was sure he could use if effectively and safely. The crew member was not able to handle the surge of the dark side Force energies and nearly killed everyone on board while setting the ship on some unknown course. At that point, Plagueis had been unable to act as the only remaining crew was the captain and he would have had to come into contact with the holocron in order to be possessed by him.

Instead, the captain had packed everything that he could into an escape pod and abandoned the ship. For the next seven years, Plagueis was trapped in the ship and left to ponder his own thoughts. During that time, he had realized that revenge against Sidious would give him nothing and that what had happened to him was not unique in the Rule of Two. He had become too immersed in his own work and not paid enough attention to the doings of his apprentice. He had strayed from the goals of the Sith in order to further his own research. Looking back, he was surprised that Sidious waited as long as he did before killing him. He was still angry about his apprentice not actually facing him but rather killing him in his sleep.

For those seven, he had waited in the tomb-like ship for someone to find him. The probability of being found was incredibly slim though. The ship was deep in the Unknown Region, it could have crashed on any number of planets, and the number of habitable worlds with intelligent life was probably incredibly scarce in that region of the galaxy. It seemed an incredibly strange series of events that had lead him to the planet he was marooned on. The odds of every being found were astronomical and yet he had been found. A small boy had found the ship and managed, with a little help, to get aboard.

Plagueis had two options for leaving, he could possess or convince the boy to take his holocron outside or he could get to the medical droid and use a Force ability called mechu-deru to reprogram it to follow his commands. Seeing as he didn't want to scare the boy away, he had hidden his presence from being sensed and hidden his spirit from being seen.

Having seven years to discovery all that he could do while in spirit form, he found that he could not move very far from his holocron and thus could not get to the droid to reprogram it. He needed someone or something to move his holocron.

The child turned out not to be the brightest star in the galaxy and obviously the boy's planet possessed only rudimentary technology at best, as the ship was so alien to him. Before the boy had a chance to accidentally kill himself with the blaster he was pointing at his own face, Plagueis had intervened and attracted the child's attention to the holocrons.

Unfortunately, like the crew-member, the boy was more interested in the boxes and hadn't touched his holocron. While the first necklace had been dangerous to some, the golden necklace was dangerous to everyone that touched or wore it. With Plagueis's limited ability to use the force in his current situation he was unable to stop the boy from putting on the necklace. After that, he calculated that it was just a matter of minutes before he would die a most horrible death.

The plan therefore changed to having the boy to take his holocron to the medical droid. Surprisingly, it took nearly an hour for the child to finally succumb to the effects of the necklace. Far longer than he anticipated.

Only the person that created the necklace could actually where it. Everyone else who tried was slowly killed as their body was destroyed from the inside out. Plagueis was fortunate that the boy had grabbed his holocron before completely succumbing to the effects of the necklace.

He quickly found that a language barrier existed between them but he was able to plant suggestions in the child's mind to remove the necklace and go to the infirmary. Despite his holocron being on the floor, Plagueis was close enough to the medical droid to be able to activate it and alter its programming to get it to take him away from the ship.

He would have initiated his plan but his curiosity and the scientist in him had gotten the better of him and he wanted to know how the child was able to survive exposure to the necklace for so long. Plagueis did feel something odd about the boy when he had touched his holocron but he just passed it off as the boy having extremely low force sensitivity. Now however he wasn't so sure though.

Using his force ability, he manipulated the droid to take a blood sample. The droid had then gone about taking standard measures to heal and save the boy. When the scavengers had raided his facility, they took everything that he had in his infirmary, which included the droid, medical supplies, bacta tank, and even instruments. Therefore, the infirmary now had a blood scanner that could determine the boys midi-chlorian count to satisfy his curiosity.

He had no doubt that the boy would die as no one had ever survived wearing the necklace and the boy had worn it for so long that the damage must have been extensive to his body and cells. The droid still followed its standard programing and hooked up a transfusion as well as several other IV's to try and stabilize the boy, then it had put him into the bacta tank. The bacta was doing its job of repairing his body but with the blood loss and damage to organs, should have been impossible for a human to survive.

Once the droid was finished with its work, which Plagueis allowed because he was patent, it took the sample of blood and ran it through the scanner. It only took a few seconds to scan for just about everything that would be present in the boys blood. The results were finished and the droid said in a robotic voice, "No midi-chlorians found."

x-x

Plagueis was confused for a moment. What the droid just told him was impossible. 'The device must be malfunctioning.' he thought as that was the obvious answer. Midi-chlorians were present in the cells of all life and it was believed that they were needed for life to even exist. Values per cell could range from less than 2,000 per cell which wasn't uncommon for some humanoids. An amount of about 2,500 per cell was considered average for humanoids and with this amount they were not Force sensitive. A being with a count of around 5,000 was sensitive to the Force and beings with between 5,000 and less than 20,000 where able to both detect and use the Force.

The boy was admittedly near death but that should have no bearing on his midi-chlorian count. He told the droid to get another sample and test again. The droid followed his wishes but the results came up the same. Plagueis had the droid look through everything else in the room to see if there was another device that could do the test. The droid couldn't find anything else.

Getting an idea, Plagueis had the droid test some of the blood packets that were taken from his infirmary. He only stocked blood from beings that had higher midi-chlorian counts and even had blood from a Jedi that he had come across and killed. That blood was what the boy was currently getting so the droid tested several other packets and came back with the expected readings for each packet.

The only conclusions that Plagueis could come up with to explain the phenomenon was that either, the boy didn't have any midi-chlorians, which was impossible, or that something in his blood was interfering with the readings. The scan however didn't detect any anomalies besides some different antibodies in the blood which would be normal for a different planet.

Plagueis ordered another sample taken so that he could look at it on the microscope that was also taken from his infirmary. The droid complied and took the sample. Magnifying the sample to incredible levels gave a view of a part of the cell that wasn't normally seen. While midi-chlorians were incredibly small, technology could still see them.

The magnification of the sample was brought up on the screen and Plagueis saw something that he didn't expect. What he saw was an absence of midi-chlorians. The boys cells didn't have any. The cell should have several thousand and they should be visible at this magnification but no matter where the viewer moved in the cells, there just weren't any of the organisms present.

Plagueis stared at the monitor and looked in confusion. Everything that he knew about midi-chlorians had just been questioned. What he was seeing wasn't supposed to be possible. He told the droid to reduce the magnification so that he could look at more of an entire cell. He stared at the viewer and saw something that he just didn't expect. The cell seemed to have some kind of vein like structure in it that was glowing a light blue and emanated from a small node in the middle of the cell. It stretched the entire length of the cell. He had the droid reduce the magnification again so that he could look at multiple cells and noticed that they were all the same.

Deep in thought, Plagueis had an idea. He asked the droid for a tissue sample this time. What he saw was rather interesting. The tissue sample was very standard as it had several layers of cells all bundled together. However, each cell had a node as well as a vein that went out of the cell and seemed to merge with the veins from the other cells to form a larger vein.

From this, Plageuis began to build a hypothesis about what he was seeing. He knew that the Force was an energy field that surrounded and penetrated all things. A high concentration of midi-chlorians gave a being the ability to detect and manipulate this energy field. From what he felt from the boy and what he was seeing on the monitor, the cells of his body seemed to have their own energy field and produced their own energy that traveled through the body in pathways or veins that combined with each other to form larger veins. He was positive that they might form an even larger pathway that seemed to mimic the bodies circulatory system, similar to capillaries and veins for blood to travel through. Since nearly every cell was linked or in contact with the energy field, the energy probably circulated through the body similar to the blood. The energy could possibly even control or regulate the functions of the body.

It was an amazing phenomenon that he would never have thought existed. More than anything, he wanted to study and learn about what he was seeing on the monitor. Was the energy field and energy different from the Force? Could it be harnessed and manipulated like the Force? If so, what kind of abilities developed from it? Did other people have this or was the boy special in some way? He wanted to know.

He had myriad of questions that he wanted answered. This boy and perhaps even this uncharted planet had turned out to be far more interesting than he ever would have thought. Of course, that all depended on if he survived. Otherwise he would have to find someone else. Turning to the boy, he ordered the droid to focus all of its efforts on trying to save his life.

Amazingly enough, after a few more minutes of treatment from the droid, the monitors indicated that his condition was actually stabilizing. The boy had lost a large amount of blood due to severe internal bleeding and yet, without even using up a third of the blood transfusion bag, he was already on his way to making a recovery. Plagueis knew that even with bacta and a blood transfusion, this type of regeneration would take several times longer than it had. His organs didn't fail, his body didn't bleed out, and despite the damage, it seemed he would make a full recovery.

Plagueis was determined to find out all he could about what he had just seen and since the boy wasn't going anywhere for a while, he would have time to look through the boy's mind in order to find some answers and satisfy some of his questions and burning curiosity. He would also need to establish communication and perhaps learn the local language.

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