Chapter 3

Ben Solo sat in his quarters, meditating. He sensed his son in the attack above Coruscant, and wondered what to do. The comm system on his door control panel buzzed, and a droid-like voice came through.

"Captain Solo, three Jedi to see you."

"Send them in." Ben said as he opened his eyes.

The door opened and Jo, Exar, and Aang entered and sat in front of him.

"Jo." Ben greeted, hiding any sense of awkwardness.

"Benjamin." Jo replied with a monotone.

"This is your team, I take it?" Ben asked.

"It is." Jo replied, tone and face unchanging.

"I'm Aang, the leader." Aang looked over to Exar, then continued, "For now. And that's Exar." Exar waved.

"Is this a social visit?" Ben asked.

"Oh, no. My friend, Jo has seen someone, he says is related to you, lead the attack."

Ben drifted his eyes away for a second before replying, "My son, Jaren."

'Son!' Jo exclaimed in his mind.

"After the fall of the First Order, I started a new life and had a son. Somehow, he ended up figuring out about my past life and became interested in it. And once he realized it wouldn't happen because I joined the Republic, he turned away and went on his own. I'm surprised he made it that far on his own."

"He wasn't alone. He lead the attack alongside a sith. An enemy of ours." Aang said.

"Erk?"

"You know him?"

"Jaren left a year after they met, and he left about four years ago."

"Erk met him five years ago?" Exar asked.

"That's right."

"Five years ago was when the purge happened on Tatooine. Erk and I are thought to be the only survivors."

"What month did the said purge happen?" Ben asked.

"The third month."

"Erk met him the fourth month of that year."

...

"That's a little suspicious. They met only a month after?"

"Wait, purge on Tatooine? What was going on there?"

"It's where force-sensetive children were taught to use the force to its full potential."

"Erk's a sith. I knew I sensed something wrong with him."

"Somehow, they're connected. Okay, let's go through this step-by-step."

"So," Exar started, "The purge hapened, Erk fled, and only a month later, did he meet your son."

"To meet him only a month later gives me the idea that he was looking for him."

"Why would he be looking for him?"

...

"Random thought that came to me, how did you get your first, First Order, helmet?" Exar asked.

"It was in a star destroyer wreckage."

"Where?" Aang asked quickly.

...

"Sullust."

Aang recoiled, and shakily stood.

"What is it?"

"What... what did the helmet, look like?"

"I just so happen to have a file on the construction, well, more like upgrade, of the helmet." Ben said, standing up and going through an old datapad he so-conveniently had stored up. He set it down and opened up the oldest video file he had. Ben immediately paused it when the broken helmet was in view. Aang was staring at it wide-eyed.

(See the chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the helmet Kylo Ren got his helmet from.)

"You knew the bearer of the mask?" Ben asked.

"Yes." Aang replied, snapping out of his trance. "He was a friend of mine, and an old team I used to work with." He said a little quietly. A moment of silence passed before Ben spoke up again.

"Well, thank you for the conversation. I now have more to say when I present this to the Senate."

"Thank you for your time." Exar said, bowing his head.

"No need for that, my friend. I hope to see you all again." Ben said, walking off.

"Indeed." Aang replied as they went the opposite way.

Exar lightly slapped Jo on the back of his head, "Ow. What?"

"You know him?" Exar exclaimed.

"Yeah, I met him in his prime time. The early years of the First Order."

"And here we were thinking we knew everything about you." Aang said.

"We don't know everything about each other. Exar's living proof of that." Jo replied.

As the team was back on their base, they were summoned immediately to the meeting room. And there, they were greeted by Ephraim and Republic Seargent Sisbar, a female Mon Calamari warrior. She was suitable for many forms of combat, whether it be up close, hand-to-hand, or distant sniping.

"Team, Seargent Sisbar. Seargent Sisbar, team." Ephraim greeted.

"Seargent." The team greeted her.

"I am here with an urgent mission for the Jedi."

"No rest for the weary, huh?" Jo mumbled.

"What's going on?" Exar asked.

"Spies have implied a sighting of a sith holocron on Takodana, and we need you to quickly obtain it before this new 'empire' does."

"Sith holocron? Well this escalated quickly." Aang mumbled the last part.

"We're on it." Exar said as they rushed out to start their new mission. They went outside and boarded their Tantive shuttle while they had their star fighters refuel. They took off and zoomed out.

"A sith holocron. How 'bout that?" Aang said.

"I thought those all... disappeared." Exar said.

"Apparently not." Aang replied, setting hyperspace coordinates to Takodana. "And... we're off." And they launched into lightspeed.

"So what's the whole deal with sith holocrons? Besides their being 'sith' holocrons. Like, disappearing?" Jo asked.

"After the First Order's death, the New Republic did the best it could to get rid of any hint of evil in the galaxy. One of those tasks included their Jedi gathering all the sith holocrons and once they did, they were buried deep in the surface of an unknown planet. Only a few know where they are. Although, considering how deep they were buried, I'd be surprised if they weren't melted already." Aang explained.

"That's confusing." Jo said.

"Well, it was deep within the planet, really deep."

"Huh. Well, they missed one."

"And it's up to us to retrieve it before it falls into destructive hands."

"Oh we know." Exar said.

...

"How long until we're there?"

"Several parsecs away. Halfway across the galaxy."

"Well let's hope we're not going to be too late." Exar said.

"Oh stop. You need to be more positive." Aang said playfully.

"Yes mum." Exar replied, making Jo laugh.

"A sudden thought, I know someone on Takodana who might be able to help us. Especially when it come to force-related artifacts. Coincidently, she was a friend of Ben's dad."

"Really?" Aang asked, swerving his chair around.

"She's kinda... old. Old, but quite a tough one. If there's anything you need to know about ancient artifacts like a holocron, she's the one to go to." Jo said.

"Nice. This should be a little easy." Exar said.

"Unless they show up." Aang added.

"Right. That. Just a reminder, Jo: this does need to be a quick mission. So no long conversations." Aang told Jo.

"Fine."

"This was an act of war!" Several Senators were shouting throughout the senate hall.

"If it's war they want, it's war they'll get." Other Senators agreed, but obviously, some disagreed.

"Can we go at least a decade without a war?"

"Some of us are still recovering from the last one."

THUMP THUMP

"Order!" Calista shouted. "Master Rye, please step up."

"I come before you now to tell you of a greater threat than just one sith. There was recently an attack above Coruscant, and an eye witness reported that there was not only one, but two sith leading the attack. Adding to that, the attack was composed of Imperial ships." Rye said before the Senate.

"Who was the eye witness?" Calista asked.

"That would be a member of my team. Now I know that may not be very convincing, so that's why I'd like to bring up Jedi Ben Solo to support this." Rye said. Ben stepped up to speak.

"Some of you might know me because of my past life, and those will know that I had a son afterwards. He left many years ago, and I never knew where he went. And as the attack above Coruscant commensed, I sensed him. My son, was the one who led the attack. Let me tell you, I couldn't be more certain of anything."

The Senate stirred up, but not in the usual way. It sounded as if they were loudly discussing whether to trust him or not.

THUMP THUMP

"What do we decide? Do we believe him?" Calista asked loudly. "Yea?" The crowd let out some big 'yea's. "Nay?" There was about an equal amount of 'nay's, but there was a louder 'yea' shout, so Calista announced, "A majority of the Senate believes you, but we need to decide what to do about it now."

"For now, I say we wait and find out more about what they want, and what they're after, then we'll decide what to do." Ben said.

"That settles it." Calista let out a last thump of her staff.

Calista met with Rye and Ben outside, in the Senate hall. "This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them?"

"Apparently." Rye replied.

"How's your team going to survive two of them?"

"Your friend, Viran is with them. Have faith in them, and they might survive." Rye paused for a second, "Maybe not in one piece, though."

"Brother!" Erickson called after Rye. Rye turned to greet him.

"Erickson. What are you-?"

"Hold on! Hold on!" Erickson took a breath. "If I recall, a bodyguard was placed in charge of the team. Correct?"

Realizing that it was a rhetorical question, Rye answered,"Yes."

"Well, the three of them just left for Takodana."

"What for?" Rye aksed, getting worried.

"Ephraim and Seargent Sisbar told me that it was for a sith holocron."

"That's not good. The sith might be able to track it. We need to get to them as quick as possible."

"That won't be possible." Calista intervened.

"Why not?" Rye asked, facing her.

"We need you here to oversee preparation for a new fleet we're receiving."

"New fleet?"

"Senator Garm Bel Iblis told me that he agreed to help you by giving us some of his Corellian fleet."

"Oh that's right. I guess the team might be alright for now." Rye said.

"Don't shrug off the possibility that they might not be if the sith arrive." Erickson replied.

"I didn't finish." Rye said, turning his head in Erickson's direction. "If we can get our job done in time, we can still get to them quickly enough before anything might happen." Erickson seemed to agree.

"If there's a possibility that my son will be there, I have to be there."

"We need you three to oversee preparations to receive and lead the new fleet into battle."

"Lead into... into battle?" Rye questioned quite curiously.

"With the intel received before the attack over Coruscant, we might be able to catch them by surprise."

...

"There's nothing we can do for your team right now." Calista said. "I'm sorry."

"We'll send Viran to them."

"That we can do."

"Exar! Jo! Aang! Where are you?" Viran looked through rooms for his team, who had apparently disappeared from his oversight. He reached the meeting room, a little worried about them. "They better be okay." Then the hologram projector on the table started beeping. Viran activated it and Rye appeared.

"The team is okay." Rye said. "For now, at least. The team is headed to Takodana to retrieve a sith holocron. Did they not tell you?" Rye then asked.

"Apparently not."

"What were you doing while they were briefed?"

"I was getting rest. I told them not to do anything without my permission, and to wait until I woke to- wait, briefed?"

"Ephraim and Seargent Sisbar briefed them on the mission."

"Huh. And where were you?"

"I was informing the Senate of an important discovery, found during the recent attack."

"What else happened?"

"Not much, really. Captain Ben Solo, Erickson, and I are to oversee preparations for a new Corellian fleet coming to us. Afterwards, we're to lead them into battle against this new 'Imperial' fleet. And we need you to chase down our team and supervise them."

"On it." Viran said, getting up to leave.

Rye was back outside the Jedi Temple with Erickson and Ben, waiting for the new fleet to arrive. In the meantime, Ben and Erickson nearly finished a long-range transmiter to contact the team.

"Okay, Viran's after the team and... what is that?" Rye stared at the device.

"We made this long-range transmitter to contact the team to tell them to refrain from doing anything until Viran arrives."

"You made this in the duration of a half hour?"

"No. It's been worked on for a couple weeks, but now, conveniently, I think it's finished." Erickson said.

"Well let's get it up and running." Rye said.

They they heard the sound of running engines getting louder, and looked outside and saw the fleet of Corellian ships, consisting of: a Baleen-class heavy freighter, Consular-class space cruisers, and CR90 Corvettes.

"Well I'll be." Erickson said.

"Heck of a fleet huh?" The voice of Garm Bel Iblis emitted from their transmitter.

"Yeah, it's like a giant comlink." Erickson summarized for Rye.

"Oh." He replied. "It is impressive, I admit. But will it be able to handle a recalibrated Imperial fleet?"

"HA! You amuse me. The Corellian Engineering Coorporation is the best ship-making business in the galaxy."

"I'll take your word for it. Now let's land these ships and prep for battle." Rye said.

"Copy that."