CHAPTER 3: ADMIRAL LOS'EAN
Dig Site Cresh-14, Krant
Kelia Los'ean didn't know what was more absurd. Was it that Lir Sey'les had woken her up in the middle of the night via holocall yapping about Jedi business and Dig Site Cresh-14? Or was it that Anakin Skywalker's former Padawan had contacted her not long after saying that Sey'les had gifted her the entire kriffing temple? Or was it actually that she had cared enough to bother showing up before Tano did?
Wish Lir discussed this with me beforehand… I'll have to give her an earful later.
Standing on the tarmac of the mostly dismantled Imperial air station that had protected the site at the height of activity, her olive-grey Imperial Navy greatcoat billowed out in the wind as a white and red T-6 shuttle in Jedi colors appeared out of the dark Krantian night. It had arrived for a landing under escort from a pair of Star Wing-Class Assault gunboats. The pair of former Imperial craft now bearing the violet-hued markings of the Krantian Navy.
A T-6 Huh… Don't see those much outside museums or private collections anymore, wonder how Tano got ahold of it, Kelia thought as she watched the Jedi shuttle touch-down on a pad once reserved for freighters. The two Star Wings performed a flyover before setting down next to a line of Fang-class starfighters lined up not far up the airstrip and folded up their wings, revealing their shared Cygnus Spaceworks lineage with the JV-7 Delta-class escort shuttle that she herself had arrived on.
She placed a hand in her coat pocket while holding onto the officer's cap perched atop her somewhat spiky mane of dark blond hair with the other. The shuttle's repulsors kicked up a brief windstorm. Kelia gestured at the two House Los'ean warriors clad in full armor behind her with her snout to follow as she walked up to the craft. Her blond fur swirling in mild irritation at missing a decent night with her husband.
Whatever this is, better not be a waste of time.
In the pit behind her, the ancient Jedi temple's curved architecture glowed an eerie white. As the T-6 settled onto the tarmac, shapes suddenly became visible over the structure's entrance. The most prominent being that of a giant convor owl, though a clustered trio of humanoid figures sat below it.
Several nearby non-Aean Krantian soldiers, most of them humans or Bothans wearing recolored Imperial Army Trooper gear and carrying E-22 and DLT-20as, shifted nervously and murmured amongst themselves while the Mandalorian Aean Bothans stood stoically.
She glanced over her shoulder at the new source of light wondering, for a moment, whether someone had turned on the observation flood lights. Kelia now set her jaw as she took in the beauty of the temple.
Figures, the moment a Jetii... Well… Dar'jetii in this case, steps foot around here, the temple starts getting weird... I'm getting too old for this and I'm only in my fifties, she thought while shaking her head in exasperation as she turned back to the shuttle to watch the ramp descend.
Ahsoka stepped down the ramp just as it touched the ground and approached her. "Grum Los'ean, I presume."
"The same." Kelia adjusted the reflective aviator glasses perched on her snout and nodded, noting the T-6's ramp appeared to have been hastily scrubbed clean with a few blobs of mud left on the walls. If Kelia were to hazard a guess, it was probably due to some fresh bit of insanity courtesy of Sey'les.
"You're a bit… Taller than I expected you'd be from the holo," Tano noted as she crossed her arms.
"I get that more often than you'd think," she replied nonchalantly, putting on an impassive front.
After the security debacle over Drev'shtarn, and the Marshals proving themselves to be pathetically incompetent, she was taking no chances of letting the former Jedi psychologically get to her.
As the conversation awkwardly died off, Kelia rolled her shoulders and gestured for Ahsoka to follow her.
"My first thought was to meet you on the Kestrel, but I figured you've seen enough of the inside of Venator-class ships for a lifetime. Even one that's permanently docked planetside as a museum," she remarked, trying to revive the conversation again.
The Togruta snorted audibly as she began walking.
Falling into lockstep with the Bothan and her two clanmates, Ahsoka glanced about at the somewhat dilapidated state of the remaining prefabbed Imperial facilities. The Togruta cast a glance at the eerie light emanating from the temple, before continuing on, following the Bothans to a prefabricated module. It served as a foreman's office of some sort, sitting on the edge of the pit, overlooking the structure below. "How long was the Empire excavating this temple?"
Shrugging, Kelia held up a hand and then tapped each of her fingers in sequence. "About… Two years after Yavin up until Endor if my memories of filing out equipment transfer forms for that long are correct. The Emperor had a vested personal interest in this site for some reason. One of his inner circle ghosts, Sate Pestage, actually administered the effort directly. Even had a bunch of archaeologists brought in from across the galaxy at blasterpoint to do the hard work," she said flatly.
"I take it they were less than cooperative?" Ahsoka remarked dryly.
Kelia snorted. "Yes, but that's not what we're here about."
"Agreed, I've seen the aftermaths of too many atrocities today to hear about any more for the moment," Ahsoka sighed as she and Kelia entered the prefab. The lights flicked on with the audible buzz of industrial lamps as the Bothan pulled out a chair, sitting down behind a desk that'd been holed through in places by blasterfire at some point in the past
Ahsoka sat down on a folding chair across from her.
"This temple… Why exactly do you want it?" Kelia inquired as she folded her hands in front of her, the chrome and violet beskar'gam worn under her coat shining softly in the light from the office's overhead glowlamps.
She watched as the Togruta bit her lip and then glanced over at the two Bothan Mandalorians standing guard at the door. "This is something I can only speak about in private, for now anyways."
Tilting her head up, Kelia subtly batted her right ear in the direction of the door.
One of the two warriors, a male Bothan, tilted his helmet questioningly.
Another bat of the ear reaffirmed her stance, causing him to nod and gesture at his companion to follow him out.
Once they were gone and the door was shut behind them, Ahsoka sighed, "I may have come up with the stupidest idea in galactic history," she admitted.
"Can't be any dumber than half the osik the New Republic Senate has passed since Jakku." Kelia snarled softly, hand clenching into a fist as her fur roiled with barely restrained rage.
"At the risk of straying off topic, what exactly is your issue with the New Republic?" The Togruta asked, seeming as if she didn't care about the diversion, like she had all the time in the galaxy.
Kelia laughed aloud as she took off her shades, watching Tano squirm as she saw the same thing she herself saw in the mirror every single day.
The perpetually deadened look in her amber eyes, lacking any semblance of luster. An ever-present reminder of the weight of her own sins.
As Kelia stared at Ahsoka, she began to contemplate the turns her life had taken to reach this point, and once again found her prior conduct severely wanting. Sometimes I envy Lir and her ability to just do whatever she feels like and suffer the consequences later. Her lack of personal responsibility and self-awareness is admittedly astounding even by Bothan standards, and yet she somehow didn't stain her hands with nearly as much blood as anyone expected from someone appointed by Vader himself.
Kriff, she has less blood on her hands than I do, Kelia thought as she exhaled and closed her eyes for a brief moment, but perhaps I wouldn't have had to snuff out so many innocent lives had I just not cared about rank, honor, or reputation as much as I did… Or maybe I've just changed because I've lost so much…
Heh… And yet… I'm still no less impulsive than Lir is sometimes...
"Is… Everything… Alright?" Ahsoka's voice questioned, redirecting Kelias thoughts back to the subject at hand.
"Ah yes… My problem with the 'New' Republic is that it's about as different from the 'Old' Republic as stupidity is from incompetence," she spat virulently, barely restraining herself from mentioning the real reason behind her hatred of the new government. "All of that bloodshed and death to repeat mistakes made decades, hell, centuries ago. And all without an established Jedi order to bail their collective sheb'se out when things hit the fan."
Ahsoka leaned back and frowned, contemplating the middle-aged Bothan's words. "That's not it, is it?" The Togruta observed calmly, too calmly for her liking. "You're far too angry for it to be a simple matter of politics"
Kriffing Jetii, always more perceptive than they let on aren't they, she thought bitterly. "You're damn right it's not just about politics… I lost one of the two people I loved so dearly during the Rebellion, my wife…" she bit her lip, temper boiling over, "Linay and most of her team sacrificed themselves so the Alliance could even have a shot at Endor, only for a bunch of kriffing di'kutla politicians to squander HER DEATH SO THEY CAN JUST…!"
Catching herself and unballing her fists, Kelia exhaled as she sat back down, realizing that she had begun to stand up once she started yelling. As she settled down, her bristling fur began to reset into its normal state as she wiped the angry tears from her eyes. She smoothed her fur out with one hand and continued. "My apologies, it's just… Mon Mothma's plainly too naive to face the facts, but a large portion of the Imperial Fleet just straight up vanished during Cinder. I didn't realize it myself until a lot of the defectors and refugees started coming in with stories about entire taskforces abandoning their fleets. Garrisons just packing up and leaving without a shot fired except in self-defense," she growled softly as she tapped on the desk with a single finger. "They all went somewhere, and the New Republic doesn't seem concerned in the slightest about any of it, only returning to what the Senate left off on before Palpatine took power."
The Bothan stopped for a moment before looking around and then leaning in closer. "Nobody knows how many ships are unaccounted for, but worst-case estimates from my sources are a full quarter of the Imperial Navy, a force numbering in the tens of thousands. We saw nowhere near that many ships at Jakku, otherwise. And lucky we are for that. The NRDF would've been completely wiped out by sheer weight of numbers, Imperial political jockeying be damned, and the Ravager would be hovering over Coruscant right now and not half-buried upside-down in the sand on some outer rim shtakhole."
"You think another war is coming," Ahsoka breathed in realization as the gravity of what Kelia was telling her set in.
"I don't think—I know one's coming," Kelia grunted cynically. "Why do you think I'm building up this sector's defenses with every scrap of hardware I can get my hands on? Why do you think I'm daring the Republic's sniveling little bureaucrats to come and take anything they deem a treaty violation apart themselves? Because at most we have about twenty years before whatever the Empire's turning itself into comes back with a vengeance. And if for whatever reason I can't be around for it I might as well prepare my children and grandchildren for when it happens."
At Ahsoka's questioning look, she clarified her position. "I'm a realist, not an idealist, we can't help anyone else if we're lined up under someone's guns, if others have to suffer in the short-term because of it, then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
"Then this just makes what I'm planning all the more important," the Togruta stated firmly, seeming more like a determined Jedi Knight than she had a minute ago.
Well now, she really does have something big planned, trying to convince Mon Mothma to repeal the disarmament act? Setting up a private army to fight whatever threat is coming? A secret holocron or something the Jedi can use to source an army of new recruits? Maybe she found some ancient Rakatan super tech that can create us an army out of nothing.
Seeing Kelia waiting for her explanation, Ahsoka visibly steeled herself and spoke words that caused the Bothan's train of thought to come to a screeching halt.
"I'm going to prevent the Empire from ever existing."
What.
