Chapter 21

"Hyperthreader and scanner."

The tools in question were in hand and passed to Anakin, which promptly disappeared into the guts of one of the engine nacelles of Bane's heavy starfighter.

The fighter in question was now safely ensconced in a secure hangar bay aboard the Royal Star. We were far from the only interested party working on the highly modified Rogue-class. A group of four Hapan engineers were also burying themselves in various aspects of the ship.

My own time was spent being Anakin's assistant and keeping a sharp watch on those engineers. All four women were constantly giving Anakin looks like he was a particularly tasty piece of beef and giggling, while they were working. It was distinctly unprofessional but I could see that these women were nevertheless getting their own jobs done.

The first thing we naturally confirmed within the first few minutes was that the holocron wasn't hidden on board anywhere. It would've been a rookie mistake for Bane to leave it there anyway. If Sidious had briefed him properly on a holocron's properties, and it definitely seemed like he had, then the bounty hunter would know Jedi could sense an active holocron.

"Ah ha!"

"Find something, master?"

"Well, we've definitely got a hibridium cloaking device here."

"The power plant?"

"Definitely got something new here." He pulled his torso out of the nacelle, picked up a datapad, tapped it a few times and handed it over to me.

It took me a few moments to get my head into the right technical mindset to make sense of what I was seeing. Okay, fuel flow there… energizers there… fusion plant… what?

"You see it, Snips?"

"They're compressing the hypermatter and fuel before it reaches the reactors?"

"Yes and?"

"These circular feeds are shielded and almost encase the entire reactor… it's certainly one way to save on space."

"Which has the added benefit of?"

It took me a moment before I really felt like facepalming, "Acting as another integral heat sink, meaning they can cut down on further external heat management equipment."

He smiled and patted me on the shoulder, "Nicely reasoned, there's a lot more going on, but you managed to see the highlights. The Baktoid Workshop have really outdone themselves with this one."

"These power figures though…" I scrolled down the list, doing a bit of mental math. "Even with this super compact reactor, it doesn't look like you could keep everything powered up under cloak."

Anakin nodded, "You'd have maybe sixty or seventy percent thrust available to your engines, the rest goes into life support and particle shielding. The two laser cannons are dead weight under the cloak. They really should've gone with a few concussion missile launchers, but I suppose they reasoned the targeting emissions would've compromised the cloak."

"I'm imagining what I could do with a squadron of cloaked, hyper capable, heavy fighters with astromechs steering the launched missiles passively," I grinned widely, feeling an evil giddiness.

He laughed, "That would be a sight to see, or rather not see, given how the whole squadron is invisible."

"Let's see what our Hapan friends have to say about the computers though."

The lead engineer looked up at my approach from her datapad. All of them were wearing a very utilitarian overall outfit in a dark blue, but like all things Hapan, managed to make even something you're meant to get dirty in, look attractive.

"Miss Agmena?"

"Padawan Tano," she nodded at me, giving a brief sideways look at Anakin who was busy packing away the borrowed tooling.

"Anything from the navicomputer?"

"Unfortunately not," her long red hair tied up in a bun and had an eager energetic demeanor was almost painful to endure and see. "The bounty hunter had numerous failsafes that kicked in. One of which was tied to a biometric sensor on his body. The instant he was unconscious the navicomputer wiped itself of all data."

"Even the hyperdrive backups?"

"Even those," she confirmed. "This guy is very paranoid. If he'd been killed there was even a program set to self-destruct the fighter and not in a nice way."

"How big would the explosion have been?"

"Maybe half the yield of an anti-capital proton torpedo, roughly. It would've wiped out a nice chunk of the city in the process."

"Ouch," I winced at the thought. It was strange though. Going out with a bang and a final 'fuck you' like that, potentially killing hundreds of thousands, wasn't really Bane's style. The duros was many things; murderer, kidnapper, bounty hunter, and so on, but it was all just in service to his goals and getting paid. Sidious on the other hand…

No, even the Sith Lord himself wouldn't be so… blatantly destructive. Sure, in the future, Emperor Palpatine would sentence quite a few worlds to Base Delta Zero - orbital bombardment to the point of glassing the planet, nevermind the Death Star. In the here and now though, Darth Sidious wasn't so… banally evil. Bane could've died in numerous other ways than enemy action and when his heart flatlined… boom! It just didn't feel right for him.

The CIS's Illusive General…? Maybe. If it was him, then it would definitely be a datapoint and clue to his identity.

At this point I felt a beckoning ping from Anakin along our bond.

"Thanks, Miss Agmena."

"You're welcome, Padawan Tano," she gave me a big smile and was all eyes for Anakin again.

The relief Anakin and I felt at leaving the hangar was palpable.

A few hours later, I was standing behind Anakin in a very lavish and modern meeting room. With us now, was Mace Windu and Obi-Wan at one side of the table, on the other was Commander Khal, and another woman who was dressed in a very clingy, white one piece bodysuit with numerous pockets. Her hair was short and graying, but her face in contrast was still quite firm and good looking.

"Doctor Gallia, what is the condition of the duros?" Khal enquired of her fellow Hapan.

"He has responded well to treatment, we removed him from the bacta tank this morning and he's in recovery."

"How long till he can be questioned?" Mace enquired politely.

"Ideally, two days to be on the safe side. We had to do quite a bit of reconstructive work on his knees and legs beforehand. If time is of the essence, then the earliest I'd let you see him is in twelve hours, not a minute earlier."

"Understood, Doctor. Thank you," Khal said firmly, closing the matter. "Now the question turns to what is to be done about Bane himself. He has murdered a Hapan citizen and our laws are clear."

"He is also responsible for the death of two Jedi," Mace retorted.

The first being the Jedi Knight Ord Enisence. The initial form that the clawdite changeling had assumed to infiltrate the temple. She had helpfully given up the safehouse Bane had used on Coruscant to plan the operation and as such Enisence's body had been retrieved for burial.

"So clearly you think that your jurisdiction supersedes Hapes authority?" Khal, was hardly phased at all in the face of someone as forbidding and intimidating as Windu. Nevermind that he was technically her 'superior' in the Jedi Order, but only in theory. Technically, the Jedi Council had full right and backing of the Republic to take custody of Bane right out from under the Hapans, but the Jedi would be putting a lot of strain on the cordial relations the two sides enjoyed. In the same way, the Hapans could invoke quite a few local laws and complicated terms in their alliance to the Republic to keep Bane in their custody.

In other words, the potential to spark a diplomatic tit for tat neither side wanted.

"Is there some compromise that we can come to?" Obi-Wan enquired mildly. "The main thing we are after is the location of the stolen holocron."

"Bane is unlikely to just willingly reveal that," she pointed out. "It would require extensive interrogation or using the Force but that would require Alter Mind skills that risk destroying the information, unless one of you is a specialist mindwalker."

"Are there any Hapan Jedi practiced in that?"

"I'm the closest you'd get to that in the cluster, it's why I was chosen as the commander of the queen's personal security, but info retrieval is specialist work," Khal explained.

"I recently spent quite some time working with a Jedi mindwalker on another case," Obi-Wan explained. "If it comes down to it, I'm prepared to interrogate Bane."

Windu gave a brief glance to his fellow Jedi Master, but otherwise held his peace. However, to the Jedi in the room it spoke volumes. "Are you certain, Master Kenobi?"

"Yes," Obi-Wan answered firmly.

"Very well," Windu nodded. "Bane will remain in Hapan custody after all this is over. Now let's talk about his fighter."

"Naturally, the Consortium is very interested in the technology," Khal smiled dryly. "It was captured on Hapes, by our forces. However, given this is CIS tech we recognize it's in the greater interest of the Republic that it be researched and possibly widely adopted, given the enemy will likely soon be fielding it in larger numbers. The Consortium will propose a joint research initiative with Republic scientists."

"That seems reasonable," Windu allowed. Of course it meant that Consortium would seek to rake in the profits hand over fist and I could just imagine the Baktoid Workshop executives screaming in anger that all their R&D expenses and the expected return on investment had just been flushed down the toilet.

The wait for Obi-Wan to conclude his mindwalk of Bane was a rather agonizing affair. Made all the more so by my need to speak to Mistress Gray with as much privacy as possible. I thankfully got my chance because I had to return to her estate anyway to gather our few belongings.

Anakin had resumed burying himself in studying the Xanadu Blood - the name Bane had given to his fighter and I returned to the Gray mansion.

Mistress Gray had clearly seen or even sensed the bee in my bonnet, when I asked for a free hour of her time.

"Do you have any casual swimming attire, dear?"

"No, mistress," I blinked in surprise at the question.

She smiled at me and made a few calls.

Barely a few minutes later I was introduced to a male Hapan who had a very 'distinguished' air about him. He was Mistress Gray's tailor and looked after every aspect of her clothing and even made new outfits on the spot for her. How he could do this was a combination of a body scanner, computer, fabric fabbing, manual tailoring by hand and sheer inherent talent.

An hour later, I was basking in a deck chair near the estate swimming pool, wearing the Hapan idea of a bikini. It was an outfit which I could hardly imagine ever wearing outside of Hapes with any confidence. Nevermind micro… this was the equivalent of a nano-string sling bikini. It was amazing that the material was strong enough to do the job at their thickness - but they did, flexing and stretching enough that I could probably do any Ataru moves and not have to worry about the thing snapping off.

I also doubted I could even wear this in the long term, given how precisely it was tailored to my still growing body.

Mistress Gray was next to me in a swimming outfit that was slightly more conservative, though that didn't mean much when her sling bikini was only a thumb width wide. Her tan showed though that she actually rarely wore anything outdoors around the pool.

"So my dear, stop dithering and slay the akul," she stated with a small smile. The surprise at her using a Torgruta expression broke through my anxiousness but I couldn't afford to relax completely as the concentration needed to keep up my probability shield just didn't allow for it.

"I have an enemy, Mistress Gray. One that I cannot fight openly. He's powerful in so many ways that I can't even begin to describe to you. If I tried, you'd probably not even believe half of it and I'd paint you as a target."

She nodded, her eyes flickering with brief surprise before it was hidden behind her own politely attentive mask.

"Is it a pointless question to ask how one so young could be involved in any way with such a person?"

"It's not pointless, just one that I cannot answer. He has maneuvered himself into a seemingly unassailable position, he is extremely strong with the Force, blessed with gifts that lets him anticipate his foes, to see the future."

"Then how have you remained undetected, dear?"

"Through a primary means I will never speak of, and others I have developed over the years."

Gray leaned back and just seemed to relax even further, for a moment I thought she was going to take a cat nap, but this was just another deception.

"Sit back, relax, look up at the sky," she instructed.

I did so as best I could.

"When under enemy surveillance, you must wear a mask, with the understanding that the mask is what you want the enemy to believe, underneath the mask, adopt another with yet more deception for the enemy. So if he penetrates the first, he will find the second and in victory look no further. Right now, we are two women at a pool, enjoying the suns, relaxing. Beneath that, you are simply speaking to the mother of the child you rescued, who requested you to be here for a chat in gratitude." Gray took a deep breath in and out, "A mother who will stop at nothing to repay an essentially unpayable debt for that which you have given. Tenel is my third daughter, the one which we in Hapan society actually consider the most important.

"So speak, Ahsoka Tano of Shilli, ask what you would have of a grateful mother."

"I was able to identify where Bane is keeping the holocron," Obi-Wan addressed the meeting. He pressed a few buttons on the table and a holo appeared of a system called Antar, somewhere in the north eastern outer rim. It zoomed further to an asteroid field between the fifth and sixth planets, until it highlighted a specific coordinate. "Here is a small, self-sufficient space station, that Bane calls Black Stall. It's a combination of a safe house and storage for his most valuable possessions."

"Nice hideout," Anakin remarked. "I assume it's filled with traps and other lethal tricks that would deter unwanted visitors."

"You assume correctly," Obi-Wan nodded. "The station will scan any approaching ship and if it doesn't detect that Bane is on board, it will self-destruct."

"So let me guess, Bane is using it as leverage for us to escort him there, where there are some other means which he can use to attack, distract us and allow him a chance to escape."

"Since you seem to have foreseen what I was going to say, perhaps you should take over the meeting, Anakin," Obi-Wan smiled crookedly at this former student.

"No thanks, master. Please, do continue."

"The problem is that Hapes refuses to let him leave, even under guard."

"I know his type, Master Kenobi," Commander Khal thumped a finger on the desk. "Walking into a prepared safehouse of his own design, we might as well give him his freedom now."

"Then perhaps Hapes can spare us an entire team of slicers?"

"Certainly," Khal declared with a shrug, surprising everyone in the room. "How many do you need? Hapes won't balk at the expense in labor and credit to see this done."

"I'll get back to you, commander," Obi-Wan scratched his beard in thought. "The uncertainty we face is that I'm not sure that the missing children are there. If I was a fully trained mindwalker, I might have had an answer, but as it was, I had to stop at this point because Bane was a few seconds away from a brain aneurysm."

"I might be able to help with that," Anakin announced. "I've been working the last day with the Hapan engineers in further picking apart Bane's fighter. One of them noticed a lot of volcanic ash had collected in the landing gear. I then remembered the old fuel management system trick."

Everyone in the room nodded in understanding. No matter how thoroughly Bane sanitized the computers of his fighter, erasing the computer for fuel management would thoroughly ground the fighter and require a qualified tech to fix. Jedi used this fact to their advantage a lot in combating smuggling. Using the fuel usage data, combined with what destinations you knew the smuggler had taken, you could generally reconstruct the distance traveled in both hyperspace and real space.

"We had to make some adjustments to the normal math based on this new type of reactor," he explained further, taking out a datapad and working on it, before interfacing it with the room's holoprojector.

A galactic map was presented, with all known hyperspace routes, which swiftly began to flash with strobing as Anakin's program got to work trying to match and triangulate within the parameters he was setting.

I stared at the galactic map, my eyes turning south and sure enough, the possible routes were steadily being whittled down towards…

"Mustafar," I pointed at the map just as it resolved that particular destination.

"It's a possibility, padawan," Anakin agreed. "What makes you sure?"

"Besides the fact that it's a six day detour for Bane to have taken, it's deep in CIS territory," I stepped up to the hologram and with a few commands it zoomed in to display the world in question, "Look, held by the Techno-Union as a mining world. The planet is also entirely dominated by volcanic activity. Why go all the way to the galactic south? Unless he was meeting whoever hired him or perhaps his actual employer has a facility there."

He eventually nodded in agreement, "Makes sense, Snips."

"Nicely done," Obi-Wan smiled. "We now have two destinations to investigate. Master Windu and I will head to Antar with the Hapan slicers. You will have to figure out a way to smuggle yourselves into and out of Seperarist space."

"Oh, is that all?" Anakin shrugged. "No problem, we'll just have to sneak through the most heavily militarized space in the galaxy, most of the CIS Navy not to mention a bunch of neutral worlds that would just love to sell us out to the Seppies."

"Um, Master, I have an idea about that," I grinned at him.

"Go ahead, Snips."

"How hard do you think it will be to modify the Xanadu Blood to carry at least five people?"

Ordinarly, the answer to that would be extremely difficult.

It was simplified considerably when you had the backing of the Hapes Consortium. Within less than a day, Anakin was somehow leading a team of eight scientists, engineers, dozens of engineering focused droids and an almost blank check with the efforts to convert and modify the fighter. It definitely proved one thing, the Hapans could put aside their usual prejudices when motivated enough.

The main obstacle wasn't space as such, as a larger spherical habitation cabin and cockpit could be almost bolted onto the nose of the fighter. The problem was life support would have to be upgraded to accommodate the larger space and crew, which had the knock on effect of a higher power requirement.

The fighter's power was already on a knife's edge of performance, testing showed that we'd have to forego any hope of having weapons at all if these modifications were performed. The increased weight meant an even further reduction in speed and maneuverability.

Anakin's efforts were further interrupted when he received a communication request.

"The Chancellor wants a report on our progress," Windu watched the scurrying activity of all the engineers with interest as the Xanadu Blood was steadily being rebuilt.

"Tell him this is not Republic business, it's an internal Jedi affair," Obi-Wan pointed out.

"I have to disagree with that," Anakin awkwardly removed a pretty large tool belt he had taken to wearing with a wince, and was looking rather greasy. "As long as the Jedi are acting within the structure of the GAR as its commanders, we should report to the chancellor. Even on an internal matter such as this."

"Well, then I guess you have a call to make, after a shower and change of clothes," his former master smiled knowingly. "The unmarked ship for our own part of the mission has arrived."

"Well, good luck, master."

Both senior Jedi bowed slightly in greeting to Anakin and took their leave. I followed Anakin out the hangar and cleared my throat pointedly.

"Snips?"

"Before you call the chancellor," I smiled and made a few subtle handsigns casually at my leg.

He frowned at me, pinging our bond, but I kept the door closed for thoughtspeak, instead continuing my hand signals. We were both proficient enough now to have a rough level of communication.

'Treat your call as if the enemy is listening,' I signed.

He didn't react, but I felt his astonishment and even a slight hint of fear. 'Chancellor… compromised?'

'Enemy walks the Senate freely, remember.'

Anakin sighed, 'What suggest?'

'Speak normally, speak nothing of changing ship or destination. Enemy will kill children instantly if he knows we know.'

He nodded, "Keep watch over those engineers, snips. Pay attention, you'll learn a lot."

"I will, Master."

A week of work, testing and simulation passed. My time was mostly spent doing the boring work as an extra pair of hands for Anakin to boss around. The shift would end and I'd shuttle to the Gray estate to spend time there in receiving instruction on how to be a sneaky mastermind. I was hardly up to Mistress Gray's demanding standard by the time the work on the fighter was done, but she had my personal encrypted com codes and we would continue a distance learning arrangement.

The Xanadu Blood was now barely recognizable from the sleek Rogue-class heavy fighter. The Millenium Falcon would be called in the future 'a piece of junk' by Luke Skywalker. That freighter was a masterclass in design compared to the Xanadu, which was just plain ugly to look at now. Most of the Hapan engineers almost couldn't stand to look at it for more than a few seconds and most were rather embarrassed and even insulted that this was the work of their hands.

The Xanadu now looked like someone had taken a rather enlarged central sphere of the future TIE fighter and rammed it straight onto the nose of the previous fighter.

It was with some trepidation that dressed in my flight suit, I boarded the thing to sit in the 'co-pilot' seat. There was no real co-pilot in this setup, but I did have controls and monitors for the cloaking device and sensors.

At least the Hapans had the interior rather cozy and in some cases quite luxurious. It was as if they compensated for the ugliness of the exterior by at least doing some aesthetically pleasing work inside. I almost felt like I was in a rather nice winnebago or camper van.

"Statement: HK-47 ready to serve, Master."

The sadistic droid had to twist slightly to enter the narrow entry door on the starboard side of the Xanadu.

"HK, had fun?" I asked absently while studying the engineering notes compiled by the Hapans on the cloaking device.

"Answer: Most certainly, master. Many a meatbag existence was satisfactorily ended in the most humorous ways… that naturally can't be traced at all to me or the Gray meatbag."

"Well, I'm glad Mistress Gray found some productive use of your talents. You can go ahead and slot in at the back, there should be a charging port."

"Statement: Thank you, Master."

R2 arrived next, having to use a brief burst of his leg jets to make the jump.

"Hello R2."

The astromech gave a burst of happy binary greeting and had to switch himself to waddling mode to maneuver through the cramped confines. On spying HK, R2 gave a burst of binary that sounded to most human ears like someone snorting and blurting out a raspberry.

"Salutation: Greetings, tin can."

HK did not have the most positive opinion of R2-D2 but did 'respect' the droid for his long list of accomplishments and for actually managing to go for so long without a memory wipe. R2 blurted a string of binary back.

"Explanation: I will cease calling you a tin can, when you install a blaster into your chassis. Until you do, you are no more than an ambulatory target who also happens to be an expert slicer and mechanic."

R2's binary response was telling HK where he could shove that suggestion, in droid terms at least.

"Indignation: Why you…"

"HK," I glared at the homicidal droid.

"Statement: Very well, master." HK actually sighed very convincingly. "I will not argue with the ambulatory tin can."

Anakin appeared at the Xanadu's entrance, also dressed in a flight suit and hopped in, sealing the cabin behind him. "Everybody set?"

"Yes, master. All present."

He hopped into the pilot station and began flicking switches for the pre-flight. "R2, interface and begin our hyperspace plots."

The astromech blurted a happy compliance before his logic probe shot out of his chassis and interfaced with a port specifically placed for him in the rear of the cabin.

"You getting to grips with that stuff, Snips?"

"Mostly, Skyguy," I replied, putting the datapad down as the ship began humming and whining into life. The screen showing the cloaking device status and diagnostics flickered on and everything looked good so far.

"Royal Star, this is Xanadu Blood, requesting departure clearance."

"Xanadu, you're cleared for departure 259, vectors transmitting, safe journey."

"Thank you, Royal Star, Xanadu out."

The engines whined into full power and pitch, Anakin twisted on the control stick and the ship rose into the air a little wobbly.

"Urgh, this is awful," he grimaced.

The Xanadu stabilized before a smoother power transition had us emerging from the hangar tentatively, before Anakin pushed forward on the throttle with more confidence.

Our speed ticked up all the way to about 800 kph and a steady but rather anemic climb was begun out of the atmosphere. A normal Rogue-class could easily hit 1200 in an atmosphere, but the Xanadu was going to get nowhere near that.

The course was very conservative at first, just because it was giving us the most time to do testing and evaluation to even make the decision to go ahead with the journey. The Hapans had installed a bunch of extra engineering sensors and links that were beaming data back to the design group that had worked on the Xanadu. Data that Anakin was also looking over.

"So what's the word, Skyguy? We going or bailing out?"

Anakin stared into the readouts for another intense minute before finally declaring, "I think we're going."

Despite his confidence though, he reached down to put on his vacuum helmet. Something I hurriedly imitated.

He promptly pulled back on the stick and the Xanadu broke the final parts of the atmosphere before pushing us officially into the blackness of orbital space around Hapes. It was another eighteen minutes of acceleration getting us out of Hapes' mass shadow before he spoke up.

"R2, how are things at your end?"

The droid bleeped worriedly but also returned a positive binary signal.

"Okay, here we go."

He pushed forward on the hyperdrive controls.

The hyperdrive whined with a strain and pitch that was not at all comforting, but the stars around us streaked and soon we were punching through the fabric of space, surrounded by the endless blue foggy tunnel of another dimension.

We would exit the Hapes Cluster from its southern tip via the Andalia system, then thread a very narrow hyperspace lane known as the Lorell Route for a day before emerging into the Zeltros system and rejoining the greater galaxy along the Trellen Trade Route.

Heading south, passing Commenor and Cato Neimoida, we finally intercepted the Hydian Way at Exodeen twelve hours later before settling in for the longest leg of our voyage.

This was a three day hop to reach the front line battlespace along the Hydian in the Pax system.

"Three… two… one…"

Anakin pulled back on the hyperdrive controls.

My own sole focus was on the power curve readout, my finger hovering over the touchscreen button…

I did not want to look up and see the mass numbers of CIS ships or think about how much potential firepower could be sent our way.

The instant I had enough power I practically punched my finger through the screen.

"Cloaking!" A number of readouts began to flash a happy green. "We're stable."

Anakin's grip on the controls visibly relaxed and the tension in his arms faded. "See, I told you, Snips."

"Yes, yes, I don't doubt your engineering skills, Skyguy. It's the little things that someone may have overlooked that just wait for the worst possible time to go wrong that worry me."

My attention was captured though at the Seperatist blockade armada guarding the hyper point.

"Get those passive scanners going, Snips."

I nodded trying to put out my mind the sight of dozens of Munificent wolfpacks, hundreds of cruisers, all arrayed around clusters of Lucrehulks. The amount of Vulture and Hyena droids in space was truly stupendous. It almost seemed like the Separatists wanted to create a true wall of steel for the Republic Navy to smash themselves onto here.

Anakin was having to do quite a bit of precognitive flying to just avoid us colliding with something.

If that wasn't bad enough, I was picking up that the fleet around the hyper point was just the tip of the iceberg of CIS strength in the system.

Even should this fleet be smashed to pieces, there were reinforcements waiting mere minutes away.

Ten minutes of flying in real space later, we left the blockade behind and accelerated for another two hours to reach the onward hyper point. There were only perfunctory patrols here, along with a Recusant-class light destroyer.

"R2, stand by. Snips, decloak in three… two… one…"

The Xanadu appeared in space for a brief second. I saw the sensors pick up scanning emissions and targeting scans for a moment… before Anakin pulled on the hyperdrive lever.

The high whine of the hyperdrive ramped up to full power, plunging us into safety.

We were through.

"Whew, that was fun," Anakin smiled cheekily. "Only seven more jumps to go."

I purposefully did not think of anything in response and just continued watching the cloak readouts like a hawk and read the engineering notes. I would not use the h-word or any of the phrases that Lady Fate just loved to pounce on.

The Xanadu emerged from hyperspace at the emergence point and I could instantly feel that, yes, this was Mustafar.

From space it was an orb of black and red, with the occasional sprinkling of white that was ash clouds. It was not an inviting place to look at or visit and it was not fun to sense in the Force.

This was once a garden world and at some point during the Old Republic era was decimated when a selfish, yet heart sick noblewoman used a some sort of Force-empowered crystal artifact of the native people to try to resurrect her dead husband. Using it in a device remarkably similar to a hyperdrive that tried to reach into the realm of the Force itself and pull her dead husband's spirit from unity with the cosmic Force.

Whether it was the Force reacting negatively to the attempt or simply a miscalculation on her part or both, the massive disturbance was enough to alter the orbits of the nearby gas giants significantly. The competing gravity sources turned the once green and lush Mustafar into a hellscape. A testament to what happens when someone reaches into realms of knowledge they were not ready for.

The native people of Mustafar, was nearly rendered extinct, and even today there were barely thirty thousand of them, still eeking out a living by helping offworlders mine the lava flows. That massive amount of death had turned Mustafar into a Dark Side Nexus.

A nexus that in another time would attract Darth Vader to build his fortress home here. The place of his 'birth' in the Dark Side due to the blade of Obi-Wan Kenobi. A place where captured surviving Jedi were sent by the Empire to meet their deaths.

I could feel Anakin was as disturbed by the sense of the place as I was.

He shook his head to clear it of the awful feelings Mustafar inspired.

"Should I cloak the ship, master?"

"No, at this point Bane wouldn't cloak either. Our deception will hold up until they do a more thorough scan."

My console beeped a warning, "Our transponder's been pinged."

"R2, any activity?"

The droid blurted a negative, though did pinpoint where the ping had come from.

"Good work, buddy, we'll head there nice and easy. No need to appear in a hurry."

The Xanadu began to experience turbulence as it inserted itself into the hot atmosphere.

"Master, I don't think we should pull our helmets off in this place."

"Charts say it's still breathable," he pointed out.

"Yes, but with the amount of fine ash and sulfates in the air, your lungs won't be happy with you in the long run."

"Good point," he commented as he saw the ash clouds pass near us.

A slow flight later through the gloom of ash and low light conditions, a distant hovering facility came into view.

It was awkwardly straddling a large mountain that was actually a large, very recent agglomeration of lava flow that had solidified, leaving ugly red veins of inner lava exposed to the surface. The entire structure was roughly 800 meters in length and looked rather fragile. Most of it was composed on either side of tall, large emitters that housed anti-gravity units that kept the structure out of the lava, hovering at a height of just over fifty meters above the broiling surface.

The center of the structure housed a single square complex building that stood nearly twenty two meters tall. It was utilitarian in the extreme and in the harsh environment made it look perfectly ominous. Maybe it was just my own bias and expectations playing on my perceptions, but it looked like just the place where you'd expect an evil overlord to be sitting in a chair and petting his cat.

A warning from my panel broke my train of thought, "Master, we've just been scanned rather thoroughly."

"So much for our little charade," he muttered and gunned the throttle somewhat. "Any targeting emissions?"

"None, the facility seems completely unarmed, I'm not even detecting any shielding."

"Power load to keep everything in the air and shields, the entire building would need to be a reactor to achieve that. Life signs?"

"Nothing conclusive, master. The large anti-gravity units are making a mess of things."

The hasty landing was quite energetic. If anyone had been asleep, we'd have woken them with the flaring repulsors, engines and the ringing noise the struts made on the decking.

The first to leave was HK, with his personal shield flaring the instant he was on the deck and both cannons out and tracking for targets.

"Report: Scanning. No hostiles, master."

Anakin emerged next, lightsaber in hand but not lit, whilst in the interest of speed I levitated R2 out and was the last to leave.

My senses were straining to pick up anything threatening. I was expecting automated turrets to pop up and mow us down with repeater fire, but my technometry was coming up empty.

HK led the way to the main entrance from the landing pad, whilst Anakin and I flanked the droid as we moved forward, our eyes and senses constantly searching for threats.

The door was naturally locked, but R2 rolled up and solved that with a quick hack of the controls.

Inside, the lighting was subdued, operating on minimal power and the long heptagonal shaped corridor was seemingly deserted. The Darkness I sensed peaked to new heights as we moved further inside. Every Jedi had a unique take on their experience with the Dark Side. Just as no person's Trial of the Mirror was the same. My own experience with the Dark Side was quite simple, yet from another point of view, complex. If I could give one word to it… it would be utter, pure apathy. Where I ceased to care about… anything.

Just thinking about that Darkness and sensing it, somehow manifested to make me feel like my spine wanted to crawl out of my back, combined with an awful vile taste in my mouth.

The Force practically screamed at me.

'Master!' I warned him through our bond.

The warning was pointless.

Anakin's lightsaber was already lit as my own two blades sprang into life.

HK blasted two repeater turrets that dropped from the ceiling before they could even fold out to open fire.

I was defending myself from a commando droid that popped out of a wall panel. My left blade stopped a sparking vibrosword from trying to bisect me, whilst my right had to deflect the point blank blaster pistol shot from the other hand of the droid. The hasty nature of the deflection meant it uselessly pinged into the ceiling.

The next instant my right blade twirled in the same movement, economically and with speed slashing through the left shoulder of the droid and coming out its right hip.

HK almost contemptuously blasted three commando droids trying to stab him through the shield with their own vibroswords, whilst Anakin had Force Pushed his own attackers into scrap against the walls.

No further opponents presented themselves.

"Derisive commentary: Pathetic."

"That would've killed anyone else handily," Anakin shook his head. "We have to move."

We hurried further down the corridor and came to an intersection. There was no signage at all in the facility, which meant we wouldn't likely be facing any organic opposition.

"Ahsoka, anything?"

I refined my concentration further. It was a mess to sort out anything with the miasma of the Dark Side, but… there… two faint points of life, defiantly shining their light but the darkness was steadily overwhelming them.

"Left, run."

Our speed wasn't the fastest it could be, not when we had to guard against more possible traps.

We turned another corridor to the right and ran into a locked door.

There was no time to waste with hacking or more subtler methods at this point. My lightsabers shot forward under the control of TK, stabbing through the door together, then separated and sliced down.

I recalled my blades, whilst Anakin pulled on the slice of door to get it out of the way.

HK breached first and we followed.

Beyond was a darkened room that seemed like a medical bay out of someone's nightmares. Six beds that were also designed to keep the occupant restrained, with all manner of medical devices and surgical instruments mounted overhead. The computers lining the walls were all on low power mode.

HK's active shield cast everything in an eerie blue glow… and if the nanny droids out of hell thought that darkness and using the two younglings as shields would protect them from us, then they were sloppily programmed.

HK's cannon blasted on single shot mode as accurate as a sniper shot and smashed the head of the nanny droid to scrap and the next shot did the same with the other.

Anakin and I reached out with the Force, catching both rather unhappy and wailing infants from falling out of the lifeless pincers of the dead droids and guided them through the air.

He caught a Mon Cal infant in his arm, easily cradling the little guy and I had to contend awkwardly with a six-limbed Chironian.

It forced me to holster my left lightsaber and cradle the infant on that arm.

"Nice shot, HK," Anakin smirked.

"Statement: Your praise is accepted, meatbag."

Then it felt like the world had shifted underneath our feet, combined with an earthquake. My senses and the Force were screaming with another warning. The computer displays flashed red with emergency warnings.

"The antigravity generators were turned off, RUN!"

All caution was thrown to the wind as we rushed out of the medical bay.

HK dropped his shield and barely managed to keep up with our Force Speed enhanced sprints. R2 resorted to his leg jets to fly and keep up.

The facility's death throes threatened to upset our footing, but precognition allowed us to jump and push off the sides of the walls when that happened.

We turned a corner to the entrance corridor just as a large section tore itself off behind us and fell into the smoldering lava below, eagerly gobbling up the facility into the fiery depths.

Emerging into the open, the next trick was to get into the Xanadu quickly.

Anakin vaulted inside first to begin the ship's startup sequence. I was next and relieved him of the Mon Cal youngling and strapped both infants into the co-pilot seat.

I turned my attention to HK and R2, levitating them inside.

"Complaint: That is so humiliating, master."

The landing platform groaned and buckled under the new stresses.

"R2, crash start!" Anakin ordered.

The droid screeched and wobbled over to its interface port.

Another shudder of the landing pad, upset my balance and dumped me into a rear seat.

The reason for it became clear as I saw the world outside the forward viewport change.

We were looking up into the sky.

"R2!"

The Xanadu's engines practically exploded into life and pushed me flat against my seat as it overwhelmed the inertial compensators briefly.

My briefly frightened mind calmed and I could only hold on as the Xanadu shot into the air like a bullet.

"R2, equalize and engage the repulsorlifts, we need control!"

The droid blared in acknowledgement and Anakin pushed forward on the control stick.

The rumbling died down and the Xanadu transitioned into a smooth flight once again… cruising at four hundred meters above the lava flows.

I glanced back at the astromech with some astonishment, "R2, did you just do what I think you did?"

The droid chirped positively in an almost smug manner. He had essentially thrown out even the emergency startup checklist, and effectively turned the Xanadu into imitating a liquid rocket booster, to get the necessary acceleration to prevent the ship from falling into the lava.

Anakin flicked a few switches as he said, "An old trick I learned and taught R2 from my pod racing days as a youngster. We're going to have to stop for some repairs at Tosste though, it's not a trick that is conducive to engines staying in good shape. I'm already getting some warnings from the computer."

"Will we even make it to Tosste? It's 90 lightyears away."

"The engines are still technically fine, Snips. Baktoid builds rugged stuff, but I'll just feel more confident about getting back to Republic space by giving the engines a look over. Tosste's technically enemy territory, but with our cloaking device we can land somewhere out of the way with no one the wiser."

The cabin was abruptly filled with the wails of two screaming infants.

"Knew I was forgetting something. Uh, Snips, mind giving them a check," Anakin winced at the pitch of the noise and even looked rather warily at the two younglings.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation, unstrapped and cradled them both in my arms.

The infants calmed down instantly when I began projecting feelings of safety, warmth, comfort and even a few select memories of my own mother I only vaguely recalled from Shili.

That done, I pushed with my senses into their little minds and bodies.

"They've definitely been injected with something foreign," I frowned in worry. "HK, pass me the scanner from the medkit back there."

"Confirmation: Here you go, Master. Question: Are the tiny meatbags in danger of ceasing function?"

"Not that I can tell," I answered as I passed the scanner over the infants and looked at the results. "It seems they were injected with non-harmful resonance substances."

"To aid in scanning and analyzing their biology?" Anakin queried.

"Yes, there's also something else, but this hand scanner doesn't have the resolution to determine. My senses are picking up something… something very, very small in them, a lot of things… and it's technological."

"Snips, are you saying…"

"They've been injected with nano-droids, Master. We need to bring these two back to the Temple's Halls of Healing, fast."

Mace Windu had seen and experienced many disturbing things in his time as Jedi. Thrown his way by the scum and criminal elements of the galaxy. The Clone Wars, however, were proving to provide a constant supply of new lows for him to experience. The deaths of fellow Jedi was never easy to accept, but something he had made peace with as an inevitability, especially now. It was a risk every knight and master accepted, when they took the oath, that it might be necessary to give their lives in service to the galaxy and the Republic.

Now the war had hit the most innocent that you could possibly imagine.

His eyes looked up from his seat in the Jedi Council chamber as the holograms of Anakin Skywalker and his padawan appeared in the center of the room.

Both were looking distinctly… grungy, their pilot suits frumpled and half-unbuckled.

"Skywalker, report you have?" Yoda opened the meeting.

"Yes, Master. We were successful in retrieving the missing younglings. We must urgently request that any available Acclamator race to rendezvous with us at Denon. The younglings need medical attention that can only be provided at the Temple and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep the Xanadu flying. I won't speak of it further via holo."

Mace felt his stomach churn at the implications of Skywalker's request.

"It will be done," Yoda declared and glanced to Kenobi, who began immediately tapping on a datapad. "Continue."

"I'm forwarding our scans of the base but we were barely there before automated security began attacking and eventually deactivated the gravity generators. We barely got out with the children, before the entire base fell apart and was swallowed by Mustafar's lava. Destroying any possible concrete evidence or clues on who was behind this."

"Most unfortunate that is," Yoda hummed in thought.

"Has Bane revealed anything more?"

"We were unable to get a mindwalker to the Hapes Cluster in time," Kenobi revealed. "Hapan justice ran its swift course and Bane has been executed."

"The chances that Bane actually knew the true identity of his client is highly unlikely," Mace spoke up.

"That is true, unfortunately. The important thing is that the children are safe and we've retrieved the holocron."

"The list…" Mace began but stopped when he felt Yoda's metaphysical presence pulse at him in warning.

"... safely back it is," Yoda continued. "New security arrangements, discussed it will be, later. This entire affair, a trial it has been. The future of the Jedi, uncertain it is. Move forward cautiously, we must."

Mace spotted Yoda giving young Ahsoka a very subtle, yet significant look. Mace had sat on the council for more than fourteen years and had known Yoda since he was a youngling - training under Yoda's guidance after he had reached his own knighthood to swiftly rise to the rank of master. There was definitely something going on between the padawan and the Grand master. Something that Yoda in the past had always shrugged or joked away, but this felt like something different.

The Togrutan padawan didn't react at all, merely staring at Yoda as she was bowing with her master as their holograms faded.

'Interesting,' he mused inwardly to himself.