Chapter 2
Padawan Vedya sat silently meditating on the bridge of her ship, the Astari. The modified cargo freighter was mostly powered down and anchored to a rock that was in orbit around a gas giant in the Toparath system. The only system that was running was an array of passive sensors anchored to other rocks nearby, which formed an antenna. From a distance, it would all look like rocks. "The sensors are rocks. The Astari is a rock. I am a rock," she thought. She tried to remain focused on the thought. Nearby, a planet was dying, but she didn't want to focus on that.
There was nothing she could do. Toparath had aligned itself with Admiral Raith's forces despite its proximity to Roanak 5, General Skeen's homeworld. Skeen considered this unforgivable and, as soon as Raith left the system poorly defended, he had laid siege to it. He offered a simple, if deceptive choice: abandon Raith and join him, or die. The choice was both far more complicated and far less important than it sounded. Raith would never accept the system's betrayal. If it abandoned him, he would destroy it himself at his first opportunity. The people of Toparath were doomed as soon as Skeen arrived. They could either die with honor immediately or die in disgrace slightly later. They had chosen honor, whatever that was worth, and their cities were being bombarded as Vedya sat idly by.
She tried to remember a skill that Rey had spent a great deal of time drilling into her: patience. It wasn't something she had in abundance by nature. She tried to remind herself, for the hundredth time that year: General Dameron's strategy was working. The Resistance was too weak to take on the First Order warlords directly. They didn't have the ships or the firepower. There were two enemy forces in the mid rim alone that could easily destroy the Resistance fleet if they fought them head-on, plus another four who could make at least a close fight of it. But those forces were too busy fighting each other to seriously organize against any outside threat. And as they fought, they grew weaker. The Resistance, meanwhile, grew stronger. With every passing day, they gained new allies simply by helping those in need and delivering a message of hope for a better future.
The First Order remnants wouldn't stop fighting, either. They no longer knew how. They had been united once. They had fought under one banner with a common cause not so long ago. But they had leadership then. Leadership that gave them a vision, gave them an objective, gave them a purpose beyond mindless violence. Without Palpatine and his various puppets, they no longer had any of that. All they had left was anger, malice, and a mindless sense of ambition that understood nothing but domination through violence. They no longer knew anything aside from war. They were a dying breed, an organization with no direction and no future. Eventually - inevitably - the Resistance would simply outlast them. All they needed was patience.
"But tell that to the millions dyin' below," she thought. "What has all our patience bought for those people? What hope for a better future have we delivered them?
"I am a rock," she reminded herself. The rocks only watched. The rocks had patience. The rocks would last. Civilization might rise and fall a hundred times on Toparath, but the rocks would endure.
She continued to meditate, still feeling the terror and pain of the victims below but acknowledging her inability to help them. But then she felt something more painful, more personal, and more urgent. Her large, slender eyes shot open as wide as they could. "Rey!" she shouted.
There was only one other officer on the bridge, Lieutenant Haila, who served as Padawan Vedya's first mate. Haila was a short human woman who was old enough to remember the end of the Galactic Civil War. She was gray-haired, stocky and stoic, a true lifer in the Resistance cause. She was at a console, monitoring the ship's life support systems. "What's wrong, Vedya?" she asked.
"Something's happened to Rey," Vedya said. "Something horrible. How soon can we get back to Omega Base?"
"You think they found the base?"
"I don't know. All I know is that Lady Skywalker is in terrible pain. We have to find out what's happened."
"If we move now, we'll give away our position. Skeen will spot us and find our sensor array. And of course, we'd have to go home the long way to make sure they can't follow us based on our hyperspace trajectory."
"Just say what ye're thinkin', Lieutenant."
"Tactically, it would be an error to leave now. Lady Skywalker would say…"
"I know damned well what Lady Skywalker would say. Some long yarn about avoidin' attachment and bein' patient. But it's not just my feelings at stake here; the Resistance needs Lady Skywalker. What if she dies while we're here, worryin' about our sensor array?"
"Lady Skywalker can take care of herself, Padawan Vedya," Haila said.
"Recall the sensors. We've seen all we need to see here. Once we're in the shadow of the gas giant, make a jump to Kijimi."
"What's in Kijimi?"
"Nothing," Vedya said. "Nothing and no one. The First Order blasted it to bits three years ago. But it's nearby and it's as safe a place as any to send a signal home to base."
"We won't be safely in the shadow for 12 hours," Haila reported.
"Very well. Patience it is," Vedya said.
She closed her eyes again and tried to resume meditation. After a few hours she went back to her quarters and tried to get some sleep. Her mind was full of Rey's screams, however, and sleep would not come.
At last the ship moved into a space where the gas giant blocked it from the view of Skeen's forces. The interference from storms in the planet's atmosphere would block any sensor signal from reaching Skeen. They powered the ship back up and made the jump to hyperspace.
Once in the abandoned Kijimi system, Vedya raised the encrypted comms to call the Resistance base. General Poe responded immediately. "Padawan Vedya. You're three days early."
"I know. Something terrible has happened to Rey. We need to…"
"We know," Poe interrupted, in a subdued tone. "She was captured. We don't know if she's still alive."
"I know she's alive. She's in terrible pain. I can feel it. Who has her? Where is she?"
"We're not sure. Darth Ebron woke up some ancient force on a planet called Melochaj, but they overwhelmed his own forces. Rey insisted on investigating herself and she was captured."
"Then let's go get her."
"We can't, not now. This force has attacked and claimed five surrounding systems so far, and no one is leaving any of them. There's no path to Melochaj right now."
"We can't just leave her there."
"Of course not. But we need a plan. And to make a plan we need to figure out what we're fighting against. I need you back here now. Skeen can wait. The base isn't secure without Rey here."
"The base is absolutely insecure without her. Havin' me there won't change that very much."
"I know. We'll get her back, Vedya. But I need you here now."
"Understood, General. We'll take a detour to be sure we aren't bein' followed but we'll be back as soon as we can."
She shut down the comm and muttered, "I knew we should've gone straight home." She tried not to glare at Lieutenant Haila as she said it. She knew she was being petty, and that wasn't something a good Jedi had ought to do. At times like these, though, Vedya wondered if she ever really would be a good Jedi. The tales passed down to her of the Jedi of old seemed too good to be true. She would sometimes find herself wondering if anyone really had ever been a good Jedi.
Dahzi ignited the lightsaber that the specter had given him as quickly as he could and raised it to block the sweeping strike from the specter's own saber. The specter swung again, not with great speed, but Dahzi was only just able to get his saber in position in time to block. The specter jumped over his head, doing two flips along the way, landed behind him before he could turn, and force threw him across the chamber.
Dahzi crashed into the far wall and fell to the floor. He looked but he couldn't find the specter. But suddenly he heard it. It was making a loud, deep, ominous breathing sound, like some sort of mechanical ventilator. In the shadows at the far end of the chamber, Dahzi saw a lightsaber ignite once more. This one was red. In its glow, he could see the specter again. He was now fitted with more mechanical parts than human, stuffed into a cybernetic suit that covered him from head to toe. A black mask covered his face and a black cape trailed behind him.
The rage and sorrow that had burned in the specter before were gone now, replaced by a cold, hard, determination. Dahzi felt no real anger or malice in the man, but there was a deep sense of hatred there, and Dahzi could feel it focused on him. Dahzi struggled to his feet as the specter strolled, slowly and methodically, across the room towards him.
The specter reached him and leveled a sweeping blow towards Dahzi, showing none of the speed and agility it had earlier but nearly overpowering Dahzi with the single blow all the same. Dahzi could hardly maintain his grip on the saber and had to jump away to escape. The specter continued to march at him.
"You are weak!" the specter said, its voice now low, booming, and authoritative. "You are slow. You are unskilled. You aren't nearly strong enough!" He swung down at Dahzi again, forcing him back. "Pathetic!" the specter said.
Dahzi grew angry. He growled at the specter and changed at him. The specter hardly moved; instead, it casually waved a hand out and sent Dahzi flying across the room once more. Dahzi grunted and rose again to stand, defiant.
"It will take more than petulant anger to defeat me, child. You let your fear and your anger distract you. You must learn how to suppress them. Or, you must learn how to embrace them!"
It waved a hand as it said this, and Dahzi felt the specter's rage return once more, stronger than ever. One of the great statues in the chamber broke free of its base and flew at Dahzi.
Dahzi dodged, but before he could regain his feet he saw a second statue crashing down on him. He fell to the floor and dropped his saber so that he could use both hands to push the statue away. He was only able to hold it off long enough to roll out from under where it was falling. More stones fell on him there, though, and he was quickly buried.
He yelled and tossed the stones away. He pulled the lightsaber back to himself with the force and charged at the specter. As he ran, the specter did something he wasn't expecting; it deactivated its own lightsaber and casually returned it to its belt.
Dahzi swung down hard at his now unarmed opponent, aiming to slice down through its helmet, but the specter, unworried, just raised its left hand. The saber stopped dead in mid-air, held back from the specter's body by the force. Dahzi couldn't overcome it, but he continued to struggle to try, trying to channel his anger into greater power.
The specter raised its other hand and began to twist and rub its fingers in small, subtle movements. As it did, Dahzi felt his hand move against his own will. The saber in his own hand began to turn towards his neck.
Dahzi struggled but he was no longer in control of the saber or even his own body. The saber was millimeters away from his neck when he felt his own fingers, still under the specter's control, deactivate the blade.
The specter made a choking gesture and used the force to lift Dahzi up by his throat, dangling him above the floor of the chamber. "Pathetic," it said again. "You are not up to your task. You aren't strong enough to survive what is coming." Dahzi felt a strong squeezing sensation in his right hand, and felt the lightsaber he was holding being crushed and shattered. "Not…" the specter said, making a long pause for emphasis. "...yet." The specter pulled the kyber crystal from the heart of the lightsaber Dahzi was holding and pulled it back into its own hand.
Finally, Dahzi was released from the grip and dropped to the ground. He looked for the specter again but it had disappeared once more. He spun his head around to look for it.
"But you should know," it said. Its voice had returned to its original tenor, but was now weak and quiet. Dahzi finally found it; it was crumpled in a heap on the floor. Its helmet was removed and Dahzi could see its scarred, discolored, disfigured face, still partially attached to the base of the helmet. It continued, "the quest of power can come with a heavy cost." It disappeared once more, this time for good. Exhausted, Dahzi fell to the ground in a heap.
Finn and Gatya moved carefully along the ramp towards the bottom floor of the temple. The ramp was smooth but their boots had enough traction to walk slowly. They could see Dahzi at the bottom, and weren't sure how badly he was hurt.
They reached the chamber at the bottom and found Dahzi unconscious. Finn shook him and he jerked awake. "Stay back! Stay away!" he said, looking around wildly.
"It's just us, kid. Hey! We're here to help, remember," Finn said.
"Is it still here? Did you see it?"
"See what, kid?"
"The man, or the ghost, or whatever it was. It attacked me but I don't think it wanted to kill me."
"We didn't see anything at all," Gatya said, "aside from ya, crumpled up down here on the floor."
"No… I spoke with something. It said it was the spirit of a Jedi."
"We would've heard, kid," Finn said, "We were just up there the whole time. You just had a bad dream."
"No.. it wasn't a dream!" Dahzi said. He looked around for proof. He found the chamber intact with no signs of his fight. The statues were all still standing where they had originally been. But there was still something in his hand. "If it was just a dream, how do you explain this?" he said, showing the two the broken lightsaber still in his palm.
"Ah, look at that. Ye've broken yer lightsaber in the fall," Gatya said, shaking her head.
"No! It's not mine. I don't even have a lightsaber! And it takes a lot more than a fall to shatter one like this. These things are supposed to be almost indestructible. The specter gave it to me but then he broke it."
"Why would he give it to you and then break it?" Finn asked.
"He was testing me but I… I failed."
Finn shook his head, unsure if he should believe this story. "I guess anything's possible. We are in a Jedi Temple, I've heard of people seeing force ghosts around places like this. Never heard of one attacking someone, but I guess anything's possible."
"Is that thing fixable?" Gatya asked. "It might really come in handy."
Dahzi shook his head. "The ghost took the kyber crystal away. Without that, the rest is just spare parts."
"Ah, 'tis a shame. We only have a few training sabers to spare at the base, and you can't keep those. You'll have to get sorted on that if you want to be a proper Padawan like my sister."
"Your sister?"
"Aye, Padawan Vedya Feyn. She's training to be a Jedi. She could help you train, susposin' she feels like it."
"We need to find what we're looking for and get out here first," Finn said. "Dahzi, you could read the writing above. Can you still read what's down here?"
Dahzi looked more closely at the walls. "It's the same language. It's an older script and the dialect is different but I can still read it."
"Good. Start at the bottom and see if you can find anything about a planet called Melochaj."
Dahzi bent down to read the writing near the floor. "It's all legends and myths down here," he said.
"Keep looking," Finn said.
Dahzi did, and after a minute he said, "I found it. But this is still some sort of old folktale. This says it's from twenty-five thousand years before… well, before whenever this was written."
"Can you read it, please?" Finn asked.
"Sure. 'Twenty-five thousand years ago, a civilization called Jafakar tried to conquer the galaxy. They found a planet, which they named Melochaj, which had an unusually strong connection to the Living Force. The planet itself was a conduit to the Force and it could be used to channel its power. The Jafakar used the planet's power and their own dark science to create a race, which they called the Melocheth, to be the perfect army. Through their connection to the planet, the Melocheth could yield the power of The Force and could use a form of resurrection. Whenever one Melocheth warrior fell, another would spawn from its life-force on Melochaj.
"'The Jafakar intended to use the Melocheth to complete their conquest of the galaxy and impose order. But they were unable to control their creation. The Melocheth rebelled against their masters and slaughtered them. Then they moved to conquer the galaxy and rule it themselves. Twenty-thousand systems fell to their might and were enslaved.
"'Another race, the Aqili, dwelled in a distant galaxy but foresaw through the force that the Melocheth threat would one day spread to their home. They used an intergalactic hyperspace route to reach the Qalas system in this galaxy, and there they established their own base on a desert moon to launch a counterattack to contain the Melocheth.
"'The Aqili were an ancient and powerful race but they couldn't defeat the power of Melochaj. For a century, they fought the Melocheth to a standstill. Finally, they realized they could never destroy the Melocheth as long as they retained their connection to Melochaj. So, instead of trying to destroy the Melocheth, they moved to trap them and cut off their connection to their homeworld. They created a prison, which they named Qelloc, that trapped all of the Melocheth who were on Melochaj and trapped the Force of the planet within. There were still other Melocheth warriors scattered throughout the galaxy, but once they were severed from their connection to Melochaj, they were no longer able to wield The Force and no longer able to reproduce. Gradually, they were all killed off.
"'The Aqili had completed their task, and so they left to return to their original home, in a galaxy far, far away. Before they departed, however, they warned the people of this galaxy that the Melocheth were only trapped in Qelloc and that they would never truly die. If anything disrupted the prison, the Melocheth would return with their original strength and numbers. They warned the people that they must never go to Melochaj for any reason, ever again. But, just to be sure, they left behind rau at their base in Qalas, so the people wouldn't be defenseless if the Melocheth ever returned.' That's the end.
"What's rau?" Finn asked.
"I don't know. There's no explanation and I don't know the word. This dialect doesn't use articles or capitalization so it could be The Rau, or a rau, or some rau, or just… Rau. Without any context, I don't know."
"That could be more helpful. But it's something. Thanks, kid. At least we have the name of a system where to look," Finn said.
"I've never heard of a Qalas System," Gatya said. "But, there's bound to be lots of systems I've never heard of, I suppose."
"I've never heard of it either," Finn said, "Hopefully the charts back at base have it. And hopefully, whatever rau is will be clear when we get there."
"I'm sorry, but why are you looking for rau? This is just some dusty old legend. It sounds like a parable for overconfidence or a warning against using science to interfere with the natural order, or something," Dahzi said.
Finn shook his head. "It's no parable. It's all real."
Dahzi laughed. "Are you serious? You can't engineer force sensitive life-forms. And resurrection is impossible. Everyone knows that."
"You'd be surprised how many things that 'everyone knows' turn out to not be true. Especially when it comes to the force. There was an Imperial officer, Moff Gideon, who figured out how to give the force to clones. Your former masters used that skill to make their leaders. If you'd stuck with them, it was probably just a matter of time before they would've been harvesting your blood. As for resurrection… you're the one telling me you saw a ghost. Who knows what else the force can do?" Finn said.
"Even if it's possible, why would you think it was true? This was tens of thousands of years ago, so it says. Half the stuff down here sounds ridiculous."
"Because I was at Melochaj. And I saw a First Order Sith Lord wake the planet. I saw the Melocheth ships launch from the surface and I saw them turn Darth Ebron's fleet to ashes."
Dahzi looked stricken, "That's impossible. You're saying this is real? And the Melocheth are back?"
"I'm afraid so, kid. That's why we risked sneaking past Raith's forces to come down here. This was the only place we knew with an ancient Jedi history. I have to guess that Raith sent you here to look for the same info. He probably had some hint what Ebron was up to before we did."
"You think he needs to know this to fight the Melocheth? Should we tell him?"
"He probably doesn't know the Melocheth are attacking yet. He was already here, at any rate, when Ebron freed them. He was probably looking into them for the same reason Ebron was; he wanted to use them as a weapon. But just like the Jafakar, the First Order won't be able to control them. They've just set them loose on the galaxy."
"So what do we do?" Dahzi said, his breath still fast.
"We need to find a way out of here so we can get this intel back to the Resistance," Finn said. "But… maybe we should warn Raith. We can make a recording for him and leave it for him to find."
"Warn Raith?" Gatya objected, "Have ye lost yer mind, General? Why would we do a thing like that?"
"The Melocheth are an enemy to the entire galaxy now. I don't like the idea of helping the First Order but they have all the ships and all the weapons in this territory. We need them to fight the Melocheth. If the Melocheth destroy Skeen's and Raith's forces the way they destroyed Ebron's… there won't be much of any force left in the mid rim to slow them down."
"If they rid us of Skeen and Raith, I'll welcome these Melocheth bastards," Gatya said.
"Careful what you wish for," Finn said. "We all have to have hope for a better future. But always remember that no matter how bad things seem, they can always be worse. If we want that better future, we have to keep fighting for it. And that always means doing the right thing."
"Save yer lectures for someone else, General," Gatya said. "I know what I stand for!"
"Don't forget it. Those are people in those Star Destroyers, Captain. People not too different from what I used to be. Now we need to get out of here. Dahzi, is there any other way out?"
"Not down here. Let me… try to focus again." The boy closed his eyes and stood still for several minutes.
Suddenly his eyes opened, "There's a second exit. It's in the ceiling."
"That'll work. Can you open it?"
"I think so, when we get there. We'll be sixty meters above ground though. How will we get down?"
"Don't worry about that, kid," Finn said. "Let's get climbing."
They scaled the ramp carefully and returned to the stairs in the upper part of the cylinder. Above the ground level, the walls were bare. Whatever history was meant to be there remained unwritten.
They reached the top of the stairs and saw a round, sealed iris in the center of the round ceiling. They were five meters away from it and four below it. Dahzi closed his eyes and began to wave his arms around. Finn could hear stones moving around inside. After a few seconds, the stones that made up the iris slid out, leaving the opening clear.
Finn activated his comm. "Chop," he said, "Meet us at the top of the tower."
Finn and Gatya shot grapples up through the hole, and they stuck on something outside. Dahzi looked confused, but before he could ask what to do Finn said "Stay here, kid. I'll drop you a cable when we have the shuttle." Finn and Gatya pulled themselves up and out onto the roof with the cables, while Dahzi stayed hidden below.
Finn stayed low to the ground and looked out into the night for the Renegade. He saw it approaching. "Get that ramp down as soon as you're close, Chop," he said.
The shuttle continued to approach and the ramp opened and descended as it drew closer. Before it reached the temple, however, a loud blast rang out as a cannon on the ground hit the shuttle's shields.
The shuttle shook and knocked slightly off course, but the shields held. Finn knew that wouldn't last long against that kind of weaponry, however. More shots fired in rapid succession but Chopper took evasive maneuvers and avoided them. Finn knew that if the shuttle stopped to let them board, it would be a sitting duck. The cannons would blast through the shields in moments.
"We have to take out the cannons," Finn said. A moment later he heard a distant roaring sound. "...and a couple of TIEs in a minute."
"I don't have a clear line at the cannons," Gatya said, looking over the edge, "and we don't have anything that can knock out a TIE fighter."
"The Renegade does," Finn said.
"Ye're madder than I thought if ye think that clankin' hunk of beeps and boops is going to take out the cannons while dodging fire before those TIEs get to it."
"No, Chop can't fly like that. But you can."
"Acgh!" she scoffed. "Do I have to do everything around here?"
Finn ignored her. "Chop, fly a bit lower and get as close as you can to the temple. Keep that ramp open!"
Chopper did as instructed and Gatya ran and jumped from the edge. She spread all four of her arms wide and pointed her feet back. She spread the feathers on her neck and arms out and back to make something that looked like wings. A Feetulan couldn't quite fly - they were too heavy for that - but they could glide along for a fairly impressive distance.
She glided through the air, made a sharp banking left turn, pulled up, and landed right on the ramp of the Renegade. She ran inside.
Finn saw the shuttle begin to take sharper, more erratic turns at once and saw its hidden blaster cannons emerge from the wings and fuselage. It spun around its axis until it was upside down and dropped into the trees.
A series of explosions a moment later marked the end of the cannons. The TIEs were still advancing, but before they were close, the Renegade shot back up from the trees, directly beneath and behind them. One of them burst in a hail of blaster fire from below before the Renegade made a move. The Renegade then spun sideways, still rising and shot the second TIE down as it regained a level altitude.
The Renegade rushed back to the temple, spun backwards and stopped. Finn hopped onto the ramp, and the shuttle moved over the opening. Finn threw a cable from the shuttle into the iris and Dahzi jumped out to grab it. The shuttle lifted up and Dahzi shut the iris back up behind him as Finn pulled him up into the shuttle.
Finn ran in and strapped himself into a harness. Dahzi took a seat but didn't strap in. "You should secure that harness," Finn said.
"Whatever, I'm fine," Dahzi said.
"Gatya, can you get us out of here?"
"I think so, General. There's a few more TIEs coming from the spaceport and three of the Star Destroyers from the fleet in orbit are coming to intercept but I think they're all too slow."
"Chop, get ready with those hyperspace coordinates. We need to get out of here as soon as we leave atmosphere."
"Womp wa waa," Chopped said.
"What was that?" Dahzi asked. "Was that a yes?"
"Womp wa whomp. Wa womp?" Chopper asked.
"Yes, he's coming with us Chop. Don't let him see where we're going."
"Womp wa," Chopper said.
"What?" Dahzi said.
"No offense, kid," Finn said, "but you're not ready to know where our base is just yet."
The Renegade shot up out of the atmosphere. The Star Destroyers were visible in the distance, but Gatya was right; they were too late. She pulled the lever and the Renegade escaped into hyperspace.