Hello Everyone, we're back.
So after that whole mess we're back with another story arc. Don't wanna say too much right now, but you're gonna be seeing a species entirely created by myself, as in an OG creation, not from Legends like most of the previous material.
This is a fairly short chapter, it's just up to A. Let y'all know the fic ain't dead and B. set up the new story arc so here it is.
I would say more, but I got nothing, so enjoy the chapter I guess.
"Continue with the operation, you may fire when ready."
The voice sounded familiar somehow. It was cold, calculating, and menacing, filled with malice. A man, ruthless and tyrannical, driven and determined. Another presence, also familiar somehow. It was desperate, and clearly afraid, a woman?
It was huge, whatever it was, massive. The smooth spherical surface of the object was marked by a single concave. A crater, an eye...
Suddenly, a flash of green, a loud, bright explosion of emerald coloured light shining through the darkness.
Fire, burning, death...
Voices, so many voices... all of them screaming.
Silence.
Nothing.
"Ahhh!"
Ezra awoke in a cold sweat, frantically panicking as he bolted upwards and his eyes scanned the dark room around him. He'd been thrashing around so much he'd almost thrown his sheets down over the meditation mat on the floor.
His breathing slowed, he remembered where he was. He was on the Chimaera, speeding through the Unknown Regions, headed for Thrawn's "home", wherever that was, and the threat of strange bioships looming over them.
Ezra rubbed his hands over his face, letting out a sigh. He didn't know the details, he couldn't make sense of the situation, but he knew one thing:
Something terrible had just happened.
The sterile, grey corridors of the Chimaera loomed over the Jedi as he strolled casually through the corridors, but by now Ezra had become oddly used to them. The dull grey hallways lacked the kind of rundown, homely charm of the Ghost, or most other Rebellion ships for that matter, but beggars can't be choosers, and Ezra was in no position to choose right now. During his stay, the Chimaera had come to feel less like an oppressive prison to Ezra, and more like the safest place available to him right now. The cold rigidness of the structure had an oddly secure, almost comforting feeling to it. It's simplicity was blunt, and honest about its purpose. There was nothing "subtle" about an Imperial Star Destroyer, and Ezra quietly pondered to himself if this is how most of the crewmen aboard these vessels feel, oddly safe under the thick layers of durasteel and heavy turbolaser batteries. Then again, these were not normal circumstances, the massive floating fortress was practically the only thing protecting him right now from the darkness of uncharted space surrounding him.
He took a deep breath, he still wasn't entirely over his encounter with the entity on the abandoned ship. He was lucky to be alive, that creature had outsmarted him, and outmatched him physically, if he hadn't found that blaster he wouldn't be standing here right now. It had wrapped him around it's proverbial finger and toyed with him constantly. On top of that, it had also taken him far too close to the dark for his liking.
What was that dream? Ezra continued to think, it certainly wasn't a normal nightmare. It was a message from the force, he'd sensed something, but he couldn't put his finger on what-
Oh no, what about the Ghost Crew?
Ezra felt his chest tighten.
Were they alright?
"Ezra! You're up late!"
Ezra looked down to see a familiar man in an engineer uniform.
"You're up late, Ormyn."
Ormyn smirked, he was crouched down over some panel, mangling wires and components and working away at something. Brex stood over him, motionless. For somebody with a labour droid constantly following him around, Ormyn tended to be doing most of the work, Ezra noticed.
In fact Ezra had also noticed Ormyn had been working a lot more since they'd returned from the coolant retrieval. A morbid thought entered Ezra's head, he probably had to fill in due to the lack of engineering personnel. The Chimaera's engineering team had been... "thinned" by that incident, but he doubted Ormyn wanted to think about that. Ezra himself didn't want to think about that.
"The Chimaera doesn't sleep. That turbolift over there's gone and locked up and I'm trying to fix it before somebody gets hurt. Brex, hand me that spanner there, will you?"
"You know, Chief, I could easily finish this up myself if you-"
"Nah, you know me. If you want a job done well, you do it yourself."
"You don't trust me to get it done, Chief?"
"No, that's not it, I just trust myself more."
Brex shrugged, "Would you trust yourself more to get the spanner?"
"Brex…"
"It was an attempt at humour, Chief, here you go."
Without any further words, Brex handed him the spanner.
"Anyways Ezra, what's your excuse?"
Ezra sighed, leaning against a wall and crossing his arms. "I couldn't sleep, I think something really bad has just happened."
"Like what? Where?" Brex asked.
"I don't know, but I felt something in the Force. It's as if... I don't know, I heard voices, millions of them, and they all screamed and then... nothing."
"It's a bad dream, Ezra. We all get them."
"No I've had bad dreams before, this is different. It's like the Force is trying to tell me something. Somewhere out there, something terrible has happened and I think I sensed it in the Force."
Ormyn shrugged, "Well, I'm sorry Ezra, I'm just an Engineer. I can't exactly help you out on that one. I don't understand all this 'Force' stuff and I doubt I ever really will."
"I'm afraid I'm of no use here either, Bridger. As you can see, I was designed to fix turbolifts, not discuss metaphysics and hand spanners to stubborn Engineers who won't let me do my job." Brex chimed in, throwing a subtle glance at Ormyn.
Ormyn shook his head and continued, "The only Force user I know about is Lord Vader, and that guy is scary enough to make me averse to the whole thing."
"What about the Emperor?" Ezra asked.
"The Emperor? Why would he be able to use the Force?" Ormyn scoffed.
Ezra mentally slapped himself, he'd forgotten how well Palpatine had covered up his Sith identity, "Yeah, right, sorry. I got mixed up. Well anyways, I have met Vader and I can tell you from experience he is just as scary as you think he is." Ezra replied with a smirk.
"You met him once?" Ormyn asked.
"Twice, actually. The first time was on Lothal, the second was-"
He stopped, what happened on Malachor was likely highly classified among the Empire, and knowing about it would probably put Ormyn in a lot of trouble.
"...another incident."
"Look, I'm sorry Ezra. I can't really help you here. Why are you telling me all this anyway? We're on opposing sides of a war, remember?"
Ezra stopped, considering his actions for a minute, "Well to be honest, I've been doing a lot of things lately without really knowing exactly why. I guess that's what happens when you're put in a situation you never expected to find yourself in."
"Yeah I've been meaning to ask you about that." Ormyn said.
"What were you planning to do after you dragged the Chimaera out of the Lothal system anyway?"
"Well, uhhh-"
"Is it some kind of confidential Rebel plan?" Brex asked. He'd been standing so still Ezra had almost forgotten he was there.
"No, no that's not it. It's just, well, I didn't plan that far ahead. I figured I'd send the Chimaera to somewhere else in the Empire, then I'd steal a shuttle or something in the confusion, get off the ship and the Ghost would come and pick me up or something."
"You didn't expect we'd end up in the Unknown Regions?" Ormyn asked.
"No, that was the Purrgils' idea. I didn't even think we'd leave the Lothal sector to be honest. At worst I expected we'd end up near Garel and the fleet would be put out of use for a while, I guess I underestimated just how far the Purrgil could really go."
"And what are you gonna do when we get back?"
"Go back to the Rebellion obviously. Go find the Ghost crew again and show them I'm OK."
"And I guess we'll be enemies again..." Ormyn said grimly.
Ezra frowned, this used to be so much easier, "Hey, listen, if you ever find yourself at the end of a Rebel blaster, just tell them you're a friend of Ezra Bridger and I'll be sure to vouch for you."
"Oh? You consider me a friend now?" Ormyn asked in surprise.
Ezra shrugged, "Well I've gotten along better with you and Brex than anybody else on this ship."
"Well thanks, I'm honored. Hopefully I never find myself in that situation."
A sudden burst of sparks prompted Ormyn to retract his hand from the opening, shaking it a bit and resuming his work.
"Eh, I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides, if we stay out here we're dead anyway."
"What about you? After all the trouble you've caused the Empire's gonna want your head on a silver platter."
"I've managed to survive this far, I'll keep going. I just want to see my friends again, I hope they're alright..." Ezra sighed.
"You don't sound too sure about that." Ormyn said.
Ormyn was right, he wasn't.
"This... 'bad thing' that supposedly just happened, you think it has anything to do with your friends?"
"Why do you think I'm up this late pacing around the Chimaera? I certainly hope not. I'm doing this for them, you know? I'm doing this so they can have a fighting chance against whatever's got Thrawn so spooked out here. If I go back and they're all dead..."
"There's no point worrying about it now." Ormyn reassured him.
"If something really bad has happened like you think it has, then the way I see it there's nothing you can do right now until we get out of the Unknown Regions".
Ezra mulled over the answer for a moment, before standing up and sighing. "You're probably right. Thanks for the chat Ormyn, and night by the way."
Ornym went back to his work. "Good night to you too Ezra Bridger." Brex replied for him. Ezra smiled and gave a nod to the droid. Then turned and walked away.
As Faro stepped into Thrawn's dimly lit office, she took note of the vast holographic gallery of art surrounding her. Various sculptures and paintings floated throughout every corner of the room.
The Admiral tended to do this every so often, he would retreat into his office and simply observe the vast virtual art collection stored within the Chimaera's data banks for as long as he wasn't needed, and Faro viewed it as a small source of pride that he thought her capable enough that he would trust her with both the ship and the rest of the Seventh Fleet. Rukh would often stand guard outside the Admiral's office during this periods, and Faro had come to dread interrupting Thrawn lest she incur the Noghri's wrath. So as she stepped into the dimly lit office, surrounded by sculptures and paintings from all sorts of cultures and species she didn't recognize, part of her almost wanted to thank Ezra for getting rid of Rukh.
For a brief moment, Faro took note of a large concrete slab in the corner of the room. It felt almost like an afterthought with how far back it was, and it contained a depiction of what appeared to be some kind of orange bird. In fact it looked vaguely like the symbol the Rebellion was known to use. Faro wondered to herself who painted it, did Ezra know the painter?
"Do you have news of the fleet's whereabouts, Commodore?"
Faro snapped back to attention, "Yes Admiral, as you know we've already rendezvoused with the Bellicose. Captain Pellaeon and the Judicator has been scanning another wreck for anything worth salvaging, but they don't seem to have found anything useful as of yet. The Death's Head, Relentless and the Nemesis were unable to find anything of use."
"And what of the Stormhawk?" Thrawn asked.
"That's what I came to tell you, sir. We've received a message from the Stormhawk, they would return but apparently they've found something interesting, something Captain Branburk says we need to see. They've sent us a report which I have right here."
Faro placed a datapad on Thrawn's desk. Thrawn idly looked it over for a moment, before pressing a button causing the holographic gallery to disappear.
"An inhabited planet?" Thrawn asked.
"Yes Admiral. Captain Branburk says he's located a planet containing large amounts of buildings and surrounded by large orbital structures. Long range scans have indicated that the planet holds a mid level industrial civilization. They haven't made any attempts to contact the Stormhawk and it is unknown if they are aware of its presence."
"Interesting, follow me to the bridge and order the helm to jump to the Stormhawk's position." Thrawn ordered, standing up.
The two of them stepped out into the hallway, heading for the nearest turbolift and setting it to go to the bridge. The turbolift had been ascending for a solid minute when Faro decided to speak.
"Admiral, If I may speak freely for a minute?"
"You may." Thrawn replied.
"I have some... 'doubts' about this plan of yours."
"Understandable, Commodore, we are in a dire situation after all."
"Well, If you don't mind me asking, Sir, why did you leave your people?"
"It wasn't by choice, they didn't approve of my preference towards pre-emptive strikes, and so I was exiled."
"Well, that's kind of what I'm worried about, Admiral. How do you know they won't simply kill you for violating your exile? And us for being outsiders trespassing in their territory?"
"Put simply, Commodore, I don't. But it is the only safe haven within our reach, and I did have allies before I left, if I can make contact with them, I may be able to convince the Ascendancy I have not turned against it."
"And Admiral, there's something else I've been thinking about." Faro said.
"What about the Grysk?"
Thrawn turned in recognition, appearing intrigued at the mention of the name, "What of them?"
"The Grysk live in the Unknown Regions, right? And when we encountered them near Batuu they were moving Chiss children. If we're headed to your Ascendancy, how do you know we won't run into them? They did seem to be taking an interest in the Chiss."
Thrawn paused for a moment, as if considering his answer, "I am unaware of the full strength of the Grysk, or the size of their fleet. However, the Voidlord has one of the most formidable armadas in this part of space. It wouldn't surprise me of they want to avoid a confrontation with him."
"I have to say, Admiral. For a warrior species, the Grysk are very reluctant to actually get into a fight."
"I have noticed that myself. For a supposedly martial culture they certainly do have a tendency towards underhanded or manipulative methods. Their manipulation of the Darshi and attempted manipulation of the Chiss does raise some interesting questions about their true nature."
"Do you think they could be manipulating the Far Outsiders in the same way?" Faro asked.
"Unlikely, Commodore. I am unaware of anything the Far Outsiders hold dear enough for the Grysk to exploit, and the Voidlord is no simpleton. He will not allow them to lead him around as a pawn."
"You think the only reason the Grysk haven't shown themselves is because they're scared of the Voidlord, or because they're trying to figure out how to manipulate him?"
"Potentially. The Grysk always attack the closer enemy, Commodore, but without a concrete idea of where they are, I'm afraid I'm unable to deduce who is closer, the Chiss or the Voidlord."
"Still, it feels weird that for a supposed 'warrior race' they won't just take us head-on. What if they're not all they're cracked up to be? Or maybe they're taking orders from somebody else?"
The turbolift doors opened abruptly, inviting them into the Chimaera's bridge.
"That remains to be seen, but without a better idea of who exactly the Grysk are, it is baseless speculation. For now, the Voidlord is the more immediate threat."
Faro stared out the bridge viewport as the blue tunnel of hyperspace faded back into the black of space. Floating against the void was the Stormhawk, and in the distance, a mere head turn away from Faro, was a large planet. At a mere glance, Faro could tell it was inhabited. The night half of the sphere was visible, and pockets of light, scattered across the surface, shone into the sky. Oceans and lakes dotted the planet, large bodies of water reflecting the sunlight from the surface, though they were scattered and disconnected.
"Officer Lomar, open a hailing frequency with the Stormhawk." Thrawn ordered.
"Yes Admiral." Lomar replied.
The projector lit up, and a blue tinted image of Captain Branburk of the Stormhawk formed in front of Thrawn.
"Grand Admiral, I see the Chimaera has arrived." He responded promptly, with a nod to a junior officer handing him a datapad.
"The planet is clearly visible from here, Captain. If the inhabitants are advanced enough to detect you -and from a mere glance I can see that they most certainly are- they will no doubt have done so by now." Thrawn stated.
Branburk sighed, "I apologise Admiral. This was the point where we jumped into the system. By the time we realized the planet was inhabited and saw the orbital structures, well we came to the same realization. I sent the preliminary report but I'll have a complete report ready and sent to you in due time. In the meantime, I went ahead and made preparations to contact them as per the Unknown Alien Protocols."
"Preparations?" Faro asked, joining the conversation.
"I ordered my communications officer to start scanning for transmissions or a communications system. We've been monitoring them for some time and our translation droids are analyzing the dialects, cross-referencing it with similar languages and attempting to form a translation.
"Have they made any attempts to contact the Stormhawk?"
"If they have Admiral, we haven't picked up anything directed towards us."
"May I listen to one of these transmissions, Captain?" Thrawn asked.
"Of course Admiral, I don't think you'll get much insight from it but if you really want to hear it, here it is."
He signaled to someone off screen then pressed a few keys. A series of high pitched shrieking noises, interspersed with a kind of lower pitched throat chirping filled the bridge. This continued for a full minute, with numerous officers exchanging glances of confusion and morbid curiosity. Thrawn, meanwhile, observed silently, his face betraying no reaction. Faro grit her teeth, the high pitched noises scraping against her ears like chalk.
"These sounds are quite avian in nature. The Calibop have a similar sounding language base." Thrawn remarked.
"There's one more thing, sir." Branburk continued, "Our long range sensors have been able to pick up some of their ships, I can have a sensor focus send you an image of one of the craft if you like."
"If you would, Captain. Await further orders and send me the image."
"Acknowledged Admiral, Stormhawk out."
Branburk nodded and the image disappeared, and a render of what was presumably one of the alien vessels took shape over the projector.
Faro's immediate thoughts on the design were that it looked bulky, and rugged. It reminded her of an old Rendilli Dreadnaught, it's gray utilitarian exterior suggesting a heavy amount of armour.
"It looks..." Faro muttered, struggling to put together an answer.
"The craft is clearly designed with protection in mind. The designers paid no heed to factors like mobility or speed." Thrawn remarked. "What does that tell you, Commodore?"
Faro observed the ship for a moment, preparing her answer. "That the reason why the ship is designed as such is either because the ship was designed purely for defence and support for the large orbital platforms surrounding the planet, or it's because the builders simply lacked the skill and technology to build a ship of sufficient agility." Faro remarked.
"My thoughts exactly, Commodore. This ship was definitely built with a very defensive mindset, which gives us valuable insight into the priorities of the species." Thrawn remarked.
"Namely that they have little interest in expansion and merely wish to be left alone to protect their territory and to ward off potential invaders?" Faro asked.
"Correct, Commodore. It also explains why they have been reluctant to contact us. If they have, indeed, detected us that is. It is possible they have realized the gap in technology and are simply hoping that if they ignore us we will simply leave them be."
"But how would they be able to recognise technologically superior ships if they've never seen them before? Unless..."
"Unless they have indeed encountered superior ships before. Incursions from a hostile alien threat would explain such a mindset and the abundance of orbital platforms quite well." Thrawn finished.
"It would. Regardless, The Chimaera and the Stormhawk both stand at the ready, Admiral. Do we follow the Unknown Alien Protocols and try to make contact or do we just leave them be?"
Thrawn paused for a moment, considering his options and formulating an answer.
"Tell the rest of the fleet to jump in at the edge of the system, out of range of the planet. This system might prove a valuable hiding spot."
"A hiding spot? You mean from your 'Voidlord'? You just said these creatures have encountered technologically advanced ships before, how do we know the Voidlord hasn't already been here?" Faro asked.
"If the Voidlord were here, Commodore, that planet would be a desolate rock." Thrawn replied.
Faro accepted the grim answer, "With all due respect sir, how do you know the Voidlord won't just track the rest of the fleet here?"
"Because he has most likely been keeping track of us using the same hidden monitoring stations he uses to find raiding targets, and if he has not found this planet yet that would mean he has no such stations in this area."
"Hidden monitoring stations? What about the Scout Ships that we've-"
Faro stopped, coming to a sudden realization.
"If he's able to keep tabs on us without us knowing, and yet he's been sending big obvious scouting ships to drift within range of our sensors... he wanted us to know he was tracking us?"
"I believe so. The Voidlord most certainly has never seen Imperial ships before, and is probably fascinated by the sudden appearance of a fleet of unknown vessels. I would imagine he wishes to gauge our reactions and see how we would respond to the sudden appearance of such bioships. It's why I've been reluctant to acknowledge them, if the Voidlord gets any sense that we are familiar with his kind, it may hasten him to engage us. And the Voidlord also harbours a special hatred of the Chiss, if he finds out that the leader of this fleet is one it will most certainly drive him to attack." Thrawn explained.
"And you think laying low here for a while might shake him off our trail?" Faro asked.
"If we were to suddenly disappear from his intelligence and surveillance network for a period of time, the trail could indeed go cold for him."
Faro nodded, it was a good plan alright, but then again she'd never seen Thrawn come up with a bad one. "Very well Admiral, I'll order Officer Lomar to send out the rendezvous signal to the rest of the fleet. I'll also tell them to be sure to jump in at the edge of the system to avoid the planet's sensors. Now we just need to figure out what to do with the planet nearby."
"Remain on standby alert in case they try to preemptively take hostile action, in the meantime we will wait for the Stormhawk to finish it's translation before we decide how to proceed."