Chapter 1

Shili

The sun rose over Shili as a watery ball over the far horizon, it's rays peeking in between the montral tips of the village buildings. At the other edge of the planet's curve, just slipping below the opposing horizon, was the grey orb of the grave moon, Arratak. Despite the early hour, the village of Reppli was alive. The local Togruta walked about, either doing early morning chores, exercising, or checking on the small, furry Tinyipens many kept as pets. Some were heading to work, opening up cafes or bakeries for their neighbours breakfasts. Others powered up speeders and headed towards the distant farming settlements, where they would work until the sun descended below horizon and they returned home for dinner.

As Caloc walked along the small stone pathway towards the house Stass had rented for herself and the survivors of the Returned Triumph, he thought back over the past week. What had started as a simple mission to deliver medical supplies to a terrorist attacked Pantora had shifted to a security detail for a senatorial envoy back to Coruscant. Everything had gone wrong. Worried about their transport being attacked while it refuelled, Stass had lifted off early, diverting to Shili for an orbital refuelling before they continued on to Coruscant. What should have only added a few hours to their travel had become four days of hardship and a fight for survival.

As soon as they had dropped into Shili's orbit, the Returned Triumph had been attacked by pirates and had crashed on the surface, in a valley filled with ravenous creatures and hunters looking for them. Stass and the survivors had held out for as long as they could, but the hunters had killed Senator Trav-iss Torn. It had been all that they could do to make it to Reppli and find shelter amongst the locals.

Caloc hadn't been much better. Attempting to defend the corvette from his starfighter, he had been shot down and crashed on the graveyard moon. He glanced up as the final curve of Arratak disappeared below the horizon. Having survived his ordeal with the assistance of another Jedi who had crashed on the moon years before and confined herself to exile, he had made it to the only spaceport. To his surprise, he found the same Jedi shuttle waiting for him there that he had left on the Pyke's facility on Hala.

The two Jedi had reunited in Reppli two days prior, taking time to rest and heal their companions. One in particular – a Senator's Aide – had been recovering from minor surgery the local doctor had performed. But today, they would be able to leave the planet, and hopefully return to Coruscant without any more delay. He passed a young Togruta teenager jogging up the street, her unusually long montrals tied behind her shoulders, and he watched her disappear into the maze of streets ahead.

The sight reminded him of his clanmate, Ahsoka Tano, who was currently teaching his sister in secret. He hoped that she hadn't been discovered. Anikos Tiac was too old to be trained traditionally, but the last year, she had been plagued by visions of the future, normally of terrible events or battles. Seeing it as his duty to help her, Caloc had been training his sister to harness the Force and techniques that could calm her mind. And with him returned to duty, he had asked Ahsoka to continue that training in his absence.

"Hey there, stranger.", called a voice, interrupting his mind's train of thought. Caloc turned to see Telle running towards him, bronze skin gleaming in the early morning sunlight.

She was decked out in a loose pair of trousers and a tight singlet top, her blonde hair tied back above her head in a tail that reached between her shoulders. The small indents along her forehead that marked where her thick spines could extend were barely visible, but his practiced eye still picked them out, as well as the pointed ears she had tried to disguise beneath two loose hair strands. He smiled at her politely, meeting her bronze eyes with his own blue ones.

A war orphan from the Calacran conflict – the Republic's military response to Calacran agents attacking and enslaving people from on Ryloth, Rodia, Vigil and Vercoral in efforts to expand off their own planet – Chan Tellerant Lawell had been adopted by the then Captain Wullf Yularen. She had lived with him for a time, at his post on the planet Hiddjil, and come to Coruscant when he had been promoted to third in command of Military Intelligence. Eventually, Yularen had accepted a post as a Naval Admiral, and Telle had enrolled in the Naval Academy on Coruscant. Unfortunately, her special heritage had to be hidden. Many people had lost love ones during the Calacran conflict, and looked upon Calacran's with suspicion or distrust. Still, Caloc had found a friend in Telle, and through her, an ally in the Navy.

"You didn't come home last night.", Telle said, jogging on the spot as she studied him. "What happened?"

Caloc shook his head. "Just went to the bar. Needed to keep my mind off things."

Which wasn't a lie, per say. He had gone to the bar, but only after he had ventured into the Valley of Death. There, he had taken time to review everything, as he had just been doing. Time and again, he had played Stass' story of their journey through his brain. And yet, he still couldn't see the point of the pirate's attack. There had to be some higher power pulling their strings. But who? Caloc didn't know. Was this a political attack, or a strategic one? He guessed that the pirates might be related to the terrorists on Pantora, but he had no proof. Eventually, he had gotten tired of chasing his preverbal tail and had gone to the bar to try and gain some sense of the questions he was torturing himself with. It hadn't worked.

"Are you worried about the trip back?", Telle asked, "I know that I am. I'm sure to be demoted after losing the Senator."

Caloc raised an eyebrow at her, a move he felt a need to trademark for how often he used it. "They wouldn't dare. You are one of their best and brightest. If they get rid of you, the Republic is doomed."

She laughed, her spines extending slightly beyond the skin for a moment. As usual, when the adrenaline of her Calacran biology rose, the spine responded. Then they retracted, and she got serious. "But what are you concerned about?"

Caloc thought back carefully. "We missed something. Something important that will come back to bite us."

"Do you mean about the Pantoran bombings, or about the pirate attack?", Telle asked.

Again, Caloc paused before answering. "I feel like I am trying to connect the two, but I'm missing the piece between them. There is too much coincidence for the attack to be unrelated. But I don't know how the pirates are connected to the terrorists. Two different sectors of space, two different attack patterns, different species and uniform."

"I don't disagree.", Telle nodded slowly, then pointed forward at the rented house at the end of the street. "I believe that you have someone you can talk about this with. Why did you go to the bar?"

Caloc looked up at the house. He could have discussed this with his Master, could have talked about his concerns or his plans. Stass had been busy lately, trying to protect them against detection. He didn't want to burden her with this as well. So he simply shrugged.

And then something caught his attention. "Is it just me, or does that person look nothing like my Master?"

Telle followed his gaze, and her eyes narrowed. "No, they don't."

Coming out of the building, lugging the still body of Mark Antilles over their shoulder, was a tall Lasat, purple fur and long goatee standing out amongst the other travellers. He wore a grey, utilitarian jumpsuit, and had a traditional Lasan bo-rifle clipped to his belt. He froze as he spotted them and muttered loud enough for them to hear, "Oh, Quarth."

Dropping Mark's body, he reached for the bo-rifle, bringing it up in a smooth move to level at Telle's head. "Stay back!", he shouted, "Stay back or suffer my wrath!"

Telle shook her head, "Sloppy. The guy hasn't even taken the safety off."

The man looked down, then hit the safety off. Caloc shot his friend a glare, and she shrugged an apology. Reaching down to his own belt, the padawan grabbed his lightsaber and activated the cyan blade. A light blue glow erupted around them, and Caloc smiled. The weapon had been damaged on Arratak, and he had needed to use replacement parts to get the blade working again. It's usual sapphire glow had been dimmed somewhat by the replacements. Still, combat was where he felt most comfortable, and just turning on his lightsaber made his pulse calm down slightly.

The appearance of the lightsaber seemed to make the Lasat nervous. His finger squeezed off a shot, the red bolt crossing the air between them. Caloc saw it coming, headed for Telle's chest. Moving fast, he passed the hilt to his left hand, snapping the blade out in front of his friend as a shield. The bolt impacted the blade and ricocheted into the sky.

He brought the weapon back into ready position, feet steady and shoulders loose. "Telle, get inside and make sure that everyone is safe. I'll deal with this guy."

The Lasat looked at them both, his confidence visibly growing. He managed a smirk, though it faded into rage, which seemed to be the default emotion for making bad decisions. "You think I came alone, Jedi? Think again."

He raised his bo-rifle and fired off three more shots, then brought it to his chest and extended it into a bo-staff with crackling electrified heads. Caloc's eyes narrowed. Technically, he could slice the bo-rifle in half. But he didn't want to humiliate this Lasat that much. They were proud warriors. Losing his bo-rifle could be seen as a failure on Lasan, and he would be exiled. Stepping forward, Caloc deflected the first attack, catching the electrified head of the weapon on his blade. He glimpsed Telle entering the house, spines fully extended forty centimetres from her skin.

Ducking the next attack, Caloc spun on his heel, slamming his calf into the back of the Lasat's triple-jointed legs. The man toppled forward, slamming into the ground, and Caloc grabbed the Lasat's free arm and pulled it back and between the purple shoulderblades. "Who are you?"

A babble of indecipherable speech came from behind Caloc, and he turned to see a Parwan bobbing towards him, all three eyes narrowed in anger. The cluster of tentacles dangling from his body crackled with electricity, and his long fingers gripped two thin blaster pistols. Caloc grimaced. The Parwans were one of the stranger beings of the galaxy. Able to fill their bodies with gas that they used to float, they could also charge their skin with bio-electricity. Their eyes saw in a slightly different spectrum from a human's, though Caloc couldn't remember if that helped in combat or not.

It got worse. This particular Parwan was recognisable by his orange skin and the armour over his chest. Derrown, also known as the Exterminator, had been clearing out Republic operatives on several worlds as of late, exposing covers and capturing or killing the Republic Judicial's agents. There were rumours of a mole inside the Naval command structure somewhere.

Caloc studied the Parwan, "I take it that you are responsible for my friends being unconscious?"

Derrown nodded, babbling something in his language that sounded like he was trying to talk through a bath. Caloc rolled his eyes and surged forward, lightsaber swinging wildly to attack. The Parwan bounty hunter responded by simply floating upwards out of range, his pistol's firing down at Caloc's back. Caloc rolled aside, barely getting out of the way. The shot's left black burns where he had just been. Spinning around, Caloc watched the Lasat, who he now recognised as Derrown's apprentice Balackamar, or Bal, get to his feet and pick up his bo-rifle. The two bounty hunter's fired at him, and Caloc found a bolt slamming into his left arm.

Thanks to a transfusion of Klipton into the limb – an experimental surgery that had allowed him to keep the arm functioning without a mechanical replacement – the bolt did little damage. The blued skin rippled as the bolt slammed into it, the bio-electrical tendencies of the fuel inside absorbing the heat and energy of the bolt. Caloc noticed that in an instant, but kept his focus on the two opponents before him. He considered reaching for one of the gadgets his belt's pouches carried, but decided against it. There were too few to waste after his time on Arratak. Instead, he reached in for the Force, allowing it to guide his movements as he scanned the house inside.

There were still lifesigns, and one was awake. Apparently, Telle hadn't been caught by the Parwan. She was moving about upstairs, and Caloc knew what she was going for. Talos, the Senate Guard who had survived the crash of the Triumph, kept his blaster carbine in his room. Indeed, a few second's later, a flurry of blue energy bolts rained down on the two hunters, startling them.

Caloc took that moment of hesitation. He rolled underneath the Parwan, coming up in front of the Lasat and slamming is left hand into the hulking beast's neck. Balackamar went ridged as Caloc discharged electricity into his body, then his entire frame relaxed and he slumped to the floor.

Derrown turned and spat out a curse in his own tongue. Telle leapt from the second-floor balcony, and Caloc caught her with the Force so she didn't break a leg on the way down. She levelled the carbine at the floating, tentacled bounty hunter. "That is no way to speak to speak in front of a lady."

Another babbled comment from the Parwan bounty hunter, and Telle took a shot at him. Derrown barely dodged. Stepping forward, Caloc thrust his blade forward, into the mass of tentacles. Moving quickly, the bounty hunter dodged the attack, and wrapped his tentacles around Caloc's hand free hand. His left hand. Exactly as Caloc had planned. As Derrown frowned in curiosity, no doubt wondering why his own electricity hadn't effected this young Jedi, Caloc reached for a small garden ornament in the front yard of the house across the street. Gripping it with the Force, he sent it hurtling as fast and as hard as he could at the mushroom shaped head topping the Exterminator's frame. The ornament stuck home, cracking in half with the impact. The Parwan went ridged, then relaxed as he drifted from consciousness. His entire body began to release the gas that had kept him aloft, and he slowly sunk to the ground.

Caloc carefully unwrapped the tentacle from his arms, shaking it in disgust. Already, sirens could be heard, interrupting the usual early morning calm that had become the norm in Reppli for years. In the distance, down the slope, Caloc could see the lights of patrol speeders coming in. He turned to Telle. "Mind explaining what happened to them? I want to check on Stass and the others. And then we are leaving."