Altyr 5

[Jidai Geki]

*Geki shrugs casually at his apprentice's weeks-long inability to cause dissent amongst a number of multicultural children. He grasps the young man by his neck and flings him through the tough mirrored glass. Aiden lands in a heap amidst the children.*

 

'Children, meet your new playmate.'

 

*Geki reaches into the fragile minds of the children, the effort of warping their malleable psyches negligible. Children are impressionable, and the impression Geki leaves is one of pure, malevolent insanity. The children scream at first, futilely resisting the change, but soon they are corrupted, malicious psychopaths.

 

As one, they turn to the bleeding Aiden, shards of mirrored glass sticking in his body from every angle. Their eyes glitter with gleeful wickedness, and they close on the hapless youth.*

 

'Come play with us, Aiden... forever and ever and ever...'

 

*Geki raises his eyebrows.*

 

'Not the most original line, it has to be said. Ok, you crazy kids have fun!'

 

*Geki turns and strolls away as Aiden's voice rises in a mournful wail.

 

The children begin to play.*

[Jidai Geki]

*Deep in the bowels of the still-functioning former SEED base turned Imperial base turned abandoned base, a long-dormant cloning vat beeps as its erratic power supply hums into life. The clone within, preserved by emergency power, is intact.

 

With a hiss and a pour of amniotic fluid, the vat's entrance slides open, depositing fluid and the naked body of Jidai Geki on the grill.

 

Geki walks from out of the shadows, holding a robe out for Geki.*

 

'Well, come on. We've been gone for months, the galaxy isn't going to terrorise itself, is it?'

 

*Geki stands up and looks at Geki coldly, his limbs still shivering and his Prometheus-addled visage implacable.*

 

'Are you mad? That robe's imaginary. I can't wear an imaginary robe, you fool. Where are all the stormtroopers? What's going on? There's a war on, you know. I'd better get back to Carida.'

 

'Why bother? It's been months, there's bound to be a new Emperor. Besides, all that bureaucracy and actually having to do things that didn't involve wanton murder, terror and torture was terribly tedious.'

 

*Geki nods, considering his doppelganger's words, and grins slowly.*

 

'You make a good point, Geki. Let's get back to basics; we can worry about large-scale operations later. First things first; there's plenty of sentients to slaugher out there.'

 

*Geki stalks off, still naked as the day he was born, and his mad laughter reverberates through the corridors.*

 

----------------------

 

*A few hours later, fully clothed and masked, Geki ascends the ramp of the Lich and takes off for parts unknown.*

[Hadrian Augustus]

Jate's ship emerged from hyperspace on the edges of the Altyr system. She rapidly made her way to the only inhabitable planet. The 5th one from the star of the Altyr system.

 

She landed on the surface and emerged from the canopy far from the old Imperial base. She set up a tracking beacon and awaited Crosa. They had much to discuss....

[Omega73]

Crosa's A-Wing came out of hyperspace outside of the planet of Altyrn just as Crosa finished his fine dinner of crackers and corellian ale. He saw the space craft that now belonged to Jate start to descend to the planet, and decided that he had a few moments to test out his ship before following suit. The more he made dives and roles in space, the more Crosa felt his grasp on the controls ease a little until they became an extension of his body. After two minutes of his tiny exercise, he started to descend into the atmosphere.

 

It wasn't five seconds after Crosa's A-Wing touched the ground before he jumped out of the cockpit and removed his helmet gracefully, revealing his now cut short hair. Holding the helmet between his hand and waist, Crosa struted forward towards Delta's daughter. His insticts told him that this wasn't a trap, but just the same, he carried his MP5 strapped to his back, and his twin vibrobalds by his side. He gave a friendly smile (or at least what he thought was a friendly smile--he hadn't given one in years) and introduced himself in the proper Corellian fashion.

 

"Hello. As you may know, my name is Crosa Hoverich. I served with your father in the times when crime was king, and money made the clock tick. Now what exactly is it that you need from me?"

 

Crosa wasn't trying to be rude, but he had always found that beating around the bush was a fool's game, leaving it to the wise to get straight to the point. He awaited the girl's responce.

[Hadrian Augustus]

Jate looked up, and saw crosa in his armor, but his hair was different than in the holos her father had sent back. He rapidly approached her with a array of weapons on him. Her mind began racing, she had left her weapons in the ship like a fool”¦And if he wanted Crosa could kill her easily, this scared her. She backed slowly back towards her ship. And stopped when he did, she hoped that he couldn't see her fear in her eyes.

 

"Hello. As you may know, my name is Crosa Hoverich. I served with your father in the times when crime was king, and money made the clock tick. Now what exactly is it that you need from me?"

 

She inclined her head in acknowledgement, she was still scared of him but he didn't look too dangerous. She decided to tell him about the bounty.

 

”œI know you don't owe me anything, but I need your help.”

[Omega73]

Crosa took the Datapad that had been presented to him by Jate, and focused in the information that had been entered into it. As he looked through the somewhat short amount of information, he listened to what Jate needed and--more importantly--what she had to offer.

 

“They promised me payment, and well, as you can see I don’t have much to my name at this moment. I need your help with the bounty, I am sure you would gain much profit from this adventure… I know you don’t owe me anything, but I need your help.”

 

Crosa looked into the girl's eyes and studied her for a moment. He had to be sure that there was no sketchy stuff involved. Hunting Jedi was tricky business, and someone of her size and age, no matter whose daughter she was, would find decieving much easier than killing. After confirming that she was being honest, Crosa's mind started working on prices.. The Datapad had recorded quite a decent sum, more then enough to last him until another mission came up. But, then again, he already had enough funds from previous bounties to bribe off three Hutt crime Lords, which was quite a sum. Of course, he never planned on doing something so nieve (after all, give a Hutt a cookie...) but he thought it was nice to know that he could if he so desired.

 

Crosa coughed. He was about to say something he had never said before.

 

"I, Uh.. I won't be requiring funds for this mission. Consider it a donation to your father's memory. Now if you'd fill me in on a few more details regarding the mission, we can be on our way."

 

Crosa then started discussing details with Jate, preparing himself mentally, physically, and most important when dealing with Jedi, emotionally.

 

OOC: Just PM me some details, then you can post us both getting into ships and heading towards where ever.

[Hadrian Augustus]

Jate explained the details of the bounty, and thanked him profusely, according to her leads Kirlocca should be on the station of Enigma finding him and killing him would be hard”¦she entered her ship and disappeared into space”¦.

[Onderin Starlisk]

A fleet of New Republic warships emerged out of hyperspace over the Imperial-held world of Altyr V. The world had a seasoned past under the banners of different factions, but now the Empire held it, and that was a fact that Admiral Onderin Starlisk was intent on changing.

 

The Empire had spent little time or effort fortifying this world, so if there was going to be a battle over it, the Empire would have to send a fleet. Otherwise, it would be an operation of only a few hours before they could take over and perhaps head for another target. Honestly, Onderin had little preference. Taking a planet was ideal, but so was knocking an Imperial fleet out the picture.

 

Here was what he had brought with him:

 

New Republic Command Group:

 

1 Star Defender command ship (1 element), the Inevitable

9 MC90a Star Cruisers (3 elements)

10 Lancer frigates

2 Interdictor cruisers

5 Quasar-Fire carriers

(27 ships total)

 

It was a huge, powerful fleet with several Star Cruisers and large complement of fighters. It would take a strong Imperial force to hold out for anything but a short time against its power. The Interdictor cruisers were presently powered down, offering Imperial forces the chance to flee should they so choose.

 

"Alright," Onderin ordered from the bridge of his newly-completed flagship. "Close in on the Imperial installation. Prepare for orbital bombardment. Set up a perimeter so that we can't be caught between an incoming force and the planet. I want some space. Watch the space lanes, and give me some fighter cover."

 

His orders were carried out efficiently. This fleet got the best of the best when it came to talent.

[saberforce]

Hirolaah made a quick adjustment to his own Wookiee Slug-Thrower, and then made sure that the rest of his platoon was doing the same. He knew that once word got out that a full platoon of Wookiee's were aiding the Republic military might, more would slowly join. While the overall goal was to make sure that the Republic won a lot of victories so that Blacksun would allow for Kashyyyk to make a full signing with the Republic, he would also accept a strong Wookiee presence within the Republic's military. Taking only a moment to look out the viewport of the Inevitable to see the rest of the fleet deployed all about, the Wookiee knew that action of his platoon would soon be seen.

 

<< We're about to have the call of war upon us! While I am your Kashyyyk General, my rank is not official with the Republic. Obey whatever orders that are given to you, and carry them out with the same swiftness that you would with being apart of the Kashyyyk Honor Guard! >>

 

Suddenly, the holding room that his platoon was stationed at erupted with a chorus of loud growls and howls and each Wookiee let out a personal war cry. Hirolaah looked once more out the view port. Today will be the day our war cry will be heard all across the galaxy!

[Jidai Geki]

Seems like there's been something of a misunderstanding here... Altyr 5 is an ocean planet now, owing to melting of its ice caps a few years ago. There is no surface to speak of, only ocean. As for the 'Imperial'/'SEED' base, it is on the seabed and undetectable. There is no real reason to come here, IC; it is simply the dead site of a terracide.

 

Furthermore, it was never an officially SEED or Imperial-held planet, and to my knowledge, nobody knows about its existence outside of Geki and a handful of individuals.

[Onderin Starlisk]

OOC: Talked to Lee about this. Turns out this isn't really an Imperial held world after all, so we have no reason to be here.

 

IC:

The fleet scanned the surface and was unable to detect an Imperial presence. Either the Empire had left when the planet's ice caps had been melted, or they had never been here. Either way, with nothing over which to fight, there would be no battle here.

 

Onderin gathered the fleet back together, picked another target, and soon jumped into hyperspace toward it.

[Tares Vortex]

The descent into Altyr V’s atmosphere was almost as uneventful as the trip to the planet itself. Tares’s ship had slid through the air without much resistance, largely due to its aerodynamic shape. Finding the port and requesting landing clearance had all been handled by Atlas. Even the landing itself had been automated.

 

As a result, Tares hadn't had much to do during this whole series of events. Jaina and Tirzah had been tucked away in their own private spaces, so he had been left to himself.

 

After the ship had come to a rest, Tares finished up his last minute check over the final Data dump Atlas had downloaded from the Holonet. A few passive aggressive messages and a local weather report made up the bulk of the information. Closing the console in his stateroom, he made his way to the cargo hold and opened the landing ramp.

 

The salty air quickly rushed in and flushed out the ship’s highly processed atmosphere. The space port they had landed on was on a platform suspended high above the planet’s liquid surface. Dry land was extinct, so the locals had had to adapt to the after effects of the SEED military forces so long ago.

 

Tares walked down to the base of the landing ramp and looked around. The immediate platform was sparsely populated with only a few local mechanics working on smaller surrounding equipment. None of them looked like the type of individual to provide the information they were look for.

 

Tares eventually heard footsteps from the other two as they arrived in the cargo hold. Turning around, he smiled, “Welcome to Altyr V. I think we're going to have to locate the central office….”

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

Whatever Jaina had been expecting on Altyr V, emerging on a planet whose surface reminisced Manaan did not top the list. Tentatively following Tares down the ramp, she wrinkled her nose against the whipping wind that turned the feathery ends of her tresses into daggers against her clammy cheeks. As far as she could see in every direction, there was no land to speak of. But rather than the tranquil stillness on the surface of Mon Cal or Manaan, or even like her home planet of Chad, an air of barrenness lingered. Bleak, hoary skies coincided with the ubiquitously jejune and hostile faces that turned their way. Inclined to agree with Tares' assessment, she folded her arms within her cloak, but the trifling gesture did little to prevent the zephyr from piercing the folds of fabric and sending the biting chill to her bones. Even after only a full day of Coronet summer, the temperature shift jarred the internal stasis of her body.

 

And beyond that, there was another level of awareness that prickled her senses, as if the planet itself was groaning under abuse and atrocity, the moaning sigh of the wind its only verbal complaint. Trace elements of dark side energy whispered unspeakable things from the depths of the ocean.

 

Something told her--perhaps the bleak glances from the minute complement of distrustful mechanics or other odd citizenry wandering the platform--that questions of any kind would be unwelcome, so the trio made their way across the length of the platform to the large building marked Registration in Aurebesh, on a sign badly weathered by the relentless salt erosion. Turning to Tares, Jaina muttered, "Welcome to Altyr V, indeed. This place looks about as cheery as Dantooine."

 

A bored-looking human male, clad in a mechanic's garage uniform that looked like a castoff from the Empire's heyday, shot them a lazy look as they entered. "Registration fee's fifty credits," he drawled, but when he leaned back in his chair, which emitted an almighty squeak of protest, a sharp and greedy glint entered his eye. "Name, transponder ID, and purpose of visit. We don't get tourists here."

[Tares Vortex]

The employee's introduction reeked of opportunistic greed. Granted, the trio didn't speak "native," but to his knowledge, no one was a true native here. In the aftermath of the planet's climate and surface changes, the planet had been largely abandoned. After that, a few enterprising companies had returned to mine the materials still located below the surface. This platform was one of few way stations built years later to supply mining operations.

 

"I'm sorry, we aren't here to stay long. We just need access to your maintance database." Tares replied.

 

The man took a moment and glanced over each individual in the trio. "Name, ID, and purpose of visit." He demanded again.

 

There wasn't any particular reason to keep their identities and purpose a secret, but something about the way the man was demanding the information was off to Tares. The man was dressed like a mechanic on his break or lacking work. He wasn't the typical sort to greet visitors.

 

"You don't need that information." Tares replied with a slight enforcing wave of his hand.

 

"I don't need that information." The man repeated.

 

"You need to allow us access to your maintenance computer."

 

The man confirmed the instructions and moved away from the console he had been seated at. Tares took his place around the counter and positioned himself above the array of complicated controls. The console was more than just an information retrieval system. It appeared to be the controls of some kind of nearby machinery.

 

Tares began to manipulate the main screen to begin the search for the information they had come for. The process was going quickly until he hit a snag, "The file is encrypted." He stated.

 

He was at the final digital doorstep of determining where the comm array had come from. One final push of a button was all that was needed. Taking out his comm, Tares looked around while activating the channel to the Ferro, "Atlas, establish a wireless uplink with the terminal connected to the serial number I am sending to you. I need access to an encrypted file."

 

The droid failed to acknowledge, but the screen in front of Tares eventually came to life seemingly on its own. "This shouldn't take long..." Tares began to say before an other voice rang out from the other side of the room.

 

"You three, what the hell are you doing? You aren't supposed to be here...."

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

"What are we doing here?" Tirzah asked quietly to Jaina as Tares interfaced with the greeter/dockworker/whoever he was, having apparently decided to speak in full sentences again. Dressed oddly in a soft yellow button down shirt and brown leggings tucked carefully into her Jedi boots, she took a moment to replay the whirlwind actions of that morning. "Are we on the run from the Order or something?"

 

It was the only thing that the twelve-year-old could think of since Jaina and Tares had taken her shopping for different clothes just before leaving. It was why she'd taken out her padawan braid. She'd been fighting her breakfast making a second appearance when they'd entered the building and she was grateful that she didn't have to look out at the rolling water anymore.

 

As the voice from the opposite end of the room rang out, Tirzah's hand reached to the small of her back, where she'd hidden the lightsaber Jaina had returned to her, but she waited for direction from the other two before she acted. The man had said "three" so there was no hiding and hoping that Jaina and Tares could pass themselves off as any kind of inspector, so she just had to trust the two of them.

 

You wanted excitement...

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

Surprised that the sullen teenager's voice still worked, a single glance told Jaina that her charge's quietude had been, at least in part, due to some greenness around the gills. Beyond that, however, the question she asked served to reveal a great deal about her perspective of Jaina. Carefully warding off the wounded sting that threatened to cloud her demeanor, she shook her head fractionally. It had not been an accusation, she reminded herself, but merely the curiosity of a girl who now found herself in strange circumstances without explanation. Besides, her willingness to come along without question reminded Jaina that Tirzah did, whether or not she would admit it, want to be here.

 

"No," she replied in kind, keeping her eyes moving around the room and her senses alert as Tares' mind trick removed the mechanic from their path and he settled into the vacated place to hack into the computer. "We're helping Master Tares look for his brother. He disappeared somewhere close to here years ago, and a piece of his ship was traced here recently. We're looking for--"

 

Her words were broken by the gruff growl emanating from a large, husky Ugnaught across the room, who blatantly displayed the Imperial insignia on his lapel. "You three, what the hell are you doing? You aren't supposed to be here!"

 

Instinctual response twitched her hand toward her lightsaber, but Jaina resisted the urge and instead took a step toward the porcine creature, employing a saccharine tone. "We were just wondering if you could help us wi--"

 

The telltale whine of blasterfire rang out in the office, but Jaina's danger sense alerted her far in advance. With a shove through the Force, she sent Tirzah spinning in Tares' direction before an agile leap carried her out of the way. A blaster bolt sizzled through the air where she had been standing only a half a second prior. Uselessly, the energy dispersed in a blackened furl of smoke on the far wall. Tares and Tirzah had taken cover behind the desk, which was now flipped on its side, glass littering the ground from the obliterated computer terminal. Jaina's back handspring brought her neatly beside them, her lightsaber now clutched firmly in her palm. "I'm not surprised they don't get visitors, honestly," she quipped, as the sound of boots heralded the arrival of backup. "Any bright ideas, Vortex?"

[Tares Vortex]

The screen he had his gaze fixed to shattered in slow motion. The dancing letters blinked out of existence as a streak in the glass exploded out from one corner. The information he had been searching for vanished as a prelude to the chaos that was erupting.

 

Tares found himself pushing the desk forward to its side. Somehow, he also had his saber hilt whipping in the air towards his free hand. With the desk now cover and his saber activated, he positioned himself over to intercept the space between Tirzah and the gun fire.

 

Blocking a few stray bolts, he then corralled Tirzah to the waiting cover while watching Jaina. She had just dodged a bolt and was regrouping in a dizzying display of acrobatics.

 

“Any other ideas, Vortex?” She asked.

 

“One, but our new friend isn't going to like it.” Tares replied.

 

Closing his eyes, he reached out through the Force and felt the edges of the desk. With a little pressure, he tested the furniture’s resolve before pressing hard against the durasteel.

 

A loud scraping sound rang out against the floor as the desk was propelled forward by an invisible hand. The desk skipped across the ground before landing right in the doorway where their attacker resided.

 

After another loud pop, the blaster fire stopped. The trio was now exposed in the middle of the room with the attacker nowhere in sight.

 

“He’ll be feeling that in the morning.” Tares observed.

 

A voice chimed in over the comm, “Assuming he survived.” Atlas said.

 

Tares immediately reached for his comm unit, “Atlas, did you get the file?”

 

“Negative. I have only decrypted 85% of the encryption. You will have to access the primary storage node so I can reestablish a link. Transferring the directions to your datapad now.” She replied.

 

Watching as the directions came in on the pad, Tares motioned to the opposite door, “Looks like we’ll have a bit of a walk.”

 

The path looked simple enough, mostly out of the way from the busier sections of the platform.

 

“We shouldn't hit much resistance since no one has sounded the-” A booming klaxon emerged through the surrounding speakers, “-alarm… yet.” He observed….

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

"Do your plans always go this well Master Tares?" Tirzah quipped, not looking forward to a longer hike on the platform. "It's almost like someone doesn't want you to find out what happened to your brother." She fell silent as Jaina fixed her with a look, only offering a shrug by way of apology.

 

She never in a million years would have dared speak to Master Ronto or any other of the temple's masters that way...why was she suddenly feeling free to be so candid around Master Tares and her mother? Some lingering effect from the strange dream she'd had back on the Hope?

 

"It's not going to take them long to figure out which ship belongs to us since it's probably the only one that hasn't actually been registered if they check their logs."

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

A quandary began to take shape as Tirzah oozed quintessential teenage sass, one that had nothing to do with the deafening alarm cropping up across the superaquatic platform. On the one hand, forthright communication surpassed the truncated minimal responses she had been offering since the revelation of her father's identity and subsequent demise. The last thing Jaina wanted was to squelch Tirzah's authenticity. On the other, if these sarcastic outbursts were going to become commonplace, it would have to be a conversation.

 

Then again, Jaina's attempts to rectify Andon's tone and behavior toward authorities in similar circumstances had never gone particularly well either. Despite the gravity of the situation, the thought made her grin.

 

"Don't worry about the ship," she waved off the concern. "I'm sure Atlas is more than adequate to the task of keeping it safe. We need to move fast, though. I'd say we've officially worn out our welcome."

 

Palming the hilt of her saber, she glanced toward the doorway where the desk had slammed their assailant into the far wall to ensure none of the initial force had recovered enough to be a threat, and resumed Tares' course toward the opposite door. The platform, which had been previously dotted with bored and slow-moving mechanics, was suddenly alive with motion, and Jaina felt the exposed nature of their position. With the consideration that her daughter's vision was still a new and untested variable in the situation, she seized Tirzah's hand as they ran. Their emergence drew a fresh volley of blasterfire. With its telltale snap-hiss, Jaina's saber sprang to life, batting away anything that drew close enough for concern. But Tares had been right: the building to which Atlas' directions pointed was too far across the platform for them to just duck and run. They needed a better plan.

 

Ducking into a supply closet toward the exterior of one of the open garages, nearly tripping over a pan of hyperdrive grease, she paused for a moment, adrenaline surging through her veins, her eyes flicking between Tares and Tirzah. "Everyone okay?"

 

Their rapid breaths were the only sound in the assenting silence, and Jaina continued. "Good. I'm regretting having not drawn up the contingency plan." Peeking out the doorway into the wide garage, a slow, reckless smile spread across her features. "I have an idea, but it could get messy."

[Tares Vortex]

“Messy?” Tares asked to himself while looking around at the immediate surroundings. The oversized closet offered no hint of a solution, so he turned his attention to the outside garage area. Through the crack of the door, Tares noticed something… messy.

 

“Wait, that?” He asked again, “No way, that will never work.”

 

Through the crack, along a near side wall, a large streak crossed from an exposed pipe to the floor. Globs of grease congealed along the stain and slowly descended to the ground.

 

The idea was crazy. It couldn't work. It would be too simple. Surely, no one would be gullible enough to fall for such a ruse.

 

Tares noticed a small streak of grease collecting along the base of the closet’s doorway from another slightly exposed pipe. Taking his hand down, he ran a finger through the collection pool and then brought up his stained fingertips to eye level.

 

The smell pierced his nose before the sight actually registered. It had the same tone of oil as a forgotten engineering bay of a smuggling ship.

 

The idea slowly grew on him. The maintenance workers seemed to lack any distinct form of a uniform, so the ploy just might work with their street clothes. They didn't have much else to go on.

 

Holding up his comm link, he keyed into his ship for a brief moment, “Atlas, lock the ship down and make sure no one can get aboard. We are going to make a run for the storage node.”

 

Keying the comm link off, Tares spent one last moment staring at the grease stain, “Okay, if this is going to work, it will need to look natural.”

 

Quietly, he activated his lightsaber and brought the very tip upwards. The blade caught the edge of the leaky pipe, forcing the crack to expand. From the hole, a steady stream of grease doused the entire closet and its inhabitants.

 

Before long, all three of them were covered in the grime. The stream hadn't been large, but the results were just enough to simulate draining the grease traps of a freighter’s galley.

 

Tares looked back at Jaina and Tirzah. “Okay, things got messy. Ready to blend in?” He asked….

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

Are you kriffing kidding me? Tirzah thought, as she spat out some of the grease the that found it's way into her mouth when she'd let out a shriek of shock as the smelly semi-viscous liquid washed over her. "Are all your plans this thought out mom?" She flung her hands, spattering grease over the rest of the interior contents of the closet.

 

She hated being dirty and could feel the grease matting in her hair. Feeling as though she'd need to shower for a week to get all the grime off. "Don't see why I had to get doused too. How many twelve-year-olds are passable mechanics? Don't exactly see many kids running around," she groused.

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

With a flash of annoyance, Jaina peered through the grease dripping down her forehead at the teenager, who seemed to have found her voice, not to her credit. A fiery backlash that threatened to burst out of her was tempered by the inner voice that whispered the reminder that such impudence meant, at least, that Tirzah was growing more comfortable around her mother.

 

Either that, or karma had caught up with her. It was like looking in a frustrating mirror.

 

"I don't know what they're teaching at the Jedi Temples these days, but back when I was an apprentice, we had to do what we were told without question," she snapped. "If you want to get out of this alive, you will do exactly what I tell you."

 

Swiping her oil-splattered sleeve across her face, Jaina peered out into the now-deserted garage. There were five speeders and three submersibles in various states of completion at the various work stations. The farthest one from their hidey-hole seemed to have been dismantled least of the collection, and mentally calculating her route, Jaina turned back to the pair.

 

"Tares, you'll need to move quickly. We can only buy you so much time." Her eyes were grave as they met his, wordlessly communicating her partnership in this crazy endeavor. Turning to the child who had returned to her sullen state, another reckless glint entered Jaina's eye. "Here goes nothing. Stay close behind me, kid."

 

The door slid silently open, and the odd trio filed into the garage. Tares, his immaculately-kept silver hair now turned dark by the shower of industrial waste, disappeared around the corner into the open air of the platform. Jaina crept across to the speeder, keeping Tirzah in her periphery. Her protective instinct of the girl was unwavering, but such actions told Jaina that her subconscious did not yet trust her daughter. As they climbed aboard and Jaina thumbed it to life, she gritted her teeth. If this worked, it would undoubtedly cement their unwelcome on this planet, though the initial hostility of the denizens toward what could have been a simple misunderstanding gave her pause. What crawled beneath the waves of Altyr V? Why had they been so forcefully ejected?

 

Maybe most importantly, who didn't want Drake Vortex found?

 

As the engines of the speeder coughed to life, a clattering from the hallway connecting the garage to the outbuildings told Jaina she had only moments to spare. Roaring out of the garage with a pilot's whoop, she brought the speeder into the open air of the platform. Blasterfire whizzed past her ear once more, and Jaina called to Tirzah, "Keep your head down!" The speeder flew off the far side of the platform, skimming the waves. Salt spray splashed in Jaina's oil-splattered face, reminiscent of home, and she chanced a glance behind her. Two more speeders, much more intact than the one she had commandeered, endeavored pursuit.

 

But Rogue Squadron had not made her their leader for nothing. With adept hands and steady eyes, she careened through the valleys, hiding between massive waves that were stories tall, diving through thin walls of water and bringing them back around toward the platform. She could not see the form of Tares in the distance. With a split-second decision, her eyes fell upon another of the outbuildings: a large barracks that, accounting for the alarm blaring across the platform, now announced vacancy through the Force.

 

With a sidelong glance at Tirzah, she yelled over the din of the engines. "Do you trust me? Jump when I say jump, and use the Force to propel you."

 

The speeders behind them were gaining, but they had the element of surprise on their side. Barreling, out of control, towards the barracks, the speeder's engines whined under the velocity Jaina asked of them. There was no way they could stop, and the manic look in Jaina's eye announced to her daughter that she had no plans to do so.

 

"JUMP!" she yelled at the last second, reaching for her daughter through the Force and reversing their momentum as the speeder flew out from under them and enveloped the barracks in a cloud of flame.

[Tares Vortex]

The tension coming from Tirzah was something of a new experience to Tares. The backlash seemed out of place, almost illogical. Then again, Tares couldn't recall ever letting logic get in his way at her age. In fact, a verbal backlash during a mission didn't top some of the things he and Drake had done at that age.

 

Jaina seemed to fall into her role of mother effortlessly. A quick "back in my day" retort followed by the summary of an improvised game plan. For all her skills in combat and the Force, it was clear that she had some hidden talents for the spoken word as well.

 

"Tares, you'll need to move quickly." She stated.

 

His notion of the plan kept changing as they acted, but the mother/daughter dramatic departure made things apparent all at once: Jaina was pulling the good old diversion routine. He hadn't expected this visit to resort to a grand scale slight of hand, but he wasn't surprised. No trip was ever normal. Why would it be?

 

As the two made their grand exit, Tares quickly leapt into action. He scanned the garage to gauge the other occupants' actions. Most of them were reacting to the diversion. A couple went about their business making repairs as if they didn't get paid enough to care about anything else.

 

He kept his pace slow as he began to cross the garage. With most of the guards in pursuit elsewhere, the trip to the storage node became a lot shorter. Resistance should be light, as long as he didn't draw too much attention to himself.

 

His drawn out walk across the garage ended at the opposite door where he entered into an empty hallway. Unlike the fresh, salted sea air that blanketed the outside, the atmosphere in the hallway was dry and stale. It suggested to Tares that he had entered a less traveled area of the platform.

 

Taking out his comm link, he keyed into Atlas's channel, "I'm on my way to the storage node. Get ready to run the decryption again."

 

"Understood," The droid replied, "I am monitoring local security channels. There are reports of an erratic speeder chase. Did Tirzah take control of a speeder?"

 

The prospect of the preteen driving caught Tares off guard. Someone driving erratically, however, did not, "No, I'm pretty sure Jaina is at the wheel." He replied.

 

Atlas acknowledged before clicking off. Tares continued to walk down the hallway. The plain white walls seemed endless. The decor was worse than the service tunnels at Solaris HQ. At least those had some foliage.

 

After several minutes of walking, Tares finally arrived at a nondescript door his datapad had marked as his desired destination. Keying the controls, the door slide open without resistance. On the other side, a small rectangular room with a single tower in the middle waited.

 

He approached the tower and placed his datapad on the top. A screen nearby flashed to life as Tares began to comm Atlas to begin the process.

 

"Decryption process has begun. ETA: four minutes." Atlas reported....

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

Durasteel kissed her cheek, a concussive lullaby squealing in her ears as Jaina gathered her bearings. Gravity refused to make sense, and the rise and fall of the waves that stretched as far as the eye could see from the end of the platform carried her consciousness on their tide. Warmth enveloped her, and her long home called out to her, the unending darkness of underground sanctuary.

 

Then her skin screamed in angry protest, and Jaina's eyes snapped fully open. Ears ringing and head still spinning from the impact of the blast, she rolled her head to one side, where Tirzah was pushing herself up to her feet, visibly uninjured. She let out a sigh of relief, vaguely recollecting how she had cushioned Tirzah's body with her own, whacking her own head quite soundly against the durasteel in the process. The pain in her skin refused to abate: it felt as though her right leg was on fire, so she glanced down to assess her condition.

 

Oddly enough, her right leg was on fire.

 

"Shavit!" Yelping, she rolled over on the ground, smothering the flames that licked her thigh in the fabric of her heavy cloak. When she was satisfied that she was no longer aflame, which was quite a task given the amount of oil coating her clothing, she pushed herself to her feet. Swaying dizzily in the aftereffect of the jarring end to their joyride, she turned her attention back to Tirzah. "Are you all ri--"

 

The word died on her lips, and her hands lifted slowly in surrender, an apologetic grin sneaking onto her features. Tirzah was surrounded by a half-dozen irascible faces, each one of them attached to an old-style Imperial cadet uniform. Catching the girl's eye, she shrugged. Well, it was fun while it lasted, she thought, with an unconcerned wink in Tirzah's direction.

 

"They don't make speeders like they used to," Jaina said nonchalantly, brushing her hair out of her eyes with a grimy hand. "What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?"

 

"Charming," one of the men said, his expression revealing he thought her behavior was anything but. "This way."

 

As the officers led them toward the large central complex, she bumped Tirzah with her elbow. Don't worry, she encouraged subvocally. I've been in far worse scrapes than this.

[Tares Vortex]

Tares could feel the sweat starting to build up on his palms as he waited for the last few percentage points to complete the decryption process. The waiting time seemed drawn out, as if the progress indicator on the screen in front of him had slowed to a painful crawl.

 

Logically, he knew only a few minutes had passed since he had entered the mainframe storage room. Atlas was efficient at navigating computer systems and was no doubt working at her peak speed to decrypt the file. Still, the pause he found himself in didn't help the feeling of nervous pain that had crept up in his stomach.

 

Sometimes, he felt that he was better than this. Years of training as a Jedi should have prepared him for similar moments. Every now and then, however, he found himself in a situation that seems to throw all that training out of the window.

 

If moments like this were meant to test him, he failed.

 

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait much longer for salvation. When the indicator on the screen reached the one hundred percent mark, Atlas chimed in on the comm almost simultaneously. She indicated that the file was successfully decrypted and now waited on Tares' datapad for viewing.

 

Tares brought out his pad and set it on the controls nearby. The file flashed into view and displayed a map of the local region of space. A technical overlay of the comm array's service history floated above the map.

 

Centered squarely in the middle of the map was a flashing icon of a planet. The label "Acrid" flashed in tandem.

 

Immediately, Tares reached for his comm unit and spoke, "Jaina, I have found the file that we are looking for. I now know where we need to proceed next. Where are you and Tirzah?" He asked.

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

The squad detail that had taken Jaina and Tirzah into custody escorted them silently into the heart of the control center, stoically forming a gauntlet around the pair on either side. Their blasters were trained on the women as though expecting them to try some ill-mannered escape at any moment. Their lightsabers were clutched firmly in the hand of the leader. Shackles had been placed on her wrists, though not Tirzah's. Apparently, the girl looked as much like a collateral piece of their erstwhile mission as she was. Don't exactly see many kids running around, Tirzah had quipped. Her age and appearance would serve her well in the matter of their escape, if she could keep a level head.

 

They were led to a large conference-style room, but Jaina noticed the reinforced walls as soon as they entered. It might take them some time to slice their way out of this one. Jaina and Tirzah were seated at opposite ends of the long table in the center of the room, the former wincing as pain shot up her badly burned leg with the movement. With a curt "wait here", the man who seemed to be in charge deposited all of their confiscated items onto the transparisteel table with a decisive thunk and then vanished through the doorway where they had entered, leaving the remaining five guards posted at intervals throughout the room. Drawing on the Force in an initial effort to knit the ailing cells back to wholeness in the brief reprieve, she felt her own rush of adrenaline beginning to subside along with the keenness of her pain.

 

But the intensity of her focus did not sway under the effects of her body's healing effort. If anything, she felt an increase in her awareness, a surprising determination that surpassed even the weight of her own intent to escape this excuse for a planet. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and a dark valley entered her mind, a faint scream echoing endlessly through space. Her eyes shot open once again. Raynuk. It was Raynuk's determination that she was feeling once more. The heightened adrenaline, the cold, calculating surgical slice of his saber, the worry that nagged at the back of his mind--like water and oil poured into the same container, they were irretrievably mingled, but utterly distinct from her own senses.

 

The hiss of the door as the man reentered the room brought her attention back from across the stars. Heavy, authoritative steps in steel-toed boots brought him to the center of the table. "State your business," he said in sharp Imperial manner. "We don't get visitors here."

 

With unimpressed eyes, Jaina blinked up at him. "That's what they keep telling me, chief," she said sardonically. "A few more times and I might start asking why."

 

Through the Force, she could feel Tirzah's shock and apprehension growing. Embarrass your kid in public, check! she thought blithely. Another parenting milestone down!

 

"Chief" took another menacing step toward her end of the table, brandishing the hilt of her lightsaber. "Let me rephrase. We don't get Jedi poking around here."

 

She smiled mirthlessly. "But apparently you do get CEOs of major tech corporations."

 

"Keep talking like you know something," he sneered at her, tossing her weapon back on the pile. "You don't even know what this place is."

 

Hoping to goad him into revealing some shred of useful information, Jaina's mouth opened with her next prepared retort when the comlink sitting on the table came to life with Tares' voice. "Jaina, I have found the file that we are looking for. I now know where we need to proceed next. Where are you and Tirzah?"

 

Her mouth still open, Jaina's eyes fell to Tirzah, who met her gaze with a mixture of alarm, disbelief, and exasperation. Their interrogator reached for her comlink, but before his outstretched fingers came into contact with it, it skittered away seemingly of its own volition. Keying it to life, Jaina brought it towards her with the Force, but as she did so her danger sense spiked. She rolled sideways onto the floor as four stun bolts hit the high back of the chair she had just vacated. As she came up onto one knee, her ignited lightsaber flew through the air to meet her palm, supernaturally freed from its bonds. Jaina held it at a cross-guard position as Tirzah quickly moved to stand beside her, the green shoto having appeared from seemingly nowhere. Pain shot through her right leg as her weight provoked the preexisting burn wound, and Jaina faltered momentarily in her concentration. Oh, not good...

 

"We're having a board meeting of sorts in the central complex," she called to the comlink that now lay on the floor across the room, simultaneously reaching out to Tares through the Force. As their captors regrouped and trained their weapons on the pair, moving slowly as though not to provoke the Jedi into action, she added, "if you'd like to join us."

[Tares Vortex]

Tares could hear the accompaniment of the sounds of a battle when Jaina finally replied. True to her form, her response seemed to under exaggerate the seriousness of their situation, “We are having a board meeting of sorts in the central complex…”

 

The comm briefly cut out once more. Tares entered into another hallway and entered into a brisk stride to cover its long length.

 

“...If you want to join us.” The comm sparked again.

 

He could feel Jaina’s presence reaching out to him in the Force as she spoke. There was an undertone of mixed concentration and pain, as if she had been shot. Tares knew she would never admit that the situation was dire. It was difficult to say even from the specifics Jaina’s aural touch conveyed.

 

Tares quickened his pace down the hallway. The mental map of the platform’s layout ran through his head as he moved. He could recall the series of turns that had brought him to the server room, but he struggled to recount where his path would diverge to lead to the central complex.

 

Tares began to reply, “I'd be happy to join. Just don't end the party without…”

 

All of the sudden, Tares felt his forward momentum come to a halt. His face and chest became engulfed in a dull pain as a vortex of energy swirled around him. He fell the ground and winced.

 

The room began to spin around him. Moving his head around, all he could see was the dancing tendrils of the ray shield that had just blocked his approach.

 

“Jaina? Jaina?” He called out to his still active comm.

 

No response. Well, not the response he was expecting.

 

“Sorry, Mr. Vortex. Your friends are occupied elsewhere. I'm afraid they won't be making the rest of the trip with you.” A mysterious voice said.

 

Tares continued to look around. The ray shields visually skewed everything outside of his captive cocoon. The only thing he could make out was a faint outline of a humanoid standing in front of him beyond the shield.

 

He began an attempt to press the mysterious voice, “Who are you? What is this all about?”

 

The voice maintained a gentle, yet direct tone, “Don't worry about those details, Mr. Vortex. You are my guest.”

 

Tares moved his hands and feet against the slippery floor. The floor offered little resistance to propel himself up again.

 

The ray shield briefly flashed with an intense glow before it disappeared. Tares’s distorted surroundings refocused, and the faint outline grew in clarity. He found a large droid standing before him. The droid was expressionless, looking down with red photoreceptors placed on top of a upper heavy frame.

 

The droid took a step forward and extended a large needle from one hand. In a swift motion, too fast for a human, the droid reached out and dug the tip of the needle into Tares’s neck. He could the cold, metallic point dig deep into his muscle tissue.

 

And then, nothing….

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

"Calling for backup won't help, I'm afraid," barked the leader, as the doors hissed open at both ends of the room and another half-dozen troops filed in. There was no mistaking it this time: these were not the bored-looking mechanics they had encountered previously. The sharpness of their manner decried Imperial background, though their uniforms were woefully out-of-date. Almost, she thought wryly, as out-of-date as me. Such a lapse in appearance likely meant that the outpost here had been placed and then abandoned, or at the very least, out of contact with the present Imperial leadership. These men seemed much more a product of the Empire that had taken her prisoner and predicated her apprenticeship with Bishop of Battle.

 

They had the exits blocked, and the reinforced walls did not bode well for an improvised escape route. At the height of her ability, Jaina would not have trusted herself to field every bolt from a dozen Imperials, even out-of-practice ones: and her combat abilities had been relatively untested on this side of her Hapan grave. Not to mention, her efforts to temper the throbbing pain from her wounded leg were becoming more distracted all the time, and as a result, the necrotic flesh presented another liability. It was a risk she would not take with Tirzah in tow. If they just knuckled down, held their position, and waited for Tares to arrive, then they might have a better chance of getting out of here unscathed.

 

Her mind whirred like the servomotors of a droid, spinning a countless number of escape plans in mere seconds, but every one of them came up short. Then her comm clicked to life again, Tares' voice springing from the far side of the room where the Imperial man held her comlink in his hands as though prepared to crush it. "I'd be happy to join. Just don't end the party without…"

 

Jaina's relief evaporated in accordance with Tares' voice. The Imperial's face grew even more smug, and Jaina remembered probably too late to hide the alarm that she felt. He pocketed her comlink and tilted his head in the direction of the mother and daughter standing back-to-back with lightsabers held at the ready, the steady hum and rapid breathing the only sounds in the room. "You see? Now, you can tell me what I want to know, or we can do this the hard way." He turned to one of the uniformed cadets and handed Jaina's comlink over. "Take this for processing and bring me a report of findings."

 

Tares... she whispered into the Force as the cadet moved toward the doorway, reaching out for her friend instinctively. He was still there, but his presence was faint, as though asleep.

 

This situation was getting worse all the time. Glancing at Tirzah out of her peripheral vision, she felt the girl's signature in her mind, small and much more terrified than she let on: Mom... what do we do now?

 

The set of her jaw hardened, and Jaina closed her eyes. Trust me. I'll get us out of here.

 

Much as she had done on Hapes when facing down a couple dozen Black Sun troops, Jaina wove a cocoon of white-hot Force energy around the two of them, channeling the waves of pain from her burned and broken skin that refused to ebb. Reaching for the white-hot coal that burned its bright hope in the center of her being, she twisted the molecules of the air itself as a shockwave burst forth from her, knocking the collected troops backward toward the reinforced wall. In the split second between their backward propulsion and the dissolution of the cocoon, Jaina yanked her comlink from the downed trooper's hand and yelled, "Go!"

 

Sprinting pell-mell out of the open doorway and down the hall, a single step behind Tirzah, Jaina retraced their way through the stale corridors and out into the salty air of the platform. Pulling up the frequency of the Ferro Re, Jaina panted, "Atlas, it's Jaina. Lower the ramp, we need to get Tares and get out of here, now!"

 

The platform was deserted, absent the scattered mechanics that had been present when they arrived. Perhaps they had just been a front for whatever hidden sect of the Imperials still lurked on Altyr V. Whatever the case, the momentary reprieve from dodging blasterfire was welcome. The sudden flare of engines startled her, and she stopped in her tracks to look toward the sky above the platform. A small shuttle streaked towards the atmosphere, and with a flash of horror, Jaina knew: Tares was on board.

 

A small collection of unconscious guards lay about the foot of the open ramp, but Jaina opted not to ask questions as they climbed aboard, slapping the ramp control. Only then did she allow herself to collapse to the floor, her wounded leg trembling from the strain of running and bleeding through cracked skin. "Atlas," she called feebly, "hurry, they have him, we have to follow them!"

 

The cargo bay pirouetted elaborately before her eyes, and with one last push, dragging herself along the ground, Jaina succumbed to encroaching blackness.

[Tares Vortex]

The commotion in the cargo bay happened in an orderly sequence of events for Atlas. Jaina and Tirzah returned. Jaina noted that Tares had been captured. Then she had collapsed. All while Atlas was issuing commands to the Ferro Re's navigation computer to plot a course to follow the shuttle.

 

"Noted. Updating Tares's status to: enacting involuntary vacation. Activating medical and babysitting subroutines now."

 

Jaina was lying on the cargo bay floor. The ship's interior sensors suggested she was suffering from a wound. Floating into the upper deck of the bay, Atlas descended and observed the wound with her own sensors.

 

"Tirzah," She called to the preteen nearby, "Your mother is in need of medical attention. Please locate some bacta strips in the medbay nearby. Then retrieve those and begin applying them directly to the wound area. If you don't act fact enough, your mother may choose to follow the light to a better place."

 

Leaving the young Jedi to tend to her mother, Atlas hovered back into the main corridor and took direct control of the ship. The escaping shuttle was on a vector for Acrid, the same destination the maintence logs had listed.

 

The droid plotted the navigation route into the computer and executed the hyperspace command. Outside, the ship gracefully slipped out of Altyr Five's orbit....

[Raven Nasra]

Imperial LightStealth-18 Reconnaissance Ship Asperite emerged from hyperspace over the waterlogged planet and made a quick dive to the surface, the full scanning package lit up as the ship entered the water and headed to the old SEED base. The crew aboard were nervous, but ready to encounter anything in the oceans depths. They had the location pinned from old top secret records, but they did not know what they would find there.