Star Wars The Other Side of Eternity V3

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 1

<Zaaloris - Original - Rebel Alliance Freighter Firestorm>

It was a dark time for the Rebellion. Hoth Base had fallen, the Rebellion was on the run. The Empire’s iron grip was tightening around the Galaxy and the fires of hope were dimming.

But they weren’t out yet.

The battered YT-2000 dodged and weaved bare feet above the sand dunes of the massive desert which dominated Zaaloris, pursued by an even dozen TIE fighters. The military grade shields of the small ship easily withstood the pounding from the light laser cannon of the common Imperial snubs, but even they would eventually be worn down.

Luckily, however, directly ahead of the massively modified and upgraded light freighter loomed salvation, as a massive sand storm swept across the dunes directly towards them. The upgraded shields would shrug off the sand while the TIEs would need to either break off or be sandblasted into wreckage.

The TIE pilots were dedicated, fanatics even, but they weren’t stupid. They broke off as the first buffets from the massive storm started hitting them, screaming upwards to avoid the storm and hopefully pick off the freighter as it broke clear of it.

They did not, however, expect the utterly insane maneuver that the YT actually pulled, as it shot out behind them having pulled a 180 degree turn within almost its own length while in brown-out conditions from the sand.

The TIEs recovered, pulling around in tight turns, but the YT had gained a critical jump on them and screamed skyward like a homesick angel.

In the cockpit a rather battleworn Rutian Twi’lek handled the controls with utter and complete confidence. The Firestorm had brought her team through much worse situations than this one, after all. So what if she had a flight of TIEs from Death Squadron on her tail, with Executor about to clear the orbital path and block their escape. The speedy freighter would get past them, they had before after all.

“Nik, tell me the hyperdrive is ready?” she yelled over her shoulder.

“Not yet, still getting the new motivator hooked in!” came the return shout from the young human engineer who had the guts of the hyperdrive spread out well behind the pilot's compartment.

“You got 15 minutes to get it hooked in and buttoned up or we’re dead.” she yelled back.

“I’m working on it, stop interrupting me Aloni” the engineer shot back testily.

“Leave the kid alone.” Aloni’s co-pilot, a hulking trandoshan rumbled. “He knows his business.”

“Was his fault we’re in this situation, what made him think NOW was a good time to do drive maintenance, just because the Book says to do it?” the twi’lek grumbled back. “You know that as well as I do, Scrish.”

“It wasn’t just the book, the last jump nearly fried the drive.” Scrish reminded her.

“Remind me of that LATER.” she twitched the controller, spoiling the aim of the pursuing TIEs.

One of which bloomed into a short-lived fireball as one of the turrets managed to strike it. The intercom crackled to life “Nine here!” came a gruff male voice. Moments later a slight chirp showed a different channel opening “Make that ten for me!” came a much chirpier feminine voice.

Another fireball. “Ten all… no eleven.” as a second fireball joined the first.

“No fair, they’re all on your side. ALONI, ROLL THE SHIP!”

Aloni rolled her eyes, not the ship. “I am not getting involved in your ridiculous contest, Triselka, just get as many of those eyeballs off our tail as… oh shit, squints.”

On the scope a flight of TIE Interceptors were slowly overtaking the Firestorm.

And behind them loomed the bulk of Executor herself, along with the rest of Death Squadron.

“YOU GOT FIVE MINUTES NIK!” she yelled over her shoulder.

“KEEP YOUR PANTS ON, I’M WORKING ON IT” came the shout back.

“THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID LAST NIGHT” the twi’lek yelled back.

“I WAS DRUNK!” came the shout back from the engineer. “WORKING ON IT! STOP BOTHERING ME”

Aloni growled, the throttle pinned to the firewall as the freighter desperately attempted to hold the range open enough to be able to escape.

The Interceptors were drawing closer, but the real danger was the massive Super Star Destroyer looming behind them. One solid ion cannon or turbolaser hit and they were dead. The shields were good, but not that good.

“Tell me you’ve got the calculations down at least, Scrish.” Aloni growled at her ‘dosh co-pilot.

“Already input into the navicomputer and ready to go the moment the hyperdrive goes green.” came Scrish’s response.

Minutes crawled by as if they were hours, time seeming to slow to a feeble crawl as Executor loomed larger behind the fleeing freighter. The first brilliant splashes of color showed the first volleys of turbolaser and ion cannon fire inexorably drawing closer to the frantically evading little freighter.

Then the light turned green, and Aloni gripped the hyperdrive handles and quickly advanced them to the stops, spooling up the drives.

The starscape started to stretch before them as the welcome vortex of hyperspace beckoned them closer and they started to accelerate to hyperspace.

And in that very instant a one in a quintillion event happened. At the very instant that the hyperdrive energies peaked to fling the freighter into hyperspace, at the very nanosecond where the Firestorm existed balanced on the razor’s edge of the ordinary universe and the crazed energies of hyperspace, an ion cannon blast struck the freighter. A nanosecond earlier and they’d have been dead in space, a nanosecond later and they’d never have been hit at all.

Even then that wouldn’t have been enough, the simple hyperphysics of the transitional moment would have left the surging ions behind with only minor sparks on the hull. But the hyperdrive casing was still open and Nik had had to bypass several safety interlocks to complete the reinstallation of the motivator as fast as he had.

Everything went mad.

Everything changed.

<REALITY DISCONNECT>

<Zaaloris System - HIMS Impetuous>

When they told us we were getting two Jedi, I expected, well, two Jedi, not a twi’lek two weeks out of the Academy and a kid who looked young enough to be my granddaughter. Then we got into our first battle with those two on board… They were both Jedi

Lieutenant (JG) Taber ‘Sparkles’ Ban wasn’t quite the youngest pilot in the T-70D X-Wing squadron aboard HIMS Impetuous. Quite. By a week. Of course, the fact that she’d arrived for her in-brief still in dress uniform after having come straight from the Temple and a meeting with her former Jedi Master had immediately caused her to be dubbed ‘Sparkles’ for the fact she was first met wearing all of her ‘sparkly stuff’.

But the slender young Lethan Twi’lek had indeed been wearing her full formal dress uniform underneath her formal Jedi robes which were most certainly of the most formal and elaborate and meticulously correct cut possible. Taber preferred more casual wear, to be honest, indeed she normally wore the light standard issue armored flight suit that all pilots wore rather than the ‘sparkly stuff’.

Of course, one does not say ‘No’ to Master Yan Dooku about formal dress. He may be old, but Master ‘Do It Again’ was quite famous for his expressive eyebrows and complete lack of a sense of humor. Taber had to work quite hard to keep an expressionless face when she heard that latter bit.

But that was then, and unfortunate callsign aside, she had slotted in as a wingman in her flight of Imperial X-Wings quite smoothly. Granted, it was rare for any Imperial Jedi to be assigned to a vessel as small as an Imperator-II class Heavy Cruiser. But it was known to happen, and Taber was quite happy with the assignment.

Even if her personal astromech droid R1 was grumpy about it, like always.

“Amused Statement. So you are now assigned to child care, twi’lek. After all, babysitting is a traditional job for slightly older children..” the ancient droid needled her while she walked the corridors between her quarters and the shuttle bay.

OK, normally grumpy, when he wasn’t making fun of her.

She’d found the still functional droid brain that, in essence, was R1 while scavenging around on a junk planet with Master Dooku. The brain had been installed in an R2-series chassis, but R1 claimed that he was the oldest operating droid in the Galaxy and thus insisted on being referred to as R1.

And insisted on using the affected speech pattern, claiming he’d heard it once on a ‘very top secret mission’ and found it amusing. He also categorically refused to reveal what that ‘very top secret mission’ was, nor how it was somehow related to him being on a junk planet.

Taber indulged him in all of that. “It’s not child care, R1” she replied, like she had so many other times. “The council has seen fit…”

“Interruption. It’s child-care, twi’lek. You are holding her hand and wiping her nose. Annoyed Statement. You will not, of course, involve me in this ridiculous duty.” R1 interrupted gruffly.

OK, so her assignment wasn’t solely to fly the most common snubfighter in Imperial service. She may be a fighter pilot, but her Master had been Dooku, and being able to handle potentially delicate assignments was her specialty as much as any junior Imperial Knight even had a specialty.

Even if the Justice Minister still enjoyed telling the clearly exaggerated and embellished tale of how he met her.

Especially since the Justice Minister still enjoyed telling the clearly exaggerated and completely embellished tale of how he met her.

It wasn’t 50 stories, damnit.

So yes, she was also supposed to ride herd on Elini’roli’athori, who was only nominally an Ensign and was in absolute terms much younger than her, but being Chiss was considered by her race to be of equal maturity. Even if she looked in her ID holo like a pre-teen blueberry who should still be playing with dolls.

However Taber had heard of the infamous Triumph Of The Younglings back when she had been a Junior Padawan. The one and only time in history that the Emperor had lost a training duel with a class of Younglings. According to Dooku, the young Chiss had promptly been shipped off to Ossus to train under Master B’nar and the last her former Master had heard the girl hadn’t left the planet in the years since. And Dooku had, with his customary equanimity mixed with the Eyebrow Of Extreme Disapproval Of Laxness, informed his former Padawan that since Master B’nar had been utterly unsuited to teaching anybody even the basics of lightsaber combat that Elini’roli’athori had ‘insufficient lightsaber skills’ to be considered for anything even vaguely resembling independent assignment.

Taber really hoped the Chiss had a more… compact… use name than that monstrosity.

Although why the kid rated being transported out to the Impetuous on an Intersector rather than a regular shuttle was beyond her. Granted the fact that they’d be getting a small gunship that was normally only assigned to capital ships was rather welcome, but as far as Taber knew only fairly senior Imperial Jedi were able to requisition one of them, not somebody who was barely beyond a junior Padawan.

Regardless, she arrived at the landing bay just as the Intersector flared and settled down on its landing gear, the ramp lowering almost before the gear had finished flexing from the landing itself.

Wait… she recognized that ship. And sure enough the woman who had been Master Dooku’s Senior Padawan when she’d been a junior was already coming down the ramp by the time she made the twenty steps from the hangar entrance to the ramp. And that neatly explained how she’d gotten the relatively rare ship.

Captain Mara Skywalker, adopted daughter of His Imperial Majesty, Anakin Skywalker the 1st, was shaking out her braided red hair as she walked. Behind her came the petite figure of Elini’roli’athori, wearing extremely plain gray robes and with her hood up.

Tabor threw off a textbook perfect salute to Mara, which was returned with rather more insouciance as was quite typical of the entire Skywalker family. “Mara! Didn’t know you were coming.” the twi’lek said, not at all surprised when her old friend casually discarded ordinary protocol and drew her into a quick hug.

“Dad had one of his visions.” came the response. “So he had me pick Irolia here up on Ossus and bring her here chop chop. Wouldn’t tell me why, but you know His Nibs.” The two of them chorused together “Telling others the vision might make them try to fulfil or avoid it, which always makes things worse” and then they both laughed.

“Anyways,” Mara continued, gesturing the robed Chiss forward. “Tabor, this is Irolia, Irolia, this is Taber Ban, Master Dooku’s latest Padawan to graduate to Knight.”

The young Chiss bowed slightly, still not lowering her hood. “Elini’roli’athori, use name Irolia.” her voice was rather soft with a faint Coruscanti accent.

R1 chose that moment to interject “Amused Statement. Wonderful, twi’lek. You have a Chiss noble brat to babysit… put me down!” as the droid was suddenly hoist into the air at a tiny gesture from the robed Chiss. “Annoyed Exclamation. This is not acceptable behavior Chiss!”

“Indeed it is not.” Irolia replied in that soft voice of hers. “As I remember Master Bnar’s lectures on proper manners quite well, perhaps I shall instruct you on acceptable behavior, no?”

Taber meanwhile had started laughing, which set Mara off. “That’s putting the bucket of bolts in his place!” the twi’lek whooped, slinging one arm around the slight figure of the Chiss girl. “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

All the while R1 was now loudly squawking indignantly to be put down ‘Right This Very Minute!’ while the droid floated in mid air.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 2

<Zaaloris System>

The YT-2000 was a total wreck. It slowly tumbled through space completely out of control… control that would never be regained. The hyperdrive had detonated from the enormous surge of energies that coursed through it, energies it was never intended to handle. When it went, it took the main sunlight drives with it, venting the engineering area and the central lounge to space.

Emergency doors had slammed shut upon detecting depressurization, but life support was operating on batteries. Worse, the vessel's engineer was dead, killed instantly in the explosion of the hyperdrive. Triselka’s turret had managed to seal itself off, but Jaond, the ventral gunner, had died from depressurization and asphyxiation before he could reach an emergency locker as the seal on his turret failed. The cockpit was sealed off, but the hulking dosh Scrish had broken his neck when his poorly maintained safety harness had failed along with the gravity generator, sending him smashing into a bulkhead. Aloni was unconscious, having passed out just as they’d exited hyperspace.

A dozen rebel SpecForce commandos had been in the central lounge, having been the last to board the light freighter, and they’d been killed almost instantly. Thankfully, two dozen refugees had been in the two cabins that had retained pressure, although the outlook was grim considering the situation.

Triselka was cursing up a storm, feeling completely helpless.

Movement caught her eye. Something had occluded part of the starscape.

She focused on it, using her eyes rather than any sensors, not wanting to drain the emergency batteries any more than she absolutely had to.

It was large.

She swallowed. It was large… and triangular in shape. The feared arrow point of an Imperial Star Destroyer. And it was altering aspect…

It was closing.

She cursed even louder.

She had a quad laser cannon with, she checked, precisely enough energy for 2 shots.

Not that a quad laser would do a single damn thing to an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Kriffing hells.

Then something else caught her eye, a closer shape, moving fast.

She expected a TIE fighter, come to look at the wreckage.

But it was too large.

A shuttle maybe…

Then it moved close enough that the light glinting off of it was sufficient for her to make out a basic shape.

An X-Wing?

A thought raced through her, she’d not heard that the Rebellion had captured any ISDs, but that X-Wing was approaching from the incoming vessel, as if it had been launched from it. Could it…

It drew closer, and more details became apparent.

A cold feeling ran down Triselka’s spine. That wasn’t a T-65 X-Wing. The engines were the wrong shape, it was too big. But the profile was so distinctive.

Instead of the cylindrical fusial thrust drives of the X-Wing, this strange version of the Rebellions signature fighter had strange, stepped engine pods that terminated in what looked like narrow vertical nozzles. The gun pods at the tips of the wings were weird as well, looking excessively bulky along their length, yet shorter than the normal Taim & Bak heavy lasers on a T-65.

And it was unpainted, instead being bare metal that gleamed dully in the reflected light from the system primary. She couldn’t make out the markings on it from this distance.

But… an Imperial X-Wing? Since when did the Imperials use X-Wings.

-----

<Several minutes earlier>

“Hyperspace emergence signature, bearing 028 by negative 3.2 AU. It’s a big one to be visible at this range at all.”

With that the rather quiet shift on the bridge of HIMS Impetuous was rather abruptly interrupted.

“Sensors?”

“Pulse consistent with a fleet, ma’am, but not picking anything up at all.” came the report from the Sensor officer.

Captain Ayres paced at her station located between and above the crew pits on the bridge. Unlike the rest of the bridge officers, the ship’s captain had no seat, as the captain was expected to ‘stand to’ at his or her console in full view of any of the bridge officers who happened to glance their way. While there was a handy grab rail in the event of any sudden movements, apart from the repeater displays from the overhead and a small console strategically placed so to not block visibility from any of the crew stations, the captain’s station was spartan and spare to the extreme.

“Astrogation, run self-diagnostics.” she commanded after a moment, frowning in thought. Massive hyperspace signature, no contacts. “Sensors, sweep for cloaked units, Comms, contact Zaaloris System Control and see if they have anything on the crystalline grav trap.”

A chorus of responses from the three stations followed, and Ayres frowned at the displays.

“Ma’am, contact at emergence locus but… it’s far too small for the size of that signature.” came the report from Sensors. “No signs of ion trails consistent with cloaked vessels.”

“System Control reports CGT is clear, ma’am.”

“Self-check complete, no anomalies but… ma’am… the hyperspace signature… it’s still active, it should have faded by now.”

Ayres froze in her pacing. Wonderful, kriffing wonderful. Some sort of hyperspace anomaly, and here she was without a single hyper physicist on board. This was a cruiser, not an exploration vessel.

“Comms, send a FLASH message to sector command, reporting the anomaly. We will ascertain the situation and provide further reports in fifteen minute intervals.” she ordered, mentally reviewing the checklist procedures for such a situation.

The navy had checklist procedures for everything.

She was certain they had checklist procedures for an invasion of cybernetic Ewok rakhghouls. Riding Krayt Dragons. Her mind tended to drift to odd places sometimes.

“Astrogation, chart the precise coordinates and visible constraints of the anomaly and append to the report. Sensors, get me more details on that contact. Helm, make your course 028 by negative 4, half thrust. CAG, prep a flight to investigate.”

She paused, then shrugged. “And make sure Lt Ban is on it.”

“Lt Commander Skywalker is present, ma’am.” the CAG reminded his CO.

“Indeed, request her assistance and offer to provide her a snub.” Ayres smirked slightly. “Never knew of a Skywalker yet who’d turn that down.”

A series of responses echoed across the bridge as Ayres turned her eyes once more on the display as it shifted slightly, the massive Imperator-II responding deftly to helm control and departing from her normal patrol route with the arrogant grace of her breed.

A heavy cruiser like an Imperator-II was, to be honest, rather overkill for simple patrol work, but the Vindicator-class light cruisers were simply too small to handle things independently, especially with the increased raiding activity that this sector was suffering from deep strike formations of the never-sufficiently Force damned Alliance.

Two planets in the last six months had been hit with bioweapons. Granted neither were heavily populated, but the losses had caused a shuffling of deployment priorities. Normally Impetuous was assigned to escort a light battlegroup centered around a pair of Allegiances, but due to the need for heavy units on this patrol she’d been reassigned.

Independent command, a plus. But the reason for it stuck in Ayres’ craw sideways.

Of course, she had then gotten orders from High Command to hold in Zaaloris to await a ‘special transfer’, a pair of Jedi including one pilot and one ‘other’. She had no idea what ‘other’ meant in this context, and hadn’t yet had the chance to meet the newcomers to her vessel as she’d had to oversee departure procedures instead.

The report from the shuttle bay hadn’t been the most encouraging, as apparently the ‘other’ Jedi was a kid (yes yes, she knew full well that Chiss were considered adults at 14, but she still thought of teenagers as kids. She was human, not Chiss.)

“We have a contact ID, ma’am. Wreckage is consistent with a YT type freighter, most likely a -2000.” came the report from her sensor officer.

“Very well. CAG, status?”

“Pilots are suited up and we will be ready to launch in 2 minutes, ma’am. Lt Ban has requested that acting Ensign Irolia be escorted to the meditation chamber.”

“Have Lt Horth escort her there, launch when ready.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

-----

It had been a smooth flight so far, but both Mara and her loved flying enough that they’d take any stick time they could beg, borrow, buy, or steal. Luckily for Taber, she wasn’t a Skywalker, and hence was exempt from the Empress’ edicts regarding private flight hours for her husband and children.

Anakin may be the Emperor, but Padme ran the Imperial Family. With, as Taber liked to tease Mara when they’d both still been Master Dooku’s padawans, an iron rod, and access to cookies.

The young twi’lek Jedi slightly caressed the controls of her T-70D, adjusting her position to keep a close eye on the derelict which had erupted into realspace from hyperspace in an insane explosion of energies.

She’d read about hyperspace anomalies. She’d never seen anything in any of the literature that looked like that.

She could actually see hyperspace within the anomaly, as it twisted in on itself in an endless vortex of energy and distortion, causing the starfield on the far side of it to be twisted and distorted to the naked eye.

The derelict freighter, wrecked as it was, was far easier to look at than that. At the very least it didn’t give her a headache whenever she looked for too long.

It was also far more intact than she’d ever heard any wreckage from an anomaly had ever been, as far as she knew at least.

As they drew closer she probed the wreckage with the Force, allowing her senses to flow over them to try and ascertain what she could. She was very surprised when she found that she could sense over a dozen living presences within the Force, although some were rather weaker than others, as if injured or unconscious.

“Flight, Scan One. Sending 14 or 15 life forms on board the derelict. Suspect many injuries. Continuing to close, point of closest approach in one minute.” she reported.

“Scan One, Flight. 14 or 15 life forms, closest approach in one minute. Be advised medical has been alerted.”

“Roger, Flight. Scan One continuing to close.”

“Copied, Scan One. Report when you have a full visual ID.”

“Roger, Flight out.”

Taber had kept her attention primarily on the tumbling wreckage as she had spoken, both visually, with her sensors, and most importantly with the Force. She could feel Mara doing the same from the other X-Wing, the far more powerful and experienced Jedi probing just as thoroughly.

I’m counting 14, one unconscious, 6 injured, at least 1 is Force-Sensitive, but I believe that’s the unconscious one. But there’s an odd… resonance. Mara sent her through the Force, the old bonds they’d had as fellow Padawans to the same Master easily reestablishing themselves.

That’s what I’m sensing, Mara. Taber replied the same way, although she knew her ‘voice’, for want of a better term, was very quiet through the Force, a consequence of her relative lack of power.

Report it in, I’m not sensing any active threat, although there’s something… Dark… about that anomaly. And I cannot quite shake the sense of something is going to happen.

Taber frowned and nodded, not minding that the more senior Jedi was giving her orders.

“Flight, Scan One. Have visual contact, no active threat at this time. One Four survivors on board the YT-class freighter, much of the interior is vented to vacuum, including the central lounge from what I can see. 6 injured, 1 still unconscious.” she reported back to Impetuous

“Copy that, Scan One. One Four survivors, Six injured, One unconscious. Interior mostly vented to vacuum. Rescue One will be on this channel. Rescue One, Flight. How you copy?”

“Rescue One copies loud and clear. Scan One, is the derelict stable enough to be tractored in?” came a new voice on the channel, the slightly smoky tones of the zabrak SAR pilot.

“Rescue One, Scan One. Damage to the derelict is consistent with an internal explosion in the drive room. No latitudinal or longitudinal structural failures visible. Wait one for deeper scan.”

Both Mara and Taber focused their attention through the Force, guiding their senses over the stringers that held the structure together.

“Rescue One, Scan One. Structure assessed to be stable enough for tractoring from the bow, repeat, stable for tractoring from the bow. Stern is fully compromised.”

“Scan One, Rescue One copies, structure assessed stable for bow tractor. Flight, Rescue One, requesting permission to approach derelict.”

“Permission granted, Rescue One. Scan One, maintain watch over the derelict and escort Rescue One back in.”

“Affirmative, Flight. Scan One maintaining watch and will escort Rescue One. Scan One out.”

Taber leaned back in her cockpit, stretching as much as the admittedly spacious cabin allowed before resettling her hands on the controls. The twi’lek loved flying, as did many Imperial Jedi, but she was quite glad she was flying an X rather than one of the Kappa interceptors, she at least had enough room that her lekku weren’t being squashed.

She then felt a gentle ‘tap’ on her mental defenses. She twitched slightly, not recognizing it, but realizing quickly that it was likely Irolia. It took her a little effort, she was a superb duelist, enough so that even Dooku had given her a rare Eyebrow Of Acceptable Performance But Do It Again Anyways. Her telekinesis was deft and skilled. But overall she was not a particularly strong user of the Force.

The mental voice she ‘heard’ was obviously trying to be soft and quiet. And failing. If Mara was a massive lake, and Master Dooku was a sea, this was Mon Cala. Only larger. The ‘whisper’ seemed almost like a shout to Taber. There’s something seriously dangerous on the other side of that anomaly, and it is going to try and get to this side. And… I think I’m picking up something approaching us too that doesn’t feel good.

Taber winced slightly before replying, having to ‘shout’ to be even audible, yet knowing that all she’d sound like would be somebody whispering. On the comm panel next to the hatch there should be a button labeled Priority, hit that and it will connect you directly to the Captain. Report to her like you would to a Council member and let her know what you are Sensing. she instructed. She knew full well that Irolia had no formal training on Navy protocols and procedures, so it didn’t bother her to have to explain something that was to her so basic as to be almost instinctive.

-----

Captain Ayres frowned as a tone sounded from her console. A quick glance showed that it was the priority communications line from the Meditation Chamber, and she grimaced slightly for an instant before schooling her features into a smile and accepting the request. “Bridge, Captain Ayres.” she said.

“Captain, this is Acting Ensign Elini’roli’athori, errr, please call me Irolia, ma’am. Knight Ban, errr I mean Lt Ban told me to report this to you.” the voice was rather nervous on the other end, and Ayres found her smile twitching a bit.

“Go ahead, Ensign.” she said, keeping her voice professional, although she allowed a bit of warmth to leak into it.

“I’m sensing a rather massive amount of malice emanating from the anomaly, ma’am. Not the anomaly itself, but rather there’s something seriously powerful in the Dark Side of the Force on the other end of it that might try and get through it.” came the absurdly young voice. “And, well, Knig… I mean that Lt Ban said to report this too. I’m picking up something else, only it’s in hyperspace and heading here and will be here in less than an hour, and it’s also pretty steeped in Darkness.”

Ayres stiffened at that. She’d worked with Imperial Jedi a grand total of once before, but when an Imperial Jedi said they sensed a threat, that was as solid as a Wookies honor. “What bearing, Ensign?” her voice had crisped up.

“Ummm…” came the voice, and for a moment Ayres felt a slight bit of annoyance. “Bearing 193 by positive 32 at 820 kilometers from… here, they will exit hyperspace in 52 minutes, sixteen seconds. 18 vessels, most are crewed with droids, but the one with humans on board is Dark enough… it’s a bioweapon fleet, they intend to destroy Zaaloris and have a traitor who has told them your patrol schedule, Ma’am.” the voice had started out tentative, uncertain, but by the end of the report was sounding sure and true.

Ayres’ annoyance fled, she’d never heard a report that detailed, especially at this kind of distance, and it explained quite a bit of why a teenager would merit being flown around by the Emperor’s adopted daughter…

“Thank you, Ensign, contact me if you sense anything else.” she said crisply. “Bridge clear.” she pressed the button disconnecting the channel.

She then took a deep breath and raised her voice in full Command Mode. “Set Condition Two throughout the ship. Flight Control, expedite recovery of the derelict, I want that hulk on board and secured in twenty minutes. CAG, prep your squadron for immediate launch. Helm, cease approaching the anomaly and orient the vessel at bearing 195 positive 32. Tactical, update the situation plot, expect Raid One, consisting of 18 vessels comprising a terror fleet, exiting hyperspace in… 51 minutes. We will go to General Quarters in 30 minutes. Comms, send a report to Sector command. Aphid, Aphid, Aphid.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 3

Triselka was almost hyperventilating as the massive star destroyer loomed closer. While being escorted in by apparently bare-metal oversized and both re-engined and re-armed X-Wings with Imperial markings on them had been… surreal. Every rebel knew just how terrifying an Impstar was.

From the angle she was at she couldn’t see much, although… since when did a Star Destroyer mount that many quad laser turrets… and why weren’t they being pulled into the capture bay, but rather into a small shuttle bay in the side trench.

But that’s where the SAR shuttle had towed them. Oddly it hadn’t been a Lambda, but rather it looked like an Imperial-marked E-50 Landseer… and why would the Imps be using a Corellian shuttle like that?

She’d expected to see ranks of stormtroopers in the hangar waiting to storm the shuttle and take them all prisoner. As they entered the hangar, however, she was rather confused to only see a small detachment of stormtroopers… led by a figure wearing stormtrooper armor who absolutely towered over the rest of the unit and had a helmet that looked like it was designed for something non-human.

That the figure was toting a repeating blaster like it was a child’s toy made it plain that whoever was in that armor wasn’t human. Even Jaond would never have been able to hoist that heavy of a weapon in one hand.

There were also medical staff present, which confused her even more. She’d expect something like that on an Alliance vessel, but never on an Imperial one.

The stormtrooper armor itself was also odd, a dark gray base color on the plates with a black undersuit, instead of the bright white over black she was used to seeing. They also weren’t carrying E-11’s, in fact the rifles looked somewhat like the A280’s she knew the Rebellion used extensively.

She was now extremely confused. Who in the Force were these people?

-----

1st Lieutenant Astuwwehl frowned, glaring at the gaping hole in the hull of the YT-2000 that had been settled in place on the hangar deck. The landing legs hadn’t extended, so the freighter was resting on some hastily repurposed maintenance stands normally used for the larger shuttle variants. But unfortunately this also meant that the normal access ramp was blocked.

There was nothing to do, then, then go in through the damaged section.

The hulking armored Wookie keyed his comm.

“1st and 2nd Squad, weapons on ion stun mode and make entry. 3rd Squad will follow on overwatch. Medical, wait for the all clear.” he rumbled in Shyriiwook, trusting the built in translators in the comm system to render his words in Galactic Basic.

He then slung his beloved modified MWC-35c over his shoulder and switched to one of the standard Blastech AS-295 blaster rifles that were standard issue to Imperial Marines and verified that it was in ion stun mode. Then he nodded sharply to the squad leader of 1st Squad and joined them as they boarded through the mangled hole in the hull where the sunlight drives had once been.

It was a tight fit for any Wookie, and Astuwwehl was large even for the race, forcing him to bend almost double to get through, and it was with a bit of relief that he was able to straighten up once inside. He made use of hand signals rather than comms, directing 2nd Squad to go to port while he and 1st Squad went to starboard.

The lounge was an abattoir, it had obviously lost pressure far too quickly for anybody inside to react, and there were about a dozen corpses, mostly human but several Duros and Rodian, that showed signs of explosive decompression.

It was with those corpses that things got strange, as many of them had the red firebird symbol of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, but there were nonhumans amongst them, and he looked a second time at one of the mangled Duros, no sign of slave collars to be seen.

He looked over at the sergeant leading 1st Squad and shared a look, before he went back to visually sweeping the compartment. The emergency blast doors had successfully sealed off the cockpit, and the side staterooms appeared to have been closed off at the time of the depressurization.

There was movement to his left, and he turned sharply. A human figure had dropped out of the upper turret and was bringing DL-44 up to bear on him.

So he did what any self-respecting Wookie would do in that situation. He roared at the figure and grabbed the pistol, it was only a kid, after all, although most humans looked like kids to him with how small and fragile they were.

The roar seemed to completely confuse the female. Odd, hadn’t she ever heard a wookie roaring at her before?

-----

Triselka didn’t know exactly what she hoped to accomplish by dropping down and trying to take the big leader hostage. All she had was a battered DL-44 that had seen far better days. But she wasn’t going to be taken prisoner by the Imperials without at least trying to fight, damnit.

And then it roared at her like a WOOKIE? Since when were there WOOKIE stormtroopers. The confusion froze her long enough for the massive figure to have seized her hand, blaster and all, and haul her in for a second loud roar right in her face.

“Since when did a wookie become a karking STORMTROOPER.” she realized a bit too late that she’d actually said that out loud.

-----

Astuwwehl blinked at the statement from the girl. “Imperial Marines.” he corrected with a snarl, the comm system kicking in a translation a moment later.

The girl blinked. “Whaaaa?” she looked utterly confused at this point, and the big wookie simply plucked the pistol out of her hand and let her go, slinging his rifle next to his beloved heavy repeater and crossing his arms.

“First Lieutenant Astuwwehl, Imperial Marine Corps, commanding 1st Platoon of the HIMS Impetuous Marine Detachment. Your name, girl, and quickly.” he growled at her, looming over her intimidatingly.

She blinked, rubbing her hand as if massaging feelings back into it. The big wookie actually felt a bit sorry for her, since he knew how crushing his grip could be. “I’m not telling you Imperial bastards anything.” she firmed up her chin and looked about as defiant as a particularly feisty kitten in front of a full grown cave lion.

Nobody had ever accused Astuwwehl of being a great genius. But he had a working brain in his skull, and he’d seen plenty that just wasn’t adding up. Rebel terrorists would never include non-humans in their action groups, yet he’d seen a good number of them in this group. Rebel terrorists wouldn’t trust a mere female, in their opinion good only for having sons, as a turret gunner without them being a hell of a lot more dangerous than this slip of a girl looked, which on second thought might not be a wise assumption to make. And a Rebel action group like this would have several dozen combat droids present, yet he’d seen no sign of any.

He wasn’t a genius, but he had an enormous amount of common sense. Everything not adding up like this meant something odd was happening, and you reported the odd, and kicked it up the ladder to those with more metal on their shoulders to deal with, you didn’t try to force the issue when doing so might only make things worse.

So he kept a thoroughly intimidating glare on the girl, while signalling the rest of the teams to continue clearing the ship. He’d trust his platoon sergeant to handle things for the moment. That’s what platoon sergeants were for, and Astuwwehl had been an officer long enough to no longer suffer from Second Lieutenantitis. He could be trusted with both a map and a plan without automatically screwing them up. But he'd learned that it was better to leave things to the sergeants and just make sure his paperwork was in order.

So he listened to the reports, standard SAR codes worked to unlock the emergency doors, and the medics had been waved in to start providing assistance to the injured. The ones in the staterooms seemed to all be civilians, or at least unarmed and with no insignia, and were a very diverse range of species, making the situation even stranger since there was zero sign of any of the accoutrements of a slaver on board this ship.

And he got a name anyways, as one of the people he was already mentally tagging as refugees called out “Triselka!” upon catching sight of the slender girl, and the girl reacted by flinching then trying to puff herself up to look more intimidating. It was rather amusing, really.

One of the medical teams was able to unseal the cockpit and an unconscious twi’lek wearing a similar outfit to this Triselka was taken out on a repulsor bed to be taken straight to sickbay.

And he got another name, as the girl called out “Aloni!” before flinching again and looking rather embarrassed at herself for the slip.

Amateurs.

But another strike against this being a group of genuine rebels. A female twi’lek, wearing more than a few strategically placed strips of translucent cloth and slave bands? Wearing paramilitary gear and with a now-empty pistol holster at her side who’d been in the pilot’s seat? Unheard of amongst the racist misogynists who made up the Rebellion.

So who exactly were these people?

-----

While this was going on inside the hangar bay, HIMS Impetuous was preparing for battle. She’d already come about and was approaching the optimal point to bring any hostile vessels that exited hyperspace at the expected locus under fire from all of her main battery as well as most of her secondaries. The rest of her X-Wings had launched, although there was one unhappy pilot in the ready room grumbling about Skywalkers stealing his ride.

Like Mara would let the chance to fly a snubfighter in combat again slip past. She may be adopted, but she was a Skywalker by adoption. And her mother’s strict rules about not letting her husband or any of her kids fly snubs without ‘a really good reason, like being assigned to a snubfighter squadron’ were quite well known in the piloting community.

So the Imperial X-Wings were formed up, cryo-cooled rapid fire laser cannons at full charge, full racks of proton torpedoes loaded into their warhead launchers instead of the usual mix of dogfighter concussion missiles and proton torpedoes. Two of the birds flying were the latest T-70D-2 variants, and they sported fully loaded hardpoints carrying disposable proton torpedo launchers underneath each of the lower and on top of each of the upper S-foils. So naturally the Squadron Leader and his XO were flying those birds, greedy bastards.

Taber relaxed in her cockpit. This would be her first actual combat as an Imperial snubfighter pilot and Imperial Jedi. Sure she’d seen action as a Padawan alongside her Master, but in the grand scheme of things that didn’t really count. She may be flying wing for Mara, who was an Ace of Aces since the 3rd Battle of Alderaan, but this was still much more independent than she’d been accompanying Master Dooku.

At least she now had a fairly good idea just why the little Chiss, whom she’d mentally dubbed ‘Little Blue’, was with them. It took an exceptionally strong Jedi to be able to sense an incoming fleet at the distance Irolia had managed, and to manage to ferret out so much that the Rebels probably would have wanted to keep very hidden… Irolia may look like somebody's kid sister dressing up to play at being a Jedi, but that spoke of some extremely esoteric and rare techniques and power in the Force.

The five minute warning sounded over the comms. HIMS Impetuous was now at General Quarters and secured for combat. Taber double checked everything. It would be very embarrassing to land after the battle and find she’d left her lasers on training mode, after all.

The twelve-strong X-Wing squadron had formed up directly ‘beneath’ the expected arrival locus, on a course that would bring them up into the enemies bottoms while keeping the field of fire completely clear for the massive heavy cruiser. After all, friendly fire wasn’t.

Two minutes. A slight adjustment in heading for Impetuous, a slight shift for the X-Wings to maintain their relative position. Less than a hundred meters in total. A notification came over the data link showing the projected exit velocity of the incoming target. To three significant digits. This was good enough precision to use as direct fire control for the big guns.

One minute. Taber forced herself to keep loose and relaxed, checking, double checking, and triple checking everything.

Thirty seconds.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two… Taber’s own force senses finally picked up that something was about to happen…

One…

Two rebel Venators, a half dozen star frigates that Imperial Intelligence had dubbed the Malice class, a massive lumbering transport, and over a dozen Backstab type corvettes erupted into real space.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 4

There was a reason Battle Meditation was widely considered one of the most strategically powerful Force abilities. Combined with Foresight, Battle Meditation allowed for things that would otherwise be considered impossible. Few Imperial Jedi, and even fewer Dark Jedi of the traitorous Rebellion, could readily combine the two powers. Indeed, currently there were three. Emperor Skywalker. Master Ood Bnar.

And Irolia.

And while Anakin had far more raw power, and Master Bnar had far more experience, Irolia had sufficient power, and sufficient experience.

And most importantly, perhaps, Irolia was here.

Impetuous actually fired a split second before the rebels had transitioned from hyperspace, and the two Venators detonated the instant they came out, as the locus where they emerged from hyper was, at that very instant, occupied by a dozen heavy turbolaser bolts each. Which promptly did what turbolaser bolts are designed to do and, well, there was very little wreckage left behind.

In gamer terms, this would be called a telefrag. More accurately, Irolia had so precisely pinpointed the precise instant that the rebels would exit hyper, and the precise location in space that this would occur down to the picosecond and angstrom respectively, that a simple ‘flex’ of Battle Meditation had allowed her to send the fire command at the precise moment such that the full main battery firepower of the heavy cruiser was already inside the two Venators when they transitioned from hyperspace to realspace, rendering their shields and armor utterly useless. With predictable results.

Then the secondary armament opened fire at the remaining targets. Impetuous herself focused her fire on the remaining escorts while her main battery cycled, while the X-Wings slashed towards the massive transport.

Taber could feel a feather faint tingle in the Force as the entire formation was… guided… by battle meditation, that faint sense of rightness that she’d been told she would feel if she were ever working with one of the few Imperial Jedi who knew that rare and powerful Force technique.

The formation of X-Wings moved with the precision and coordination normally reserved for the most elite of all Jedi snubfighter units. It was something undefinable, that gave each pilot, good in their own right, the confidence and ability to act as if they were all ace of aces.

It was almost intoxicating, in an oddly subdued sort of way. And Taber allowed a grin to form as she waited for the target lock…. Waited for it… waited for it… there.

Her first volley of proton torpedoes was away, heading for one of the sunlight drives of the massive lumbering transport which was only starting to grasp the sheer magnitude of the trap it was in.

The rest of the squadron fired at the exact same instant, each individual X-Wing targeting a different subsystem intended to cripple the transport in the very first volley, allowing them to finish it off in the second.

Three and a half seconds later the torpedoes hit their mark. Even though all had been fired simultaneously, slight differences in programmed course meant that they hit in a precisely calculated sequence. First targeting shield generators, then the drives, and finally the main reactor.

The X-Wings fired a second, concentrated volley then turned away in order to avoid entering the beaten zone created by the pounding being delivered by the Impetuous. In an actual fleet engagement they’d have risked it, but by the time they got the second volley away none of the Rebel ships were in any shape to effectively resist.

The Malice frigate was a nasty little design. A deceptively simple elliptical craft, the Malice was armed with a single heavy turbolaser even more powerful than those carried by Imperator-II class vessels like Impetuous in a fixed forward mount, supported by a number of light turbolaser turrets and quite a few quad-lasers for point defense, all controlled by a series of enslaved droid intelligences, with only ‘dumb’ droids on board as maintenance crews.

The Backstab on the other hand was a missile corvette, studded with heavy concussion missile launchers and a few quad lasers. Like the Malice, the Backstab was completely droid controlled.

Nobody was certain what the Rebels actually called those two classes, so the names Naval Intelligence had assigned to them were generally used.

Even light turbolasers were dangerous weapons against mere corvettes and frigates, especially when delivered with pinpoint precision by battle meditation enhanced gunnery crews. Shields were already failing under the massive bombardment, and as the heavy cannons recycled they spoke again, blotting all of the frigates from space even as the transport was reduced to an immense ball of plasma from the second torpedo volley.

The corvettes were shattered, the light turbolasers quite capable of ripping into them. A few tried to fire back, but their return fire was scattered and completely ineffective. A combination of surprise and the deleterious effect of battle meditation on enemy gunnery.

Within a few moments of that point the surviving rebel vessels started self-destructing, as was typical for them if they were caught with their pants down in a situation where they could neither retreat nor win. Ideally they’d try for ramming attacks, but none of them were able to manage even that bit of savage defiance.

The heavy cruiser ceased fire, and the X-Wings swept through to take a closer look at the wreckage using good old fashioned mark one eyeball.

Not a single rebel ship had escaped.

The rebels had known that Impetuous wouldn’t be in system when they arrived, they’d known that all they’d face would be light militia ASF units easily overwhelmed by the masses of droid starfighters they’d be able to deploy. They’d known that all they had to do was get close enough for the bioweapons ship to deploy her lethal ‘eggs’ on the planet and they could depart.

They’d known all of that. And it had all been wrong. Surprise is often the biggest killed in combat.

Combine surprise with battle meditation? Force help the enemy, because nothing else could.

Taber, Mara, and the rest of the X-Wings returned to the barn. Mission… complete.

Aboard Impetuous Captain Ayres was feeling quite pleased. Every Imperial cruiser captain loved independent commands, it got them away from the flag and cut the nurse strings that bound most cruisers to larger formations. And it was loved for precisely situations like this, when you can pull off a crushing victory alone. These were the sorts of things that got the ship's names remembered for generations to come.

Then came the report from the officer she’d assigned to watch over the little chiss jedi and she rubbed her temples, wondering whether or not the glory and satisfaction of victory was going to be worth the paperwork. Evidently the girl had collapsed in the meditation chamber and medics had been summoned.

She was certain that this would somehow wind up being her fault. When the Chiss had assured her she could handle coordinating the battle as ‘I have been trained for this, Captain.’ she’d had her suspicions that the girl might be biting off a bit more than she should. But not being Force-sensitive herself, and with the only other Imperial Jedi already out in X-Wings and not available to consult she’d had to go with the only ‘expert’ on hand.

Commander Skywalker would probably have words with her.

She shrugged and turned her attention back to matters that she could do something about. Within a few more moments she was back in her element, issuing orders to secure from battle stations and starting her report to Fleet and Sector Commands about the battle.

She actually found herself somewhat looking forward to that one, although the response to her Aphid call should be… interesting, to say the least.

She looked over at her XO, lifting an eyebrow as the perpetually irritated looking Sullustan was glaring at a display. “Problems, Chiafru?” she asked mildly.

“No, and that’s the problem.” the other woman huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. “Gives me almost nothing to yell at anybody for to improve efficiency.”

Ayres chuckled at that. “Get with Jeers then, he can always find something to improve about the gunnery, even if there’s nothing to improve.” she grinned at the skinny human tactical officer, who raised one hand in the universal symbol of a hit.

“Sorry, Skipper, for once I’ve got nothing. 100% hit rate on the main battery, 96% on the secondary and that was pretty much all due to deliberate shot spread to account for potential maneuvers. For once I’m going to have to actually tell me people they did a good job. Terrible for morale, Skipper, just terrible.”

She shook her head. “Their morale, or yours, Jeers?” Ayres said with a smirk.

“Why theirs, of course, skipper.” Jeers had an expression which seemed to indicate that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Without proper material, how can the chiefs properly motivate the crewmen?”

A notification came that the X-Wings were landing and she sent a note to the deck controllers to inform Commander Skywalker and Lieutenant Ban to report to her as soon as they had completed the standard debrief.

She then looked over to the comms officer. “Any response yet to the Aphid call, Raymus?”

“Just an acknowledgement and instructions to stand by, ma’am.” the young lieutenant replied. “So no change.”

“Very well.” she frowned then tapped a control on her console, connecting her to the engineering control room. “Lohai, anything to report?”

“Nominal here, skipper.” came the somewhat raspy voice of her chief engineer. “Once we’re fully stood down I’d like to get some maintenance done on the backup shield generators, two of them are reaching mandatory inspection times.”

“Send me the report, but hold off for now until we have some more backup here.” Ayres replied, frowning slightly.

“Will do, and we both know BuEng is very conservative with maintenance schedules to begin with, and we’ve got about 20 hours of use before mandatory inspection.” the Duros replied with her usual rasp. Smoke inhalation could do that, even in this age of medical marvels.

Ayres chuckled and closed the channel, before looking around the bridge once more. All was in order. If she hadn’t been here, she’d not believe that they’d just got done with a battle against 21 rebel ships. She shook her head, still rather bemused.

At that point she turned over the deck to her XO and retired to her space cabin in order to catch up on her paperwork.

Paperwork. The bane of command.

About an hour later a discrete tone sounded as the guard at the space cabin door chimed for her attention. “Yes, Private?”

“Ma’am, Commander Skywalker and Lt Ban are here to report in as ordered.” came the crisp statement.

“Send them in, Thompkins, thank you.” she said, then turned her attention back to her datapad.

They may be Imperial Jedi, but she was the Captain, and so a few ground rules should be made apparent right from the start. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as the fiery redhead and the red-skinned twi’lek entered and waited for her, managing to be at attention without it being obvious and clearly perfectly willing to indulge her as she made her authority clear without being blatant about it. Good.

“At ease and take a seat, ladies.” she finally said, setting down the datapad she’d been reviewing after initialing her approval. She waited as the pair did so before continuing. “Your colleague collapsed and has been taken to sickbay, according to Dr Wilia she is simply suffering from exhaustion.” she paused, gauging their reactions.

Mara didn’t react at all, which was interesting, while Taber had a bit less well practiced poker face and looked a bit concerned. Good.

“My orders from Naval High Command didn’t say why Ms Irolia was sent here.” she deliberately referred to her as a civilian, causing Mara’s lips to twitch slightly and Taber to shift a bit. “But clearly they knew something that they haven’t informed me about. If this affects my command, ladies, I need to know.”

Taber didn’t react, but Mara chuckled. “I guess I owe dad a few credits. I don’t know the details, ma’am, but His Imperial Majesty ordered me to transport her here and put one of the Palace Intersectors at my disposal for that purpose but didn’t inform me of why. Master Bnar only told me that he was ‘expecting’ this, and to be prepared for ‘great things.’, but he has a reputation for being very vague when it comes to these sorts of things.”

The adopted daughter of the Emperor then took a breath. “I suspect, however, that this has far more to do with that hyperspace anomaly and the ship that came through it rather than the rebel terror force. I know that I am still sensing a great deal of malice and threat from it that hasn’t dimmed at all with the defeat of the rebels.” she shrugged slightly. “But I don’t know, ma’am.”

The captain frowned but nodded in understanding. She never liked vague orders, but unless her sense of character was completely off she didn’t think Mara was lying to her about not knowing herself. And she had, a time or two, in the past worked with Jedi, so she knew how maddeningly vague the Force could sometimes be.

“I see, are you expected back on Coruscant, Commander?” she then asked.

“No ma’am, I was expecting a recall order as soon as I reported arrival, but all I got was a ‘stand by’ instruction.” Mara replied, shrugging. “No offense, ma’am, but I was looking forward to some leave time.”

Captain Ayres laughed at that. “Typical though, Commander. But if you couldn’t take a joke you shouldn’t have raised your right hand.”

Mara cracked a smile at that, nodding. “Indeed. By your leave, I can either bunk on Hydaspes Star or if you have room in your visiting officer quarters.” she shrugged slightly. “Either is good for me, ma’am.”

Ayres frowned slightly. “Actually, Commander, I’d like for you to report down to sickbay to look over the survivors from that freighter and assess their condition if you could.” she then glanced over at the still silent Twi’lek. “And Lt Ban, I’m told your flying was top notch out there, if you could accompany the Commander? Lt Liskin has been talking with the conscious survivors and I’d like you both to assist her with sorting things out.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.” Taber said crisply, nodding and stiffening even more. Ayres was quite certain that she’d only kept from clicking her heels together by sheer willpower.

Ahhh, to be young again.

“Excellent, dismissed.” she nodded to them as they both rose from their seats and stiffened to attention briefly before departing. She then returned to her endless paperwork.

Once outside Taber glanced over at the more senior Imperial Jedi. “Force Exhaustion?”

Mara chuckled and nodded. “Force Exhaustion. We’re going to have to be careful with Irolia that she doesn’t pass out like that in the middle of an engagement where we’re relying on her battle meditation.”

Taber nodded soberly. “Well, we’ve both been there. Sometimes pacing yourself is harder than anything else, not that I have enough Force strength for that to have ever been a concern.” she chuckled self-deprecatingly.

Mara chuckled along with the twi’lek, shaking her head. “I had to deal with it a few times, Luke and Leia much more often. I guess we’ll have to give her Master Dooku’s Patented Moderation Speech.” she said, eyes dancing a bit.

With a laugh Taber nodded “You’ll have to do the Eyebrows, though.” she replied, amused.

Mara laughed as well as they entered the elevator. “I’ll have to review the Book then.” she said dryly.

They were almost to the deck when they both felt the sudden roiling surge in the Force… something was wrong… in Sickbay.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 5

Lt Aloni Liskin, Imperial Naval Intelligence, rather enjoyed her work and was regarded by most of her fellows as a bit of a fanatic when it came to loyalty to the Empire. After all, she’d been born into slavery, had never known her father and her mother had no idea which of the male twi’leks she’d been forced to sleep with was, in truth, the father of her daughter. Rescued from a slave transport when she was only three, Aloni had grown up in the Empire and had no clear memories of her time as a slave.

But she did know that the Empire was absolutely ruthless in crushing the slave trade whenever and wherever it could. Ever since the Imperial Declaration of Sentient Rights issued just days after Anakin Skywalker had been acclaimed as Emperor the Imperial Navy had taken great glee in hunting slavers.

So she wore her space-black uniform with light silver trim with great pride. This uniform meant something. It stood four square for the rights of all sentient beings in the Galaxy to live in freedom and liberty, without fear of oppression, or of slavery, or of unequal treatment before the law. A law which had been thoroughly reformed to serve actual justice, not the whims of an autocratic elite who sought to grind everybody else underneath their bootheels.

Patrols like the one HIMS Impetuous had been assigned were the most likely to catch surreptitious attempts by the criminal underworld to continue to profit off of slavery, and the degenerate parasites that still considered enslaving fellow sentients to be their right by virtue of whatever reason their diseased minds conjured up. The rebels made full use of those criminal networks and those parasites in order to further their attempts to destabilize and overthrow the Empire and return to the corrupt morass of the Republic. And Imperial Naval Intelligence had to figure these networks out and crush them.

Lt Liskin was good at her job. She was a mustang, having started out in the enlisted ranks, risen to Chief, then got sent to OCS to become an officer, all on the basis of her demonstrated performance in the field. Along the way she’d spent a tour of duty with Imperial Special Forces, and proudly wore the qualification badge on her uniform.

And she was baffled. The rescued individuals showed all the signs of recently freed slaves, or at the very least people recently rescued from deeply oppressive situations, which should normally have been a great help for her in her interviews. However they all took one look at her uniform and refused to speak to her, looking utterly terrified. One of the braver individuals had outright accused her of betraying her own people before going completely silent, which confused her even further. Ryloth was free of the Hutt’s for the first time in generations because of the Empire, and for the first time in millenia no child born on Ryloth needed to fear being taken by slavers.

It was exceptionally odd. Frustrating, but odd. Liskin had heard of isolated cases of slaves being heavily indoctrinated against the Empire, but that was the rare exception, the Rebels generally simply didn’t care enough about their slave’s opinions to bother with that.

But so far her interviews had been singularly unproductive. The young human woman who’d been manning the top turret on the derelict had gone into hysterics upon seeing the body of the bottom turret gunner and was still sedated, while the pilot of the derelict had only just awakened. So Liskin was going to go and see if she could get anything out of the other twi’lek first.

She was accompanied by Lt Astuwwehl, who had changed out of his armor into the authorized baldric for Wookie Marines. The various individuals rescued from the derelict were giving the pair of them very odd looks as they moved through sickbay.

They reached the private stateroom that had been set aside for the apparent commander of the derelict freighter, although that was mostly a guess based on experience with light freighter skippers preferring to be their own pilots.

And when Lisken entered the room she froze. As did the other twi’lek. Staring at each other.

It was like looking into a funhouse mirror, a warped and bizarre mirror. Astuwwehl chuffed slightly as he saw just how uncannily identical the two twi’leks actually were.

Lt Liskin forced herself to motion and shrouded herself in professionalism while her mind grappled with the latest strangeness. “Lt Aloni Liskin, Imperial…” she wasn’t able to finish before the other twi’lek interrupted her.

“Stop trying to pretend to be me you karking clone.” as the shabby and worn figure who looked like she’d stepped out of central casting for a ‘twi’lek space pirate’ holodrama glared daggers at her. “I’m no Imperial whore.”

Lt Liskin swallowed down her initial reaction, even as she felt rage bubbling inside her. “The Imperial Navy does not employ whores.” she snapped. “As I was saying…”

“Shut the kriffing hells up, clone.” the other woman interrupted again.

“I am most certainly not a clone.” Lt Liskin was starting to see red. “I am an officer of His Imperial Majesty's Navy.”

“You’re a clone whore dressing up as an Impshit. What, they tickle your lekku just right and you suck them…”

That did it, that was enough. Lt Liskin was not going to listen to such insults and promptly went to smack the other woman across the face. Only the other twi’lek was already moving to grapple her, which led to a counter grapple, and pretty soon Rebel and Imperial were in a full up battle.

Astuwwehl shook his head and stepped forward, intending to separate them as shouts of ‘Imperial Whore’ and ‘Pirate scum’ came from the two of them. Which led to the poor Wookie receiving a pair of very hard knees right to the single weak point for all humanoid males, regardless of species.

Which promptly caused the poor wookie to keel over clutching his family jewels with a pained whimper while the two twi’leks went at it with renewed fury.

Lt Liskin’s Special Forces training was matched by Aloni’s street fighting skills, but within moments any semblance of techniques, training, skills, or anything else had been replaced by the two twi’leks in a pure berserk rage.

It was to this utter chaos that Mara and Taber entered, while two twi’leks were engaged in the mother of all catfights.

Mara looked at Taber.

Taber looked at Mara.

“Too bad there are no cameras and we can’t sell tickets.” Mara commented, shaking her head. “You get the one in the Imperial uniform and I get the other one?”

“Fair enough.” Taber agreed.

Both Imperial Jedi concentrated, Mara almost casually, while Taber was clearly having to work at it, but a moment later the two struggling twi’leks were dragged apart through force telekinesis. Behind the two Imperial Jedi a squad of Imperial Marines thundered in, attracted by the screaming alarms.

“Take both of them into custody, Sergeant.” Mara ordered, easily pinning the version of Aloni she was holding in place. “Separate cells, while we try and get to the bottom of this.”

“Aye, Aye, Commander Skywalker.” the sergeant in charge promptly responded, nodding to his men as they stepped in and followed their orders with perhaps a bit more vigor than normal, considering that their platoon commander was still looking like a, well, nut shot wookie.

The two twi’leks were still shouting abuse at each other as they were hauled out of sickbay, but neither Taber nor Mara missed the odd reaction the sergeant addressing Mara like that had on the rescued individuals. Utter and total confusion.

Mara looked over the ragged individuals then stepped slightly forward. “I am Lieutenant Commander Mara Skywalker, Imperial Jedi Knight on detached duty to HIMS Impetuous.” she paused as a gasp went up from a few of the people she was addressing and she slightly arched one eyebrow.

“My fellow knight, Lieutenant Ban, will meet with each of you in an effort to determine what is going on, while I shall be getting to the bottom of the situation with Lt Liskin and the individual…”

She was interrupted as one person swallowed and stood up. “You mean Aloni and that clone?”

Mara frowned, some of the abuse had been accusations of cloning… “May I assume from that that the pilot of the craft you were on board is also called Aloni Liskin?” she said, although her tone was… soothing, Taber could sense a subtle use of the Force to ease tension.

At the scattered nods Mara smiled slightly. “Thank you.” she said, eyes sweeping over them. “Is there anything that you will need for your comfort while Lt Ban gets started?”

“Like the Empire cares about its prisoners.” the person who’d stepped forward earlier retorted.

Mara lifted one eyebrow elegantly in a gesture stolen directly from Master Dooku. “Lt Ban, I may be getting on a bit, but do you see any binders or restraints in use?”

Taber matched the eyebrow and replied soberly. “No Ma’am, I do not.”

Turning to look at the man again, Mara tilted her head. “You are here in sickbay for medical observation, once the doctor’s have cleared you you will be taken to the visitors accommodations on board. Simply being on board a derelict light freighter which suffered a hyperspace accident is not a criminal offense in the Empire, after all.”

The same man stepped forward. “Right, and Emperor Palpatine hugs cute furry animals.”

Mara blinking, as did Taber, and Taber responded. “Ummm, Emperor Palpatine? The Emperor is Anakin Skywalker, first of his name and line. The only Palpatine I can think of was murdered by Windu almost 40 years ago, but he was only a Senator from Naboo.”

At that all of the rescued civilians looked gobsmacked. “Whaa… who….”

Taber and Mara shared a look and a nod. “We will try to determine what is going on here, but it is obviously something quite… odd.” Mara finally said. “Rest assured that we will attempt to get to the bottom of this. Taber, I don’t think your CO will mind too much if you handle the interviews here while I check on the Liskin’s and report to the Captain?”

Taber nodded her agreement. “I’ll message him to make sure.” she then looked over at the survivors from the freighter. “Truly, the more information you can give me about this, the sooner we’ll figure out what is going on. I would appreciate it if you cooperated.” the young twi’lek Imperial Jedi smiled faintly.

Several hours later Mara returned looking concerned just as Taber was finishing up the last of the interviews. “Learn anything?” the elder Imperial Jedi asked.

“Plenty, there is no ignorance, after all, but understanding? That is much harder. Something truly unusual is going on and I strongly suspect it has to do with that anomaly.” Taber replied, massaging her temples.

“Father agrees, and he’s dispatched the 1175th to reinforce us here.” Mara replied, taking a seat. “And Grandmaster Yoda sensed that anomaly on Coruscant, as did several other of the most sensitive Imperial Jedi and Monasts. So I have instructions to remain on station until further notice. I’ve spoken with the Captain and you seconded to the investigation and will serve as co-pilot on the Hydaspes Star. Once Lil’ Blueberry is awake we’ll have to give her the Lecture as well.”

“What Lecture?” came a yawned statement from the hatchway as the petite Chiss stepped through it, still looking completely exhausted.

“The lecture on not overextending yourself.” Mara said without missing a single beat. “And not showing off, but it will wait until you are fully recovered.” she glanced over at the single medical droid that was trying to shoo Irolia back to her medical bed. “You need at least 8 more hours of sleep, then some serious meditation, we’ll handle it then.” she paused. “Oh, that reminds me, Irolia, Knight Ban will be giving you saber instruction once we finish our discussion.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 6

Several hours, many interviews, and quite a bit of head scratching later, Taber and Mara met Captain Ayres in her space cabin’s office once more.

Mara took the lead. “Ma’am, with your permission I’d like to first build the case for our conclusion before blurting it out.” the redhead said with a slight smile.

“Of course, go ahead, Commander.” Ayres replied, tilting her head slightly.

With a nod Mara did just that. “To start with the situation between Lt Liskin and the captain of the transport who has been identified as…” she paused, tapped a control on her side of the desk, and a DNA analysis came up. “Aloni Liskin.”

She tapped another control, even as Ayres’ eyebrow threatened to climb into her hairline. A second DNA analysis came up.

“On the right is Lt Liskin’s DNA, on the left, this Captain Liskin’s. You will note that they are absolutely identical. Dr Suls indicated that neither show any of the signs of cloning, no mitochondrial drift, no indications of organelle degradation, nor any of the typical signs of an identical twin. They are, all the way down to the most minute RNA strand, identical. Enough so that she initially thought she was looking at two samples from Lt Liskin or that somehow the analysis equipment had been contaminated.” Mara explained, using the controls to highlight the relevant parts of the analysis as she did so.

“I have placed a light Force shield on both women, as they were showing the classic signs of a nascent twin bonding. Only neither is in the slightest Force sensitive, so they had none of the instinctive defenses even untrained Force users, and indeed natural twins, naturally erect against the feedback loops created by such bonds. As Captain Liskin grew angry, it echoed through the bond to Lt Liskin who in turn grew angry, and it fed back to Captain Liskin, amplifying her anger to rage. This amplification effect resulted in the berserk frenzy that both women went into.” Mara smiled a bit grimly. “Lt Liskin is utterly mortified at her conduct, now that she’s shielded, and to be fair she handled it somewhat better than I’d expected. Captain Liskin is still rather angry and refuses to speak with me after accusing me of being something called an Inquisitor.” the redhead shrugged and checked her datapad for her notes.

After a moment she glanced over at the Captain before changing the display. “Lt Ban handled most of the interviews with the survivors.” she said, but didn’t turn the briefing over beyond the acknowledgement. “In summary, they were very consistent in their belief that the Empire was tyrannical, that we were planning on torturing and killing them at the earliest opportunity, and that we were not to be trusted. In general they were very uncooperative.”

She took a deep breath. “We were, however, able to glean several things that may shed light on the situation. For one they reacted very strongly to the name Skywalker, but were completely flummoxed as to why any Skywalker would be an Imperial. They showed utter confusion when told that the Emperor is Anakin Skywalker, with one of the eldest amongst them scoffing that everybody knew that ‘Darth Vader’ had killed The Hero Without Fear. They all identified the Emperor as Sheev Palpatine, and reacted with complete disbelief when informed that Senator Palpatine was executed on the Senate Floor by Mace Windu during the Naboo Crisis on spurious grounds.”

Ayres blinked at that, Windu’s ‘execution’ of Senator Palpatine was one of the things his Alliance often touted in their propaganda, that somehow this was ‘proof’ that the Alliance would only restore what was ‘good’ about the Republic and, like their Glorious Leader, would cut down ‘corruption’. The fact that as far as anybody could determine Senator Palpatine had been completely innocent of the accusations against him, had no ‘Dark Side’ artifacts either in his office, his apartments, or his properties back on Naboo, but had rather been executed without a trial by Windu in one of the earliest signs of just how corrupted and Dark the former Jedi was.

That a group potentially indoctrinated by the Rebels into believing the Empire were tyrants was ignorant of this beggared belief.

Mara easily caught where Ayres’ thoughts were going and nodded in confirmation. “We have also examined the wreckage of the YT-2000 and managed to glean a great deal of data from the computers. The transport was named the Firestorm. We found the hull production serial code and got a match to a YT-2000 in use on the Hydian Way as a short distance tramp hauler with no wants, warrants, and an up to date Imperial Registration and Safety Certificate. A quick search of the Holonet shows that she is currently in port on Corulag undergoing routine maintenance. We checked with the Corulag Spaceport Authority and they were able to confirm that she is indeed precisely where her paperwork says she is supposed to be.”

Another display. “In addition, the computers contained imagery and various materials identified as both entertainment media and news sources. In addition we have multiple pieces of what appear to be propaganda materials.”

Mara took a deep breath. “The materials claimed to be from the Rebel Alliance.” at Ayres’ expression Mara held up one hand slightly. “The symbology is identical, the red firebird symbol, for example. There were several notable files.” Mara smiled slightly and tapped the control.

A holovid started up, opening with the sinister red symbol that, to most of the galaxy, symbolized terror and elitist domination. Then it faded and Ayres reared back as if struck. On the holo was somebody easily identifiable as Her Imperial Highness Princess Leia Skywalker, although the subtitle dubbed her Princess Leia Organa. In it the Princess was giving an impassioned speech in a voice easily recognizable to Mara as her adopted big sister’s denouncing the Empire for the ‘brutal destruction of peaceful Alderaan’ by something called the Death Star, and pledging that Emperor Palpatine would be brought to justice for his genocidal tyranny.

“It gets better, Captain.” Mara said when the file stopped, and without waiting started the second file.

This one was taken from inside a control room and showed a number of people wearing unusual uniforms. Mara paused the playback. “We’ve identified most of the people in this image. Specifically, General Dodonna appears to be in military command.” she highlighted him. “Which is odd because he is currently enjoying his retirement and lecturing at the Imperial War Museum on Coruscant. I’d recognize Goldenrod anywhere, and that is most certainly my big sister there, wearing a dress she’d not be caught dead in if she wasn’t in uniform.”

She then continued the playback. In it they heard several voices, helpfully identified by Mara as they first came up, including… “Yes, that’s my brother’s voice. And he’s evidently flying an X-Wing as part of something called ‘Red Squadron’ and attacking this Death Star which, based on the holo in the, well, holo is some variant of the Strategic Command Battlestation.”

The playback continued to the triumphant conclusion showing the destruction of the Death Star, followed by the awards ceremony. Mara ended the playback there. “As you can see, something that never happened, involving people we know very well indeed.”

Ayres nodded. “So you have a theory, Commander?”

“I do, Ma’am. That hyperspace anomaly, the DNA evidence, the unusual behavior and stories of the survivors, and the evidence in the files all point towards something that has been theorized but never demonstrated. Lt Ban recalled a journal article, which I’ve read and summarized in my report, but the gist of it is that it would be theoretically possible for a hyperspace anomaly to link two disparate… instances… of the space-time continuum together, as if each were a different sheet of paper in a stack of them. I believe that we now have our first evidence of this actually being accurate. In which case, having the 1175th here to reinforce us may be the minimum. With your permission, I’d like to get in contact with my father and have him dispatch a numbered fleet if possible in addition to the 1175th.”

Ayres paled very slightly, then nodded. “Very well, do so.” she said, then frowned “What should we do with the survivors if you have any thoughts on that?”

“The last thing they’ll expect, ma’am, grant them registered refugee status and transport them to Zaaloris, set them up in transitional refugee housing with all of the benefits that are due under the Imperial Refugee Resettlement Act, and offer them any assistance they require to adjust to their new lives.” Mara replied with a somewhat wicked twinkle in her eyes. “They’ll never expect the Empire to act decently, Ma’am, but if we simply follow our own laws, well.”

Ayres chuckled and nodded. “Very well, Commander, dismissed. I’ll send dispatches to Fleet and Sector Command while you get in touch with High Command through your own channels.”

---

It was a very confused group of civilian refugees who embarked on the YV-260 transport that normally supported planetary trade on Zaaloris and which had been contracted to bring them to the planet while Impetuous remained on station. Captain Liskin and Triselka, who’d recovered from the initial waves of her grief enough to be functional once more, were not with them, instead being taken to Coruscant along with Lt Liskin on board a chartered Crescent transport along with copies of Mara’s report.

Meanwhile a Nebulon-B-class destroyer and a Vindicator-class light cruiser had arrived, leaving Captain Ayres in command of a small squadron that sat right near the anomaly while probe droids explored the extent of it and took copious readings. Meanwhile the ancient and utterly obsolete Neutron Star-class bulk cruiser which was the centerpiece of the planetary militia stood off a ways, it’s 36 old A-7 Hunter interceptors ready to provide additional snubfighter support to the squadron, even if the ship herself was in no shape for combat of any sort.

On board Impetuous Taber had learned one thing.

However powerful in the Force Irolia was, and she was extremely powerful, the last time she’d practiced with a lightsaber had been the day of the Triumph of the Younglings. Master Bnar had not been able to train her with the saber, and had thus focused exclusively on everything else.

That first training session had been epic, in many ways. So long as Irolia was allowed to use Force powers, Taber couldn’t get close enough to do anything without being thrown into a padded wall, suspended by her ankle in mid air, having her boot laces tie themselves together, making pratfall after pratfall like a drunken loon, hitting herself with her own training saber, and all sorts of other fun things.

But disallow Force powers and Irolia was a greater danger to herself with the training saber than she was to anything else. She even managed to drop the saber when attempting to do the most basic Shii-cho velocity. In short, she was as utterly hopeless with a lightsaber as Taber was brilliant with one.

“Did it never occur to you to practice on your own?” Taber asked finally, as a panting Chiss tried to catch her breath.

“Well, I did read the manual, but there were so many datacrons being found, and then technique lessons with Master Bnar, and remote-learning classes.” the Chiss shrugged as much as she could. She was sore everywhere. “Then the manual I had just said that in the absence of a certified teacher the best way to train was to view the holos and meditate, so I did that in my copious free time.”

Taber boggled. “View holos and meditate? What manual was this?”

“Ummm, Basic Lightsaber Forms, Practices, and Techniques by Master Urin lin’Ben?” Irolia replied, looking up at her teacher.

“That’s the only manual they sent you? That useless drek?” Taber was beyond boggling at this point, that particular manual had been put together by a total and absolute pacifist who felt that saber forms and techniques should only exist as part of ‘active meditation’ and that no Jedi should ever even consider using them on another being, as violence of any kind, even in defense, went against this particular Jedi’s interpretation of the Code. That Master lin’Ben had never once, in his entire life, left the Temple Archives, even as a Padawan, and was famous within the order for his total lack of anything even vaguely resembling lightsaber skills, had written that so-called manual had left every active Jedi, then and now, completely and totally flummoxed.

Irolia finally had her breath back. “It was the only modern one, Master Bnar had thought he still had some of the manuals from when he wasn’t rooted, but we couldn’t find them. We requested others from the Archives but they never sent any.”

“Well, that explains quite a bit, but still… do it again.” Taber commanded, in unconscious imitation of her Master. “Do it again until you get it right.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 7

The last Imperial Navy ships in the local area had finally arrived, a Gladiator-class escort carrier along with a pair of Dart-class gunships serving as escorts. It only added a single squadron of older T-70A Imperial X-Wings along with a squadron of ARC-175 ‘Spark Arc’ attack fighters, so named due to the paired Ion cannons mounted on the older birds intended to knock down shields so that the follow on bombing runs were more effective.

Ayres now had a potent little squadron under her command, although only Impetuous, Tyrant’s Bane (the Vindicator light cruiser) and Adina (the Nebulon-B) were actually modern designs. She had 2 squadrons of Imperial X’s, although one was of the older variety that was being phased out as quickly as possible, a squadron of older but still effective attack birds, and an entire wing of obsolete interceptors.

And she felt naked, exposed, and vulnerable. The distorted curtain of the hyperspace anomaly hung before her, pulsating and shifting ominously. She had no idea what was on the other side, in truth, but questioning the survivors had indicated the presence of something called ‘Death Squadron’. Captain Liskin had never answered any of their questions about it, although Triselka had told them that the flagship of this Death Squadron was called Executor, which made Ayres very nervous indeed considering her relative dearth of modern snubfighters.

But all she could do was wait, drill the rest of the squadron, and prepare. The 1175th was a few days away and she’d not yet gotten a response as to whether or not a numbered fleet would be dispatched. But until then she worried.

---

Triselka still felt rather shell-shocked. Her brother, her only blood-family, the man who’d saved her from being a crime lords toy, was dead. Killed when the hatch that should have sealed off his turret had failed and the big guy had been unable to get to the emergency locker before dying.

She felt like something of herself had died with him. And just when she needed Aloni to be a shoulder for her to cry on, her skipper was a complete wreck herself, her encounter with her double had shaken her far more than she’d ever admit.

The Crescent was pretty nice, however, and if anybody had ever told her that Imperials would charter a luxury transport to take her to Coruscant she’d have thought them totally insane, but her surroundings were extremely comfortable. Fancy leather, wood paneling, carpets, gorgeous views. Aloni and her had their own private cabins, and the transport crew seemed quite determined to spoil them for any other kind of transport.

The steward who’d gotten them situated had somehow gotten her to tell him her homeworld and had somehow managed to whip up a breaded nerf steak dish she’d not tasted since she was a little girl, with all the right spices and everything. He’d actually managed to coax the same information out of Aloni and had served her a dish that could have come from any home kitchen on Ryloth.

Considering that the galley was roughly the size of a closet it was the closest thing to an absolute culinary miracle she could imagine.

It had briefly raised her spirits, then they came crashing back down as she thought to share it with Jaond, only to again remember that he was dead. But the steward had done his best and she managed to keep a brave smile on her face throughout.

The red-headed supposed Skywalker had given her a data disk with information about this Empire, and Triselka could scarcely believe most of it. No Palpatine? No Darth Vader? No ISB or Ubiquitorate? No COMPNOR? Something called the Imperial Declaration of Sentient Rights? An Imperial Senate with actual, meaningful, impact on the affairs of the Empire? The Skywalkers as the Imperial Family? Luke and Leia being TWINS? For crying out loud, she shipped those two!

No Moffs, no Tarkins, no Death Stars. She’d tried to discreetly look up information and found nothing about herself or Jaond in any of the holonet archives she had access to from the ship, not even any notices about rewards for her capture. In fact, it looked like she didn’t exist at all. She’d looked into Aloni and found basic public records about her counterpart, but nothing all that interesting as that only showed her name and rank with no other personal details.

She’d been rather surprised at just how open the holonet was here, access was publicly available even to civilians and while she was sure there were plenty of classified areas, that didn’t seem to extend to gossip and rumors and such, some of which she was morally certain would have gotten anybody in the Empire she knew and hated a visit from the ISB if they’d dared think them too loudly. But there were entire message boards that seemed to be devoted to scandalous rumors about the Royals. And holoshops. She’d certainly not mention the ones she’d made of… never mind, she was not going to think about that, thank you very much.

She did check and confirm that Luke and Leia were, in fact, fraternal twins.

And that Luke, Leia, and Mara had a pair of younger siblings, one of whom was listed as a junior Padawan to… Imperial Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi? The other was listed as attending the Corellian Academy of Medicine. Which from what she remembered (and from their listing on the Holonet) was ‘The Premier Medical Training School In The Galaxy’. She could believe that, since somehow there were still Corellians surviving to adulthood it meant that they had to have really good doctors.

She hated the Empire. But the evidence was very compelling that this wasn’t the Empire she knew and loathed. The Empire that had murdered her parents, the Empire that had turned a blind eye as she was sold out of a COMPNOR holding facility to be a slave. This wasn’t that Empire. And she didn’t know what to think.

---

Aloni knew she was letting Triselka down, but she couldn’t be what the younger human needed her to be right now.

She’d always prided herself on being cool under pressure, of never breaking down, of never letting emotions overcome her. When she killed it was in cold blood and only when she was sure of her target. She acted, never reacted.

And yet somehow she’d gone mad. She’d allowed the rage that had always bubbled beneath the calm, cool exterior to overwhelm her control. She’d wanted to kill somebody just for existing, not for any crime they may have committed, but just for daring to look just… like… her.

And it shook her terribly. Losing Nik, Jaond, and Scrish at the same time ripped a hole in her heart. They were her people. And… her mind shied away from the thought like a skittish gizka hiding from a hsiss.

Learning that her uncontrolled rage might not have been her fault? It didn’t help nearly as much as the redhead had thought it would. So what if it was because of some Force malarkey? She was stronger than that, she had to be stronger than that. She should have been able to resist it herself.

She hadn’t.

Triselka wouldn’t believe her if she said it, and she was pretty sure none of these Imperials had the slightest clue, but she knew, in her gut, that they were telling the truth. The moment she’d seen her double she’d known. She was just too bloody-minded and stubborn to admit it.

This wasn’t their universe. This wasn’t their home. These weren’t her people. And there was nothing she could do here. She had no ship, no crew, no knowledge, no contacts. She was adrift in this place, cut off from the Alliance as surely as if she were in an Imperial Prison Camp being tortured by the ISB.

So what, she was sitting in a luxury yacht being whisked off to Coruscant. A golden cage was still a cage, and she was cynical enough to consider this a very polite and genteel prison transport. No doubt she’d meet more very polite people who’d be very nice about things, because that was how it seemed this Empire worked.

But she still was caged.

---

Taber was frustrated, but in a way that she couldn’t even complain. In her opinion moving from piloting her own Imperial-X to being the co-pilot and gunner on the Hydaspes Star was a severe demotion. She was no longer flying her own snubfighter, after all. Sure, the Intersector was a lethal little combatant in her own right, but still, Mara would be flying her, not her.

And she was frustrated by the lightsaber lessons. She’d never met a clumsier Jedi than Irolia. The Chiss seemed to have two left feet, ten left thumbs, and all the grace of a drunken bantha. OK, she thought to herself, she might be doing a disservice to drunken banthas.

Intellectually she knew that learning physical grace was far harder for those who came to it later in life, but she’d not thought the Chiss to be old enough or that to matter although, obviously, it apparently did.

If she tried to get Irolia to go above one tenth speed on a velocity she’d inevitably get crossed up and wind up falling flat on her face. If she tried an ultra-slow speed training duel that any youngling in her memory would be bored to tears by, the Chiss would inevitably manage to not only fail to parry any of her attacks but was more likely to hit herself than her Twi’lek opponent.

But Taber was determined to stick it through. She firmly agreed with her Master that no Jedi is worthy of the title if they weren’t at least minimally competent with the lightsaber. Of course, intellectually she was quite aware that her standard of ‘minimally competent’ was high enough that most Imperial Jedi would dub them ‘near Master grade’, but the Twi’lek was very proud of her saber skills, and by the Force she’d push her peers to attain similar skill levels if she could.

Of course, the tables turned completely when Irolia worked with Taber on Force techniques. Taber was at this point completely certain that there was no situation in the Universe for which little blue didn’t have an obscure technique to deal with. Whenever Mara or herself challenged Irolia on how the Chiss would solve a situation, the phrase ‘there’s a technique for that’ seemed to be the single most common response, to the point that the two of them would now include ‘barring obscure Force techniques’ in their questioning.

And the damn thing was that the little Chiss would still manage to find a completely orthogonal use of a common Force technique to solve the problem most of the time.

To be fair she’d never even thought of some of the uses for Telekinesis that Irolia so casually threw out there for consideration. And she knew full well that she’d aced every single training class on Force Telekinesis that was offered at the Temple. The Chiss lacked her extremely fine-grained and hard-won control over her TK, but little blue didn’t need that level of control given the sheer power she could apply. That didn’t stop her from giving tips and ideas that were perfectly usable by Taber, as if the younger woman could fully understand how to use tiny bits of power to solve a problem, but just didn’t bother.

Despite that she was finding that she and Irolia were quickly becoming friends, the Chiss was perfectly willing to suffer through the indignity of flailing around like a loon during saber practice and readily acknowledged Taber’s abilities unlike many other more Force-powerful Jedi in the Twi’leks experience. And it was rather enjoyable to have somebody who had even more scholarly chops than she did to debate with.

Now if only little blue would show any improvement in her saber technique, that would be great.

---

Irolia knew she was utter rubbish with a saber. Knew it and, truth be told, didn’t mind there being something she wasn’t naturally brilliant at. Or at least that others could easily tell she wasn’t brilliant at. Growing up in the ruins of the old Jedi Archives on Ossus had left her quite isolated. Apart from Master Bnar and the work crews she’d not had any other people to talk with for years and had thus devoted her time to her studies.

She loved researching things, she loved finding obscure little bits of lore and figuring out how ancient and lost techniques actually worked from fragmentary descriptions. To her, the Force sang all around, a mesmerizing melody that often left her rather distracted from the ‘real’ world. The Force was like an eager puppy, all happy to lick her palm and do tricks and play. Master Bnar had seen the Force much like she did, although he did warn her that the Dark Side could turn the Force into a snarling, raging monster eager to consume all in its path.

And she could sense just that sort of snarling kath hound growling and scratching and snarling on the other side of that anomaly. There was a coldness, a cruelty, that seemed to ooze from the anomaly like a stain of hate and despair and madness. She shied away from it, but forced herself to observe it, to study it, to attempt to discern what it would do next.

Oddly it seemed that much of that loathing and hate was turned inward on the being projecting it. She wanted to talk with Master Bnar about that, because it struck her as very odd.

But her meditations had yielded other things. On the bright side, there were no other Rebel strike fleets within her rather considerable range, at least this portion of the sector should be clear of that menace.

On the dark side, however, she could sense that the dark being on the other side was intending to probe the anomaly in some way. She doubted it would come through itself, there was a sense of frustration at not being able to lead that she interpreted as that at least. But something would come through, and she was working to pinpoint what and when. The why was obvious, that consuming hate sought to conquer and destroy, if only to distract from its own self-loathing. The how was also obvious, just enter hyperspace as normal on a course that intersected the anomaly.

OK, obvious to her. She’d need to warn Captain Ayres and Master Skywalker and Knight Ban about it, once she finished her meditations.

---

Mara Skywalker was busy. When she wasn’t consulting with Captain Ayres she was busy communicating with Sector and Imperial Command. When she wasn’t doing that she was sending reports straight to her father. When she wasn’t doing that she was trying to get in some saber practice with Taber and some Force training with Irolia, shamelessly making use of two prodigies to sharpen her own considerable skills. And when she wasn’t doing that she was working on the Hydaspes Star to further tweak her. She was only a backup Intersector from the Palace pool, so while it had all of the standard upgrades for an Imperial ‘shuttle’ meant for the Imperial Family, it hadn’t yet gotten the personal attention of dear old dad on one of his tinkering binges. And, unfortunately as far as Mara was concerned, her honorary (don’t tell mom!) uncle Raith hadn’t been by to visit since the vessel had joined the pool.

Well, unfortunate in her opinion, the Treasury would probably have a conniption like they did the last time Raith had ‘upgraded’ some of the Imperial Family’s Intersectors. Who knew that diamond-boron armor plating wasn’t cheap? Not that Raith seemed to understand the concept of ‘budget’, to hear mom grumble. Usually with ‘and he’s such a bad influence on Anakin and the kids’ thrown in there at some point.

But it would sure be nice to have a Sienar Special at her disposal right about now. She might not be as powerful as Irolia, but her Senses were more than acute enough to feel the Dark from the anomaly and know that it meant that they were on the clock. There was an enemy on the other side who would come for them at a time of its choosing.

And Mara would be waiting for them. She’d been at Third Alderaan. She could handle anything after that nightmare. Come, bring on all that you got, come the Sith Hells, come high water, never stop.

Because she wouldn’t stop until the threat was gone. She was the adopted daughter of Anakin Skywalker. Sister to Luke and Leia Skywalker, an Imperial Jedi Knight in her own right.

Bring. It. On.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 8

“They’re coming.” Irolia said quietly, looking up from where she was meditating within the meditation chamber of the Hydaspes Star.

Taber looked sharply over at the Chiss, who promptly clarified. “Two of what they call Imperial-II Star Destroyers. Same size as an Imperator. They will come through within the hour, the orders have just been given.”

Taber nodded and looked over towards the cockpit, only to see Mara already opening a comm channel to make the report. Moments later the lights inside the Intersector switched to their combat settings as Taber straightened up from her own meditations to get ready.

“Hydaspes Star requesting launch clearance.” she heard Mara say as she slipped into the co-pilot's seat. Behind them she could dimly sense Irolia strapping into the shock couch in the meditation chamber.

She slipped her headset on just in time to hear Bay Control give Mara permission to launch and looked out the cockpit as the swift little craft slipped past the atmosphere shielding and into her normal habitat of deep space.

“Annoyed statement. Organics have lousy timing. Two more hours and the 1175th would have been here.” R1 muttered while plugging in to a droid interface port to do his part in this battle.

“Just think, R1, they are being so considerate as to give you something to complain about.” she cheerfully pointed out to her grumpy droid. “Now you won’t have to wrack your circuits coming up with something.”

She didn’t have to turn around to know that R1 was giving her the Glare Of Death To The Living.

Mara grinned slightly and joined in on R1 tormenting duty. “That’s a good thing, because you don’t have enough non-blown out circuits to spare to blow some more out trying to think that hard, R1.”

The Intersector arced away from Impetuous, heading for a position far enough away from the anomaly that her built-in stealth systems should make her nearly impossible for the hostile vessels to detect, let alone lock on to. Their mission in this upcoming battle wasn’t to fight themselves but to rather ensure that Irolia was unmolested as she made use of her Battle Meditation to seriously skew the battle in their favor. The Star didn’t have a Stygian Cloak, but it did have a seriously reduced sensor cross-section and several smuggler’s tricks built into the system to reduce her signature even further.

Outside the makeshift squadron was deploying as planned, with the two carriers moving off a ways while launching their birds into a pre-positioned strike package. The Darts that normally escorted the aging Gladiator had slotted into screening formation for Impetuous while Tyrant’s Bane and Adina formed a separate division placed between the expected battle ground and the carriers. All of the Imperial X-Wings and Spark ARCs had full external ordnance racks loaded with anti-ship concussion missiles and were prepared to unleash a full volley as soon as their targets were confirmed.

Impetuous herself was positioned in such a way that as much of her heavy armament as possible would bear on any ships that emerged from the anomaly. Her primary, secondary, and backup shield generators were all fully spooled up and the ship was completely buttoned up at full action stations. In accordance with Imperial Doctrine when facing a major battle the entire crew were already in vacuum suits and as much of the ship as possible had been depressurized, with those sections not in use during combat completely evacuated and powered down to prevent cascading electric failures in the event of battle damage.

Final preparations took only about five minutes. After that all anybody could do was wait.

Behind her Taber could already start to sense Irolia’s initial Battle Meditations as she felt her customary pre-battle nerves fade away into quiet confidence that they could and would win. It was faint, so much so that it was almost impossible to notice, but just enough to dull the jitters that inflicted even seasoned veterans if made to wait for too long and to help keep everybody alert to their duties.

Still time seemed to crawl. Each second seemed to stretch into hours. Taber found herself slipping into her own meditative state, drawing on lessons learned from Master Dooku. Once they were in position Mara did much the same, leaning back in her flight couch to wait.

“They’re here.” came the soft voice from behind them and the two Imperial Jedi immediately tensed up, even as they felt that faint touch of confidence and determination emanating from the Chiss’ Battle Meditation step up a few notches. Mara tapped a macro, sending the confirmation message to Impetuous as the squadron flag.

Just two seconds later a pair of very familiar dagger-hulled vessels streaked into view out of hyper, although the formation they were in was unacceptably ragged for any Imperial unit. It was like they were trying to be in an echelon formation, but weren’t quite good enough to make it work, being just a tad too far apart for properly interlocking defensive fire.

Ayres didn’t bother trying to communicate with them, the small squadron immediately opened fire as soon as they had targets to fire at. A bare split second later the enemy vessels returned fire with far more, albeit somewhat smaller, ravening bolts of turbolaser energy being flung back at Impetuous.

Both of the enemy vessels focused their fire on Impetuous, even as swarms of unusual looking fighters spilled out of massive launch bays on their bellies. The scratch mixed snubfighter group moved in to engage after volleying off their external ordnance at the enemy warships. The A-7 Hunters screaming ahead of the Imperial X’s to meet the enemy first while the larger, slower, but far more heavily armed and shielded snubfighters continued volleying concussion missiles from their internal launchers at the big ships before they had to break off to deal with the swarm of fighters that were screaming towards them with their own version of the famous Imperial X-Wing Ion Whine.

Soon the space between the two squadrons was an ugly melee pockmarked with explosions signifying the death of enemy or friendly snubfighters alike. So far the friendly casualties seemed to be confined to the Hunters, but that would change. The Spark ARCs pressed their attacks, relying on their turret gunners to drive off attacking fighters while pounding on the shields of the big vessels with their ion cannons before sharply pulling up and releasing unguided heavy bombs to coast in to impact with the enemy.

It was an ugly battle. For all the numbers of the strange little… ball sandwiched between two plates of various designs snubfighters, there still weren’t nearly enough to match the typical swarms of droid fighters used by the Rebels. The anti-snubfighter armament of the big ships had almost nothing to do other than adding their own tiny tithe of firepower to the thunderous exchanges of the giants.

In truth, Impetuous was taking far more hits than she was giving out, so much of her firepower was oriented towards anti-fighter purposes that she had a relatively light anti-capital ship weaponry, and her opponents appeared to be wholly optimized for fighting other capital ships with next to no defensive armament whatsoever. Plus there were two of them and they were completely ignoring the lighter division.

Which in the end may prove decisive, because that division was angling around to get shots into the stern aspects of the barely maneuvering enemy ships. Impetuous and her Dart escorts, meanwhile, was maneuvering about freely, attempting to keep presenting fresh shield faces to the enemy fire before they were battered down, and thus give the backup generators time to refresh the shield strengths in those sectors. She was taking many more hits, because her efforts to spread the enemy fire resulted in her own guns being regularly masked, but those hits weren’t all that effective thanks to her multiple shield layers and the advanced backup shield generators based on Mon Calamari designs that were standard on all Imperial warships above light cruiser grade.

And throughout Irolia was adding her own contribution to the battle. The effects of her Battle Meditation were most profound in the swirling death clench of the snubfighter battle, as Imperial pilots fought with near perfect coordination, oftentimes performing an evasive maneuver moments before they had to, causing the enemy to more often than not miss in their attacks.

“One of the enemy pilots is an untrained minor Force user, but not a dark sider.” she suddenly said in that quiet voice. “Should I keep… her… alive for questioning?” her voice was calm, assured, with no trace of fatigue to it.

“You can do that?” Mara asked, watching on the scope as the battle played out and reaching out with the Force to try to identify what the Chiss had sensed.

“Easily, there’s a technique for that.” Irolia replied, a trifle smugly.

Taber shook her head, she’d known that phrase was coming as soon as Mara opened her mouth to ask.

“Do it then.” Mara responded, rolling her eyes slightly at Taber’s amusement.

Suddenly one of the enemy snubfighter’s icons turned from the lurid red of enemy IFF to the flashing orange as the IFF switched to Emergency mode at the time as the fighter seemed to suddenly lose power and start drifting away from the main action. None of the friendly snubs were in any position to do anything about it, but Taber did mark the track on her display.

Taber did, however, tense when she saw one of the shield facings on Impetuous turn orange itself, showing impending failure, then relaxed as the cruiser managed to shift vector to bring that sector away from enemy fire. Only to tense up again as that sector promptly turned yellow as it hadn’t been able to come up to full strength.

Then that sector turned Orange… then Red as it failed.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 9

The two enemy star destroyers fired at the completely exposed flank of Impetuous... and missed completely. Behind Taber and Mara there was a thumping sound, and on the screen the elite level coordination of the Imperial snubfighters dropped to ‘merely’ veteran levels as Irolia passed out again from overexerting her battle meditation. In her inexperience she’d panicked, not remembering that a heavy cruiser like Impetuous is armored precisely so it could take a hit like that.

The two more senior Imperial Jedi shared a look, shaking their heads, then turned their attention back to the battle. Another lecture was now in Irolia’s future.on the importance of not overextending oneself.

“So, do we engage?” Taber asked, lekku twitching a bit in impatience as she’d much rather be out there in the cockpit of her X-Wing than here at the edge of the battle.

Mara gave her a tolerant look and shook her head. “Orders remain, we stick out here to keep the bluette safe.” she replied. “Although…”

The redhead tapped a control, zooming in on the course of the disabled and drifting TIE fighter that they were tracking. “The kid is good, that eyeball is floating our way.”

Taber muttered something under her breath, causing Mara to laugh and shake her head.

Meanwhile, Impetuous was able to complete her roll, dorsal turrets flashing bolts of ravening energy at the enemy as she presented a completely fresh shield face, even as the backup generators labored like hercules to bring the downed shields back up to full strength.

So far there had been no decisive blows, outside of the snubfighter battle which was trending more and more decisively towards the Imperials (well, the Imperials with Imperial X’s at least.) There were some small hull breaches on the two ISDs facing them, caused by the initial torpedo and bomb volley from the snubfighters, but obviously critical functions were not in the exact same place on these ISDs as on their own heavy cruisers, so less damage than would have otherwise been done had occurred.

The lighter units of the makeshift squadron were almost in position. For some reason the two ISDs had done absolutely nothing to hinder them, perhaps assuming that the smaller ships were attempting to escape rather than anything offensive.

That changed now, as both Tyrant’s Bane and Adina finally opened fire. While the light turbolasers were hardly in the same league as the heavy ones onboard Impetuous, they were firing at nearly completely denuded sectors of shielding as the ISDs had been shifting power from those shields to shore up those being hammered by the heavy cruiser.

The aft ray and particle shields on both ISDs failed within moments of the unexpected barrages, and both vessels staggered as lances of energy stabbed into their engineering spaces. Fire slackened as power relays exploded under the onslaught, then one of the two ISD’s seemed to shudder in place before detonating in an enormous fireball of transcendent fury as her solar ionization reactor went critical. The titanic explosion sent debris hurtling all about, wreaking even more damage on the lamed and crippled ISD that remained relatively intact.

A single moment can completely change a battle. What had been a fairly even slugging match was now an execution, as all of the engaged Imperial vessels focused fire on the nearly destroyed surviving ISD, intending to destroy it before it could even try to escape.

Irolia had rather blearily roused by the time the finale occurred as the second ISD came apart in a shuddering mass of secondary detonations as the vessel's spine was broken. Escape pods had been launched, although in shockingly small numbers considering just how much time there had been from the point where any sane and rational commander would have ordered the ship abandoned and the final destruction.

“New orders, assist with picking up ejected pilots and help corral the escape pods.” Mara said, tapping an acknowledgement on the comm system to automatically update their status as her hands moved on the controls.

“Picking up that disabled eyeball as well, yes?” Taber inquired, her own hands working the controls at the co-pilots station.

“Might as well, be useful to see what they can actually do, come to think about it.” Mara replied, before opening a channel.

“Impetuous Contro, Knight Three requesting permission to divert to corral a disabled eyeball and bring it in for evaluation prior to starting pickups. Be aware that the pilot of the eyeball is a person of interest, repeat, pilot is a person of interest.” Mara spoke into the comms.

“Knight 3, Impetuous Control, permission granted.” came the droid voice of the controller on duty. “Report completion of diversion.”

“Roger that, Impetuous Control, will report completion of diversion. Knight 3 out.” Mara replied.

“There we go.” she said with a chuckle. “So, little blue, any reason why you picked this one other than her being force sensitive?” she asked over her shoulder at the once-again meditating Chiss.

“Had a feeling she’d be important somehow.” came the quiet response. “Not sure how, there’s something there but I’m not sure what it is.”

Mara nodded, manipulating the controls to bring Hydaspes Star into a perfect intercept vector to the drifting enemy fighter. “Once you’re recovered, prep the holding cell for our mysterious guest.” the redhead shared another glance with Taber.

“Got it, Master Skywalker.” came the soft response.

Mara shook her head as Taber smothered a laugh. Since Mara hadn’t trained a Padawan yet, despite her seniority, she technically was only an Imperial Knight, not an Imperial Jedi Master, but neither woman felt like correcting Irolia yet again.

“OK, we’re about a minute out.” Mara said instead to the twi’lek beside her. “Prep the tractor beam.”

“Prepping tractor beam.” Taber replied, going into ‘Strictly Business’ mode. “Scanning… I have positive lock. Come 1 degree left, down 1 point 2.”

“1 left, 1 point 2 down.” Mara confirmed, adjusting the controls.

Taber focused on the screen, mentally comparing the projected course with what she could see visually and nodding. “Initiating... “

The tractor beam assembly located beneath each of the mandibles of the Intersector seemed to almost thrum with energy as it activated under the twi’leks deft hand.

“We have it, snubbing off tumble… done… extending array for berthing.”

“Controls neutral, delta-v zero.” Mara said calmly.

“Port or starboard?” Taber asked as the tractor assembly smoothly extended downward on telescoping arms.

“Starboard.” Mara decided. “Irolia, holding cell prepped?”

“Prepped, Master Skywalker.” came the response from behind.

“Good, is the pilot still unconscious?” Mara pressed lightly.

“She is. I can TK her into the cell.” Irolia replied in her soft voice.

“Then do so, berthing in 45 seconds.” Mara ordered, nodding to Taber who had been smoothly manipulating the controls to bring the obvious entrance hatch in line with the universal docking adaptor.

“Scanners aren’t picking up an atmosphere inside the eyeball.” Taber reported, looking over the readouts.

Mara nodded and smoothly slid out of her pilots seat. “Your spacecraft.” she said simply and headed back to assist Irolia as things had gotten just a bit more complicated.

“My spacecraft.” Taber confirmed, pausing the berthing program for the moment.

Mara motioned Irolia back and activated a control panel by the airlock. “You aren’t trained on this, I don’t think.” she said to the chiss. “Watch and learn.”

Irolia nodded, standing next to the redhead Imperial Jedi and watching as Mara programmed the airlock. “OK, get your helmet and gloves on, I’ll check your seals, you check mine.” Mara said once she’d finished, reaching up and tapping the side of her pilot’s helmet while making use of the eye-tracking control interface to activate vacuum seal.

Irolia meanwhile had to pull on a far more basic helmet that could interface with her armor to provide a similar seal, along with vacuum gloves that were much bulkier than the pilot gloves Mara was wearing. The chiss managed to get the seals closed regardless, as she had been shown how to do that before, but didn’t object as Mara performed a visual inspection of the telltales to make sure they were properly seated. She did the same for Mara’s pilot suit, the two-man rule existed for a reason, after all, and outside of an emergency situation you always followed it.

Or Imperial Health and Safety would be unhappy with you. And when Imperial Health and Safety is unhappy, nobody is happy.

It only took a few moments and by the time they were done, with exquisite timing, Taber’s voice came in over the helmet comms. “Berthing complete. Be aware that we do not have a positive lock, repeat we do not have a positive lock. Primary clamps are not able to engage.”

“Negative positive lock acknowledged.” Mara replied, grimacing a bit. That made this a bit more complicated. “OK, Irolia, I’ll show you how to rig the safety lines before we open the outer doors. The atmosphere shield isn’t compromised so this is likely unnecessary, but it’s something you should get in the habit of always doing.”

Irolia nodded and followed Mara into the airlock, then mimicked her actions hooking a safety line to the conveniently placed tie downs within the lock as the inner door cycled shut. Once the light turned green Mara made a visual sweep of the airlock.

“Another tip, always do a FOD check before opening the outer doors, if the atmosphere shield fails you do not want to have random crap flying out and possibly tearing your suit.” she explained. Check complete, the older Jedi tapped a control sequence on the panel and the outer doors irised open, showing the still-closed hatch on the other side.

It only took a bit of visual examination to spot the handles needed to open the hatch. “Opening mechanism found.” Mara reported over the helmet commlink to Taber. “Activating now.”

She twisted the handle and pulled it, causing the upper hatch of the unfamiliar snubfighter to swing open on a pair of heavy duty hinges. It was immediately obvious that the cockpit was not designed to hold atmosphere at all and that the pilot was completely reliant on their suit for pressurization and breathing air.

“Alright, monitor the prisoner while I see about getting her disconnected from this rig and unstrapped. Let me know the instant she starts to wake up.” Mara ordered.

“Yes, Master Skywalker.” Irolia replied with a nod, her eyes closing as she tapped into the Force.

Mara suppressed an eye roll before passing through the atmosphere shield and into the unfamiliar cockpit assembly. It took some work, but latches were latches, hose connectors were hose connectors, and it looked like these other Imperials weren’t completely braindead in how they arranged things. She first released the straps connecting the pilot to the seat before she unhooked the life support hoses as that would start a short clock where she would have to get the pilot into the atmosphere shield before she asphyxiated.

Luckily Mara was an Imperial Jedi, a little bit of TK, a little bit of Force sense, and it was no problem at all. In less than 5 seconds the pilot was inside the airlock laying on the floor and Mara was right behind her.

She tapped the controls, sealing off the outer hatch once more after visually sweeping to make sure there was nothing in the way.

“We’re clear, hatch closed and secured, opening inner airlock.” she reported over the comm.

“Roger.” came the response from the cockpit.

A few moments later and their ‘guest’ was laid out in the holding cell after Irolia and Mara had conducted a quick yet thorough search for any weapons or tools that could be used for escape.

“Alright, keep an eye on her for now, Irolia.” Mara ordered as she unsealed her helmet finally and started heading back to the cockpit.

“Yes, Master.” the chiss replied, drawing another eye roll from the redhead.

Mara settled back into the pilot's seat and strapped in. “Pilot’s spacecraft.” she said simply as she took control.

“Pilot’s spacecraft.” Taber replied, then grinned “Master Skywalker.”

“Don’t you start.” Mara laughed, shaking her head. “Luke’s the only one of us who’s made Master so far, so when you say that I start looking for him.”

Taber just laughed and worked the tractor controls, shifting the captured snubfighter into a suitable towing position.

“How is your brother anyways, haven’t heard anything since he was teaching at the Flight School at the Academy.” Taber asked idly as she monitored the tow status.

“He’ll be here shortly, actually, he’s now chief of staff of the 1175th under the Old Man himself.” Mara replied as she smoothly brought the Intersector around and headed for the battered but still very operational heavy cruiser. “Mom is very pleased that he’s no longer in the cockpit, especially after the stunt he pulled at 3rd Alderaan.”

“Surprised she let him out of the Palace after that one.” Taber agreed with a laugh.

It didn’t take long for Hydaspes Star to reach Impetuous.

“Knight 3 to Impetuous Control. Requesting landing clearance with captured fighter in tow, repeat requesting landing clearance with captured fighter in tow. We have a prisoner on board, repeat we have a prisoner on board.”

“Roger that, Knight Three. You are number four for landing. You will be on spot Aurek, repeat Aurek. Marines are ready to secure the prisoner and the captured bird.” came the slightly fussy droid voice of the controller.

“Knight Three acknowledges number four for landing, spot Aurek, Marines standing by.” Mara repeated back.

Mara eased back the throttle and entered the landing pattern behind a trio of rescue shuttles.

“Tow is configured for landing.” Taber reported as she swung the captured bird to rest between the mandibles of the Intersector, the tractor arrays locking themselves into place. “Those panels look reinforced enough to support the mass of the eyeball, and don't see any obvious landing gear assemblies.”

“That’s going to give the handlers a conniption.” Mara chuckled and shook her head. “Simple enough, but inconvenient as hell.”

Taber chuckled and nodded, then lifted an eyebrow. “Three o’clock, low.” she said, leaning forward slightly.

Mara turned, just in time to see one of the truly awe-inspiring sights of the Galaxy, a heavy squadron executing a flawless formation exit from hyperspace.

The 19 kilometer long dagger hull of the nameship of the Executor-class battle carriers was at the center of the formation, ringed by a quartet of Allegiance-class battleships. A more distant ring of a dozen Imperator heavy cruisers formed the primary screen, while twice that many Vindicators and Nebulon-Bs formed the outer screen.

Compared to one of the twenty numbered fleets that comprised the main striking arm of the Imperial Navy it was a tiny formation. But in comparison to what was actually present already it was a massive escalation in force.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 10

Triselka couldn’t believe just how busy the spacelanes were. For all that the yacht they were on was amongst the fastest in space, they still were at the mercy of route control due to the sheer volume of traffic. A major hyperlane was always busy, but back home that just meant you had to keep up a good sensor watch. Here, the closer they got to Coruscant the worse it got, until positive traffic control took over and you had to wait your turn at defined transfer points.

It mostly wasn’t military traffic either, they’d been sitting waiting for their slot for the next leg of the trip for an hour as a seemingly endless procession of field-secured cargo vessels routed past, feeding the industrial heartland of an Empire that was straining all of its economic and industrial might. The amount of credits represented by the traffic visible just with the naked eye was staggering.

Almost as dizzying as the volume was the variety. Ships from nearly every major species were represented, from the organic looking Mon Cal vessels to the militaristic Kuati and MandalMotors designs. Corellian vessels of all sizes and designations seemed to be everywhere. Triselka had even seen some rather exotic looking warships that looked like somebody had taken a Mon Cal cruiser and mated it with an Imperial Star Destroyer, an entire squadron of which had passed by heading away from the Core several minutes before.

One of the covers they’d often used was as ‘legit’ light freighter couriers, they’d had documentation and transponder codes that identified them as a completely legitimate and loyal shipping firm that specialized in small cargo that needed to be routed quickly. Of course, that had meant that Aloni and Scrish had to hide in the smuggler’s compartment whenever they were boarded by Imperial Customs… which seemed to happen at every single transfer point.

As a consequence Triselka was quite familiar with how Imperial Customs worked, with the Customs Corvettes seemingly everywhere boarding everybody unless you were with a favored megacorporation. She’d had to pretend to be a good little Imperial stooge during those stops, spouting off all the COMPNOR approved phrases and responses like a good little lackey. Of course, 90% of the ‘Customs Inspectors’ never seemed to look past the skintight outfits she’d wear long enough to spot anything out of the ordinary, and the 10% who managed to actually perform anything vaguely resembling a proper inspection, well, that was what bribes were for.

She saw nothing like that. There were marked customs craft at every transfer point, of course, but they seemed to content themselves with requesting manifests and performing basic scans rather than boarding everything in sight in hopes of bribes. The one time she had seen them boarding something it had been one of the big FSCVs, not one of the small fry.

Back home there was relatively sparse traffic, even in the Core. Planets were generally forced to rely on their own resources or relatively nearby systems, with the Empire strongly depressing commercial activity as against their interest in total control. Only favored shipping companies were allowed to operate, and even they did so under severe restrictions meant to show the authority of the Empire.

Here it was the opposite, commerce boomed, most of the cargos Triselka could identify were about as non-military as could be, consisting of massive conglomerations of containers containing commercial goods. Granted, equally enormous amounts of possibly military materials were being moved, but it seemed that this Empire had a radically different view of commerce than their own.

This was a healthy commercial system, despite the war, not a commercial system that only existed insofar as it supported the interests of the Imperial Elites. This was commerce at a scale Triselka had only heard about from the oldest members of the Rebellion who remembered the time before the Clone Wars, when traffic like this would have been ordinary.

It was rather staggering.

They finally got clearance to make the final route to Coruscant itself, and wasn’t that a trip, Coruscant, not Imperial Center. One of the customs corvettes had scanned them just before they got that clearance, but that appeared to be routine for every routing to the capital.

An hour later, Aloni had joined her in the observation lounge as they came out of hyperspace.

And both promptly felt their jaws drop and panic seize them in an iron grip. Because right in front of them hung the gigantic orb of a DEATH STAR, its superlaser dish pointing straight towards them.

A kriffing DEATH STAR. Triselka felt her heart drop into her shoes and her bowels threaten to loosen, while beside her Aloni was looking utterly terrified.

Oddly, the steward who was in the observation compartment didn’t seem bothered at all.

“Beautiful sight, that.” he commented cheerfully. “She was finished two years ago and has been the keystone of the Coruscant Fortress Command ever since.”

It took a second, but Triselka realized that the steward sounded proud of the presence of this Death Star. Then what he said registered.

“Fortress Command?” she managed.

“Yeah, they’re responsible for system defense, as opposed to the Navy which does both defensive and offensive ops.” he explained.

“Of course, they plan to have them stationed at all the main systems to pretty much guarantee their security against the Rebels, who wouldn't want to try and attack a planet defended by a Strategic Command Battlestation, I reckon.” he sounded so satisfied. “My little brother is assigned to her, so I got the declassified tour back when she was commissioned. The Kuati did their usual bang up job on the design, and Raith finally got to build one of his Specials, so I hear.”

Aloni swallowed a few times and looked over at her, then the two of them paled again as the steward cheerfully continued. “They’ve got a half dozen under construction now, no way to hide ‘em with how big they are. One on Corellia, one’s almost done at Kuat itself, another at Dac, one at Sullust, one’s just gotten started at Corulag, and another just started at Mandalore Prime. According to my brother the application que to get one assigned to a system is pretty much ‘Is an Imperial World’, even the provisional government on Alderaan has put in a bid, which is causing a bit of a ruckus.”

“A… Alderan?” Triselka almost croaked out.

“Sure, although they’re probably not qualified because, I mean, it’s a provisional government, right? Not a full up Imperial world yet. Dunno how long it’ll take for that to happen. I mean, they’re Alderaanians, they put up with the Organa’s for how long?” the steward just grinned.

Triselka was pretty sure she now knew what a mental short-circuit felt like, because what the steward was saying made zero sense whatsoever. Outside the viewport the incongruous sight of a DEATH STAR that, now that the initial shock had faded, was actually not the menacing gray of the Death Star they knew but rather a crisp white base with red and gold highlights that somehow made it… incongruously welcoming.

In the distance she could make out something that was extremely reflective, even with how far away it is. Narrowing her eyes, she realized it was a second Death Star, but this one looked only partially complete, with large segments of the hull still not finished. But the segments that were finished, even from this distance, were… chromed? Really?

She was about to ask when the steward pointed towards it. “There’s the second one for Coruscant, the Naboo got real insistent that since it was guarding the Empress, who used to be their Queen, that it had to be chromium plated. Up close it’s even more garish.”

Aloni and Triselka shared a look. Things were making less and less sense and becoming more and more surreal.

“Ooookay…” Aloni finally managed, swallowing hard.

An hour later they had made their way through Coruscanti traffic and landed at a building that Triselka had only ever seen old holos of and which was completely buried by the Imperial Palace back on Imperial Center… the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

As they were heading to the hatch to debark they got another surprise, as the pilot showed up.

A petite, even for her race, female Dug swung in with an inhumanly broad smile on her fierce face. “You enjoyed your trip, yes, enjoyed your trip?” she asked in an oddly cheerful voice given her species reputation.

“Certainly.” Aloni replied after a moment. “The hospitality was very nice.”

“Good good! Give good review if asked!” the Dug seized one of Aloni’s hands between her feet and enthusiastically shook her hand. “First big charter to Coruscant! Will have to tell dad!” then the creature shifted, then deepened her voice in an obvious imitation of a male Dug. “If you want to fly slow luxury ships rather than pods, don’t let it be said that Sebulba doesn’t take care of his daughter!” before she laughed and waved, heading back up to the cockpit.

Triselka looked at the twi’lek. “Well, that just happened.” and then led the still somewhat dazed Aloni through the hatch.

Outside a young Mon Calamari woman wearing deceptively simple brown and beige robes waited for them with her flippered hands buried in her sleeves. “Welcome to the Temple.” she said, her voice almost completely devoid of anything but a faint Coruscanti accent. “Imperial Knight Skywalker requested that we extend our hospitality to you while we determine what, precisely, is going on.” the large black eyes fixed on Aloni for a moment. “The other you is already with our healers being evaluated, please, follow me.”

It was spoken as a courteous request, as if there were any options other than accepting it. Both Triselka and Aloni knew full well they really didn’t have any options here.

“Sure.” Aloni finally said, and the patient Mon Cal turned and led them silently towards the Temple from the landing pad right outside.

The structure was glorious, soaring above them with incredible majesty and glorious beauty. The bright sunlight of a clear day glinted off of the metallic highlights and decorations and gilded the multitude of spires and pinnacles with golden light. They were heading towards a side entrance, but from where they were they could see the main entrance with a snaking line of tourists evidently visiting the home of the Jedi on guided tours.

Aloni boggled a bit, she’d known a few old-timers who remembered the old days, and ‘tourist tours of the Jedi Temple’ were not on the list of things they’d ever mentioned about the place. “Ummm, miss? You allow tourists in the Temple?” she asked hesitantly.

“My apologies for not introducing myself.” the Mon Cal said, her skin darkening slightly in embarrassment. “I very rarely greet visitors. Healer Chi Tinor.” she paused, then shrugged slightly. “One of the Emperor’s less popular initiatives with certainly parts of the Order, especially the Monasts, but very popular with the common citizenry. He says it helps to keep us connected to the people we serve.”

“Well, umm, Healer Tinor.” Aloni began, turning the phrase into a bit of a question and getting a nod from the other woman. “Where are we going first?”

“To the Room of Ten Thousand Fountains, where Imperial Jedi Master Dooku is waiting for you along with my own Master.” she explained as they continued walking.

They passed a number of armored figures who stood impassively next to the arched doorway of the side entrance, each armed with a double saber clipped to their belts and not reacting at all to their presence.

“Temple Guardians, drawn from retired Imperial Knights.” Healer Tinor explained without being prompted. “Mostly ceremonial these days, thank the Force.”

The interior was nearly as glorious as the exterior, with glorious mosaics in the walls and soaring, vaulted ceilings that reached almost a hundred feet above their heads, the walls pierced with glorious stained glass artworks depicting the artists interpretations of the Jedi Code and philosophy. In niches along the hallway, even here at a side entrance, were plinthes holding artifacts of the order or exquisite statuary.

“Master Kenobi selected the artifacts on display.” the Mon Cal said pleasantly as they walked along. “I understand that His Imperial Majesty assigned him to the job as punishment for his part in forcing the Emperor to take the throne.”

“Forcing?” Aloni asked, looking as puzzled as Triselka was certain she was.

“Oh yes, His Imperial Majesty regularly complains that being Emperor is the worst job in the Empire, all the paperwork, all the responsibility, none of the field work. He likes to say he was much happier as a Jedi Knight.” Tinor replied.

“The Emperor is a JEDI?” Triselka blurted out, even as she saw Aloni’s jaw doing a good impression of dropping to the floor.

“Of course he is, who else would you trust in the big chair than perhaps the greatest Jedi Knight in many generations.” Tinor paused. “Well, as much as you can trust any one sentient with that much authority, but don’t let it be known that I’m agreeing with His Imperial Majesty on that score, he’d be insufferable and it’s hard enough getting him to come in for his annual physicals already.”

That seemed like a strangely normal thing for an Emperor.

Aloni only realized she’d said that out loud when Tinor laughed. “He’s still human, although he claims that we’ve turned him into a glorified protocol droid.”

Triselka couldn’t help laughing as she imagined one of the protocol droids she’d met wearing a big crown and fussing about everything.

It didn’t take them that long to reach the Room of Ten Thousand Fountains and both women again boggled at the glorious sight. There were countless fountains of all varieties, sure, but the greenery is what made the place so glorious. It seemed like they’d stepped out of Coruscant into a massive flowering jungle. The fountains burbled and gurgled and flowed and laughed, the leaves glistened in the spray, the flowers were glorious cascading displays of natural color. And it was peaceful, serenely, perfectly, absolutely, peaceful.

The two women were silent as they followed the Mon Cal down the meandering paths, already hopelessly lost after the second turn, until they reached a small clearing where a number of stone benches seemed to have been carved out of the primordial forest floor.

An incredibly distinguished looking elderly human waited there in exquisite black and silver robes that were deceptively simple and plain, while somehow giving the impression of enormous class and distinction. A much younger man stood next to him, wearing robes that seemed to match their guides. The mismatched pair turned as they entered the clearing, the elder of the two inclining his head in a gracious gesture.

“Welcome to the Temple, I am Imperial Jedi Master Yan Dooku.” came the smoothly cultured voice. “This is Master Healer Gronn Drukki. Please, let us be seated so that we can begin.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 11

The stone seats didn’t look all that comfortable was Triselka’s initial thought, until she actually sat down on one and found that it was surprisingly comfortable indeed. The stone was subtly shaped such that no cushion was actually needed. She settled into it, as Aloni did the same next to her.

The two jedi remained standing, while the young Mon Cal bustled off on some errand or other. As soon as the two women were seated Dooku nodded slightly, his arms folded behind his back. “You no doubt have plenty of questions. I am afraid that we have fewer answers than we would wish to have.”

Smoothly, as if prompted by some mysterious signal neither Aloni nor Triselka could detect, Gronn picked up. “It is self-evident that a novel force-twin bond has formed between the two Ms Liskins. When we complete this initial discussion I shall probe this further in an attempt to discern more about what caused it, and help Ms Liskin handle what, in natural twins, would have been instinctive from the womb.”

Dooku then smiled thinly. “Please indulge me as I seek to answer several questions you may have that I have anticipated, before we begin our discussion.” his eyebrow twitched slightly and both women found themselves nodding a bit at the silent invitation. “First, Knight Skywalker has reported that your transport shares a Corellian Unique Production Code ID with an active vessel that has been confirmed to be elsewhere. As CEC is quite fastidious about the CUPC system this leads to several potential scenarios. Either a previously completely unknown production facility is building copies of obsolete CEC light freighter designs without bothering to alter the CUPC codes, or we are dealing with a truly unusual situation in which we have two CECs building near identical products while being completely unaware of each other.”

He paused a second, allowing that to sink in. “We have been running ID checks on each of the survivors, as well as the identified casualties. Among the survivors only Ms Liskin has a double, however one of the names on the crew manifest who was not among the survivors, a young human male by the name of Nik Sunstim, did produce a match. Interestingly, young Mr Sunstim is currently in the hospital after passing out in the middle of Calculus class. Medically no cause could be found, however matching up the reported time chops makes it clear that this occurred at the very moment the anomaly appeared.”

Aloni paled at that, shaking just a little. Triselka swallowed her own reaction as Dooku paused, falling silent for a moment until the twi’lek managed to collect herself before he continued, his voice somehow… subtly gentler than before, while still aristocratic.

“Data recovered from the computers of your transport, interviews with survivors, and other data points indicate a significant lack of congruency with known events. Alderaan was never destroyed, Commander Skywalker is not and never has been affiliated with the Organas, Captain Skywalker never destroyed a ‘Death Star’, nor has the Strategic Command Battlestation seen any combat of any kind since her commissioning three years ago. There is no rank of ‘Grand Moff’ or ‘Moff’, and we have no records of a ‘Darth Vader’ in any database, although ‘Darth’ is a historical term for a Sith Lord of a certain rank. Wilhuf Tarkin was executed for war crimes upon his capture fifteen years ago at the Battle of the Empress Teta system.”

Dooku paused again, lips twitching slightly. “When shown footage of the supposed standard Imperial snubfighter, this ‘TIE’, Mr Sienar was most upset to learn that his name was associated with it. I will spare you his precise comments on the grounds of excessive vulgarity.”

Triselka surprised herself with a snort of laughter at that. Master Dooku simply quirked his eyebrows again, almost microscopically.

Dooku paused again, then continued. “Therefore, we have come to the tentative conclusion that the hyperspace anomaly is doing something quite unprecedented and somehow connecting our own universe to an… alternate version, with differing histories and situations. This is only a hypothesis at this point, but the data is in general agreement so far.”

He was about to say something else when there were faint sounds of a commotion nearby. A moment later a tall man dressed in black with silver highlights plunged through the undergrowth nearby, followed by a dozen children dressed in simple robes who were all trying to suppress giggles over getting away with something naughty, no doubt due to being with an adult.

Dooku gave the man a Look (™). And the man in black just grinned, looking incredibly boyish and dashing in the process despite the faint hints of silver at his temples. “Ahhh, Master Dooku, just who I was not hoping to run into. Well, come along, children, your lesson in Approved Shortcuts Through The Room of Ten Thousand Fountains…”

Dooku interrupted with a slight ‘hummph’. “There are no approved shortcuts through this room, as you well…”

The other interrupted him with a raised hand. “Ettt! Who is teaching this critical class, Master Dooku? Yourself or me?” the grin spoiled the attempt at looking imperious. “Why, if I had had a teacher half as skilled at this critical subject as myself when I was their age, I wouldn’t have gotten caught nearly as often as I did!”

The healer was looking like he was torn between laughing and bowing, the two women just looked confused, and Dooku’s eyebrows were twitching hard. “That is hardly…”

And again the newcomer interrupted the elderly Jedi. “I say, these the newcomers?” he grinned at them and swept a rather flamboyant bow. “Welcome to the Jedi Temple, home of the Imperial Jedi…” he made a slight motion and all the younglings cheered “and the Monasts.” another slight gesture and the kids made theatrical boos. “Except for the Healers, who are the exceptions that prove the rule about the Monasts being boring, right Gronn?” and with that he slapped the healer heartily on the back.

“I wouldn’t say that…” Gronn began, only to be interrupted by the newcomer wagging his finger at him.

“Aight! No titles in the Temple!” the man said cheerfully before turning to the kids. “Now, quietly mind you, go down this path and take the first right, and if Master Pan asks, I went thataway.” he waved vaguely in the opposite direction. With suppressed giggles, jerky childish bows to Dooku, and much jostling the younglings stampeded off in the indicated direction.

“Ahhh, to be young again. And I can see what Mara talked about in her report.” the man picked a fountain and perched on the side of it, looking completely casual about it. “You.” he pointed at Aloni. “Will be getting the ‘Introduction to Protecting Your Mind’ class, or I’ll have to assign a Jedi to follow you and your twin around to keep murder from happening and I don’t have enough Jedi to spare. Yan, report just came in, looks like the Multiverse theory is a go, and I have a feeling you’ll be needed here, so no you can’t go. Gronn, could you take Aloni here off to the healers lair and get started?”

It seemed that giving orders came rather naturally to the man, casual as he acted.

“Oh, bollocks.” he suddenly said, grinning at the two. “Anakin Skywalker, you’ve met my daughter already.”

Dooku shook his head slightly. “Anakin, both of my former padawans are…”

“I know, I know. They’ll be fine.” Anakin said, looking over at the old Jedi. “The reports in your inbox, but you might have yourself a new project, completely untrained force user who’s been exposed to the Dark Side her entire life. Assuming Luke agrees with Mara’s initial assessment she’ll be coming here for training and I want you to handle it. I’ll be sending 3PO to Mara and Taber, and Mara tells me that R2 has decided to go along, if only to annoy R1.”

Anakin then looked over to Triselka and Aloni. “Now, according to the initial debrief, you were talking about the other version of my eldest son blowing up a Death Star and being the last Jedi? Do you know what happened to my wife and I?”

Triselka at that moment knew what a gizka felt like when a nexu was looking at it.

A few hours later Anakin and Dooku were alone in the clearing. “Humph, that other universe is… bad. But can I afford to divert any forces to help this Rebellion of theirs?” Anakin asked, nursing a cup of caf that had been brought by an attentive droid.

“We might not have a choice.” Dooku pointed out, now seated across from his Emperor and grand-padawan. “If Windu’s forces somehow manage to get in contact with this… Dark Empire… it could undo almost all of the gains we’ve made since 3rd Alderaan, or worse.”

Anakin nodded, brooding a bit. “At the very minimum we will need to absolutely secure this… call it a hypergate for want of a better term. From both sides. And in order to secure the far side of the gate we’ll need to seize that version of Zaaloris, which I am certain this, Dark Empire, I like that term,” he flashed a quick, boyish grin that lightened his face immensely, “will strongly object to. Which in turn makes it advantageous to at least initiate talks and potentially provide some assistance to this Rebellion of theirs.”

“And get in contact with alternate forms of your eldest twins.” Dooku pointed out, although there was a faint smile on his face.

“And get in touch with the alternate forms of my eldest kids, yes.” Anakin grimaced slightly. “A terrible reason for an Emperor, I’m sure.”

“But for a father?” Dooku said softly.

Anakin simply nodded. “Sometimes I need to make decisions as a man, not as an institution.”

 

[LordSunhawk]

Chapter 12

<A day earlier>

Taber had barely unclipped the safety harness when the comms squawked again. “Hydaspes Star, Impetuous Control, new orders. You are required to tow the captured fighter and bring the prisoner to Executor, comms channel point six five. I repeat, you are required to tow the captured fighter and bring the prisoner to Executor, comms channel point six five.”

Mara rolled her eyes as Taber strapped back in, having not bothered to unstrap herself in the first place. “I suspected this would happen.” she commented to the younger Jedi, getting a snort in response. “Impetuous Control, Hydaspes Star. She said into the comm. “Acknowledged, transport captured fighter and prisoner to Executor, will monitor point six five. Hydaspes Star requesting launch clearance and routing to Executor.”

“You are cleared to launch, vector 260 for one five kilometers, then cleared direct. Repeat, vector 260 for one five kilometers, then cleared direct.”

“Roger, we are cleared for launch, vector 260 for one five kilometers, then cleared for direct. [i[Hydaspes Star[/i] out.” Mara gently manipulated the controls, easing the Intersector out of the only bay on Impetuous large enough to handle the sloop, and oriented the vessel on the indicated bearing.

“Hydaspes Star on point six five to Executor Control, be advised on approach with prisoner and tow, requesting clearance.”

“Hydaspes Star, this is Executor Flight Actual, you are cleared for direct approach, bay 18 bravo.” came a very cultured Coruscanti accented voice, causing Mara to chuckle before she keyed the comms to respond.

“Roger that, Executor Flight Actual, direct approach bay 18 bravo, on the chop.”

Taber was trying, and failing, to keep from rolling her eyes. “Must he make a production out of everything? Not like Stacy’s here to be impressed with his perfect diction.”

Mara just laughed as she slightly advanced the throttle. “Luke’s always like that, thinks it’s funny or something. Should hear him and dad get into a snoot off after a state dinner. Usually lasts until mom threatens them with makeup and hairstyling.”

“Well, I know I lost some credits on betting that I could crack that composure when he was teaching the Advanced Flight School last year.” Taber replied with a laugh. “He’s better at maintaining poise than Master Dooku, then again Master Dooku absolutely hates flying in anything that isn’t a solar sailer and…” the two women chorus together “considers acrobatics uncivilized.”

Mara was grinning as she keyed the comms. “Hydaspes Star to Executor Flight Actual, on approach to 18 bravo, requesting landing clearance. Also, apple tree. Repeat, apple tree.”

There was an honest to the Force sputter over the channel. “Don’t you…” Luke started, then obviously got control over himself. “Hydaspes Star, this is Executor Flight Actual. Clearance granted. And that was completely your fault and you know it.”

“And that, Knight Ban, is how you get my brother to lose his cool.” Mara said to Taber in her very best upper-crust Coruscanti accent, while the twi’lek was laughing in the copilot seat.

“Apple tree?” Taber asked, between guffaws.

Mara nodded soberly. “Apple tree.” she said completely deadpan.

The docking bay they were heading to was one normally used to berth Contentor-class fleet replenishment vessels. Along with 18 alpha, the bay was amongst the largest on the ventral spine of the massive fleet carrier with each capable of internally berthing a pair of the massive logistics vessels. Indeed, one was still berthed, while the other had been deployed to resupply Impetuous and her ad hoc squadron. This left a truly massive amount of room for Mara to land the sloop along with the captured fighter, which settled neatly onto its durasteel ‘wings’.

The actual landing area would normally be blocked off by the Contentor, but was perfectly suitable for flight operations when the logistics vessels were away. As such it was fully equipped for shuttle operations, even if said operations were only an occasional sort of thing.

Mara and Taber rose from the cockpit, heading back to find that Irolia was already waiting for them in the central junction accompanied by the floating form of the still sleeping captured pilot. On the other side of the chiss a holstered blaster pistol, a survival knife, and several pieces of pilot gear floated, while the young chiss just stood there with her hands clasped lightly behind her.

Mara started to say something, reconsidered it, then simply shook her head, gesturing for Irolia and Taber to accompany her, along with the prisoner, down the access ramp.

By the time the ramp was lowered a platoon of Imperial Marines had arrived, along with Luke, wearing his immaculately tailored captain’s uniform, accompanied by a young Sullustan padawan wearing a uniform without any rank insignia. Behind them a medical team waited, with a repulsorlift stretcher. Taber glanced over at Irolia and nodded towards the stretcher, the chiss nodded back and the unconscious pilot floated between the Marines to land gently on the steady platform.

“Welcome aboard!” Luke’s diction was perfect, but he was grinning rather than acting at Full Pompous Formality. He looked over at the Marine Lieutenant who commanded the platoon. “Lt, escort the medics to the secure medbay, normal protocols.”

“Sir!” The Lieutenant snapped a parade-ground perfect salute off, getting one in response from Luke, before turning and nodding to his platoon-sergeant, who nodded back, turned, and evidently gave a command over the internal comm network for the platoon as all of the Marines turned and began escorting the medics out of the bay.

Once they were well away, Luke smiled and stepped forward. Beside Taber Mara suddenly stiffened, just as Luke moved like greased lightning and caught his sister in a headlock and began messing up her hair while smiling amiably at the twi’lek and chiss.

“So, how’s being a copilot to my sister treating you, kid?” Luke asked Taber. Mara was trying to get loose while retaining some dignity, while her big brother messed with her as big brothers are known to do.

“Let… me… go… you nerf herding…” Mara was fast, strong, and capable. Luke was faster, stronger, and more experienced. Taber meanwhile was giving her former flight instructor a very old-fashioned look.

“I was quite happily flying my X” Taber said a bit severely.

“True, but now you are my baby sisters copilot on an Intersector.” he said, finally letting Mara go and stepping just barely out of reach of his sister’s potential counter attacks.

“Luke… one of these days…” Mara growled at her older brother, who just gave her a cheery smile in response.

“C’mon, sis, if I didn’t mess with you you’d think I got replaced by a clone or something.” Luke replied drolly.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Mara replied, scarcely mollified and obviously already planning on how to get Luke back. Although from what Taber knew, Mara had yet to succeed at any of her grand plans to get Luke back.

“Anyways, have visiting quarters arranged for all three of you, and that obsolete pile of short-circuits you call a droid.” Luke seemed to completely ignore Mara’s sarcasm. “I’ve already gotten strict orders from the Old Man that I’m not allowed to be the first test pilot of that snub, and before you ask, sis, he also vetoed you or Taber from doing it as well. Irolia, I’ve gotten firm instructions from Master Bnar that you are required to sleep, not simply meditate, for at least 8 hours. Taber, please make sure she does so. Mara, mom is expecting a holocall from us as soon as reasonably possible, have an MSE guide you to my office once you’ve dropped your kit in the guest quarters.”

Command came quite naturally to Luke, both being the Crown Prince and having quite a bit of military command experience, first as a squadron leader and now as Carrier Fighter Commander for a supercarrier. Taber found herself nodding as soon as she got her orders, even as she snapped to attention. Even little blue seemed to catch the ‘command voice’, although it was obvious she’d no actual exposure to military courtesies. Only Mara seemed completely immune to her brother’s ‘I shall be obeyed’ voice, rolling her eyes and looking put out, like any proper little sister.

Luke then paused. “Leli,” he turned to look at his padawan. “Head over to the med bay and let me know when our guest is awake.”

The young Sullustan nodded and scurried off.

“They actually let you have a padawan?” Mara managed to inject some sisterly snide into her voice.

“Of course, after all only the best would do for the job.” Luke was completely unruffled. “Leli’s a good kid, still have to grind down some of the awestruck ‘I’m being taught by a SKYWALKER’ edges, but a good kid.” he then grinned over at Taber. “And she’s a Makashi user, if we have time you might want to see how close she is to acceptable at it.”

Taber nodded “I’ll be taking Irolia to the training room once we’ve dropped our kit off, if you want to send her there.” she said, glancing over at the quiet chiss who winced a little.

“That sounds acceptable.” he looked over towards the lifts. “You’ve been onboard Executor before, sis, you know where the visiting officer quarters are, right?” At Mara’s nod he continued. “I secured three sets for you, just need to check in. I’ll be in my office doing valiant battle against the paperwork monster.”

He then gave Mara a brotherly hug, making it obvious that for all that the siblings teased each other they were very close.

He then turned on his heel and left, heading over towards a bank of turbolifts. Mara led Taber and Irolia to a separate bank at a brisk pace. Behind them bay crews were going over the two landed spacecraft, a much larger crew than you’d normally see with a snubfighter swarming all over the odd little fighter.

-----

ES-624-16 woke up.

She hadn’t expected to wake up, but she did anyway.

She wasn’t in a bacta tank.

She wasn’t in her cockpit.

She thought she was in a medbay. Which was… good. Maybe. Perhaps they had won. She didn’t open her eyes yet though.

She could feel all of her fingers and toes. That was good.

She opened her eyes.

The overhead looked… typical for an Imperial medbay. Or so she thought, she’d not been in many medbays.

But it looked much like the overhead in the pilots quarters, only with more conduits.

She didn’t hurt anywhere, even the light didn’t hurt her eyes.

She turned her head slightly. Black-armored stormtroopers flanked the hatchway from the compartment. ISB troops perhaps… she couldn’t think of anything she’d done that would get her in trouble with ISB.

Not that… she squashed that thought before it could fully form. ES-624-16 knew better than to even think anything negative about the ISB.

Then an anomaly, a Sullustan, wearing an Imperial officer’s uniform. There were no Sullustans in the Imperial Navy that she knew of. With a… was that…

She blinked. The shiny metal cylinder was still there, hanging from a strap on the aliens belt. Since when would an alien Imperial officer openly carry a lightsaber.

The alien… female alien, ES-624-16 realized, wasn’t looking at her, but rather was at a bulkhead terminal doing… something.

Everything was strange. She could remember the briefing aboard the Endar Spire, that they would be going through the anomaly at Lord Vader’s command. It would be her first combat mission as a full-fledged TIE pilot.

She’d been sitting in her cockpit, ready to launch, when they’d made the crossing, and she could remember the splitting headache that seemed to erupt between her eyes. She’d forced herself to keep her focus, to keep silent, even though she wanted to scream. She’d never screamed during training, even when… her mind shied away from that.

Then she’d launched, last in the launch queue as she was the single most junior pilot on board, and directly into hell. X-Wings far larger than anything in the warbooks. Oversized ARC-170’s. Obviously must be rebels. But they flew like demons.

Her leader went down in moments, not that she did anything to assist him. TIE pilot training was brutal. And she was trained to never help another pilot, but rather to solely focus on killing the enemy.

Her fire was… ineffective. She couldn’t recall a single kill. These oversized X-Wings had ridiculous shields, and never seemed to be where she’d aimed.

But she never took a hit either. Somehow she seemed to know when to turn, when to vary her throttle. She’d seen bolts blast past, millimeters away from killing her, but none so much as scorched her paint.

She’d never flown like this in training.

Then she’d felt like a giant hand was squeezing her, and everything had gone black.

She thought she’d died.

The Sullustan finally turned and approached the bed she was on. “Awake, yes?” came a liquid voice that sounded painfully young to her ears.

Young, a laugh, she was young. Too young her fellow pilots said. And female. Her mind shied away from that as well, remembering hands and dark rooms and… no, focus.

“Master Skywalker will be here shortly.” the Sullustan said, causing ES-624-16 to blink again. Every Imperial knew the name ‘Skywalker’, it was the rebel Lord Vader wanted. Her ears were ringing. The Sullustan was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it as she felt a charge in the room, an oppressive weight.

It was crushing her. Then it wasn’t. It was a warm blanket enveloping her. It was a gentle shower cleansing her. It was a beautiful day invigorating her. It was her grandfather…

Her mind shrieked away from that. Her grandfather was dead. Killed by the rebel bombing. She repeated that by rote. Killed by the rebel bombing. The ISB said that. Therefore it was true. Questioning the ISB led to…

The sensation grew stronger, banishing fear. Banishing… fear… memories… pain…

The hatch slid open, and a figure whose face was familiar from countless wanted holos but who was wearing an… an Imperial uniform… what… how… confusion reigned… Luke Skywalker was a rebel. He destroyed the Death Star. Lord Vader wanted him… here he was… wearing…

Her head felt like she was detached from reality.

“My Padawan tells me you are awake.” came a cultured Coruscanti voice. Skywalker didn’t have a Coruscanti accent, the recordings of his voice gave him a Tatooine accent… what… “Welcome aboard His Imperial Majesty's Ship Executor. I am Captain Luke Skywalker, Imperial Jedi Knight, Carrier Fighter Commander for Executor and, for my many and various sins, Crown Prince and Heir to His Imperial Majesty, Anakin Skywalker, first of his name and house.”

ES-624-16 did the only sensible thing in this madness and passed right back out.