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My other thread was getting too long, so I decided that I'd just start posting each new chapter individually. If you want to catch up on the previous chapters, either check the ASVS Fanfic Archive or my original thread.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Captain Kathryn Janeway paced across the synthetic wood floor of the
meager apartment she had been assigned to in San Francisco. As she did
so, she reflected on Voyager's state; inspection teams were crawling all
over it in Spacedock, preparing it for its complete and long-overdue
refitting. Her lack of ease with the situation was due to the fact that,
in the five days that had passed since the official homecoming party for
Voyager ended, she had all but been confined to her apartment. Every
time she left to walk around the city, she had the uneasy feeling that
she was being followed - even though she could see no sign of it.
Janeway was, in fact, beginning to long for the confinement that she had
been in on Voyager - Raven Fornil, her Jedi guard, had at least ben a
good source of interesting conversations. Those same conversations had
allowed her to get a broader picture of the Republic that these Jedi had
come from.

However, the thing that galled Janeway the most was the fact that at
the welcoming party, Chakotay had earned more recognition than she had
for bringing Voyager home. It was almost as though Starfleet Command had
ignored the fact that she had been at the helm of her ship for nearly
all of the five years since they had been flung into the Delta Quadrant.
As if they had ignored the fact that she had kept her ship and crew
mostly intact despite being in a technologically backwards region,
surrounded by enemies such as the Borg and Kazon.

Janeway stopped in front of a window and looked out at the city beyond,
her face a wistful puzzle. What had Chakotay done? she wondered, before
concluding that he had not, actually, done much. He had simply taken
advantage of circumstances to give himself control over her ship and
then negociated an agreement with the Republic ship's crew. She was
somewhat reminded of the conflict she had with him a little over a year
previously, when they had found the so-called "Northwest Passage"
through Borg space. Then, Chakotay had disagreed that they should
negociate with the Borg.

"The end does not justify the means," she whispered, repeating an old
Earth saying that had probably been around longer than the rock of the
planet. It was strange, she thought, because when she had opened
negociations with the Borg she thought that the end result of getting
through the passage would justify allowing the assimilation of another
warlike species. In the end, Chakotay had been right: the Borg tried to
double-cross her. Had Torres not been able to sever Seven of Nine's link
with the Collective, they would have succeeded. And yet now the roles
had been reversed--Chakotay had re-opened negociations with the Republic
ship, all while ignoring the threat that they posed. She had recognized
that threat, and had acted accordingly... and then Chakotay had the
nerve to say that she had acted irrationally!

She gave a heavy sigh and sat down. This sort of thinking, she
reflected, would get her nowhere, and began to consider taking a walk in
the nearby Golden Gate Park. Before she could do anything, however, the
door chime rang.

"Who is it?" she asked, her voice betraying her fatigue.

"Starfleet Security, ma'am."

Kathryn came to her feet with another sigh and checked the door camera.
Sure enough, it was two men dressed in the special black and
gold-highlighted uniform that Starfleet Security used. She pressed the
door open button, and the door slid aside with a quiet hiss.

"Starfleet Command has requested your presence for the debriefing of
Voyager's mission. Please follow us," one man said as he gestured for
her to step outside.

The light clicked on in Janeway's head; so that was why she had
effectively been under house arrest since her arrival. She started to
walk for the bedroom to retrieve some belongings, but the security
officer held up a hand. "You won't be needing anything other than
yourself. The meeting begins shortly."

She followed them down the steep flight of steps in front of the
apartment building, nearly tripping on a crack in the old concrete.
Steep hills and twisting, winding roads and paths had been a trademark
of San Francisco since before it had been founded by Franciscan
missionaries nearly seven hundred years prior, and unless the Federation
wanted to completely raze the hills it was going to stay that way,
Janeway reflected as she reached the bottom. A simple, unmarked car was
waiting for them on the street; the NDs motioned for her to climb into
the back seat, which she did without further ado. Then with a quiet,
barely perceptible electric whir the car sped off into the streets of
San Francisco.


When they arrived at Starfleet Headquarters less than fifteen minutes
later, Janeway was ushered out of the car and towards the sprawling
building complex that made up Starfleet HQ. As they entered the complex,
she found herself being taken through a twisting labyrinth of hallways
until they finally arrived at their destination, a dimly lit interview
room that Janeway could only guess was located somewhere either in the
middle of the building or underground, given the lack of windows.

As she stepped into the room, the Starfleet Security detail remaining
just outside, its lights came on to reveal a single chair in front of a
long table - the usual setup for a panel debriefing. The only person at
the table that she recognized immediately was Admiral Drazman.

If Droner's here, it's going to be a long debriefing, Janeway thought
to herself. Drazman carried a reputation across Starfleet for being dry
and dull overall, perhaps having to do with the way his voice had a
tendency to drone on unceasingly.

"Please, take your seat," a soothing voice trilled from one end of the
room. Janeway turned to see who the voice belonged to, and spotted a
pale-skinned woman with surprisingly long red hair sitting at one end of
the table. Her appearance was neat and trim, and she held herself with a
dignified posture implying an aristocrat - an altogether uncommon thing
to see in the Federation. Janeway blinked in surprise when she saw the
other woman's face.

"Captain O'Leary? We... I thought you'd been killed by the Dominion..."

"Hardly," she replied with a voice that seemed as though it could
pronounce all the punctuation. "But that is none of your concern now; We
can catch up on our past later. As for your first remark, I am no longer
a Captain, having been promoted to Commodore."

Drazman cast a sidelong glance at O'Leary as she finished her
explanation. "Now that we have been introduced, it is my duty as the
senior Starfleet officer present to explain how the debriefing process
will proceed." He paused to have a sip of something, probably water, out
of a glass on the table before continuing.

"We will be reviewing your command history in chronological order, from
the time that Voyager left Utopia Planitia under your command to the
point at which your Chief Medical Officer had you suspended from duty."
He paused to read from a PADD in front of him. "Of particular interest
to Starfleet are firstly, the many Prime Directive situations you
encountered while in the Delta Quadrant, and secondly, the chain of
events that led up to your suspension of command by Voyager's Chief
Medical Officer." Drazman placed the sheet down on the table, steepled
his fingers, and looked directly at Janeway. "The debriefing process
will take upwards of a week, so if you had any other plans I suggest you
cancel them now. We will be taking ten-minute breaks every hour on the
hour, with half-hour breaks alloted for lunch and dinner. You are not to
leave the debriefing complex and will be escorted by Starfleet Security
at all times."

"Thank you, Admiral Drazman," O'Leary said with the barest hint of
sarcasm in her voice. "Now that we have covered the procedure in
exhausting detail," at this remark Drazman flinched, "I feel it is time
to begin the actual debriefing." She glanced at the stack of PADDs on
the table in front of her, took a breath, and began.

"On stardate 48315.6, the starship Voyager entered a nebula known as
the Badlands under your command. The mission was to find, and retrieve,
a missing Maquis ship with Lieutenant Commander Tuvok aboard. Shortly
after entering the Badlands, Voyager's records state that you were
displaced halfway across the galaxy to the Delta Quadrant, where you
found the missing Maquis ship. Is that correct?"

Janeway nodded. "Yes."

"Records also state that shortly after arriving in the Delta Quadrant,
a number of your crew were transported to an alien 'array.' Is this also
correct, and if so, would you please elaborate?"

"Yes, it is correct." Janeway paused for a moment to remember the
events of that day. "Several of my bridge crew and I were transported
into a holographic chamber on the Caretaker's array. After about thirty
hours had passed on the ship, we were transported back. We had not been
harmed, but one of our crew had gone missing."

"I see. And what did you do about that crewman?"

"We armed ourselves and returned to the array, where we met the being
responsible for moving both my ship and the Maquis ship into the Delta
Quadrant."

"Did you recover the crewman?"

"Not immediately," Janeway replied. "We did, however, discover that
this 'Caretaker', as he called himself, did not want to send us back,
and I refused to leave the system without Ensign Kim."

Commodore O'Leary jotted something down on her PADD as Janeway spoke.
"A prudent move," she remarked. "Now, Voyager's logs indicate that the
alien array was still functional when it was destroyed, and could have
been used to return to the Alpha Quadrant. What prevented this?"

"We came under attack by a local spacefaring race known as the Kazon,
as I'm sure the records show. The Caretaker had a self-destruct
mechanism in place, but with the Kazon attack the mechanism was damaged
and I had to make a decision to destroy the array before they gained
access to it."

O'Leary tilted her head to one side to the barest degree. "However, the
tricobalt warheads that you used to destroy the station had, as per
Starfleet standards, time-delay fuses built into them. If those had been
used, you would have been afforded with enough time to use the array one
last time to return to the Federation and accomplish your primary
mission objective, as well as prevent advanced technology from falling
into the hands of a less-advanced species. You did not. Why is this?"

"I..." Janeway looked down at the table. This was her worst fear come
to life, that the single most important decision she had made as
Voyager's captain would be called into question by higher authorities.
She scrambled to think of an adequate answer. "It was in the heat of
battle, and my first priority was to destroy the array before the Kazon
could use it against us. I understand that in hindsight, it is easy to
see the other options, but I did not see them then."

"Noted." This time it was Admiral Drazman speaking. "There was another
aspect of your mission that raised some eyebrows in Starfleet. That is,
at a time when the relations between your crew and the Maquis were still
in question, you invited a member of the Maquis crew onto your away team
and even went so far as to arm him, thereby putting yourself and your
crew into danger. It is Starfleet Command's opinion that this was an
exceedingly reckless decision on your part. Do you have any
justification for your action?"

"I had studied the profiles on Commander Chakotay, and I observed that
he was a rational man. Furthermore, we had agreed to a truce in light of
our missing crew." She swallowed as she recalled the events of that
fateful day.

Drazman shook his head. "Profiles have been known to be inaccurate, and
a truce means little. Nevertheless, we recognize that your intuition
served you well, given how admirably Chakotay performed when you
reinstated his Starfleet contract."

Captain Janeway remained silent while the two officers looked over
their PADDs. Finally, Drazman resumed where O'Leary had left off. "On
Stardate 48439.7, despite constantly decreasing energy reserves, you
chose to respond to the distress signal of a vessel trapped inside the
event horizon of a quantum singularity. In doing so, not only did you
endanger the crew and deviate from your primary mission of returning to
Federation space, but you displayed a lack of familiarity with the very
nature of quantum singularities. . ."


Five days and twenty-two coffee breaks later, Janeway felt as though
her head were going to explode. So far, they had covered the past four
years of Voyager's trip in the Delta Quadrant in minute detail. Every
decision had been questioned, every Prime Directive situation brought
under scrutiny. In some cases Starfleet Command had agreed with her
solutions and in most other cases they had not. They had placed
considerable attention on her nearly disastrous alliance with the Borg,
particularly when it came to offering them the modified nanoprobes.

As Captain Janeway looked across the panel table, where five more
Admirals had joined Admiral Drazman and Commodore O'Leary since the
first day of the debriefing, she considered that if Starfleet Command
had wanted to torture her they couldn't possibly do a better job than
this. Perhaps it was just the sense of independence she'd gained in the
Delta Quadrant. She had been the highest ranking representative of the
Federation for the past four and a half years, and as a result she
wasn't used to having superior officers question her decisions like
this.

"Now," Admiral Drazman stated, "the last thing we wish to discuss is
the series of events that led up to first contact with the Republic
vessel. As this was a major decision for Voyager, we have summoned a
number of your bridge crew here for the final day of debriefing." He
tapped some controls on a console built into the desk in front of him,
and the door slid open with a well-maintained hiss. "Lieutenant
Commander Chakotay, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, Lieutenant Torres,
Lieutenant Kim, Lieutenant Munro, Ms. Hansen." Drazman waved his hand at
several seats beside Janeway. "Please take a seat."

One of the other admirals looked over his PADDs before clearing his
voice and looking directly at Janeway. "During initial negociations with
the Republic vessel, logs entered by Lieutenant Commander Tuvok showed
that you were apparently offended by an unsolicited telepathic
communication from the leader of the Republic vessel. Consequently, you
broke off negociations and ordered Voyager to continue on its previous
course. This would not have been remarkable if it were not for the fact
that the captain of the Republic vessel had made a standing offer to
return Voyager to Federation space. Their only condition was that your
crew assist them in repairing their ship, and they did not request any
technology from you." The admiral turned to Tuvok. "Lieutenant
Commander, is this log accurate?"

"That is correct."

"In that case, why did you refuse their offer, Captain?" This time it
was O'Leary speaking. "You would not have violated the Prime Directive
for two reasons; first, they did not want any Federation technology, and
second, even if they had, their own technology is far in advance of ours
on many fronts."

Janeway looked down at the table while she thought about the question.
"I felt that if I accepted their offer, I would be putting my ship and
crew in danger. We had encountered a number of telepathic species in the
Delta Quadrant already, and none of them had proven to be benevolent."

"That may be the case," O'Leary replied, "but what proof did you have
of this suspicion? If your Lieutenant-Commander's log is to be believed,
you were the only one among the away team to experience this telepathic
'intrusion'. Additionally, from the logs of your ship's doctor, the
intrusion was harmless and did not involve any manipulation."

"I made a tactical decision from what I knew at the time. I had no way
of knowing whether the rest of my team was being influenced, or whether
the humans aboard the other ship were capable of further influence. As a
result, I decided to err on the side of caution."

"That is understandable. What Starfleet Command finds hard to
understand is the fact that after the Chief Medical Officer had you
removed from command and Commander Chakotay resumed negociations, you
escaped confinement in Sickbay, took Voyager's only remaining
shuttlecraft, and nearly collided with a shuttlecraft from the Republic
vessel while attempting to escape. You then proceeded to fly into a
nearby asteroid field. This strikes us as highly incautious."

The captain slowly exhaled. "My purpose in taking the Delta Flyer was
to use it to find Commander Chakotay so I could warn him. When I
encountered the Republic shuttle, it began chasing me and I went into
the asteroid belt in an attempt to shake them off. I now realize that
this was a grave error on my part, and endangered both my life and the
lives of my crewman aboard the Republic shuttle. However, I had no way
of telling who was aboard that shuttle at the time."

Admiral Drazman glanced over at the other admirals, who returned the
favor. "We have no further questions for now. You will have a fifteen
minute break before we reconvene to tell you our decision."


As Janeway walked to the break room, escorted by the ever-present
Starfleet Security, her mind was lost deep in thought. She seemed not to
notice the presence of her bridge staff surrounding her as she walked up
to the replicator.

"Computer, one coffee..." Her voice trailed off as she considered.
"Computer, belay that." She had already drunk seven cups of coffee
today, and it wasn't even noon yet. Her stomach was starting to revolt
at the thought of more coffee. "Tea, black, iced. Slice of lemon."

A glass of black tea, its rim frosted with ice, materialized in the
replicator's food slot. She took a sip of the tea and grimaced briefly,
wondering what had gotten into her. Then she shrugged and took a gulp of
the ice-cold liquid.

"I know things change, Captain, but I've never known you to drink
anything other than coffee." She nearly choked as Commander Chakotay
abruptly spoke, then managed to regain her composure as she turned to
face him.

"Maybe I'm getting a little too old for black coffee," she remarked
partly in jest, holding her stomach. Then her composure became more
serious. "Has your debriefing been as... strenuous as mine?"

"I wouldn't know," Chakotay replied. "I've only heard the past half
hour of your debriefing, but it appears that Starfleet Command is coming
down pretty hard on you."

Janeway turned away from Chakotay and walked toward a nearby window,
looking out on the expansive San Francisco Bay. "That doesn't even begin
to describe it, Commander." She spun about and looked him hard in the
eye. "They've criticised every decision I've made for the past four
years. Do you realize just how difficult that is for me?"

"They spent the first two days just talking about the Maquis with me,"
Chakotay replied. "I suppose they were trying to determine if I still
felt I had ties to them. I'm not sure if they're convinced yet that I'm
through with the Maquis."

"So we're in the same boat, then," Janeway said, turning back to the
window and leaning on the sill. "Commander, I'm just a little curious. I
know that you were partly responsible for having me removed from
command. Did you have anything to do with Starfleet Command reviewing my
command history like this?"

Chakotay was silent for nearly a minute as he considered the question.
"Captain, I know we've had our disagreements on many occasions, most
recently on the subject of the Republic ship. But..." He trailed off
momentarily. "I've never wanted to be your enemy, Kathryn. I have, and I
will, continue to defend you."

As the clock chimed, signaling that it was time to return to the
debriefing room, Captain Janeway looked back at Chakotay, her eyes
moistened by tears. "Thank you. You don't know how much that means to
me," she said before following the Starfleet Security guards.


As the Voyager crew took their seats, Admiral Drazman came to his feet,
squared his shoulders, and spoke. "Starfleet Command has made their
decision concerning you and your crew. After reviewing all currently
available information, Captain Kathryn Janeway is to have her command of
the USS Voyager suspended. She will continue to receive off-duty pay as
a Starfleet officer, and will continue to receive all other benefits
that Starfleet provides." His part done, Drazman sat back down and
mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

"In recognition of their exemplary service to the Federation," O'Leary
continued in Drazman's place, "Lieutenant Commander Chakotay, Lieutenant
B'Elanna Torres, and all other former Maquis members of Voyager will
have their Starfleet commissions formally reinstated at this time, on
stardate 52757.1. Lieutenant Commander Chakotay is hereby promoted to
Captain and assigned command of USS Voyager."

Chakotay looked up. "With all due respect, Commodore--"

"Captain Chakotay, please hold your opinion for now." O'Leary said. "We
will discuss any questions after we have finished reading Starfleet
Command's decision."

"I understand." Chakotay leaned back, sighing.

"Ms. Hansen," O'Leary continued, "has the option of accepting a
Starfleet comission or joining any research facility in the Federation.
In the event that she accepts a Starfleet comission, she will have to
attend selected courses at the Academy. Ms. Hansen, what is your
choice?"

"I prefer to be called Seven," Seven of Nine remarked. "As for your
question, a research position would perhaps be most efficient."

O'Leary nodded, handing the former Borg a PADD. "This contains basic
information on the various research facilities the Federation operates.
You have as long as you like to choose which one you would like to join.
Now, does anyone have questions?"

The room was so silent that Captain Janeway thought that she could
probably hear a pin hit the floor. She noticed now-Captain Chakotay look
up as if to say something before looking back down, and she bit her lip.
So this is the end? she wondered. Five years of hard, bloody work. Five
years of trying to get her crew home, all for nothing.

She had always imagined that when they arrived back at Earth, she would
be praised for the safe return of her crew and ship, praised for the
wealth of scientific data they had collected, praised for all the new
technologies. And yet in reality she was stripped of her command. Not
recognized for her achievements. Indeed, she had been treated as if she
was the biggest obstacle to Voyager's safe return.

Captain Kathryn Janeway, formerly of the U.S.S. Voyager, fell back in
her seat in shock at the judgment Drazman had pronounced and wondered if
it wouldn't be a bad time to cry.

Ah, so Janeway has been beached ....

phongn wrote:Ah, so Janeway has been beached ....

For the time being

I decided to post the rest of the chapters in this thread. As such I retitled it. You can also view this on ASVS.

This is basically a more light-hearted chapter, because things are going
to get dark soon in the story. Very dark.

I also needed to get some other plot details out of the way.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


"I think you'd better have a look at this," the voice of an ensign echoed
across U.S.S. Voyager's strangely quiet engineering room, absent the usual
hum of the warp core.

"What is it, Walper?" Foreman Matt Huang, one of the supervising engineers
from the Daystrom Institute, sighed as he walked over to Walper's
position. In her five-year absence, he reflected, Voyager had racked up so
much battle damage that it was going to be quite a chore of straightening
her systems out. They'd already determined that over half of the
bio-neural gelpacks on the ship would have to be replaced, and only a week
had passed so far.

"There are some anomalous readings in this computer log, which was taken
just before Voyager arrived." Walper pointed to a log that was displayed
on one of Engineering's LCARS terminals.

Huang peered at the data on the terminal. "I don't see what's so wrong
about it," he remarked after looking for a minute. "It just seems to be
normal computer subroutine information."

"At first, I thought so too." Walper pressed some brightly colored buttons
and the logs rearranged themselves by time. "But look at this point. Ten
minutes prior to arrival, many computer subroutines started dying all over
the ship. Other subroutines were reassigned to the lowest priority level
for some reason, which caused a massive, cascading resonance failure in
the computer core approximately five seconds after Voyager arrived as the
demand on the system was increased by diagnostic procedures. The running
subroutines were unable to handle the increased load with their low
priority level, and the system slowed to a crawl before shutting down
entirely."

"Sounds like a typical computer glitch, probably insufficient memory or
something stupid like that," Huang snapped. "Look, Walper, I'm trying to
finish the orders for the bio-neural gelpack upgrade so that we can get
around to troubleshooting the rest of the ship's computer network. I don't
need you to stand here and tell me the obvious."

Walper had a dejected look on his face. "But, Mr. Huang, just let me
explain. The logs show a pattern. It's not obvious at first, but you
mentioned that the computer probably had insufficient memory. It had
plenty of memory, but there was something preventing those other
subroutines from using most of it." Walper quickly tapped some more
buttons on the LCARS display, and a different screen came up. "It's like a
negative picture. You don't see the pattern by the information that's in
the logs, but by the information that isn't."

Huang finally perked up. "So you're suggesting that somebody erased data
from the logs?"

"Yes. Or no. I can't really say for sure since the information is missing,
but given the circumstances it seems pretty convincing that someone ran a
program that was highly intensive and used most of the computer's
resources. According to the logs, there were two, sometimes three
subroutines doing that, but they were subroutines that should never have
consumed that amount of resources."

"Such as?"

"Lavatory flow control and waste management, fuel level monitoring..."
Walper looked at his PADD. "And the sonic shower control subroutine."

Huang frowned. "You're right, I've never heard of those subroutines using
up so much computing power. So what do you think they were doing?"

"It's possible that they weren't actually what the logs said they were.
I've checked the quantum signatures of the modules, and while the
preliminary check determined they were good, the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle suggests that there's a fifty percent probability that the data
in those subroutines was modified. In any case, with these subroutines
consuming as much of the main computer's capacity as they were, the system
suffered a catastrophic resonance failure in the main core, which included
the fuel metering subroutine that was responsible for controlling the warp
core reaction, and as a result the warp core became highly unstable and
needed to be ejected."

Matthew Huang sighed and shook his head. "Walper, while I think you may be
on to something, I somehow doubt that Starfleet is going to buy that load
of technical jargon you just told me. You could probably knock an admiral
out with it. So just make a note of it in your daily log for now, and
we'll include your hypothesis in our official report to Starfleet. Now,
could you please get back to the work I assigned you? We have to get the
gelpack upgrade finished by this evening."



* * *



Jaina Solo sighed as she watched the "sky" of hyperspace flash past the
cockpit in a disorienting, tangled blur with her one good eye. Cighal
hadn't been able to save her poisoned eye, but at least she had prevented
the poison from spreading throughout her body.

What good is a pilot with only one eye? she wondered. So much for her
dreams of entering Rogue Squadron, and even though she wouldn't admit it,
she was too proud to go to her mother and ask for money to pay for a
prosthetic eye. Asking her uncle, of course, was even more out of the
question; the Jedi Academy was operating on a shoestring budget since
Fey'lya managed to ax their support in the Senate.

"We will be arriving at Sernpidal in ten minutes," Tenel Ka announced,
precisely as usual, from her position in the pilot's seat of the Rock
Dragon.

Jaina looked down and checked the harness that held her to her seat. After
the mess at Belkadan and Helska, she didn't feel like taking any more
chances out here in the Rim.

"How long until we see how mom and dad are doing?" Jacen asked from the
seat beside her.

"Not long," Tenel Ka admitted as she prepared for emergence. "Jaina, as
soon as we arrive, I need you to run a sensor sweep of the system. Look
for gravity wells like the ones you noticed at Helska."

Jaina acknowledged the request, turning to the sensor panel. Over several
years of flying errands around the galaxy with her brother and Tenel Ka,
she'd grown quite used to the Hapan controls in the Rock Dragon. Her
brother had joked that she could run them in her sleep... which was
probably true.

"I'll get on the upper turret," Jacen said as he stood up in the cramped
cockpit, studiously avoiding hitting his head on the ceiling. "Tenel Ka,
could you slave the lower turret to my panel?"

"Done." The redheaded warrior turned to look as Jacen left and smiled at
him. "Hopefully there will not be anything, but if there is, happy
hunting."

"Thanks." He returned the smile and left the cockpit, bashing his head on
the door frame as he did so. Jaina suppressed a smirk.


As they approached Sernpidal, Jaina settled back in her seat and let her
thoughts drift. She found herself wondering about Kyp's Avengers. Her
uncle Luke had approved of Kyp's operation given the valuable data they'd
returned on Belkadan and Helska, but even so he had told her afterwards
that he still had reservations about the brash Jedi's methods. Still, he
had admitted, they seemed to be working.

However, Jaina still wondered where he'd replenish his ranks. He had lost
all of his pilots and all of his fighters, save a couple that he had back
at his base. Kyp was also highly distraught since Helska, but Jaina
understood fully why that was the case. Losing pilots was hard on any
commander, especially for the commander of a paramilitary group.

What puzzled her more was the way that Kyp was dealing with the loss of
his wingmate. She had seen Miko go down over the fourth planet, his
battle-damaged X-wing plummeting into the thin atmosphere in a rough
tumble, his comm totally silent. Kyp continued to insist that his wingmate
was alive and was planning on running a rescue mission. She had no idea
how he planned on getting through that deathtrap again, or staying alive
when he did so, but eventually conceded that he was probably the best one
to figure out how.

The panel flashed a warning in front of her, interrupting her thoughts. At
the same time, Tenel Ka announced that they were about to revert from
hyperspace, and Jaina braced herself... only to feel a flawlessly smooth
transition.

"Running sensor sweep," she remarked as she watched the displays with a
critical eye for nearly a minute. "No gravitic wells in the system."

"Good," Jacen's relieved voice came across the intra-ship comm. Sernpidal
had been his idea, and he had asked their uncle Luke about it. Since
Sernpidal was fairly far out in the Tingel arm and only about three
hundred light-years from Helska, Luke had agreed and assigned them to
monitoring that planet plus several others in the immediate area.

Jaina swiveled her chair around to face forward, so she could get a good
look at the planet. It was an unassuming ball of mixed browns, blues and
greens, sheathed in white clouds. Quite a contrast from her "home" of
Coruscant, which had no oceans or clouds to speak of. She could see why
her parents had decided to retire out here.

As Tenel Ka brought the Hapan transport into the atmosphere, skimming
through it with the repulsors slowing them down, Jaina continued to watch.
The view of the planet's disc from space was replaced with a horizon as
they lost altitude. She picked out snow-capped mountain ranges, tiny lakes
and meandering rivers as they shot past them, finally coming up on a
downright tiny city near the edge of a large, grassy plain. It was
unassuming, with no buildings over three stories, but nevertheless still
had an air of bustle about it. Jaina noted with amusement that there was
no spaceport proper, only a number of duracrete pads scattered around the
city with ships parked on them.

"You parents live about seven kilometers to the northeast, correct?" Tenel
Ka asked.

"Yeah."

Less than a minute later the Rock Dragon arrived at the Solos' house. As
they settled down on a cleared field beside the familiar disc shape of the
Millennium Falcon, Jaina unbuckled her restraints, jumped up, and ran out
of the cockpit -- only to crash headfirst into her brother, who probably
had the same idea.

"Are you two combatants knocked out yet, or do I have to bash your heads
together?" Tenel Ka approached the twins as they were lying on the floor,
her voice revealing no small degree of mirth. She offered Jacen her hand
as Jaina climbed to her feet. "And must I keep looking out for you, Jedi
Knight Jacen Solo?"

Jacen's face reddened at the remark, and Jaina chuckled at her brother's
predicament. "Alright, you two, break it up. You know the routine, no
kissing while Mom and Dad are present."

"Hey!"

Jaina winked at him as she turned to walk down the ramp. She had always
enjoyed ribbing her brother for what she considered the crush (albeit an
unusually long one) he had on Tenel Ka. While she had flirted with a
number of the other students at the Jedi Academy, and had for a time a
crush on her old friend Zekk, she had never really felt at home with any
of them. Yet that whole time Jacen was seemingly oblivious to the other
girls around him except Tenel Ka. Funny thing was she'd never seen them
kiss or display any sign of serious affection. Maybe he really did need to
finish growing up...

She derailed that train of thought. Her mother had just come out of the
house, and Jaina broke out into a run toward her, stopping in Leia's
waiting arms.

"Luke told me briefly about what happened at Helska," Leia said as she
looked up at her daughter's face. "I'm glad you're still alive, but..."
Her gaze drifted over Jaina's eyepatch. "What happened to your eye?"

Jaina explained what happened on Belkadan, how they had returned to
interrogate Yomin Carr after Lowbacca had discovered the missing sensor
data, and he had used his staff to spit venom into her eye.

"We could get you--"

She cut her mother off. "No, that's all right. I can earn enough to get
myself a bionic eye."

"By piloting?" This time it was her father speaking. "A one-eyed pilot's
no good, kid, unless you're from some species that only comes with one
eye. They're not very good either."

"But they're so expensive!" Jaina protested. "You're retired now and Mom's
not in office anymore. I don't want to put that burden on you..."

Han shrugged. "Not much of a burden. A good eye's worth about one month's
rent of our old apartment on Coruscant. This house cost us a fraction of
that, and we own it too."

Leia put her hand on Jaina's shoulder and looked at her with a matronly
gaze. "Han's right, you know. We'll get you one, just let us know when
you're--"

The conversation was interrupted by a pair of Wookiee roars. Everyone
turned to look as Chewbacca and Lowbacca greeted each other in typical
Wookiee fashion, which if they were human would look like an arm-wrestling
match or the tail end of a street fight. Of course, Wookiees are anything
but human.

"Ready," Leia finished with a smile. "Han, how long has it been since
Chewie's seen his nephew?"

"In standard years or Wookiee years?"

The Solos shared a hearty laugh together at Han's impromptu joke.

Here's Chapter 18. Nineteen is being written as I speak.


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



The following morning found the Solo family, Tenel Ka, and the two
Wookiees sitting around a table for breakfast.

"So," Han remarked with a mouthful of gukked egg, "what's brought all of
you out here? I'm sure that Tenel Ka didn't spend all that fuel just so
Jacen could drop in to say 'Hello' to his folks."

Jaina swallowed, put her fork down, and cleared her throat. "I didn't want
to tell you yesterday," she began as Chewie stretched his long arms high
and let out a contented wuffing noise, "but Uncle Luke seems to think that
what we saw on Helska and Belkadan is the tip of an invasion. That means
that--"

"Sernpidal is right in the way of it," Han finished for her. "That
no-good, lying cheat--"

"Han!" Leia admonished. "How was Lando supposed to know about this? He has
an investment in Dubrillion anyway, which is practically next door. If we
get any sort of invasion here, he's going to be in the way as well."

Han looked at his wife with mock horror. "Who said I was talking about
Lando? He's an respectable businessman after all," he said, winking at
Leia. "I was talking about the estate broker who stiffed us on this
house."

Leia smiled. "Now that you mention it, he was a bit of a scoundrel."

"But not as much of a scoundrel as I am, hmm?" He gave his wife a lopsided
grin and took another bite of food. After chewing silently for several
seconds, he looked back at Jaina. "So this invasion, what do you guys know
about it?"

Jaina glanced out the window at the hills beyond. "Well, we're still
collecting data on it. Uncle Luke doesn't want to notify the Senate
without having very concrete information, since they've already killed all
funding for the Academy and he doesn't want to give Fey'lya any more
reason to ostracize us."

"Borsk Fey'lya," Han remarked as if the name were a deadly insult. "He's
been an obstruction to the Republic as long as I can remember. It's a
wonder he's still in office. So go on."

Tenel Ka looked up and took a breath. "Corran Horn and Ganner Rhysode
discovered evidence of what they believed to be an advance scout force on
Bimmiel. An analysis of the remains done by Dr. Pell of the University of
Agamar confirmed it was approximately fifty-five years old. Nothing they
know of in this galaxy matched it."

"So we have advance scouts, that sounds sensible."

"Yeah." Jaina sighed and gave a wistful glance out the window again. "Then
reports came that the Extragalactic Society had lost contact with a
station they had on Belkadan. We volunteered to go along with Kyp Durron
and investigate it."

"And as I heard, came back with only Durron and some samples." Han shook
his head. "Kid's always been reckless. You're lucky you survived that. As
for the ExGal... they've always been a bunch of kooks. Everybody knows
there's not much outside the galaxy, unless you want to spend about fifty
years in hyperspace that is."

"Well..." Jaina drew the word out as she thought carefully. "That's just
the problem. Helska is at the very edge of Wild Space, Belkadan somewhat
further in. If the data we got at Helska, and the data we collected from
ExGal 4 is correct, then what we saw was some very large ships from
outside the galaxy."

"How big?"

Jaina frowned slightly and shrugged. "The ones we saw at Helska were about
fifty kilometers or so in diameter, roughly spherical."

There was a very audible clink as Han's fork slipped from his now-shaking
hand and hit the table in the sudden silence following Jaina's statement.
All eyes were on her now.

"Are you sure of that?" Leia asked, stunned.

Jaina nodded.

Han's lips moved noiselessly several times before he was able to manage a
coherent sentence. "That's almost half the diameter of the first Death
Star," he breathed.

"Uncle Luke thinks they're generation ships," Jaina said softly. "They'd
have to be if these people had scouts on Bimmiel fifty years ago."

"Generation ships," Han repeated. "You don't just build generation ships
for nothing, which says that these people, whoever they are, are planning
on staying."

"Yeah."

Leia's gaze wavered over the table. "Let's change the subject," she
managed. "The last time I talked to Luke, he mentioned another Jedi
Master, some guy by the name of Dellen Coureran. Has he promoted someone
to Jedi Master lately, because I thought he was the only one?"

"After the bombshell Jaina dropped," Jacen remarked offhandedly, "I don't
think this news is going to make much of an impact."

"Just get on with it," Han said in a grumpy tone.

"He's one of the Jedi Masters from the Outbound Flight."

"Another one?" Han exclaimed. "I thought Luke learned from the time he got
suckered in by Joruus C'baoth."

Jacen looked uncertain. "Apparently this one is the real thing," he
finally said. "He arrived on Coruscant with a smuggler that he said
rescued him after his shuttle broke down in the Unknown Regions. He was
carrying a message from the Outbound Flight's captain, a Jonas Avin, who
said that they managed to survive an assault some sixty years ago and were
now in a very distant galaxy."

"And you said that all in one breath," Han remarked with a shrug. "I'm
impressed. So what does this mean for the rest of us?"

"Well," Jacen paused for a time as he tried to figure out what to say
next, "Uncle Luke's been studying the ways of the old Jedi and has wanted
to establish a Jedi Council to govern us like they had in the Old
Republic. But he didn't know how to go about it, plus he'd be the only one
deciding who would be a Jedi Master and he was somewhat uncertain about
that. Dellen is a Jedi historian, and told us how the Jedi Council
operated. It had twelve seats, and there are six Jedi Masters on the
Outbound Flight, so if we can recover it all Luke needs to do is appoint
five other Jedi Masters. With the Council re-established, he hopes the
Jedi will regain their credibility in the Senate."

"Fat chance of that with the likes of Fey'lya in power," Han muttered.

"Yeah," Jacen agreed in a downtrodden tone. "But at least having the Jedi
Council again will allow us to re-establish order. Uncle Luke has had to
call several meetings of all the Jedi recently because there's been a lot
of dissent over whether we should be vigilantes or obey the New Republic's
wishes."

"I get it," Han snapped. "The galaxy is a mess, most of the Jedi can't
find their own asses, we're probably being invaded, and I'm sitting right
in the way." The old smuggler glared at nobody in particular. "So do you
guys need my help or what? I'm itching for a little activity besides
gardening, and the Falcon's getting tired of just sitting out there in the
field. Right, Chewie?" He looked over at his Wookiee companion, who
chuffed in agreement.

"We will be monitoring the nearby systems for activity," Tenel Ka stated.
"Perhaps you could watch Sernpidal and let us know if you see anything
unusual. Asteroids moving in ways they should not, unidentified ships, or
creatures that don't belong here."

"I was hoping for something a little more exciting, actually," Han said
under his breath. "But that'll work," he said a little louder.

Leia reached over and touched her husband on the shoulder. "Han, if we're
in the way of an invasion, I think you'll be seeing plenty of action
soon."

He gave her a wistful smile. "The galaxy never rests, and it seems it
doesn't want us to rest either." He turned to where the Wookiees were
sitting. "Chewie, tell the labor droids to start packing up some of our
stuff. I want to be ready to go if anything happens."

The Wookiee barked an acknowledgment and stood up, his hairy bulk looming
over the table.

"And I guess you guys are done here," Han finished as he came to his feet
as well.

"Yeah, we should be leaving," Jaina said. "We have about a dozen other
systems to go through, then we'll come back here and see how you're
doing."

"Just don't forget about us out there. Okay, kid?" Han threw his daughter
a lopsided smile before giving her a hug. "And take care of yourself.
You're a good pilot and mechanic. I don't want you losing your other eye."

Jaina made an effort to return the grin. "I won't, Dad."



Leia watched without saying anything as the four Jedi came to their feet
and left the room. Then she turned to her husband. "I'm worried, Han. I
sometimes feel like I might never see them again..."

He put his hand on her back and rubbed it. "They're grown now, you know.
They can take care of themselves."

She looked into his eyes. "What about you? You're not the hotshot you used
to be."

"But this old dog still has a few tricks up his sleeve," Han replied with
a wan smile. Outside, the roar of ion engines warming up filled the air.



* * *



Dr. John Clark, a psychology graduate of the University of Arizona and
more importantly a Federation diplomat, was hardly looking forward to
another day of talks in San Francisco. To put it mildly, he regretted
becoming a diplomat in the first place. However, the Federation left
little leeway for psychology degrees. You could either enlist in Starfleet
and become a ship's counselor, and basically play nursemaid to the crew,
or you could join the Federation's medical wing and play nursemaid to a
bunch of nutcases, or you could become a diplomat. Clark didn't like crazy
people and didn't like Starfleet, so that had left being a diplomat.

He had learned after that point that the Federation's State Department was
filled with crazy people, too. He sometimes speculated that the Federation
was totally crazy and he was the only sane person in it. Logic kicked in
at that point and said that it was baseless to assume that every single
being in the Federation was crazy without empirical evidence, but he had
given logic the boot years ago, never mind how much the Vulcans revered
it. They were crazy too.

At the moment, Clark was enjoying the early morning sunlight that streamed
in through a set of Venetian blinds on the east-facing wall of his
underground house in what had once been the state of Arizona, long ago. At
least that was before the third world war, which in Clark's mind was what
had driven humanity totally insane.

He shuffled over to his home's refrigerator, opened it, and pulled out
some eggs and potatoes. There were no provisions against farming in the
Federation, provided that you did not try to sell your goods for profit.
That suited Clark just fine. He hated the tripe that replicators produced
(the fact that the one in his house had been malfunctioning for the past
five years was the other reason) and secretly suspected that the
Federation used replicators to administer psychoactive drugs to the
population at large. That would at least explain why they started losing
wars when replicators became common.

Clark grabbed a cast-iron frying pan and stuck it on his stove. After
waiting a few seconds he poured some vegetable oil into it and dumped the
already-chopped potatoes in, letting them fry for a while before stirring.
After several minutes he dumped the eggs in and shortly afterward put the
whole mess onto a plate and coated it liberally with jalapeño sauce.

Taking his plate, he then proceeded to sit down at his desk, which had an
LCARS terminal built into the flat surface and checked the day's messages.

"Huh," Clark grunted in consternation, putting his fork down as he read
something in detail. His face went ashen, and he finished eating his
breakfast in a hurry, ignoring the burning sensation of the jalapeño sauce
in his throat. "Dr. Clark to Federation State Department," he said as he
tapped the comm unit, "requesting an immediate point-to-point transfer."

"Acknowledged," a woman's voice rang across the comm. "Destination?"

"My office," Clark replied.

Moments later, he rematerialized in his somewhat cluttered office in the
Federation State Department's main building, adjacent to the buildings
housing the Assembly, High Council, and Starfleet headquarters. After
looking about his office for a PADD, he rushed out the door and down a
long, circular hallway.

"Mr. Davies," he exclaimed as he barged in the door to his superior's
office, holding the PADD. "You really need to take a look at this."

Davies spun his chair around and threw Clark a rather irritated glance as
though he were intruding on a personal matter. That could have been the
case; Clark was never sure what Davies did in private. "What is it now?"

He set the PADD down on Davies' spartan desk. It also mystified the
diplomat how such an unkempt man managed to maintain such a neat office.
"Sir, I stumbled across some information this morning, suggesting that
Section 31 is planning on doing something to do with the Republic ship.
I'm not sure why."

"Let me see that." Davies reached over with a pudgy limb and grabbed the
PADD, turning it so its display faced him. After looking at it for nearly
a minute, he began to guffaw, his heavy frame shaking with laughter.
"Clark, Clark. How is it that you manage to infer a plot concerning
Section 31 from a thumbnail gallery of Orion porn?"

"What?" Clark's total disbelief at his superior's remark showed in his
face. "That can't be... it was showing the information only a minute
ago..."

Davies held up the PADD and Clark could clearly see the green-hued skin of
leather-clad Orion slave girls for a brief moment before Davies shut it
off. "Alright, maybe you had something. Thing is, I don't know. All I know
is that you had Orion porn on your PADD, which according to Federation
State Employee Code section 4958.44 is a punishable offense, subject to
one year at the New Zealand penal colony."

Clark swallowed. "Sir, I don't know how that got there! I had been
performing a search of the latest headlines related to the Republic ship
and ran into a document containing a list of timetables related to crew
leaves from the Republic ship."

"And that had to do with Section 31, an organization that you aren't even
cleared to know about, exactly how? Or do I have to write you up for
unauthorized access into Federation databanks?"

"It was publicly available!" Clark objected.

"And no doubt so is the Orion porn," Davies smiled, his double chin
becoming quite accented as he did so.

His point was made; Clark was stuck in a corner. "All right, fine. What do
you want me to do?"

"Stop trying to find out about Section 31. I'm getting sick and tired of
having Federation Security coming in to talk about you. You don't want to
know about Thirty-One, I don't want to know about Thirty-One." Davies held
the PADD in the replicator slot. "And I'll dispose of this for you."

"Fine," Clark grumbled, his eyes still on the PADD. Under his breath, he
added "You fucking idiot."

Davies looked at the replicator. "Computer, recycle replicator." The PADD
vanished moments later.

Dr. Clark walked back to his office several minutes later and grabbed a
bottle of (contraband) Romulan Ale out of his cooler. He downed half the
bottle in one long gulp and collapsed on his desk in blissful
unconsciousness.

Most enjoyable...

And here's a little info on an upcoming ship class I designed to shoehorn into the existing New Republic ranks. Hopefully it's within the boundaries of the existing classes (as for the weapons, I tried to make the counts realistic and in scale with the movie model weapon counts).


Vigorous-class Star Cruiser
Shipyard: Corellian Engineering Corporation, Corellia
Length: 2.3 kilometers
Classification: Light Cruiser
Armaments:
18 heavy turbolaser batteries, 2 guns each
24 medium turbolaser batteries, 4 guns each
200 light turbolaser cannons
30 medium ion cannons
16 missile launchers, 4 tubes each
Hangar Capacity:
1 squadron snubfighters
1 squadron bombers
6 shuttles
6 cargo haulers

The result of a modernization project within CEC, the Vigorous-class was built to compete with similar new offerings from Kuat, Rendili, and the Mon Calamari. Like many CEC designs, the Vigorous has ample crew space and room for a large amount of cargo, making it well-suited for long-duration missions without resupply. Larger than Kuat's ubiquitous Imperator class, it is a fully self-sufficient city unto itself. Likewise, its armaments are top-rate.

CHAPTER NINETEEN



By the time the Jade Sabre reached Coruscant, Anakin Solo was glad to be
off the ship. Even though the Sabre was a fairly large shuttle at sixty
meters, it was still a cramped ship with not that much room to exercise
save the training deck. Anakin had, of course, spent quite a lot of time
on the training deck in the past three days, sparring against the other
three Jedi on board. Master Coureran had been the most helpful, teaching
him a number of Old Republic saber fighting techniques.

Anakin stood up from the acceleration couch and put his belt back on,
lightsaber dangling from it. Then he walked over to the Jade Sabre's
landing ramp and followed his uncle Luke, his aunt Mara, and Master
Coureran out to the surface of the landing platform.

"Where are we going first?" he asked. Luke had been forced to close the
Praxeum on Coruscant since its rent was too high to be sustained without
support from the Senate. Rooftop space had always been at a premium on
Coruscant since time immemorial. It remained at a premium even after
Coruscant bore the scars of both the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil
War.

"Directly to the Senate building," Luke answered without pause as he
flagged a hovertaxi.

Mercifully, the ride to the Senate was short, Anakin reflected. As they
debarked the taxi, they were met by a number of New Republic guards, who
indicated for them to leave their lightsabers behind. Anakin gave one of
the guards a puzzled look and wondered if it would be permissible to
suggest to the trooper that there would be no harm in a Jedi carrying his
lightsaber.

Luke noticed his frown and turned to face him. "Anakin, we're not in an
enemy state. Do as the guards say."

"Okay." Anakin shrugged and put his lightsaber into the locker provided.
He eventually decided that the new restrictions must have been because of
Fey'lya's manipulations.

Several minutes and umpteen security checks later, the four Jedi walked
into the Senate rotunda proper.

"I was actually expecting it to be larger," Master Coureran remarked in a
slightly surprised tone as they exited a turbolift. "How many seats does
the Senate have now?"

Anakin watched his uncle think for several seconds while they walked to
their assigned booth. "About seven hundred and fifty," Luke replied. "One
for each sector. The sectors themselves are always changing with each new
representative." Anakin had been told that in the early days of the New
Republic, the Senate had been composed of representatives from every
planet. That had soon proved quite impractical however, as there were
millions of planets in the galaxy, and the Republic had gone back to the
sector representatives.

At the moment, the Senate was busy deliberating on what Anakin guessed to
be an agricultural matter somewhere in the Mid Rim. Apparently there was a
dispute over the food distribution rights from a multi-world farming
consortium... He sighed and leaned back into the seat as he waited for the
discussions to end.

Mercifully, it only took the Senate another half-hour to finish. "The
Senate will now recognize Jedi Master Dellen Coureran," Borsk Fey'lya
announced from the central podium with a slight hint of distaste. There
were scattered cries of 'Boo' and some attempts at applause.

Dellen came to his feet and walked to the front of the booth, checking
the mic briefly before speaking. "Representatives of the New Republic." He
looked around the chamber as his voice echoed from the cavernous walls.
"As some of you may no doubt know already, exactly sixty years ago this
month a ship commissioned by the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic left
the shipyards of Yaga Minor on a historic voyage."

The chamber was filled with murmurs as some delegations tried to figure
out what the Jedi Master was talking about.

"This ship was the Ny'lith Boro, the core vessel of the Outbound Flight
Project. In addition to carrying six Jedi Masters, it had a crew of over
two hundred Republic Navy personnel, scientists, and diplomats."

The murmuring grew louder as Dellen continued. "As the Senate's history
databanks no doubt tell you, the Outbound Flight was ambushed one week
after leaving Yaga Minor on its maiden flight into the Unknown Regions.
For sixty years it has been thought to be destroyed. However," Dellen
reached down and activated the holorecording. A gigantic holographic
representation of the Milky Way galaxy appeared, floating in the center of
the chamber as it slowly spun about its axis. "I bring news that the
Outbound Flight survived that ambush. It escaped through a cosmic
disruption, a wormhole, and as I speak is in negotiations with a human
government located in the galaxy you see before you."

Dellen looked about the chamber again, which had exploded into
discussion. He raised his voice just enough to be heard over the Senate.
"But I have not come before you to give you a history lesson, even if I am
a historian. The fact is that the Outbound Flight is trapped in that
galaxy with a jury-rigged hyperdrive. Without your help, Senators, that
crew of two hundred Republic citizens will be trapped there forever. I
have come before you to ask the Republic to send a ship with supplies and
replacement parts so the Ny'lith Boro can be repaired and return to our
galaxy."

Across the chamber, the representative of the Sluis Van sector came to
his feet. "It is my understanding that humans originated in this galaxy.
How, then, can there be a human government in another galaxy so far away?"

"Actually," Dellen said calmly, "there is no proof that humans evolved in
this galaxy. The early history of the Republic indicates that humans
spread throughout the galaxy from the Core. Corellia was one system with a
long history of human occupation, but the Corellian system is artificial
and has no indications of human evolution on any of its planets. The same
goes for all the other planets of the early Republic."

The Sluis Van senator snorted. "You speak of the 'Alien Origin' theory.
There is no more indication that we came from some other galaxy than there
is that we came from this galaxy, Jedi."

"I am willing to leave this discussion to the biologists," Dellen
replied. "The fact is that the Outbound Flight discovered human
civilization in another galaxy, and is now negotiating with that
government as per its mandate. If the negotiations are successful, the
Republic will have a foothold in their galaxy and we can, perhaps, settle
the debate over the origins of humanity once and for all."

"And under whose authority is the Outbound Flight negotiating this
agreement?" the Sluis Van senator retorted. "The Old Republic that it left
is no more. This Republic is a different republic. The Outbound Flight has
no more authority to negotiate a binding agreement between their
government and ours than the Imperial remnant has to negotiate an
agreement between some power in the Unknown Regions and the New Republic."

Dellen nodded slowly. "In that event, I will amend my request and ask
that in addition to the supply ship, the New Republic send a team of
negotiators to officially open talks with the other government."

Shouting erupted in the Senate, and the communications system was shut
off for several minutes until the atmosphere in the chamber cooled down.
"Senators," Fey'lya's voice echoed, "we have a request standing. Who will
make a motion to send the supply ship that the Jedi have requested?"

A Senator from a planet that Anakin had never seen before made the
motion, and it was seconded by yet another senator he'd never seen. The
issue was then voted on, and Anakin watched the results interestedly.

"The nays have it, I am afraid," Fey'lya announced with what Anakin
thought was just the barest hint of a smile. "We will not provide a supply
ship to bring the Jedi of the Outbound Flight back. However, if the Jedi
wish to supply their own ship, I am willing to make a motion to send
negotiators to this other galaxy. Who will second the motion?"

The senator from the Hapes Cluster seconded the motion, which was then
promptly voted on.

"The ayes have it," Fey'lya announced, turning his attention to the Jedi.
"Masters Coureran and Skywalker, we will provide diplomats if necessary
but finding a ship is left up to you. We thank you for your time."

"How does he expect us to supply a ship?" Anakin said with youthful
outrage as they walked from the booth. "First he cuts our support, then he
wants us to provide our own supply ship?"

Mara sighed and patted Anakin on the shoulder. "I was actually expecting
it to be worse," she said.

As they continued walking through the halls of the Senate building,
approaching the entrance they'd come in from, Anakin heard the sound of
running feet behind them and turned around.

"Sir?" It was a young Senatorial aide, not much older than he was. "Which
one of you is Master Dellen?"

"I am," Dellen said as he stopped. "What seems to be the matter?"

The young man collected himself, but he was still breathing hard from
running. "I'm Senator Sal-Solo's assistant. The Senator would like to
speak to you regarding your request. If you could follow me...?"

"Senator Sal-Solo?" Anakin asked in confusion. "Thrackan Sal-Solo?"

"Yes," Mara whispered into Anakin's ear. "He was released from prison two
years ago on the provision that he help the Republic understand how
Centerpoint works. After doing that, he went and ran for the Corellian
sector's Senate representative."

They continued following the aide until they reached the Corellian Senate
office. The aide disappeared inside momentarily, then re-emerged. "He'll
see you now."

As Anakin stepped into Sal-Solo's office, his cousin came to his feet.
"Master Coureran, Master Skywalker. Welcome to my office. I'm afraid it's
not that spacious, but room is rather short here." Thrackan turned to Mara
and Anakin and nodded. "Miss Jade, a pleasure meeting you once again."

"It's Mrs. Skywalker now," Mara replied coldly.

Thrackan looked between Mara and Luke in surprise. "Well, congratulations
then. I'm afraid I was out of the loop for a few years, as you probably
know."

"I'm aware of it."

Sal-Solo ignored the tone of Mara's reply and instead walked over to
Anakin. "The last time I saw you, cousin, you were only... what, seven?"

Anakin nodded without smiling. Sal-Solo's appearance had not changed much
since the Centerpoint Station crisis, save for his hair becoming almost
all gray. By the same token, Anakin's opinion of his cousin had also not
changed much. He still remembered all too well being trapped inside the
Drall planetary repulsor and having Sal-Solo trying to kill them when they
escaped in the Millennium Falcon.

"To think that was ten years ago already..."

"Spare me," Anakin snapped. "You didn't call us in here just to get all
mushy and reminiscent."

Thrackan jerked back as if he'd burned his hand, but regained his
composure moments later. "No, I didn't." he said slowly. "But in the eight
years I spent in the Dorthus Tal prison on Saccoria, I came to realize my
errors. Revenge means nothing to me now, even if it motivated me to do
what I did all those years ago. Don't you see? I'm a changed man."

"I'm sure you are," Anakin said with just enough sarcasm to imply he was
thinking "Can we get on with it?"

"Well, you're right. On to business..." Thrackan turned back to face
Dellen. "Master Coureran, I understand you're a Corellian."

"Saccoria, actually."

"Ah. Close. The Corellian Engineering representative guessed from your
name that you were Corellian. He told me to let you know that he was
offering to sponsor a supply mission. It'll be completely private. CEC
will provide you with several freighters, supplies, and an escort, and
CorSec will provide the crews. Are you interested?"

"What's the catch?" Dellen said, his face plain.

"There is none," Sal-Solo replied. "We're always willing to help fellow
Corellians. Additionally, CEC has been waiting on the Republic forever for
a real trial of their new Vigorous-class Star Cruiser. The CEC
representative thought this would be a good chance to highlight the new
ship's features and perhaps convince the Republic that it's a worthwhile
design."

Dellen allowed a wan smile to cross his face. "And at the same time,
Corellia has a chance to gain more influence. Thank you, Senator."

"That's quite true, influence does have much to do with politics,"
Thrackan admitted with a sigh. "Regardless, we are willing to provide you
with this at no cost. Since the rest of the Senate was fairly hostile to
your proposal, I would suggest you take it."

"Where is the CEC representative? I would like to meet him personally,"
Dellen replied.

"I can arrange that," Thrackan said. "If you would follow me, please."


* * *


The chamber that the Republic-Federation negotiations were held in was an
unassuming room aboard Earth Spacedock, contained deep within the station
to preclude the possibility of any meetings being interrupted by an
attack. They had chosen Spacedock specifically for its neutral location as
a midway point between the Republic ship and Earth, and the fact that
being a space station it was by definition immobile.

Currently, only half of the seats at the conference table in the center
of the chamber were filled. The other half were empty, awaiting the return
of the diplomats they had been assigned to. In keeping with the fact that
the talks were bilateral, the table's seating had been split down the
middle. One side was for the Republic diplomats and the other side was
occupied by the Federation diplomats.

Jorus C'baoth sighed as he waited for the Federation diplomats to talk
amongst themselves. It had been a long week, with the fleshing out of
minutiae on both sides as they strove to reach a comfortable middle
ground. In another week or so the negotiations could begin in earnest, but
at the moment it appeared that the Federation still wasn't quite sure what
to make of the news of a human civilization from another galaxy.

Add to the fuss the fact that one of the Federation diplomats had been
discovered dead at his home the previous week, and C'baoth had resigned
himself to a very long and maybe not so boring summit. He knew from
experience that not all Jedi were suited to being diplomats. Some were
young and brash, not quite having grasped the nuances and meaning of the
Jedi Code. Others were inelegant with words.

C'baoth considered diplomacy a fine art that one got better at with time,
akin to how a fine liquor ages. In his own galaxy he had assisted in the
mediation of the Duinuogwuin-Gotal conflict in addition to numerous others
several years before the departure of the Outbound Flight. These were
perhaps his most ambitious diplomatic talks yet, but comparatively easy to
what he had done before.

"We've come to a decision regarding foodstocks," one of the Federation
diplomats said after some time. "I have been informed to tell you that the
Federation will provide, as a favor, shipments of food for your ship's
crew until the conclusion of negotiations."

"I would like to express my crew's gratitude," C'baoth said quite
truthfully. While the food rations aboard the Bulk Cruiser had been
designed to last for hundreds of years, they had only been scheduled to
run on a short flight through the Unknown Regions when they had been
intercepted. As a result, the ship had not been fully stocked and in the
past week they had begun to run critically short of rations. "If there is
anything reasonable we can provide in turn--"

Loud beeping from the commlink in a pocket of C'baoth's robes interrupted
him. Looking nonplussed, he reached down and picked it up. "Yes?"

"Helsani here." C'baoth had appointed Master Jostein Helsani as the Jedi
adviser to Outbound Flight Security, so whatever this was it had to do
with the ship. "We've arrested a crewman who was snooping around Computer
Operations. I need to talk to you in person about him."

"I'll be right over," he said before switching the commlink off and
stuffing it back in his pocket. "If you'll excuse me," C'baoth said to the
Federation diplomats, "there seems to be a pressing matter on my ship I
need to attend to."



After a short shuttle flight to the Bulk Cruiser and a quick walk to the
brig, C'baoth found himself looking at a fairly typical young man with
straight brown hair, who obstinately refused to say anything.

"He tried to commit suicide earlier," Helsani explained. "There was a
small implant under his tongue that would have released poison through his
system. We barely managed to prevent him from using it."

"Good work," C'baoth said absently. "What's the crewman's name?"

Helsani looked down at the datapad he was carrying. "Well, according to
the ship's roster his name is Kelras Dargont. However, we took a blood
sample earlier and it doesn't match the sample in the crew roster."

C'baoth said nothing for a time, instead lost deep in thought. "Someone
had to have a way of tracking us," he said. "Either that, or they knew our
flight plan, which outside the Jedi Order only Chancellor Palpatine knew.
So perhaps this man was their informant." C'baoth turned toward the
prisoner and keyed the intercom. "How long have you been aboard this
ship?"

Dargont answered him with a glare but no words.

"As I said," Helsani remarked, "he hasn't said anything. We've attempted
to persuade him, but he seems to be very well-trained."

C'baoth studied the man for several more minutes. He couldn't see
anything wrong with his appearance. "Have you thought about looking into
his mind?"

"The possibility has come up, but I'd prefer not to unless there is no
other option."

He nodded. The Jedi Order frowned on using the Force to intrude into
another being's mind unless it was absolutely necessary. There had been
cases in the distant past of particularly sensitive beings who had been
interrogated by Jedi and went insane, or lost memories, as a result. The
Jedi had refined their techniques since then but the risk always loomed
over them.

"I must return to the conference," C'baoth finally said. "Keep me
informed."

As always, comments are welcomed. Particularly from any of the Chiss experts on this board


CHAPTER TWENTY



"We've picked up a transmission, Sir."

Captain Benjamin Ollic of the Imperator-class Star Destroyer Magistrate
regarded the reporting ensign with a tired eye. "It might help if you
elucidated," he said with a sigh. Not all of the Magistrate's crew was
well-trained. Many of the lower ranks were filled with young men and women
from backwater planets who were all too eager to see the galaxy from a
warship. Their planets had been neglected by the Old Republic, the Empire,
and the New Republic that followed. Tired of being raided by pirates and
the like, the planets in question had gladly accepted Commodore Mantrel's
offer of defense in exchange for much-needed food stocks and material
supplies for the fleet. Additionally, the Commodore recognized the crewing
problem his fleet had -- for several years Ollic couldn't remember a time
when the ships were above fifty percent staffed -- and had extended the
offer of positions aboard the fleet to aspiring students.

The ensign, a young man from one of the said planets, swallowed hard at
the chastening. "I'm afraid I don't know much about it, Sir. The signal
was encrypted with a very old code and is encoded in a fashion the
computer doesn't recognize. I don't believe it's Basic. Sir."

"I'll have a look at it then," Ollic said and followed the crewman down
into the communications pit. He peered at the screen for several seconds,
squinting as a garbled message flashed across it. Finally he shook his
head. "I don't recognize it either. Ensign, I want you to copy the entire
transmission to a datachip for me."

The crewman did as he was told, and handed Ollic a datachip several
seconds later. Wordlessly, the Captain took the chip and ascended out of
the communications pit, then in several long strides crossed over to the
turbolift. One minute later found him walking down the corridor that led
to Commodore Mantrel's private quarters.

"Enter," he heard the Commodore's voice say when he buzzed the door
chime. He stepped into darkness, and after a moment of shock remembered
that the Chiss eye structure allowed them to see better in the dark than
most humanoids. Of course, it was also why their eyes appeared to glow
red. "What seems to be the matter, Captain?"

Ollic, trying not to stumble in the dim light, made his way to the
Commodore's spartan desk. Unlike Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mantrel had very
little in his quarters. While some artwork was displayed on the wall, the
selection in the holographic database was not anywhere near as large as
the late Grand Admiral's.

"We intercepted a transmission several minutes ago," Ollic explained
briefly. "The crewman at the comm station determined that the message was
encoded in an old Imperial code, but was not able to determine the
character encoding to read the message."

Mantrel wordlessly took the datachip and inserted it into a reader on his
desk. He silently studied the message for several minutes before Ollic
interrupted.

"Do you know what it means?" he asked softly.

The Commodore came to his feet, his face plain. "I do not know exactly at
this time," he said, "but I fully intend to find out. Have the fleet
prepared for immediate departure. I will be on the bridge shortly with the
destination."

"Yes, Commodore." Ollic turned and left the quarters. As soon as he
reached the bridge, he went over to the comm station. "Attention. This is
the captain speaking. All hands, prepare for immediate departure," he
announced with slight bewilderment at the Commodore's sudden orders.

Mantrel arrived at the bridge several scant minutes later, and delivered
another datachip to the crew in the navigation pit. Ollic stepped over to
where the Commodore stood and snapped to attention. "The fleet is prepared
as per your orders, Commodore."

"Good." Mantrel looked toward the navigation pit. "Helm, execute a
hyperspace jump to the provided coordinates on my mark, full flank speed."

Ollic frowned. Full flank speed? They had not pushed the fleet to full
flank in several months. He wondered what the urgency was. "Sir, if I may
ask, what is our destination?"

The Commodore regarded him silently as the fleet jumped to hyperspace.
"Csilla," he said in a quiet tone. "The message was a distress signal from
the Ruling Families. The homeworlds are under attack by an unknown alien
force, and their defenses are being overrun. They are requesting the
assistance of the Syndic House Phalanx." Mantrel exhaled quietly before
continuing. "The Syndic House Phalanx, unfortunately, has not existed for
a number of years. You likely know of it as the Hand of Thrawn, but I
learned that the main base on Nirauan was infiltrated by New Republic
agents and subsequently destroyed. As far as I have been able to
determine, we are the only surviving group left by Grand Admiral Thrawn."

So that explained the sense of urgency, Ollic concluded. "Did the message
mention how strong the attacking force is?"

Mantrel shook his head. "That is one thing we will have to find out when
we arrive.


A little bit over a half-hour later, the Magistrate and its accompanying
fleet reverted from hyperspace over the Chiss capital world of Csilla. The
icy planet, which normally was decorated with a small amount of greenery
at the equator, was covered in hazy clouds of water vapor from melted
glaciers. Wreckage from a fierce naval battle was scattered in orbit,
mainly from hopelessly outdated warships of questionable origin.
Interspersed among it were jagged chunks of rock, floating freely in the
microgravity of orbit. Here and there, a piece of wreckage would begin to
plunge to the planet below, trailing plasma behind it as it encountered
the atmosphere.

"Status?" Ollic asked in the general direction of the sensor pit.

"No ships of any type detected in the system, Sir," the crewman at the
sensor station reported. "There's wreckage but no survivors and many
rocks. All cities on the planetary surface have been largely destroyed.
Life readings are concentrated in underground tunnels below the glaciers."

"Ensign," Commodore Mantrel stepped over to stand beside Ollic, "what is
the composition of the rocky debris in orbit?"

There was a pause as the sensor operator tapped away at his station.
"Primarily calcium, Sir, with traces of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. No
traces of technology."

Mantrel studied the debris that could be seen floating outside the bridge
viewports for several seconds. "Cross-reference the results with known
silicon life-forms."

Ollic blinked. A space slug couldn't have caused this level of
destruction, and it would be odd to find one living outside an asteroid
belt anyway.

"Results show a positive similarity with 56 percent probability, Sir."

The Commodore chose to keep his thoughts to himself, whatever they may
have been. "Instruct Colonel Marsh to deploy forces near the city
entrances and secure the area for aid drops. Then instruct Captain Witt to
begin deploying landing craft with supplies."

Captain Witt commanded the largest freighter in Mantrel's small fleet.
His ship, ironically enough, had been considered a battleship in the Clone
Wars, being one of the few Trade Federation armed freighters that had
survived the conflict. Now it was the main supply carrier for the fleet,
using its massive three kilometer bulk to the fullest extent.

Far below, Ollic watched the Imperial Army dropships begin their descent
to the frozen surface of Csilla. They were of the smaller sort, not like
the massive barges used to carry the AT-AT walkers. The Magistrate only
had one AT-AT left at any rate, and while they maintained it in working
condition, Colonel Marsh rarely ordered it deployed.

"Colonel Marsh reports the LZ as secure, Sir," the crewman at comm
relayed several minutes later. "Captain Witt is now launching transports."

Mantrel walked away from the crew pits and stopped in front of the bridge
viewports. Mystified, Ollic followed him.

"This was going to happen sooner or later," Mantrel said in a quiet
voice, nodding at the devastation below. "The Ruling Families, still angry
at what they perceived as Thrawn's betrayal, did not want our protection.
We operated from the shadows, keeping the worst threats away from them.
They grew complacent, thinking that their weak defenses were protecting
them. Then the Grand Admiral appointed me to oversee part of his campaign
twenty years ago." He shook his head. "I had not returned here since."

Ollic spun around as he heard rushed footsteps approaching, and came to
face the ensign who'd intercepted the distress signal. The ensign stopped
and snapped off a salute, perhaps a bit too sharply. "Sir. We're being
hailed by a Star Destroyer that just appeared in the system."

The Commodore walked back to the comm station and put on a headset. After
talking quietly for several minutes, he put down the headset and turned to
Ollic. "Have the hangar bay prepared for a visitor immediately and meet me
there." With that, he turned and exited the bridge.

"Yes, Commodore," Ollic acknowledged in bewilderment, turning to a
crewman and relaying the orders before following Mantrel off the bridge.
The day had been strange so far, and he idly wondered how much more
strange it could get.


Captain Ollic arrived at the hangar bay just in time to see a heavily
modified Lambda shuttle land on the deck, escorted by two fighters whose
cockpits bore a passing resemblance to the Magistrate's TIE fighters.
However, they did not sport the typical radiator panels of the Sienar
fighters, instead having four flat arms that curved outward diagonally
much like claws and terminated in laser cannons. The rear of the cockpit
similarly was not equipped with the standard twin ion engines, but rather
was elongated and sported far larger engines at the end.

As he walked up to the Commodore, the shuttle's landing ramp descended
and an older man of a medium wiry build, whose close-cut hair was a solid
white and who wore a black patch over one eye, walked from the shuttle.
Ollic recognized him from somewhere, but the name escaped him.

At the same time, the cockpits of the modified TIE fighters opened up,
and their pilots scrambled out. One of them was about the same height as
the old man, and as he took his helmet off, Ollic saw that he shared the
same facial features. His hair was jet black and likewise cropped short
save for a short ponytail in the back; a large scar ran vertically over
his right eye.

"Tholic Mikral'man'trelan," the old man said as he approached Mantrel.
"You are the last person I expected to see here." He took the Commodore's
hand and shook it. "I was under the impression you had died, since I had
not heard from you for so long."

"General Baron Soontir Fel," Mantrel acknowledged formally. "I thought
the same of you."

Something finally clicked in Ollic's mind, and he realized that the man
he saw was none other than the legendary Baron Soontir Fel, former
commander of the 181st Interceptor Squadron. Fel walked over to him next.

"Captain Benjamin Ollic, commander of the Magistrate," Ollic provided. "A
pleasure to meet you, Baron Fel."

Fel nodded and shook his hand. "The pleasure is mine. Thrawn mentioned
you long ago. He told me that you were one of his rising stars." The old
man sighed and stepped back. "But we must attend to the matter at hand.
You arrived before I did. What did you find?"

"There was no sign of the attackers," Ollic replied. "It was apparently a
hit and fade operation."

"As I feared," Fel said. "I had been noticing a string of similar hit and
fade strikes across the region. Each time they struck fast and hard, then
vanished without a trace."

Mantrel looked at Fel with a serious expression on his face. "I believe
they may be using ships of organic origin from the debris they left."

Baron Fel frowned. "Organic ships? I would have expected them to be
weaker in that case."

"Nevertheless, they struck at Csilla, overwhelmed the defenses, and wiped
out several cities. I would not underestimate them."

"We have not," Fel replied. He gestured for the young black-haired pilot
to join the group. "I would like to introduce my son, Colonel Jagged Fel."

After they briefly exchanged greetings, the elder Fel returned to
business. "Jag here commands Spike Squadron, part of the Syndic House
phalanx. His squadron has been shadowing the invaders for several months
now. Perhaps he can tell you more about them than I can. In the meantime,
I would like to take a closer look at the damage they caused this time."

"We can discuss matters en route to the surface then," Mantrel replied as
he gestured toward the shuttle. "After you, gentlemen."


Inside the shuttle, Jag punched some data into the holoprojector and a
map of the Unknown Regions appeared. After tapping some more buttons,
points of red light appeared across the map, where bright red was the
newest and dark red was the oldest. Together they formed a strange web
with no clear beginning or end.

"This is a composite of all the points the intruders have been sighted
at," Jag explained. "And of the planets they have struck so far. I have
not been able to determine a clear pattern to it save that the intruders
are attempting to scout this region completely."

Mantrel studied the hologram for some time. "They move randomly," he
finally said. "Their commander is unsure if he can fulfill his objective,
so he chooses his moves slowly to ensure his survival."

The elder Fel nodded in agreement. "We had already concluded that their
commander was confused about what he was doing and unfamiliar with the
region. But what do you believe is his objective?"

"Hit and fade strikes are only useful for demoralizing an enemy and
temporarily damaging infrastructure," Mantrel replied. "Based on the
strikes the commander has made so far, that is exactly what he is trying
to do in this area. Perhaps he is an advance force, attempting to soften
the region up for an actual incursion."

Fel bit his lip. "That's as good a hypothesis as any of us have," he
said. "It leaves me wondering where he will strike next, however."

Mantrel studied the map some more as the shuttle came to rest on the
frozen surface of Csilla. He finally shook his head. "I cannot predict
anything with a reasonable probability, but if the commander is competent
he will expect important targets to be more alert after this strike and so
I would expect him to strike at a less important target or merely scout
the area further."

"Which is what I was afraid of," Baron Fel said. "We will have to step up
our search efforts. This commander cannot be allowed to continue raiding
indiscriminately."

Jag Fel, meanwhile, produced a number of heavily insulated suits that the
four officers donned before walking down the landing ramp of the shuttle.
They were met at the bottom by Colonel Marsh, who was wearing a
snowtrooper suit.

"No enemy forces found so far," he said as they walked toward the
entrance of an underground city. "It appears to have been purely an
orbital bombardment. We estimate the casualties in this region of the
planet alone to be in the millions."

"What about food prodution facilities?" Baron Fel asked.

"The surface has been devastated," Colonel Marsh replied. "Some
greenhouses survived, but the vast majority have been destroyed."

"We'll have to increase shipments from the colonies," Fel said, more to
himself than anyone present. "Commodore, how much food can you spare from
your fleet?"

"We cannot feed the entire planet, if that is what you are asking,"
Mantrel replied. "Csilla had a population numbering in the billions. We
have enough supplies to feed a million for perhaps a month."

"That won't do," Fel replied as he surveyed the destruction surrounding
them. In the distance, steam continued to boil from a large ice crater
where a building had once stood; small rivulets of water radiated from the
crater like crystal-clear veins. Fragments of boiled rock surrounded the
impact site, and Ollic reached down and picked a small fragment at his
feet up. It resembled volcanic rock, filled with holes left by expanding
gas. Half of it was covered in durasteel alloy that had melted around it,
while the other half was a charred black color.

Yet Csilla was not a highly active volcanic planet, meaning that the
molten rock must have come from another source. Its proximity to the blast
crater suggested that it was a byproduct of the attack. But the crater was
on top of a glacier, and the nearest solid rock was about two hundred feet
below them.

"I've never heard of molten rock being used as a weapon before," he
muttered under his breath.

As they mounted a steep staircase that wound down into the rock between
two glaciers, Ollic pondered the situation. Organic ships, molten rock
weaponry... these invaders truly were inept if that was all they had. But
they had somehow managed to overwhelm Csilla's defenses all the same. That
was what worried him.

They walked into a large underground chamber and as Ollic swept his gaze
across hundreds if not thousands of wounded Chiss citizens scattered
around and being treated for injuries, the magnitude of the situation
struck him.

Beside him, Baron Fel's features hardened into a steely gaze. "They will
pay for this," he proclaimed. "They will certainly pay."

He he he. Chiss > Vong (I hope). They will end up pw0n3d...

darthdavid wrote:He he he. Chiss > Vong (I hope). They will end up pw0n3d...

Yes, they will

From everything I've read in Zahn's work, however, the actual Chiss families are fairly weak (see Mantrel's comments). Thrawn, seeing how weak they were, took it upon himself to protect them. Thus the formation of the Syndic House phalanx and the Empire of the Hand.

However, Mantrel was correct when he stated that Nirauan was abandoned. When Mara crashed the Jade Fire into the fortress on Nirauan, it devestated the fortress and the remaining members of the Syndic House phalanx removed all assets from Nirauan since its location had been compromised. (This is my extrapolation and is not EU-official.)

It's been ten years since SotP/VotF so with Admiral Parck's death, Baron Fel was left in charge of the Syndic House phalanx. The Syndic phalanx is not as strong as it once was, and its assets are dwindling, but it is still a force to be reckoned with.

As for Mantrel's piece in this whole puzzle, Thrawn took him away from the Unknown Regions to attend to various other parts of his campaign. Upon his death, Mantrel had no orders and had lost contact with the rest of the Syndic phalanx. By the time he tried to return to Nirauan, he found the base deserted and no indications of where the rest had gone. So he "retired" to a lesser-known section of the galaxy that had been ridden by pirates recently, offered his services to several planets in the area, and supported his fleet that way.

Mantrel, by the way, is of the Tholic house of the Chiss. It's my own creation since no other Houses were named by Zahn.

Now, mind you, the Chiss proper are strong believers in genetic engineering. I don't believe they evolved on Csilla, rather, they colonized that planet first and engineered themselves to survive on and under its surface (hence why they have excellent low-light vision and as a side effect red eyes). I'll let you draw the conclusions.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



At over two kilometers in length, the Vigorous was the largest warship Anakin
had ever been on in his seventeen years, that is if he didn't count the warlord
Hethrir's worldcraft as a warship. Even so he couldn't even remember being on
the ship, which wasn't that surprising since he was only one year old at the
time.

The Vigorous followed the very practical wedge design that Kuat had introduced
with their Acclamator and continued in the other Star Destroyer designs.
However, the ship was the Corellian take on the design and as such wasn't a
true Star Destroyer. Also, unlike the classic Kuat tower atop the
superstructure, the Vigorous had the typical squat cylinder of a bridge common
to Corellian warships.

Arms-wise, the ship was equal to or better than any other Star Cruiser in its
class. Eighteen massive turbolaser turrets adorned both sides of the ship's
hull, staggered along the length of the ship to allow better firing arcs.
Hundreds of smaller turbolasers covered every possible attack vector on the
ship. Topping it off were nearly three dozen ion cannon and well over a dozen
missile launcher batteries.

Anakin sighed, almost inaudibly, as he turned away from the bridge viewports.
He could rattle off the technical specifications of the major Star Destroyer
classes without even really thinking about it. His brother had always poked fun
at the way he had memorized all that seemingly useless information, along with
sundry other technical data. What Jacen wouldn't admit was that Anakin's
seemingly useless knowledge had come in handy more than once. But then again,
Jacen didn't really care for technology. He preferred biology, a subject that
Anakin professed no knowledge of and made him shiver sometimes. Neither brother
really understood why the other liked what they did, but they did complement
each other when Luke had given them assignments together.

Back to the issues at hand, Anakin thought to himself. It had been two weeks
since Master Dellen had accepted Senator Sal-Solo's offer. Two weeks of frantic
preparations in the Corellian shipyards before they were ready to leave. Now,
the Vigorous and its three charges were hurtling through hyperspace into the
Unknown Regions of the galaxy, toward a wormhole that Anakin wasn't even sure
existed. He shrugged. They'd find out soon enough.

"Hyperspace reversion in T minus 20 minutes and counting," the intercom
announced. "All hands, report to stations."

Anakin crossed the bridge in a few quick strides and walked down a short
flight of stairs to the navigator's station. The navigator was a senior
lieutenant in CorSec who had been traveling hyperspace since before Anakin was
born. At Master Dellen's insistence, Anakin had been officially made "Assistant
Navigator" of the Vigorous. This essentially entailed guiding the ship through
the wormhole and helping plot hyperspace courses once they were in the other
galaxy. He didn't mind, since the senior lieutenant had been "showing him the
ropes" over the past two weeks and he'd learned quite a bit already.

The navigator glanced over as Anakin took his seat next to him. "Ready?" That
one word conveyed everything the navigator was thinking. This was it, and any
mistake made could kill them all.

"Ready," Anakin responded, but he wasn't sure if he meant it.



The black hole – which, Anakin reflected, looked anything but black when
viewed from a close distance – was exactly where it was supposed to be.
Remembering what his father had told him about the Maw Cluster, he suppressed a
shudder. But then again, his father did tell him about how Kyp Durron had
managed, without any Jedi training, to navigate through the cluster.

But this was different. He wasn't just running past a black hole at a high
fraction of lightspeed. He was going to override the hyperdrive's failsafe
circuits and hit the gravity well at somewhere in excess of a million times
lightspeed. Most navigators had a term for that: suicide.

The only comforting fact was that the Outbound Flight and Master Dellen's
shuttle had managed this feat on two occasions.

Not quite as reassuringly, the Corellian engineers had explained their
"improvements" to the hyperdrives of the four ships. They had taken a simple
brute-force approach, adding in an absurd amount of capacitors and
surge-absorbing circuitry that, in theory, would absorb any damaging back-fed
power and blow up before the hyperdrive's control circuitry did. They had rated
it at somewhere around five times what the hyperdrive was theoretically capable
of handling.

If the circuits worked, then all they'd have to do is replace the damaged
circuits. If the circuits didn't work, well, that's why the freighters were
carrying a number of replacement hyperdrive cores.

Anakin put his mind back to the task at hand. He was acutely aware that all
eyes on the bridge were focused on him now, but pushed the feeling aside. He
took a deep breath, and reached out.

Suddenly, he was aware of all four ships, insignificant bubbles that glowed
brightly in the Force. Almost sixteen thousand crewmen, he realized abruptly.
Sixteen thousand people that were counting on him. Sixteen thousand people with
families to return to. Fourteen thousand were on the Vigorous, with the
remaining 2,000 spread across the three freighters--

He dropped that train of thought as abruptly as it had started, and reached
out further. The system had a number of lifeless rocks, cooked by the heat of
the star that had once sustained them millennia ago. Some were planets, now
barren. Others were the remains of comets and asteroids.

Anakin reached further. Now he could feel the incredible gravitational forces
in the system's center. Some rocks unlucky enough were caught in a never-ending
downward spiral, their orbits having been too close to the black hole to escape
it. Those even closer had been pulverized into fine dust by the tidal forces,
forming a massive disc around the collapsed star that funneled material into
it. Radiation caused the disc to glow brightly, but Anakin couldn't see any of
it. He simply knew it was there.

Still deeper he reached, past the event horizon, the point at which light
could not escape. If he was there physically, his body would already have been
ripped apart.

Then Anakin saw it. It wasn't an object, it was a simple mathematical radius.
Similar to the event horizon but not quite, he realized that if they hit that
point exactly while in hyperspace, the gravity would steal a considerable
amount of energy from the ships, and thanks to the bizarre nature of tachyons,
the loss would catapult them through space-time. He reached down and started
entering in the numbers that came to him unbidden.

"Coordinates set," he finally said as he sat back up straight, rubbing his
eyes even though they'd been closed the entire time. Looking down at his
chronometer, he realized that the whole thing had taken under an hour – and it
had seemed like five minutes to him. His aunt Mara was standing directly behind
him, and she nodded with approval.

"Are you sure they're correct?" Anakin turned to see the captain of the
Vigorous looking down at him from his position on the bridge. Justis Sicuro was
a Colonel in CorSec, and a fairly young one at that, perhaps in his early
thirties. His slightly longer-than-regulation black hair was combed straight to
the sides, accenting his elongated cheekbones. Even though he was of average
height, his elevated position made him look like a giant at the moment.

"I'm sure," Anakin replied.

Sicuro turned to the other side of the bridge, where Anakin knew that
Comm-Scan was located. "Slave the freighters to our navicomp," he barked.
"We'll make the jump in T minus 2 minutes."

"Freighters slaved, Sir," an ensign called from Comm-Scan. "They report they
are ready for the jump."

"Shields?"

"Shields up, generators at 99% efficiency."

"Weapons?"

"All weapons charged and ready."

Captain Sicuro nodded and turned back to Anakin. "Make the jump. May the Force
be with us."






It was, Anakin later recalled, like slamming into a duracrete wall at full
speed. The inertial compensators had nearly blown out from the effort, and
would have to be replaced. Other than that, the Vigorous suffered little
damage. The surge-absorption circuitry had done what it was designed to do and
blown up, sparing the control circuits and the rest of the systems. There had
been a number of minor injuries, mostly from unaware crew getting thrown across
rooms when the inertial compensators had overloaded. One crewman had managed to
break his neck and the medical droids were now working him over.

The freighters hadn't been so lucky. One of them had completely blown the
hyperdrive. Not just the control circuits, the whole thing, core and all.
Another freighter had managed to overload the surge suppressors and blew its
motivator up. Fortunately, they had replaced that part fairly quickly. The
third one was in much the same condition as the Vigorous, except that some of
its cargo had come loose, making cleanup in the cargo hold interesting
considering that it was carrying mostly food.

He was jolted out of his reflection by the sharp report of a crewman at
Comm-Scan.

"Captain, we've picked up an inbound on the scopes," the crewman exclaimed.
"Unknown type, appears to be..." He paused momentarily. "It appears to be in a
subspace bubble. Estimated size is 27 cubic kilometers. ETA in five minutes."

"Subspace warp," Sicuro muttered, walking over to Anakin. "Master Dellen
mentioned that's widely used over here. Do you have any idea who it might be?"

Anakin shook his head. Master Dellen had told him as much as he knew, but had
conceded that there was much about the new galaxy that he didn't know. "It's a
big ship, let's hope it's friendly," he offered. Several crewmen snorted in
amusement at the remark.

"We don't know that," Sicuro remarked as he sighed and grabbed a comlink. "All
hands, battlestations. Freighters, lock down and prepare for battle."

At once the crew began rushing about. Orders were barked and carried out. In
the middle of it all, Anakin merely watched, feeling somewhat useless. Of
course, he knew that there really was nothing he could do that the bridge crew
couldn't do better, but that didn't stop the feeling.

"Subspace reversion at 317 by 110 mark 228, range 510,000 klicks," Comm-Scan
announced. "Inbound on an intercept course with Freighter 3, ETA in three
minute."

"Hail them, all frequencies," Sicuro ordered.

Several uncomfortable seconds passed as the entire bridge crew watched he
inbound – which could now clearly be seen as a cube – approach on the
holographic tactical map. As it neared, more and more detail was revealed on
its surface, which by this point best approximated a schizophrenic plumber's
worst nightmares. Whatever it was, Anakin thought, it wasn't a warship.

"Incoming transmission, audio only," a crewman reported.

Sicuro nodded. "Let's hear it."

As the transmission began to play, half the crew on the bridge shuddered at
the sound of the voice, or rather, voices. "We are the Borg. Your biological
and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is
futile."

"So much for friendly," someone muttered as Sicuro grabbed a mic and keyed it
on.

"This is Captain Justis Sicuro of the Corellian Sector Defense Force warship
Vigorous. The freighter you are approaching is under our protection. You will
divert your course away from the freighters within ten seconds or we will open
fire."

Their reply was swift. "We are Borg. Protection is irrelevant. Resistance is
futile."

Anakin watched as the chronometers on the bridge ticked the thirty seconds
away, while the cube showed no signs of changing its course. He knew that
Sicuro had seen it, too.

"Gunnery, fire one light battery as a warning shot," Sicuro ordered, his face
grim. Anakin stepped over to the bridge windows and watched as a forward
battery spat four green blasts that vanished into the distance almost
immediately.

"Confirmation of hit, no effect. They just locked a tractor beam on Freighter
3."

The general atmosphere grew tense as Sicuro gritted his teeth. "Captain
Arkala, turn your ship around and try to break their lock. Gunnery, all
batteries fire on my mark."

He waited for a long, tense moment before calling "Mark."

Eighteen huge pairs of emerald bolts and hundreds of smaller bolts lanced out
toward the cube. Even from the extreme distance, Anakin could see the brilliant
glow as the turbolasers found their mark.

"Damage estimate..." The Comm-Scan operator trailed off as he read whatever
figures the computer was presenting him with. "Fifty-one percent of the enemy
ship destroyed. They are maintaining tractor beam lock."

"After taking that much damage?" Sicuro's voice was incredulous. "Maintain
fire."

After several more volleys, all that remained of the Borg ship was half-melted
wreckage and scattered atoms.

Sicuro sighed and leaned on the tactical map display. "Damage report?"

"Freighter 3 lost their primary reverse power coupling when they went to full
thrust. They are working to repair it as we speak."

He nodded. "Comm-Scan, maintain long range scans, I want to know if something
sneezes twenty light-years from here." Of course it was an exaggeration, but
that hardly mattered. At least they would know if something was coming again.

"Yes, Sir."




* * *




Borsk Fey'lya considered the ever-growing mountain of flimsiplast sheets and
datapads on his heavy wooden desk and frowned. Since Leia Organa-Solo had
resigned as Chief of State, the burden on him had increased by a ludicrous
amount. Well, there was one way to fix that, he reasoned; he'd have to find and
groom someone to replace her. The Senate was already considering replacements,
but he couldn't say that he liked any of them. Most of them were nobodies,
people from obscure sectors with no real political aspirations of their own, no
clearly defined motives that he could exploit and manipulate. Almost all of
them had only been mentioned because they knew someone who was a somebody in
the Senate. Puppets, that's what they were. That in itself wasn't bad. As a
matter of fact, Fey'lya rather liked puppets. He just didn't like people who
weren't *his* puppets.

"Mr. President?" An aide, human and rather scared by the looks of it, had just
stuck his head inside the office door. "I have an update for you on the
Rhommamool situation."

Fey'lya, as if to dismiss the aide's statement, swept his hand across the
desk. "Leave it on the top of the pile, I'll get to it."

The aide took several steps forward and then hesitated. "But Mr. President
sir, it's marked Urgent."

"Just leave it and get out," Fey'lya barked irritably.

"Yes Sir, Mr. President sir," he stammered before dropping the datapad on the
desk and doing his best to quickly get out the door without actually running.

Fey'lya picked up the datapad and glanced over its summary. So the
anti-technology uprisings on Rhommamool had led to them declaring war on
Osarian. Interplanetary missiles had been fired, and the major cities on both
worlds now had casualties in the millions. So what, he thought. It was all over
the news anyway, and there was not much more he could do about the two
troublesome backwater worlds. Good riddance.

He was about to drop the datapad back on his desk when the next line caught
his eye. "Sympathetic uprisings spreading like wildfire through the Middle
Rim," he read aloud. "One hundred twenty six worlds declare independence from
technology, Republic."

Fey'lya threw the datapad at his desk; the resilient piece of equipment
bounced off the dark inlaid wood surface, skidded across the slick black floor,
and finally came to a rest on a richly textured Bothan tapestry.

"Artensia?" he called into the comm. "Would you page Senator Shesh? I need to
speak to her at once. We have a situation."

"Certainly," the secretary replied.



By the time Viqi Shesh's visage appeared on the holocom, Fey'lya had already
crossed the room and retrieved the datapad. He tapped the answer button and
settled back in his chair.

"You wished to speak to me?"

The Bothan cleared his throat. "Since you were recently appointed chair of the
diplomacy committee, I'm sending you the files on the Rhommamool situation. The
Navy was not terribly effective at defusing the conflict between Rhommamool and
Osarian, and now everything's blown up around it. We have planets revolting,
it's basically a free-for-all. I need you to get your diplomatic corps together
and put an end to this nonsense."

"We've been watching it," Shesh replied as she scanned something offscreen.
"One hundred twenty six planets? That's old already. Holonet estimates have it
at close to five hundred now."

"I don't have time to watch the Holonet, much less find information of
relevance," Fey'lya retorted. "That's why I have my aides write summaries.
Anyway, I don't care if it takes a thousand diplomats. You have the resources
on hand to deal with this before it gets completely out of hand. Just do it."

Shesh hesitated. "We'll have to put a hold on some of the trade renegotiations
we've been conducting with various independent sectors."

"Who cares about the trade agreements? The Middle Rim is coming unglued. Don't
you think that's more important?"

"It's important," she admitted, "but if we don't keep the trade agreements up
to date we're going to have very serious problems with supply, particularly
here."

"Look." Fey'lya lowered his already low voice. "There's a very good chance
that you'll be nominated for Chief of State if you can pull this one off. I
don't particularly care if you put the trade agreements on hold for a few days.
They'll still be there when we get back. These planets won't, and we have to
act quickly."

He could tell that Shesh was considering what he had said. "Very well. I'll
have the diplomatic corps mobilize. I suppose I can conduct the trade
renegotiations myself."

Fey'lya smiled, his typical toothy grin seeming slightly eerie. "I knew I
could depend on you." He cut the connection and leaned back in his chair once
more, trying to force his mind to settle.




Halfway around the Senate office building, Viqi Shesh was also settled back in
her chair, considering her options now. She had been hoping that Fey'lya's
first response would be to send in the New Republic Navy, further spreading it
out in its already weakened state. Instead he had called her, which was both a
blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because it meant that she had an even
better chance of getting the vacant Chief of State position. Not that she
didn't have a fighting chance already; Fey'lya quietly supported her because
they shared many of the same ideals, and she had a strong drive of her own. It
was a curse because if she succeeded too well in this latest task, then her
master plan would be set back for a time.

Ah well. It was almost always best to strike a balance in a situation like
this. And she could always stretch out the conflict a little bit, or perhaps
just have the Navy become a clause in the fine print on the negotiations they
would work out with the prodigal planets. Say, one warship assigned to each
planet to ensure that the terms of the contract would be followed... Such a
clause would be trivial to insert, given that she had the best legal advisors
in the galaxy. It would delay her plan until they could finish negotiations,
but at the same time allow her to take all the credit for defusing the
situation. Perfect.

Yes, she decided, Fey'lya had played right into her hands yet again, and she
hadn't had to lift a finger to do it.

At last... an update. More on the way shortly, maybe I'll actually finish this story before year's end



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO



"This is irrational," Fey'lya burst out as he stabbed at the flimsiplast
in front of him with his finger. Viqi Shesh noted that his nostrils were
considerably flared out, which in humans might indicate an allergy but
in his case was a very bad sign. "Completely irrational. You've had a
week now but for every world that your diplomats have brought back, five
others decide to leave. I don't know why they're doing that, but we need
to stop it now." He let the thought sink in. "Any more bright ideas?"

Shesh considered her options. The President of the Republic was mad, not
specifically at her, but at the fact that he had just encountered
something that he could not easily control. This reminded her of the way
a small child will cry and scream when a favorite toy is broken, even
when it's their own fault for breaking it. A small smile crept to her face.

"What's so funny?" Fey'lya snapped. "The galaxy is falling apart and you
think it's funny?"

She immediately regained her composure. "No, Mr. President. I was merely
considering how stupid the populace can be sometimes."

"I still don't hear any ideas."

"I'm thinking about that," Shesh retorted. "My first problem is that I
just don't have enough diplomats. My second problem is that some of
these worlds are not ready to just walk away from what they see as a
golden opportunity to free themselves of taxation."

Fey'lya drummed his fingers on the desk. "So you want more diplomats.
That's hard but we can do it, there's more than enough starving students
in the galaxy. What about the second problem?"

"A big stick," Shesh remarked without really thinking.

"Pardon?"

"We need a big stick," she repeated. "Many of these worlds feel that we
are giving them empty threats. They don't think we are capable of
enforcing sanctions against them. We need to show them that we are."

Fey'lya mulled the idea over. "So we send the Navy in anyway. Do you
know how badly that is going to be taken?"

"Yes," she admitted. Hers was a complex web of lies. All of her outward
expressions showed regret, which was at least partly true. She had not
particularly wanted to use the Republic Navy in a military sense, mainly
due to the damage they could possibly deal to her benefactors. This
regret was outweighed by the realization that if she could tie the Navy
up in enforcing pointless trade sanctions, she could effectively cripple
them as a fighting force. The second part of her façade was her showing
all the signs of naievly assuming that most planets would simply accept
the terms presented. She had known that would never happen, which is why
she was now in the office of the President of the Republic, explaining
why her actions so far had miserably failed and he needed to bring the
Navy in.

Her only true regret was that this was taking time away from her
campaign trail.

"However,” she continued, "I feel we can minimize the impact by only
using the Navy to enforce our sanctions against these rogue worlds.
People will still compare us to the Empire, but at least we can say that
we aren't pointing our guns directly at their planets like the Empire
would have done."

"This is not going to sit well with the Navy," Fey'lya mused. "They're
already complaining about being stretched thin, and this is just going
to make them purchase more ships and ruin our budget further." He fixed
his gaze on Shesh. "I would imagine that Kuat would like that, actually."

"I had not considered that," Shesh lied, forcing down the urge to
sarcastically respond. She had actually spent a lot of time thinking
about how an increase in the Navy's size could be a bad thing if they
ever realized what was happening. Not that she would mind the increase
in her personal coffers, of course, but she had been promised far more
than the amount she could make on the side at Kuat. "But the fact is,
there is no way around not enforcing the sanctions we threaten in
negotiations. If we do not put our weight behind what we say, they will
grow even bolder and may actually try to organize themselves."

"Naturally." Fey'lya grimaced. "Of course, this means..." He looked hard
at the flimsiplast. "... that we may need to send the Navy to about
seven thousand systems, all at the same time."

"That's correct."

"Well, the problem as I see it is that the Navy doesn't have seven
thousand cruiser groups. And they tell me that a cruiser group is the
minimum needed to blockade a system."

Shesh leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. "Just how many do they have?"

"Not enough." Fey'lya sighed again. "Do you realize, Senator, that this
means we have to buy and re-activate and conscript crews for about five
thousand cruiser groups? That comes out to..." He paused in thought for
a moment. "That comes out to about one hundred thousand ships and over
one billion crewmen! The Navy will love me but the core worlds will just
about lynch me!"

That, Shesh reflected, was why her benefactors had been somewhat
apprehensive... it was the simple fact that an effective galactic
government like the Empire could easily muster enough ships to crush any
hope of invasion. Fortunately the Republic had added quite a few layers
of bureaucracy along the way, but it was still an unsettling thought.

"I'll give you your diplomats," Fey'lya said, having calmed down and
resigned himself to fact. "But I simply cannot allow the Navy to have
that many ships. I will tell the appropriations committee that they have
authorization to create about one thousand cruiser groups, no more. As
for you, you are just going to have to figure out how to work with the
Navy to back up your diplomats with what they have."

Shesh quietly thanked the Republic for existing. With mass revolts the
Empire would probably have had more than twice that amount comissioned
without even asking questions. "I will do that," she said as she came to
her feet. "Thank you for your time, Mr. President."




* * *



Halfway across the galaxy, Nom Anor sat in the office of an unimportant
dignitary's position on some backwater world. His cover name for this
position was as unimportant as the office he occupied. The only goal
here was to foment unrest here as he had done on hundreds of other worlds.

He looked over the holographic map of the galaxy in front of him. It had
cost him a significant amount of credits to acquire, and at best he
tolerated the alien technology, but its importance to him far outweighed
its cost or his feelings.

He commanded the map to zoom in on an area of the outer rim. Important
worlds glowed as green dots, and with another command one became red. A
line was drawn between the red dot and a small field of purple dots that
represented the territory that the Praetorite Vong already held. As he
manipulated the map, more dots turned red and more lines were drawn
connecting them to the purple area. When he finished, there was a cloud
of well over a thousand red dots connected by a spider's web of lines.

Nom Anor nodded imperceptibly. This could very well be his key to
becoming a Prefect.




* * *




Somewhere on the other side of the universe, five Jedi Masters sat
around a table buried deep within the Outbound Flight. The conversation
was lively, perhaps owing to the fact that the subject was critical to
the success of their mission.

"Well, that puts us back at the beginning," Master Helsani observed.
They had just gone through every form of acceptable interrogation they
knew of, and still the captive wouldn't give any information. "What else
can we do short of torturing him?"

"We could search his mind," C'baoth suggested. "I've been saying that
from the start."

Helsani sighed. Although renowned in the Order, C'baoth grated on his
nerves. "Master C'baoth, you /always/ suggest using the Force before
anything else. You use it like a crutch, rather than relying on whatever
other techniques you have."

"And that is my prerogative," C'baoth retorted. "Continued use of the
Force sharpens your skills. Why question me? You know what I believe."

"I am not questioning you, I just disagree with your view." Helsani
looked toward the cell block. "Now, all disagreements aside, what are we
going to do with him?"

Master Hkalle spoke, his gravelly voice reverberating through the room.
"I feel that Master C'baoth is right. The only other option is torture
and I know none of us are willing to go that far. In fact, I will search
him myself, if we all agree."

"I still do not, but it seems I am overruled," Helsani said after a show
of hands, where he was the only one among the five who was against it.

"Master Helsani," C'baoth began, "could you please let Master Hkalle in
to see the prisoner?"

"Of course," Helsani replied as he came to his feet. Hkalle followed him
down to the turbolift, where they got in and went down several decks to
the detention area. A short walk later, they had reached "Dargont's"
cell and Helsani keyed the door open.

"Mr. Dargont," Helsani said as he approached the captive. "We have some
further questions for you." "Dargont" remained stubbornly silent. "Very
well then." He pressed a sedative to Dargont's neck and discharged it,
and he slumped over almost instantly. Then, Helsani took a seat on the
other side of the cell and watched as Master Hkalle sat down next to the
captive and closed his huge eyelids.

"His mind is very strong, even sedated," Hkalle remarked after several
minutes had passed. "He has many layers."

Helsani nodded as Hkalle closed his eyes again. This was going to be a
long wait.


Several hours later, Helsani was abruptly awoken by the Mon Calamari.
"It was difficult, but I finally have something," he said.

"What is it?"

"It appears to be childhood memories. A tiny village in the middle of
the desert... Morocco, I think it is called."

Helsani thought for several minutes. "Morocco is a region on the African
continent on Earth. That means he is somehow tied to the Federation..."
He quickly stood up. "I'm going to report this to Master C'batoh. This
could potentially be very bad for the negotiations."



Several minutes later, Master Helsani met C'baoth in his cell.

"There's good and bad news," Helsani began with slight trepidation.

"Let's hear it."

"Well, the good news is that Master Hkalle succeeded in gaining some
information." Helsani licked his lips. He'd been sitting too long. "The
bad news is that the man is from Earth."

If C'baoth did not have such good control over his emotions, his jaw
would have dropped. As it was, he let out a small gasp.

"Have Master Hkalle stop immediately. Tomorrow morning I'm going to
bring this up in the negotiations."




* * *




C'baoth walked into the conference room in San Francisco the following
morning, his step betraying nothing and his face showing just enough
interest to make it look as though he was looking forward to the
meeting. There were the usual greetings from the Federation diplomatic
crew, although he immediately noticed several new faces, who saw him at
about the same time and walked over to introduce themselves. The man
leading was rather tall with a completely bald head. His eyes showed
considerable intelligence.

"Greetings, Master C'baoth. I am Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the
starship Enterprise. We will be supplementing the diplomatic teams for
the remainder of the negotiations."

"In that event, I look forward to working with you."

Jean-Luc gestured to the other people with him. "Allow me to introduce
my staff." He extended his hand toward a rather rugged-looking man with
a thick beard. "This is Commander Riker, my first officer."

"A pleasure to meet you," Riker said as he shook hands.

"And this is our ship's counselor, Deanna Troi-Riker."

C'baoth raised his eyebrows slightly at the name. "Any relation?"

"We were just married," Troi explained, throwing a longing glance at Riker.

"In that case, my congratulations to you," C'baoth said.

Jean-Luc gestured to another man with yellowish skin and black hair.
"This is our science officer, Commander Data."

"Interesting name," C'baoth mused. He was having trouble sensing Data in
the Force, when it finally clicked. "You're a droid, aren't you. A
replicant droid."

"If by 'droid', you mean android, then yes. I understand that your
civilization makes extensive use of androids?"

"That's correct. But very few are humanoid like you."

"How intriguing! I would very much like to meet some of them."

"I'm sure that can be arranged," C'baoth responded as he turned back to
Picard. "And who is the last one in your group?"

Picard gestured for the red-haired woman to come forward. "This is
Doctor Beverly Crusher, our chief medical officer. She is perhaps one of
the most experienced doctors in the Federation, if I may say so."

"Indeed." C'baoth paused to shake hands. "Well, shall we begin the day?"


Several minutes later, the entire group was seated at the table. After
yet more formalities, C'baoth came to his feet. "First, before we start
today, I have some troubling information. About two weeks ago we
discovered a man in a secure area on our ship. When we questioned him,
he appeared to be from Morocco which if I understand correctly means he
is likely one of your citizens."

The typical chatter in the room immediately stopped, and was quickly
replaced by hushed whispering. C'baoth looked at the assembled
diplomats. "Would anyone care to provide some sort of explanation?"

The whispering intensified. Eventually, one diplomat came to his feet.
"We have not heard of any such order being given, and it is possible
that he is not a Federation citizen," he said. "However, we are just as
curious as you are, and wish to know if perhaps one of our teams can
assist you in investigating."

"I welcome the offer," C'baoth replied. "Of course, we would have to
have our security staff with your team at all times, but I'm sure you
understand. Now, who would this team be composed of?"

Picard stood up. "I would like to volunteer the assistance of my crew."

"In that case," C'baoth responded, "I would like to suspend negotiations
until we can find an answer for this. Captain Picard, can your staff
possibly come today?"


Several hours later, C'baoth, Dr. Crusher, Troi and Data were on a
shuttle en route to the Bulk Cruiser. After debarking, they made their
way through to the detention area, where they were met by Master Helsani.

C'baoth stepped forward to introduce him. "Ladies, gentlemen, this is
Master Jostein Helsani, our security advisor. Master Helsani, these are
Dr. Beverly Crusher, ship's doctor of the Enterprise, Deanna Troi-Riker,
counselor of the Enterprise, and Lt. Commander Data, science officer of
the Enterprise. They've offered to help us find some answers from our
captive."

"Nice meeting you," Helsani said. "If you don't mind, let's get started.
Who would like to see him first?"

Data pulled out his tricorder. "I would like to examine his physical
characteristics. Perhaps we can learn more about his origin."

"Perfect." Master Helsani motioned to the guards at the cell. They
stepped to either side of the door and it rapidly slid open with a
slight hiss.

Data extended the tricorder toward the prisoner, and began pressing
buttons on it. After scanning him for a few seconds, he spoke. "He is
not mute and can understand your speech since he has a Universal
Translator implanted. That also means he is a Federation citizen. There
are also certain percentage traces of phosphates, manganese and zinc in
his bones that correspond to northwest Africa, meaning that it is very
likely that he did indeed come from Morocco.

"Any hope of finding out if he served in Starfleet or any other
service?" Helsani asked.

"I can find no sign of any identification on him," Data said.

"Anything else you can tell us?"

Data turned his head slightly. "Yes. I performed some biometric
comparisons on his facial features using Fisher's linear discriminate
analysis methods. Through non-parametric estimation, I determined that
his facial structure, most notably visible in a large masculine
glabellar projection and strongly projecting nasal bone structure,
matches very closely to the Northern African archetype. In addition, he
bears certain faint scars indicating that his profile has been altered
structurally and cosmetically. These alterations are particularly
visible in the auricles and the nasal turbinates."

"In Basic, please," Helsani said after several seconds.

"He is most certainly Moroccan from his facial features, but he has been
surgically altered to blend in here."

Helsani sighed and walked outside. "He's from Morocco, and he's been
surgically altered to blend in. Who wants to see him next?"

"I'll go," Dr. Crusher replied. "I want to check his vitals, and then if
you don't mind, Deanna here wants to see if she can find out his
intentions. I'll stay to monitor his vitals while she does that, of course."

"Go ahead," Helsani said as he motioned them inside. Dr. Crusher then
pulled out her medical tricorder and began examining him. "He's in
perfect health," she finally said. "Deanna, if you would mind starting..."

Troi sat down on the bench across from him and focused. He stared at her
blankly, again making no attempt to communicate. It continued for about
half an hour, and finally Troi gave up. "I can't sense anything. He's
completely blank."

"I could have told you that," Helsani said as they walked out. "So,
basically, we know he's from the Federation, specifically Morocco, we
know that he's in perfect health and we know that he doesn't want to
reveal any more information."

They all nodded in agreement. Then, Dr. Crusher spoke. "How was it that
you learned he was from Morocco without knowing about the trace elements?"

Helsani waved his hand at Master Hkalle, who was standing nearby.
"Master Hkalle was able to search his mind and found some childhood
memories that made mention of Morocco."

Crusher thought about it for several minutes. "If he could find that,
maybe we could find out more about him the same way." She turned to
Master C'baoth. "Would that be possible?"

"Of course," C'baoth said. "It'll just take some time. He has very
strong mental blocks that make it difficult to find anything. But we
need to sedate him first."

Dr. Crusher reached into her bag and pulled out a hypospray, then
pressed it against his neck. "He's out."

C'baoth beckoned for Hkalle, who walked over. "I hope you don't mind
waiting for a few hours," C'baoth said as Hkalle sat down and began to
meditate. "I can have the crew bring some caf if you like."




* * *




Anakin was jolted out of sleep by the sharp report of an alert klaxon.
He jumped out of bed, narrowly avoiding bashing his head on the low
ceiling above it, and threw his clothing on as fast as he could. Then,
he grabbed his lightsaber and dashed out into the hallway, where he
nearly collided with his aunt Mara.

"What's going on?" They both spoke at the same time, then laughed and
Mara shrugged in response to their mutual question. "I'm not really
sure, but I'm heading to the bridge to see what the fuss is all about."

"Well, that's where I was going too," Anakin agreed. They went for the
nearest turbolift, along with about ten crewmen who had joined them in
the hallway.

After a short trip they arrived at the bridge and the door slid open.
"Captain?" Mara asked as the two Jedi approached. "What's the situation?"

"Comm-Scan just spotted five bogeys inbound. It looks like they're Borg
since their mass is consistent with that last ship and they're moving at
a fairly high speed."

"That doesn't sound good," Anakin said.

"Tell me about it," Sicuro agreed. "I've recalled the kips and all
fighters are being prepped for launch. I know that you like to fly, did
you want to join them?"

'Kip' was jargon for Combat Space Patrol. They had been running nonstop
since the last Borg visit, and had almost completely canvassed the
system to the point that the entire group had a good idea of all the
places that a defense station would be most effective. Not that it
really mattered at the moment since there really was no time to set up
proper defenses, Anakin thought. "Sure," he said, looking at Mara for
approval, and she nodded. "I'd love to."

Avin waved one of the bridge crew over. "Ensign, could you get Anakin
down to the flight deck double-time?"

"Yes, Sir."


Not surprisingly for Anakin, the flight deck was a scene of ordered
pandemonium. Fighters were constantly landing, while the other fighters
on the deck had crews bustling about them with equipment, topping off
the fuel tanks, arming and loading torpedoes, and generally making all
the expected preflight checks.

The Ensign that brought Anakin down walked straight over to a small
booth on the side of the hangar. He saluted the man inside the booth,
then turned to Anakin. "This is the Senior Chief," he began. "He'll
assign you to a craft."

The Senior Chief stood up. "So you're one of the Jedi that that the crew
is buzzing about, eh? Well, first, let me set the record straight. If
you're going to fly with this squadron, you HAVE to obey the orders of
the squadron commander. No gallivanting off on your own like I've heard
some of you like to do."

He leaned closer to Anakin, who idly observed to himself that he seemed
to be a lot older than he looked. He wondered why he was still a
non-comissioned officer in the Corellian defense force...

"He's going to brief you all in about a minute here. You're going to
listen to what he says, and you're going to do what he says. No IFs or
BUTs. Above all, don't forget your wingman if you're the lead. If you're
the wingman, don't forget your lead. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Anakin replied hesitatingly, somewhat surprised by the whole
spiel.

"Good. The briefing room is over that way," the Chief said as he pointed
across the hangar. "Our orders will be coming as soon as the Captain
gives them. You ARE familiar with the MSF-350, aren't you?"

"I've trained in the simulator on it."

"You've trained in the SIMULATOR? Is that all it takes to pass for a
fighter pilot these days? What HAVE you actually flown in combat? Anything?"

Anakin stammered, now completely off guard. "I-I flew the Millennium
Falcon in the Sacorrian crisis when I was seven," he finally came out
with, then realized that it sounded completely inadequate. "I've also
been flying X-wings for a couple of years now."

"The Millennium Falcon hardly counts as a fighter, son, and you were
seven a long time ago. Have you actually flown an X-wing in combat?"

"N-no, Sir."

The Chief shook his head. "Rookies these days, hotshots the lot of you.
Well, I have to let you in, Captain's orders, but remember, you kriff up
out there and good men will die. Do you UNDERSTAND?"

"Y-yes, Sir."

"Good. Now get yourself to the quartermaster and get a flight suit on,
then head to the briefing room."

As Anakin walked way, he could have sworn that he heard the Chief
muttering something about "kriffin' Demorr krayts." He idly wondered
what a Demorr krayt was and if it was related to the krayt dragon,
eventually deciding that he'd have to ask Jacen about it later as he
walked into the quartermaster's office.


Back on the bridge, the situation was tense as the entire crew waited
for the Borg to drop out of their subspace bubbles. "They've reverted,"
Comm-Scan reported.

"Hold fire for positive identification," Sicuro ordered. As if on cue,
the Borg's standard hail played across the bridge speakers, and
brilliant emerald beams began streaking toward the /Vigorous/.

"No damage," the ensign at Comm-Scan said. "Radiation output is
increasing, consistent with scanning equipment."

Sicuro just nodded. "All batteries, fire at will."

By now the Borg were close enough that Mara could now see there were
some differences between the five cubes. Two of them were like the one
they had seen before, but three of them were partially clad in gray
armor plating. "They seem to learn quickly," she remarked. "Now they're
armored."

Not that the armor did the other unarmored cubes much good, Mara
reflected. The first wave of turbolaser bolts immediately ripped into
the nearest of the cubes, vaporizing a good deal of its underlying
structure. Just like the previous time, they continued to approach
despite the damage, and more volleys of fire ripped into the cubes.

The three armored ones moving closer, passing the two now damaged
unarmored ones. The less damaged of the two unarmored cubes then moved
in toward Freighter 1, which, if Mara recalled correctly, contained the
replacement hyperdrive parts and was probably the most important
freighter in the mission.

"Freighter 1 is reporting tractor beam lock," Comm-Scan announced.

"How did they know?" Sicuro murmured half to himself, voicing the exact
thought that Mara had. They were using high-grade encryption that would
take millions of years to crack... Then again, she realized, they hadn't
been fully prepared for battle when they had come through.

Sicuro grabbed a nearby comm. "Broadcast all channels," he told the
ensign at the station, and keyed the comm on. "This is Captain Sicuro of
the Corellian warship /Vigorous/. If you do not release our freighter
now, we will be forced to destroy you."

"Demands are irrelevant," came the eerie, unfeeling response. "You will
be assimilated."

The captain's face contorted in anger. "Gunnery, target that cube,
maximum firepower."

For the next minute or so, space was filled with a hail of turbolaser
blasts and the strange green beams of the Borg as the behemoths battled.

"Ship destroyed."

A slight cheer went up from the bridge crew but was quickly silenced
when one of the armored cubes locked on to Freighter 1. Gunnery
immediately shifted all fire to that cube, but it seemed that the armor
was holding for now although it was definitely getting thinner.

"I'm not sure if I'm reading this right," the ensign at Comm-Scan asked,
"but it appears, Sir, that we're doing less damage with every volley."

"Duly noted," Sicuro replied. "Gunnery, increase firepower."

As the turbolaser bolts became more intense, the other cubes now moved
in to block the shots and quickly began taking damage. The other
unarmored cube was next to go, vanishing in the hail of fire.

Sicuro sighed heavily. "Helm, try to get us a clear shot at that cube.
Fighter Command, launch fighters and target the tractor beams, we need
to break it loose ASAP."


In the briefing room, Anakin sat next to the wingmate who had been
picked for him, a female Selonian named Salisca, as they listened to the
commander give the orders. Then they quickly filed out, running to the
fighters and jumping in the cockpits. The engines were already idling,
so Anakin simply pressed his helmet on and strapped in as the hatch
closed over him.

Moments later, the MSF-350 was floating on its repulsors as he guided it
out per the deck crew's directions. Then they launched, and the squadron
commander's voice squawked over the headsets. "All fighters, report in.

"Talus Leader, standing by," the fighter squadron's leader reported.

"Tralus Leader, standing by." Tralus squadron consisted of the strike
bombers, and it was the fighters' job to protect them.

"Talus 14, standing by," Anakin keyed in.

"Talus 9, standing by," his wingmate came through.

Anakin tuned out the rest of the chatter as he focused on the
directions. They were to get in, knock out the tractor beams, and then
escort Freighter 1 back toward the /Vigorous/. It sounded easy on paper
but Anakin somehow doubted it.

"All craft, assume attack formation."

Anakin glanced at the screen as he adjusted the course of the
starfighter. As he looked forward from the canopy, he saw the cubes
rapidly growing in size from the pinpricks they appeared to be from the
ship.

"This is Tralus leader. We have our target, begin the attack run."

He pulled on the stick and the fighter slid in formation behind the
heavier bombers. As they approached, emerald beams began lancing out
from the cubes although they were wildly inaccurate. As Anakin watched,
one of the beams grazed a fighter ahead of him.

"Talus 15, I've been hit, not bad. I'm still going in."

The cubes now loomed to fill most of the canopy. Anakin noticed that the
closer they got to the cubes, the more wild the shots became. That was
rather strange, he thought, since all the training he'd had told him
that the closer you got to a ship, the more close-in defense guns you
would run into. Apparently the Borg were not used to combat with small
attack craft.

The bombers in front of him turned and sharply dove in toward the
haphazard surface of the cube. Anakin followed suit, twisting his
fighter to avoid the shots that were coming toward them. When he was
almost at the surface of the cube he pulled up hard and began winding
along the tangled superstructure.

"Tralus 5 here, torpedoes away."

Anakin saw the explosion rapidly pass. "Confirmed hit, tractor beam
disabled," Tralus leader reported. "All craft, pull up."

"Negative, Tralus Leader," the comm squawked just as they were beginning
to pull up. "We have another tractor beam that just locked on, sending
coordinates now."

"Kriff!" one of his squadron mates interjected. "What are we doing,
whacking mynocks?"

"Keep the channel clear!"

Anakin pulled a hard about turn as the entire squadron headed back to
the surface. At the same time, there was a brilliant flash in the
distance as another cube exploded, silhouetting the squadrons and
darkening his canopy.

He noticed that the defensive fire was getting more accurate, and on an
instinct he lined the fighter up and pulled the triggers, sending a
barrage of blaster fire into one of the Borg's guns. A couple of his
squadron mates did the same thing, although it did not seem to lessen
the volume of incoming fire much.

As they began strafing along the surface, Anakin saw a flash of light to
his right, and as he looked over, he saw fuel spraying out of Salisca's
fighter.

"Salisca!" he shouted into the comm. "You've been hit!"

"I did not feel anything!"

Anakin jinked the fighter around another barrage, then looked back at
Salisca again.

"Looks like a slight hit, but you're losing fuel. Can you make it?"

"Yes."

"This is Tralus 13, I'm locked on." Anakin saw the bomber dive in toward
the cube and followed suit, thumbing the trigger when he was clear to
try and suppress some of the incoming fire.

"Confirmed hit," Tralus Leader reported. The comm stayed silent, then he
came back in. "Comm-scan reports that there are now two emitters locked
on to the freighter. We will target one of them, while the freighter
tries to pull free."

"This is kriffin' ridiculous," the same voice as before said resignedly.
Anakin silently agreed as the squadrons weaved their way back across the
surface to the next target. Then, abruptly, the surface suddenly got
much closer.

"What the hell?" The reaction was almost unanimous as the fighters and
bombers had to jump upwards to avoid being hit by the now rapidly
approaching superstructure of the cube.

"Freighter 1 has gone to full power, looks like it's towing the cube
now..." Tralus Leader reported. At the same time, a large explosion in
the distance signaled the demise of yet another cube.

"I have a lock," Tralus 9 reported. "Firing torpedoes... kriff!"

Apparently the Borg didn't like being taken along for a ride, because
the Cube suddenly reversed direction, towing the struggling freighter
backwards. With the sudden change, the torpedoes went wild, blowing
gaping holes in the superstructure of the cube but apparently not
hitting anything vital.

That is, until a chunk of metal tore free from the cube and went sailing
past the astonished pilots.

"There goes one emitter," one of the flight leaders remarked. As if on
cue, at least four more emitters suddenly replaced it.

"Oh, come ON!"

"Clear the channel!" Tralus leader half-shouted. "Comm-scan's reporting
a massive power surge on the cube, they're not sure what..."

All of a sudden, the cube and freighter seemed to elongate, then there
was a flash of light and they vanished.

"... it is," Tralus leader finished. "All craft, full speed back to the
ship."




* * *




By the time Anakin landed, jumped out of the fighter, and rushed to the
bridge, there was a heated debate going on over how to catch the Borg.

"But we don't have any kind of interdiction system," Captain Sicuro was
saying. "All we can do is follow, we have no way of stopping them."

"Wait a minute," Anakin said. "They aren't in hyperspace."

"It doesn't matter," the ship's navigator responded. "They're going
faster than the speed of light, so they're tachyonic. Only mass can
force them out."

Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin saw Mara walk over. "Actually,
that's not quite true," she said. "They're in a subspace bubble, right?"

"Right."

"So they aren't really tachyonic, they're just warping space around
themselves. It's a poor man's way of going past lightspeed, because
they're actually still in real space."

A light seemed to dawn on Sicuro's face. "And they're traveling at about
a quarter of our flank speed... But how can we force them out? We can't
put ourselves in the way or we'll be destroyed."

Anakin thought about it for a moment. "Turbolasers," he said. "Use our
turbolasers to bracket their trajectory and force them out."

Captain Sicuro scratched his chin. "But we don't want to risk hitting
the freighter."

"The cube is in front, so all we need to do is hit it with enough fire
to force it out of warp. Keep the shots tight enough and we shouldn't
hit the freighter."

"Sounds like our best chance," Sicuro agreed, walking over to the
navigation station. "Lay in a course alongside theirs, and take us out
ahead of them with enough time to set up a firing solution."

"Yes, Captain."

He walked over to the gunnery station next. "How fast can you set up a
bracketing fire?"

"Thirty seconds, Sir."

"Helm, are the rest of the freighters slaved in?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Make the jump."


Several short minutes later, they emerged to realspace, turning the ship
around to set up a firing solution.

"Standby," the lieutenant at Comm-Scan said. "Target in range in forty
seconds."

As he counted down to zero, Anakin watched and on the zero mark, dozens
of shots lanced out... and kept on going.

"What happened"? Sicuro demanded.

"We fired too soon so the shots went wild. I'm feeding the data in to
the gunnery computers so it can correct."

Captain Sicuro rubbed his face and turned back to the navigator. "Plot
another jump, and this time try to give us a little more time."

Anakin watched as the bridge viewports again filled with the
scintillating sky of hyperspace, then almost as quickly returned to the
blackness of normal space. Comm-Scan again began counting down the
range, and right on cue the sky was filled with turbolaser blasts. This
time, however, as the bolts passed through space there was a brilliant
flash of light; the Borg cube and freighter both popped back into
reality tumbling end over end.

"Kriff," Anakin swore under his breath. "That can't be good."

Even while the /Vigorous/ was still pummeling the cube, it stopped its
chaotic rotation and managed to snag the still-tumbling freighter with
more tractor beams. Anakin watched in disbelief as the cube again jumped
to warp despite all their efforts.

"Helm, plot another intercept," Sicuro ordered, immediately turning to
Comm-Scan. "How badly did we damage it this time?"

"They've lost less than twenty percent of their original mass," the
lieutenant replied. "It's hard to tell if they suffered any damage to
their systems because they're so redundant."

Sicuro walked over to his chair and sat down. "At this rate, we're going
to wind up chasing them halfway across this forsaken galaxy..."

Anakin certainly hoped that wouldn't be the case as they jumped again.
His hopes were somewhat dashed when the next set of bracketing shots
went wild.

"They changed course shortly after we reverted," Comm-Scan explained
before anyone could ask. "This means they can scan realspace from their
subspace bubble."

Almost the entire bridge crew swore in unison.

"Helm, intercept their current course, and cut it close this time.
Gunnery, you're going to have to work faster for that firing solution so
that they don't have time to react."

The next jump was far more abrupt, and they began firing almost as soon
as they had reverted. Sure enough, there was another bright flash and
the Borg unceremoniously came tumbling out again, followed by the
freighter. Again turbolaser bolts chewed into the cube, most focused on
the already-weakened areas. And again, despite it being almost torn in
half, the cube managed to stop its dizzying spin and warp away.

"I'm starting to develop an intense dislike of the Borg," Mara remarked.
"Anyone else feel the same way?"

"Nope, I love these guys," Anakin said, struggling to keep a straight face.

With the next jump Comm-Scan almost immediately had an answer. "We can't
get a firing solution. They changed course as soon as we reverted."

"They're getting desperate," Mara observed. "We can keep leapfrogging
them, but they're just going to keep changing course now."

"Then we'll just have to leapfrog faster," Sicuro said. "We can't let
them get the freighter. Can we come up with a firing solution any faster?"

The bridge was silent for a long moment, and finally the navigator
spoke. "We know they have not changed their speed, so I can plot an
intercept course that will put us right on top of them. If gunnery can
work with the data I give them, they could have a firing solution ready
before we even revert."

Sicuro looked over at the gunnery officers. "Can it be done?"

The officers looked at each other uneasily. "Yes, but the timing will
have to be down to the nanosecond."

"Then do it, and make sure we hit them with everything we have. We can't
let them escape another time."

In an instant the bridge was eerily quiet, save for the sound of keys
tapping as the crew set the ship up for the crazy plan. Anakin could
only watch in amazement as they went about it; he had no doubt that a
Jedi could coordinate in the same way using the Force, but in this case
it was better for the ship's crew to do it given the scale of the
/Vigorous/'s systems.

Then the jump happened, and Anakin could have almost sworn that the guns
began firing before they emerged from hyperspace. The cube, or more
correctly, the remainder of the cube, came hurling out of its warp
bubble at almost point-blank range, only to be immediately assaulted
with a broadside of turbolasers and concussion missiles.

"Gunnery, lock all available tractor beams on them, make sure they don't
escape again."

There was a faint shudder as the tractor beams locked on to the
struggling cube.

"What the..." Anakin said as he felt the ship begin moving with the
cube. "Why are we moving?"

"The sensors are going nuts," Comm-Scan reported. "I don't think it's
possible for our mass to be decreasing so fast."

All of a sudden, the stars turned to streaks around them, but the sky of
hyperspace never appeared.

"This isn't right..." Anakin was dumbfounded. Directly in front of them
was the damaged cube, in some sort of strange star tunnel.

"Captain?" It was the lieutenant at Comm-Scan. "We're /in/ the subspace
bubble. They're towing us with our own tractor beams."

Sicuro frowned for a moment, but his frown quickly changed to a smile.
"Gunnery, do our weapons still work?"

"Sensors are still nuts, but the visual tracking is there," the response
came quickly. A shot lanced out toward the cube, disappearing in a small
flash of light shortly afterward. Without any further confirmation, all
of the ship's forward batteries opened up.

Anakin shrugged. "You know, I am a little worried what happens when that
cube is--"

It was almost as bad as when they came through the wormhole. The ship
felt like it had stopped, then inertia caught up with them as the
systems struggled to compensate. Almost everyone that was standing was
pitched to the floor, Anakin included. Mercifully it was over almost as
soon as it had started, and they started to pick themselves up when
reality re-asserted itself.

"I guess that answers that question," Anakin muttered, more to himself
than anyone.

Captain Sicuro coughed as he came to his feet. "Status?"

"We've only traveled about one light-year. The cube is almost completely
destroyed, I can't read any power and there are only a handful of life
signs left."

Sicuro looked at Mara and Anakin. "What should we do with them? We need
to get back to the freighters quickly since they're defenseless right now."

The two Jedi exchanged glances, shrugging. "Master Dellen did warn us to
not underestimate them," Mara said. "We might be able to learn something
from the survivors, but I doubt you would be comfortable with bringing a
piece of that cube into the hangar. Why don't we tow them in closer and
lock a cable before we go back?"

"I would honestly be far more comfortable with them vaporized," Sicuro
said, "but I'll defer to you."

About a minute later they had the largest of the shattered pieces in
tow. When they got back, they found that the other two freighters had
come to the assistance of the out-of-control Freighter 1, slowing it
down and stopping its spin.

"Captain Tafalo reports that they did not suffer any serious damage, and
they estimate they should have repairs completed within an hour."

Sicuro turned around to face Comm-Scan. "Finally some good news. Keep a
close eye on the Borg, and Navigation, I need you to plot a new course
to Earth. As soon as Freighter 1 is ready, we leave."

When I used the link you gave in your orginal thread to find the older chapters I get a 404 Error.

Edit: Nvm I found it.

General Schatten wrote:When I used the link you gave in your orginal thread to find the older chapters I get a 404 Error.

Edit: Nvm I found it.

Huh. Guess Rob moved it.

Fixed now.

Ooh very cool. Assuming that those jedi masters and assorted other crew from the outbound flight are brought back home to their own galaxy things should get very interesting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE




The corridor outside the detention block of the Bulk Cruiser was almost
deathly quiet. For Data, sitting next to several of the Jedi, it would
have been absolutely trivial to hear a pin drop, although unfortunately
there were no pins available to test that idea with.

Data cocked his head as an errant thread of thought made its way to the
top. He leaned forward, assuming the classic "thinking man" pose in the
process although he didn't immediately recognize it, and began to run
some calculations on the size and mass of the ship as he knew it.

Several seconds later, he turned to Master C'baoth. "Master C'baoth, if
I may, why did you not choose a bigger ship for this mission?"

C'baoth looked at Data quizzically. "What do you mean specifically?"

Data sat upright. "The reason I ask is because this ship is just too
small for any sort of reasonable intergalactic travel, even at the
speeds your hyperdrive can reach. A dwarf companion galaxy is one thing,
but I believe you mentioned those are already explored – the nearest one
to your galaxy is known as the Rishi Maze. But traveling to a galaxy
such as ours is simply out of the question without falling through a
wormhole like you did. Not only are the distances too great without a
generational ship or suspended animation, but you have no way of
starting more than one colony should the need arise. Although our
limited travels here have shown that there is a fairly large number of
spacefaring civilizations, if we apply the Drake equation we estimate
that there are about 6,250 civilizations capable of communication, which
means that not even one millionth of one percent of the stars in this
galaxy hold intelligent, communicating life. If you allow for all
civilizations to colonize 10 other systems on average, which is a very
high estimate, that figure goes up only to one hundred thousandth of one
percent. So how are you guaranteed to find a civilization, much less a
spacefaring one?"

C'baoth considered the question for almost a minute before speaking. "We
carry a full set of survey equipment aboard this ship, including sensor
arrays to cover the entire radionics spectrum, subspace frequencies, and
hyperspace frequencies. Had our hyperdrive not failed, we would have
begun to survey the galaxy in search of intelligent life, and then once
we had a reasonable candidate list, we would carefully evaluate systems
up close. I estimated that it would have taken us perhaps five years to
survey and inspect a thousand light-year radius.

"To answer your first question, my original plan for the Outbound Flight
did actually call for a generation ship, basically a large space station
with thousands of families from different species surrounded by six
Dreadnaughts for propulsion and protection. At the time, there was a
popular belief that there was a hyperspace disturbance that surrounded
the galaxy, preventing hyperspace travel through it. I was of the belief
that if we were to break through, we would have to use the Force to
accomplish it.

"However, when I was selecting the Jedi to accompany me on this
endeavour, I met Master Dellen, who was a historian in the Jedi
Archives. He had been researching the hyperspace disturbance, and found
proof in the Archives that not only was there no hyperspace disturbance,
but hyperspace explorers had been traveling to galaxies more distant
than the Rishi Maze for thousands of years. These explorers had brought
back proof of other civilizations in the distant galaxies.

"At the time I was also having difficulty getting the Galactic Senate to
fund this project. They felt that even taking six Dreadnaughts away from
the Navy was a pointless waste of resources, given that at the time we
were beginning to have uprisings in certain areas of the galaxy. I
considered what Master Dellen had told me, and realized that if we had
been in contact with other galactic civilizations for thousands of
years, there was no need for such a large project. We only needed to be
able to travel there, establish contact, perhaps open negotiations for
membership in the Republic, and return. For this, a smaller ship and
crew would be beneficial, as a smaller ship would most likely be seen as
less of a threat. The reduced crew meant that we would not have to
devote so much space to supplies, and it also opened the possibility of
using cryo-sleep."

Data nodded. "But you would still be limited by the range of your ship.
I assume, then, that this galaxy was not your choice?"

"I am sure that Master Fernas would be better to explain, but we had
only cataloged this galaxy due to its extreme distance. Our target
galaxy was actually about five million light-years away, or roughly six
years' journey."

He sighed. "What really surprises me, however, is the fact that we found
humans this far from our galaxy. Our scholars generally agree that human
civilization emerged within our galaxy somewhere over two hundred and
fifty thousand years ago. They can't pinpoint any planet specifically
although they have good reason to believe it emerged on either Coruscant
or Corellia."

C'baoth looked over at Data. "How long has humanity been on Earth?"

Data raised his eyebrows in surprise at the question. "In its present
form, at least two hundred thousand years. But we have fossil records
indicating that humanity originated on Earth. The same records indicate
that humanity began to emerge from earlier primate species as early as
eight million years ago."

C'baoth opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it just as
fast. He seemed to think for several moments. "Telling an entire galaxy
full of scientists that they're wrong is going to be very difficult," he
finally said. "As soon as they find out, I would expect that Earth is
going to get flooded by thousands of researchers wanting to see proof."

"I would expect nothing less," Data replied. "No self-respecting
scientist would accept a theory without any proof to support it."




About three hours later, they were all in the the conference room to
discuss Master Hkalle's results.

"So, we already know he's from Morocco. What was he doing here and why?"
C'baoth began.

"It took me a long time because of his mental conditioning, but in
theend I found that he came here to look for evidence of a breach into
Voyager's systems."

C'baoth was genuinely confused. "I gave no such order," he said.

Dr. Crusher had already picked up on it. "Well, he's here, so someone
must have found a reason to be suspicious. But whose orders, and why?"

They were silence for a while as C'baoth sat thinking. "Voyager's
systems did go down right after we returned," he finally said. "Perhaps
that looked suspicious to whoever it was. Master Hkalle, did you find
anything tying him to anyone in particular?"

"I think he may have been Starfleet, or former Starfleet. I kept finding
references to some man named Sloan. I also got his serial number."

"But to the best of my knowledge, Starfleet never authorized this," Dr.
Crusher protested. "It would be incredibly stupid to try something like
this in a friendly situation, especially with negotiations going on. I
think it's more likely that he's a rogue agent of some sort, perhaps
even Maquis." Crusher turned to face C'baoth. "I think it'll be best if
we can take him into custody.

"I think we've learned everything we can from him," C'baoth said, "so I
don't see the problem in that. I would add a request of my own, however,
that Master Helsani accompany you to Earth until we can resolve this
matter completely."

"What about what he said, about a potential breach in Voyager?" Crusher
seemed slightly worried.

C'baoth considered the question. "I agree with you, I firmly believe
that such an action before negotiations would be a reckless idea.
Nonetheless I will see if there's any truth in his claim."


As they left the conference room, Master Helsani escorting the Starfleet
personnel to the detention block, C'baoth took a turbolift in the
opposite direction, toward Computer Operations.

When the doors opened and C'baoth stepped out, he immediately turned
left and stepped through a small blastdoor. Computer Operations was
almost completely deserted as it usually was; only the blinking of
status lights on the equipment that kept the ship running greeted him.

He walked across the floor and came to a door that was crowded between
different modules, then knocked on it.

"I'm coming, give me a sec," a voice inside quickly said, then the door
opened. "Master C'baoth?!"

"Lieutenant Reco," C'baoth stated. He could tell that the young
lieutenant was surprised to see him as he hadn't been to Computer Ops
since they left Yaga Minor. In a way, it was a good reflection on Reco's
performance in keeping everything running smoothly. "Is there somewhere
we can sit?"

"Uh, sure," Reco hesitatingly said. "Let me clear off a chair for you."
He ducked back into the room and C'baoth followed. Reco had pulled a
chair out from somewhere and was busy removing some tangles of data
cables, throwing it into a convenient nearby corner. Once he had, he
gestured for C'baoth to sit. "What brings you here/"

"I'll be blunt," the Jedi Master said. "Master Helsani captured a spy
from the Federation who had sneaked on board, badly I might add, to try
and dig through our computers to find evidence of a breach in Voyager's
computer systems. Did you have any role in this?"

"I... uh..." Reco stammered. "Why would they think that?"

C'baoth threw up his hands in mock despair. "You tell me. We caught him,
now the Federation knows. Again, did you have a hand in it?"

Reco looked from side to side, then slumped his shoulders. "The Captain
came down here about five days before we were supposed to reach Earth.
He said he was worried about Janeway's behavior and wanted to make sure
she wasn't planning anything, so he wanted me to tap their computers."

C'baoth leaned back, stroking his beard. "What did you get?"

"I took a complete dump of their database," Reco said. "I'm not really
sure what information it contains, I didn't really look at it that hard
and most of it made very little sense even after I translated parts of
it. It looked like they charted every stellar anomaly in half the Delta
Quadrant, and they had some strange classified and encrypted information
on some advanced molecule called Omega or something like that."

"I don't really want to know." C'baoth sighed. "I guess you cracked the
encryption, though."

Reco smiled. "It was a simple cipher, really. I just used some idle
system time after we had arrived to brute-force the keys. Did you know
that they only had a short fractal-based key on the database?"

C'baoth didn't smile at all. "I'm not even sure what that means--" He
held up his hand as Reco opened his mouth to explain. "No, don't tell
me. Do you have the data, and who else has seen it?"

Reco shrugged. "The Captain has the data. As far as I know, he's the
only one who's seen it."

C'baoth sighed and shook his head. "Next time, remember that I run this
mission, not Captain Avin. He only has responsibility for this ship, not
for diplomatic matters. You should have come to me first."

"I understand."

He turned and walked out, thumbing the button for the turbolift. He
would need to have quite the long talk with the Captain over this
matter, since he may have just single-handedly disrupted negotiations.




The next day C'baoth had a slight apprehension as he approached the
conference room. He was greeted by the entire Federation diplomatic
team, with the exception that Captain Picard and the rest of his crew
were missing. Worse yet, none of the diplomats were smiling. He silently
took his seat across the table, disinterestedly noting how loud the
noise seemed to be when one of the diplomats dropped the sweetener
packet for his coffee.

Finally, after no-one had said anything for several minutes, he cleared
his throat. "Does anyone happen to know where Captain Picard or any of
his crew are?"

The lead diplomat spoke up. "Captain Picard and the /Enterprise/ were
recalled to the Cardassian border this morning due to increased tensions."

"That's a pity," C'baoth remarked. He had enjoyed the brief contact with
Picard and his crew. Picard, in particular, he saw was a skilled
negotiator, who unfortunately was someone he would sorely need on the
Federation side today... He sighed. Sooner or later, the truth had to be
revealed, and he felt it would better to voluntarily offer it rather
than seem as if he was covering it up. He took a deep breath. "As a
measure of good faith on our part, I want to offer a formal apology for
the unauthorized breach of Voyager's computer system."

There was a slight gasp from several of the diplomats; apparently they
had been expecting a confrontation. He reached inside his robe and
pulled out the datapack that Lieutenant Reco had given him. "As such, I
am returning the sole copy of the data that was taken from Voyager's
system. The person responsible for this breach has already been
reprimanded and placed on temporary leave for his actions."

The Federation's lead diplomat picked up the pack of datacards, which
were only about twice as thick as a pack of playing cards. "You can't be
serious," he said, looking hard at the bundle in his hand. "Voyager's
computer holds over fifty exaquads of data. Am I to believe that even a
small fraction of that can be placed on these cards?"

"If you don't believe me," C'baoth replied, sliding a small holographic
projector across the table, "here's a reader. Go ahead, you can even
keep it if you want to."

Hesitatingly, the diplomat slid the card into the reader, which
immediately powered up to display a two-dimensional screen floating in
midair. The Federation logo first appeared, then data began to flash by
so fast that C'baoth wasn't sure which part was what.

"Hold it right there," the diplomat said after some sort of logo had
flashed past. C'baoth reached out and stopped the data.

"Can you rewind?"

"Certainly," C'baoth said. "Actually, why don't I show you the
controls." He got up and walked around the table, where after a couple
minutes of explaining the differences between Basic and English symbols
he was confident they could remember.

The diplomat started rewinding the data, pausing it when the logo came
up. C'baoth didn't recognize it and it didn't seem particularly onerous,
it was just a partial circle with the opening on the bottom and lines
attached to the opening.

"Do you know what this means?"

C'baoth shook his head. "No idea. Remember, I haven't even looked at this."

"This is the Greek letter Omega," the diplomat explained. "Voyager's
computer held highly classified information on certain experimental
projects. We use Greek letters to designate such projects.

"But why would you put such confidential information on a starship?"
C'baoth objected. "Wouldn't it be better secured down there on Earth?
After all, the best security for any computer system is complete
isolation..."

The diplomats exchanged sheepish glances; apparently none of them had
ever considered that idea before. "Nevertheless," the lead started
again, "such information was present in /Voyager/'s systems and is now
here on this chip you've given us, obviously now decrypted. While I
commend you for your honesty, the fact remains that members of your
vessel, a representative of your government, breached our security for
questionable reasons.

"What I am getting at," he continued, "is that since none of us can be
absolutely certain that this is the only copy—that includes you, since
if others handled this chip you have no way of telling if they made
copies—we first demand a formal, written apology for the situation, and
a statement of good faith. Secondly, since some of the information
contained in /Voyager/'s systems concerns technologies restricted by the
Prime Directive such as warp drive, but also highly classified
technologies such as Omega, and we must assume at least some members of
your crew have seen this information, we demand full access to similar
technologies that you have been withholding from us, such as hyperspace
technology."

"Stop right there," C'baoth said, holding up his hand. "I am bound by
similar rules much like this Prime Directive that prohibit my freely
giving out information on hyperspace technologies. Namely, I am
forbidden on distributing any hyperspace technology information to
governments that are not members of the Republic. As much as I want to
help make reparations for the damages we have caused, knowingly or
unknowingly, we cannot simply give you access to hyperdrive technologies
unless you join the Republic.

"It seems we have a problem then," the diplomat said. "Because there is
no way the Federation will be willing to join a government that so
freely condones the violation of sovereign privacies of independent
nations."

C'baoth stood up, drawing himself to his impressive full height.
"Speaking as the direct representative of the Republic on the Outbound
Flight mission, let me state for the record that I have not, nor will I
ever, condone what was done by my crew. By extension, the Republic has
not, nor will it ever condone what happened."

"That remains to be seen," he said, and the entire Federation diplomatic
team came to its feet. "Good day."


C'baoth watched them leave before sitting down and shaking his head. How
did this mess even happen? They had been so far along in the talks
before this had broken...




* * *




C'baoth watched impassively in the conference room aboard Spacedock as
the scheduled time drew closer. It had been two days since the
Federation had broken off the talks, and after much petitioning on his
part they had finally agreed to come back to the table. However, he
wasn't quite sure what they would pull this time, when a short,
dark-haired man with strongly chiseled features walked into the room.

"Master C'baoth," he introduced himself, "I am Commodore Shimazaki from
Starfleet. I will be responsible for handling the negotiations from this
point on."

"A pleasure to meet you," C'baoth replied, taking the offered hand and
shaking it. "I have been looking forward to finishing the negotiations."

"As have I," the Commodore said as he sat down at the table. "However,
as my predecessors so stridently noted, we have a very sticky issue in
the form of /Voyager's /data breach, namely, the reparations for it."

"Duly noted," C'baoth said without a hint of emotion.

"First, let me state that as a Starfleet officer charged with keeping
the Prime Directive, I respect your need to honor your own directives.
However, that still does not excuse you or your crew from their actions.
So, I suppose my question would be, what technologies are not covered by
this directive that may be used to repay the damages?"

"I—" C'baoth was cut short as red alert klaxons began blaring across the
station. "What's that?"

Shimazaki, equally confused, tapped his communicator. "Spacedock, status?"

"Mars Defense Perimeter breach, multiple contacts, one identified as Borg."

"What?" Both men came to their feet rapidly. "What about the others?"
Shimazaki asked.

"Unknown, technology consistent with Republic vessels."

Shimazaki turned to regard C'baoth with a barely hidden glare. "This had
better be good news. If it's an invasion..."

C'baoth shrugged. "I'm just as much in the dark as you. Remember, we
came here un-escorted."

The Commodore seemed to weigh his options. "Well, come with me to the
situation room, perhaps you can help us figure this one out."


When they arrived in Spacedock's situation room, C'baoth finally had a
clear view of the ships. One was a massive wedge bristling with weapons,
very similar in fact to the /Venator/ and /Acclamator/-class designs
Kuat had started to produce just before they had left, although its
bridge had a distinct Corellian influence. The others he could
immediately tell were freighters, their boxy shape and lack of weapons
making it very clear. The last one was a misshapen pyramid, its edges
jagged and its sides cratered. From what C'baoth could tell, it was
being towed by the warship.

"With the exception of the Borg piece, those are certainly Republic
vessels," C'baoth said after several moments. "I cannot identify the
design but I know what shipyard made them. They must be newer designs
than what were being made when we left."

"And what about the Borg?" Shimazaki demanded.

C'baoth frowned. "The only explanation I can see is they were attacked
by the Borg the same way we were, and simply saved a remainder of one of
the cubes for study."

Shimazaki shook his head. "Normally I'd agree except these are the Borg
we are talking about here. If that piece grows back any sort of weapons
or a transwarp conduit we have a very bad situation on our hands." He
walked over to one of the communication operators. "Have you managed to
raise them yet?"

"No," the operator replied. "They may be using different equipment from
the Outbound Flight, or they may not even have subspace equipment."

C'baoth walked up behind them. "Commodore, if I may suggest, why don't
you try contacting Captain Avin and see if he's made contact yet? I'm
sure we've also been watching since they arrived."

Commodore Shimazaki turned to the operator. "Do it."

"Captain," C'baoth said once the feed came up. "Any luck with the new
arrivals?"

"Actually, yes," Avin replied. "It's a Corellian expedition sent here to
recover us. We were just giving them instructions on how to get their
comms working with the Federation systems." He paused for a moment.
"Here we go, they say they're ready now."

"I have them," the communications operator reported.

"On screen," Shimazaki ordered.

Three figures appeared on screen, standing in the middle of a large,
expansive bridge. One was an older Corellian man, the second a
crimson-haired woman and the third couldn't have been much more than a
boy. C'baoth immediately had the latter two pegged as Jedi, most likely
a Master and Padawan.

"This is Captain Justis Sicuro of the Corellian cruiser /Vigorous/, here
with Jedi Knights Mara Jade Skywalker and Anakin Solo." He paused to
look at the Commodore and Master C'baoth. "We come in peace, on a
mission from the New Republic to recover the Outbound Flight."

C'baoth's brow furrowed at the words. "I am Master Jorus C'baoth of the
Outbound Flight."

Shimazaki stepped up. "And I am Commodore Kazuaki Shimazaki of the
United Federation of Planets Starfleet. Master C'baoth and I were just
in the middle of negotiations, as a matter of fact."

"If I may," C'baoth broke in, "you say you're from the /New /Republic.
Can you explain?"

"We would be more than happy to," Mara replied. "Master Dellen had the
same reaction as you. Is there somewhere we can meet?"

Shimazaki cleared his throat. "We will send a shuttle for your
delegation," he paused, "but first I must ask, what do you intend to do
with the Borg remnants you have under tow?

"I was actually hoping you could tell us," Captain Sicuro replied. "We
were attacked by a total of five Borg vessels, three of which were
heavily armored. This piece had very low power levels and faint
lifesigns after the battle."

Had the human body actually been capable of its jaw reaching the floor,
as the oft-used saying implied, the situation room aboard Spacedock (and
the bridges of every other Starfleet ship within earshot) would have
been filled with the sounds of jaws impacting floor panels. As it was,
there was only dumbfounded silence as most of the Starfleet staff just
stood there, mouths agape.

"Did..." Commodore Shimazaki paused to compose himself. "Did you say you
were attacked by /five/ Borg vessels? All cubes, or were some of them
smaller?" He was now desperately trying to rationalize this, if they had
been attacked by some of the smaller spheres, then he could understand
it, but cubes....

"Cubes. As I said, three of them were heavily armored."

/And tactical models, on top of it all.../

"And you destroyed them all, just like that?"

"It wasn't easy," Sicuro admitted. "They were very persistent, and took
one of our freighters carrying hyperdrive components in tow several
times. We had to jump ahead of them and target their trajectory with our
batteries to force them out of warp. They also grew more resistant to
our weapons over time, although simply increasing our firepower restored
the balance."

Mentally, Shimazaki's thoughts were running along the lines of, /I have
to get me one of those./ Instead, he said, "I'm going to request that
you tow their remains outside Mars orbit, where we can study them in a
controlled fashion. We will send a shuttle to meet you there."

"Agreed," Sicuro replied and the view shut off, to be replaced by a
telescopic shot of the new arrivals. Sure enough, the warship began to
turn about.

"Why is it," Shimazaki said in mock desperation, "that you people tend
to show up without any sort of warning, carrying very dangerous items?
First it was your ship with Voyager attached and its core about to go
critical, now your rescue party shows up towing Borg. What next?"

"I'm not sure you want to ask that," C'baoth said in a half-warning
tone. "The Force has a habit of answering requests like that."


A short time later, C'baoth, Shimazaki, Mara Jade and Anakin were seated
in Spacedock's conference room.

"I think you need to start," C'baoth began, "with what happened to the
Republic."

Mara looked sidelong at Anakin before nodding. "I'll try to make it
short. You were Chancellor Palpatine's personal advisor for a number of
years, correct?"

"Yes." C'baoth wasn't entirely sure what that question meant.

"Did you ever notice anything... odd... about him?"

C'baoth concentrated for a minute or two. "Not really, he was a bit
eccentric but then again, so are most of us."

"So he never did anything to, say, suggest that he was dabbling in
ancient Sith arts?"

The Jedi Master's frown deepened. "No..."

Mara sighed. "Well, might as well get it all out at once. It turned out
that Chancellor Palpatine was a charade. He was really Darth Sidious,
the Sith master the Jedi had been looking for for years. But before
anyone knew this, he took Anakin Skywalker under his wing, gradually
corrupting his morals until, in a final confrontation between Sidious
and Master Windu, Anakin struck and killed Master Windu. From that point
on, he was known as Darth Vader. He single-handedly spearheaded the
extermination of the Jedi Order as you knew it. Palpatine went on to
create an Empire from the Republic, claiming the Jedi had turned traitor
and he would need more and more emergency powers until he declared
himself the sole Imperator and dismissed the Senate."

Now it was C'baoth's turn to have his mouth hang open. "But... Anakin
was the /Chosen One/!"

"In a sort of ironic, mysterious way, he was," Mara said. "What only
Obi-Wan and several others knew was that before his fall, Anakin made
Senator Amidala pregnant with twins. She died shortly after he fell, but
not before the twins were born. Obi-Wan split them up, the son, Luke, he
put with Anakin's adoptive relatives on Tatooine. Luke grew up and
eventually joined the Rebellion against the Empire, eventually becoming
one of the most important leaders. Finally, in a battle over Endor, Luke
faced both the Emperor and Darth Vader. He wasn't strong enough to
defeat the Emperor, who began to torture him.

Mara took a deep breath. "Apparently there was still good left in
Anakin, because he was unable to watch his son being killed by the
Emperor. He walked over, picked the Emperor up, taking a massive amount
of Force lightning in the process, and threw him into the bowels of the
Death Star. Anakin died shortly afterward."

"Thus restoring balance to the Force," C'baoth finished for her, shaking
his head. "I only have to wonder why so much destruction was necessary."
He looked up. "What was your role in this?"

"I was one of the Emperor's Hands," Mara finally said. "A Dark Jedi,
trained from a child to do his bidding. I was supposed to kill Luke, but
never could. I'm married to him now."

C'baoth did a double-take. "You... you did what? What happened to the Code?"

"You're the second person to have mentioned the Code," Mara replied.
"Master Dellen explained it to us on Coruscant. Unfortunately, it was
one of the teachings that was lost completely during the purge of the Jedi."

Across the table, Commodore Shimazaki lifted his head out of his hands
and spoke up. "Listen, this is a very fascinating history lesson, but
could someone /please/ tell me who we're negotiating with here?"

C'baoth turned to regard him. "Well, it would appear that the government
I represent no longer actually exists, thus giving me no jurisdiction to
conduct any negotiations. I suppose," he looked over at Mara and Anakin
before turning to the Commodore, "that means you get to start from
scratch with the New Republic representatives here."

Now it was Mara and Anakin's turn to look confused. "I hope someone can
fill us in," Anakin said after a brief period of silence.

Shimazaki shook his head and cleared his throat. "I suppose I can. When
the Outbound Flight came to this galaxy, they encountered Voyager and
offered to bring them home. After arrival, Master C'baoth opened
negotiations to offer the Federation a chance to join the Republic.
However, in the middle of said negotiations, we found evidence that
someone from the Outbound Flight had compromised Voyager's systems and
stolen confidential information. Master C'baoth returned the stolen data
to us, unencrypted. When you arrived, we were in the middle of trying to
work out reparations for the damage caused."

Mara blinked. "You know what, I don't even want to know just how that
chain of events happened. However, I've had to negotiate with a number
of world governments in exile to make reparations for damages inflicted
by the Empire, including entire worlds destroyed. This is nothing in
comparison. As the successors to the Empire and by implication the Old
Republic, we have full authority to repay any damages that may have been
caused. State your demands."

"We are seeking compensation for the time spent tracing the data breach,
time spent on repairs to Voyager's systems, and most importantly, since
most of our highly classified technology was discovered, unencrypted, on
the chip that Master C'baoth returned, we must assume that the Outbound
Flight now holds the necessary information to reproduce any of it. As
such, we seek technical information on advanced technologies that you
possess such as hyperdrives."

Mara sighed. "Well, first off, we can pay a generous amount for the time
and damages through a fund provided to us. Second, hyperdrive
technologies are closely guarded commercial secrets. Even though all our
ships have hyperdrives, none of us are aware of more than the basic
theory of operation, so we cannot provide you with the information you
would need to build one.

"However," Mara continued. "I am sure that the possibility of new
markets here would greatly excite a great number of shipbuilding
companies. Were you to become a member of the New Republic, a process
which would only involve the Federation holding a vote for membership,
picking a representative for the Senate and a majority approval process
once there, you would then have full access to the resources of our
galaxy in any technical matter, be it weapons, engines, or even medical
technologies."

"What happens to our own government?" Shimazaki asked. He knew it would
be the first question the President would ask him... "If we do decide to
join your New Republic, will we be forced to make any changes?"

"Again," Mara said, "note the key word member. We already have a number
of fully self-governed member states. The Hapes Consortium is one,
spanning about a hundred systems. We make no attempt to influence their
internal operations. When needed, we provide the services of our Navy
and in turn, they freely provide ships and crew when necessary for
emergencies. It's a sort of mutual defense pact with the added benefit
that your representative in the Senate has a voice in galactic politics.
You will be able to make your concerns known and also vote on issues
that affect everyone."

Shimazaki considered the offer. It did make a certain deal of sense; to
have access to a Navy with ships powerful enough to single-handedly
fight off multiple Borg vessels would instantly make them the single
most powerful force in the Alpha Quadrant, and could easily bring a end
to the war with the Dominion, which had been dragging on far too long.

"I like the offer," he finally said, "but I must discuss it with my
superiors. I also need whatever information you can provide. If you can
provide it, we can then meet here again in a few days."

"Certainly," the three Jedi said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR




It was, Han reflected, another beautiful day on Sernpidal. The system's typical
yellow star hung high in the sky, washing the plains with its bright light.
Various trees and grasses that Han still didn't remember the names for yet were
blowing in a gentle breeze, and the air, compared to most of the places like
Coruscant that Han was used to, was absolutely pristine.

Yet, to him, it seemed almost /too/ perfect. Then again, perhaps it was just the
old smuggler in him, itching for action. He could not even remember a time at
which he'd been settled down for even a month as they had been here on
Sernpidal. His life had always consisted of running from place to place, being
chased by authorities, chasing corrupt authorities, and other various excitement.

Han walked over to the Millennium Falcon with a slow, bored gait. As was the
norm for the now almost antique, war-weary freighter, something else had decided
to break, in this case, the remote-controlled blaster turret below the cockpit.
Chewie, who Han suspected was just as bored as he was, was currently hanging
halfway out of one of the /Falcon/'s access ports trying to find out where the
wiring had broken.

He almost envied the Wookiee. While he had spent a lot of his time pacing
restlessly (Sernpidal City had turned out to be a major disappointment as most
of the Sernpidilians were very mild-mannered and the city's only cantina was
deserted most of the time), Chewie had spent all his time tinkering on the
Falcon as was usual for him. One of the local junkyards had turned up some parts
from another YT-1300, which Han found somewhat surprising this far from
Coruscant, and as soon as Chewie had seen the parts he'd bought the whole bundle
of them and set about repairing minor glitches all over the ship.

The only problem with fixing a glitch on the Falcon was that it had a nasty
tendency to introduce a hundred other minor glitches, and after getting the
parts Chewie had almost completely disassembled half the ship in the effort to
fix them all. He'd managed to do it, but only after rebuilding almost a hundred
meters of wiring harness that had decayed from a half century of age and abuse.
It now worked better than before, except that after Chewie redid the harness the
remote blaster had gone bonkers, pointing in random directions whenever he tried
to aim it.

Han sighed. There had been times when he'd considered getting a new ship, but
the /Falcon/ was so much more than "just a ship" to him now – it was almost
alive with its temperamental behavior. Sure, newer ships were now faster, more
powerful, and carried heavier loads or more firepower, but Han had known for
years that part of navigating through hyperspace was your intuition. It was,
after all, the reason he had boasted to a young Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan
Kenobi that his ship had completed the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
It didn't really refer to speed at all as much as it did to his navigational
abilities.

/The good old days/, Han thought wistfully. Whatever had happened to the Galaxy?
It used to be simple enough, there was one evil enemy: the Galactic Empire. Now,
between all the political infighting and what seemed like yearly invasions by
various galactic and extragalactic races, Han wasn't sure who was the enemy
anymore. Everyone hated everyone else for one reason or another. In a way, Han
almost /missed/ the Empire, because it served as a catalyst, it was an enemy
that everyone could agree on.

Han looked up at the sky, seeing the light crescent of Dobido, the smaller of
Sernpidal's two moons, hanging in the distance, and sighed. Then a bright streak
of light flashed by, which wouldn't have been very unusual by itself but the
fact that it was followed by another several streaks caught his attention. Not
only that, but unlike meteors that usually vanished after a couple of seconds,
these left smoky trails in their wakes. On any other planet it could have been
space junk re-entering the atmosphere, if it wasn't for the fact that Sernpidal
was unusually uncluttered with debris...

"Chewie!" he shouted as he started walking backwards toward the /Falcon/. "How
close are you to getting that turret operational? I have a bad feeling..."

Chewie bellowed a reply.

"Well try to hurry it up, you never know when we'll need the/ Falcon." /Han
turned around and jogged in to the house.


"Hi, Han," Leia remarked as he entered. "What's the look for?"

Han shrugged as he sat down and thumbed on the vidscreen. "I don't know," he
finally admitted. "Maybe I'm just too tense, but I saw some re-entry trails when
I was outside. It didn't look like meteorites or space junk to me."

"Are you sure?" Leia asked. "Remember, we used to see those on Coruscant all the
time."

Han nodded. "Yeah, and Coruscant's practically a battlefield, there's so much
junk in orbit that it's a miracle more ships aren't lost to it. This place, on
the other hand, doesn't have much of anything larger than a shockball flying
around up there, and one of those pieces would burn up real quick. No, those
things I saw were spaceship sized or larger."

As he was talking, Han had idly been flipping through the holo channels. Most of
it was pre-recorded programs, dramas or documentaries, and some of the major
sector news channels. He finally reached Sernpidal's local news, but of course
there was nothing happening, one of the local farmers had reported all his crops
dying but that was about it.

"Well, I guess you're right," Han said finally, standing up to go pour himself a
drink. "With all the talk about these invaders, whoever they are, I'm just on
edge a little."

Leia smiled and walked up to her husband, wrapping herself around him. "I'm sure
everything's all right, Han. What would anyone want with a planet like this,
anyway?"


Several hours later, Han was jolted out of the doze he'd fallen into in front of
the vidscreen by a news flash. He was somewhat surprised to see the planet's old
Mayor on the screen, while the faint sounds of blaster shots rang out in the
distance. Without thinking, Han hit the "record" button on his remote.

"Residents of Sernpidal," the old man began with a wheeze that was hinted with
sadness, "it unfortunately falls to me to inform you that we are under attack by
an unknown force."

As if to punctuate his statement, there was a loud crash and some dust was
shaken loose from the building he was in.

"Sernpidal City has already been captured, and while the remaining police in the
city are trying to recapture it, the situation is grim. If any of you have
ships, get as many people as you can and leave. Try to send a message to
Coruscant, I doubt they will listen but we can at least--"

There was a loud crash from behind him as one of the doors was blown open.
Several strange-looking humanoid forms, their bodies showing exposed horn-like
growths in random places, ran through the doorway and took up positions around
the room. Several screams of panic came from off camera, and the Mayor turned
around only to face the incoming aliens. "/Guvvuk!/" one of them grunted before
pointing his staff at the old Mayor. The mayor backed up—then the feed suddenly
shut off.

Han sat motionless for several seconds, dazed. "Leia!" he finally shouted as he
sprung off the seat as fast as he could. "Get our stuff, we have to leave NOW!"
He grabbed a datachip with the recording and ran outside to find Chewie, who had
apparently finished putting the panels back on the Falcon, watching more bizarre
looking ships landing in Sernpidal City in the distance.

"Chewie, the city's under attack, the mayor's said that anyone who can get off
should do so now. Is the Falcon ready to go?"

Chewie barked an affirmative.

"OK, Chewie, I'm going to get Leia down here to watch the ship, we'll take turns
loading it. Start the pre-flight checks in the meantime."

As Han spun about to head back inside, Chewie chuffed and walked up the Falcon's
extended ramp.

He found Leia inside, packing some of their memoirs in the bedroom. "Here, I'll
finish that," Han told her. "I need you to finish prepping the Falcon so that
Chewie can help me load. If anything happens, call me on the commlink."

Leia looked sad. "And we only just moved in, too..." She gave Han a brief kiss
before walking out.

Han quickly grabbed a bag and started stuffing it with the most important items
he could think of. A couple minutes later, Chewie walked in, ducking his head to
avoid hitting it on the low (for a Wookiee) doorway.

"Chewie, can you get the safe over there?"

The Wookiee barked in agreement, picked up the safe, and walked out again.
Moments later, Han followed him.

When they reached the Falcon, Han immediately went to the cockpit after
unloading. "Honey, is there anything else we need?"

"You got the safe?"

"Chewie's putting it in the hold."

Leia thought for a moment. "Get the holodisks in the library, we'll need those.
And anything else you can think of. Oh, and have you seen Threepio?"

As Han and Chewie ran down the ramp back toward the house, Han spotted a small
group of Sernpidilians running toward them in the distance. "Chewie, go ahead
and get it and try to find Threepio, I'll take care of them," he said, stopping
to watch. Farther behind, he could see a large group of people that he couldn't
really identify, but the Sernpidilians seemed to be running from them.

Chewie emerged from the house carrying the library and quickly took it up the
ramp into the hold. Some distance behind him, Threepio shuffled through the
dust, struggling to keep up with the Wookiee. As he returned to the ramp, the
first of the Sernpidilians ran up up to the /Falcon/.

"What's going on?" Han asked.

The Sernpidilian gestured to the larger group, which was now not far behind. His
Basic was broken, but otherwise acceptable. "Those... those things are trying to
kill us, they destroyed our groundcar and our house already. Some of us were
wounded trying to escape."

Han looked at the oncoming group, fear slowly rising in his mind. "Chewie, can
you help them get the wounded on board?"

The Wookiee yelped slightly, going down and picking up an albino woman who could
barely walk. Han ducked inside the Falcon and ran to the cockpit.

"How close are we?" he asked Leia.

"Engines are almost ready, I think another two minutes and we'll be ready for
takeoff."

Han sat down in the pilot's seat and started checking the instruments. He was
interrupted a short time later by an exclamation from Leia, which made him look up.

"They're attacking our groundcar," Leia said, which made Han look in the
direction she was pointing. The car, a used SoroSuub that they had picked up
when they came here, was surrounded by the same kind of strange-looking
creatures that Han had seen on the vidscreen. They were all swinging their
staffs at it, destroying the windscreen and wheels and putting gashes and dents
in the metal.

Han frowned. "That's bizarre... they're focused on destroying the car more than
attacking the refugees..."

There was a tinny exclamation from somewhere in the passenger compartment.
Apparently Threepio had taken some sort of offense to the assault. Han sighed,
he was probably scaring the passengers more than calming them down, but he
couldn't leave the cockpit right now.

Apparently satisfied with the damage they had done to the poor car, the
creatures turned their attention to the /Falcon/. Their apparent leader, a tall,
hideously ugly thing, pulled something out of a pouch on his shoulder and
suddenly threw it toward the /Falcon/. Han could see it come flying toward the
cockpit, and he ducked involuntarily as there was a small explosion against the
transparisteel. When he looked back up at it, there was no damage aside from a
small scorch mark where the projectile had exploded.

"Nobody attacks my ship!" Han exploded as he reached for the controls for the
remote blaster, hoping quietly that Chewie had gotten it working properly this
time. The targeting grid came up, and Han took aim at the group, spraying them
with blaster shots. Several of the ones in the lead went down, but the group was
at least several dozen strong. Han kept up his fire, mowing them down as they
approached. By the time they reached the /Falcon /and Han was forced to stop
firing, there were perhaps a dozen left. Although he already knew the answer, he
glanced up at the status lights, which confirmed that the ship was still nowhere
near ready to blast off.

"Chewie!" he shouted. "We've got company!"

He heard a bellow in acknowledgement, and the next thing he saw was a spread of
bowcaster bolts shoot out, taking several more of the strange creatures down. He
jumped up and drew his blaster, already running for the landing ramp to prevent
them from entering. One of the older Sernpidilians, barely able to walk, was
hanging on to the padding of one of the bulkheads where Chewie had left him. Han
quickly grabbed the old man and took him to the acceleration couch, then dashed
back to the ramp. What he saw next left his jaw hanging open.

Chewie was in the center of the dozen or so creatures. He had grabbed one of
them and was swinging him around as a club, battering the others down until they
were bloody and broken. As he watched, Chewie swung and two creatures went
flying backwards almost two meters, landing with a sickening crash.

As close as they were, Han couldn't fire for fear of hitting Chewie, and he
dared not get up close since he neither had a lightsaber nor was trained on one.
He just watched in shock, blaster ready for an opportunity that didn't seem
ready to come.

Finally it was down to just Chewie and the heavily armored leader of the group,
a creature that Han would readily describe as a "kriffin' ugly
son-of-a-Gundark." Bony horns stuck out from all its joints, its face was
hideously disfigured with protruding teeth, deep scars, and numerous tattoos. In
its hand was some sort of long staff, which it twirled menacingly as it and
Chewie circled, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Suddenly Chewie lunged at the creature. Its staff suddenly writhed in its hand
like a snake, spitting at Chewie who suddenly roared in pain and grabbed his
eyes. Apparently blinded, Chewie lunged again at the creature and missed. It
swung its staff, now hardened again, and the sharpened edge bit deep into
Chewie's leg. The Wookiee, in pain and suddenly off balance, crashed into the
creature and sent both of them to the ground, the snake-like staff sent flying
to land a short distance away. Even from his vantage point on the ramp, Han
could hear bones crack from the impact.

However, Chewbacca didn't even pause for a second. He immediately grabbed the
creature's arm and wrenched it in an unnatural angle despite the creature's best
efforts. Han could hear more bones popping and there was a sickening /crunch/ as
the arm was torn from its socket.

"Chewie, look out!" Han shouted. The staff had managed to crawl back into it's
master's hand. Chewie recoiled when he heard Han, holding the arm he'd torn off
as if it were a club. The creature, coming back to its feet swung its staff at
its now-detached arm, cutting it in half. Still blinded, Chewie backed up
several paces toward the /Falcon /but Han was still forced to hold his fire.

Chewie dropped low and lunged once again, apparently intending to tackle the
creature's legs and knock him over. The creature, blood spurting from its arm's
stump but not even showing a reaction to the pain, swung its staff again. It hit
Chewie squarely in the chest and sent him off balance, yet he still managed to
grab one of the creature's legs and pull hard. There was another /crunch/ as its
leg now suddenly had a backwards-facing joint. Suddenly off balance, it came
crashing down towards Chewie, its one good arm brandishing the staff for a
killing stroke--

"NO!" Han shouted, aiming his blaster in a heartbeat straight at the creature's
eyes and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately it was already moving fast enough
that the shot missed, instead striking its shoulder armor and knocking it aside
but not killing it. The staff dug itself into the ground, and Han fired again,
knocking it backwards, reeling. Before it could pull the staff out, Chewie was
again on top of it, his claws – which Han had /never/ seen him use before in the
thirty-some odd years he'd known the Wookiee — fully outstretched as he tore at
the joints in the creature's armor with an earsplitting roar. The armor cracked
at its seam in a fashion that sort of reminded Han of the last time he'd eaten a
hard-shelled sea creature that he couldn't remember the name of, and Chewie
ripped it off, his claws once again retracted.

In the meantime, the staff had pulled /itself/ out and slithered back to its
master's hand yet again. Before Han could say anything, the hand just barely
twitched and the staff hardened instantly. A moment later, the arm swung, the
staff plunging straight through Chewie's back.

Chewie roared in pain at the blow, but his roar was tinted with a gurgle that
Han knew all too well was due to the wound. He began to run down the ramp, his
overdeveloped sense of self-preservation thrown to the wind, but stopped as
Chewie, still impaled on the staff, tore off the creature's head with a
sickening /pop/ as blood suddenly spurted everywhere. Its body thrashed beneath
Chewie in protest but went still after several seconds as the Wookiee continued
to twist and crush.

Suddenly free from its master, the staff went limp and began to writhe, causing
Chewie to again roar in pain (although he sounded much weaker this time).

"Hold on, Chewie," Han shouted as he took careful aim at the staff's apparent
'head' and fired. The head exploded and the staff went still. Chewie weakly
grabbed the staff and pulled it out, flinging it aside.

As he ran up to Chewie, Leia came up behind him. He took one look at the gaping
wound in the Wookiee's chest and tore a strip off his shirt, packing it into the
wound, which was bleeding so profusely that he wasn't sure how much good it
would do. Several more strips he used to create a tourniquet around his leg.
Then he tried to lift Chewie off of the dead creature and carry him up to the
ship, but couldn't even move the weight.

"He's too heavy," he said, panting as he was doubled over. "Maybe if we work
together we can drag him up..."

"It's worth a try," Leia agreed.

Together, they struggled to pull Chewie, whose fur was slick with both his and
the enemy's blood, up the ramp and into the /Falcon's /medical berth. Chewie
moaned weakly as Han hooked him up to the life support equipment.

"Come on, don't say that," Han pleaded as he unwound the hose for the oxygen
mask. "Lando has enough medical staff on Dubrillion that I'm sure they'll be
able to patch you right up.

Chewie chuffed a reply, coughing blood immediately afterwards.

"Of course I'm sure they have Wookiee sized equipment," Han shot back, a faint
hint of his trademark lopsided smile creeping across his face. He was glad to
see that Chewie was at least strong enough to make a joke as he grabbed a
handful of bacta patches and sterile bandages out of one of the drawers. "Can
you lean over at all?"

Chewie lifted his side enough for Han to reach under, wincing as he felt the
pool of blood, and pack more bandages into the wound to try and stop it from
bleeding.

"Han!" Leia shouted from the cockpit. "There's more coming! The ramp's up but
these guys are packing more firepower." As if to punctuate her statement, the
ship rocked from... well, /something /hitting it.

Han quickly strapped Chewie in, and put his hand on the Wookiee's shoulder.
"Hang in there, old buddy," he said as he got up, trying hard to suppress the
choking sensation in his throat. "I'll be right back." He ran to the cockpit,
briefly checking that their passengers were strapped in to the acceleration
couch, and threw himself into the pilot's seat next to his wife.

With a jolt, the Falcon suddenly rose into the air and Han spun it around to
face the new group of attackers. Surrounded by the same small creatures that he
had seen earlier was a large, snail-like creature that seemed to be vomiting
glowing golden orbs of something, perhaps plasma, that appeared to lazily drift
towards him. Another one impacted and a warning alarm blazed on the console, so
Han quickly slaved the turrets forward and blasted the creature with all of the
/Falcon/'s turbolasers as he shoved the throttles all the way forward, blasting
out of the atmosphere.

"Oh, kriff..." Han muttered as the /Falcon/ ran headlong into exactly what he'd
been expecting to find in orbit: the warship behind the invasion. What he hadn't
expected was its appearance. It was a massive, Star Destroyer-sized lump of
rock, with crags and spines sticking out of it almost at random. Although it
certainly looked rocky, it didn't look like your usual asteroid – there was an
almost /sinister/ feel to it./ /Suddenly a horde of tiny specks, glittering in
the light from Sernpidal's distant star, seemed to detach themselves from the
massive asteroid-ship, and Han knew exactly why.

"Do you have a course for Dubrillion yet?"

"I'm working on it!" Leia snapped back. "Even a navicomp out of /a Dreadnaught/
would be an improvement on this piece of junk!/"/

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Han muttered, throwing the /Falcon/ into a
series of evasive maneuvers as the specks drew closer, golden orbs flying
through the void. Farther behind the /Falcon/, the sensors were telling Han that
there were perhaps another hundred fleeing ships. He turned the squelch down on
the comm, listening to some of the random chatter as he watched the attacking
ships approach all too rapidly. The refugees were scared and disorganized, and
not many of them seemed to know where to go. Well, he could give them a better
chance than nothing, he thought, keying his comm to a known broadcast frequency
and praying that Kyp's guess that the invaders didn't communicate on normal
frequencies was correct.

"All Sernpidal survivors, this is Han Solo, captain of the /Millennium Falcon/.
The nearest world capable of taking you is Dubrillion. We will transmit
coordinates shortly."

Whether they followed or not, Han was at least satisfied that he'd done what he
could to help.

Then the attackers hit them.


Of the fleeing ships that were armed, such as the /Falcon/, most opened fire as
soon as they could on the strange vaguely fighter-shaped but very rock-like
craft that were now slicing through them. In any other situation, it would have
resulted in at least a few enemies damaged or destroyed, but for some reason Han
found himself unable to hit the fighters, the /Falcon/'s turbolaser shots
seeming to bend around them, or, on occasion, outright vanish. The other refugee
ships were faring no better, with some of their shots actually hitting other
ships instead of the intended targets.

As the /Falcon/ lurched from another impact, shield warning lights flashing all
over the console, a thought passed through Han's mind about just how unfair the
universe was sometimes. It was just as quickly put out of his mind as Leia told
him that the coordinates were ready. He quickly keyed the comm. "Han Solo here,
transmitting coordinates." Then, double-checking the coordinates, he pulled back
on the two hyperdrive controls... and the only action was the sound of the
gravity well alarm as the hyperdrive refused to activate.

"What the..." Han muttered a number of choice Old Corellian curses under his
breath as he frantically tried to figure out what was causing the well. They
were already well outside Sernpidal's gravity well, so the only other thing that
could possibly be causing it...

He looked up at the asteroid-ship in the distance, which barely looked like a
speck at the range they were at now. He suddenly knew that they had to get as
far away as possible from it, and thanks to the nature of gravity, the other
side of Sernpidal would give them a better chance...

He keyed the comm again. "The ship out there's interdicting us, we can't go to
hyperspace until we get away from it first. Our best bet is to dive through
Sernpidal's gravity well and go to hyperspace on the opposite side of the planet."

Acting quickly, Han spun the Falcon and punched the throttle, diving at an angle
that would take him on an arc just barely above the outermost reaches of the
planet's atmosphere. Any lower, Han knew, and they'd hit the rarefied air and
slow down. Far behind, the nearest of the other refugee ships started the same
maneuver.

All of a sudden, cries broke out frantically from the comm. "It's taken down my
shields!"

Han grimaced, knowing what was coming. His eyes drifted to the throttle, but it
was already set at the maximum, and the /Falcon/ was still accelerating,
blasting away on a tangent towards the planet and hopefully freedom.

"Mine are down too!" another voice exclaimed, followed by several cries of "I'm
hit!" Far back in the line, the sensors registered an explosion, the first of
what Han hoped were /very/ few.

"My hull is melting!"

"That's because they're firing molten rocks at us!" someone else replied with
absolute certainty. Han thought sarcastically that the person had to be a
scientist, as there was no way for an /ordinary person/ to be that sure/.
/Although as amusing as the thought was, he definitely had a point. Turbolasers
ran at such a high power level that they tended to vaporize on contact. As a
result, armor plating manufacturers took one of two routes: they either designed
the plating to ablate away as it was hit, which was the preferred kind for small
ships, or they designed it to conduct and radiate energy faster than it could be
pumped in. That was generally the preferred armor for warships, since it meant
they could slug it out longer in a firefight.

The increasingly frantic cries on the comm, Han considered, showed the exact
weakness of the ablative armor. If you didn't hit it hard enough to vaporize the
outer layers, if you just warmed it up, then it would simply transfer all the
heat to the structure reinforcing it. Of course, such low-power weapons took
forever to work, which was why nobody used them... or at least that's what Han
had previously thought.

Han didn't even want to think about the poor bastards in the makeshift convoy
that didn't even have armor.

"Kriff!" he exclaimed as all the sensor warning lights light up on the console
at the same time as a flash of plasma streaked right by the cockpit, indicating
that there was a bogey right behind him. He tried several twists and turns to
shake the attacker, to no avail.

"Get one of the turrets, I can't shake 'em," Han said to Leia as he strained the
Falcon's inertial compensators in another turn. As quickly as she could,
considering the almost vomit-inducing maneuvers that Han was putting the ship
through, she unbuckled herself and made her way to the turret.

Han heard her open fire a scant few seconds later, followed by cursing a few
seconds after that. "I can't hit it, my shots keep disappearing," she said
through the comm as she continued her efforts to hit the attacker.

They were now halfway around Sernpidal, and the warship had just disappeared
behind the planet's bulk. Up ahead, all Han could see with both his eyes and the
sensors was open space. He snorted to himself; these invaders were pretty inept
if they were trying to run a blockade with only one warship.

Another part of his mind disagreed, considering the fact that perhaps a blockade
wasn't their /aim/, maybe they just wanted the planet and any people they
captured were a nice bonus.

But didn't that defeat the purpose of sneak attacks if you let people get away?

"Aww, somebody else got 'em," Leia lamented suddenly, snapping Han out of his
thoughts in an instant.

"Tell them I send my regards," he dryly replied, which resulted in a snort on
the other end. "See any more?"

"Not around here," Leia replied, "but there are a few harassing some ships at
the end of the line from what I can tell."

"Then get back up here," he said. "If these freaks don't pull another
Interdictor out of their hat, we can make the jump in about two minutes."

/Thank the Force/, Han thought. Sure enough, there was no sign of any enemy
craft by the time they cleared Sernpidal's gravity well, and almost as soon as
Han had pulled the controls, sending them on their way to Dubrillion, he jumped
out of his seat and ran back to the medical berth.

"Chewie?" he asked as he crashed to his knees next to the berth, wincing as he
did so. He was going to be feeling /that/ one in the morning.

The Wookiee weakly turned his head toward Han, moaning something that he could
barely understand. He looked up at the lifesign monitors and his face went pale.

"Hang in there, Chewie," he repeated, hoping against all hope that his old
companion would find the will to continue living as he grabbed more bandages and
packed them into the still bleeding wound. He then grabbed a hydration bag from
one of the compartments, hung it up above Chewie, and quickly stuck its drip
needle into Chewie's arm. "We'll be there in less than a day."

Using what little was left of his strength, Chewie moved his arm, still soaked
in blood, to put it on Han's shoulder. He moaned softly again then coughed,
blood trickling out of his mouth as he did.

"No, Chewie, you can't say that!" Han insisted strongly. "You'll make it!"

Chewie repeated the moan, softer this time. He gasped and coughed, more blood
coming out, and he barely managed to gasp out one last word.

Then he was gone.


Han was silent for what seemed like an eternity as he watched Chewie's lifeless
form lying before him on the berth, frustrated by the utter hopelessness of the
situation. Chewie was gone, despite everything he could do, and yet he still
felt guilty, almost wishing that he had been the one down fighting the creature.

It didn't matter to him right now that Chewie, in his last words, had told him
that his life debt was fulfilled.

For the first time since he was a child, Han broke down, screaming at the
injustice of the universe. His screams got quieter and quieter until he was
finally sobbing uncontrollably with his head on Chewie's chest.

At some point during his outburst Leia had heard him from the cockpit and came
to see what was going on. She didn't say a word, just kneeling down next to him,
gently reaching out. He didn't even notice as she pulled him up against her. Her
gesture said more than words ever could.

How long he continued weeping that day, he would never be able to tell.

I remember when Chewbacca died the first time, I felt gyped. It wasn't a very heroic death for the old Wookie, and I always felt that Anakin hadn't deserved that sacrifice. The way he was written in that book was very unsympathetic and it made me think of him as the spoiled brat of an entire galaxy.
This just tore open an old wound and filled my heart with tears-while at the same time, letting Chewie have his last hurah. Well done, I'll admit that what you've done here is a work of words that outperforms the original Death of Chewbacca. And that it's power is measured not just in cracking carapace and torn off heads.

And so it begins. The way this has been going so far is a damned sight better than the original NJO. Great stuff. I'll echo Vehrec in saying yours was much much more fitting and dignified end for everyone's favorite Wookie than the nonsense of the NJO.

Since nobody in the Writer's Guild had anything to say, here's the latest installment for the rest of you. Sorry for the long delay, blah blah... I know, that always seems to happen with my updates.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE




Jacen tried to calm himself inside the cockpit of the TIE Advanced as he
watched the spinning asteroid field in front of him. They had been on
Lando's latest crazy moneymaking scheme, a space station appropriately
named /Belt-Runner I/ located on the edge of Dubrillion's asteroid belt,
for almost a week now. Of course, that part hadn't surprised Jacen since
asteroid mining was a fairly common industry in the galaxy.

What had surprised him was that Lando had plotted a course along a
certain area of the mostly stable asteroid belt, named it "Lando's
Folly," and gone about selling the chance to fly through it in a TIE
fighter to anyone willing—and insane enough—to pay.

Naturally Lando insisted it was perfectly safe, explaining that the TIE
fighters were protected by brand-new repulsorlift shields projected from
/Belt-Runner I/. Jacen, however, had his misgivings despite the so-far
perfect track record that Lando said the course had.

Jaina had been the first to jump at the chance, and had been trying to
convince Lowie, Tenel Ka and himself for the whole week they'd been
there to try their hands at beating the lowest time, which ironically
enough had been set by Kyp Durron himself before the Dozen-and-Two had
been utterly trashed at Helska.

Finally Jacen had agreed, at which point Lando put them through a
roughly hour-long training that had included the fighter controls, a
simulation of a crash into an asteroid (which felt to Jacen as if he was
inside one of the largest pool balls ever) and how all the craft had a
limited on-board hyperdrive set to take them back to a recovery area
outside the belt.

Not that it made him feel any more confident.

Jaina of course had wanted to take the course first, despite her only
having a single good eye, and right now she had just passed the first
marker. Over the comm, he heard her whoop as he assumed she narrowly
avoided some asteroids. Several seconds later, it was his turn to launch.

He gritted his teeth, and the TIE fighter shot out of the launch
catapult in /Belt-Runner I/'s hangar with a howl that reverberated
through the whole craft as the engines kicked in. Jacen hung on to the
controls, keeping the TIE within the envelope displayed on its
simplified targeting displays.

The numbers on the screen counted down to zero, and it was time to go
in. He punched the throttle, rolling the fighter in between a couple of
large asteroids that were only gently spinning. The craft shook a little
as it was pummeled with smaller fragments, but none actually hit the
ship thanks to the repulsor fields.

Keeping his attention only partially focused on the course map shown on
the targeting computer, Jacen let himself slip into the Force as he
continued to twist and jink among the asteroids. Dimly, he could feel
Jaina doing the same as she neared the end of the course.

A particularly large and jagged asteroid loomed ahead of him, and he
reached out to get a feel for what surrounded it. Quickly, he brought
the TIE almost straight in at the asteroid, diving into a large, shallow
canyon on its surface a moment later. As he did so, several other
asteroids spun through the place he had been just a moment before.

With a triumphant shout, he pulled the TIE hard out of the canyon and
back onto the course, weaving his way through a series of smaller rocks.

He suddenly hit the reverse thrusters as he saw the corridor he'd been
planning on taking close suddenly. Thinking quickly, Jacen spun the TIE
hard on its axis and punched upwards, finding another corridor—

Then a rock, strangely fast-moving compared to the rest of them, slammed
into the repulsor shields, sending him careening off course. He focused,
firmly grabbing at the stick and trying to keep firing the thrusters to
get back on track, but the impact had been too hard for him to correct
immediately. He saw the next one coming, and tried to spin the TIE
around to point its powerful engines at the rock before he hit. This
time he managed to minimize the effect of the impact, although when he
hit, it effectively canceled out the sideways momentum he'd built up and
he simply hung, momentarily stunned and drifting, as the asteroids
drifted past him.

/Jacen?/ Jaina's thoughts hit him suddenly. /Are you all right/?

/Yes,/ he responded after several seconds, trying to re-compose himself.
/I think I've blown any chance I had at the record though./

He felt her wanting to laugh but not wanting to break her concentration.
Meanwhile, he re-oriented his TIE, taking care to not slip backwards in
the belt (which would immediately disqualify him), punching the throttle
and again accelerating against the orbit of the belt.

This time, he was much more cautious, having already blown his chance at
beating Kyp's record. As he passed the first marker, he felt Tenel Ka's
apprehension behind him as it was now her turn to navigate the belt.
Thankfully for her, the TIEs had a single control stick, which she could
easily use with her hand.

He emerged untouched another twenty minutes later, letting out a
relieved sigh now that it was over as the TIE's autopilot kicked in,
taking him back to the station.

As the station's tractor beams snagged him and began to draw the fighter
in, he could already feel Jaina's excitement, which unfortunately he
didn't share. Exhausted and slightly dizzy from the trip, he climbed out
of the TIE's cockpit up the extended ladder, where Jaina was waiting for
him.

"Gimme five!" she shouted, obviously happy. "You should have seen it, I
even managed to beat Kyp's record!"

He gave her the lopsided smile he'd inherited from his father. "Great
work, sis," he said as he turned to find a monitor.

"Hey, you didn't do half bad yourself, except for that spill you took
past the first marker," she replied. "At least you're in the top 10."

Finally he gave up. "Where are the monitors? I want to see how Tenel Ka
and Lowie are doing."

"Oh," Jaina exclaimed. "Come with me, they're in the waiting area with
Lando."

As they reached the waiting area, he could see multiple screens tracking
a large number of pilots, with names below each screen. After scanning
the wall for several seconds, he finally saw Tenel Ka's fighter as it
rounded the last marker.

While he was watching, Lando walked up to him and clapped him on the
back. "That was a pretty good recovery you did there," he said. "I'm
sure Han would be proud."

"I still got hit," Jacen replied half-heartedly. "Any other place and
I'd be dead."

Lando nodded. "True, but you still made it. Hey, did you see the
maneuver your sister pulled toward the end? They're still talking about
it in the control room."

"No," Jacen admitted. "What did she do?"

Lando tapped some buttons on his wristcomm, and one of the blank screens
came up with a recording of Jaina's run. He could see her in the
distance, shooting through the field. Almost like what had happened to
him, Jaina's corridor closed up unexpectedly, and he saw the lettering
on the bottom of the screen boldly stating that the computers did not
see a way out. He saw Jaina hesitate for the briefest of moments before
heading straight for the near-wall of asteroids. The recording
illustrated the invisible repulsor fields as she punched them, causing
the fighter to ricochet through an impossibly small gap between two of
the asteroids. At the end of the run between those asteroids, one of the
TIE's wings just barely missed a protrusion, and suddenly it went out of
control into another asteroid. Just as Jacen would have thought that
she'd leave the belt, disqualifying her, the timer stopped and declared
that she had reached the end of the course. The fighter bounced off that
last asteroid and she was clear, tumbling into space.

"You sure can fly," Jacen remarked to his sister, impressed.

As they were waiting for Tenel Ka and Lowie to finish their runs,
suddenly the alarms in the room went off and Lando frowned as he held
his ear, listening to the commlink bud.

"There's about fifty ships that just appeared off Destrillion," he
finally said. "The /Falcon/'s in the lead. I don't know what happened
but it sure looks bad, they're hailing on all the distress channels."

Jaina and Jacen immediately were focused on what Lando was saying as he
hit his wristcomm. "Guide the /Falcon/ in for a landing here, see if the
Dubrillion government can escort the rest of them to the surface for
triage."

"What's happening?" Jacen asked.

"Your mother's flying the /Falcon/, she says that Sernpidal was attacked
and those ships are all that's left."
"What about Dad and Chewie?" Jaina immediately asked.

"She wouldn't say, only that they had wounded on board."

The twins exchanged a worried glance. "Which hangar are they coming in to?"

Lando pointed to the exit. "Come with me, I'll show you where it is."

Together they rushed through the station's corridors, taking several
turbolifts until they were at the correct docking bay. They walked out
just in time to find the /Falcon/ settling down into one of the berths.

"Mom?" both Jaina and Jacen said in unison as the /Falcon/'s ramp
lowered and Leia walked down. "What happened?" Jacen asked as they
rushed up to meet her.

Leia just grabbed both and hugged them in response. "Go see your father,
maybe you can help him. He hasn't spoken since Sernpidal."

They turned, walking up the ramp as the passengers started to come down.
Once inside, they started walking around, trying to find him.

"Dad?" Jaina asked as they rounded the corner, seeing him kneeling in
front of the medical berth. Chewie was just lying on the berth, and it
wasn't until they approached closer that they could see he wasn't
moving, blood having pooled around him.

"Go away," Han snapped.

Taken aback, they stopped in their tracks for a moment. "Dad?" Jaina
asked again. "What happened? You can always tell us..."

"It's not that," he said, quietly this time. "They attacked us and he
did what he always did, he went to defend us. I saw him take down almost
a dozen of them before their leader went after him." Han's voice rose to
a crescendo. "He fought so hard—and I couldn't do ANYTHING to help him!
Not until it was too late!"

"Dad," Jacen said after a moment had passed, "I'm sure you did
everything you could..."

"It wasn't enough!" Han shouted, almost in tears. "I would have gladly
traded places with him... What am I supposed to tell Mallatobuck... and
Lumpy... and Lowbacca? That he died pointlessly, fighting against a
faceless enemy?"

"Tell them," Jacen suggested, his voice cracking from the emotions,
"that Chewie died valiantly, a true Wookiee warrior, defending you as
per the life debt he had freely offered to you." Chewie had been a
fixture of their household ever since he could remember, always
protecting them when they were children, always there to fix things when
they broke them...

Now he would never be there again.

The thought struck Jacen suddenly at the same time as it did Jaina.
Tears began to flow freely down his face although he fought to retain
his composure, and if he had looked over at Jaina he would have seen her
reacting the same way.

"Dad," he said, fighting to get the words out, "there's more where they
came from, right? We need to start evacuating other planets, otherwise
millions could die right now."

Han let out a long sigh and tried to lift himself to his feet, but the
hours he'd spent on his knees in front of Chewie hadn't helped his aging
joints. "A little help here?"

Jaina and Jacen both grabbed his arms, helping him to his feet. As they
walked out and down the ramp, Han spotted Lando and his face formed into
a scowl.

"You," Han said accusingly, marching right up into Lando's face. "You
told us Sernpidal would be a good spot to settle down, so far out of the
way that nobody would care."
"Han," Lando protested before getting cut off again.

"What cut did you get from that deal, huh, 'old buddy'? Did you get any
satisfaction out of knowing that Chewie died because of your arrangements?"

Lando put his hands up. "Whoa, hold it right there. Chewie's dead?"

"Yes," Han's voice had dropped in tone to something barely above a
growl. "He was cut down by the invaders, I couldn't do anything to stop
them. I had to watch as he died right in front of me!"

"Dad," Jaina said, putting her hand on his arm as she fought back tears.
"I'm sure Lando didn't know a thing about it. He told you about
Sernpidal long before any of us knew about this invasion."

"That doesn't mean I have to talk to him," Han said sullenly.

"No," Jacen jumped in, "but if we want to help all the other people out
there, since the Republic's not doing anything, we need to work together."

Han twisted himself free. "Then find somebody else to help. I've done
enough to save the galaxy."

The twins watched Han storm off before turning to Lando. "I don't know
how long it'll take him to get over losing Chewie," Jacen finally said.
"I've never seen him this mad before."

Lando was silent for several minutes before responding. "Well, you're
right, we need to act fast to save these people. Dubrillion can take at
least several million refugees, I'll have to go talk to the government
about it but I'm sure they'll help. As far as defenses go, I've pulled
some strings and there are some warships on their way in, in addition to
the Dubrillion defense forces. We've also got more laser cannons here
than people to operate them."

"How are we going to get the word out?" Jacen asked. "The /Rock Dragon/
is only one ship..."

"You can use my ship too," Lando said, pointing to the /Lady Luck/ where
it sat adjacent to the /Falcon/. "I'll try to talk Han into helping as
well, but knowing him it might take a while before he's willing to talk
to me again."

"What about the refugees?" Jaina asked.

"We have a couple dozen heavy transports that I'll send with you," Lando
replied. "They should be able to take at least several tens of thousands
each, maybe more if you pack them in. Won't be pretty but it'll help."


The first trip to Dantooine, Jacen reflected the next day, had been very
uneventful. Since it had taken most of the previous day to go there,
load, and return, they had slept as soon as they had arrived back at
Dubrillion. Now, once again they were on their way to Dantooine. So far
Jaina and Lowbacca hadn't made it back yet from Jorrkona, where they had
taken the bulk of the transports since it was a larger, more populous
planet, but it made sense – it took a long time to even take one load
from Dantooine, most of the time spent convincing the local authorities
(such as they were) that there really was a genuine threat to the
planet. Of course, once Tenel Ka had explained the pattern of attacks,
and the fact that so far the invaders had apparently been avoiding the
most populated and well-defended worlds, they had quickly agreed to the
plan.

Jacen still wondered about his sister's reasoning that Dubrillion, which
was further Rimward than Dantooine, would make a safer location for
refugees, although he had to agree that its superior defenses and close
proximity to the Imperial remnants made a certain amount of sense.

He watched, lost in thought, as Tenel Ka expertly pulled the ship out of
hyperspace and began the descent into the atmosphere. There was
something about the way she moved that had always struck him, although
it had taken him a while to figure it out. Neither was that the only
thing he'd noticed. Whenever she turned her head, the golden reddish
braids that she usually wore flipped back and forth almost as if they
were alive. Then there was the skin-tight lizard hide suit that she
almost always wore...

"Jacen?" she asked, causing him to involuntarily jump. "Is everything
all right?"

"Uh, yeah," he replied with a sheepish smile as he turned back to the
instruments. He hadn't realized that he had been staring at her for that
long.

Minutes later, they touched down on a grassy field that was somewhat
flattened from their last landing, and Jacen unbuckled himself and
jumped up.

"Threepio?" he asked as he found the passenger compartment empty. He
continued down through the ship, opening up different compartments until
finally he was aft in one of the mechanical compartments. C-3PO was
standing against a wall, apparently hooked up. "Threepio? he repeated.
"What are you doing?"

"I decided to hook myself up to the ship's computer since there was
no-one to talk to," Threepio replied. "Master Jacen, did you know that
this ship speaks an Imperial language? The Hapans must have recovered
the computer from one of their battles with the Empire."

Jaina might have found that interesting, but Jacen certainly didn't.
"No, I didn't," he replied. "Look, Threepio, I need you to go to the
cockpit and keep an eye on the ship. Look for anything odd on the
sensors and warn us immediately."

"Certainly, Master Jacen," Threepio replied. "I would be more than
obliged to. Would you also like me to scan for communications?"

"Go ahead," Jacen sighed. "Just remember to warn us if anything happens."

"Of course." C-3PO disconnected himself and shuffled off to the cockpit.
Jacen, meanwhile, returned to the landing ramp where he found Tenel Ka
waiting for him.

"So what's the plan this time?" he asked.

"The transports will land in the same two locations as the last time. We
should split up again and supervise loading."

As they walked down the ramp and through the now mostly deserted city,
Jacen again couldn't help but watch the way she moved as she walked.
Actually, he corrected himself, she /flowed/ more than walked. Then,
finally, they reached the middle of the city and split off on the
different roads that led to the two landing sites.

When he approached the gigantic transports, he could see this time that
the authorities had lined up the locals this time for faster loading,
rather than the mob that had attempted to board the first time. It was a
pretty interesting mix of humans and Dantari, the lanky figures and
simple handcrafted clothing of the latter making them easily
distinguishable. Of course, other aliens were mixed in here and there,
he noted as he spotted a Rodian sticking out like a sore thumb with its
green skin.

"How many do we have this time?" he asked the local leader, a human who
he'd already forgotten the name of.

"We collected most of the Dantari from the nearby villages, but many of
them didn't understand the concept of invasion and refused to leave.
There are probably still thousands more scattered across the planet."

"If we have room," Jacen asked, thinking, "we should probably fly around
and pick as many up as we can."

"I doubt many will even want to come," the leader replied. "The ones
here, near the city, have learned Basic through trading with us although
they're pretty limited in vocabulary. The ones further out speak a
number of different dialects and tend to be very wary of strangers. Even
worse, due to what Admiral Daala did a few years ago, they view the
Imperials as gods. Some of 'em even paint stormtrooper armor on their
chests!"

"Well... we have to try," Jacen insisted, somewhat surprised. "We'll
bring our protocol droid along to translate."

A shout made Jacen turn around, and he saw a short, stocky human
gesturing wildly at a Dantari that had apparently cut in front of him.
Jacen quickly turned and jogged over to the line.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking down at him.

"This stupid brute doesn't even know what a line is!"

Jacen turned around to face the tall Dantari. "Can you understand me?"
he asked.

The Dantari grunted, and the short man harrumphed. "Could have told you
/that /doesn't work. Can you just make him move or something?"

Jacen thought for a moment, then decided that perhaps the best tactic
was the same one that he'd used during his years at the Praxeum on Yavin
IV. He projected his thoughts into the Dantari's head, showing him
images of the death and destruction the invaders had caused, and their
scarred, grim visage. Then he thought of the blowing grasses of
Dubrillion's plains, of the clear skies and open oceans, and showed the
Dantari walking through the plains.

The Dantari grunted, turned, and walked away.

"What did /I/ do wrong?" Jacen asked aloud, knowing that even he
couldn't answer the question much less anyone else present.

"I dunno, you didn't say anything and he left," the short man replied.
"Thanks."

As Jacen stood watch, the line of thousands continued to move past. He
watched as people of all different ages walked past him. They ranged
from women carrying their young infants to old men and women who could
barely walk. He shook his head at the gall of the invaders. It wasn't as
if the galaxy had had enough turmoil due to the Empire's atrocities, no,
there just had to be some other species hell-bent on undoing everything
that they'd worked so hard to rebuild just to gain control of a galaxy.
He didn't even know what they wanted with the galaxy besides territory...

He wasn't sure what was more unsettling, the fact that the galaxy was
being invaded or the fact that nobody knew anything about them. The only
thing he did know was that as a Jedi, the responsibility that came with
the power he had meant that he, and all the other Jedi in the galaxy,
had to do everything they could to protect those living in it.


Several hours later, as the line was finally beginning to taper off,
Jacen's commlink beeped and he heard Threepio's tinny voice from the
position in his pocket.

"--some ships inbound" was all he heard as he pulled the commlink out.

"Threepio, I didn't hear you," Jacen said.

"Master Jacen, the ship's computer tells me that it has detected a
number of small ships inbound for the city."

Jacen frowned. "What do they look like?"

"They are almost the same as the ones that attacked us at Sernpidal."

/Kriff/, Jacen thought. "Is there anything in orbit?"

There was a pause as Threepio consulted the computer. "Only one of the
moons."

"They must be on the far side of the planet," Jacen finally said. "Maybe
that will give us a bit more time." He turned and shouted toward one of
the local authorities. "You have to get everyone on quickly, there are
hostiles inbound and there isn't much time!"

The man's face went ashen as he realized what Jacen was saying. He
quickly turned and ran down the line, shouting at those in line to leave
their belongings and get on.

In the meantime, Jacen switched the channel on his commlink. "Tenel Ka?"

"I'm here," she replied.

"Did you hear Threepio?"

"I did, what's worse is I can see them now, and it looks like they're
landing."

Jacen looked up and around, but couldn't see anything. Then again, he
was standing in front of the transport... He quickly walked around the
giant clamshell-shaped transport and suddenly wished he hadn't.

"They've landed here too," he said. "There's some sort of giant snail
coming towards us, and I can see their shock troops running alongside it."

Suddenly the snail-like creature recoiled, and Jacen instantly could see
the globe of glowing plasma it had vomited up (which was the only
explanation that made any sense to him at the moment) flying through the
air towards the transport.

"Kriff, they're firing on us!" he shouted as he grabbed his lightsaber
and ran back to the boarding ramp, where there were only a few people
still outside. "Get the ramp up and take off or you're going to be dead!"

"What about the others?" one man said, gesturing to the people still
outside.

"I'll take them!" Jacen shouted. "Get out of here!" As if to punctuate
his statement, one of the strange rocky fighters flashed past, the only
warning of its arrival the slurping sound of its own plasma launchers as
it strafed the field. Fortunately they didn't hit anything but Jacen
could feel the heat sting his skin as the plasma went by.

He pointed with his lightsaber toward the /Rock Dragon /on the other
side of the city. "Run!" he shouted as he ignited it, the blade glowing
with an emerald hue even in the bright daylight. The small group of
humans and Dantari wasted no time in following the instructions. As he
followed them, he heard the transport blast off, and he could only hope
that they would make it through the fighters. Lando had sent several
fighters along with them for escort, but Jacen wasn't sure just how they
were faring since even Kyp, probably one of the most able Jedi pilots
that Jacen knew, had had trouble against these fighters.

As he reached the /Rock Dragon/ and started urging the people aboard,
his comm beeped again.

"Jacen!" Tenel Ka's voice sounded frantic. "They're too close and we
still have a lot of people on the ground here! I need you to help me
hold them off until we can take off!"

He quickly grabbed the comm. "I'll be right there." After making sure
the /Rock Dragon/'s controls were locked so that nobody could panic and
leave them stranded, he ran outside and started toward the other transport.

When he was about halfway there, he felt a sudden cry of pain in the
Force, almost the equivalent of an ear-splitting scream. He had heard
the same cry once before, almost six years before in fact, when in the
middle of a sparring match Tenel Ka's newly constructed lightsaber had
exploded in her hand, causing his own lightsaber to slice her arm
cleanly off. It was the sort of cry he could never forget.

The world seemed to slow down as Jacen's focus narrowed on one goal:
getting to Tenel Ka before anything happened. He continued sprinting,
only barely conscious of how fast he was moving, until he finally
rounded the last building that separated them.

Immediately he saw her, vainly trying to hold her own against two
hideously scarred warriors. Like Yomin Carr, they were both intricately
tattooed with evidence of many broken bones, and they both carried the
same dangerous staff.

Jacen didn't even slow down as he approached, charging straight for the
one on the right. He pulled his lightsaber and ignited it in one swift
motion, aiming it straight at the warrior as he collided. The sudden
impact of the lightsaber, driven forward by a hundred-kilo Jedi moving
at impossibly fast speeds, was too much for the obviously surprised
warrior's armor. The lightsaber burned straight through its chest as
Jacen's momentum carried the two about a meter forward.

As the world returned to normal, Jacen picked himself up off the
now-dead alien and pulled his lightsaber out. Remembering the danger the
alien's staff weapon posed, he quickly stabbed its "head" as it writhed
on the ground near its former master's hand.

Before he could turn around, however, he both felt and heard another
sharp cry of pain from Tenel Ka. Spinning around, he saw the other
alien's staff bite with its fangs deep into her forearm, causing her
lightsaber to fall from her already weakened grip. As the warrior
withdrew his staff, Jacen sprung into motion, reaching out with his
lightsaber to block a killing blow.

Both combatants stepped back and circled, staff and lightsaber raised in
defensive positions, as they studied each other. Despite seeing the
warrior as a sort of blank spot in the Force, Jacen could tell by its
stance that he was not as experienced as Yomin Carr had been.

"Why wait, /Jeedai/?" he suddenly asked in passable Basic, its voice
coming out in hissing tones. "Why do you not strike to save her?"

As tempted as Jacen was to do so, he waited, studying the alien's
posture. He knew from the fight with Yomin Carr that the alien's armor
had weak spots in the armpits, although his killing the first of these
two warriors was more a stroke of blind luck than anything else. Yet the
way it held its arms, they were relatively tight to its body so striking
there would be very hard.

Suddenly the warrior lunged, and Jacen saw an opening. He dove hard to
the ground, his staff passing dangerously close to Jacen's head, and
kicked out at the warrior's knees. There was a loud /crunch /that Jacen
knew was his kneecap breaking, and suddenly off balance, it moved its
arms out to keep from falling. That was when Jacen stabbed upwards with
his lightsaber, driving it straight through the joint in the armor.

The warrior grinned and laughed, a reaction that Jacen hadn't exactly
been expecting, as it staggered backwards. It awkwardly regained its
footing, putting the weight on its now broken leg, and moved its staff
to its good hand. Jacen, meanwhile, jumped to his feet and held his
lightsaber at the ready in front of himself.

"You'll have to try harder than that," he shouted at the warrior, noting
with a sinking feeling in his chest that the rest of the troops were
getting closer far too rapidly.

As the warrior awkwardly moved closer, Jacen reached out and about
thirty kilos of dirt and rocks launched towards the alien, temporarily
blinding him. He charged forward and with a well-aimed kick, took out
the alien's other kneecap. The warrior fell backwards, unable to support
himself anymore, and hit the ground hard. Jacen batted the staff aside
with his lightsaber before pointing it at the warrior's throat. "Do you
surrender?"

"Yuuzhan Vong do not surrender!" he half shouted, grabbing Jacen's ankle
and twisting. Now it was Jacen's turn to land on the ground, the
warrior's action sending intense daggers of pain through his old wound.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to jump back to his feet, making an awkward
landing when his newly aggravated ankle hit. The Yuuzhan Vong was
already crawling back toward its staff, so Jacen limped past him and
struck at the coiled staff, causing it to spasm uncontrollably.

"Surrender!" Jacen shouted, standing out of the warrior's reach and
pointing his lightsaber at him.

It made a growling cry. "Kill me."

"No." Jacen snapped the lightsaber off and backed up toward Tenel Ka.
"That is not the Jedi way."


Still in intense agony due to his heel, he limped back to Tenel Ka and
knelt down next to her. Her arm had become very pale already, and as he
moved closer he could barely hear her muttering about poison. He looked
back at the approaching Yuuzhan Vong forces and grunted as he reached
under her and picked her up, using the Force to give himself greater
strength. Then he set off as fast as he could for the /Rock Dragon/.

As he was almost to the ship's ramp, his leg muscles began to cramp and
spasm. He almost dropped her but several of the people inside the ship
had rushed down the ramp to help. Finally they set her down in the /Rock
Dragon/'s medical berth, and Jacen finally had another chance to look at
her arm. It was now a sickly greenish tint, and he could now see it
spreading further up almost to her shoulder.

He knelt close to her. "Tenel Ka? Can you hear me?"

She moaned and coughed weakly. "The poison... you have to stop it..."

/If only Cighal was here/, he thought to himself. But he was not a
healer like her, and while he knew how to use some purification
techniques on himself he had no idea how he could use them on her.
Besides, her arm was much, much worse than his leg had been that day...

"I don't know what to do!" he cried in despair, suddenly noticing that
her chest was now barely moving. The only thought that came to his mind
as he watched the greenish tint spreading up her arm...

/NO!/ he thought, frantically trying to come up with some other way. No
ideas presented themselves to him, so with a heavy sigh he drew his
lightsaber.

"Stand back," he finally said to the people around him. He leaned close
to Tenel Ka's ear. "I'm sorry... I couldn't think of anything else," he
whispered as tears started to run down his face.

Then he ignited the blade and delicately used its tip to slice through
her upper arm, above the discolored area. The blade cauterized the wound
as it passed through, and although Jacen knew it would cause intense
pain Tenel Ka hardly moved at all, her breath still coming out weakly.

After he placed her arm in one of the small stasis chambers at the rear
of the ship, he stood in front of her for a while just watching. She
seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and as Jacen reached out with the
Force he could feel her immune system struggling to respond to the
venom. Things seemed to be in her favor at least, he thought, or for the
time being anyway.

He was snapped out of his reflection by Threepio, who came rushing down
from the cockpit as fast as his shuffling gait allowed him. "Master
Jacen, there are more on the way!"

Jacen turned and looked out the ramp, seeing a horde of Vong troops
coming for the ship. He quickly raised the ramp and ran to the cockpit,
unlocking the controls and lifting the ship off on its repulsors. He
spun it around to point its powerful engines at the onrushing horde and
punched the throttle, knowing that the full blast of the engines would
at least knock them down if not outright kill them from the heat and
radiation.

As the ship shot upwards through the atmosphere, Jacen spotted several
of the coral-like fighters changing their course to meet him.

/I knew this was too good to be true, /he thought to himself as he
grabbed the ship's comm. "If anyone aboard knows how to use a turret,
we're going to have to blast our way out of here. The turrets are in the
middle of the ship."

After almost a minute had passed, Jacen felt the thumping of the turrets
opening fire. Most of the shots missed completely or were sucked up and
vanished, but a few got through. As the fighters closed in, he started
evasive maneuvers, twisting, rolling and jinking the ship to try and
avoid being hit. For all his maneuvering, however, the simple fact
remained that the /Rock Dragon/ was only a transport, and that fact was
literally pounded in as the whole ship shook from multiple hits.

As the sky turned black and the /Rock Dragon/ shot out into space, Jacen
frantically started looking for any sign of warships, like the ones that
had prevented his parents and the rest of the Sernpidal refugees from
going to hyperspace. That was about the last thing he needed right now,
what with the fighters hot on his tail.

After he had confirmed that there were no warships waiting in ambush,
Jacen quickly double-checked the coordinates in the navicomp to make
sure they were set for Dubrillion. His eyes remained focused on the jump
countdown as he kept flying evasive, and the second the alarm sounded he
pulled back on the controls, launching the /Rock Dragon/ forward into
hyperspace and leaving its pursuers in the dust, so to speak.



* * *



When the reversion alarm sounded several hours later, Jacen was sitting
at Tenel Ka's side, watching over her. She was still breathing but
nothing he had tried had woken her up. He ran forward to the cockpit and
watched the countdown—

When there were about twenty seconds left on the chronometer, there was
a sudden jolt and the sky of hyperspace exploded into a dizzying swirl
of lights. The inertial dampers prevented him from feeling the worst of
it, but just looking out the viewports made him feel sick.

There was, of course, only one explanation, he realized as he tried to
bring the wildly spinning ship under control. The Vong had arrived, and
they wanted to prevent anyone from escaping.

Jacen frantically considered his options. He didn't have any other
routes calculated in the navicomp yet, unless he wanted to jump back to
Dantooine. There was a war fleet surrounding Dubrillion, and if his
displays were reading correctly, the planet's shield was active which
meant he could not get through unless they opened it for him

The decision was quickly made for him as a swarm of the rocky fighters
appeared from behind. He punched the throttle, diving straight through a
heated exchange of fire between /Belt-Runner I/ and a Vong warship and
prayed they wouldn't take any hits as he grabbed the comm. "This is the
Hapan transport /Rock Dragon/ to anyone on Dubrillion. We have wounded
on board and are under heavy fire. Need a shield entry vector ASAP."

Seeing an opening ahead, Jacen rolled and flew around /Belt-Runner I/,
only to come out on the other side facing another group of Yuuzhan Vong
ships. "Blaster bolts," he muttered as frantically looked for an exit.
They were so spread out that there really weren't any angles they hadn't
covered, leaving him with not much else he could do except head straight
for them. Hopefully for him, that would present them with the smallest
target and give them very little time to lock on. So far the poor Hapan
transport had managed to survive the beating that the fighters had been
giving it, but Jacen had no doubts that whatever it was the capital
ships packed could surely overwhelm it.

As he rocketed towards the Vong ships, a fusillade of orange glowing
orbs emerged from the launchers. Luckily, they weren't aimed for him,
and instead went sailing past to the station. Sporadic turbolaser fire
came in return but Jacen noticed that it seemed to be weakening.

"Jacen?" He couldn't have been more relieved to hear Lando's voice.
"This is Lando. I'm working with Dubrillion control right now, they're
swamped down here. Look, kid, just give us a few minutes to get the
shield ready to open and we can let you in. I'll send you coordinates as
soon as we're ready."

Not daring to take his eyes off the viewports, Jacen silently thanked
Lando. Soon enough, he was in the middle of the Vong formation, again
trying his best to dodge plasma orbs—but this time ones that could
easily obliterate the ship.

After several harrowing moments, he was clear of the warships and
punched the throttle for Dubrillion. Several more fighters detached
themselves from the capital ships and started chasing him, at which he
rolled his eyes. /Don't they ever give up?/

In between maneuvers, he reached up and switched the displays to show
the range to Dubrillion. The planet was still only a glowing dot in the
distance, and moments later the computer confirmed it was about a half
million klicks out.

"Hurry up, Lando," he whispered as he dumped every spare joule of energy
into the ship's engines, pushing them well past their recommended
limits. He was immediately pushed further back into the seat, and he
quickly adjusted the inertial compensator so the passengers wouldn't get
too sick.

After several minutes he saw that the fighters were starting to gain on
him once again. Dubrillion was now distinguishable as a blue-green orb
although still horribly far off.

"Jacen," Lando's voice finally came through again, "we have a vector and
timing for you. Let me know when you have it."

Jacen glanced down and saw the information displaying on one of the
transport's screens. "Copy, Lando, I have it. It'll take me at least a
few more minutes to reach the shield and I have fighters hot on my tail,
request escort if possible."

"Negative on the escort," Lando replied. "We're short on fighters now,
we lost a lot before we got the shield up. We're going to time the
shield opening very close so hopefully we can get your tails to smash
into it, any that do make it through we should be able to handle."

/Just don't time it too close,/ Jacen thought although he knew Lando was
usually very good at keeping his word.

When they finally got close to the shield, Jacen simply corrected his
course without touching the throttle, making sure that they were
hurtling in as fast as possible. Lando had barely given him a second to
get through, he needed to make sure he had plenty of time to clear.

"Lando, I'm on approach," he said as he hit the comm. "I hope you're
ready down there or this is going to look really bad."

"Believe me, we're ready," Lando said. "Standby for opening."

He mentally counted down the seconds, trying to reach out with the Force
and /feel/ the shield surrounding the planet... and in comparison the
tiny pinprick of an opening that they were creating. They were
approaching it at a sickening speed, some fraction of the speed of light
that Jacen didn't even want to think about...

Then the hole opened, the /Rock Dragon/ slipped through, and almost as
quickly as it had opened it was once again gone. He could feel the
explosions in the rapidly increasing distance as most of the fighters
collided, but apparently one had been lucky enough to make it through.

Well, not for long, Jacen thought. In one swift move, he killed power to
the engines, which stopped him from accelerating any more but kept him
moving at the same suicidal velocity toward the atmosphere that was now
almost on top of him. Then he dumped the now suddenly freed power
directly into the repulsors and inertial compensators. The /Rock Dragon/
suddenly rebounded off the planet's mass and came to what might as well
have been a full halt compared to the pursuing fighter, which went by so
fast that Jacen's eyes didn't even register it. Moments later, he saw
the fireball as the c-fractional fighter hit the atmosphere. He only
hoped that the fighter wasn't designed for ballistic re-entry as he
started a slow descent toward Dubrillion's main city.


Sirens were wailing through the city as he touched down, although the
only people to greet him were paramedics.

"How many wounded?" the lead tech asked him.

"Just one, and you'll need a stretcher, she's poisoned and unconscious.
I think everyone else has severe motion sickness."

He followed them back up the ramp and showed them to the medical berth.
The lead tech frowned when he saw her. "What happened to her arms?"

Jacen had to admit he'd been expecting /that/ one. "The left one was a
training accident years ago. The right one she was bitten in and hit
with a fast-acting poison. I got a dose of the same stuff a few weeks
ago but it must not have been nearly as much, her arm started
discoloring almost immediately and she went unconscious." His voice
started to crack. "I had to amputate it."

The tech picked up the stump and inspected the cut. "What did you use?
I've never seen anything this clean or anything that cauterized this well."

"A lightsaber," Jacen replied.

"Oh. I'd heard about that, never actually saw one though. Do you still
have the rest of the arm?"

"I put it in stasis to keep the poison from destroying it," Jacen said.
"Kriff, I hope you guys can put it back on..."

By now they had her loaded on the stretcher and were starting to walk
her off. The other passengers, still obviously dizzy, had lined up
behind them as Jacen followed the paramedics down.

"What's your relation to her?" the tech asked as they loaded her up.

Jacen was a little dumbfounded by the question. "Uh..." He paused for a
few seconds. "We're Jedi, we were working together to evacuate Dantooine."

"Guess you're the lucky ones then," the tech replied. "The other
transports ran straight into these invaders as they were arriving. Only
one made it through. One hell of a mess on board that ship, too."

Jacen's stomach sank at the news. All that time he and Tenel Ka had
spent trying to protect them... The universe just wasn't fair sometimes.

The ride to the hospital was downright quiet. Only the beeping of the
life support equipment disturbed the silence, until Jacen finally
couldn't stand it any more. It was just maddening, he wanted to be able
to hold her hand at least but he couldn't even do that, thanks to his
own actions! He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, then just
let the tears flow.

Since this was posted without any real prior review, please let me know if you see any glaring omissions.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX



Mara and Anakin were rather impressed when, over a week after Commodore Shimazaki had left to discuss their offer with his superior officers, he was now returning with a group of ten senior Admirals and the Federation President himself.

"I'm sure you want to know what our answer is," the President said after introductions had been made all around the room.

Mara simply nodded. "Of course."

"The Federation Senate was very divided at first," the President supplied. "There were many arguments on both sides, but cooler heads prevailed and I am pleased to say that we accept your offer." He extended his right hand.

She took his hand and shook it, breathing a sigh of relief. She had been half afraid, after talking to C'baoth about how the negotiations had gone earlier, that they would try to change the terms and be stuck in negotiations for weeks if not months on end.

"I'm glad to hear that," she finally said. "Have you picked a representative yet?"

"That was one of the points of contention after we had made our initial decision, and since Starfleet represents our collective interests without prejudice, we concluded it would be best served by a Starfleet officer. As such, I am appointing Commodore Shimazaki here, given his excellent diplomatic skills, to be our representative. Commodore, do you accept this?"

Shimazaki's mouth simply hung agape. He was certainly expecting that one of the senior Federation politicians would be appointed, or at the very least one of the senior Admirals. "Uh," he hesitated for a moment, "Yes, Mr. President, I do."

"Now," Mara said, "there is one more option that I need to discuss with you. As part of becoming a Republic member, it is important for members of both of our navies to familiarize themselves with the different technologies. Therefore, our Navy has a crew exchange program in place which will allow selected members of your Starfleet to serve on Republic Navy vessels for a standard tour of duty, and the same for Republic Navy crew to serve on your vessels. Is this offer agreeable?"

One of the admirals, Vice-Admiral Edward Jellico, spoke up. "Actually, we were about to ask you the same thing. We already have a number of crew selected that we would like to have go with you."

Mara smiled. "Perfect. I've been told by our engineers that they've finished the modifications to the Outbound Flight and it should be ready to leave in the next two days."

"In that case," Jellico replied, "have your forms and paperwork ready for us to look over tomorrow, and we will make the necessary arrangements on our side. We should have everyone ready to leave as soon as the paperwork is signed."

As Mara, Anakin, and the other Admirals left, Jellico clapped Shimazaki on the back. "Great work, Kaz," he finally said. "You know, this could be the start of great things to come. Don't let me down now, I've put far too much time into getting you where you are."

"You have my word," Shimazaki replied.


* * *


"Any news?"

The sudden question interrupted the quiet beeping of the life support equipment in the small room deep inside the Dubrillion military hospital. Jacen looked up to see his sister walk in and immediately jumped up to give her a hug. "She's still in a coma," he finally said, gesturing to Tenel Ka's bed, where she was hooked up to life support equipment. "They managed to make an antidote for the venom, but they told me they're not sure how far the extent of the damage is. Apparently it's a really horrible cocktail but the worst part is that it's a potent neurotoxin. They're worried it may have caused brain damage. I guess I was lucky I didn't get more of it on Belkadan."

"That's horrible," Jaina said, reaching up to touch her eyepatch at the memory. "How's her arm?"

Jacen sat down and shook his head. "She's going to kill me when she wakes up, I just know it," he said. "At least this time her lightsaber's still intact, but... She took such a large dose of the poison that in the time it took me to get her to the ship and put the arm in stasis, it had already started decomposing... the smell was just unbearable. They told me the only option is prosthetics. I told them to wait, since I remembered her reaction the last time someone tried to put prosthetics on her."

"What was that?"

"Well, you remember at the Academy, when her lightsaber failed and I accidentally chopped her other arm clean off?"

"Yes?"

"Ta'a Chume tried to force her to get a prosthetic arm installed. As soon as it made contact, she just freaked out and sent the arm flying. Luckily she didn't hit anyone with it."

"But what good is a Jedi without any arms?" Jaina protested.

Jacen snorted softly. "Tell me about it. I don't think she has any real choice, but I would just rather let her make her own decision this time. The last thing I want is to let them put new arms on her, only to have her strangle me with them when she comes to..."

Jaina put her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Jacen, look, at least you made the right choice. If you hadn't done what you did, she wouldn't even be alive right now. I'm sure she'll see that as more important than the fact you had to amputate her only good arm."

"I hope you're right," Jacen finally admitted, leaning back and resting his head against the wall. "So, I haven't seen you in a while. You never told me what happened on Jorrkona."

Jaina took a seat across the room and stretched. "Well, I guess I didn't tell you, but Lowie and I have been working at cleaning up the mess left over from the battle, ever since the Navy showed up and chased the invaders off."

"By the way," Jacen said, "I finally found out what they call themselves."

"Really?"

"They're the Yuuzhan Vong," he said. "Apparently their honor prohibits surrender, or some crap like that."

"Well, I expected that much at least from our run-in with Yomin Carr," Jaina admitted. "Anyway, when we reached Jorrkona everything was very calm, but once we were in the middle of loading the transports the, uh... what did you call them?" She half-grimaced at forgetting the name already.

"Yuuzhan Vong," Jacen filled in.

"Right. So we were in the middle of loading the transports when the Vong arrived. We took pretty heavy casualties. I organized some of the local militia to hold them off while we tried to finish loading as many as possible."

"The same thing happened to us on our second trip from Dantooine," Jacen said. "But there wasn't any local militia so Tenel Ka and I were the only ones to hold them off."

Jaina shook her head. "It was a slaughter. Sure, we got a few, but they attacked with so much force it just overwhelmed us. We finally cut our losses and retreated, only to run into some warships in orbit. I think they followed us here, which is why you ran into the middle of the battle."

"So I take it the Lady Luck survived?"

"Yes," Jaina replied. "We took pretty heavy fire in it though. The hull plating is still scarred and pitted from all the molten rocks and plasma."

Jacen nodded. "Same here. So, are Mom and Dad still here?"

"Yes, and pretty badly shaken up, too. Lowie and I are going to go with them after we finish the cleanup and testify before the Senate. Sometime after that we're all planning on meeting up on Kashyyyk for Chewie's funeral. If Tenel Ka recovers by then, you should come too."

"I'm planning on it," Jacen said. They sat in silence for several minutes before Jaina got up. "Hey, would you mind coming with me for a while?"

Jacen looked across the room to where Tenel Ka lay, her unconscious form slowly rising and falling with every breath. The nurses had undone her braids and her hair, slightly kinked and messy, was was pulled back behind her head to keep it away from her arms. A feeding tube ran into her mouth, and fluids were dripping through IVs into her. She just looked peaceful, and Jacen didn't want to leave her in case she woke up...

Seeing the hesitation in his eyes, his sister took his hand. "Jacen, it's only for a few minutes. The doctors here are good, they can watch her in the meantime. It's just that we captured some of the Vong biotech and I wanted to show it to you, since you've always had a touch for that sort of thing."

He let out a heavy sigh, looking back at Tenel Ka's peaceful face, framed by the brilliant red locks that hung down over her ears. Jaina gave him another tug, and finally he turned. "OK, let's go, but make it quick."



A short walk and drive later, they were at a nondescript warehouse building that was surrounded by armed troops. When they saw Jaina, they opened ranks to let them pass inside.

"I think this is probably the best of the finds," Jaina said, obviously excited as she pointed to one of the enemy fighters, its cockpit shattered but otherwise intact. Test instruments were set up all around it but the technicians seemed frustrated.

"Of course you'd think that, you're a fighter pilot," Jacen joked as they walked up to the strange fighter. It was more aerodynamic than Jacen had realized, its texture only appearing rough from a distance but in actuality it was just a trick of the light and a property of whatever material it was made from, since the surface was actually almost polished smooth.

Jaina pointed at a hood that rested in the middle of the cockpit. "Apparently they used that to control it, I'm not sure how.

"There's only one way to find out," Jacen said, jumping up onto the fighter and looking inside the cockpit. It seemed to be made to normal humanoid dimensions, so he climbed in and picked up the hood.

"Wait!" Jaina shouted. "How do you know it's safe?"

Jacen shrugged. "They wore it, didn't they?"

As he held the hood, he could feel it seeming to pulsate with life. With some hesitation, he raised it up and slipped it over his head and heard... voices. It was hard for him to describe them, it sounded like whispering heard miles away underwater. Whatever language they were speaking sounded remarkably like what he had heard the troops on Dantooine speaking.

Struggling to concentrate because of the voices, Jacen tried to reach out to the fighter and find some way to communicate with it. After a few false starts, he finally had a feel for what the fighter was thinking—it was hungry, he realized, but he had no idea what it ate. He considered the environment that the fighters operated in, the cold depths of space...

"Jaina," he said, pulling the hood off, "it's telling me it's hungry. I think it wants to eat rocks and ice."

"If it wants to eat," Jaina said, walking around the fighter, "where's its mouth?" She momentarily ducked out of sight, and he heard her shout out "Found it!" from somewhere he couldn't see.

He climbed carefully out of the cramped cockpit and down the side, looking underneath when he reached the ground. Jaina was lying on the ground, pointing to a spot roughly in the middle of the craft.

"Can you find me a rock?" she asked.

Jacen walked outside and grabbed the first rock he saw, which was about the size of his fist. Then he returned and handed it to Jaina, getting down on his hands and knees to see under the fighter.

She took the rock and held it up to the opening in the fighter's bottom. There was a slight crunching noise and it grabbed the rock from Jaina, crushing it and letting small pieces of gravel fall to the ground.

He walked over to one of the guards. "Where can I get some ice around here?"

The guard turned to point to a place behind him. "Through those doors, next building, go to the cafeteria."

"Thanks." Jacen ran off, returning with a heavy bag of ice several minutes later. He handed it to Jaina, who fed it into the fighter. In the meantime, Jacen went outside again and picked up another bunch of large rocks, lugging them back to Jaina and handing them to her one at a time. When she was done feeding it, she climbed back out from underneath and looked at him expectantly.

"What?" he asked.

"After all that, aren't you going to find out if it's still hungry?"

"Oh." He shrugged and climbed back up the ladder to the top of the fighter. "I'll go check." He again squeezed himself into the cockpit and put the hood on, trying once again to get a feel for the fighter's bizarre biology...

"Get back," he finally said to Jaina. "I think I've figured out how to control this thing."

Silently, without the usual whine of generators that most repulsorcraft produced, the fighter rose up into the air about a half meter. All the instruments near the fighter suddenly went wild with alarms, and about a dozen technicians ran into the hangar.

"...the hell?" one of them exclaimed. "Hey, what are you guys doing?"

"It's a living fighter," Jaina explained. "If you don't feed it, it won't do anything!"

"Huh," he said. "Well, that makes sense. What does it eat?" he asked, as he walked over and started to check the instruments.

"So far, it looks like rocks and ice," Jaina replied.

"Minerals and water, then," the tech thought out loud, pausing for a moment to step back and look at the fighter. "Raw materials for... repairing damage? Water, fuel for some sort of fusion process, and oxygen for the pilot, I'd guess."

He continued examining the instruments, his brow furrowing as he did. "Interesting... it distorts gravity almost like a repulsor, but it's far more focused." The tech turned toward Jaina with a quizzical expression. "Is there anything else you can make it do?"

Jaina pointed to the cockpit. "My brother Jacen is flying, you should ask him."

Before the technician could say anything, the fighter settled back down onto its stands and Jacen pulled the hood off. "That was..." he started to say as he began to climb out. Not realizing that the ladder had been pushed back when the fighter had risen into the air, he tried to put his foot on the top rung and slipped on the slick surface of the fighter instead. The misstep was followed by a loud crash as Jacen plunged headfirst into a pile of cables, knocking down several instruments in the landing.

Jaina rushed up and began pulling the cables off him. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah," he replied, sounding a little woozy. "I think I was starting to say that it was a bit disorienting in there..." Jacen slowly came to his feet. "Look, why don't you give it a try, I really need to get back to Tenel Ka."

"But you've come so much farther than anyone else has with this thing," she protested.

"What's the difference?" he asked, starting to get upset. "It's not that hard to work, just listen to it and think about what you want it to do."

"Jacen, you've always been better at making living creatures respond to you than I have," Jaina almost pleaded. "I've always been better at flying and fixing stuff, although not as good as Anakin is at fixing. But when I try to work with animals or anything like that, I just have trouble getting through..."

Jacen took several steps forward, his head bowed. "Jaina, listen to yourself. What difference is understanding this one fighter going to make in this war?"

She started to say something, but Jacen raised his hand.

"OK, fine, so it can strip an X-wing's shields. Do you have any idea where to start looking for whatever it is makes it do that?"

"No, but--"

Jacen cut her off. "Exactly my point! Look, I really didn't need to be here to get the damn thing to come to life. All it would have taken was someone willing to get over their damned fear and stick that hood over their head, and it would have done the same thing. Maybe it would have taken them a bit longer to figure it out, but it would have happened. All I'm saying is that we're Jedi. While we're sitting here, screwing around with this fighter, we could be out there fighting these bastards, saving more lives, anything really to stop them from gaining a foothold here."

She put her hands on her hips. "Jacen, listen to me. The sooner we figure them out, the sooner we can start driving them back, and the more lives we save."

Jacen rolled his eyes. "Then maybe we should start by trying to figure out what the kriff is motivating these aliens. We have no clue who they are besides a name, no idea where they're from, and most importantly no idea why the hell they're attacking us." He paused. "Well, I take that back, it's obvious that they want planets. But why do they want them? Aren't there enough stars in the universe outside this galaxy?

His tone softened. "Besides, Tenel Ka is sitting several miles away in a hospital. There's nobody else there to protect her. She needs me now, more than ever."

Jaina looked at him and couldn't help but notice the anguish the thought was causing him, the water that had suddenly appeared around his eyes. "You're right, Jacen. It was really selfish of me to drag you out here like that." She paused as if processing a thought. "You know, with everything the two of you have been through, the way you've stood by her... Have you thought about telling her how you really feel? That you love her?"



* * *



Kathryn Janeway looked at the rope in front of her with a detached, analytical gaze. It had been a month and a half since she had been relieved of command of Voyager by Starfleet. After that news, she had moved back to her native Bloomington, Indiana, into a small farmhouse about a mile from her family's long-time homestead.

Since then, she had heard nothing from Starfleet, not that she had expected anything after the dressing-down they had given her. Her family's track record in space was less than exemplary, too. Her father, Vice-Admiral Edward Len Janeway, had become trapped under an ice cap while on an expedition on Tau Ceti Prime and drowned. Her 20th century ancestor and sometime role model, Shannon O'Donnell, she had once believed to be a successful NASA astronaut. Later she had found out from Seven of Nine that Shannon had never made it into space, that instead she had been an engineer who hadn't even been able to work at NASA.

She sighed; she hadn't been any better than them. She had been the only Captain in Starfleet who had managed to get her ship lost in the Delta Quadrant. She had missed numerous opportunities to get her crew home in the interest of gathering scientific data, ignoring the fact that it would all be in vain unless they could return to Earth. Then, when a real opportunity to get home appeared, she had freaked out at the concept of human telepaths and blindly refused to deal with them. Her crew had relieved her of command and gotten Voyager home, without her help.

The worst part of it was, after having explored the stars, she just couldn't live with a grounded career.
It was with that sentiment that she lifted the noose, which she had attached to a sturdy overhead beam in the farmhouse, and placed it over her head. She let out her breath, and was about to kick the chair out from under herself when there was the ground-shaking rumble of a sonic boom, followed by the familiar whining sound of a shuttle landing.

Janeway paused, her analytical mind shifting into high gear. First, since this was rural Indiana, Starfleet shuttles didn't land here very often. Second, the nearest house was her mother's at about three miles away, meaning that whoever it was from Starfleet had come here specifically for her.

She quickly took the noose off, reaching up and frantically untying the knot that secured it to the beam. A knock on the door startled her as she stretched to reach the rope above the beam, and she slipped off the chair, crashing awkwardly on the floor. Her head hit and that was the last thing she remembered.



An indeterminate amount of time later, she came to in a sickbay. As she lifted her head to look around, she realized that she had no idea where she was. Other than herself, the bay was deserted, and there were no clues aside from the styling to tell her where it was located.

"Ah, Captain, I hope you're feeling better."

She turned her head to see the new arrival. "... Captain Jellico?" she asked, slightly confused. She remembered his face, but his uniform and rank pips were that of an... "I'm sorry, Admiral, I didn't realize you had been promoted."

"You've been out of the loop for some time now, so I can excuse the lapse in protocol," Jellico replied, his face becoming more serious. "I hope you weren't really intending on hanging yourself?"

Had Janeway been standing, she would have looked down with shame. As it was, she turned to look away from the Admiral. "It's hard, losing your first command like that. I felt like I had nowhere to go, and after being out there, there just wasn't anything interesting about being on the ground anymore."

"I can understand that," Jellico said. "Which is why I'm here. Now, let's get you off that bed, we have a lot of things to talk about on the way."

Janeway slowly sat up to avoid having all the blood run from her head instantly, then swung her legs out and came to her feet. Jellico was already out, marching down the corridor at a brisk pace.

"I have a shuttle waiting," he explained as they stepped into a turbolift.



Several minutes later, as they came out to the shuttlebay, Janeway noticed one of the signs. "You brought me all the way to Utopia Planitia?" she finally asked.

"Of course. Once the medics verified you were stable, there was no sense in wasting time. It's not like we don't have medical facilities up here."

They boarded the shuttle and sat down across from each other. Janeway, still slightly uneasy, spoke up. "Am I getting Voyager back?"

"Unfortunately, no," Jellico replied. 'For you, maybe,' was the part he didn't add. Realizing that she was a potential hazard no matter where she went, Starfleet wanted to keep her as far away as possible from any possible First Contact situations. In most cases, that meant a token promotion to Commodore or Rear Admiral and assignment of a desk job in San Francisco. However, Jellico had long been fed up with the decisions coming out of Starfleet Command, and the idea of having Janeway as a potential superior officer was just too horrifying to even think about. He had quickly put in a special request to have her assigned at her current rank to the Advanced Projects Division at the fleet yards, where she would safely be kept away from anything even remotely involving tactics, strategy, or first contact. Surprisingly, Command had actually agreed with him.

"Voyager will be here for refitting for probably close to a year. That ship took one hell of a beating, not just from the Borg and Krenim. The different drive systems you tested overloaded the structural integrity system and stressed the spaceframe past its design limits. Our engineers are still not sure what effect going to hyperspace with that Republic cruiser had, but I don't think it helped anything. There was so much crystallization and micro-fracturing in the tritanium spars that it's a wonder the ship could still go to warp without suffering massive structural failure." He turned to face her. "I'm surprised Starfleet didn't just decide to scrap it altogether."

Janeway suppressed a shudder. If that was the case, she had never realized just how close her crew was to sudden death. If the ship had come apart around them, at warp speeds, or in the three week hyperspace trip with its repeated jumps... She stood up to look out the forward viewport. "If I'm not getting Voyager back, then why am I here?"

"You'll see in just a moment," Jellico said. "We're almost there."

The shuttle swept past a number of docked Nebula and Galaxy classes, most of which had large sections of their hull plating removed as dock workers inside their small yellow 'worker bee' craft welded new pieces of spaceframe into place. "Is this all because of the Dominion?"

He pursed his lips and nodded. "We have over two hundred ships in here right now for refitting because of the damage they took trying to retake Deep Space Nine – and these were the ones that survived. In fact, we're having trouble making enough duranium alloy to repair them. An explosion shut down one of the foundries out in the Belt, which took out about forty percent of our production here in Sol. We're shipping some duranium in from Alpha Centauri, but at this point we're competing with all the other yards for resources. I think we'll only be able to get a dozen of these ships back out on the line within the next month, but there'll be many more than that coming in if they keep fighting this war the way they've been doing."

"That doesn't sound very good," Janeway remarked. "Also, you said trying to retake Deep Space Nine? I thought we still had control of it."

"No, we don't, and the situation is not very good," Jellico admitted. "Brass decided that we would need to launch a counterattack to prevent the Cardassians from disabling the wormhole minefield. I argued for a quick strike with what we had available, to preserve the element of surprise, but I was overridden and we waited until we had what Starfleet felt was an overwhelming force.

Jellico took a deep breath as he turned to look back out the window. "Trouble is, by then the Cardies had disabled the minefield, and when we showed up, a massive Dominion fleet—about four times the size of our fleet—popped out of the wormhole and the whole situation just went to hell. I ordered the destruction of Deep Space 9 to prevent the Cardies and Dominion from fortifying it again, but most of their fleet is still here in the Alpha Quadrant and they've been gathering strength while using hit and fade attacks as far as Betazed to keep us from doing the same. Starfleet, naturally, blamed me for their logistical failure and stuck me here." He let out a heavy sigh, as if the weight of the world had been dumped on his shoulders. It was at that point that Janeway realized just how many more lines had appeared on his face since the last time she had seen him. "As they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade..."

"I'll say. Have we had any luck finding their homeworld?"

Jellico shook his head. "No. The Defiant ran a number of missions deep into their territory before we mined the wormhole but all they turned up were outposts and minor installations. The Cardassians weren't very good at providing information either, right up until they were annexed by the Dominion. As a matter of fact, shortly after you left, around four years ago, a joint Romulan-Cardassian fleet was wiped out when they ran into an ambush at what they thought was the Dominion homeworld."

"I heard about that one," Janeway commented. She noticed that the shuttle had begun to slow, and she looked out the viewport again. She gasped slightly as she saw what the drydock held.

"The Prometheus?"

"The one and only," Jellico replied.

She now had a clear view of the ship. It was surrounded by construction framework and many of the hull plates were missing, but the shape was instantly recognizable. "You know, I never did understand why its registration number was so low," she finally said.

"NX-59650 was reserved almost two decade ago for a technology demonstrator of the Prometheus project," Jellico answered. "The only problem was, there were two competing designs. One was a straightforward starship with advanced features. If I'd been in charge here back then, that's the one I would have pushed for, but... The other design was the one that finally got built, but its keel wasn't laid until ten years after the number was reserved. The multi-vector assault mode took far too long to come up with a workable implementation."

"So what's happening to it now?"

"We've removed its multi-vector capability," Jellico replied "That mode was only useful against individual targets, and with the fleet actions against the Dominion it made no sense – it was really designed to combat a new Romulan or Klingon threat that hasn't appeared. I doubt that either of them are going to be a significant threat to us for years."

"But we rescued this ship from the Romulans not even a year ago," Janeway protested. "How are they not a threat?"

"We've negotiated some new treaties with them due to the Dominion war. Since the Dominion now controls all of Cardassia directly, we're fighting a defensive battle against them. And they're wearing us down. The Romulans and Klingons know it, and I think that in the background they're probably planning to backstab us when this is all over and we're at our weakest, but right now the thought of the Dominion running over us and focusing on either one of them has them shitting in their pants. So we all agreed to stand by each other as long as the Dominion is a threat."

Janeway nodded. "That makes sense. But what about the Borg?"

"The Borg adapt so quickly that attacking from many sides at once would be an exercise in futility, if you would pardon my pun. We've already tried attacking a Borg ship with a number of normal ships at Wolf 359 and I think you know what happened there. You can only coordinate strikes up to a point. Sooner or later, you just need to increase your firepower."

The shuttle came to a stop in the Prometheus's bay, and Jellico came to his feet and gestured for her to exit. "After you."

As she walked down the rear ramp, she turned to look at him. "So what exactly are you doing to it?"

"We've removed all of the armor, phaser banks, and latching mechanisms that are now hidden inside, since they was only wasting space. I personally like the redundant power systems so we're leaving it with four compact warp cores and four nacelles." He pushed the call button for the turbolift. "I'll stop first in Engineering, I think you'll appreciate this the most."

The turbolift ride was very brief and soon they were in engineering. Janeway's mouth dropped open as soon as the doors opened.

"You... didn't..." she finally said as she contemplated the glowing sphere that sat in its own area in front of one of the warp cores.

Jellico smiled. "Yes, it's a quantum slipstream drive. We weren't really sure what to do with this ship after refitting it, and the Daystrom Institute needed a ship more sophisticated than Voyager to test the technologies you brought back. So we chose this ship and they've been modifying it for the past several weeks. They don't expect to have it operational for another month, however."

What Jellico didn't have the heart to tell her was that the systems reintegration had scrambled everything so much that Starfleet had given up hope of using her as a ship of the line and instead had just handed her to the Daystrom Institute to figure out.

Janeway, still dumbfounded, walked around the slipstream drive core as the Daystrom Institute technicians watched.

"Starfleet wasn't sure who to pick as captain, since nobody's ever used one of these before. It just seemed to me that you were the obvious choice, given that you have been the only Starfleet captain to have used a slipstream drive." He let his remark hang in the air for nearly a minute before continuing. "Of course, that does depend on your mental stability. The business with the noose aside, there were some rather disturbing reports from the examining psychologists on your return from the Delta Quadrant. There is no way that Starfleet will ever let you command again without being certified stable by a psychologist. I'm sure you don't find the possibility of life inside a padded cell on New Zealand appealing."

Janeway shook her head. "Of course not, who would? I understand that I've made my share of mistakes by now. I've learned from those mistakes and I'm ready to do whatever is expected of me by Starfleet."

"Good," Jellico said as he turned to the doors. "After you. Speaking of Starfleet, I believe you have an appointment with Command..."

I just got caught up, the previous time I'd read this I only got as far as Sal-Solo's appearance before getting distracted by other things.

So I've just read through from there; Anakin fighting the Borg, Chewie's death and poor Tenal Ka losing another arm. Obviously Chewie's death is the big one there; lots of people have been positively comparing it the original Vector Prime version. Personally I never quite got why people thought that one was so bad; I mean Chewie goes out a hero saving people's lives, saving Anakin, and let's face it takes dropping a moon him before he stays down.. That's pretty damn epic. From reading comments in this thread it seems more that people found Anakin annoying and so his involvement reflected negatively on the whole thing.

Still you're death is less epic but much better done in terms of the aftermath; the slow scenes in the medbay and so forth a very effective compared to their NJO equivalents.

As For Tenal Ka, that was just cruel. I do like how you included her from the beginning as well as Jacen's crush/feelings for her. It was always a shame that they got ignored in the NJO with the exception of Star By Star and Dark Journey. Especially when Jacen goes straight back to lusting after Danni Quee in Destiny's Way.

So bravo for that. I look forward to more. Especially more of the Jacen/Tenal Ka plot.

I think the furor over Chewie's death in the original book was that, quite frankly, Vector Prime sucked as a whole. I mean, let's see, how many EU brainbugs can I find in the book?

• Small conflict between one or two outlying minor worlds with no real resources or anything else to speak of draws serious attention from Senate and Navy, to the point of sending a top diplomat to negotiate with the local tin-pot dictators... (VP Chapters 1
• Galaxy is surrounded by supposedly impenetrable disturbance (VP Chapter 2)... instead of nobody going out there because there's not much of anything worth looking for.
• Over twenty years of Luke's new Jedi program has produced... about 100 Jedi (VP Chapter 3). In the same time frame, something like 200 darksiders have popped their heads up like a game of whack-a-mole.
• Re: Anakin, Jacen and Jaina: Almost everything that happened during the Young Jedi Knight series (and even before that) was completely disregarded in favor of turning them back into immature, bratty, indecisive teenagers. Seriously, WTF? These guys have had ridiculously hard childhoods compared to your average teenaged brat. Let's see... Kidnapped multiple times (Hethrir, Sal-Solo). Resisted the Dark Side (Shadow Academy). Been in life or death situations on hostile planets. Forced to make life or death decisions that may affect thousands if not millions. I'm sure others can think of more things to add.
• Lando in yet another moneymaking scheme... and somehow he now owns not one, but two planets, one of which used to house a superlaser test site for the Empire. Apparently any planet can be won in the right game of sabacc. (VP chapter 4, 10)
• Unknown mystery disease causes someone to waste away (VP Chapter 4)
• Atmospheric disturbances cause communication problems. What do the authors think this is, Star Trek? Even handheld commlinks worked through kilometers of armor, plating and bulkheads on the Death Star...
• TIE fighter panels are solar panels (VP chapter 12), not heat sinks.
• Power cable applied to hull energizes it like Captain Nemo's Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues. Right. In space?!?! (VP chapter 18)
• One measly Imperator-class Star Destroyer (New Republic) patrols the entire Tingel Arm... which is coincidentally next to the Imperial Remnants. Wouldn't you expect there to be a bit more firepower in the area?
• Cruisers are declared to be smaller than Star Destroyers. I have no further comments on this one.
• A Star Destroyer can be brought down by fighters... and molten rock missiles. In a matter of minutes.
• Fundamentals of physics are taken out and beaten behind the shed with an ugly stick. See the so-called Fourth State of Matter, the "Mezzicanley Wave" that Anakin almost orgasms over. It also has the side effect of stopping a planet's rotation, restarting it, and then making said planet explode like it was hit by a Death Star. I just can't buy that -- even in Star Wars, physics just doesn't work that way.

But yeah, probably the worst crime against fiction was dropping a moon on Chewie. He got killed by an inanimate object turned strategic weapon by the Vong, on an unimportant backwater. The only thing they got right was his heroic response -- but the method of death was like having him stuck on Alderaan just before the Death Star's arrival.

Why the hell would the Vong test their planet-killing superweapon on a backwater planet, anyway? It's not like they didn't know if it would work (they'd developed the tactic before they had even left their galaxy... so why not try a more strategic target?

I'm sure other people have come up with other complaints about Vector Prime... and there's only been a few hundred threads lashing out at the godawful fanfiction written on pieces of shitstained toilet paper masquerading as Star Wars novels that have been published since the New Jedi Order.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN



As they waited for their turn in the Senate, sitting in the Corellian delegate chamber, C'baoth thought back to the arrival at Coruscant. It had been, he reflected, an almost religious moment for the weary crew of the Outbound Flight. After sixty years spent drifting millions of light-years from home, they had actually managed to accomplish their mission and return. Admittedly, to the crew it had appeared to be less than a year, thanks to the suspended animation, but the wear and tear on the ship was certainly showing.

Tears had run down more than one crewman's face as he or she saw the glittering jewel of the galaxy hanging in front of them. C'baoth recalled looking out the bridge viewports at the sight before him, and observed at the time that although sixty years had passed, little had changed in Coruscant's appearance. It was still a glowing orb, crisscrossed with the grid lines of skyways that ran between of massive blocks of towering, multi-kilometer skyscrapers. Still other parts of the planet were patterned with massive concentric rings of light. Some of the lights were so bright that even the reflected light of the system's star barely diminished them.

Then there had been the crew's reaction to the welcome by Coruscant Space Control. Likely owing to the Outbound Flight's almost legendary status, the traffic controllers had probably broken more than a few rules by giving them a very warm welcome. Somewhat more disturbing were several small anti-Jedi protests that C'baoth and the Federation entourage had run into outside the Senate rotunda. The Federation representatives had been understandably confused by the protests, and so had C'baoth to a lesser extent.

The longest part of the process, like any bureaucracy, involved paperwork. While it wasn't paper in this case, there were still hundreds of forms that had to be filled. The Federation delegation had already spent an entire week on Coruscant filling out forms and creating reports on various aspects of the Federation.

Finally one of the spotlights came to rest on the Corellian chamber, signaling it was their turn to speak. Senator Sal-Solo stood up.

"Representatives of the Galaxy, it is my deepest honor to introduce to you the crew of the Outbound Flight Project, which departed this galaxy sixty years ago and has just returned thanks to our efforts. They have with them a delegation from the United Federation of Planets, one of the largest governments in the galaxy they visited."

Thrackan made a somewhat theatrical turn before opening his hands toward the Federation representatives. "Not since the worlds of our satellite galaxy, the Rishi Maze, were admitted to the Old Republic thousands of years ago has the Republic had the opportunity to expand beyond this galaxy." He turned to face the center of the Senate. "Mr. President, I move the following resolution to allow this Federation membership in our great Republic."

There was a slight murmur as the Senators talked it out among themselves. After several minutes, Viqi Shesh stood up in the Kuat delegation chamber.

"On behalf of the people of Kuat, I am proud to second the Corellian senator's motion."

C'baoth quietly snorted. Some things hadn't changed in the thousands of years of the Republic's existence. A new territory meant ship contracts, and if there were ships to be built, Kuat Drive Yards wanted a piece of the action. This was especially true if they could get the contracts at Corellia's expense.

"The floor is now open for discussion of this resolution," Fey'lya announced. "Senator Sal-Solo, you may present any additional information at this point."

"Thank you, Mr. President," Sal-Solo replied. "The chief diplomat sent by the Federation, Commodore Kazuaki Shimazaki, will now be presenting a political and economic report on his government for your consideration and discussion."

As Commodore Shimazaki and the diplomats came to their feet, C'baoth stifled a yawn. He had heard their report a dozen times already while they had rehearsed it in the waiting room. As they started on how the Federation consisted of over a hundred member worlds and twice as many colonies, he began focusing on other members of the Senate. The attendance today, he observed idly, wasn't terribly high but since they had already voted on a number of issues already, they were certainly beyond any question of quorum.

One thing that had caught his eye immediately, even when he had first walked in, was that this wasn't the Republic Senate he had been used to. Sure, it was still the same building from the outside, with a few cosmetic differences, but the interior had been completely remade (in particular, the repulsor pods had mostly been eliminated). He considered the new decor rather ugly compared to what he remembered.

His gaze moved to some of the other delegations. What he found most interesting was that none of the faces he remembered, human or otherwise, remained. He would have at least expected some of the longer-lived races' delegations to still be at their seats, but considering that the Empire had come and gone and in the meantime had abolished the Senate, it wasn't too surprising.

Of course, the part that still surprised him was that Palpatine, who he had served as Jedi advisor to for a number of years, had actually been the Sith Master the Jedi Order had been looking for but kept failing to find. He supposed it actually made sense. Palpatine had been advised by the Jedi ever since he became Chancellor, and was considered by many of them to be beyond suspicion, merely a bright politician who kept the best interests of the Republic at heart.

He still wondered how he had pulled it off. To most Jedi, the Dark Side stood out like a beacon. However, in Palpatine's case, he just seemed like a normal person. Of course he knew the Force could be used to cloud one's vision, but normally a person had to be rather susceptible for mind tricks like that to work.

C'baoth thought back to all the times he had spent with Palpatine. Of course, he had been rather relaxed; after all, he was the Supreme Chancellor, so why would anything happen? That's it, he realized. The fact that he was the Chancellor made them relax around him, and therefore that much more susceptible to deception. Still, he had thought he would have at least been able to tell that something was wrong...

He looked over at Mara and Anakin, who were sitting beside him in the chamber and listening to the briefing. He had never been a strong believer in the strict interpretation of the Jedi Code, so the fact that Mara was married to Luke Skywalker and Anakin was her nephew hadn't been much of a shock for him. In places such as his home planet, the Jedi had been established for generations and unless they did something really stupid, the Council did not bother them too much or really care what they did.

In fact, he had been seeing a girl when he had been picked to go to Coruscant for a diplomatic scholarship with the Jedi Order. He had been forced to say his good-byes and then had never seen her again. In the time since, he had spent time with a number of different women, but never more than once. He laughed inside; that had been one of the hypocrisies of the Jedi Order, the fact that Jedi were allowed to sleep around as they saw fit, yet love and emotional attachment were expressly forbidden. It actually reminded him of the Vulcans he had met in the Federation, suppressing their feelings completely in favor of cold logic. There had been a not insignificant number of Jedi over the millennia that had tried to detach themselves completely. All of them had snapped eventually, usually with catastrophic results.



Shimazaki finished his presentation and the background chatter of the Senate rose as the various senators began to discuss. Aduro Solari, the senator from Euceron, came to his feet and cleared his throat.

"Commodore, you mentioned that your Federation is currently in a war with another power in your galaxy. I also could not help but notice that your government sent you, a Commodore in your starfleet, to represent them. What is your goal with this? Do you expect that upon joining the Republic, we will fight your battle for you?"

"Of course not," was Shimazaki's outraged reply. "While any assistance from your Navy will of course be deeply appreciated, Starfleet so far has held their own and will continue to do so barring unexpected setbacks. We are far more interested in partnering with the defense contractors of this Republic to build stronger, faster ships that will allow us to better defend ourselves against outside aggressors such as the Dominion."

The senator nodded. "Then you do realize that once your government joins the Republic, there is no going back."

"Of course," Shimazaki affirmed. "The ideals of the Republic are very similar to the Federation's ideals. We feel that as a member nation of the Republic, we have much to offer in many different scientific fields. I grant that our two hundred worlds may be minuscule when compared to the millions of members of this Republic, but just because we are small does not mean we have nothing to contribute."

Apparently satisfied, the senator sat back down.

Fey'lya stood up at the central podium and addressed the Senate. "For the resolution of membership for the United Federation Planets, the vote is now open."

Despite having so many representatives, the process of voting in the Senate actually went very quickly, and Fey'lya read off the results. "With 71 percent in favor, the motion passes. This Senate will now recognize Commodore Kazuaki Shimazaki of Earth as senator pro tempor, representing the United Federation of Planets."

There was a roar of cheering, something that was almost unheard of in the Senate rotunda.



Some time after the Senate had concluded its business for the day, Viqi Shesh locked her office, checked for bugs per her usual routine, and removed a villip from its hidden compartment in her heavy desk. She began stroking it, and soon it unfolded to reveal a hideous face.

"I have some new information that you may find intriguing," she began.


* * *


"Jacen!"

Jacen turned around suddenly to see his sister, Lowbacca, and Lando running up to him in the hospital.

"Oh, good, you're OK," Jaina said as she hugged him. "I was worried that something had happened with that last earthquake. What about Tenel Ka?"

Jacen turned around to look at her in the bed and sighed. "Still nothing. I've tried everything I could think of and so have the doctors. Anyway, what's going on with all the earthquakes? I thought Dubrillion was stable."

"Bad news," Jaina said with a sigh. "Looks like the Vong left a present for us. They managed to pull the moon out of its orbit with some sort of gravity-manipulating creature."

"What?" Jacen asked incredulously. "Are you kidding?"

"I wish she was," Lando said. "The Dubrillion government sent a strike team out there earlier today and killed the creature, but the damage was already done. According to the astrophysicists, the moon's orbit is decaying rapidly and there's barely two days left before it hits the upper atmosphere."

"We can't boost it back up, maybe attach some repulsors to it?"

"We don't have anything strong enough," Lando sighed. "You know, now would be a good time to have the old superlaser testbed here working. Pity the Empire gutted the place when they realized they weren't winning."

Jacen let out a nervous laugh. "I never thought I'd actually be wishing there was a Death Star around."

"Tell me about it," Lando said. "Anyway, they've already started the evacuation, although I doubt we're going to be able to get everyone off in time. Worse, with all the chaos this is causing it would be the perfect time for the Vong to strike and take out the refugees."

"You said it, not me. If that happens, I'm holding you responsible," Jaina said, mustering as much humor as she could under the situation. "Look, Jacen, with Tenel Ka knocked out you need to get her out of here before the real panic starts. Lando's already talked with the doctors here, they'll let you take one of the stretchers and the life support equipment with you."

Jacen sighed. "I don't know where to go. Cighal's a great healer, but the Praxeum doesn't have much in the way of medical equipment so I'm not sure that would be the best place to take her. I can't think of any other places that would take her without asking too many questions, either."

Jaina thought about the question for a while. "What about Hapes?"

"After what Ta'a Chume tried to do last time?"

She frowned. "True. But you weren't there last time, and I think you are more than capable to standing up to an old hag like her. Besides, Tenenial Djo is the Queen Mother, not Ta'a Chume, and I think she knows to let her daughter make her own decisions by now."

Jacen hung his head. "And just how am I supposed to explain myself? Should I look her mother in the eye and tell her that I cut her daughter's other arm off and, oh, by the way she's in a coma?"

"Well, you said it. The Praxeum doesn't have much in the way of medical facilities. Doesn't leave you with much choice now, does it?"

"Not really," Jacen sighed again. "All right, I'll take her to Hapes. I'm going to need some help getting her loaded."

Lowbacca chuffed something.

"Lowbacca says that he would be much obliged to assist," Em Tedee translated, then after Lowbacca let out a low growl, replied "No, I did not embellish that."

Jaina shook her head at the exchange. From being around Chewie and Lowie for so long, she guessed that the gist of what Lowie had said was more along the lines of 'I'll help.' "All right then. Lando and I are going to get back to the command center and see what we can do. Good luck." She gave both Jacen and Lowbacca a hug, then added, "And may the Force be with you."

"You too, sis," Jacen responded.



* * *



Jaina watched from space in the copilot's chair of the Lady Luck as the disaster unfolded. Two days had already passed, and Lando had pulled every favor he had with every single trader and company he knew. Around two thousand transports of different sizes had been called in from systems within a roughly hundred light-year radius, picked up as many people as they could pack on, and left. The orbiting stations in the system, damaged as they were from the previous Vong attack, were packed with as many as they could hold. Even so, from the last count there were still millions left crying for help.

Someone on the ground the day before had a great idea. Since the planet still had a working shield generator network, a remnant of the Empire's superlaser test installation, he had proposed dumping something like three quarters of the total available power into the generators closest to the moon, to create a bubble that it would bounce off of. They had set everything up, and activated it. For perhaps a fraction of a second, the shield held against the moon, vaporizing large portions of its lower surface – then the generators exploded, creating over a dozen massive waterspouts where they had been located. The trick had given Dubrillion perhaps another six hours of life.

For the first time since she had become a Jedi Knight, Jaina felt truly helpless. The sheer injustice of the situation burned inside her; these were innocent people, who had committed no crimes deserving of this fate.

'So this is what it must have felt like for Mom to watch Tarkin blow up Alderaan,' Jaina mused.

She wanted to scream, to shoot something, but what was the point? Her uncle Luke, of course, had told them many times during their training about the mindset it took to move something. "Nothing is too big for the Force," he had said, echoing Yoda. Yet, looking at the massive moon, already causing shockwaves in the atmosphere as it descended, she felt as insignificant as an atom floating in space.

Jaina closed her eyes and focused on the moon, trying to put out of her mind the fact that it massed more than even the second Death Star. She tried to imagine it weighing nothing more than a feather, and then she pictured blowing the feather away. As she focused, she felt a great, almost crushing weight, bearing down on her chest... Finally she couldn't take it any more, and opened her eyes.

The moon was still there. If she had moved it, the change had been so insignificant that she couldn't tell.

"KRIFF!" she shouted, pounding her fists on the nearest console in frustration. "Why won't it move?!"

On the other side of the cockpit, Lando sighed. "Look, kid, don't beat yourself up. There's only so much a person can do."

"But I'm not just any person," Jaina protested. "I'm a Jedi Knight. I can't just let those people down there die for no reason..."

"What are you trying to say?" Lando asked. "Do you think this is your fault? Because it isn't. If anything, this is more my fault because I was the one who convinced the government here to accept all those refugees you guys brought here. How do you think that makes me feel?"

Jaina choked out a nervous laugh. "It's not your fault either, Lando. The only reason Dubrillion is dying is because of those Vong bastards." She gritted her teeth. "We're going to make them pay for this."

"That's an understatement."

They had been orbiting loosely for several hours, recording everything from the Lady Luck's sensors. As they spoke, another shockwave passed through the atmosphere below, causing thousands of small explosions as buildings, power generators, and other installations were obliterated. As every shockwave had passed, the effects hit Jaina like a dagger, since thousands of people were dying each time. So much pain and suffering was radiating off the surface that it was almost unbearable, but there was no escape.

The increased tide from the moon had caused Dubrillion's wide, shallow oceans to surge across the landmasses, further destroying anything that the shockwaves hadn't already demolished and drowning anything underneath.

'At least the Death Star was mercifully quick,' Jaina thought. 'The people on Alderaan probably never realized what happened. This... This is just barbaric.'

As the moon dipped closer, the planet's crust itself began rising to meet the pull of the moon. Cracks opened and water met molten rock. The resulting thick clouds of burning steam had soon drifted to cover much of the planet, obscuring most of the view.

All Jaina could see now was an angry reddish glow from the combination of the shockwaves and volcanic activity. The shockwaves intensified, finally igniting in a solid wall of plasma that surrounded the moon. It was now locked into a rapidly tightening spiral, which ended before their eyes in a flash so bright that the viewscreen dimmed for several minutes as it subsided.

A massive conical spray of molten rock began to reach skyward, already larger than the moon itself had been. Within minutes, the plume had become wider than the planet.

"I'd heard of this happening in some of the active star clusters in the mid-Rim arms," Jaina said breathlessly, shocked at how beautiful the sight was yet horrified by the entire process, "but I never thought I'd actually see it happen in front of me."

They stayed to record for several more hours before finally making the jump to Coruscant.


* * *


Jaina was not sure how much time had passed since she'd fallen asleep to the time she woke up on Coruscant to present their findings to the Senate. Given that her head felt as if a herd of banthas had trampled across it, it had probably been only a few hours.

They had managed to get an audience with the Defense Council to explain what had happened on Dubrillion and in the Tingel Arm. Hopefully they would listen this time, she thought.

The Defense Council was far more focused on the proper operation of the Republic's armed forces, particularly the Navy, than the Advisory Council was. Because of this, both senators Sal-Solo and Shesh were already seated at the council's table, along with Fey'lya and quite a few other senators that Jaina didn't recognize when she and the rest of the family walked in.

"I'm sorry to hear of your loss," Thrackan said as he came to his feet.

Han bristled. "Why should you care now? You sure didn't give a damn back on Corellia when you and your thugs trapped Chewie and the kids in that repulsor."

"I'm trying to make amends here, Han. I've changed since then," he replied.

Han just gave him a glare strong enough to melt durasteel.

"In the interest of maintaining order," Fey'lya said with mock disdain, "what are your findings?"

Jaina stepped forward and inserted a datachip into the holoprojector on the table. "Let the evidence speak for itself," she said.

They watched silently through the recording of Dubrillion's destruction. For several minutes after the recording had ended, the room was still quiet. Then, finally:

"While I can see the effect in graphic detail, what caused this?"

Lando stepped forward. "As you can read in the report, attacks in the Tingel Arm by a previously unknown force known only as the Yuuzhan Vong had increased dramatically over the past month. Jaina Solo and several other Jedi Knights volunteered to evacuate several worlds that they deemed in severe risk of attack. As they were doing so, they fell under attack and retreated to Dubrillion. Somehow, the enemy force followed them. We managed to fight them off, but at some point during the battle they dropped some sort of gravity-manipulating creature on the surface of Dubrillion, which pulled the moon out of its orbit before it was killed."

"Do you know why they were attacking?" This time, it was Senator Shesh.

Everyone shook their heads. "No."

She frowned. "Did you attempt to communicate with them at any point?"

Jaina replied. "We received no response to standard hails, or any other sort of communication from them. There were no warnings before any attacks. Also, when Jacen fought one of their foot soldiers on Dantooine, he discovered that they have knowledge of the Jedi."

Shesh paused for a moment and looked down at her datapad. "Now, am I to understand that you, Jacen Solo, Tenel Ka Djo, and Lowbacca traveled without any state sanction with Kyp's Dozen-and-Two to the Belkadan system to investigate the disappearance of an ExGal society outpost almost three months ago?"

Jaina nodded. "That is correct."

"And after encountering the lone surviving member of the outpost, you alleged that said member was an infiltrator of a previously unknown race, who then tried to kill you?"

"That is also correct."

Shesh nodded. "You then went on a hunch and traveled to the Helska system, which you claimed was the main base for this race. The Dozen-and-Two then engaged in combat against this force and suffered severe losses before retreating to Yavin Four. Is this also correct?"

"Yes."

"Now, finally I understand that Corran Horn and Ganner Rhysode, over three months ago, encountered another member of this race on the planet Bimmiel, and discovered evidence that they have been in the Tingel Arm for at least seventy years."

Jaina nodded. "Also correct."

"Then are you aware that the Republic does not hold any claim to either the Helska or Belkadan systems? Would it have been possible for this race to have inhabited both systems since at least one hundred years ago?"

"I suppose so..."

Senator Shesh leaned back in her seat. "Well, I find it far more likely that this race had been in the remote region of the Tingel Arm for at least a hundred years and not been discovered yet. Then, instead of approaching diplomatically, as we should have done, a bunch of hotshot Jedi go in guns blazing. This race believes that they are being attacked, and responds in kind."

Jaina's jaw dropped in disbelief. Was she really hearing this? "Senator, with all due respect, we never fired a single shot in anger. We only responded with force when we were attacked."

"How am I supposed to believe you, when the information from your little 'trip' to Helska was not made known to the Senate until just now? How are we supposed to know that this threat exists, and is not just your 'Order' covering up a huge mistake?"

Jaina was now indignant. "That is not the Jedi way."

"Then what is the truth about this?"

"I just told you!" Jaina all but screamed.

Shesh paused for a moment. "Fine. Let's assume for now that I believe your story up to this point. Then several questions appear. First, why does this alien race know about the Jedi? Second, why can this race only be killed by skilled Jedi wielding lightsabers?"

"I never said that," Jaina said, resisting the urge to roll her eye.

"Yet, looking at what is written here, the only alleged kills of these aliens were done by Jedi. It almost sounds like you are grasping at this to try and make the Jedi useful to the Republic again."

"I lost the use of my eye. My brother's friend lost her only good arm and is still in a coma because of them," Jaina half-shouted, finally lowering her voice, "and she's a Jedi. The Vong can be killed by normal beings, Dubrillion's defense forces took down hundreds of them, and suffered thousands of losses in return. So no, you don't have to be a Jedi to kill them, but they have armor and defenses which are particularly well-suited to defending against most conventional tactics. We were only out there because we recognized the threat," Jaina's voice rose again, "and we were the only ones who did anything about it!"

"So," another Senator slowly said, "had you not been there, do you feel the outcome would have been any different?"

"Yes," Jaina said with conviction. "I can say for a fact that had we not been out there, there would have been casualties numbering at least in the hundreds of millions, not including those captured or enslaved."

"How curious," the same Senator replied. "Yet with you there, Dubrillion was completely destroyed, with millions of lives lost. How do we know that was not just due to your foolish actions in evacuating several neighboring worlds to it?"

Jaina's anger flared briefly, and she found herself wanting to punch the Senator's mouth so hard it would come out his backside. Somehow she managed to control the impulse. "The Dubrillion government freely offered to take the refugees from the neighboring systems. The fact that the Yuuzhan Vong had access to weaponry with destructive abilities similar to the Death Star was not something any of us had planned for."

The room was again silent for several minutes. Finally, Fey'lya spoke up. "It is my opinion that further discussion along these lines will not take us anywhere. The information gathered by the Jedi may have a bias to it, but I cannot say for sure until we investigate ourselves. Therefore, effective immediately, the Navy will dispatch recon forces through the Tingel arm to determine the intent of this race."

"But-"

Fey'lya banged his gavel on the table. "You will not mention this to anyone outside this room. This unsubstantiated speculation could cause untold panic if the holo networks get a hold of it."

Jaina slammed her fists down on the table in mockery of Fey'lya. "Then tell me, if one planet has already died, how many more have to die before this poor excuse for a defense committee will admit that a problem exists?"

Fey'lya glared at her. "It is only out of respect for your mother's reputation that I have not called security in. However, I strongly suggest you leave Coruscant, along with the rest of your corrupt Order. You are no longer welcome here."

Jaina turned and stormed out of the room, leaving the rest of her family standing in complete and utter shock.

"I'm disappointed in you, Fey'lya," Leia finally said with disgust. "Disappointed in you, and this Senate for allowing things to go on like this."

Fey'lya bared his lips in a thin smile. "Whether you like it or not, the Republic is democratic. And the people do not want you, or the Jedi, in power. They have already spoken, and there is nothing you can do about it."

"We'll see about that," Leia snarled.

The Bothan leaned back. "Is that a threat?"

"Do you want it to be?" she said bluntly.

Fey'lya's ears twitched in response. "Let us not forget the last time that the Jedi attempted a coup against the Republic."

Now it was Leia's turn to blink in disbelief. "You did not just make that comparison." She took a step backward. "The Jedi were entirely justified and completely within the bounds of their jurisdiction by attempting to remove Palpatine from power. I sincerely hope that you are not trying now to style yourself as a new Emperor."

Fey'lya snorted. "I was merely playing the devil's advocate."

"Let's hope so, for your sake," Leia replied as they were leaving.