Sylde watched, as did the rest of his crew at absolutely nothing. The target was erratically firing up systems but, just as quickly, shutting them down. The garbled chatter was played, replayed, slowed down, modulated, repeated with and without auto context and they were still no closer to determining anything other than “Ahsoka, damn, T’zar, kill, already.” ‘We have got to work on a better system’ he thought. ‘And what’s a T’zar?’
“Sir, she’s steady on, no intermittence.”
“I see Prit, thank you. All eyes on your stations, report any anomaly immediately. Timing is crucial.” He watched as all systems normalized in the target vessel and it began moving with haste toward the planet. “I want trajectories calculated on the second and possible vectors for approach.” “D5-Mantis, approximate thirty second landing cycle. They know they are being monitored so decant within five minutes.” A tech officer sounded out.
“Excellent.” Sylde said, turning to the holotable behind him. He turned his gaze back to the right screen while tapping the emitter control button and turned his head back to the table. A wavering blue static image of a human female in full Naval dress was waiting for him. “Captain Chyen, alert group one and marshal staggered entry on my mark.”
“Very good sir.” Chyen responded in heavily accented basic. “Muster two.” She said to someone off cam and the entire image resolved into a view of the entire command deck on Sylde’s end. He saw Chyen then turn where she was and tap the controls on her own holotable. Five more images stood around the table at her side, all with their attention on Sylde. Chyen fired off a volley of instructions to her own crew then turned to each of the tiny forms at her side. “Captains you know your order, five-minute stagger. Fall on rear and support strike. Launch support fighters only as necessary. Stonewall priority two. Captain Sylde has the mark.” She finished and returned her focus to Sylde.
Sylde, his eye off cam was concentrated on the far-right screen of his own command deck and waited patiently.
“Atmospheric in five, four, three, two...” Pritcar was counting down.
Sylde watched as the screen resolved from black to blue then turned quickly to face the cam, “Mark” and watched closely as the first of the five accompanying images vanished from Chyen’s table. “Good work all, neat and clean.” He nodded his thanks to Chyen and switched off his emitter.
‘Check and mate Mantis’ He watched the crisp blue transition to a hazy gray, then darken to a charcoal and finally black rimmed with red. “Why in the stars would anyone want to come here.” He said to himself.
Ahsoka had located the station, or what remained of it, on scanners as Kowani walked back into the cockpit.
“All set back there…. oh my...” She lost track of her initial statement upon looking beyond the canopy. “What a slag heap. Why would anyone want to come here?” She said. Black rock extended in every direction, faceless and empty. Details and striations within only exposed as they maneuvered closer to rivers of fast flowing lava, those details shaded varying hues of red. “It looks like the planet is bleeding.” She tried to describe her thoughts.
Ahsoka had no counter thought to add, she agreed completely, “Not one of the more popular destinations. It has played an integral part of history and kept the Separatist droid builders busy during the Clone Wars but has turned into something else entirely now.”
“What is that?” Kowani asked, her finger extended beyond the rocky outcropping they were passing over.
A flash of reddish lightning briefly revealed a towering structure to their left, and Ahsoka knew only too well what it was. She had not been certain of its exact location therefore could not purposefully avoid it, but now that it was known it could never be unknown. She closed her eyes and blew out her breath with a sigh. “It’s Vader’s fortress.”
“That’s no fortress,” T’zar interrupted Kowani’s thoughts.
‘Come again?’ She questioned.
“Look at the symmetry, the angles and then look for the currents and flows as only you know how.” He responded, “It’s a conduit.”
Kowani looked upon it again with the next arc flash of lightning and focused all her mind to the flows of the Force. It was there. All points on this world seemed to flow to it, the precise location she had even seen from their orbital location. It was a nexus to her, although her subconscious argued that a nexus had purpose, this did not seem to. She could explain it no other way no matter how wild her brainstorming divined. ‘What the hell is he doing here?’ She thought.
“I have no idea, but it is an accumulation of Force energy the likes of which I’ve yet to encounter Kowani.” T’zar remarked.
“Ahsoka, we...us, we...you know what I mean, believe this is more than a mere fortress, but we also agree that we should not be here.” Kowani said.
Ahsoka did not respond immediately as her attention was being pulled toward something else. She was unaware of the action and could not place its source, but she felt, sensed, something familiar. The familiarity was beyond what was expected. She had admitted to herself that she would probably be overwhelmed by emotion in this place and had therefore run herself through the mental practice of building the walls to withstand the impact emotion and feeling could have from a particular source. That source, as confirmed, was not on this planet. This feeling, here and now, had a different source and the familiarity bothered her immensely. “Huh?” Was all she managed.
“Not important now. What’s the plan?” Kowani said, as the foreboding structure passed out of view, her eyes unwillingly following it. “We’ll need to shake,” She flayed her hands about wildly, “whomever is doing the tracking, as well as buy us enough time to find what we’re looking for.” She added.
“I have an idea.” Ahsoka said.
Kowani looked at her sideways, “isn’t that usually followed up with ‘This is the only way!’”
Ahsoka stared at the Mirialan for a long moment wondering if that was the punch line or if one was still incoming. “Right. I’ll vector in for the station platform where we’ll jump off…”
“Seriously, does everything have to be the hard way?” Kowani interrupted. “No offense of course.” She said, slapping Ahsoka in the arm.
“Ok, hop off...sound better? We’ll hop off under repulsors then change vector and program the ship to land back there,” she cast her left thumb over her shoulder.
“I like it...mostly because I don’t have a better one.”
“I think it’s reckless.” T’zar said.
Kowani shrugged, ‘we are quite open to suggestion.”
“In the absence of nothing better I’ll just refrain from saying anything for a while” He responded.
Kowani felt her wrist vibrate and looked down. “Finally.” She spoke.
Ahsoka didn’t miss the movement, “What’s that?” She asked.
Kowani smiled, “Plan B.” then flared her eyes momentarily, reducing them to slivers, she looked back toward the doorway, turned her head to look out the canopy, then again at the doorway then finally back at Ahsoka, “Make that Plan C.” And she excused herself quickly from the room shouting, “get us to that station Ahsoka, I’ll be right back.”
Ahsoka could only toss her arms up in the air and swivel back around to punch in the coordinates for the proposed flight plan.
Kowani dropped to a knee from her all out run to the bags she had accumulated aft of the main cabin, sliding to a halt, and snaring the straps to the bag of detonators. She began placing them at various points throughout the main cabin, tossing a few onto vacant bunks in crew quarters then slung two dozen of them over her head into bandoliers. Tossing her head through the open strap of two more duffels filled to the brim with blasters, armor, slicing tools, med packs and various other items that were insufficiently nailed to the ground. She slid one of the helmets over her head and walked back into the cockpit after syncing the detonators to a single idiosyncratic ID and paired it with her comm.
“All set sister.” Her voice electronically modulated.
Ahsoka spun around to stand up, but froze in the process, “Well, your certainly dressed the part. A bit much though, don’t you think?” She began walking toward Kowani.
“Better to have too much than not enough.” She responded.
Ahsoka moved past Kowani into the outer cabin and froze. “Ani, tell me these aren’t ALL thermal detonators…. please.”
Kowani turned to stand at Ahsoka’s side. “Damn...I did all that?” Every flat surface, and even some that weren’t had an occupying silvery orb attached to it, flashing red at staggered intervals basking the entire room in a wavering red glow.
“No time to change it, let’s go.” Ahsoka said heading for the ramp. Kowani in step behind her, the transparent visor on her helmet fogging over, “How does anyone see in these things?” She whispered to herself, “Ahsoka grab those two bags on your way down please.”
Ahsoka did as asked then turned quickly and reached a hand up to toggle the activator for the helmet on Kowani’s head, “Better?” She asked.
“Much.” Said Kowani immediately. The fog disappeared instantly, and the HUD system came online, blinding her briefly. She took the helmet off, ‘We’ll figure that out later I think.’ she thought.
“Good plan.” T’zar chimed in.
The ramp was already decanting when Kowani reached the cargo bay, and she could feel the intense heat wash over her like an oven. “This place really sucks.” She said as both her and Ahsoka hoped off the ramp and onto uneven extremely porous stone. She turned to watch as the ship was already speeding away almost in the direct opposite direction it had come. “I’m really going to miss that ship.”
Sylde raised a hand to silence the update that was obvious to everyone watching the screen before them. He raised a slender hand to his stubbled chin and let play out any all scenarios his mind could conjure. “I can see WHAT is happening, our job is WHY. Zero Seven, is IR even possible here?”
“Possible yes, it will take several minutes to re-calibrate however to remove the obvious distortion.” Came the digitized response.
“Get to work then.” Sylde commanded. He had maintained control and was working every avenue he could think of, as were his crew.
“Single trajectory and reversion suggest nothing relevant at vector point, a ruse sir?” Pritcar spoke up.
“IS there anything at that location would be the more logical question to ask Prit, but your point is taken. What do we have planet side?”
A grinning young human had his hand raised stationed at a smaller version of Sylde’s holotable. He swung the emitter toward the center of the command deck and inserted his code cylinder into the device. It brought to life a digital Mustafar with various red dots at odd intervals. He removed a data pad from the side of the device and walked up to the image flickering before everyone. Tapping away on keys he wasn’t even looking at brought various portions of the planet into focus as he pointed out Indigenous settlements near vector one as well as three different areas labeled ‘installation’ only. A few more taps brought ‘installation’ one into finer focus. The wreckage was represented well, it was nothing more than ruins but did provide some detail by way of a severely damaged tunnel system. “Further probing finds those tunnels actually connect all three locations marked as such.” The young man said.
“Nice work ensign. These look to be nothing more than ruins. Any idea what they were at one point before falling into disuse?” Sylde asked.
“Data suggests manage stations for slag runoff or perimeter stations for suspension fields.” The ensign said.
“That would explain the tunnels.” Sylde confided. “Relevance then?”
“Near zero sir, that same data also suggests they haven’t had routed power in over twenty years.” Pritcar said.
“Any records regarding why it is in its current state?”
Several members of the crew turned their heads in his direction. “Sir?” he heard from somewhere in the room, and immediately regretted the question. He obviously didn’t know something they did.
“Seven, you got this one?” Bev asked.
“Gladly Lieutenant.” Came the electronic words. “Sir, this is the site of a majestic duel between Jedi Anakin Skywalker and Jedi Obi-wan Kenobi very late in the Clone War.”
“Sorry, relevance...and how is this known?” Sylde said bewildered as he heard a few snickers of laughter.
“Veritable droid lore sir...as for relevance, they managed to destroy the entire process facility in the southern hemisphere, sending more than seventy percent of it into meltdown.” Zero seven replied.
“Droid lore? What am I missing here?”
“We have our own network of information sir. The Droid Gotra for instance…”
“Ok, ok, point taken.” Sylde conceded, his arms raised in the air. “Let’s focus on Indigenous settlements then.”
“SIR!!! LOOK!!” Pritcar shouted, arms flailing following the projected path of the ‘target.’ “Vector two, its headed right for his fortress!” Both hands clapped loudly against his forehead.
‘Oh no’ thought Sylde, “Get Captain Hung on the comm immediately!”
“He’s already here!” Bev said, patching the IGV into the bridge of the ‘Tagata Taia,’ The ship decanting, as arranged, from hyperspace within range of mid orbital bombardment, “Go Sir.” She said after receiving the affirmation of the linked signal to the Victory class Star Destroyer.
“Captain do not fire. Repeat do not fire on the target. Vector two is restricted.” Sylde all but screamed into the air.
A frantic second passed before both side monitoring screens on his command deck distorted their respective images, flashed static across themselves then closed off connection altogether flashing ‘Signal lost’ in unison.
“Sir.” Zero seven broke the tension, “IR recalibration halted, scopes are dead.”
‘So am I’ thought Sylde.
“That wasn’t us Captain.” Came a voice over the comm. “Someone beat us to it?” Asked Captain Hung.
“Negative Captain,” Sylde responded, wishing he knew for sure. “Priority one attained in any event, proceed to priority two.” Without hesitation, the ensign at the command deck holoemitter snapped into existence a planetary view with green dots depicting ‘friendly’ vessels, all present watching the Tagata Taia maneuver to its predetermined location. “Bev.”
“Already on it sir.” She was a tempest of key tapping as she alerted the entirety of the battle group to the update in priority.
“Thank you, please patch me into comm link, same channel.” Sylde said, blowing out a breath.
“All yours sir.”
“Silent we run.” He began. “You all have your orders and have been updated. It is imperative that this blockade hold at all costs. No one leaves, and no one, absolutely no one gets on this planet.” He paused and blew out a breath again, “This includes Imperial Navy.” He heard the expectant intakes of breath from several members of his crew, but not a soul questioned the orders. “Tagata Taia acknowledges, Sempra Two acknowledges, Cilyrca acknowledges, Clairvoyant acknowledges, Eveileb acknowledges, Giruek acknowledges, Ogahpah acknowledges, Motsuc acknowledges, Lemac acknowledges, Othello acknowledges, Anticla acknowledges, Broocal acknowledges, Palama acknowledges, Herrell acknowledges, Ifera acknowledges, Torflame acknowledges, Ryhanuck acknowledges, Fosauri acknowledges, Morintroll acknowledges, Abalder acknowledges, Werot acknowledges, Ariwi acknowledges, Antiby acknowledges.” Everyone on Sylde’s command deck stood at attention and more than a few were shedding tears as the appropriate captain of each vessel reported in, their crews standing in identical pose they knew. It wasn’t the largest fleet in the Imperial Navy, but they weren’t in the Imperial Navy. They reported to only one individual.
“Sidious acknowledges.” Sylde said boldly and knew without doubt that every member present or otherwise of the vessel was just as proud as he was.