“100 credits per vial, 60 vials per crate and at 4 crates comes out to….30000 credits” Kowani demanded more than bargained in heavily accented basic as she sat back in her heavily worn seat within the Copper Baton, the smugglers dive in Vyndal township, a trance inducing electronic beat playing its rhythm on repeat in the background, her connection of choice to move certain cargoes of questionable legality.
“Thatsss isss criminal!” hissed the Trandoshan on the other side of the table, his reptilian eyes narrowing into shadowed ellipses.
“Costs associated with operating a shadow operation on a quarantined planet with the ever-watchful eyes of the Empire.” She retorted, the dim light causing her olive complexion to reflect shades of brown.
“I, we, will notssss pay a credit over 23000ssss!” The Trandoshan spit forth, his forked tongue jutting out between rows of razor-sharp teeth for emphasis.
“Refining the Ashes alone costs ten thousand to process! Are you here to make a deal or insult me?” the negotiator in Kowani kicking in full force, her black eyes narrowing into harsh slits to sell her defensive performance.
“Finessss 26000 creditssss” he rebutted.
“28000 and we’re both on our separate waysssss” she said in absolution with more than a little sarcasm.
“Deal!” He hastily agreed, letting a chitter escape his maw as the scales on his shoulder shuddered slightly.
“I’ll have the crates delivered as soon as the credits are transferred.” She said hastily, her dark lips pulling thin into the olive skin of her cheeks. The Trandoshan hissed commands into his commlink, his eyes darting between the Mirilans face and the blaster at her side. Kowanis data pad blinked in response as the transfer completed. Two quick touches on the pad and fifteen seconds later the Trandosians comm confirmed the delivery. “A pleasure doing business with you Saak.” She said with a smile. He stood up, nodded to Kowani, and wordlessly made for the door. “Another notch in the belt” she muttered to herself feeling quite proud of the transaction. She felt herself drawn right back into the hypnotic beats and melodies of the music as her business was completed. She drained the remaining Corellian Ale from her mug and got up. No sooner had her left knee straightened out than the data pad went wild with action. Her miner was leaving Malachor and entering…. orbit?
Not impossible, she supposed, just improbable. The action surrounding the obliteration of the temple on Malachor had all but ceased six months prior and only the most die hard, and fortunate, of excavators had the patience and capacity to sift through the wreckage levied at the temple site to mine for the petrified remains and shards of Kyber. The former was a well-known commodity essential in crafting Ashes of Malachor. A mind-altering transient used to unleash ferocity of both cruelty and recklessness usually at the cost of one’s sanity. The latter was somewhat of a mystery and Kowani only came across it by chance. She had made many daring forays into the underbelly of the temple site to grind away petrified jedi and Sith of old into the dark dusty ash but after the dramatic explosion some two years ago, Kyber shards littered the reformed site. The complexity of getting to, and identifying, what was formerly easy to extract for the ash was made up for in ease by the simple presence of the crystal. And it was everywhere. Every day she would fill crate upon crate of the Kyber knowing full well at some point she would have competition but the surprise of only a few others getting wind of and mining the site was astounding.
The Empire had initially labeled Kyber restricted but then, more recently, designated it contraband entirely which only fueled her enthusiasm to harvest more. The chore itself was getting more and more difficult by the day. However, debris had to be swept aside with care taken not to damage what was left of the petrified remains as she was also still actively harvesting for the ash. The crystals were still relatively easy to find as they were set into the surface of the debris or slightly under it and, being a woman of means, she set to work building a vessel, complete with droid, capable of doing this part of the job for her while she set to networking the channels needed to turn the “goods” into profit. The question of why the Kyber was here to begin with was still needling her even as she was finishing up the retrofitted sifting arms protruding from the sides of what once was a glamorous CEC Crix class shuttle. Modified repulsors could take the vessel up and down out of the crater with ease. The droid, R3-D7, modified itself with mining appendages and geological downloads to cater to the specifics of the task, would assign the ship in predetermined sections it calculated for. The two worked together remarkably and Kowani found that she could control and monitor the progress from Vyndal, not far away, affording her precisely the market she needed to extend those sought after channels.
The profit was extensive. Being a hobbyist in turning a profit at the knowledge gained from being a student of geology, she knew Kyber could not naturally exist in this location. It shouldn't even exist on Malachor at all, but here it was, and so was she. Then there was the matter of the Imperial Star Dreadnought in the system, enjoying a healthy orbit over Malachor itself, Vader’s dreadnought. This kept most would-be diehards from following through with their raucous claims of “stealing from right under their noses.” Kowani was adept at many things, transmissions, and signal manipulation herself imposed specialty. Through a host of implementations, signal relaying and bounce back looping, she could scatter, scrub, mislead, cajole, duplicate, replicate, multiply or kill altogether, all signal transmissions to and from her ship. The Liberator, her mainstay Corellian YT-1760, could create false echoes, relay, and dispatch its own signature elsewhere planetary, scrub the signature completely or falsely identify the scanning ship with its own signature. Keeping a full inventory of any active signatures, Imperial and non, was the job of her initial protocol droid to which she downloaded into the ships feed and database. She was by all rights “invisible” whenever she wanted to be. Approximately one year ago, the dreadnought left the system, attention, it seemed, was on Vyndal now.
And now her miner was in low orbit.
Kowani activated the one-way holoprojector in her miner, scanning the interior of the vessel, shocked to see a sleeping Togruta female in the pilot’s seat. In her mind, the situation was instantly upgraded from surprise to stupefaction.
“What in the hell?” She gave the data pad a shake, knowing full well it wouldn't change its display. “I couldn't make this up if I tried!” As it was, her operation was running dry of new locations to mine, without diving into the lower levels that is and R3 had reminded her of that before shutting down for the remainder of the day. She began heading towards her own ship and tucked the data pad in the right leg pocket of her khakis. Blaster holstered at her side, she was going to figure this out one way or another. The YT-1760 was ready and waiting for her. A touch of her wrist comm sent the boarding ramp whooshing down and back up again just as fast. She had commed in pre-flights with the same device and was already yoking the ship skyward on repulsors as soon as she sat down. All she needed to do was break upper atmosphere, engage the hyperdrive and confound the Galipoli, the Imperial mainstay patrol vessel in the system. This being her usual way fair, and only fuel expense, she would short hop and be on her miner in a matter of minutes. She initiated the sub routine she had even named after the Imperial light cruiser, selected ‘random’ from a list of static effects, and engaged the signal hack with a slight smile thinning her lips. In as much time, the miner had cleared high orbit and hit real space over Malachor. There were odd signals coming from the miner as it disappeared from scopes and reappeared, now behind her in high orbit and descending quickly on Vyndal!
“How the hell?” Kowani was dumbfounded. She was adept at mechanics and shipbuilding enough to know that that thing should not have been capable of real space flight much less a micro jump. She wheeled the Liberator around and followed the miner’s course. The data pad out again, she punched up the one-way feed on the holoprojector and saw the Togruta again, this time awake and noticeably focused. She could only imagine the damage that ship was going through and the miracle necessary to land the thing. A short burst of energy popping through the holo shorting out the feed on the miner ending the feed abruptly. The streak of fire in the atmosphere before her settled any questions she may have had about anything functioning on the ship.
“Too fast! You’re coming in to fast!!” She was shouting at the transparisteel in front of her. She pushed forward on her own control arm, more out of curiosity than anything at this point, to see the ship list heavily starboard and invert itself at almost full throttle.
“There is no way she’s going to survive this.” It was almost an epitaph.
What ensued was sheer insanity. An inverted barrel roll into a full throttle accelerated climb should have sheared off just about everything on the exterior of the ship, but the pilot cut all power to the sub lights as it was cresting the apex and gravity took over just as she engaged the massive repulsor array, the ship coming to a somewhat soft landing at Vyndal station. Kowani set her own repulsors at max and sat, watching, from two klicks away. The miner was done for and, honestly, she didn't mind. The spectacle she had just witnessed was worth every credit she put into furnishing it. Kowani was a decent pilot in her own right, but this Togruta was on a different level. The miner she could replace. This pilot would be priceless.
✦
Commander Kalav waited impatiently for the comm tech to relay the information directly to his holotable, and sure enough, there was a heap of junk suspended in low orbit, just as the tech had indicated moments before in response to the chimes on his signal control. What happened in the next five minutes would take him hours of reports, blank stares into the eyes of superiors and quite possibly the angst of Lord Vader. The space junk attained high orbit and was en route, it appeared, to Vyndal via sub light. In the blink of an eye, proximity detection picked up three-star destroyers on a collision course with his own ship and a Mon Cal star cruiser, that had apparently materialized off the port bow. Klaxons blaring, sirens wailing in warning of imminent danger, lights flashing in a cacophony of colors indicating a host of internal and external alarms and the entire crew looking in his direction for some form of guidance, Kalav began to bark out orders for evasive maneuvers and increased power to forward shielding while internally cursing getting up this morning. In as much time as it took the chaos to align itself, all presence, outside of his own ship, was gone. Nothing on scanners, nothing on scopes and nothing in view. The Star Destroyers and star cruiser, along with the anomaly leaving Malachor were gone. High and low resolution, near and long-range scanning was coming back negative on all counts. With nothing to show for the commotion, he briefly tossed around the idea of scrubbing the incident entirely from the databanks but dismissed the notion instantaneously as it would be certain death to do so. He returned to his command table, took a seat in the command chair, and prepped the comm to send word of the incident to Lord Vader. This was going to be interesting.
1 BBY
Darth Vader had been obsessed for quite some time. Finding Anakin’s former Padawan was necessary for extinguishing anything that remained of his past. The Sith within him told him as much. He would not acknowledge the growing conflict within. The conflict he knew Sidious could sense. He had to find Ahsoka Tano. He had to finish Ahsoka Tano and kill what remained of Anakin Skywalker.
“Admiral Ozzel, we cannot stay in this system any longer. Dispatch a garrison to Vyndal and deploy the Galipoli to monitor the system, reporting any abnormalities to me directly” Vader commanded. Knowing full well whatever materialized in the Padawan’s re-appearance would be right here. Commands from his master were above reproach, however.
“With haste Lord Vader” barked Ozzel.
“Admiral, set a course for Sentinel base, we won’t be keeping Moff Tarkin waiting any longer.”
“Where have you run too my little Padawan” mumbled Vader as his gaze out of the forward tactical viewport saw the transformation of real space to the twisted blue visage of hurtling stars. The massive star dreadnought finally leaving the Malachor system.