CHAPTER FIFTEEN
En route to the Ileenium system
As the blue tunnel of hyperspace swirled before her eyes, Rey found her mind drifting into places unknown.
The Sith holocron continued to whisper to her, speaking her name as it called out for her attention. It was still in the satchel Finn had put it in, which he had since moved further away from her as if sensing that she was still being tempted by it. How he wasn’t being affected by it, she had no idea. It was almost as if the holocron wanted her and only her.
She tried to ignore it, but whenever she did strange images would flash in her mind. She saw a jagged, spiked throne surrounded by lightning, occupied by a cloaked figure with white eyes that burned like stars, whispering the same word over and over again.
“Mine.”
It was a voice that sounded familiar, almost paternally. Was the figure supposed to be her father? Or some other relative, perhaps? Still, there was also something off about the voice, something ethereal about it that made her wonder if it was simply pretending to be her father or any kind of relative. Like it was trying to lure her somewhere; as to where, she was at a loss.
This was not the only thing she found herself dwelling on. The words of Kylo Ren also continued to echo in her mind. You clearly want it more than I do, he had said in reference to the holocron. Perhaps you even need it more than I do.
Did she truly want the holocron? Did she truly need it? Or was it simply the dark side trying to trick her? Toah had warned her about the dangers of the dark side, how it could deceive impressionable minds… yet somehow, she had never found his explanations to be convincing. To her, it felt as if he was simply trying to convince himself that the dark side was something better of untouched, untapped. Yet from what she had seen and experienced for herself, Rey couldn’t help but wonder if a lot of the galaxy’s problems could be solved in a heartbeat if one simply embraced the dark side for what it was: the true, raw potential of the Force.
“We’ll be exiting hyperspace in a few minutes,” Vi Moradi announced from the cockpit, snapping Rey back to reality. “Just to give you guys a head’s up.”
Rey readjusted herself in her seat and glanced at Finn, who was staring intently at her. Turning to face him, she asked, “What is it?”
“It’s still talking to you, isn’t it?” he asked.
She turned away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Look, Rey, I’m no expert on this kind of stuff, but from what I understand, these Sith relics are a danger to everyone, especially Jedi.”
“How would you know?” she snapped at him. “You’re not a Jedi.”
“Neither are you,” he pointed out. “Not yet, anyways.”
She was about to fire off another retort when she felt the ship exit hyperspace and come out into the orbit of D’Qar. Less than a minute later, alarms began to wail around the ship as Vi spoke up again from the cockpit.
“We’ve got a problem.”
Both Rey and Finn got out of their seats to exit the cockpit, at which point they saw right away what said problem was. A number of Star Destroyers were dropping out of hyperspace as well, each one deploying an entire flight of TIE fighters that began to make their way towards the planet.
“This can’t be happening,” Vi muttered as she stared at the scene unfolding before her eyes. “How could they have found us?”
“Must be a mole or something,” said her co-pilot. “Maybe someone at the base was a spy all along.”
Rey felt Finn glance at her; at first, she thought it was an accusatory look, which didn’t make sense to her since she wasn’t the one that was an ex-stormtrooper. But then she thought back to how they had gotten to this point in the first place; how they had gone on a pointless mission against orders and gotten nothing from it besides a dangerous Sith relic… and how it had all started because of what 11-4D had told her. A droid whose origins or purpose she did not fully know or understand.
Until now.
Meeting Finn’s gaze, Rey said quietly, “We’ve just made a huge mistake.”
“Yes,” he whispered back. “I think we have.”
The Supremacy
“You can sense it, can’t you?”
Kylo Ren ignored Darth Vorath as he sat on his throne aboard the Supremacy. His attention was focused on the oculus viewing device that displayed the First Order fleet jumping out of hyperspace to surround the planet of D’Qar, supposed location of the Resistance’s hidden base. Not long after he had departed from Batuu, the Supremacy had received the coordinates to the base from an anonymous source, and General Pryde’s sources had corroborated the data and found it legitimate enough to be worth investigating. Judging by the Resistance ships and starfighters that were beginning to lift off from the planet to confront the First Order, it appeared the information had been legitimate after all.
“We have been deceived.”
Kylo Ren clenched his fists. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, the ancient Dark Lord’s voice persisted in his mind, forcing him to accept the truth.
“The Supreme Leader lives.”
Growling in anger, Kylo Ren seized the oculus with the Force and ripped it from out of the floor, hurling it in the direction of the Attendants that maintained the device. The purple-cloaked beings ducked for cover as the device flew past them and crashed into the wall before falling down a bottomless chasm.
Ignoring the pressing gaze of Vorath’s current body from the nearby force cage, Kylo Ren hailed Captain Yago on his comlink.
“Captain, have them prepare my fighter. I shall be joining the battle.”
“As you wish, Executor.”
Before Yago had even finished speaking, Kylo Ren was marching down the pathway leading to the throne room’s turbolift. He kept his back turned even as he stepped in, letting the doors close behind him. Even then, he could still feel Vorath’s gaze burned into the back of his head, a sensation that stuck with him all the way down.
The Errant Venture
“No. Absolutely not.”
Booster Terrik stood on the bridge of the Errant Venture, his arms crossed as he held a stare down with Kyla Kishanti and Sare Valrisa. The Rybet known as Cyclops—recently outed by Argus Ordo as the Malvis Cabal’s spy within the Smugglers’ Alliance—nervously stood at Booster’s side. Booster had decided to keep him close by rather than send him to the brig, figuring from his own experiences that the Rybet would just get up to more trouble if he wasn’t in his line of sight.
“We are not going to Ord Talavos,” Booster elaborated further. “Not after we encountered a sample of what the Cabal had to offer back at Takodana. We’re lucky they decided to play nice with us.”
“But it’s the only way we can bring an end to the Cabal,” Kyla insisted. “Ord Talavos is the heart of their operations. Take out the heart and the rest will fall.”
“If what you’ve learned and what you’ve told me is all true, then the Cabal has already seeded itself deep within galactic society. If they’ve got their own man running the Alliance now, then taking them out at Ord Talavos won’t do anything. They’re at Coruscant, Corellia, Alsakan, Hosnian, Chandrila….”
“Sedratis,” Valrisa murmured.
Both Booster and Kyla turned to look at her. “What was that?” the former asked.
“We’ve never investigated Sedratis,” Valrisa said. “I remember one of the Resistance’s pilots saying that Sedratis was a likely location of where the Cabal was operating. It’s where my… my mother was from, and she was a prominent member.”
“There you go,” Booster grunted. “No matter what head we cut off, there’s still a million left over even as two more take its place. Look, I wanna get rid of these folks as much as you do, but we can’t just charge headfirst into any—”
“Uh, Captain,” a Togruta comm officer called out from her station. “We’re receiving a call. It’s coming from….”
Booster looked at the officer in annoyance. “Well, then, spit it out!”
“It’s coming from Ord Talavos.”
Booster’s eyebrows shot up and he exchanged glances with Kyla and Valrisa. He then gave the officer to go-ahead to put the call to visual and the viewscreen lit up over the bridge. Rather than display the face of Drakmos, as Booster and the other two had been expecting, it instead showed the face of a green-skinned Twi’lek, grinning toothily at her audience.
“Well met, Captain Terrik,” the Twi’lek said. “My name is Viira of the Veiled Sorority.”
“I remember you,” Valrisa said, stepping into view of the screen. “You were with Queen Kestora and her crew.”
“Former Queen Kestora,” Viira corrected her. She held up the mask of the Pirate Queen, her grin growing even wider and more malicious. “That title now belongs to me.”
Valrisa opened her mouth to question the Twi’lek further but Booster silenced her with a raise of his hand as he stepped back in front of her. “What do you want?” he grunted.
“I simply saw it fit to inform you of recent… events,” Viira replied. “Consider it a gesture of goodwill, should we ever be required to join forces.”
“That’ll be up to Karrde to decide,” Booster said. “What do you have to say, then?”
“The leadership of the Malvis Cabal has been… decimated, for lack of a better word. They had a gathering here on Ord Talavos to celebrate their victory on Coruscant and, needless to say, the host—Drakmos the Despised himself—did not treat his guests too kindly.”
Booster, Valrisa, and Kyla all stared at the viewscreen in shock. “You mean… they’re all dead?” Valrisa asked.
“Most of them. Mikus, Gaar Tandoon…. Some of them managed to escape; we offered Madame Maeva a ride off-world, and we saw some of the others manage to make it to their ships. At least, those that weren’t destroyed in the blast.”
“What blast?” asked Booster.
“I’m not quite sure, to be honest. Some kind of ship fired down on the fortress in Vostal and blew up the courtyard, killing Drakmos and destroying some of the ships in the process. We essentially took that as our cue to leave.”
“And Malvis?” Valrisa asked. “Was he there?”
Viira shrugged. “I wasn’t there, so it’s not for me to say.”
Grimacing, Booster motioned for Viira to be put on mute before turning to look at Kyla and Valrisa. “I’m not buying any of this,” he muttered to the two of them. “Seems too good to be true.”
“I’m not sure what she has to gain by lying about this,” Kyla said. “Even if she’s telling the truth and that most of the Cabal’s leaders are dead, that doesn’t lessen the impact they have already made. Especially if Malvis is still alive; he’s probably just tying up loose ends now that he’s gotten what he wants.”
While Booster contemplated over this, Valrisa glanced back at the viewscreen and saw that Viira was gesturing towards them.
“I think she has more to tell us,” Valrisa whispered.
Grunting, Booster turned back and had the Togruta officer resume audio output for the Twi’lek pirate. At that moment, Viira dragged a human woman into view; a woman whom Valrisa instantly recognized as Queen Kestora herself, otherwise known as Danielle Kieran.
“Since my gift of good news does not appear to have been received well, perhaps this will make you consider my offer of an alliance.” The snap-hiss of a lightsaber activating sounded and Viira brought an emerald blade of energy to Dani’s neck. The Twi’lek’s gaze was now solely on Valrisa, rather than on Booster or Kyla. “You remember Miss Kestora here, don’t you?”
Valrisa frowned. “How could I not?”
“Well, it might interest you to know that she had been keeping secrets from us—her own crew. Apparently, everything she had done back at Corellia and Ord Mantell… was to bring herself closer to you. She had spent the last twenty-five years looking for you, and had been expending the Veiled Sorority’s own resources solely for the purpose of finding you. Truly, a mother’s love for her daughter will go far.”
Valrisa could feel Booster and Kyla’s eyes on her, but all she could do was stare at the image of Viira as the Twi’lek pirate validated what Toah had told her back on Coruscant. She opened her mouth to say something but realized she had no words to speak, unable to form a coherent thought.
Smiling wickedly, Viira continued. “If you want to see your mother again, then meet me on Numidian Prime so that we may reach an agreement. You have two standard days.”
With that, the transmission was cut off, leaving the image of Viira with a lightsaber blade to Kestora’s neck seared in Valrisa’s mind. From nearby, she heard Kyla carefully clear her throat.
“Well then,” the Mirialan smuggler said quietly, “I suppose that gives us our next objective.”
“You don’t call the shots here, Kishanti,” Booster said sternly. “I’ll have to bring this to Karrde, and I doubt he’ll—”
“Sir!” another comm officer called out from their station.
“For kark’s sake, what is it this time?” Booster snapped.
“We’re picking up a distress signal from D’Qar! The Resistance Base is under attack!”
Booster’s annoyance was instantly replaced with dread. “Set course for the Ileenium system!” he shouted out to the rest of the crew. “All gunners, get to your stations! Prepare the starfighters for takeoff as soon as we drop out of hyperspace!”
“But what about—” Valrisa started to say.
“Your mom can wait, kid,” Booster grunted as he shouldered past her. “She’s got two days at least. Our friends probably don’t even have half that.”
Knowing that it would be useless to object and argue, Valrisa simply stood there as the rest of the world continued to move around her, oblivious to hers that had just been shattered.
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