CHAPTER THREE
As planets went, one could not get more remote than Crait. Located just off the Duros Space Run and straddling the border between the Grumani and Bon’nyuw-Luq sectors, Crait was a desolate and uninhabited world covered in flats made of salt. There was virtually nothing of value on the planet, which was why it had been ignored by all of the galactic governments and visited only semi-frequently by curious miners.
Which, of course, made it the perfect location for a new hidden base.
It was not the first time Leia had been to Crait. During the early days of the Rebellion, it had been the site of a secret outpost that the Rebels had abandoned shortly before the Battle of Yavin. Since then, the planet had not been visited by anyone affiliated with the Alliance, and from what she could tell the outpost had not been touched in the last forty-two years. The old equipment from those early days were exactly where they had been left, although stars knew if they were even still operable.
Leaving the Raddus in orbit of the planet in case they needed to make another hasty retreat, Leia had taken a shuttle down to the planet to oversee the transferring of equipment and personnel as the Resistance got settled in at the old outpost. Pushing back her feelings of history repeating itself when she did not want it to, she focused herself on the here and now as she listened to General Helricks bark orders and soldiers scurry this way and that.
At her behest, the fleet had split up and headed to different locations within the sector until they could properly regroup. She had no idea if the First Order would pursue them after destroying their base at D’Qar, or if they had simply been making a show to scare them given that they had essentially lost the support of the Galactic Alliance with Tyron Valrisa now serving as Chief of State. Either way, she was not about to take any risks.
As she watched the personnel move about the base, Leia noticed Kaydel Ko Connix approach her and the young woman snapped off a quick salute. “Incoming message from Fulcrum, General,” her surrogate niece said.
Leia nodded her thanks before moving into a private section of the base to take the message. The lights in the room dimmed as the distinctive sigil of Fulcrum materialized before her. Since the inception of the Rebellion, the codename of Fulcrum had been passed down from person to person, extending even into the early days of the New Republic until it was retired by Intelligence. The current holder of the name was Iella Wessiri, wife of her old friend Wedge Antilles, although there were others under Iella’s command that also used the codename when needed. Leia had no idea if it was Iella she was speaking to now or someone else… but she supposed that was the point.
“General Organa,” Fulcrum began, “have you successfully relocated from D’Qar?”
“Yes,” Leia replied. “We were able to evacuate with minimal casualties. We lost a few fighters, but for the most part we are all in one piece. Although I can’t help but feel that it is because the First Order allowed us to escape. I can’t imagine why, though….”
“Undoubtedly they have become confident in their rule. More sectors in the Outer Rim have fallen to their jurisdiction and the Galactic Alliance is all but under their thumb now. In their eyes, we are little more than a minor nuisance to them.”
“Then perhaps we should become more than just a ‘minor nuisance.’ Do you have any intel that we can use?”
“Nothing solid at the moment. With Agent Rar still missing, we don’t have as many eyes and ears on Coruscant that we would like.” Fulcrum paused for a moment. “What are the grid coordinates of your present location?”
“Nern seventeen,” Leia replied.
“We do have an agent on Darkknell. In their latest report, they said they had uncovered some important intelligence on the Malvis Cabal which might still prove useful even if the Cabal itself as an entity is no longer a concern after what happened on Ord Talavos.”
Leia nodded in contemplation. Shortly upon arriving at Crait, she had received a report from Booster Terrik, informing her that he and his crew had successfully escaped from the Ileennium system; he had also given her information he had received regarding the Cabal’s collapse on Ord Talavos, although he had also noted that his source may or may not have been completely reliable. In any case, the Errant Venture and Wild Karrde were now en route to meet up with said source to verify these claims and, in Booster’s own words, “take care of some errands.” Leia wasn’t sure what he had meant by that, but she trusted him to carry out whatever operations he needed to. Besides, keeping their forces divided was the strategy for the time being, so it was ideal that the Errant Venture went on its own path.
Regardless of the state that the Cabal was in now, any information on them would likely give them a lead on the First Order’s own operations, given how closely associated they were with one another. Any intelligence this agent had would be invaluable.
“I can send someone to meet up with this agent,” she said. “Do they have a name.”
“They simply go by ‘Gray.’ I will transmit you his coordinates now.”
After receiving the coordinates, Leia looked back up at the symbol of Fulcrum. “Thank you, Fulcrum. We will make good on this.”
“I trust that you will. Fulcrum out.”
With that, the symbol faded away and Leia was left alone in the room. Stepping back outside into the main hangar bay of the Crait Base, Leia scanned the vast room and spotted Rey and Finn on the other side, speaking with chief technician Rose Tico. Again, Leia felt that fleeting feeling; that feeling of cold that she had learned to associate with the dark side. And again, it passed like a winter breeze.
She wished that Toah was here so she could speak with him regarding his apprentice. But she knew he was with Booster’s crew after having been rescued by them following his failed mission on Coruscant. Hopefully whatever this errand was wouldn’t take them too long so that he could return and guide his apprentice.
Or, perhaps, she could provide guidance of her own….
Leia shook her head. She had long decided that the Jedi path was not for her, even if she did keep her lightsaber around at her brother’s insistence. Perhaps when this was all over, she would consider becoming a formal member of the Jedi Order… but until then, she had a resistance to build.
And with the way things were going, it was going to take quite a bit of time.
* * *
“What’s that around your neck?”
“Oh, this?” Rose Tico pulled out the crescent-shaped medallion she had around her neck, tucked within the collar of her shirt. “It’s an Otomok medallion, made from Haysian ore. Have you ever been to Hays Minor?”
“Can’t say I have,” Finn replied, although he withheld himself from wincing. While he had never been to Hays Minor, he had heard of it as part of the Otomok system. It was one of the many remote worlds out in the Outer Rim that quietly suffered from the First Order’s operations, years before it had made itself known. More than a few of his fellow stormtroopers had come from the Otomok system, and he had even been stationed there to oversee the mining operations.
But he did not dare say any of this to Rose. His status as a former stormtrooper was no secret and he did not want to jeopardize any potential friendships by reminding people of that fact.
“I don’t blame you,” Rose went on. “It’s pretty remote, and people only care for its minerals. Kind of like this planet, I suppose.” She looked down at the medallion, smiling wistfully. “My sister Paige has a matching one.”
“Is she with the Resistance?” asked Rey.
“Yup. Member of Cobalt Squadron. She commandeers one of those rickety old MegaFortress bombers.”
“I’ve seen them in the hangar bays but never in combat,” Finn said. “They don’t look particularly… efficient for space combat.”
Rose snorted. “Because they’re not made for space combat. They’re atmospheric, made for dropping bombs on ground installations. They are space capable, but their bombs would just float around in space rather than fall on their target. Maybe if the conditions or positions were just right….” She shook her head. “But that’s neither here nor there.” Tucking the medallion back under her shirt, Rose turned her attention to Rey. “So, how was your trip?”
Rey stared at her. “I’m sorry?”
“You guys took a ship and left when General Organa was about to give you and your master a mission. Where did you guys go?”
Finn could tell Rey was glancing at him but he merely inclined his head, avoiding her gaze. He did not want to bear any responsibility for her blatant disregard of orders, putting his own standing with the Resistance at risk by dragging him along with her. He doubted she was going to face much of a reprimand given that she was a Jedi and not technically part of the command structure, and he was certain that the only reason he hadn’t been reprimanded yet was because of the First Order attacking as soon as they had returned to D’Qar.
He did not want to say that he resented her for this. But he would also be lying if he said that he didn’t.
“We went to Batuu,” Rey finally said. “I had a… premonition that we had to be there.”
“Oh.” Rose slowly nodded as if she understood. “Is that a Force thing or something?”
“Yeah. It’s a bit hard to explain.”
Finn restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Try explaining it to the Generals.
“All right,” Rose said. “Well, it’s a good thing you guys got back here safely, and brought Agent Moradi back with you. Stars know we can use all of the help we can get, especially if that help is from a Jedi.”
Finn glanced at Rey, and although she kept her face impassive he got an… inkling that her heart was swelling with pride.
“Anyway, I should get back to work.” Rose turned to leave. “It’s been nice talking with you.”
“Same,” Rey said and Finn muttered his agreement. Once she was gone, he turned to Rey and fixed her with a raised eyebrow.
“You left out the bit about Ronyards.”
“She doesn’t need to know about that,” Rey said dismissively.
“Are you going to leave that out of your report to General Organa? She’s going to ask, you know. And there wouldn’t be any use lying, considering who she is and who she’s the sister of.”
“I don’t need your advice,” Rey all but snapped and Finn took a step back in surprise. “I can handle myself.”
Finn opened his mouth to retort but stopped himself. There were already a couple of workers looking at them and he did not want to cause a scene. Instead, he sighed in resignation. “All right. I’ll leave it to you then.”
Rey gave him one last look—one that he couldn’t tell if it was defiant or remorseful—before turning and walking away. Blowing out his breath, Finn went his own way, hoping that he would find something to do in this base that would take his mind off things.
The Errant Venture
“You didn’t tell Leia about—”
“I know,” Booster growled.
“That’s a pretty big thing to not—”
“I know, Jarsan,” Booster Terrik snapped, slamming his fist on his desk before wincing from the pain it caused his old, tired bones. “I didn’t want to tell her because I knew she would want us to meet with her straight away. And we need to get this business with the Veiled Sorority sorted out.”
Toah Jarsan huffed in exasperation as he paced in Booster’s office. He had told the old smuggler about his suspicions that the son of Varon and Lysira, all three of whom they had captured as soon as they had been brought on board, was possessed by the spirit of Darth Vorath. He wasn’t sure how much Booster believed him, but it seemed to be enough to put the boy in solitary confinement, away from his parents whom Toah had heard Vorath had also been able to control back on Naboo.
He knew what Vorath was doing. The Dark Lord was toying with him. The fact that his daughter—a woman who had just learned that he was her father—was also on board was something that the Sith would no doubt exploit. There was already so much at stake that he did not want to have to worry about losing his daughter to the dark side… if that was what Vorath had planned for her.
Perhaps it was because of this that he was partially glad that Booster was getting straight to the rendezvous point with the Veiled Sorority, who had the mother of his daughter captive. Perhaps being reunited with her biological mother would give her the anchor she needed to stop her from falling down that path; after all, it had been Luke’s love for his father that had stopped him from being fully turned by the Emperor, an evil that had been even greater than Vorath. Perhaps his daughter would show the same strength.
Having calmed down, Booster leaned back in his seat and brought out a bottle of Corellian ale. After taking a swig from it, he cleared his throat and looked at Toah, his red cybernetic eye glowing slightly. “So, she’s your kid, huh?”
Toah sighed. “They’ve told you already, I take it.”
“Even if they didn’t, I probably would have still figured it out. Just got that Corellian instinct, y’know?” Booster winked with his brown organic eye. “I take it that ‘Valrisa’ isn’t her real name.”
“No, but I don’t know what is. I… I left before she was even born.”
Booster grunted. “Ah. So you’re one of those type of men. Y’know, if my son-in-law had pulled something like that to my daughter, he’d be a dead man. The Force wouldn’t be able to save him.”
Toah smiled slightly. “I don’t doubt that. But it wasn’t my decision. She wanted me to leave. She knew we wanted to live drastically different lives from each other and did not want to bring our child between us.”
“Do you regret leaving?” Booster asked.
Toah stopped pacing. He closed his eyes as he pulled his mind back to that moment twenty-seven years ago, when he and Dani had parted ways. He had only been a Jedi Knight for four years and had spent most of his years as an errant knight traveling through the Outer Rim. He had missed out on quite a few major events that had occurred at the Jedi Praxeum, including Kyp Durron’s fall and the Empire Reborn’s attack. Perhaps it was because of this that, during this time, he was starting to become unsure of his place in the Jedi Order. He had started to feel this way when Master Skywalker had briefly fallen under the Emperor’s thrall and it did not go away when he had returned.
When he had first met Dani Kieran during one of his outings in the Outer Rim, he had felt a way he had not felt in a long time. He had had a couple of summer flings growing up on Dantooine, as well as a quiet infatuation for Cray Mingla during her brief time with the Jedi, but none of them had left an impression as lasting as Dani had. And unlike the others, it was not left unrequited.
When she had revealed to him that she was carrying their child, he had seriously considered leaving the Jedi. While attachments were not as verboten as they had been before the Purge, they were still discouraged due to a Jedi’s lifestyle. A lifestyle he had been feeling conflicted about for the past five years. A lifestyle he had been more than willing to give up if he needed to.
But instead, she pushed him away. She would not let him give up on the path he was already on. And perhaps, given all that happened the following decade with Darth Vorath and his Sith, that had been for the best. Perhaps she had known that he would be needed to quell the coming darkness. Or, perhaps, it had simply been the will of the Force.
A will that he still did not fully grasp after all this time.
Sighing, he said, “No. But I do regret not seeking her out during my self-exile. Perhaps instead of sulking on Deralia, I could have sought her out and reunited with her. Maybe… maybe I could have helped her find our daughter.”
Booster snorted. “Well, you did find her. It just took you, what, twenty years?”
Toah shook his head. “I suppose it’s better late than never. I still worry about what Vorath might have planned for her.”
“You really think it’s him?”
“I know it is.”
Booster shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it.” He then groaned as he got up from his seat, his old bones cracking. “Anyway, it’ll be some time before we get to Numidian Prime. Might wanna rest and conserve your energy.”
“I’ll do my best,” Toah said as he headed for the door. “But it might be hard to rest when you know you have a Sith Lord on board.”
* * *
She did not know who she was.
For her entire life, she had known her name to be Sare Valrisa. But now she knew that to be a lie.
She was not a Valrisa; she was abducted by one in order to fulfill some sort of quota.
Her name was not Sare; that name was a corruption of the one who had abducted her to begin with.
Without meaning to, without even realizing it, she had been reunited with her biological parents, and she did not know how to feel about it. Her real mother had captured her and obfuscated her true identity while killing the mother she had known. Her father was a Jedi who apparently had never sensed the distress she had been in and come to her rescue.
Her entire life had been a lie… and now she was starting to wish she had never learned the truth.
“Such is the agony of knowledge.”
She shot up in her bed, breaking into a cold sweat. Typha continued to sleep peacefully next to her, blissfully unaware of her anguish.
“So much has been kept from you,” continued the voice that had woken her. “By your parents, by your captor, by the Jedi… all of them have been dangling the branch of truth in front of your nose only to snatch it away when you try to take a bite.”
She stared straight ahead and saw what appeared to be a silhouette of a figure manifesting in front of her. It stood out in the darkness of the room only by being darker than everything else.
“I know you have brushed with the dark side before. I can sense it in you. You have so much potential that has not yet been tapped. Would you like to feel it again? That raw, untamed power of the Force?”
Her mouth was dry. She could barely swallow. She felt that if she tried, she would gag and throw up.
“Tell me, Cera Jarsan. All you need to do is ask.”
All she could do was stare at the shadow as she processed hearing her name—her real name—for the first time.
Then, the lights turned on and the shadow dissipated with the rest of the darkness.
“I just thought you should know,” said a small droid with a large bulbous head, standing with its servo over the light switch, “that I’m feeling very depressed.”
“Blast it, Marv,” Typha growled as she pulled a pillow over her head. “Why can’t you just stay in shut down for the rest of your life?”
“Life.” MR-V bowed his head solemnly. “Don’t talk to me about life.”
The woman once known as Sare Valrisa groaned as she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had been saddled with the droid ever since the Dowager’s death and their failed attempt to find a slicer who could access his memory banks and derive information on the Malvis Cabal. Now that the Cabal was more or less moot at this point, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the droid.
“Turn off the lights, Marv,” she muttered, about to lay back down.
“I don’t think you heard me,” MR-V said. “I’m feeling very depressed.”
“You’re a droid. How can you feel anything?”
“Well, for one thing, I feel inexplicably compelled to relay you a message from my master.”
She sat back up and narrowed her eyes. “Your master is dead.”
“Not this one.”
MR-V’s green optical sensors turned blue as they projected a holographic image into the room, manifesting into the form of a tall, distinguished man. Her heart caught in her throat as she immediately recognized it to be the man she had previously thought to be her half-brother, and now the current Chief of State, Tyron Valrisa.
“Sare Valrisa.” The older man spoke the name as if it was an invective. “I know that is not your real name, because I now know the truth about you. If you are seeing this, it is because my family’s MR servant droid is in your presence. Which means that I am always in your presence. There is nowhere in the galaxy you and your friends can hide from me.
“If you would like to know the truth about the lie that has been your life, then meet me on Sedratis within seven standard days. That seems like a fair number, doesn’t it? Seven days. Seven heirs. One of which you are not, I am sad to say. But if you help me find and eliminate the last heir, then you will be pardoned for the crimes you have already committed against the Galactic Alliance through your allegiance with the so-called Resistance.
“Until we speak again… Cera Jarsan.”
With that, the hologram dissipated and the woman now known as Cera Jarsan launched forth a series of curses and otherwise incredibly vulgar words while Typha merely looked on in shock and bewilderment.
“See?” MR-V said as his optics returned to their original color. “Now you’re depressed, too.”
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