The Reborn shuddered once, as we finally cleared the last of the gravitational turbulence caused by the feeding black hole, and we began heading towards the edge of the system, preparing to jump to hyperspace. Currently, I stood at the viewport outside the turbolift that led to the bridge, alongside Vila and Jalo, watching the moon, the gas giant, the dying star, everything go away, disappearing from view as we headed towards deep space.
"Let's head up," My Master's voice brought me back from my thoughts as he arrived with HK in tow, leading us into the turbolift, and we finally headed up to the bridge.
"Hyperspace calculations are on their way," a bridge officer's voice echoed faintly down the corridor as we stepped out, my gaze scanning the people down in their crewpits. "Awaiting command authorization."
"Haaah," Jalo exhaled slowly beside me as we kept following Ben, "Feels strange leaving after all of this."
"Yeah," I nodded. "But we haven't finished... yet."
"We will find the rest," Vila said as her arms became folded, her lekku resting loosely over her shoulders. "We will find them all and make sure they become scrap metal."
Nodding, my eyes finished measuring the Reborn's bridge. Honestly, it was larger than I remembered, probably thanks to some modifications, because I had stood aboard different variants of star destroyers, and they weren't this wide and angular. They were designed less for comfort than for command, but this one was refitted to add more seating for the crew, so they wouldn't have to stand, making the pits wider and taking up more space... not to mention the captain's chair, which had some ornate decorations.
But for now, it was empty, as Vestara's figure stood further ahead, standing before the viewport, watching the vast blackness. As we kept walking, I looked down into the crewpit, watching the modernized consoles lining the forward-facing arc, the crew barely throwing us a glance.
Then, finally, we came to a halt, a step behind Vestara, while Ben walked up to her, standing shoulder to shoulder with the... Well, I shouldn't call her Sith, as she was not that anymore, but... Calling her Revani felt weird, too.
However, the way she stood there, slightly apart from the main command staff, wearing dark robes cut with subtle lines of crimson and gold, her hands clasped behind her back, she looked lonely, and as my senses touched her... She felt lonely. I think the betrayal she experienced made her disappointed, not in those who went against her and left with the droids... but in the fact that she failed. It was a disappointment in herself that she couldn't reform her order and shape it into what she was aiming for. She was doubting herself now, unsure what to do next, because she had a grand name and grand plans, but it had almost collapsed under her before anything would even begin. They haven't even got a planet for themselves to settle down... All was crumbling before it could begin.
In that moment, she turned, probably feeling my probing, because she did look at me, her eyes calm, and she didn't push me away, but she didn't invite me further in either. Then, her eyes move to Vila, Jalo, and finally HK, before turning back around, speaking to us all.
"Well," she said, one corner of her mouth lifting, but the humor in her voice was self-deprecatory. "If it isn't my favorite pattern repeating itself."
"A Sith remains a Sith," Vila began, but I quickly elbowed her, whispering.
"Don't. Not now..."
"She is right," Vestara's gaze sharpened without aiming it at us, but I saw it in her reflection, barely visible on the transparisteel windows. "No need to mince your words, you can't say anything that I hadn't said so myself."
"At least you know," Vila added, exchanging a glance with me, smiling.
[Statement: Whenever something old resurfaces, I will look for clues of your presence.]
"You too, HK?" I moaned to myself, shaking my head.
"You yourself are old," Vestara chuckled, shaking her body a little, giggling, turning fully towards us, and her eyes landed on my artificial arm. "Kael," she continued smoothly, "I heard what happened. An interesting choice for replacing what was lost... You would fit into my Order well..."
"I will say thank you for the praise and invite... Against my better judgment," I answered dryly, making her smile again, this time, a bit more honestly.
"Khm," Master Ben cleared his throat in the end, "We're ready to depart the system, are we not?"
"Yes," Vestara nodded, turning toward the crewpit. "Commander, make the jump when we are clear of obstacles. Make sure that when we arrive, we exit the lane at the designated position; we don't want our waiting guests to think we are there to cause trouble."
"I bet that they won't be happy that a star destroyer appears above Korriban," Jalo muttered, mostly telling it to me, but of course, everyone heard him.
"No, they won't be," Vestara glanced over her shoulder, watching Ben's face, "He will have to do the explanation."
"And I will, because this is not the time to be picky about rules," he answered, returning that look to Vestara, "If my aunt has an issue with it, my father will have to make the final call."
"Daddy's boy," Vestara's smile became even more authentic after that, making me feel that the connection between the two of them ran... deep. As deep as the one between Vila and me. "I thought that by now, I wouldn't be amazed how often ancient darkness resurfaces when people start digging where they shouldn't... Maybe I believed that with the Rakatan world, we finally exhausted such events, but apparently not." Saying that, her eyes flicked back to Vila and me. "Which makes this the second time we've met under those exact circumstances, doesn't it?"
"I hate that it's true," Vila sighed, opening her arms in defeat, "I'm starting to feel like we're characters in a badly written holonovel. Well... at least I hadn't been made into a damsel in distress."
"Just you wait," Vestara's smile widened, chuckling. "The Force has a strange way to bring about unforeseen realities. Look at us again... Every time we cross paths, it's because something very inconvenient has decided it's time to crawl back into the limelight."
"Wasn't it you who unearthed the previous one?" Vila asked, not backing down, "If I recall, it was you who found them and brought us there!"
[Correction: And me. Don't relegate my part in the discovery and the subsequent squashing of those ancient meatbags.]
"You weren't even complete back then, weren't you?" Jalo asked, chuckling, making HK look at him, his optics flaring up in a strong hue of orange.
[Statement: And you weren't even there, showing your insignificance, Meatbag Jalo.]
"Haaah... Touché..." He shrugged, already used to his antics, laughing it off without taking offense at it.
"Well," Vestara tilted her head, watching our idiotic back-and-forth, but I had to say, it did loosen the mood. "If this were a book, I'd accuse the author of lacking originality."
Finally, I couldn't help but snort despite myself, throwing a look at my Master to prompt him to step in and stop this nonsense.
"Let's focus on what we will do next," Ben glanced between us, his brow lifting, taking the hint and agreeing with me.
Just then, the Reborn's engines began to build power, and then with a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated through the deck plates and into my bones, we were off. The stars outside the viewport stretched, elongating into pale lines as the ship aligned itself perfectly along the plotted vector as it entered hyperspace.
"You know," Vestara said quietly, speaking to Ben, now that the bridge was bathed in a blue light, "for all the Jedi talk of destiny and balance, you have an uncanny habit of showing up precisely when things become inconvenient for the rest of us... For me."
"Hmph," He snorted, rolling his eyes. "You're welcome."
"And I feel that your Padawan had inherited those skills too," She smirked, scanning me one more time.
"Once we arrive, we'll coordinate with Master Katarn." Ben continued, ignoring her words and not giving me any chance to talk, "First, we will share all the intelligence we collected, including what you learned when they visited you."
"Naturally," Vestara agreed readily, "All the artifacts and corresponding data that we managed to pull have been compiled and are ready to analyse. Maybe we can find where they had sent some of their completed droids, and some information about what else they were planning to do."
"That is optimistic," Vila muttered, "I hope it works out."
"Me too," Vestara nodded, watching the swirling, blue hyperspace surrounding our star destroyer. "But Korriban is… complicated," she added, "Even for those who think they know it... Maybe your Masters had found something by now, or, if not, with all we have and our combined presence appearing there, the synthesized presence of our different Force-attunement may show the right path."
"So we rely on the Force," I murmured, and I agreed to the notion.
"Of course," Her eyes met mine again, after I said that, "I thought that was the Jedi way... Because I also believe in it."
"Naturally," I nodded, keeping up the eye contact, "Even if the Force has two sides... Those two are what make it into a whole. Putting the two together has to make it work..."
When I said it, there was a bit of silence between us all, broken by Vestara's following words.
"Someone has been reading Luke's memoirs..." She muttered, making me blink my eyes because if I could read those... Wait... those existed? Where can I read them? I mean... I wanted to ask, but she continued, not giving me the chance to do so, "If what we destroyed was only one limb of something nasty, we have to find where it was connected to the main body."
"Don't you have some Sith-based knowledge about it?" Vila asked, shrugging and shaking her lekku, "Didn't those machines come to you because of that?"
"I don't really know why they came to me," She answered us after recollecting her memories, "That was my first thought, too, but something was off about them. They didn't ask anything about current events or try to hack into our computers."
"They tried to recruit you, no?" I asked, making her nod.
"Exactly the weird part. They only came to us for that. They weren't looking for information but recruits."
"HK here has thousands of years of corrupted memory," Vila chortled, pointing at him, "I guess their memory cores held up better than this rustbucket, if they didn't look for knowledge but for vassals."
[Statement: I still function way above what a mushy, meatbag greymatter can produce. Addendum: Your kind doesn't even live long enough for 0.001% of my functioning existence, and yet your brain functions degrade considerably throughout that timeframe.]
"I'm still right!" She shot back, making me raise my voice.
"So the things they wanted were people, not knowledge."
"Yes," Vestara nodded, "I am sure of it. And the only droid that spoke... was the leading one. I am used to droids having quirks, be it your R2 unit," She added, glancing at Ben, "Or you," she pointed at HK with a nod, "But that one? It acted as if it were a person and spoke in a dialect that felt very much... out of place."
"Could be a specially programmed unit?" Jalo asked, crossing his arms, trying to think of reasonable possibilities.
"Could be." Vestara muttered, "We have too little knowledge of the machinery of the old Sith Empire... I can't tell you if it was programming or some weird alchemy mixed with machinery. They were well-known for keeping secrets between themselves so..."
"Haaah..." I shrugged, shaking my head, "Hopefully, after reuniting with Master Katarn... we will have a chance to go after them."