The journey toward Bosthirda was… slow, as expected. Every jump we made was halted, and we had to do ample calculations before we repeated it. Most of the time, our appearance at the edge of these systems was followed by long pauses where we did nothing but drift in silence, scan everything around us, and listen to possible noise. But, as Adrian said, we were lucky, or as we all agreed, guided by the Force, because we ran into nobody.
We avoided everything, which also included jumping into something nasty, like a black hole or an asteroid field.
Every, mostly unnamed and uncharted system that we had landed in, missed even the faintest sign of habitation. We didn't run into smugglers either; no hidden refueling stations or stray mining colonies came our way. Adrian's computer plotted us through stretches of space, and every time we agreed to use it, we landed outside of known and used spaces. It made the journey longer, yes… but it also made us invisible, which was the main reason to move like this.
Or at least, that was the idea... and I hoped that the feeling we were walking into a trap was just paranoia. Well... The Force wasn't screaming at me, so there shouldn't be any actual danger waiting for us just yet. From my seat on the bridge, I watched the holomap shift with each completed jump, our path forming a broken, angled path. It looked less like travel and more like we were drunk or had a hyperdrive that was highly malfunctioning.
"How many more?" Vila asked quietly from beside me, her fingers tapping on the armrest.
"Two more micro-jumps," Adrian answered without looking at her. "Then we hit the edge of Bosthirda's system. We will drop out just outside of it, so we won't go in."
"If we can do that," Sareh muttered from behind us. "It will finally show that we did well and they indeed don't know we are coming."
[Statement: If our enemy discovered us despite traveling this way, they deserve to catch us.]
"Be a bit more positive, HK," Vila and Sareh said at the same time.
I didn't join in that time around, as I was focused on the feeling, reaching out through the Force, trying to get a reading of how things would play out. Hmm... It should be fine, because the strongest thing I was getting was anticipation. When I tried to get to the source of it, it wasn't Sareh's or Vila's... hm. Adrian? Oh... He wanted to show off. No, not show off, but... test his scanners? Ah. I see. He is excited to use his invention, which hasn't been tested in the field yet. I could tell that he was eager to prove our Father wrong... So, it turns out, he wasn't convinced of his creation, not fully at least, huh? I know that feeling.
For the last leg of the journey, I mostly tried to meditate and use the Force to get a glimpse of how this would turn out... I didn't want to repeat what happened with Iowi.
"We're close," I said quietly, opening my eyes, glancing at him with a half-smile, because he was masking his feelings well.
"You don't say?" Adrian looked at me this time, raising an eyebrow. "I know. The nav computer agrees with you, too."
"That's not what I meant... Never mind."
When we dropped out of hyperspace, we did it far out, away from any of the primary, orbiting bodies, and away from any of the most-used approach vectors. Not even within what could be considered standard sensor range for most ships, planets, stations, or communication buoys. Even the system's sun looked like a pale little dot in the distance.
"Welcome to Bosthirda," Adrian said dryly after he made sure nobody had noticed our arrival, bringing up a fuzzy image of the system itself, with a star and one simple planet orbiting it. "My Vindicator senses nothing, no communication signals or anything that points towards this rocky planet being inhabited."
"Maybe we were overly cautious," Sareh muttered.
"No," I said, shaking my head, because I felt it again, a sudden, crawling sensation, creeping up my back. "Make sure to be careful with accessing the Force..." I muttered, doing my best to be as alert as I could be while reaching out, "I sense someone... something. I don't know if it's a Force-sensitive being or a droid, but this is not an unoccupied system, there are things down there..."
"I'm running passive scans," Adrian muttered, already doing it before I finished speaking. "Hmm... Nothing that I could pick up from here, I think. No orbital stations, and we are too far away for me to pick up anything concrete from the ground. Well, I could, if they have ample output, but nope. Not here."
The Vindicator responded instantly to his orders while he spoke, its systems shifting to a low-output sweep, barely emitting anything detectable while pulling in as much data as possible as we waited. It was already five minutes later when Adrian leaned forward slightly, reading the reports.
"Oh…"
"What is it?" Vila asked from beside me.
"Suddenly... I'm picking up activity," he said slowly, moving his eyes rapidly as new data flowed in. "It is coming from the planet's surface."
"Ships?" Sareh stepped closer to his chair, coming to the conclusion at once, wanting to see it.
"Yes... By their emissions... Um. They are ships, alright. Scratch that, that's..."
"How many?"
"…Not that many," he said after a brief pause, separating the readings and letting the computer analyze them. "Give me a moment... It's enough to be… strange, especially if this is an abandoned system."
With that, he modified the projection, which was now a 'recreation' of the data the computers were picking up, extrapolated from their readings and motion vectors.
"There," he pointed. "We got an outbound trajectory... It is only one ship, but it's quite big. Let me mark it and let the computer do its thing."
A single ship had appeared now as it had launched from the planet's surface and began climbing, heading out of the system, away from us, accelerating towards the hyperspace lane.
"Track it," I said.
"I am." He answered in annoyance, "This is a recreation; it is already gone, duh. What you see is being remade from the data my ship gathered!" I watched the ship's vector extend outward on the holo, projecting its likely destination with a pretty accurate calculation, "Huh… It is going in a... Mid-Rim direction," Adrian said after a moment. "I can't give you a proper destination where in the Mid-Rim, but... that's not important."
"That's not unusual," Vila said, but then smiled, "If it wouldn't be an old, dead, Sith world."
"Yeah," Sareh agreed slowly, "Can we see what kind of ship it is?"
"That's what I told the computer to check, too," Adrian adjusted the filters, narrowing the scan, "It has analyzed the data and narrowed it down aaaand..." A few seconds passed before, finally, a ping came through, "That's… interesting."
"What?" I asked, watching the projections.
"By comparing every ship we have data on, that was a Hutt-based design."
"…Hutt?" Vila blinked her eyes, looking at him, "Here?"
"Um. Yes," Adrian nodded, reviewing it. "It was modified, but the emission signature is unmistakable. Power distribution, shielding harmonics… It's Hutt engineering, 99.99% sure. You can trust my machine!"
"That doesn't make sense," Sareh muttered.
"It does," I disagreed quietly, "Our droids are looking for agents everywhere, aren't they? I would also deal with the Hutts if I want to access people and do it on the low, through unseen channels."
As for why a Hutt-aligned ship would be launching from a system this deep into what should have been… nothing? Exactly because of that. Sitting there silently, we watched as the ship jumped to hyperspace, vanishing from the projection, trying to think it all through.
Then—
"Wait," Adrian said suddenly, and this time, it was not a recreation, because the data was coming in fresh, prompting another signal.
Naturally, we all turned back to the display and watched as a second ship appeared on it, one that wasn't going but arriving. After dropping out of hyperspace at the edge of the system, opposite to us, it quickly adjusted its vector… heading inward.
"This one has a different origin," Adrian muttered, tracking it. "It is coming from an Inner Rim approach..."
"Scan it," Sareh said immediately.
"I'm already rebuilding the ship's type, patience. Aren't you supposed to be all patient like a monk?" He grumbled as the Vindicator's sensors were already working; they were dissecting the incoming vessel. "…No way," he said under his breath when the data was finalized.
"What now?" Vila asked, watching as the ship on the projection took up a proper shape, not just a dot.
"It has Republic emissions," Adrian stated, rubbing his chin. "That's a Coruscant-made design."
"…What?" Vila flinched, because this meant that the droids were already within the Republic's ranks? This fast? Well, who knows, since how long they have been doing this...
"Yep," Adrian continued, pulling up the data. "Standardized output... Hm... Engine signature matches Republic naval architecture, and going by the rate... Oh? It's not a warship, let me adjust it… Ah. It's more like a transport or auxiliary vessel. A diplomatic one? Maybe."
"I don't know if it's worse or not," Vila muttered.
"It is bad enough that we have this much traffic," I said slowly.
"Exactly," Adrian nodded, "And not normal traffic either, because I don't think the Republic and the Hutts would be glad to share a space with each other."
"No," Sareh agreed, her voice tightening, "Not really."
I stared at the projection, watching as the Republic ship descended toward the same planet the Hutt vessel had departed from.
"They're moving people," I said, getting a feeling from the Force.
"Is this one of those Jedi sensations?" Adrian turned toward me with a raised eyebrow, watching me nod.
"They are their cargo," I continued, "People. I don't know if the Hutts are also bringing in slaves or not... Maybe they are under their influence as well, but we can be sure the droids need flesh. Subjects they can control and interface with in the open."
"You're thinking the same thing as me?" Vila asked, reaching out and holding my hand.
"Yes."
"And what is that?" Sareh looked between us, wanting to know more.
"We had a run-in with their artifacts."
"Alright, I feel like I missed something important here." Adrian chimed in, furrowing his brows, "What is it that you didn't tell me?"
"They're trading with dangerous things," I said simply, looking at him. "They're cycling them around influential people."
"…Cycling?" He asked, even more confused, so I quickly filled them in on what had happened. "Agents," He groaned, rubbing his temple after I told him everything... "Mind-controlled puppets and sleeper agents, huh? This is why Dad hates your kind. Too dangerous! Haaah... Okay, okay. How can I protect myself from that, hm? I am not in the mood to lose myself and be sent back out into the Galaxy as a puppet!"
"Don't wander off alone," I smiled at him, "Then it will be fine. We can shield you."
"Reassuring..."
He grumbled as we watched the Republic ship disappear into the atmosphere. After that, there were no more signals or broadcasts. Well, at least, we knew that besides our target of Dromund Kaas, our Sith droids were utilizing other, ancient worlds they had under control and weren't bringing in people directly to their main base.
"Do we go in?" Vila asked, looking at us. "Take a look?"
"No," I answered immediately, "Our target is the main nest of these Sith abominations. Can we send the information back to these coordinates?" I asked, handing Adrian the location of the Jedi Temple's closest relay buoy.
"I can do that." He nodded after a short pause, "But it will be a slow transmission, to keep up our stealth."
"Good," Sareh nodded, handing over her own paper, "And repeat it through this, too."
"Sure..." He muttered, sighing a bit, "But that will anchor us into this spot for an hour or so... We'd be seen the moment we crossed into standard sensor range, so I have to do it my way," he continued. "And if you're right about what's happening down there… we do not want their attention or waste too much time, so give me all you want to send back because we won't be able to do it later!"
"What about your miracle-scanning, aiming it at our target system?" Vila asked, making Adrian finally smile happily.
"That will come after." He looked at us proudly, "I am already preparing the ship for it, it will take time to reroute the power to keep our signals hidden. Give it... an hour. As for the scan itself, it will take about, hm, another hour. So, drink a coffee, eat something, and then we will have a look at how this... Dromund Kaas is shaping up."