The final hologram disappeared from Vania's communications table.
For most of the morning, the five members of Beacon's leadership had argued over whether meeting the Jedi was worth the risk. Sion supported it. Two others agreed only after the location was moved away from Rishi Moon. The remaining member accepted on the condition that the Republic cruiser, Beacon's heavy ships, and every fighter escort remain outside the chosen system.
The meeting would take place upon an abandoned mining asteroid. Three Beacon leaders would attend in person. The other two would appear through encrypted holograms from separate locations.
Vania entered the final conditions into a secured file and prepared the message that would be delivered to Kit Fisto and Aayla Secura. Before she could send it, another signal appeared upon the table.
It did not enter through Beacon's communications network.
A small golden light flashed beneath the other controls, identifying a channel known by only three people. One of them was dead. The second was standing inside the room.
Vania looked toward the closed door.
She activated the security system. Armored shutters descended across the windows while a field moved through the walls, preventing any signal from entering or leaving except through the encrypted transmitter. The room disconnected from Beacon's central network. Even the recording systems built into the communication table became inactive.
Only then did Vania accept the transmission.
Blue light gathered above the table. A young man appeared within it, dressed in dark clothing beneath a cloak. His black hair had grown longer than when Vania first met him, falling around features sharpened by years spent moving through the Outer Rim. Amber eyes looked toward her from the cockpit of a small vessel.
Vania leaned against the table. "I am surprised to hear from you, Khan."
"Sorry to disturb you again." Khan glanced toward something beyond the transmission before returning his attention to her. "I know you must be busy."
"For our great savior, I can always make time."
A faint smile touched his expression. "You know I dislike that name."
"That is why I save it for private conversations." Vania studied him more closely. The smile had disappeared as quickly as it came. "What happened?"
"I found the person I have been searching for."
Her hand became still against the table.
"The Sith?" she asked. "The man who killed my sister?"
Khan nodded.
Aria's face entered Vania's thoughts. Light-blue skin beneath the Outer Rim sun. The impatient look she gave anyone who treated danger like a reason to retreat. The final message she sent before following Khan toward a world from which only one of them returned.
"Did you face him?" Vania asked.
"No. I found one of his laboratories on a planet called Alzoc. He communicated through holograms and used machines to keep me occupied, but from what I know he never entered the facility himself."
"You are certain?"
"I was able to locate some of his records afterward. I'm not sure if he was close enough to observe what happened, but he did not intend to fight me." Khan's jaw tightened. "He wanted to see what I would do."
Vania watched the anger appear behind his eyes before he forced it beneath control. "What did you find?"
"Research files, shipping records, experimental reports, and fragments of communications between the laboratory and other locations. R3 organized most of the archive, but several sections remain encrypted. The files he could open are filled with biological research and references to the Force."
R3-T9 produced a series of tones from in front of him.
Khan glanced at him. "He would like me to clarify that the encryption was designed by someone with no respect for reasonable data organization."
Despite herself, Vania smiled. "Tell him I will place that in my report."
R3 answered.
"He says you should."
Vania's expression became serious again. "Send me the untouched archive and everything R3 extracted. Sometimes the part someone hides around a file reveals more than the file itself."
Khan reached toward the controls inside the cockpit. "The transfer will take several minutes."
A new signal entered Vania's isolated terminal. She directed it into a storage system disconnected from every other Beacon archive. Streams of encrypted information began filling the display.
"What exactly am I looking for?" she asked.
"Anything connecting the experiments to another laboratory or command center. Shipments. Financial transfers. Transmission routes. I need to know what Plagueis is preparing and where he went."
The name remained between them.
"Plagueis," Vania repeated.
"That is what he called himself."
Vania looked toward the growing archive. "I will find him."
"Do not expose Beacon's network while searching. Some of the files may have been left for me intentionally."
"Nothing will touch our network. I will work inside an isolated system and send anything that needs to leave through separate relays."
Khan inclined his head. "Thank you, Vania."
She looked back toward his hologram. "When I give you a location, do not enter it without knowing what is waiting there."
"I cannot promise that."
"I was not asking for a promise." Her voice hardened. "Aria followed you because she believed you should never face anything alone. Do not honor her by repeating the choice that killed her."
Khan looked away.
For several moments, the only sound came from the data passing into Vania's terminal.
"He used her to reach me," Khan said.
"I know."
"I should have stopped him."
"You should have. You did not." Vania held his gaze when he looked back. "That failure belongs to you. Her death belongs to Plagueis."
Khan said nothing.
Vania looked toward the final stages of the transfer. "Find him again, and make certain he never uses another person that way."
The transfer of the archives completed.
"For Aria," Vania said.
The amber eyes within the hologram became still. "For Aria."
Khan ended the transmission.
His image disappeared, leaving Vania alone inside the sealed room.
She looked at the space where he had stood. Two Jedi who had crossed much of the Outer Rim searching for him were sleeping only several levels away. One of them had once been the closest thing Khan possessed to an older brother. The other belonged to the small group of names he had carried from the Temple without bitterness.
Neither knew his voice had just filled the room.
Vania opened the archive.
The first files resisted her for six hours.
Vania moved the information onto a separate terminal built without access to Beacon's primary systems. The machine rested behind another set of security barriers within her private intelligence room. If the archive attempted to transmit its location, it would find no communications array. If hidden code tried to enter another system, it would reach only empty storage.
R3-T9 had already divided the information into experimental research, material shipments, financial records, and communications. His organization was better than Khan's description suggested, but the Sith encryption changed between directories. Some sections used modern commercial security. Others had been protected through codes built around languages that had disappeared centuries earlier.
Vania understood why R3 had complained.
She began with the shipping records.
The laboratory on Alzoc had received living plants from Felucia, medical equipment from worlds controlled by several different corporations, and droid components purchased through companies that possessed no factories of their own. None of the vessels carrying those supplies traveled directly to the frozen planet. Cargo changed ownership multiple times, passed through legitimate trade stations, and disappeared from official records before reaching its destination.
The same pattern appeared within the financial transfers. Credits moved through accounts upon Serenno, Muunilinst, and several Outer Rim banking worlds before reaching businesses that existed only long enough to complete one purchase. Individually, the transactions appeared unrelated. Together, they formed a system designed to ensure that no one organization understood what it was helping construct.
Vania placed every origin and destination upon a map.
The hours passed. Traffic beyond her shuttered windows changed as one work shift replaced another. A meal delivered outside the room became cold before she remembered it was there.
The biological files gave her less.
Images moved across the terminal: plants grown from collections of cells, bodies resting inside sealed chambers, and neural patterns transferred into crystalline containers. Reports combined medical terms with measurements of the Force that meant nothing to her. Several trials recorded life where no natural birth had occurred. Others attempted to produce the same strange readings within subjects that had shown none before.
Vania understood the results well enough.
Most of the organisms died.
Some survived for minutes.
A smaller number lived long enough for the records to end without explaining what happened to them.
She left those files for R3 and returned to the communications archive.
The first encrypted directory broke shortly after the beginning of the next work shift. Hundreds of laboratory reports appeared beneath a repeating authorization code. Each contained a record of when it had been created, when it had been transmitted, and when another system acknowledged receiving it.
Alzoc had not kept its own research.
Every result had been sent elsewhere.
Vania followed the acknowledgments through three concealed relays. The first moved between commercial stations. The second existed within the communication system of an abandoned mining corporation. The third had no registered owner.
Every report ended there.
She entered its coordinates into the map.
A remote mining world appeared near the edge of recognized trade routes. Republic records described exhausted mineral deposits, a population reduced to several isolated settlements, and no active exports large enough to justify regular shipping.
Plagueis's records told another story.
Equipment entered the system every few months. None of it appeared upon the planet's declared imports. Power components, medical chambers, excavation machines, and enough processed metal to construct a facility beneath the surface had all traveled through nearby systems before disappearing.
Vania opened the latest communication sent from Alzoc. The laboratory had requested instructions after Khan entered the facility. A response had returned from the mining world before Khan destroyed the central computer.
The acknowledgment carried the same authorization used throughout the archive.
Vania leaned back.
She had found where the reports went.
That did not tell her what waited there.
Khan would travel to the coordinates as soon as she sent them. He would descend alone, search for Plagueis, and trust his strength to answer whatever waited beneath the surface. Four years of survival had not removed that part of him. It had only made him more capable of surviving the consequences.
Vania closed the transmission window without sending the coordinates.
A panel opened beneath her terminal. Inside rested a small reconnaissance probe no larger than her hand. Its black shell absorbed most light, while folding sensor arms remained hidden inside its rounded body. The machine carried no active transmitter powerful enough to reveal it across a system. It would gather information, leave the target, and send one encrypted burst only after reaching a safe distance.
She activated the probe.
A narrow blue light crossed its surface before fading. The machine rose from its compartment, hovered beside the terminal, and accepted the coordinates.
Vania opened another secure channel.
Travis answered after several seconds. His image did not appear, but the sounds behind his voice suggested he was aboard the EML-850 assigned to his patrol.
"What can I do for you, ma'am?"
"I need your ship to make a quiet pass through a system."
"How quiet?"
"No active scans until you reach the outer edge. Do not answer local transmissions unless you must, and do not approach anything that identifies you. A reconnaissance probe will be delivered to your ship. Release it along the route I provide and leave immediately."
Travis remained silent for a moment. "Should I expect pursuit?"
"You should behave as if pursuit is possible."
"Understood." Movement sounded beyond the communicator before his voice returned. "When do you need us to leave?"
"As soon as the probe arrives."
"Then we will be ready."
"You are not to investigate personally, Travis."
"I heard you the first time."
"I know how you interpret instructions when you believe someone may be in danger."
A quiet breath passed through the transmission. "We will release the probe, complete the pass, and leave. Nothing more."
"Good."
"Is there anything else?"
"Do not enter the route into Beacon's normal flight records. I will transmit it directly to your navigation computer and remove it once you return."
Travis did not ask why. "Yes, ma'am."
The channel closed.
Vania placed the probe inside a sealed transport case and summoned a courier droid. The machine arrived outside the intelligence room several minutes later. She opened the door only long enough to place the case within its storage compartment.
"Deliver this directly to Commander Travis's vessel. No intermediate stops."
The courier acknowledged her and moved into the corridor.
Vania watched until it disappeared around the turn.
For now, Khan would receive no coordinates.
He would be displeased when he learned she had delayed him.
He would also arrive with more than the name of a planet.
Vania returned to the communications table and reopened the file containing Beacon's meeting conditions. The Jedi had been waiting long enough.
Kit Fisto and Aayla Secura arrived within the hour.
Vania received them inside the same conference room where they had discussed Master Bayts's proposal. The security shutters had been raised, and every trace of Khan's transmission had been removed from the table. His archive remained locked inside the isolated terminal beyond the adjoining wall.
Kit entered first, his head tendrils resting behind the shoulders of his brown robes. Aayla followed with her traveling cloak fastened around her clothing. Both Jedi carried their lightsabers, although neither allowed a hand to drift near them.
Khan had spoken about them differently from the others he remembered from the Temple.
Neither resemblance made Vania's decision easier.
"Thank you for meeting with us again," Aayla said.
"I said I would contact you once leadership reached a decision." Vania activated the display above the table. "We have agreed to meet Master Bayts."
Kit glanced toward the star map appearing between them. "That was faster than I expected."
"It was not unanimous."
"But enough of you agreed."
"Enough."
Vania enlarged an uninhabited system several jumps from Rishi. Its single star illuminated a field of broken stone surrounding an abandoned mining operation. She selected one of the larger asteroids. Tunnels crossed its interior, converging upon chambers once used to separate ore before the deposits became too poor to continue extracting.
"The meeting will take place here," she said. "The facility has been abandoned for twenty-three years. It contains atmosphere, power, and enough structural stability for temporary use. Beacon personnel will secure it before anyone arrives."
Aayla examined the surrounding system. "Why there?"
"It has no permanent population, no active commercial traffic, and no political authority likely to object to our presence. If the meeting fails, no settlement will suffer because of it."
"What are your conditions?" Kit asked.
"Master Bayts's cruiser will remain one hyperspace jump from the system. Beacon's heavy vessels and patrol groups will remain the same distance away in the opposite direction. Neither side will place fighters inside the meeting system."
Kit studied the route. "How do the delegations arrive?"
"One shuttle each. Master Bayts may bring Senator Amidala and the two of you. The shuttle crew will remain with the vessel."
"And Beacon?"
"Three members of our leadership will attend in person. Sion and I will be among them. Two others will participate through separate holographic connections."
Aayla looked toward her. "Five leaders."
"Beacon was never intended to depend upon one person again."
The answer passed between the Jedi without comment.
Vania continued. "We will not place every member of our leadership inside one room. Even if we trust Master Bayts, we do not know who else may learn of the meeting or what enemies may follow either delegation."
"I understand," Aayla said. "Separating your leadership ensures Beacon continues if the meeting is attacked."
"Exactly."
Kit moved the displayed route around the asteroid. "Will we be expected to surrender our weapons?"
"No. You may keep your lightsabers. Our representatives will also remain armed."
"That seems fair."
"The coordinates are encrypted." Vania removed a small navigation cylinder from her coat and placed it upon the table. "This contains the first jump. Each stage of the route will unlock only after the previous one is completed. The final location will not appear until Master Bayts's cruiser reaches its assigned waiting system."
Aayla collected the cylinder. "We will deliver it to him."
"There is one more condition. Senator Amidala may attend, but the meeting does not recognize Republic authority over Beacon. She may ask questions and speak on behalf of her own government. She may not present demands concerning our territory, vessels, or operations as conditions for continuing the discussion."
"Master Bayts understands your position," Aayla said. "Whether Senator Amidala accepts that wording will be her decision."
Vania watched her. "What do you believe she will decide?"
"She will attend."
The certainty of the answer reminded Vania why Khan had trusted the former queen. "Then we will hear what she has to say."
Kit looked from the route to Vania. "If the meeting succeeds, what happens afterward?"
"That depends upon what Master Bayts and Senator Amidala offer."
"And if it fails?"
"Your shuttle returns to the Republic cruiser. Ours returns to Beacon. The coordinates are erased, and neither side follows the other."
"No detention?"
"We invited you to speak, not to fight."
Kit inclined his head. "That is more than some members of the Senate would promise."
"Which is why they were not invited."
Aayla gave Kit a brief look before returning her attention to Vania. "We will transmit the conditions exactly as you gave them."
Vania deactivated the map. "Then the meeting will occur two days after Master Bayts confirms acceptance."
The Jedi prepared to leave, but Kit remained beside the table. His dark eyes rested upon the inactive communications equipment.
"Has anything changed concerning your founder?" he asked.
Vania had expected the question eventually.
"Beacon has received no communication from him."
Kit's attention shifted back to her. "That was carefully answered."
"It was an accurate answer."
"You know we are trying to help him."
"I know you are trying to find him."
"Those are not always different."
"No." Vania thought of Khan's amber eyes above the same table and the archive hidden beyond the wall. "They are not always the same either."
Aayla stepped closer before Kit could press further. "You believe he still needs time."
"I believe he is pursuing something dangerous enough that he hid himself from your Order." Vania looked between them. "The meeting with Master Bayts may change how much Beacon is willing to share. Until then, his name and any contact belonging to him remain protected."
Kit did not appear satisfied. He also did not argue.
Aayla inclined her head. "Then we will focus upon the meeting."
"That would be wise."
The two Jedi left the conference room carrying the encrypted route. Vania waited until the door closed behind them before releasing the breath she had kept controlled throughout the final exchange.
Kit had heard the space within her answer.
Aayla had heard it too.
Neither possessed enough to force the truth from her, but the distance between Khan and the people searching for him had become smaller. Soon Bayts and Padmé Amidala would bring it closer still.
Vania returned to the intelligence room.
A message from Travis waited upon the isolated terminal.
PROBE RECEIVED. DEPARTING RISHI.
She opened the star map.
Two routes extended away from the moon. The first passed through several concealed jumps before ending at the abandoned mining asteroid where Beacon would meet the Master Jedi. The second crossed the edge of known trade lanes toward the remote world hidden inside Plagueis's files.
One carried Master Bayts and Padmé toward Beacon.
The other carried Vania's probe toward the place Khan intended to follow.
A/N: Apologize for no chapters the last 2 days. I got messed up by the latest episode of Bleach, and could not focus on writing or editing, but now we're back. Hopefully my little break will help with the following story. Oh, and side note, please if you have any complaints with the story, or you don't like something let me know so I can note it down and improve later chapters.