After all the recent excitement, Zan recommends rest for the group. Ree blissfully prepares for a decent night of sleep...
...which of course she doesn't get. She's awakened by a sense of malevolence, and sits up to find Drath's spirit standing at the foot of her bed. He's rock-solid sure they've doomed the universe by killing him, and wants to know how they're going to stop the True Sith from getting Luke. "Kill him, or wrap him in happy thoughts. Since you did away with me and put Darth Maul in a rock, you have to deal with this by yourself."
"Oh! Really?" Ree snarks. "That hadn't occurred to me! Anything else you want before I Force-light you into oblivion?"
Drath leaves.
Kyp knocks. "Something evil your room?" Ree tells him. They wonder about True Sith and telepathy and Force magnifiers. Kyp considers using the Yavin temple Force amplifiers to put up shields.
Drath turns up in Kedrihm'Val's room, who reacts pretty much the same as Ree, then leaves and bothers Dalt, who's working in the lab with Oola. She digs out a Force crystal. Dalt throws a wrench, which goes through Drath--"Huh"--then pulls out a gun. "Ooh!" Drath exclaims, eying Dalt's alarming-looking bit of technology, and flees the scene. It's a Force-light gun, Dalt explains to Oola. They decide to attach one to INON, then Dalt has a brainstorm: why build Force-exploding guns when you can build Force-light guns? "Drath had a good idea, showing up so I almost killed him. I wonder how big we can build it..." He installs one of those Force crystals into a lightsaber.
Kedrihm'Val goes to Ree, and Z stops by because Drath busted in on him too. Kedrihm'Val checks on Zan (yep; Drath ran pretty fast from that one) and Ree checks on Lydia (also yep).
Kedrihm'Val heads down to the hangar bay to check on Oola and Dalt, and arrives in time to hear Oola ask SARR about Drath. He notices Dalt vaporizing a dead True Sith with a Force light gun. He wants more Force crystals. Kedrihm'Val takes one, curious about them. The rest of the crew arrives. Zan likes the idea of going back to Reeshome. He thinks they all deserve pie after this.
Dalt ponders ways of devastating the True Sith fleet. Route the ships' connection through the Force crystals? Or empty the Dark Harvester and channel Rakata Prime's explosion through it?
Before they can go to Reeshome, they have meetings with the Council and the Senate tomorrow, so it's back to bed for everybody.
At the Council meeting, the Jedi agree to use the Yavin temples. They debate the Force gun heavily, preferring Dalt's solution of the lightsabers. Ree suggests they make a couple of prototypes. They could also have healing properties, and they didn't kill people on Thule. Dalt thinks the True Sith ships could be yet another slave race. He's not sure whether they're sentient, but they seem not to be particularly corrupt--unlike the True Sith themselves.
The Jedi inform the Senate of developments. The Senate wants a cataloguing of all outstanding threats.
Kyp's brother, like the other clones, proves to be a Primal Justice geek. He also looks forward to pie, which Ree agrees to bring back for him. So it's off to Reeshome. Her family meets them and fusses elaborately. Ree tells her mother her pies are coveted. Oola and Onna discuss Ree and Kyp and romance notives. Ree sputters with motification. There is pie and food and family relaxation all around. Ree's hopes for her people petitioning for a renaming of their planet are crushed. "They should have a chance to be asked!" she protests.
"You're assuming they weren't," Kedrihm'Val points out.
"Well, they...couldn't...were you?" she turned to her father.
"We were more than happy with it," her dad cheerfully confirms.
Her aunt is doing well. Her dad says, "We expected evil clouds and flight, but..."
"You expected evil clouds and flight," her mother scoffs. "Your father expected it," she says to Ree.
"I'm sure your uncle expected evil clouds and flight," her father counters.
"Maybe it's a guy thing," Ree wonders, then quizzes the rest of the group. Z votes yes. Oola and Onna both say no. Dalt also says no. So maybe it is a guy thing.
After spending a lovely day with her family, it's off to the cave to visit the space ferrets. They're doing fine. Entering the cave, Ree has a vision of the True Sith ships pouring out at Kushiba, which is a planet home to small, fluffy, highly intelligent and agile race, rather like fluffy rabbit-cats. Very cute and highly badass.
Kushiba isn't too far from Rakata Prime. So there'll be a secondary body of True Sith away from the main fleet. But it's a vision of the future. So for now, they'll go on with gathering crystals and water.
Z wonders about battle plans and the Chiss. Ree calls Kyp when they get back and fills him in on Kushiba. He's astounded--her trip was all quiet and pleasant. He says he's going to double guards on the temple because that has to be a bad sign.
Now having what they came for, the Starwind heads for Kushiba. Ree has to master self-discipline to keep from spazzing out over the cuteness. She explains the vision, which the Kushibans ponder with adorable solemnity, and then a wise old rabbit-cat tells them of a legend about a crashed ship from about 500 years ago. He tells them where to find it.
This one looks like a supply ship. The cockpit is empty, and there are no lifeforms or droids. Records indicate the ship was fleeing a space battle, carrying offerings for the Chosen One. The ships in its group were coming in to establish a base for the invasion, and were ambused by "the enemy." This was the only one that survived, too damaged to go further. There are indications that the pilot survived. There was a secondary mission to follow up on an earlier mission to hunt down "the renegade" from 500 years earlier.
The hold contains gold, jewels, a couple of wall-sized stones painted with murals--one is a fight between Luke and Leia, a couple more are pictures of Luke in all his dark glory. There are smaller statues of Luke and Leia standing back to back, displaying black eyes like the evil rulers. Ree finds a gizmo she thinks must be important. Oola identifies it as a scale groomer.
There's a big sealed container and a smaller yay-big container which radiatesevil. The big box contains a suit of Sith armor and a lightsaber, customized for Luke; there's another for Leia. They hold cavities in the chest, into which fit two crystals from the smaller box which ooze Dark Side energy. They're not sentient, exactly, but...grabby. These definitely need to be destroyed, but they're not sure how to do it off-hand.
A call to the temple doesn't get through. Crap. Maybe Kyp was right. They call Zel. It takes a bit to get through, and then they get the news. E-Val escaped along with a possessed padawan. Well...crap.
There's nothing they can do about that from all the way out here, though. While they consider dipping these things in Force water on an asteroid, the doors swing shut. Ree goes to check it out, and finds a True Sith warrior outside, who begins to use the Force to crush the ship. Ree and Zan hold it off. Lydia fires the turbo lasers and blows it up.
They open the door and Ree peeks out to spot a servitor lurking above the door. She cuts it in half. Oola says that's all there were on this ship.
Kyp calls back. They managed to catch and fix the padawan. He wants them to shoot those crystals into a nearby sun. "That seems to work for you a lot," Ree comments, then claps her hand over her mouth.
Kyp doesn't seem too hurt. "Ree! You've been hanging out with Z too much."
He tells them they weren't able to catch E-Val. Didn't even know he was gone till it was too late.
Z wants to look through the treasure. "He wants to find something for his mom," Oola quips. Dalt gets that look on his face. "Don't do it, Dalt," Oola warns him.
They shoot the crystals and armor into a nearby sun, then pick up an automated distress signal from a Naboo ship.
It's docked at a diplomatic center. The ship is empty, and it's Lady Sent's. Logs record that she captured and being returned, then it looks like a fight broke out. All the video equipment has been destroyed. The workers in the hangar bay where it's docked are acting normal, though.
Ree asks one what he saw. He says he saw nothing. She senses he's lying, but he stands by his statement. She gives up, and decides to contact Naboo security instead. Kedrihm'Val thinks maybe Lady Sent lied. Ooal thinks hostages. There's no mention in the log about children.
They scan for Lady Sent and find her in the Queen's residence. Hostages, then. They'll either have to storm the place...or sneak. SARR is disappointed. But Z thinks this is all off. He thinks it's a trap, aimed at them.
So if they're expected, they can't pretend they're not here. Instead Ree and Zan going in fighting to make a scene while the others sneak in. SARR aggravatedly offers to shoot at things without hurting anyone. Oola promises him mayhem when the True Sith arrive.
The Jedi scene very effectively, allowing the sneaking to go without a hitch. When they reach the Queen's residence, Ree notes that history repeats itself: Lady Sent is sitting on the throne with her 14-year-old daughter standing next to her with the tied-up Queen. There's a sealed cloning tube nearby, and no sign of the baby. "Unless it's in the tube," Oola theorizes grimly. Kedrihm'Val glances at Dalt, who agrees it's likely.
Lady Sent releases four globes on repulsor lifts-universal energy cages, which can suck someone in and hold even a Jedi.
If they can get the Queen away, the station's security forces will protect her. And they have to keep Lady Sent away from that tube...
...Aaaand the tube opens. Oola sends droids after the cages to disable the repulsor lifts. Z jets forward to grab the Queen and heads for a window. Kedrihm'Val jumps down to distract the enemy. Lydia charges the clone coming out of the tube--Palpatine. Onna fires at Lady sent.
Dalt leaps forward and hits a cage with his lighsaber, saber in one hand, glowing laser gun in the other. The Sent ladies ignite their lightsabers. Onna herds out the guards. Kedrihm'Val kicks Lady Sent in the head, knocking her lightsaber out of her grasp, and lands two crushing blows. Dalt deals a lethal blow to the daughter, and both women go down.
And then the Emperor Force-lightnings them all.
Zan and Ree arrive, and Zan promptly gets sucked into a cage. Oola goes to work on getting him out, but that leaves Ree to face the clone. She charges him--doesn't knock him down but interrupts his Force lightning, allowing the others to regain their feet.
Ree cuts off his left foot. Z flies back in. Oola gets Zan out and Kedrihm'Val hurls the scraps of the energy cage at the Emperor, knocking him over. Ree takes the opening to attack again.
Oola fills a droid with Force water.
Lydia sidles in to back Ree up, but the assistance isn't necessary as Ree cleaves the Emperor's clone into two tidy pieces. Oola injects his remains with the Force water, making it dissolve, then cleans out the cloning tank. Kedrihm'Val reminds her about the Palpatine women.
"This is a movie," Dalt says.
They ask the security guards about the baby, but they only ever saw genetic material. Ree doesn't want to leave a baby behind. The security helps them look. Dalt observes that babies are yay-big, to which Ree chides him, "You couldn't have been more specific!"
"It's not vision-Dalt's fault if the universe likes to laugh at us," Kedrihm'Val teases.
"It's not my fault if your brain taps into the Force in the most inconvenient way possible," Dalt counters.
There's no sign of the baby, though. The ship's logs were dumped before reaching Naboo. Lady Sent went out of her way to hide the child (bad scenario: she could've given it to the Hutts. Worse scenario: or to Thrawn). Defeated, Ree lets the temple know.
Now that the Jedi have had time to straighten out what happened, Ree gets a more complete report: Drath possessed a padawan (who is okay) in order to steal the coral and release E-Val. No guesses where he's goin. They turn all the offering stuff (minus evil Sith artifacts) over to Luke, who wants the Librarian to look things over first. "There's no love poetry, is there?" he worries.
...which of course she doesn't get. She's awakened by a sense of malevolence, and sits up to find Drath's spirit standing at the foot of her bed. He's rock-solid sure they've doomed the universe by killing him, and wants to know how they're going to stop the True Sith from getting Luke. "Kill him, or wrap him in happy thoughts. Since you did away with me and put Darth Maul in a rock, you have to deal with this by yourself."
"Oh! Really?" Ree snarks. "That hadn't occurred to me! Anything else you want before I Force-light you into oblivion?"
Drath leaves.
Kyp knocks. "Something evil your room?" Ree tells him. They wonder about True Sith and telepathy and Force magnifiers. Kyp considers using the Yavin temple Force amplifiers to put up shields.
Drath turns up in Kedrihm'Val's room, who reacts pretty much the same as Ree, then leaves and bothers Dalt, who's working in the lab with Oola. She digs out a Force crystal. Dalt throws a wrench, which goes through Drath--"Huh"--then pulls out a gun. "Ooh!" Drath exclaims, eying Dalt's alarming-looking bit of technology, and flees the scene. It's a Force-light gun, Dalt explains to Oola. They decide to attach one to INON, then Dalt has a brainstorm: why build Force-exploding guns when you can build Force-light guns? "Drath had a good idea, showing up so I almost killed him. I wonder how big we can build it..." He installs one of those Force crystals into a lightsaber.
Kedrihm'Val goes to Ree, and Z stops by because Drath busted in on him too. Kedrihm'Val checks on Zan (yep; Drath ran pretty fast from that one) and Ree checks on Lydia (also yep).
Kedrihm'Val heads down to the hangar bay to check on Oola and Dalt, and arrives in time to hear Oola ask SARR about Drath. He notices Dalt vaporizing a dead True Sith with a Force light gun. He wants more Force crystals. Kedrihm'Val takes one, curious about them. The rest of the crew arrives. Zan likes the idea of going back to Reeshome. He thinks they all deserve pie after this.
Dalt ponders ways of devastating the True Sith fleet. Route the ships' connection through the Force crystals? Or empty the Dark Harvester and channel Rakata Prime's explosion through it?
Before they can go to Reeshome, they have meetings with the Council and the Senate tomorrow, so it's back to bed for everybody.
At the Council meeting, the Jedi agree to use the Yavin temples. They debate the Force gun heavily, preferring Dalt's solution of the lightsabers. Ree suggests they make a couple of prototypes. They could also have healing properties, and they didn't kill people on Thule. Dalt thinks the True Sith ships could be yet another slave race. He's not sure whether they're sentient, but they seem not to be particularly corrupt--unlike the True Sith themselves.
The Jedi inform the Senate of developments. The Senate wants a cataloguing of all outstanding threats.
Kyp's brother, like the other clones, proves to be a Primal Justice geek. He also looks forward to pie, which Ree agrees to bring back for him. So it's off to Reeshome. Her family meets them and fusses elaborately. Ree tells her mother her pies are coveted. Oola and Onna discuss Ree and Kyp and romance notives. Ree sputters with motification. There is pie and food and family relaxation all around. Ree's hopes for her people petitioning for a renaming of their planet are crushed. "They should have a chance to be asked!" she protests.
"You're assuming they weren't," Kedrihm'Val points out.
"Well, they...couldn't...were you?" she turned to her father.
"We were more than happy with it," her dad cheerfully confirms.
Her aunt is doing well. Her dad says, "We expected evil clouds and flight, but..."
"You expected evil clouds and flight," her mother scoffs. "Your father expected it," she says to Ree.
"I'm sure your uncle expected evil clouds and flight," her father counters.
"Maybe it's a guy thing," Ree wonders, then quizzes the rest of the group. Z votes yes. Oola and Onna both say no. Dalt also says no. So maybe it is a guy thing.
After spending a lovely day with her family, it's off to the cave to visit the space ferrets. They're doing fine. Entering the cave, Ree has a vision of the True Sith ships pouring out at Kushiba, which is a planet home to small, fluffy, highly intelligent and agile race, rather like fluffy rabbit-cats. Very cute and highly badass.
Kushiba isn't too far from Rakata Prime. So there'll be a secondary body of True Sith away from the main fleet. But it's a vision of the future. So for now, they'll go on with gathering crystals and water.
Z wonders about battle plans and the Chiss. Ree calls Kyp when they get back and fills him in on Kushiba. He's astounded--her trip was all quiet and pleasant. He says he's going to double guards on the temple because that has to be a bad sign.
Now having what they came for, the Starwind heads for Kushiba. Ree has to master self-discipline to keep from spazzing out over the cuteness. She explains the vision, which the Kushibans ponder with adorable solemnity, and then a wise old rabbit-cat tells them of a legend about a crashed ship from about 500 years ago. He tells them where to find it.
This one looks like a supply ship. The cockpit is empty, and there are no lifeforms or droids. Records indicate the ship was fleeing a space battle, carrying offerings for the Chosen One. The ships in its group were coming in to establish a base for the invasion, and were ambused by "the enemy." This was the only one that survived, too damaged to go further. There are indications that the pilot survived. There was a secondary mission to follow up on an earlier mission to hunt down "the renegade" from 500 years earlier.
The hold contains gold, jewels, a couple of wall-sized stones painted with murals--one is a fight between Luke and Leia, a couple more are pictures of Luke in all his dark glory. There are smaller statues of Luke and Leia standing back to back, displaying black eyes like the evil rulers. Ree finds a gizmo she thinks must be important. Oola identifies it as a scale groomer.
There's a big sealed container and a smaller yay-big container which radiatesevil. The big box contains a suit of Sith armor and a lightsaber, customized for Luke; there's another for Leia. They hold cavities in the chest, into which fit two crystals from the smaller box which ooze Dark Side energy. They're not sentient, exactly, but...grabby. These definitely need to be destroyed, but they're not sure how to do it off-hand.
A call to the temple doesn't get through. Crap. Maybe Kyp was right. They call Zel. It takes a bit to get through, and then they get the news. E-Val escaped along with a possessed padawan. Well...crap.
There's nothing they can do about that from all the way out here, though. While they consider dipping these things in Force water on an asteroid, the doors swing shut. Ree goes to check it out, and finds a True Sith warrior outside, who begins to use the Force to crush the ship. Ree and Zan hold it off. Lydia fires the turbo lasers and blows it up.
They open the door and Ree peeks out to spot a servitor lurking above the door. She cuts it in half. Oola says that's all there were on this ship.
Kyp calls back. They managed to catch and fix the padawan. He wants them to shoot those crystals into a nearby sun. "That seems to work for you a lot," Ree comments, then claps her hand over her mouth.
Kyp doesn't seem too hurt. "Ree! You've been hanging out with Z too much."
He tells them they weren't able to catch E-Val. Didn't even know he was gone till it was too late.
Z wants to look through the treasure. "He wants to find something for his mom," Oola quips. Dalt gets that look on his face. "Don't do it, Dalt," Oola warns him.
They shoot the crystals and armor into a nearby sun, then pick up an automated distress signal from a Naboo ship.
It's docked at a diplomatic center. The ship is empty, and it's Lady Sent's. Logs record that she captured and being returned, then it looks like a fight broke out. All the video equipment has been destroyed. The workers in the hangar bay where it's docked are acting normal, though.
Ree asks one what he saw. He says he saw nothing. She senses he's lying, but he stands by his statement. She gives up, and decides to contact Naboo security instead. Kedrihm'Val thinks maybe Lady Sent lied. Ooal thinks hostages. There's no mention in the log about children.
They scan for Lady Sent and find her in the Queen's residence. Hostages, then. They'll either have to storm the place...or sneak. SARR is disappointed. But Z thinks this is all off. He thinks it's a trap, aimed at them.
So if they're expected, they can't pretend they're not here. Instead Ree and Zan going in fighting to make a scene while the others sneak in. SARR aggravatedly offers to shoot at things without hurting anyone. Oola promises him mayhem when the True Sith arrive.
The Jedi scene very effectively, allowing the sneaking to go without a hitch. When they reach the Queen's residence, Ree notes that history repeats itself: Lady Sent is sitting on the throne with her 14-year-old daughter standing next to her with the tied-up Queen. There's a sealed cloning tube nearby, and no sign of the baby. "Unless it's in the tube," Oola theorizes grimly. Kedrihm'Val glances at Dalt, who agrees it's likely.
Lady Sent releases four globes on repulsor lifts-universal energy cages, which can suck someone in and hold even a Jedi.
If they can get the Queen away, the station's security forces will protect her. And they have to keep Lady Sent away from that tube...
...Aaaand the tube opens. Oola sends droids after the cages to disable the repulsor lifts. Z jets forward to grab the Queen and heads for a window. Kedrihm'Val jumps down to distract the enemy. Lydia charges the clone coming out of the tube--Palpatine. Onna fires at Lady sent.
Dalt leaps forward and hits a cage with his lighsaber, saber in one hand, glowing laser gun in the other. The Sent ladies ignite their lightsabers. Onna herds out the guards. Kedrihm'Val kicks Lady Sent in the head, knocking her lightsaber out of her grasp, and lands two crushing blows. Dalt deals a lethal blow to the daughter, and both women go down.
And then the Emperor Force-lightnings them all.
Zan and Ree arrive, and Zan promptly gets sucked into a cage. Oola goes to work on getting him out, but that leaves Ree to face the clone. She charges him--doesn't knock him down but interrupts his Force lightning, allowing the others to regain their feet.
Ree cuts off his left foot. Z flies back in. Oola gets Zan out and Kedrihm'Val hurls the scraps of the energy cage at the Emperor, knocking him over. Ree takes the opening to attack again.
Oola fills a droid with Force water.
Lydia sidles in to back Ree up, but the assistance isn't necessary as Ree cleaves the Emperor's clone into two tidy pieces. Oola injects his remains with the Force water, making it dissolve, then cleans out the cloning tank. Kedrihm'Val reminds her about the Palpatine women.
"This is a movie," Dalt says.
They ask the security guards about the baby, but they only ever saw genetic material. Ree doesn't want to leave a baby behind. The security helps them look. Dalt observes that babies are yay-big, to which Ree chides him, "You couldn't have been more specific!"
"It's not vision-Dalt's fault if the universe likes to laugh at us," Kedrihm'Val teases.
"It's not my fault if your brain taps into the Force in the most inconvenient way possible," Dalt counters.
There's no sign of the baby, though. The ship's logs were dumped before reaching Naboo. Lady Sent went out of her way to hide the child (bad scenario: she could've given it to the Hutts. Worse scenario: or to Thrawn). Defeated, Ree lets the temple know.
Now that the Jedi have had time to straighten out what happened, Ree gets a more complete report: Drath possessed a padawan (who is okay) in order to steal the coral and release E-Val. No guesses where he's goin. They turn all the offering stuff (minus evil Sith artifacts) over to Luke, who wants the Librarian to look things over first. "There's no love poetry, is there?" he worries.
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