Deciding to hunt down Revan's travels, Ree, Oola, and Dalt put some work into spiffing up the Starwind to give it more speed. They're thinking Rakata Prime might have hints of Revan's path.
Meanwhile, Sent is rallying people against the Jedi. Ree notes that his charisma is operating at an unnatural level. Luke ponders this, asking Ree to sound out Dalt on his chronology, see if it leads to any hints on his family.
Ree: "Oh! I seem to remember some time ago a mention of an office and an assistant?"
Luke: "You have an office and an assistant."
Ree: "Where is it?"
Luke: "Uh..where is it?" Digging it up, he points her to the right location, where her assistant Zel Krend, member of the newly refounded Explorer Corp, introduces himself. In the face of her repeated apologies, he's amused that she only just noticed.
Zel seems to be very self-motivated. He gives Ree a call after digging through Sent's speeches. Over the last two years, his oratory style has grown more and more similar to Palpatine's, and his rhetoric has become increasingly humanocentric. Wondering if Dalt and Sent ever actually met, Zel asks Ree for some of Dalt's DNA. "Do you have any of his genetic material?"
Ree replies, "We have a Dalt!" Hitting him up in the lab, she plucks a hair from his head. "Everyone keeps doing that," complains Dalt. "Hah! That got a reaction. Tables were turned on you!" He tells Ree he never met Sent personally.
When she brings the hair back to Zel, he refers to her as "Master," and complains about clones.
Speaking of which, E-Val remains under guard.
Since Ree has no idea how to go about it, she gets Oola to chat Dalt up about his childhood. He tells her he didn't draw; he built things. But he's a little vague about his recollections. He reminisces about building little droids to run errands for him. Later in life, he used them to steal DNA--everybody's DNA he could get his hands on. Which, he suddenly realizes, is still at his CorpSec base. Then he gives a dissertation on cloning janitors if you want a successful evil empire, because they're the one group of people who end up getting into everything. SARR makes a note.
They turn their attention to the newly acquired clones. Dalt hopes for a solution to his "give everyone the Force" conundrum other than killing everyone and bringing them back. "You really want to give everyone Force powers?" Oola asks him.
"Perhaps to some extent I have seen the error of my ways," Dalt replies.
Kyp asks Ree's advice on dealing with a family. "I walked into Luke's office and he said, "There's no way I can answer what you're about to ask me. Go ask Leia." And Leia wasn't available and Han was no help." Ree suggests hobbies and sports. "So I'm supposed to take my brother on dates?" Kyp protests in confusion. SAR suggests Ree ask her mom. He also suggests Primal Justice. And drinking games. "Man things are very simple. Get him the Primal Justice vids. You've got the connections for the episodes that aren't aired yet."
"But," Ree protests, "that wouldn't be right!"
"The boy died," SARR tells her. "Give him the extra videos! I can give you a great deal." Ree calls the production studio instead, where they fall over backwards to help her out. "You should see what you get if you call in Z's voice," SARR comments.
"The clap," Dalt opines. But, SARR warns her, she'd better prepare to get drunken calls from Kyp. "Bonding happens at highest temperature. It's not a painless experience."
Kedrihm'Val hangs out with the new clones, trying to help them feel welcome.
With all that sorted, it's off to Rakata Prime. They bring Zan and Dalt along.
Zel calls again on the way out: Sent is giving a speech at the Alderanian asteroid belt. "You can accomplish anything with an army of sad and determined liberals at your back," he observes. Kedrihm'Val suggests they get in touch with Endek. From him, they learn that he's been trying to trace Sent's messages, but he can't pin down the receptor. Val and Oola recall their escape from Thrawn--did any messages arrive at that location around that point in time? Why, yes, Endek tells them. So Sent's in touch with somebody--but is it Thrawn or Drath?
Zel pushes a garbled news transmission to them two days out from Rakata Prime--there's been an attack at a speech at the Alderanian memorial, by Drath.
On arrival at Rakata Prime, they read a slew of lifeforms. Scanning for buildings, they read some abandoned buildings and one temple. That's where they head.
Inside the temple, under 3000 years of accumulated dust, Kedrihm'Val spots a pressure trap and a secret door. Oola cracks those, and discovers a turbo lift shaft behind the door. Z flies up with his jet pack and tosses the others a rope. Upstairs is a lab of some kind. Oola and Dalt poke, and Oola discovers a math puzzle that activates a map. Dalt finds blueprints for various dangerous superweapons. Ahhh, the Rakata. He snags a set that particularly worries him. Ree remembers the temple used to be protected behind force fields. Dalt wonders if this means they were expected.
Oola solves the puzzle, activating both a map and a countdown, which is two months away. The map, which is Old Republic tech, shows a battle line with a large fleet being held off by a small group of ships. The fleet is pressing toward Chiss space. If this is current, then that fleet might arrive at the borders of the Ascendency within days. They need to send the Chiss a warning.
Poking through the rest of the temple, they find weapons and stuff in various stages of completion. SARR helps load the dangerous tech and sings spirituals.
Oola and Ree find a hangar bay. Two ships are gone; two are still there--Rakata ships, in perfect working order. They're the size of light freighters, but well-armed. Kedrihm'Val considers that this temple must be where the Rakata built that crystal flower. At about that point, the hangar bay doors slam closed, and a hologram of HK-47 appears, demanding proof of the date. He mocks Ree for typing it in. Oola feeds in a news feed instead. "Ah, a meatbag with a brain among you," says HK-47. The doors open again.
They discover a shaft leading straight down. It emerges on the biggest amphitheatre any of them have ever seen--hundreds of thousands of seats. The seats are rigged with wires and tubes; it's obviously where they created the crystal flower. Kedrihm'Val notices that there's nothing left of any physical body. The Rakata turned themselves into pure Force energy, Dalt theorizes.
They disassemble the concentrating pillar, to make sure this thing can never be triggered again.
That just leaves a spire to explore. "Oh, spires," comments Kedrihm'Val. "They always turn out well."
"The spires at the Jedi Temple are fine," says Ree. "Master Luke has an office in one."
"My point stands," Kedrihm returns.
The chamber at the top of the spire is wrecked. Obviously a lightsaber fight took place here, and a catastrophic one. Pulling images out of the one half-functional camera left in the room, they discover that an initial guess of Vader is right. A central chamber in the room held a working duplicate of HK-47, which took on Vader when he arrived (presumably following the trail of the Rakata ship he faced off against). Finishing off the droid, Vader eventually activated the central chamber's security pad, entered and then left again.
The pad opens for Ree. Inside, she finds an unopened box, and a holocomm--featuring a Jedi woman Ree has never seen. This woman explains that by the time Ree (naming her directly) finds this, it will be weeks to months before the True Sith arrive. She outlines tactics and plans to give to "Master Skywalker." (The thought occurs that Vader may have left convinced that he would eventually acquire an apprentice named Ree.) The woman, whom Ree is pretty sure is the Jedi Exile, says that the temple is timed to blow up an hour after they leave. The planet itself has been converted into a massive bomb that will go off when the True Sith pass. The locked container opens when Ree takes up the comm. Inside is an odd little glowing ball, which Dalt identifies as a power source.
Though they have this assurance that the contents of the temple will not fall into enemy hands, Dalt still wants to take things.
Heading back to the ship, they receive clearer news on the Alderan attack. Drath had a small fleet, and the site was notably poorly defended by Republic security. Most of the Alderanian groups are dead; there is no word from Sent, or from Jacen or Jaina, who were there with Jedi representatives. A message from Zel indicates that all security arrangements were made by Sent. All Sent's possessions and bank accounts are gone. The results on Sent's DNA check are "disturbing." He refuses to tell them more until they get back.
They arrive to unload the dangerous miscellania they collected from the temple. Dalt tells them the plans he found were for the Star Forge. Oola's surprised to see that it's actually quite straightforward to build, except for a singular power source...which is about yay-big.
Ree and Zan head to the Council chamber, where they drop off the information on the True Sith fleet. Lue shows them the DNA test: the only Sent DNA is that which gives Raasik Sent his familial resemblance. The rest is...Palpatinesque. Kyp makes the inevitable connecction: "Someone hit that." Dalt's mom, in fact, yes. "Oh, shit, Dalt's in the room," Kyp continues. "Oh my," is Dalt's only, disgusted, response. But Dalt's mother wasn't a Sent. And Sent's actions indicate that he knew about his ancestry. Public opinion is currently against Jedi, for not using their abilities to bring back Alderaan.
So. The galaxy is again under attack. The Republic will have to renew its alliance with Thrawn, find Drath and Sent, and work out ways to deal with the True Sith once Rakata Prime goes up. Drath, Ree is told, is her responsibility.
The first step is to analyze news footage to see if they recognize any of the ships that flew with Drath.
But first, Ree returns to her room to drop her things off...where she finds a datapad. it's a star chart for a planet at the edge of the Unknown Region. She turns that over to the Librarian to run checks on. Turns out it's another planet that vanished from the charts when the Emperor took over. There's a heavy traffic pattern to and from it for the last several months. Drath's base?
Talking to the clones, they learn that they often saw the Zeltrons, Ventress, and Drath. A message from Luke tells the crew that Thrawn has sent his information on Drath: 2000 followers spread across various planets. The "lost" planet is an old Imperial testing facility. They consider going in with a modified cloak on one of the Rakata ships. Dalt has such a cloaking device almost finished.
Oola sends a message to her father. Ree's holocron hints to her that her family on her mother's side might have been observers for Revan's line.
Ree gives everybody the "You don't have to come if you don't want to" line, which results in unimpressed stares. So it's on to the invisible planet!
"Dude," Z says to Dalt, "your mom is a whore." Dalt can hardly disagree.
Meanwhile, Sent is rallying people against the Jedi. Ree notes that his charisma is operating at an unnatural level. Luke ponders this, asking Ree to sound out Dalt on his chronology, see if it leads to any hints on his family.
Ree: "Oh! I seem to remember some time ago a mention of an office and an assistant?"
Luke: "You have an office and an assistant."
Ree: "Where is it?"
Luke: "Uh..where is it?" Digging it up, he points her to the right location, where her assistant Zel Krend, member of the newly refounded Explorer Corp, introduces himself. In the face of her repeated apologies, he's amused that she only just noticed.
Zel seems to be very self-motivated. He gives Ree a call after digging through Sent's speeches. Over the last two years, his oratory style has grown more and more similar to Palpatine's, and his rhetoric has become increasingly humanocentric. Wondering if Dalt and Sent ever actually met, Zel asks Ree for some of Dalt's DNA. "Do you have any of his genetic material?"
Ree replies, "We have a Dalt!" Hitting him up in the lab, she plucks a hair from his head. "Everyone keeps doing that," complains Dalt. "Hah! That got a reaction. Tables were turned on you!" He tells Ree he never met Sent personally.
When she brings the hair back to Zel, he refers to her as "Master," and complains about clones.
Speaking of which, E-Val remains under guard.
Since Ree has no idea how to go about it, she gets Oola to chat Dalt up about his childhood. He tells her he didn't draw; he built things. But he's a little vague about his recollections. He reminisces about building little droids to run errands for him. Later in life, he used them to steal DNA--everybody's DNA he could get his hands on. Which, he suddenly realizes, is still at his CorpSec base. Then he gives a dissertation on cloning janitors if you want a successful evil empire, because they're the one group of people who end up getting into everything. SARR makes a note.
They turn their attention to the newly acquired clones. Dalt hopes for a solution to his "give everyone the Force" conundrum other than killing everyone and bringing them back. "You really want to give everyone Force powers?" Oola asks him.
"Perhaps to some extent I have seen the error of my ways," Dalt replies.
Kyp asks Ree's advice on dealing with a family. "I walked into Luke's office and he said, "There's no way I can answer what you're about to ask me. Go ask Leia." And Leia wasn't available and Han was no help." Ree suggests hobbies and sports. "So I'm supposed to take my brother on dates?" Kyp protests in confusion. SAR suggests Ree ask her mom. He also suggests Primal Justice. And drinking games. "Man things are very simple. Get him the Primal Justice vids. You've got the connections for the episodes that aren't aired yet."
"But," Ree protests, "that wouldn't be right!"
"The boy died," SARR tells her. "Give him the extra videos! I can give you a great deal." Ree calls the production studio instead, where they fall over backwards to help her out. "You should see what you get if you call in Z's voice," SARR comments.
"The clap," Dalt opines. But, SARR warns her, she'd better prepare to get drunken calls from Kyp. "Bonding happens at highest temperature. It's not a painless experience."
Kedrihm'Val hangs out with the new clones, trying to help them feel welcome.
With all that sorted, it's off to Rakata Prime. They bring Zan and Dalt along.
Zel calls again on the way out: Sent is giving a speech at the Alderanian asteroid belt. "You can accomplish anything with an army of sad and determined liberals at your back," he observes. Kedrihm'Val suggests they get in touch with Endek. From him, they learn that he's been trying to trace Sent's messages, but he can't pin down the receptor. Val and Oola recall their escape from Thrawn--did any messages arrive at that location around that point in time? Why, yes, Endek tells them. So Sent's in touch with somebody--but is it Thrawn or Drath?
Zel pushes a garbled news transmission to them two days out from Rakata Prime--there's been an attack at a speech at the Alderanian memorial, by Drath.
On arrival at Rakata Prime, they read a slew of lifeforms. Scanning for buildings, they read some abandoned buildings and one temple. That's where they head.
Inside the temple, under 3000 years of accumulated dust, Kedrihm'Val spots a pressure trap and a secret door. Oola cracks those, and discovers a turbo lift shaft behind the door. Z flies up with his jet pack and tosses the others a rope. Upstairs is a lab of some kind. Oola and Dalt poke, and Oola discovers a math puzzle that activates a map. Dalt finds blueprints for various dangerous superweapons. Ahhh, the Rakata. He snags a set that particularly worries him. Ree remembers the temple used to be protected behind force fields. Dalt wonders if this means they were expected.
Oola solves the puzzle, activating both a map and a countdown, which is two months away. The map, which is Old Republic tech, shows a battle line with a large fleet being held off by a small group of ships. The fleet is pressing toward Chiss space. If this is current, then that fleet might arrive at the borders of the Ascendency within days. They need to send the Chiss a warning.
Poking through the rest of the temple, they find weapons and stuff in various stages of completion. SARR helps load the dangerous tech and sings spirituals.
Oola and Ree find a hangar bay. Two ships are gone; two are still there--Rakata ships, in perfect working order. They're the size of light freighters, but well-armed. Kedrihm'Val considers that this temple must be where the Rakata built that crystal flower. At about that point, the hangar bay doors slam closed, and a hologram of HK-47 appears, demanding proof of the date. He mocks Ree for typing it in. Oola feeds in a news feed instead. "Ah, a meatbag with a brain among you," says HK-47. The doors open again.
They discover a shaft leading straight down. It emerges on the biggest amphitheatre any of them have ever seen--hundreds of thousands of seats. The seats are rigged with wires and tubes; it's obviously where they created the crystal flower. Kedrihm'Val notices that there's nothing left of any physical body. The Rakata turned themselves into pure Force energy, Dalt theorizes.
They disassemble the concentrating pillar, to make sure this thing can never be triggered again.
That just leaves a spire to explore. "Oh, spires," comments Kedrihm'Val. "They always turn out well."
"The spires at the Jedi Temple are fine," says Ree. "Master Luke has an office in one."
"My point stands," Kedrihm returns.
The chamber at the top of the spire is wrecked. Obviously a lightsaber fight took place here, and a catastrophic one. Pulling images out of the one half-functional camera left in the room, they discover that an initial guess of Vader is right. A central chamber in the room held a working duplicate of HK-47, which took on Vader when he arrived (presumably following the trail of the Rakata ship he faced off against). Finishing off the droid, Vader eventually activated the central chamber's security pad, entered and then left again.
The pad opens for Ree. Inside, she finds an unopened box, and a holocomm--featuring a Jedi woman Ree has never seen. This woman explains that by the time Ree (naming her directly) finds this, it will be weeks to months before the True Sith arrive. She outlines tactics and plans to give to "Master Skywalker." (The thought occurs that Vader may have left convinced that he would eventually acquire an apprentice named Ree.) The woman, whom Ree is pretty sure is the Jedi Exile, says that the temple is timed to blow up an hour after they leave. The planet itself has been converted into a massive bomb that will go off when the True Sith pass. The locked container opens when Ree takes up the comm. Inside is an odd little glowing ball, which Dalt identifies as a power source.
Though they have this assurance that the contents of the temple will not fall into enemy hands, Dalt still wants to take things.
Heading back to the ship, they receive clearer news on the Alderan attack. Drath had a small fleet, and the site was notably poorly defended by Republic security. Most of the Alderanian groups are dead; there is no word from Sent, or from Jacen or Jaina, who were there with Jedi representatives. A message from Zel indicates that all security arrangements were made by Sent. All Sent's possessions and bank accounts are gone. The results on Sent's DNA check are "disturbing." He refuses to tell them more until they get back.
They arrive to unload the dangerous miscellania they collected from the temple. Dalt tells them the plans he found were for the Star Forge. Oola's surprised to see that it's actually quite straightforward to build, except for a singular power source...which is about yay-big.
Ree and Zan head to the Council chamber, where they drop off the information on the True Sith fleet. Lue shows them the DNA test: the only Sent DNA is that which gives Raasik Sent his familial resemblance. The rest is...Palpatinesque. Kyp makes the inevitable connecction: "Someone hit that." Dalt's mom, in fact, yes. "Oh, shit, Dalt's in the room," Kyp continues. "Oh my," is Dalt's only, disgusted, response. But Dalt's mother wasn't a Sent. And Sent's actions indicate that he knew about his ancestry. Public opinion is currently against Jedi, for not using their abilities to bring back Alderaan.
So. The galaxy is again under attack. The Republic will have to renew its alliance with Thrawn, find Drath and Sent, and work out ways to deal with the True Sith once Rakata Prime goes up. Drath, Ree is told, is her responsibility.
The first step is to analyze news footage to see if they recognize any of the ships that flew with Drath.
But first, Ree returns to her room to drop her things off...where she finds a datapad. it's a star chart for a planet at the edge of the Unknown Region. She turns that over to the Librarian to run checks on. Turns out it's another planet that vanished from the charts when the Emperor took over. There's a heavy traffic pattern to and from it for the last several months. Drath's base?
Talking to the clones, they learn that they often saw the Zeltrons, Ventress, and Drath. A message from Luke tells the crew that Thrawn has sent his information on Drath: 2000 followers spread across various planets. The "lost" planet is an old Imperial testing facility. They consider going in with a modified cloak on one of the Rakata ships. Dalt has such a cloaking device almost finished.
Oola sends a message to her father. Ree's holocron hints to her that her family on her mother's side might have been observers for Revan's line.
Ree gives everybody the "You don't have to come if you don't want to" line, which results in unimpressed stares. So it's on to the invisible planet!
"Dude," Z says to Dalt, "your mom is a whore." Dalt can hardly disagree.
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