Oracle at Pelgrin 2: Ree on the Brain

But on the way back, Ree keeps having dreams. The first night, she’s building a protocol droid. The second, she’s pod-racing. She dreams of fleeing up the gangplank of a ship at someone’s orders and being pulled in by a Jedi. One evening, it’s particularly bad, and she wakes up panicked from a dream where someone dies and she’s terribly upset at the funeral.

After she dreams of hurling herself out of a hovercar and hearing someone call out to her by someone else’s name, she starts wondering about calling Luke. But before she makes a decision, she dozes off in her chair (not having slept well in days) and dreams of feeling extremely guilty about something—worried that someone specific will be mad, but going to their rescue…then a battle with all sorts of crazy stuff going down: droids, Genoshans, more Jedi than actually exist at this point, Boba Fett being killed by…Mace Windu? And a young Obi Wan.

At this point, she wakes and makes notes of all the dreams she’s had so far. Next dreams is of a lightsaber duel with Count Dooku alongside Obi-Wan, which really narrows things down.

At breakfast the next morning, a day or so out from Coruscant, Z jokes, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. It’s cool if you’re dreaming about me, I understand.” Lydia: “Who would want to dream about you? Maybe a woman with a can opener.”

Ree tries to stay awake after that, but she’s been sleeping lousy for days now. She dreams about Anakin’s vision of Padme dying, then recalls talking to Yoda about “letting go” and thinking it’s lousy advice.

When they get to Coruscant, they talk to Cilghal about all this. Cilghal believes Ree synched herself up with Vader’s brain pattern. She’s not sure how to reverse this, but neither of them is happy about seeking advice from Luke. Cilghal says she’ll research it, and Ree decides to talk to Dalt…or have someone talk to him for her.

Dalt points out that the pattern of dreams is dangerous, because Ree’s nearing the point in the sequence where Anakin became Vader. He suggests going back to the Oracle and using it to put things back. When Kedrihm notes that keeping Ree awake the whole time will be an adventure, Dalt insinuatingly suggests that they could take Kyp along. Kedrihm’Val pointedly ignores him, though about half the planet by now probably thinks that Ree and Kyp have a thing.

So they head back, prodding Ree frequently, to try to fix her. When they stick her in the meditation chamber, she has a vision of a battle between the Republic and Thule, and sees a dead Jedi Master. She thinks it’s either Luke, Kyp, or Zann. When they head out from the Oracle again, they spot footprints heading around the side of the tower. Oola checks the cameras on the place, spotting someone coming out of a compartment in the side of the tower and into the building. Some kind of hibernation pod, or a droid? Kedrihm notes the tracks are too heavy for a human. So they head back in, and hustle upstairs when the tower begins to activate.

The door to the meditation chamber is already closed. The droid is downloading a brain pattern into itself. Oola spots the channels that are active...the Emperor! That thing’s gotta die. Once the process finishes, the droid stops at the other side of the door while the crew discusses options for shutting it down. It retrieves a lightsaber from the chair, at which point Oola locks it in and starts to overload it with Ree’s goody-two-shoes Jedi pattern. It tears the door of the hinges and comes out swinging.

The droid kicks at Oola, putting its foot through a panel. Z blows up a few panels trying to shoot it, then zaps it with a cable. Ree and Kedrihm’Val both attack its head and then Z trashes the torso.

Oola shuts down the machine now that its spent about two minutes broadcasting Ree across the galaxy. Luke calls about then, wanting to know if everything’s okay, and if Ree tried to send a telepathic signal. They reassure him. Kedrihm’Val spots Z trying to set charges, for which he gets scolded, but he thinks it’s a bad move to leave the Oracle sitting around like this.

Everyone is creeped out by SARR being exceptionally nice on the way back. “You okay?” Ree asks him. “I’m fine,” he says. “Maybe you need some sleep?” “…No comment on the robot revolution?” Oola asks. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

When they get back to Coruscant, the Council bugs Ree to make sure she didn’t try to send them a signal, because everybody kind of felt one. Great. Imagine: thousands of Rees doing deeds of justice and goodwill across the galaxy.

The Oracle at Pelgrin

After siccing translators on the Sith box and arranging to demodify the modified Jedi prison ship so they can put their growing list of evil-wrong-bad Dark Side prisoners on it, they decide to finally go poke the Oracle at Pelgrin.

First, Ree calls Lexi Cuthas to ask if any family members have gone missing. Lexi’s reluctant to talk about it, but admits that her sister vanished eleven years ago. Her name was Adry, and she was four at the time. One more to add to the kidnapped Jedi list.

The Oracle at Pelgrin was destroyed by the Emperor, who didn’t want anyone else getting their hands on its power. But it was later rebuilt by Dalt, for the Emperor. The crew now believes that the original might’ve been modeled on the Sith tower. The descriptions match in many ways.

So they land on Pelgrin. It’s a bleak, empty place: a planet of calm water, with not a single feature save for the spire of the Oracl. They head inside to find a spiral staircase with room radiating out from it along the walls. Inside the first door they find a room full of machinery. Oola explores, and finds that whole sections of the tower spin and pivot, the mechanisms for which dwell in this room.

Ten floors up, the next door leads to the construction staff’s quarters. Nothing special about it; it’s obviously been empty since the crews finished and left. They do find architectural drawings of the original tower with obvious modifications on them. Oola’s not sure what they do. They’re related to the Force somehow. To a normal engineer’s eye, they look fairly pointless, but they do strike her as somehow familiar. They take the drawings and head upward.

Another ten floors up, it’s an engineer’s area. There are more plans here with modifications on them. Oola thinks they’re for different settings. The original, they know, simply channeled the Force upward to the control room, allowing a Force user to harness it to power their visions. This one almost seems to have settings that function like tumblers in a lock.

At the top, there’s the meditation chamber. Oola looks at the controls while Ree goes inside. The door closes behind her, and to Ree everything seems to go dark: almost sensory-deprivation dark. The others, however, can see her through the windows.

Oola sees about getting the door open, and stumbles on the discovery that different floors align to Dark Side emotions: fear, rage, hate, and two other complex ones she’s hard-put to name. Ree sees that the chair in the meditation chamber has a hookup for a respirator.

Oola and Z see control boards lighting up and one of the weird controls Oola hasn’t placed yet begins to boot up. Kedrihm feels the Force begin to surge. Ree, in the chamber, feels kind of foggy for a moment. Oola gets the door unlocked, but Ree can’t actually see the door, so Lydia pops it open for her from the outside. Kedrihm, focusing on the building Force energies, recognizes it as Vader’s aura.

With that information, Oola realizes that the other two patterns are Vader and the Emperor. This thing was designed to tune them specifically into the Force for more powerful visions.

They’re not sure whether to show this to Dalt or not. They lock the Oracle down, quarantine the planet, and head back to Coruscant.

Star Wars art

Well, it's hardly perfect, but I was practicing and I thought, "Well, I've never drawn a picture of Dalt doing Daltish stuff," so I did.

It's kind of huge; sorry about that. I want to do the one of Ree standing in front of the bar as it goes up in flames, but what I want to do with that one is a lot more complex.

Scuzzy and Wuzz and the Ship of Fools

They learn what they can find out about the tower and the coins. Dalt continues teaching Oola the Architects’ language. Kedrihm learns a bit more about Dathomir--practical stuff, this time, like local plants and wildlife. Zann gathers spy stuff for their trip to Bimm. The Council wants them to run medical supplies to the front and get a look around out there. Zann doesn’t come with, since he’s got other work to do.

But on the way, they get ambushed by dumb pirates. These guys quickly deflate when they find out they’ve just hijacked a Jedi ship, but before they can escape from their captives, both ships get sucked up by an Imperial officer in an Old Republic ship. Actually, it's an old Jedi prison ship converted into a Republic medical ship. While the officer talks to them, laying down his terms of surrender, the crew sees someone in a clown outfit playing with the controls behind him.

They get tractor-beamed into the bay, where they decide to get out and look around. The pirates don’t want to be left alone in a place like this, so they come too, hoping the Jedi will protect them. Inside the bay, they spot markings that indicate it’s a mental hospital ship. That's not reassuring, but it would explain the clown.

Oola hacks into the ship’s systems to open the inter docking bay door, but she notes that the ship’s power is routed weirdly. Still, she manages it. She has to do it again when they take the elevator, where she gets into a hacker battle. She aims up, the lift goes down. Then someone shuts off the elevator's power. The group escapes through the shaft onto another floor. Gravity is off here, and they find bodies floating in the hallway.

Ree asks for the pirates’ names: Scuzzy, Wuzz, three mercenaries named Corben, Ventrim, and Kit, and a mysterious individual in a cloak. Ree presses the hooded figure, who gives up and pulls the hood down. It’s Jude. Somehow, Ree isn’t surprised.

They continue exploring, Ree in the lead (Jude comments that Jedi explode if they don’t go first; Scuzzy and Wuzz take that literally). There are signs of a struggle, some blaster marks on the bodiesThey climb up service ladders and find dead clone troopers and lightsaber marks on the next level. A force field locks down part of the floor due to a hull breach, so they divert to the floor where the cells are located.

One room here is blocked by a force field. Two med droids sit inside, deactivated. Another room contains an organic signature. Oola checks with SARR, who says he's “perfectly fine, Master.” Oola: “I’m not your master, SARR.” “I thought any breathing being was my master.”

While scoping out the cells, they hear footsteps. Three people on patrol duty, wearing piecemeal clonetrooper armor and a lot of weapons. One comments, “Let’s go check on Sleeping Beauty,” then peers into the room with the life-sign, then they turn down a hall and leave.

The crew checks that same room once the patrol clears out. It’s a Jedi in a healing trance. Ree shakes the guy awake, but the three patrolmen come back around. Ree steps out with her lightsaber, and one charges at her waving a food tube, making zapping noises. Ree knocks them all out.

The Imperial officer comes on the screen in the Jedi's room. When they ask if he knows Thrawn is active, he mocks them, calling him Grand Admiral Prawn. Then the clown blows the airlocks.

They quickly head up another floor, tugging the unconscious patrolmen along. While Ree cuts a hole in the metal lock sealing the service ladders, she talks to the Jedi they rescued, who gives his name as Severi Teiak. They give him a brief run-down of the last few decades, which he’s apparently missed, but he stops them when they tell them about the Empire’s reign. Says it’s too much to take in just now.

The next floor has access to the ship’s records. The last log is of clone troopers turning on the Jedi on the ship, then someone overrides the systems and opens all the cell doors. The ship was a med-ship for mostly harmless loons, with only a few dangerous prisoners. The group is now only four floors from the bridge, so they head up. Ree cuts through another metal shield and finds herself on a floor saturated with helium. They find another tube, and Oola drains the gas out.
“They turned the ship into a funhouse.”
Scuzzy says, “I would, if I had the chance.”
Ree: “That’s good to know about you.”
Wuzz thinks that’s a come-on from her, and tells Fuzz he’s lucky.

Severi: “Since we have a few minutes, what do you mean the Sith took over the galaxy?” They explain a bit more.

The Imperial pops up on-screen again. “You got past the helium trap. Cagey.” He wants to know if they let the droids out. “They’re crazy,” he says. “They know all about this ship.”

On the next floor, they find the dangerous inmates, or at least their descendants. A lot of force fields on this floor keep them sealed into certain areas. These guys apparently worship the food synthesizer and eat people. There seems to be some inbred devolution going on.

The Imperial pops up on-screen again. “Let us out,” Ree says. “Should we let them out?” he asks the clown girl. She shakes her head. “Every time he talks to the clown person, something bad happens,” Kedrihm notes. And the force fields go down. They’re driven down from that floor by crazy cannibal barbarians. Oola holds up the force fields briefly so they can escape, and spikes the clown’s systems in revenge. Stymied for the moment, they decide to head back down to fetch the med-droids.

When most of the group enters the room with the droids, cautious in case they awaken violently, Severi shoves Oola into the room, re-activates the force field lock, kills the two mercenaries who’d stayed outside, and runs. Luckily, Jude was also outside, hiding around the corner. She deactivates the field again and mocks them for not expecting him to turn bad. “That was fairly obvious.”

Great. An insane Jedi? That can only be bad.

Oola gets one of the droids operational by scrounging parts from the others. Ree explains what’s been going on. It’s dismayed to hear they let the Jedi out, to say the least. It calls him a “thing” in a room at the end of the hallway, and says they found “it” floating in space in a black metal coffin. The droid doesn’t know how it ended up in that room. Oola radioes SARR to warn him against roaming rogue Jedi. “Now you’ve hooked up with another medical droid,” he grumbles.
“It means nothing, SARR, you’re still the only droid for us.”

Meanwhile, the others talk in the background.
Z: “I don’t have the Force. If I did, I’d hope someone would've knee-capped me a long time ago.”
Scuz: “Man, Boba Fett’s scary. Imagine if he could use the Force.”
Kedrihm'Val, messing with them just a little: “He couldn’t use the armor. It’s anti-Force, right?”
Ree, not catching on right away: “No, it’s not...oh.”
Jude: “Wow, I got the active genes.”

They call the 'Imperial officer' and warn him about the “Jedi-thing.” He doesn't buy it at first, till Ree does the mind trick on him. After that, he decides he likes them, locks down the crazy people, and lets the group on the bridge. They learn that the clown droid was meant to entertain kids, but the inmates reprogrammed it and gave it weapons. “It’s a bit crazy,” the officer tells them. Ree asks to look at the storage room for the black coffin. The Imperial guy agrees, announcing, “Okay, some people are going into the storage room. Pay no attention, they’re not real.”

The box is evil. The crate it’s in is labeled 'Do not touch.' “Let’s go touch the evil box," Ree says before she pries it open. Inside is a Sith stasis unit.

Ree calls Luke to infodump. “Is that a clown in the background?” he asks. It’s skulking menacingly behind them, but not doing anything particular. Ree comments, “It’s like SARR with facepaint.” Kedrihm'Val adds, “They’re made for each other.” “Keeping my eyes on you,” the clown droid mutters to them. Scuzzy interrupts Ree's conversation to ask, “Is that Luke Skywalker? Did Vader eat you through his chest of horrors?” (Note: I have no idea what that even means, but wouldn’t be surprised if Scuzzy said it anyway.)

Oola uses ship sensors to locate Severi and learns that an escape pod jettisoned toward Thule lines. How’d he know to go that way? Anyway, they radio the Republic fleet about him. The Republic forces report that the Chimera intercepted a pod in that vicinity about 15 minutes ago. Oh, boy. Thrawn's in the vicinity.

Then the pirates’ ship lifts off and blows out of the docking bay. The clown droid catches it in a tractor beam. As the crew races down to the hold, the tractor beam cuts loose and the ship gets away. The guy mind-whammied the bridge. Z is able to tag the ship with a tracker, and they pursue in the Starwind.

A little ways out, the Chimera hails them. Thrawn wants to know why they're chasing a pirate ship. Fair question, considering this crew. Ree doesn't want to tell him that she's in pursuit of a Sith, but as usual, she can’t think of a decent lie. “Ah," says Thrawn. "That pause tells me a lot.” He informs them that the Chimera is standing aside on the matter. The implication is that he's not here to concern himself with internal matters of Republic jurisdiction, but honestly, it's not like he's really fooled.

Oola nails the pirate ship with an ion cannon while the others quickly try to figure out who or what they’re actually chasing. Obviously he's Sith, and they don't have any real clues as to which one, though Ree recalls that Darth Bane notably dropped off the face of the galaxy without ever being accounted for--ran off to train apprentices, if she recalls the legend right. Gosh, that'd really suck.

While they prepare to board the pirate ship, Kedrihm'Val mind-whammies Scuzzy and Wuzz with the order, “Stay.” Corben and the others help. When Ree asks why she's helping, Jude answers, “It’s better than talking to her mom.” “Talk to her lately?” Ree asks. “We’ll save that for later,” Jude replies. Then SARR cuts in with, “He’s on the hull?!”

Indeed he is. The Sith lightsabers their engines out. Oola electrifies the hull. Witnessing this (because the Chimera's just lurking off to starboard, watching their every move), Pellaeon comms them, sarcastically asking, “Hey, gang...isn’t there trust?”

The Sith uses the Force to pull the pirate ship to him. SARR shoots at him, then Oola grabs him in a tractor beam and bangs him off the pirate ship, seemingly knocking him unconscious. Not that he's wearing a spacesuit or anything. In space. Standing on their outer hull. Is this guy even human?

They comm Kyp, then Pellaeon generously offers aid. Since the Starwind’s engines are out of commission (and not even attached, at this point), the pirate ship's exhaust ports just had a Sith head rammed up them, and the med-ship is full of insane people, they don’t have many options. They retrieve the box from the med-ship and tell Pellaeon about the Sith (because a good way to die would be by not telling Thrawn they just put a Sith on his ship). When they turn Darth Whatsisface over to the Chimera's medical team, Ree tells the med-droid, “We do have some ysalimiri hormone.” “Why is that useful?” asks Pellaeon, who’s observing nearby. “You can inject it into people?” Crap. That's right, he's almost as sharp as Thrawn.

The Chimera has Jedi-holding cells. You know...on one hand, yay, they lucked out with probably the only ship in the Imperial fleet outfitted to hold this guy captive, but on the other hand, they ended up on probably the only ship in the Imperial fleet outfitted to hold Force users captive. While they cart Darth Whatsisname down to the cells, Kedrihm'Val senses a vibration in the Force, as if someone had just done something. But none of the others notice anything, and all claim it wasn’t them… Maybe he was imagining it? Or could there be another Force user on board?

Pellaeon has them escorted to guest rooms so they can rest, which surprisingly they do, till alarms go off across the Chimera. They don't even have to ask why. They just head down to the brig to verify that the Sith has escaped. Pellaeon is already there, interrogating the stormtrooper who let him out--that must be what Kedrihm sensed, the Sith putting the mind-whammy on one of his guards. Apparently the bastard wasn't quite unconscious after all.

They can’t track the Sith through scanners, and Ree and Kedrihm can’t feel him when they try to locate him through the Force. SARR interjects, “I did insert an anal tracker.” Pellaeon, in the voice of experience, asks, “Why anal, SARR?” “Because it amused me,” the droid replies.

They follow the guy toward the hangar bay. Kedrihm spots him in storm trooper armor and points him out. Z flings a stun grenade at him, but the guy Force-throws another storm trooper into it, then mind-whammies five more to help him. Oola takes those out with static in their helmet-comms. Ree closes in on the Sith while Jude and Kedrihm'Val circle around behind him.

Ree asks, “Do we have to do this?” The Sith doesn’t answer, instead using Force lightning on the TIE fighters docked nearby, creating a web of lightning that extends through three quarters of the bay. Z whips out his flechette launcher while Pellaeon snarls to the rest of the storm troopers, “There are 40 of you, OVERBEAR HIM!” Kedrihm helpfully shoves the Sith at the troops to knock him off-balance, and they pile on...only to go flying off again a moment later in a shower of Force lightning. Pellaeon growls, “By overbear, I meant tie him down.”

They lose the Sith in the mess of storm troopers, till Kedrihm'Val and Oola spot him trying to sneak off. He throws a TIE fighter(!) into the hangar’s main control panel, depressurizing the bay and causing mass mayhem. Thrawn, now awake and on the bridge, overrides that. Kedrihm strikes the Sith again, knocking him toward Ree, who hurls him into a TIE fighter and cuts an arm off, which finally knocks him out. Pellaeon applauds--hard to tell whether it’s sarcastic, but he doesn't exactly seem like a spontaneous clapper--before having him carted back to med-bay, along with his arm.

Ree notes that they just turned over a Sith’s genetic material to Grand Admiral Thrawn, but there’s not much they can do about it now.

The Chimaera transports them most of the way back to Coruscant, where they rendezvous with Republic ships and come back to the temple with their, er, trophy.

The Spooky Sith Spire

The crew splits up into two groups, taking alternating floors. Zann, Oola, Onna, and Kedrihm’Val in one group (G1), Ree, Z, and Lydia in the other (G2).

G1, 1st floor: simple. Mess hall, garrisons, sleeping quarters. There’s still food in the mess. Sith seem to have left during perfectly routine day. Sleep quarters contain books and movies starring space-catfish. Place looks maybe even older than Sith. Rakata? Architects? Oola snags some goodies. Also find armories and guardrooms. One armory has some defense devices—big guns and stuff. Place doesn’t really feel evil or Dark Sidey.

G2, 2nd floor: looks like huge alchemy lab. Ree nearly collides with a Vader statue. Spot a long line or Sith Lord statues, and a pedestal for one more. The base holds liquid cement. Statues form themselves? Experiments seem non-menacing. Coming out of one lab, the Vader statue has turned to face them. Ree senses something inside it. Statue attacks her with a lightsaber. Ree tosses the saber away with Force, Z destroys it. Then they take out the statue. The ooze in the pedestal reforms into another Vader statue, but there’s no sense of the Force from it now. They grab a concrete ooze sample.

G1, 3rd floor: Techno-heaven: open-doored rooms like in the labs downstairs; and a comm. Center. Not Sith tech-based, it’s modified for Sith use. One comm. Is like a telepathy machine-comm, lets you telepathically contact anyone you want to talk to. Oola fights down urge to mess with Dalt.

G2, 4th floor: It looks like there’s no ground, but they can feel it beneath their feet. They’re surrounded by a star field. A star chart? Walls have Sith glyphs. On wall opposite door, there’s a huge mural: Luke and Vader with lightsabers crossed, Emperor sitting on his throne in background—their confrontation on the Death Star. There’s a door in the wall beneath the mural. They go inside to look around.

G1, 3rd floor: While Oola’s explaining gadgets, some of the devices activate. Screens light up, with scenes of Z, Ree, and Lydia. It’s farseeing: past, present, future. What could be, what could’ve been, what may still be. Oola can’t comm the other group on the floor above.

G2, 4th floor: The door closes behind them, electrical contacts heading downstairs go active. Loads of tubes and things take up most of the room. Door’s not locked when they test it, so they look around. Comfy chairs rest on a box-like pedestal. When they look in underneath, they find a brain wired into the chair.

G1: Downstairs, Oola sees scenes of what might happen in the room: leaving without looking around, finding the brains, their possible reactions.

G2: Ree won’t sit in the chair, though Z prompts her to. They hear movement outside. Z: “If Vader’s following us, I’ll shoot him in the face.” The wall mural is moving, acting out the fight, the last 10 minutes of Vader’s life. They wonder why it was so important to these people. Because it was the death of the last Sith? The room suddenly gets oppressive as the screen shows Luke kill Vader and take his place. “That’s odd,” says Ree. “You sure?” asks Z. Ree: “He’s not a Sith lord, is he?” Z: *meaningful look* Ree: “Have a little faith in him!” Ree wants to come back later. Oola finally makes contact with them on the comm and tells them about the visions they’re seeing on the computers downstairs. The mural activates again, showing Luke kill the Emperor, then head out as if it all happened like in the movie.

G1, 3rd floor: turns out, all the gizmos have brains in. This isn’t Sith tech; these are ancient, ancient, ancient brains, older than the building, which predates the oldest Sith artifacts. Kedrihm reads one brain’s thoughts: it’s alive, sentient, its attitude is cold and efficient. It’s just happy to have something to do after waiting around for so long. Kedrihm thinks they’re not like any of the races he knows: they’d be insane by now.

While they study the brain, they sense something behind them. Turning, there’s a Vader statue in their faces. They kill it quick, and note that the line of Sith statues from earlier is right there. Certainly wasn’t before. But there’s another statue at the end: it looks like Vader’s armor, but not quite. It’s shorter, the armor is sleeker, like it’s a Vader homage.

They decide to move on.

G1, 5th floor: It’s a chapel, untouched by the Sith. A huge Vaderesque statue takes up the left wall, and an equally big Vader statue faces it from the right wall. Computers are built into altar. Oola says it’s never been activated or used, only maintained. The hole in the altar would fit a crest…Skywalker’s, of course. The language isn’t Sith, nor Rakata. It’s the language they saw at Centerpoint: the Architects.

G2, 6th floor: Coming up, they get attacked by a big droid and three Massassi monster-things. Z smashes one down the stair well, and blasts himself back into the big droid. Lydia cuts off one of the droid’s arms. Ree slices a Massassi in half, Z plants a magnetic mine on the droid, then blows up the third monster.

G1: a falling Massassi crashes down the stairs past them. They finish the thing off.

G2: They find that the monsters were guarding a control panel for the floor upstairs where the rock used to be. They call Oola upstairs, Z goes down. Oola discovers the panel can be a big beam cannon, or a beacon. It’s been active for two decades, sending a beacon out into the unknown territories—activated the moment Vader died.

There are no cryostasis tubes for the monsters. How long can Massassi live? There’s been nothing on the top two floors for ages. There’s no tampering from the Sith on this floor or the one above. The rock was part of the original design. Was it held for whatever’s supposed to follow the beacon back?

They call Luke. He says he’ll send ships. They make a point of NOT mentioning the weird Luke stuff in here. Since Kyp knows Sith and Dalt knows the Ancients’ language (interesting point, there; they weren’t Rakata, how does he know it?), maybe the two of them can help translate all this stuff.

Oola hears mechanisms activate downstairs. The floors are beginning to rotate. It activated when it sensed sentient lifeforms being present for a little while. The machines must think that whatever’s supposed to be coming has arrived. A pedestal comes down to present the rock (which is missing of course). The stairway gets blocked off.

Downstairs, the same scene plays in the temple. Kedrihm identifies the building energy field as a farseeing, but it’s more than that: opening an actual path to the past. The vision is of Luke and Vader’s fight. The machine tries to zap Luke with the missing rock, but since it’s gone, nothing happens and everything plays out normally. Stuff resets, doors open, but Oola checks and discovers it can all be set off again. She snags the readouts. They suspect the idea may’ve been to corrupt Luke. Maybe he’s supposed to be the non-existent Sith in the Vaderesque armor.

Ree leads the way back downstairs, but a door closes behind her in the chapel, separating her from the others. When she turns to check it out, Drath steps up behind her. He zaps the altar and the Vader statue begins to move.

Oola gets the door open, comes face to face with the giant Vader. It puts a hole in the wall. And an evil Han clone. He pistol-whips Z, chucks a thermal detonator, then Kedrihm knocks him down. Zann takes on another Vader statue. Oola chucks a couple of her knife-droids into the clone, then finds another way down through the big hole.

SARR comms: “Shall we blow up Drath’s ship?” “No!” yells Drath. Ree: “I thought you knew, if you leave your toys where SARR can find them, he’ll break them.” Drath: “I love that droid.”

Kedrihm kicks Han off the giant Vader statue they’ve fought their way out onto and jumps down after him when Onna shouts a warning to move. The small statue Zann had been fighting follows.

Drath and Ree tear into each other. Zann’s fighting a Palpatine statue. Z to Han: “Drop the gun and fight like a man!” Han does, and Z shoots him. Oola’s droids are ripping into him pretty good at this point, too.

Oola picks her way over to the control panel and calls Dalt: “Translate this!” She wants to stop the statues. “They’re not technological,” he tells her. “Tell the others to use Force Light.” They do, which drives the possessing evil spirits out of them. Onna and Lydia sneak thermal detonators onto the backs of the big statue’s knees, bringing it down. It topples onto the Vader statue and Evil Han.

Ree forces Drath’s surrender, smashing his lightsaber and belt. Kedrihm’Val nerve-pinches him unconscious. They find more weapons on him and some hollow teeth.

The Republic ships get there, and Kyp came along for the ride. They drug Drath and hand him over. Kyp says the hieroglyphs looks like the place either inspired the Sith or they were following in the tradition of the beings that originally lived here. But what happened to the Sith, then? Why would the Architects keep the sphere, and for whom?

Getting home, they visit Dalt. Oola gives him stuff to translate. The Jedi say he’s doing better, “showing small degrees of kindness and modesty.”

Zann and Ree go to the bar and talk. So the Architects designed a thing predating anyone involved specifically to corrupt Luke. This hasn’t happened yet, but still could. Maybe the Council can give a training mission to the library ship. (note: I don’t remember what the training mission would actually be for.)

A crew from the spacestation calls Ree. Scans say there’s armor in a vault. It’s probably the Vader-homage armor. Why were the Architects so obsessed about this? The place wasn’t particularly evil.

They haven’t checked out the Oracle at Pelgrin yet. Maybe it’s modeled on this tower? There’s Pelgrin, this space station, Dathomir, the Thule fleet, whatever’s coming from deep space… What does it all add up to?

The next morning, Dalt tells Oola that his guess is “a small group of this race thought Luke being Darth Fuck-you-up was the galaxy’s only hope of survival.” He wonders if they should tell Luke, or if the “Skywalker blood will go all hogwild.” His advice: “Jettison the tower into a black hole. It has the ability to influence TIME. Tell me Luke will never think of going back to stop his father from ever being corrupted to begin with.” He points out that everyone probably noticed the place activate. But could the mysterious dwellers in the deep still be out there? “Beings of that power who can see through time, it’s far likelier they’re coming than not.” But what were the Architects so afraid of?

The Jedi and Kedrihm’Val all get called in to the Council. Luke thinks their next move needs to be dealing with the Thule fleet. Maybe they can slip someone onto Bimm and get some info to find out just what they’re still doing there. Regarding the thing that’s coming, tell the Chiss Ascendency. Maybe they have information or legends on what’s out that way. Or they could ask Thrawn…if they can trust him.

YAY BIG!

The crew had a lead a while back on a base Dalt had on Rodia. They figure this might be a good time to check that out while the Council observes Dalt’s recovery.

On the planet (which Kedrihm'Val really likes, as it's all wild and jungley), they hire a Rodian guide to take them through the jungle. He tells them about a haunted area in the forest. Indeed, one night while they're camping, they see a ghost ship crash into that area. Definitely something to check out on the way back.

Dalt’s base is an older base, converted for his use. It’s been locked up for a while; looks like one of his early labs. He has experiments running that feature Dark Side plants growing in tainted water. Definitely ties in with a few of the older things of his they've found floating about the galaxy.

Downstairs, the experiments focus on Dark Side radiation. The notes they find reveal that Dalt believed in a Dark Side star and a Light Side star--one for each side--at that time. Records say he thinks he actually detected traces of them once. Something to ask him about, perhaps.

Further down, they find a huge observation ring surrounding a large living area almost like a village, which is in an energy cage. Used to be a hydroponics bay. There’s a box above the village, with everything wired into it. A small garden hosts freaky mutant Dark Side plants. No sign of current inhabitants, but apparently there were at one point. The box produces massive energies; it holds some kind of power source, but it’s shielded by a force field. Dalt’s records don’t say what the box is, which is uncharacteristic of him. Oola digs up data: the base has been inactive for 12 years. She finds vid-feeds showing 10 to 12 humans living in the village—Imperial slaves. Comparison holos show physical changes in them over the years. Some people evolved, some devolved, turned bestial, but most didn't survive for long.

14 years ago, the last person left was a 20 year old girl. She looks normal, but there’s something just...unsettling about her. 12 years ago, Dalt realized that he couldn’t get the girl out without exposing himself to the radiation source he’d set up. Oola does a life scan: it shows no one present, but there’s a hole torn in the floor to lower levels. Been there 3 or 4 years. Oola checks to make sure radiation isn’t leaking out downstairs.

Heading down, they find Dalt didn’t do much here. It’s just living quarters and hydroponics. No sign of people. Figuring they've seen as much as they can here, they head back out to meet their guide.

On the way back out of the jungle, they pass haunted area again. Near it, Kedrihm’Vahl gets jumped by an evil plant. Of course they decide to go into the haunted area, at which the guide volunteers to stay out of it. Says he'll wait to see if they come out for a couple of days.

Inside the area, they find dead Stormtroopers. There are signs they died out of fear. They find also wreckage of a transport that matches the ghost ship they saw crash. Oola hacks its systems to discover that these people were on a mission to gather some mineral from an asteroid field for Dalt 12 years ago. The thing had odd properties. Signs are that the mineral drove these crazy during the transport back. The storm troopers, loyal to death, tried to carry it to Dalt. Records end when they leave the ship.

Oola downloads the records. Figuring it might teach him something useful, Kedrihm’Val communes with nature while they wait for her, and indeed he discovers a path of corrupt life. Following it, they’re attacked by a giant mutant lizard. Ree cuts its leg off and it flees, but they kill it. The trail of corruption leads back to Dalt’s base. Contemplating that mysterious box, they're willing to bet that the strange mineral is in there. Zann suggests tightening the force field around the box to remove it.

And Kedrihm'Val notes that the box is exactly, perfectly, and in every detail, yay big.

They call Luke and tell him. He patches through to Dalt. Dalt can’t remember the experiment, but suggests they leave it there and track back to the asteroid field. He thinks it may be a "magical artifact.” “Don’t bring it back. I don’t want to face down Darth Anakin-Vader...Skywalker Luke.” Luke cuts in with, “It’d just be Luke.” Kedrihm notes that Dalt never called anything “magical” before.

The crew places some guards and an alarm to guard the base while they head out to follow the trail backward.

Onward to the asteroid field! Interesting thing here is that no one knows of a planet ever being there for the field to originate from. It’s vaguely near Wayland, Dathomir and Yavin. A veritable Bermuda Triangle of space-evil. The Jedi of the crew note that one asteroid seems, well, really evil. It has a black spire and doesn’t move like an asteroid. Oola notes that it’s a battle station, holding synchronous position with Dathomir and Yavin.

They look around outside it. Maybe it's Rakata or Sith in origin? Looks like a sort of proto-Death Star without a laser. The Rakata ship claimed that the Death Star was of Rakata design. Oola’s downloaded recordings show that the troopers went in. Inside, it was an advanced battle station. Weird writing and disturbing images covered the walls. The pictures look like evil space-catfish: the Sith race, shortly after encountering the dark Jedi. They found the rock--a shiny black orb--at the top of the spire in some kind of energy amplifier. They call Kyp to fill him in and send him copies of the writings. The place was built specifically to host that spire, which seemingly exists specifically to hold that stone. What's it for? The only way to find out is to go inside.

Fixing Dalt

Kedrihm'Val talks to Dalt while Ree meets with the Masters. Dalt doesn’t know what the weird critters are...but something makes him hesitate. He thinks they seem familiar, but he can't place them. He insists he’s not related to Mother. The idea irritates him, seeing as, to paraphrase, she's bitchy, domineering, disrespectful, and all-around hateful.

But mainly, Dalt is seriously ticked that no one has asked about E'Val. He’s been trying to warn everyone for a week. This certainly catches Kedrihm'Val's attention.

Dalt explains that the clone is contagious. The Abindosani DNA, with its propensity for Force sensitivity and built-in Dark Side taint, makes E'Val a genetic, evolving Dark Side cancer of evil, which incidentally is infesting the coral that is kept just across the hall from it, along with who knows what else that might be sensitive to it? To demonstrate, Dalt whips out a keyboard and projector he made, displaying the room arrangements for all the nefarious stuff they’ve been stowing at the temple. The bottom line is that they've been stowing all the badness they keep gathering in one short section of hallway, which is clustered around Luke Skywalker's rooms just down from the Council chambers. And the Anakin clone has been resting right in the middle of all that. D’oh!

Also, Dalt is so bored he actually begs to go to Dathomir with them. He says he'll even be happy with a cortex bomb if they don't trust him.

Kedrihm immediately gets the clone moved (it gets stowed downstairs a few levels). They put up an energy shield around the coral, which is indeed corrupted again, though at least it hasn't turned black, and everyone notes the stupid room arrangement. Kyp's a little defensive, but...well, yeah, it was pretty dumb in retrospect.

That taken care of, another point comes up: Luke's somewhat alarming attitude toward the clone of his father. Kyp's kind of concerned about it too, to be honest, but he suggests that Leia's really the one they need to talk to. So they head out to talk to Leia about Luke’s disturbingly cavalier attitude about his dad’s clone.

...but before they can get through the outer doors, Dalt locks down the temple, taking over the security system with his mind. In fact, he has mental control of the entire building. Apparently he got so angry that it broke right through the whammy Zann put on his Force powers and gave him an extra boost. He tell the Jedi he's giving them an hour to set him free or he’ll invert the damping field around the coral, detonating the nasty all through the temple.

Oola and Z arrive at the doors to the temple, and find them closed. Oola asks nicely and Dalt lets them in. The Masters get together to talk about Dalt's terms, secretly serving as a distraction for him while the crew goes down to talk to Dalt (or, as he puts it, to acknowledge his greatness). The 'negotiations' last exactly long enough for Z to whip out a blaster and stun Dalt.

Over his unconscious body, the crew and the Jedi quickly throw together a plan to get the Rakata out of his head. This has gone too far.

Oh, but what about Lexi? She just saw her dad bigger than life on a temple holo-screen, holding them all hostage. Well, turns out Lydia cold-cocked her before she could go into hysterics. But still, someone's got some 'splaining to do.

The easiest thing to do, if they can find a place to put them, is to simply suck the Rakata out of Dalt's head. The scientists who've been studying it say the flower is a sort of organic computer attuned to the Force--kind of reminiscent of the living coral, actually. They can put the crystal flower back together, and believe that if they use the Force water the crew brought back from Ree's planet, it might grow back together.

This takes a few days, during which they keep Dalt sedated.

Then they talk to Dalt and convince him to cooperate. It's important that he be willing. After all, if he fights them, they may end up with super alien Dark Side ghosts flying everywhere. Dalt doesn’t exactly believe the story about being possessed by ancient dead Dark Side muftis, but he agrees to play along since the alternative is more exposure to Z. So Kyp unlocks the Rakata while Kedrihm and Ree help Dalt reinforce his mental strength. Then Zann plants the flower on Dalt’s face, which stabs him him like an Aliens movie and sucks the spirits out. Err...oops?

They all hang around chatting till Dalt wakes about an hour later, since they want to be there when he gets up. He seems fairly normal; his reaction is certainly understandable. But before he can freak out extensively, Z stuns him again, and Zann reads his mind—-he's not evil, just arrogant and kind of erratic. Definitely has self-confidence issues, but there seems to be hope.

Now taking him to Dathomir becomes a possibility, and just possibly advisable. In this state, he might actually be useful. Kedrihm repeats Dalt's comments from their earlier conversation. When Dalt had mentioned getting out of here, and Kedrihm'Val asked him where he'd go with half the galaxy breathing down his neck, Dalt commented that Thrawn would appreciate him. He points out that they're not likely to manage keeping Dalt in a box forever, even if they were comfortable with that decision. Making Dalt feel appreciated may win him more to their side and keep him away from Thrawn and other dangers.

After all that, Ree calls for time off. People leave, Council says it’ll figure out later what’s needed for them to feel comfortable with sending Dalt to Dathomir with them. Kedrihm stays to wait for Dalt to wake, and see what they can pry out of him.