Chapter 91: Mystery Station
Summary: An unexpected history...
Warning! Chapters 88-92 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!
Chapter 91: Mystery Station
Sabé had conflicted feelings over the armor she was wearing. It was, despite the 'plumbing connection,' actually quite comfortable. Well, calling it comfortable might be an overstatement, she supposed. It was more that it wasn't uncomfortable, which is a heck of a lot more than she could say about any of the vacuum-rated EVA suits she'd been tested on for her certifications. Something made all the more remarkable by the fact that this suit was armored, with some pretty kriffing serious armor too, as far as she could tell.
On the flip side, the actual vacuum-sealed layer was skintight. Which, combined with the intellectual knowledge that she was naked under it, was doing weird things to her thoughts. Particularly with the additional knowledge that Padmé was sort of watching her, and that Aayla had cheerfully admitted that her own vac-armor was designed the same way. The gorgeous Twi'lek's own custom set didn't have the VR system, being an obvious combat model tailored specifically for her, but apparently the inner 'skinsuit' was fairly standard issue.
It really didn't help her wandering and distracted mental state that said gorgeous Twi'lek hadn't hesitated to strip down and change into that skinsuit right in front of Sabé. Seriously, Aayla was sexy as heck and had seemed to almost unconsciously make a show of the 'stripping' part of that strip down. Possibly used to changing with Izuku? It was, of course, blatantly obvious they were lovers, even if none of them had been so impolite as to point it out. That the Jedi had rules against that sort of thing explained why it wasn't an official thing, most likely. Of course, Sabé was actually fairly certain that the odd engineer with a rack that made Aayla's look small was also with them. Though Mei's slightly manic oddities made that harder to be certain of, since it threw off her body language a fair bit.
Regardless, she was glad for the distraction as the freighter they'd taken, apparently a private ship owned by their hosts named the Wandering Fate, carefully nudged its way into a hangar. The hangar wasn't the source of the signal they were following, being almost on the opposite side of the station. Yet, they'd decided on it as their best entrance point due to this particular hangar having taken battle damage that blasted away one of its doors completely. Given the sheer age of the station, they weren't at all confident in being able to link with the few exterior docking ports they'd spotted. Nor, given the obvious battle damage, were they at all certain if any of the external service entrances were remotely safe to use.
The hangar, on the other hand, seemed to mostly be intact. As had been reported by a drone they'd sent in first. Whatever had damaged the doors had scoured a nasty chunk out of the ceiling, but the landing deck was fairly intact. There was even a pair of old shuttles present, one of which had given them their first clue about the true age of the station. It was a Fortitude-class assault shuttle, used by the Republic roughly around the time of the Galactic War. The other was an unknown, though speculation that it might have been a type in use by the Sith of that era was…mildly concerning. Very little knowledge remained of that particular version of the Sith, and all of those who'd batted around ideas struggled with the concept that it might have worked with the Republic at some point. So far as any records that remained stated, the two powers had been at constant war for decades.
Not that such records meant much.
That war had been 3,600 years ago, and before the entire galaxy went through a dark age caused by an entirely different set of wars with the Sith. Records of that time period were spotty, at best, as a result. Even the Jedi Order had pretty gaping holes in its knowledge of what had gone on during and around the Galactic War, due to losing their main temples multiple times during said war. Kriff, many of worlds involved, at least the Sith worlds, were long since lost. Some of them had been lost to Wild Space, though, so the idea wasn't completely absurd, as much as they all sort of wanted it to be.
Shaking off those thoughts, Sabé stood to meet the other three vac-armored individuals as they left the cockpit. Mei, fitted in her own EVA armor that was bulkier and blatantly customized to an insane degree, had come along with Izuku and Aayla. To her amusement, the engineer was now pushing the other two along in front of her.
"Come on! Move it Blue, Izu! Mama wants to study the strange Station Baby! There might be interesting stuff here!"
There was laughter in Izuku's voice as Mei was suddenly lifted, presumably with the Force, and tugged along behind them like a balloon as the power couple walked more calmly.
"Calmly, Mei. I promise we'll let you look around, even if our primary purpose is to check out that beacon. But we need to be careful. The Force might be a bit insistent we come here, but places that the Force directs us to aren't always safe."
A reminder for Sabé in that, too. They'd eventually thought to ask why the head of the entire League was diverting to check out the sort of anomaly that would normally draw in a research or archeology team. Sure, the fact it might be Jedi related did make it being of interest to Aayla makes sense. But the station had been here for thousands of years. Whatever they found wasn't likely to have an immediate impact on current events. When Padmé had eventually asked, the duo had proven they very much were Force-users by shrugging and admitting that the Force had pulled their attention to the report. That, otherwise, they would most likely have sent someone else to check it out.
If Sabé were an average person, it would have sounded like insane mysticism. Jedi were rare, leading to even most of those who ought to know something about them often having little proper awareness of what they could do. Padmé, Sabé, and to a lesser extent the other handmaidens, were the rare few that had very good reasons to have done more in-depth research. Of them, Sabé actually had the most comprehensive knowledge. Mostly as awareness of what Force users in general could do had been extremely relevant to her role as a security expert after that Force-using Zabrak had participated in the invasion of Naboo.
The result was that all of them had taken the information seriously, since when Jedi said things like that 'the Force guided them,' apparently they usually weren't blowing smoke the way most people assumed. They also, from Sabé reading about their history, seemed to have a very high rate of everything going tits up on them when they followed the Force somewhere. Which made her glad for both her armor…and the fact that her hosts had outright insisted on arming her.
Patting down where the blaster was holstered on one hip and a vibroblade on the other, she followed said hosts out of the ship and into hard vacuum…
... ... ...
Izuku looked around the surprisingly intact control room of the station. Not seeing anything obviously amiss, he activated his suit comm.
"Everything at least seems intact up here, Mei. How's the reactor?"
There was only a brief pause before Mei's voice came back.
"Rough but functional, Izu! The main reactor is shot, but two of the backups are in good enough condition to bring the Station Baby to standby power! Can't promise how long it will last, though. It's working on some exotic fuel called Isotope-5? Definitely interesting stuff, but there's only a limited amount of it left. I took a sample to reproduce. The rest we can use to power the station for at least a few hours."
That was good. Progress in reaching both sections had been painfully slow. Thankfully, whoever built this place had left manual controls for the various doors. Less than thankfully, the facility was clearly high-security, as those manual controls were specifically designed to be slow and awkward. With the Force, it had been doable in vaguely reasonable timeframes, but each internal door had taken a solid minute to bypass even with him and Aayla working together. He'd left Aayla with Mei down in the reactor room, in case anything went wrong, which had only slowed him and Sabé down even more as they followed signs up to the control room.
Speaking of Sabé, she was studying the various consoles.
"Sabé? Anything useful?"
He saw her nod, then she spoke over the comm a second later.
"Yes. The Basic is old, but familiar enough that I'm sure this is the internal security console. If we get access to it quickly, we might be able to prevent anything unfortunate. This station was clearly attacked, after all, so there's no knowing what will happen when we power it back to standby."
A good point, that. Nodding, he joined her, quickly agreeing that it looked like internal security. Thankfully, there were multiple stations, so they'd both be able to attempt to get in once it booted up.
"Right. I'll focus on sensing any immediate threats, like a self-destruct, and shutting them down. Think you can break into the general security and add us?"
Sabé nodded firmly.
"I'm a decent slicer, and these systems are old. It should be quite simple, unless there is something like a droid intelligence installed to try and compete with active slicing."
Izuku nodded. He'd suspected she had the skills, from some of her comments as they moved through the station.
"Right. Mei? Power up the reactors. Slowly."
Mei's reply was cheerful and immediate.
"You got it, Izu! Giving it juice…woah! These have way more output than I thought…"
A tingling of apprehension shot down Izuku's spine at that comment, even as the station began slowly coming to life. Internal security was one of the first things to come online and he opened himself to the Force, fingers flashing even as the console flicker to life. He was just in time, as there was a thunk behind as a large turret dropped down from the ceiling and red lights began to flash, only for it to power down before they could find out if it was still functional. The lights were, however, joined by a dozen alerts that he tried to keep ahead of.
Sabé's own fingers were flying, having produced a dataspike and jammed the one-shot, malleable device home in an unfamiliar port as soon as the console showed life. The spike, a slicer's single-use tool meant to mold itself to any interface port and power said port from the outside, quickly got her access as she tapped commands onto the keyboard being projected by her suit. Klaxons started up as he lost his race with the system…only to cut off quickly as Sabé apparently breached security and added the four of them to the whitelist.
Both of them slumped. That had been close.
"Mei. Next time, when I say slow, I mean slow. You clearly brought us way above standby!"
Mei actually sounded sheepish as she replied.
"Sorry, Izu…these generators are something else. Waaaay more output from them than they should have. Some sort of weird anomaly with that Isotope-5 stuff! The Station's internal power is all on, though not the shields or external weapons. Um…there miiiigght be battledroids? Aayla also might have had to lightsaber two of them?"
Izuku groaned. Because of course there had been…
"Stay put until we get a better handle on what the condition of everything else is, and try not to trip any more alarms!"
Getting an entirely too cheerful response back, Izuku returned his focus to the security systems…or tried to.
"Knight Errant to Admiral Midoriya! Something is slicing our systems! It's not coming from the station, but from the hangar where the beacon is! Kriff, I can't stop it! It's copying everything! Even the secure files!"
Izuku jerked, instinctively starting to move, only to pause and curse as he thought to check the Wandering Fate and discovered it was reporting the same thing.
"Shit! It's doing the same thing to the Fate! We need to get down there! Sabé keep working on the security, Mei you're on your own for now, be careful! Aayla meet me at that hangar!"
Getting rapid acknowledgements from all three women, Izuku tore out of the control room, accelerating with the Force to the point he started bouncing off walls instead of taking turns normally. As he raced for the hangar, the only reason he wasn't ordering the Knight Errant to blow it to hell was that there was no sense of danger about this coming from the Force. Hopefully, that was accurate, rather than it merely being a case of something masking itself from his senses…
... ... ...
The cyber attack had completed itself before either he or Aayla reached the hangar, despite their Force-enhanced sprint. Yet, for all that whatever it was had breached state-of-the-art cyber defenses like a lightsaber parting pudding, all it had done was copy a great deal of general data…and personnel files. That fact had made him wait out the ten seconds it took for Aayla to catch up, and they entered the hangar together, lightsabers out but not powered up.
There was only one ship present, obviously powered on and active.
It was a heck of an odd looking one, though.
Its core was a roughly ten-meter diameter sphere with a front viewport that looked a lot like an eye. It wasn't exactly a normal shape for a ship, but still wasn't the odd part. No, the real oddities were the huge bat-like wings that sprouted from either side of the hull. Just to make matters weirder, it was pretty obvious it had been modified with entirely different tech. The whole thing looked like a semi-organic floating eyeball, that someone had then applied cybernetics too. It wasn't actually organic…probably. Honestly more alarming was the little fact that it had a Force Presence. Not quite like that of a Force Sensitive organic, but something more akin to feeling like a giant Holocron.
Aayla and Izuku had both paused in surprise to take the Ship in, and Izuku in particular frowned as he adjusted the filters he always kept on the constant stream of information he gained from the local Force. A quick tweak to account for non-living Force constructs had him gasping as he straightened in shock. Aayla jerked her head his way, and he forced himself to shake off what he was feeling long enough to reassure her.
"Nothing bad. Well, not really. Just…old. REALLY old. Way older than the station. There's an underlying darkness to it, as well. But the darkness is overlaid or…faded out? It's hard to describe, but it's like the ship itself was originally imbued with Dark Side energy, only for that to get washed out by a far more recent user? Possibly whoever added the additions? No, that's not quite right. Sorry, there's just so much to the ship that it's nearly impossible to sort."
Aayla frowned, but nodded. Izuku didn't use his own form of post-cognition very often. Unlike her first master's psychometry, Izuku's version usually only had much to say about artifacts of significance to the Force. He could pick up the recent past easily enough, but only major events that impacted the Force in some way showed up beyond a certain distance in time. For whatever this ship was to produce such a strong reaction, it must have quite a story to tell.
"Should we get closer? Or is it dark enough to be more of a 'blast it and the station it's on to pieces from a distance' sort of problem?"
Izuku instantly shook his head no, even as Aayla herself felt the bizarre sensation of the Force seeming to smack her on the back of the head. Only without a physical sensation. Eyes widening at that oddity, odd even for the weird way the Force behaved around Izuku, she immediately and strongly discarded that idea. Clearly, whyever they had been sent here, it wasn't to simply deal with a potential Dark Side threat.
"…I think there's someone alive on board. Maybe? I'm getting a bit of a déjà vu feeling here, like maybe this is similar to Celeste's case. Some form of stasis? There's just so much to the ship that I'm struggling to be sure here."
Blinking and immediately shifting gears, following her lover as he cautiously closed the distance with the ship, Aayla reached out to the Force. Normally, Izuku could get way more information than she could by doing that, but he was still relatively bad at interacting with the Living Force. Aayla had taken to focusing her own sensory abilities on that aspect as a result, as a way to patch the hole and contribute more on the more esoteric side of Force Shenanigans. As a result of putting quite a lot of training time in, she was far better with detecting and connecting to living things than most Jedi, and it only took her a few seconds to confirm his thoughts.
"Definitely someone on board, but one hundred percent in some form of stasis. Feels almost more like a meditation or healing trance, but way deeper. Some sort of Force-Based suspended animation? I didn't even know that was possible."
Izuku nodded acknowledgement, opening his mouth to reply…then froze as the ship abruptly shot out a beam that splashed over them. There hadn't been any hint of a threat, and it didn't seem to do anything for a moment. Its nature became obvious as a small version of the ship was projected in front of them a moment later and a semi-artificial voice started speaking, the 'eye' of the mini-version pulsing in time with the voice's cadence.
"Primary Ownership Match…Failed. Eternal Alliance deemed no long existent."
The beam had obviously been a scan of some sort, then. Which, combined with it slicing their ships earlier…was it running through some sort of pre-determined check for who it belonged to or should report to? Aayla and Izuku came to the same conclusion at the same time, and both reached out over their link, wry grins twitching onto lips as they simultaneously suggested to each other that they wait to see what would happen. There wasn't any sense of danger in the Force from this, after all. Even if due diligence said to be ready, just in case. Droids were much harder to sense danger from, and this one was attached to some sort of Force Object to boot.
"Secondary Ownership Match…Failed. Sith Empire deemed no long existent."
Uh-oh, that was quite a bit more ominous. Though it did, at least, confirm who the other party to this station had been. Was this place seriously some sort of joint Jedi/Sith operation? That seemed pretty unbelievable. Yet, evidence said…maybe?
"Tertiary Ownership Match: Scanning identities. Aayla'Secura, Jedi Knight. Deemed unsuitable."
That…might or might not be concerning? It certainly made it less likely this ship had been owned by the Jedi portion of any such joint project.
"Identity: Izuku Midoriya. Force Sensitive: Yes. Affiliation: Faction Leader. Faction Identification: … … … League of Free Stars meets requirements for Galactic Scale. League of Free Stars meets requirements for Force Knowledge. League of Free Stars meets requirements to be considered Empire-Adjacent. Identity: Izuku Midoriya meets all tertiary requirements. Ownership Transference Initiated. Playing Transference Message."
The image of the ship vanished, quickly replaced by a coldly beautiful woman with a circlet that seemed half ornamental and half technological. She was dressed in greys and reds, with glowing amber eyes that both of them were certain weren't glowing just because of the holoprojection. On the bright side, aside from the eyes, there were no obvious signs of Dark Side corruption showing. When the clip started playing a moment later, a regal, imperious voice completed the impression of a woman of some serious clout or standing.
"My name is Empress Acina, and this holo-recording will play only in the event of my death. In fact, this specific recording will only play if I have died, my favored Hand Zavra S'hi survives, and both the Sith Empire and the Eternal Alliance have fallen."
A grimace flitted across the woman's, presumably a Sith Empress of all things, face. It was suppressed faster than it came, and the voice continued on levelly.
"Given how virtually unprecedented it was for the Republic and Sith Empire to ally as we did against the Eternal Empire of Zakuul, I'm afraid I cannot trust any Jedi not registered as part of the Alliance with the fate of my Hand. Somehow, despite being neither a Sith nor a Jedi, you have met the stringent criteria I set for a third option. Namely, being a Force Sensitive Leader of a major galactic faction that I've never heard of. Perhaps too much time has passed, but whatever the reason, Acina's Fist has identified you as an acceptable option."
Well, that name wasn't an arrogant name for the ship at all. Then again, this was apparently a Sith ship, one that belonged to a Sith that had somehow allied with Jedi for some reason? Against a mutual foe dangerous enough to force that to occur, if they were getting the context right here. Both of them were still trying to fit everything together when the woman's pause turned into a twisted expression and then...turned softer? She still looked like a hard, cold woman, but her expression had shifted to something less severe.
"I hope, in that case, that you will not judge dear Zavra for anything she has done on my behalf. She was my greatest work, my favored Hand…and possibly the only person I truly trusted and cared for in this galaxy. A treasure I would not see wasted. By now, the ship will have registered your identity and Force Signature to her implants and begun the process of waking her from stasis."
There was a brief moment of hesitation.
"Whatever you feel about what I have done. Whatever you feel about what Zavra has done. Please be kind to her. She is…special."
The woman reached out, clearly deactivating whatever recording device had been taking her message down. Moments later, her image was replaced by that of a two-piece data stream. On one side was the nude profile of a beautiful and happily grinning woman whose striking red skin and a few small ridges marked her as near-human. On the other was a list of medical data and stats. Aayla gasped, shock racing through her, the moment she tore her gaze away from the unexpected nude image that had drawn both of their attentions first. Izuku's own gaze widened as his eyes darted to what Aayla was staring at in shock.
Species: Sith Pureblood.
"Oh. Um…just how much of a problem is that going to be?"
Sensing Aayla was struggling too much with her shock to really answer the question, Izuku read on as the data packet started to scroll. It was providing an illuminating summary of not just the nude woman's physical state, but her history. The farther he read, the more…horrified yet impressed he became. As for what to do when the woman woke from long-term Force-induced stasis in 3 days, 17 hours, and 23 minutes?
Izuku had absolutely no idea.
At least the nature of her stasis meant they were being given time to figure it out…
... ... ... ... ... ...
A/N 1: For those who don't know much about SWTOR. The Eternal Alliance is the result of the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion. With an outside force causing the Republic and Sith Empire to band together to deal with said force. Empress Acina is also from that expansion, though you won't/don't really need to know anything about the game or it's plot. It's just where I drew inspiration from for Zavra. Who, of course, won the patron poll on which variant of Sith Girl to introduce. I presented four possible options for an OC Sith (species) character, since the idea of including one was wildly popular and dominated a previous poll. My patrons, who I think might be on board with 'FOR THE HORNY!' as a battle cry, picked the most kinky option of the four I presented. Zavra Sh'i is the result :-p.
A/N 2: So, Acina's First is a Sith Meditation Sphere that the Empress then modified with newer tech (she was originally the head of technology for the Sith Empire, before basically everyone else died and she ended up as Empress by default). You can find an imagine of the base model of the ship by looking it up on Wookieepedia. It doesn't account for her alterations, but would/will give you a decent general idea what the ship looks like.