Destiny Eclipse/Chapter VII

-- 5 ABY - 6 Months after Xander’s Capture --

Kinyen – Black Haven Base
For months now, Xander had done nothing but kill people, organise clients, and make sure spice operations had gone through correctly for Black Haven. After awaking from his injury, he had been forced into service, with the knowledge that their craft had been tracked down and sold for parts.

Jysek had been coping a lot better than Xander. With his added muscle, that Xander, now approaching thirteen, was only now getting, Jysek had been put to work as a bouncer for the base after the security alert that had been Xander and Jysek’s intrusion.

Xander sat in his meagre quarters, quivering, the frightened gaze of the woman he had just killed under the watchful gaze of Torga Rand, the Black Haven’s lieutenant, would haunt him to his death day. She had pleaded and cajoled him, but he had been forced to kill her for not paying her protection fee.

“Are you ok?” Jysek said quietly, walking into the room, and placing a comforting arm around his friend, trying to stop him shaking so.

“I... I killed her,” Xander said, trying hard to hold back the tears of shame he could feel were welling behind his eyes. He reached out a hand to push his friend away, and was shocked to see how much it was shaking.

“We need to get out of here,” Jysek said, glancing around. “Just yesterday I managed to grab a Disrupter Rifle off one of the other guards before they noticed anything. If they have personal shields, they’ll stand no chance against the weapon. I’ll try and pinch you one tomorrow, but until then hang tight. If anything, I need you to find launch codes for a craft, and a flight chart.”

Xander nodded aimlessly, having taken in every word Jysek had said, but unable to respond, knowing as soon as he spoke, the tears would come, his throat already choked up with emotion. Jysek gave him one last pat before standing and moving to his own quarters before they attracted unwanted attention from the other guards.

Kinyen – Surface
Vikro moved like a shadow, darting between buildings, his lightsaber deftly concealed in his robe. Even the slightest hint that he was a Jedi would have Black Haven swarming on him, overwhelming him and he would be dead before he knew it.

Walking quietly down an alley, he heard a muted sobbing, and on closer inspection, discovered a Devaronian, reduced to a quivering mass, in the shadows of the alley.

“Are you alright, friend?” The Jedi Master asked, softly, examining the man for any sign of physical injury. He was shocked to discover that this Devaronian was a member of Black Haven, the group he was trying to find.

The Devaronian muttered quickly in an incomprehensible tongue that wasn’t Devaronian or Basic, to Vikro’s best knowledge. He caught some words, like “boy” and “Jedi” and knew, with a shiver down his spine, that he had found his first physical link to the boy he had been seeing in his visions for years.

“Which way did he go?” Vikro inquired, his hazel eyes emphatically searching the quivering Devaronian’s face. Whatever this boy had done, whether wittingly or not, had reduced the Devaronian to the mind of a child, a powerful Dark Side ability.

Another string of garble, in which Vikro was able to catch, barely, the words “2B” “Lower Levels” “Fourth District” “Safe House”, before the Devaronian collapsed, the strain on his mind to great, as he fell into unconsciousness. Vikro propped him up, and covered him in his cloak, before slowly standing.

“By the Force boy, you need to be stopped before you do any more damage,” he muttered, as he walked swiftly to the Fourth District, taking a creaking turbo lift to level 2B.

As the doors creaked open, he saw several guards snap to attention, bringing their rifles up. Vikro chuckled and walked jauntily towards them, acting to the guards as if he were an arrogant upper class merchant.

“State your business here stranger,” one of them, a young man said. Vikro could sense through the Force, strangely, that the boy was afraid of him, and wanted to be anywhere but there.

“I wish to speak with your leader,” Vikro said, gently, knowing full well that this boy had gotten into something over his head, and that he didn’t deserve to face the crimes that the rest of the gang inevitably would.

“Name?” The other guard said, walking over to glare down at Vikro.

“Vikro,” Vikro answered honestly, “Now, I wish to speak with your leader.” He said, waving his arm smoothly to subtly influence the man through the Force, pressing gently on the man’s brain.

“Of course,” the man said stiffly, turning abruptly to unlock the door, as the second guard, the young boy, turned, and sprinted in ahead of Vikro in a move that looked completely unprofessional.

Kinyen – Black Haven Base
“Quick, Xander, wake up!” Hissed Jysek, roughly pushing the younger boy awake, as he glanced around nervously.

“What is it?” Xander said sleepily, as he slowly sat up in his bed, rubbing the small crusty sleep from his eyes, as he quickly became wide awake.

“A man just arrived, and he looked like trouble. Now’s our chance to escape! Torga has a personal craft ready and primed just a few levels above us for a quick escape in case of trouble. If we can make it to it, we could get out of here. Lets go!” Jysek said, pulling Xander to his feet as he raised the Disruptor Rifle, checking it was properly loaded and charged.

“Alright,” Xander said, nodding fiercely as he pulled his boots on, and slid his blaster pistol out of the hidden compartment in the sole, as Jysek looked on in amazement.

“You never told me you had that! We could have left earlier!”

“I didn’t feel the time was right before,” Xander said, as he primed the blaster, before creeping over to the wall.

Jysek crouched and jogged over to join him. He turned to Xander, and held up three fingers. He closed one, then the other, then clenched his fist closed, and the two darted out, spraying fire into the two nearest guards, before barrel rolling over a desk, and into a private turbo lift, slamming the door shut as return fire slammed into it.

Jysek rapidly punched commands into the control pad, and the lift began to rise, creaking slowly from the strain it had been put under from the laser bolts slamming into its casing. He stood there, staring into the closed door, breathing hard, as it ascended. He turned slightly, to face Xander, and double taked as he saw Xander’s burnt, scorched hands.

Xander stared dumbly at his scarred, disfigured hands, still in shock at how he had, unthinkingly, raised his hands and projected some barrier which blocked the twenty or so blasts that had been fired at them before the lift doors had closed. He had stopped them harming Jysek or himself, but at the cost of his hands. They would be write in a few weeks, but at that moment, they burnt as if he had been plunged into all seven Corellian Hells simultaneously.

“Are you ok?” Jysek breathed, as the lift hurtled up, drawing close to their destination.

“Yeah, fine,” Xander said nodding, breathing in deeply and centering himself as the lift slammed to a stop, and the doors opened to reveal a luxurious YT vessel. Glancing both ways to check for guards, Jysek and Xander sprinted for the craft, ripping off the manual control plate, and slicing into the system to lower the ramp manually, before scampering aboard as it closed behind them moments later.

Jysek rushed to the cockpit, settling himself down heavily, as his fingers flew across the system controls. He breathed a sigh of relief, “We’re lucky, my dad was repairing one of these a few years ago, and he took me into the cockpit and told me how it worked, and how to fix parts when they went haywire. I could probably fly this thing with my eyes closed.”

“Lets not test that theory,” Xander said, as he buckled himself into the co-pilot seat, gripping the armrests tightly as Jysek brought the ship into the air, sending sharp shudders throughout the craft.

“Relax Xander, everything will be fine now,” Jysek said reassuringly.

Suddenly, shield read-outs began flashing, and a loud, warbling siren began rising up and down through the frequency range an average human ear could hear.

“Somehow I don’t believe you,” Xander said, “They’ve got multiple missile locks on us, and several turbo-laser turrets are powering up in the cities west. I’ll take the top turret if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, I’ll try and loose them,” Jysek said, nodding, as he twisted the yoke right, left, and down as he tried to shake the locks. “Missiles launched!” He yelled, “Try to pick them off!”

“Easier said than done,” Xander muttered, from the top turret casing as he spun around, trying to spot the missiles both on the radar and visually. He first spotted them only seconds before the first hit. He managed a snap shot and melted the second and third out of the sky, but the first, a concussion missile, slammed into the Hyperdrive casing, smashing the shield, and damaging the Hyperdrive itself.

“Are you doing anything up there?!” Jysek called out as he fought the controls, spinning the craft as he watched in satisfaction as the fourth and fifth missiles smashed into each other whilst attempting to follow him through the manoeuvre.

“Relax, we’ll make it, only two more left!” Xander called back, as he lined up his sights, sending fiery bolts through one of the two, but watched in despair as his bolts missed the second. He tracked it across the sky, anticipating a sudden drop it made, and finally caught it. “I did it!” he exclaimed, joyfully letting out a cheer.

“We’re not out of this yet, turbo lasers are still ready just out of range, right where we need to go,” Jysek said grimly, as he tried to gain as much altitude as he could, hopefully to remain out of range of the turrets. Almost as soon as he was able to see the turrets visually, he felt smashes against the vehicle, as it shuddered in the air. “Obviously not,” he muttered to himself.

Xander took a deep breath, spinning the turret casing around, and firing three rapid fire shots at the centre turret, and watched in satisfaction as it blossomed a beautiful orange in the setting sun as his shots found their mark.

“Nice shooting for someone who’s only ever practiced in an X-Wing before,” Jysek said, not allowing anything into his voice other than relief that they now had a free shot into space. He had practiced for years, and he was nowhere nearly as good as Xander, who had practiced for only a few weeks.

He flipped a switch by the yoke, and examined a read-out, a frown creasing his forehead as his eyes darted over the figures. “This doesn’t look good,” he said over the comm to Xander.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Xander asked, as he began unbuckling his seat belt in the gunner turret.

“The Hyperdrive has been pretty badly damaged, it’ll take us a few months at least to get even as far as Lorta, and that’s the closest planet with any form of fuelling station. We can’t go back to Kinyen, so its our only choice.”

“Lorta it is then.”

Kinyen – Local Security Forces Headquarters
“Shut up you filthy crim,” an officer said, shoving the last of the Black Haven criminals into their cell, before slamming the door shut and activating the force-field surrounding the eight dangerous men and women who had only hours ago been running a highly successful and illegal base of operations.

“Thanks again,” the man said, turning to Vikro, who stood at the other side of the room, his arms crossed, and barely breathing irregularly after half an hour straight of fighting the leaders of Black Haven. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. I represent the Phantoms.” Vikro said, turning to leave, as the man gave an audible gasp, “We’re back.”

Personal Craft of Jedi Council Member Vikro
Vikro breathed out, watching as his breath fogged up the transparisteel in his passenger seat. The operation had been successful, but something still puzzled him. The boy he had seen leave his post and race inside had been found no where inside, and there had been filtered reports of Kinyen Security attempting to apprehend to criminals who had stolen a personal freighter craft

In his mind’s eye he raced over the events of the last two days. The Devaronian, distraught and babbling, and a sure sense that the boy had been there. The Black Haven criminals, grumbling about cowardly allies. The boy abandoning his post, and then disappearing. The stolen craft. The sense of familiarity in one of the dormitories in the base.

Suddenly Vikro sat bolt upright. The boy had been in the base. He wasn’t sure if the boy at the post was him or not, but the reports had said two people had stolen the craft, so it may well have been a companion of his.

The boy who had plagued his visions and dreams with darkness. The boy he had desperately been trying to find for the last two years. He had missed him by mere minutes. Vikro breathed out frustratingly, as his pilot pulled out of the atmosphere, lining up to return them to Bakura.

He would find the boy, and bring him to justice for what he had done. He would either be forced to kill the boy as he had his brother, sister-in-law and nephew all those years ago, or bring him to the Temple for training in the Jedi ways, and hope to the Force that none of those incidents ever repeated themselves. Vikro remained deep in thought as his shuttles made the jump to lightspeed, leaving Kinyen far behind.