Chapter 12: The Legend

[Fel]

Outer Sectors Chapter 12: The Legend

"You alright? You look like you took quite a knock."

Renzen's eyes were a bit blurry. The technical officer standing over him seemed to be spinning slowly counterclockwise. "Uh... yeah... I think so..."

"Hit your head on this pipe here?" The tech asked, in a strangely gruff voice.

"Yeah, I think so..."

"What were you doing back here, anyway?" The tech was looking at him strangely. "I mean, you are a pilot, after all."

Renzen managed a weak smile. "Just looking. I find technical stuff really interesting... Whenever I get the chance I take a nice tour of a museum ship, or similar..."

"What, are you calling the Pike a museum ship?!?" He might have been joking. It was hard to tell.

"No, no, but I've never really had the chance to explore a Mon Cal before... All those years in the Empire, after all..." Renzen was getting better, though his head was still ringing.

The tech laughed. "Totally understandable. I used to work on Victory Star Destroyers myself. Back when they were the newest thing... When I got to a Mon Cal, I spent weeks exploring the ship in my off hours..."

The man's stories carried on for the better part of an hour. Renzen faked interest, as best he could, but the man just droned on and on and on and on...

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Fel seemed to have made peace with the idea of facing execution upon his return to the Empire. The fact that he had not heard a word from Admiral Junon in a very, very long time seemed to be the clearest indication that he would be on his way to the court martial. But for the moment, he managed somehow not to think about it. But he could not help but think out the situation in the Rebellion as described to him.

Armed with all the information and tools necessary for the great Force experiment, the plan was to insert Kyp Durron into a public space station. The idea was that a better Force User and a less... Imperial... population would result in a better test. Ilven insisted that everything seeme like it was authentic, so there is no reason why it should not work.

When Fel had pressed the issue, Ilven explained that the idea was to make use of a recovered Sith focusing artifact that gave the Force user increased connection to the Force. The junior students had failed to win over the population of the planet using some giant version of the mind trick, so they wanted to try it with Durron, and see if it could be done. Durron had gone to Korriban to read some ancient texts on how to use it effectively.

Ilven had mentioned that in the past, Force users had these focusing artifacts in great abundance, but they were always kept secret and almost never spoken of, to prevent their discovery by outsiders. The loss of these artifacts was responsible for the seeming decline in the power of the Force as compared to what was written in the legends.

Fel could not help but wonder if this was the threat that he had been sent to the Rebellion to stop - if it were true that Durron could influence people so much, or become some sort of super-Jedi. Who could stop the rampage of the Jedi then? The Jedi would be transformed from a minor power to some sort of ruling elite. The galaxy would fall into chaos in no time at all.

He descended into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning, wondering about the whole thing. Was it real? How had the Rebellion discovered this, anyway?

In the late hours of the night, he was roused from his almost-sleep by the chirp of his datapad. A microburst transmission from Renzen, containing only one word.

One word that could make Fel's heart skip a beat.

Kardock.

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Mission Assignments

TIE: ERS-228
XvT: ERS-229
XWA: ERS-230
GB: Fiction
EaW: Fiction