Chapter Twenty One

Yoda came out of his meditation in the Coruscant temple, hopping to his feet and moving out of the council chamber, where he routinely meditated when the council was not in session. He moved purposefully, his entire body still shaking somewhat from the warning he had gotten from the Force.

The future had changed recently, shifting dramatically in indiscernible ways. The Jedi couldn't describe it truly, but it was as if a picture you had seen all your life had changed entirely, taking your memory of the old picture with it. You could feel that the picture was different but you couldn't figure out how, why or indeed if anything hadn't changed because you had nothing to compare it to, simply a feeling.

But one thing Yoda was certain of now thanks to this latest warning: something was going to happen soon, something centered on the Explorer. And if Yoda didn't get there in time, the Dark Side of the Force would become stronger somehow, the balance of the Force becoming skewed. He had hoped to leave within another two days, but this feeling told him he could not afford to wait.

Pulling a small communicator from his belt he called down to the starship bay. "Hrhrhrm, Grand Master Yoda this is. Ready a ship for me you will. A captain I will require, supplies for a month too."

He did not look up as a rather short, almost rotund looking human began to walk beside him on the second level down from the Council room. "Going somewhere Master Yoda? What an odd coincidence, I feel the Force calling me away too, to one of our training ships. A disaster in the making."

"Coincidence it is not. Your presence, an aid it will be to me Master Giiett. But bring your starfighter, you might wish to."

"Strangely I thought the same thing." Micah Giiett murmured, smirking slightly as he fell into step with the diminutive Grand Master.

About half a day later their Consular Class ship exited hyperspace in Denon. There they were met by Master T'ra Saa, who joined them instead of heading back to the temple with the report on the emergency relief efforts going on in Siskeen. She wanted to check in on Master Vos and his padawan, who she had replaced as the Rylothi sector Jedi, and also to hear about their job on Ryloth itself.

In the next system on their route, they came out of hyperspace, quickly turning to the next jump coordinates. But before they could jump out they were almost immediately hailed by a small, specially designed yacht. Yoda smiled slightly, coming out of his meditation with a faint smile. "Master Fay, two centuries it has been since last we spoke. Hrhrhrm, your presence, reason behind there is, yes?" Beside him Master T'ra smiled warmly as in his ship Master Giiett blinked in surprise, hearing the name of one of the legends of the Jedi Order.

Master Fay very rarely even communicated with the rest of the Order. Preferring to be guided by the Force she didn't take missions from the Council or the Senate, and she had never returned to Coruscant since leaving it centuries ago, nor had she ever taken a padawan. Rumors of her exploits continually reached the rest of the Order, telling of tales or wars brought to a halt without a single blow struck, of terrorists giving themselves up, unable to fight as feelings of peace and comradeship filled their being, quashing their hate and anger, of diseases cured and ships about to crash stopped in their tracks.

But despite knowing Fay was centuries older than him, Micah had to shake his head in surprise as her image appeared in the communication screen. The Jedi who appeared on the screen looked almost young, with delicate, almost ethereal human features, long dirty blond hair, and two pointed ears. But the eyes, those kind bottomless orbs told the tale of how ancient this master truly was, and she smiled at her friends, the only two Jedi Masters who knew her personally. "Greetings Master Yoda, T'ra, it has been many years since we have spoken. But the Force tells me we are all out here for the same reason. Permission to join this mission?"

Yoda grunted and the three ships continued on their way with even more urgency if that was possible. But even Jedi could not speed up hyperspace travel.

OOOOOOO

The first sign of real trouble began when the lights on the training vessel began to flare, and an alarm began. All of the teachers raced to the bridge quickly including Lily, who sped through the walls between the classroom and the bridge. "What's going on?" she said as she appeared on the other side.

"We'll tell you as soon as we know ourselves," said the knight on watch, shaking his head quickly as others began to arrive behind Lily.

The ship began to shudder, and the head teacher shook her head as she sat in the captain's chair, staring at the readouts.

"Illaveil?" Lily asked, touching the Bothan woman on the shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"There's something wrong with the controls, were coming out of hyperspace where we shouldn't be!" the ancient seeming master muttered, shaking her head. "Manual override!" she barked as her fingers flew over the controls far faster than an old woman of any species should be able to move. "

"There is some kind of virus or something in the system, it's taken over our controls." Said the knight on duty from his own position, one of the four young knights that made up the teacher's aids and general

"That's impossible." Tholme said shaking his head. "How could that have been accomplished, Explorer is a closed system unless its hypercom relay is powered up."

"I'm rather more concerned with what it's doing right now than how it was put in," said one of the other teachers as she took up a position at another station. "I'm bringing up the shields."

"Why do you think it was impossible?" Lily asked Tholme as they watched the activity around them. Behind them Quinlan came in quickly, looking somewhat harried having had to instruct the children to return to their rooms and arguing with more than a few of them about that.

"This training vessel is supposed to be a closed system, the only way anything could get through his through the Hypercom relay, and that would be the same thing as, as sending someone a picture of a missile rather than the missile itself."

"Some kind of weapon I guess?" Lily asked, not having heard the word 'missile' before.

"Exactly."

"Regardless of how it was done, you have enemies out there that could attack us." Lily mused, her tone saying she wasn't surprised by this but also not happy Tholme hadn't mentioned this before. "Is this ship armed?"

"A few small quad lasers, but we have heavy shielding." Illaviel replied, not looking up from where she was still trying to stop the ship from coming out of hyperspace.

"No we don't," said one of the other knights, the one who had been trying to bring up the shields. "The programs won't respond. I think the shields might have a manual override down in engineering, I'll go see if I can activate them."

"We're coming out of hyperspace within seconds." Illaviel grunted angrily. "Get those shields up as quick as possible!"

"Where are we?" Tholme asked quickly.

"Somewhere between our last stop and our next, somewhere we weren't supposed to stop!" Illaviel replied tartly. "And oh look, our scanners show several ships incoming already, ranging from fighters to large freighters."

"This is almost like a typical pirates assault, thought they would normally use asteroids to disrupt the hyperspace lanes rather than a virus." Tholme said shaking his head. "Why would they attacked us though? They'd have to know that the Order would respond."

"Why's later, deal with the actual attack now." Lily replied, to which the others all nodded as turbolaser bolts flew through space towards the Explorer.

The moment the training vessel came out of hyperspace it came under attack, heavy turbo laser blasts smashed into its sides. But the knight who had raced off to activate the shields manually had gotten them up, and those first few blasts did little damage. The follow on blasts from the several small Corvettes and the one large freighter around them however began to tell swiftly.

"This is the Jedi training vessel Explorer, this is an illegal attack, we have nothing for you here, leave, and he will not report this attack to the authorities." Sarah said, then shrugged her shoulders as Lily and the others all looked at her. "It was worth a try. I think we'll need to turn to repel boarders soon, they're trying to take down the shields and the engines, not do a lot of damage."

Tholme looked at the screen and the ships displayed there, zooming in on the side of one. "Bando Gora!" he said shaking his head. "They are a death cult who have ruled in all but name in segments of the Out Rim. I thought their power broken, but it would appear not."

"Joy," Lily growled, cursing her ghost form more now than she had ever done before. "So what do we do?"

Tholme shrugged, pulling his lightsaber from his belt. "We fight."

"Quinlan," he said turning to his padawan. "Head back down to the students, move them into the center of the ship as much as possible and guard them there. The rest of us will split into teams of three." By the time he was finished Lily was already gone, phasing through the floor and heading down towards the students.

By the time Quinlan arrived, she had gotten them organized and heading in the right direction, with Harry at the back with Alecto, who had according to him been taught some hand-to-hand by his father and mother. He also knew how to shoot, having gone hunting a few times. Quinlan immediately sent one of the droids to grab a gun for the youngster, returning quickly and arming him.

Harry nodded grimly, his fingers flexing as he looked at his mom. "I think I need to really bring out all the stops here mom."

Lily nodded. "We have time to start laying out some traps and other things using your transfiguration Harry, let's pull out all the stops here. I don't want you to have to kill anyone but…"

"I know mom," he said, reaching up and placing his hand over hers, touching it lightly as she made her hand corporeal for a moment. "I know, but I think traps and other things will make a major difference here." Lily nodded, and Harry went to work preparing the battlefield.

OOOOOOO

The shields faltered moments into the attack, and the corvettes closed, blowing open the bay doors and entering quickly. About 50 people trooped out, wearing space armor before they threw up an emergency shield generator which kept the air inside the training vessel's destroyed outer bay doors. After that a further 200 people trooped out of the four small corvettes, and they all began to race toward the inner entrance.

Inside they ran into the Jedi, standing there three abreast in the hallway their lightsabers activated. "You have come to prey upon our younglings, you will find that their teachers do not look upon this kindly." said Sarah coldly, racing forward with her two aides.

Elsewhere, Tholme and To'neen stood equally calmly, pushing the air around them as the drill on one of the boarding ships bored into the side of the training vessel. Before they even had finished, Tholme and To'neen was on them, lightsabers flashing and slashing.

Stymied in their assault on two fronts, the Bando Gora aboard their ships opened a third assault, then a fourth. The fourth got through, racing deeper into the bowels of the training vessel as their fellows engage the Jedi at ruinous cost.