Jedi Knight Fiach Dubh’s Missions

[Fiach Dubh]

Before she could even consider shouting a warning – for she was a Jedi through and through – the red lightsaber burst into a mess of noise and light. Bright spots pricked at her eyes, and then all was quiet. The Darksider wasn’t going to bother her anymore.

He lay between two ships, his face a burned mess, the shell of his lightsaber still clutched in his hands.

Kneeling beside her fallen foe, Fiach sifted through the wreckage of his lightsaber hilt. The crystals that had powered his lightsaber were no longer contained by metal, but their song had not dimmed. She held them in one hand, almost shaking as the familiarity of them coursed through her.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

But her success was short-lived. Guards rushed her from all sides. Twin violet blades flashed as she met their advance – her saber and shoto in her hand, spinning and slashing with an easy grace that belied the strength behind it. Control of the Jar’Kai dual-lightsaber fighting style hadn’t come easily, especially given her devotion to Soresu. Using two blades came with both advantages and disadvantages. Although she could attack or defend herself against more than one opponent at once, she could only wield her lightsabers one-handed, reducing the power of her blows.

Building up her physical strength had therefore been a key part of her training, starting with simple weights and graduating to intensive combat training with droids.

She deflected every attack that was dealt against her. The guards were felled one by one. Grey uniforms turned red.

More guards came, crowding her between the ships, coming at her in waves. Fiach went into a fighting trance, stabbing and sweeping complex arcs through the air.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Finally, there was just one standing before her. Fiach lowered her blades. It was the crime boss and he was clutching a blaster in both hands. His face was one of resignation yet he held the blaster up – pointing directly at Fiach.

The Jedi remained calm, motionless and said nothing. Seconds became a minute, and then two. Finally, the man lowered the blaster and dropped it to the floor, before kicking it away from his feet, and it skittered across the floor of the hangar.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

EXPANSION REGION

“Being a Jedi is not just about power, or lightsabers, or even skill with the Force. It is about connection. Being part of something bigger. I am stronger as part of the Jedi Order than I could ever be alone.”
― Obi-Wan Kenobi, to Anakin Skywalker

The three spherical combat remotes hovered into a triangulated attack configuration, targeted Fiach Dubh, and fired. With her eyes closed, she counted off three shots and instinctively sensed the trajectory of each approaching projectile. She moved fast, tilting her head back and bringing up her lightsaber at a sharp angle. As one energy bolt whizzed past her ear and buried itself in the polarised wall of the droid hold, the other two bolts connected with her lightsaber. She pushed the bolts back at two of the remotes, then spun and brought up her lightsaber fast, cleaving through the third. The shattered remotes clattered on the metal floor.

From the droid hold’s hatch, a voice came. “I was told to let you know we’re about to exit hyperspace. Uh...oh...and please join us on the bridge.”

Fiach knew that many held the Jedi with disdain, but this young crewman was clearly nervous around her – and it was not a feeling she enjoyed.

She picked up her robe from where she’d placed it, on the flat top of one of the power droids, and with one hand, she made a sweeping gesture at the remotes’ fused pieces, using the Force to make them rise from the floor. A moment later, the debris whipped through the air and neatly passed through a trash slot in the wall.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

She followed the junior officer out of the droid hold and into the mid-deck corridor. Heading for the lift that would carry them to the upper deck, she passed the time talking about the ship and its crew. She was hardly an expert in small-talk but she hoped she had, at least, been able to portray the Jedi as something more personable than many of the rumours that abounded.

The lift came to a stop, and the door hissed open. The Jedi exited into the cruiser’s crew lounge, then walked down a corridor until she arrived behind the captain’s seat on the bridge.

The captain, like her crew, wore a crisp navy blue uniform and black leather boots. In front of the captain, two co-pilots operated the controls that were positioned under the main viewport, through which they could see the cruiser’s progress through hyperspace.

Fiach squinted at the bright cascade that filled the viewport. As a child on the desert planet Klatooine, she had often dreamed of the day she would journey through hyperspace. She had left the planet in her mid-teens, some ten years ago, and yet – with so many interstellar missions behind her – she still gazed at hyperspace with a sense of wonder, as if it were a confirmation that good dreams could come true.

The ship shuddered slightly as it dropped out of hyperspace. Outside the viewport, light seemed to wash past the cruiser and dissolve into darkness, while distant stars presented themselves in apparently fixed positions across the ever-expanding cosmos.

They were in the Expansion region of the galaxy. The closest planet was Allanteen VI – famed for its shipyards.

And they angled towards the spaceport, which, like the yards, was suspended in planetary orbit. It was a sprawling affair of linked modular hangars and docking platforms, built up and modified many times over several hundreds of years. It was a busy location, with dozens of starships and shuttles landing and departing at any given time.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“I’d welcome you, but we’re not staying,” the Jedi Master that greeted Fiach said as she boarded the cruiser.

Fiach bowed politely, the middle of her three available, and fell into step beside her elder and headed back to the cruiser’s bridge.

Sik Solty was a Jedi Knight, and, like Fiach, she was human. She wore a pale green tunic under a dark cloak, and her lightsaber’s polished hilt gleamed at her side. “Know much of the local politics?”

“Only what the brief shared, which wasn’t very much at all.”

“Then I hope you’re a fast learner,” said Sik.

“And why is that?”

“Because we may need a great deal of knowledge if we’re going to prevent a civil war.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Have you ever heard of an ancient starship named the Moonraker?” Sik Solty asked.

“No,” Fiach answered. The Jedi were seated at a round table within the salon pod. After the brief layover, the cruiser was once again soaring through hyperspace, its course established by a set of navigational coordinates that Sik had given to the captain. Fiach could not enjoy the spectacle of hyperspace travel from where she was sitting because the salon pod – for security purposes – was without viewports.

“Some four thousand years ago,” Sik began, “Allanteen VI and most of its moons were already being exploited for their raw materials, but one moon escaped industrialisation when it was purchased by a very wealthy man, who proclaimed himself King.”

Fiach nodded to show she was keeping up.

“He planned to terraform the moon, which he named Arcade, after his wife, and establish a colony. To transport his family and 715 colonists, he commissioned a starship, a four hundred meter-long heavy transport named the Moonraker. According to legend, the ship also carried three power gems, said to be able to disrupt magnetic defence shields. It is believed that the man’s ancestors had obtained their wealth by using these power gems to overtake enemy ships and seize their property.”

“You mean, they were pirates?” Fiach asked.

“More or less,” Sik allowed. “Some historians believe they kept the power gems on the Moonraker, but others believe he may have hidden them somewhere on Arcade – the moon, not his wife!. In any event, a week after the Moonraker’s arrival at Arcade, he and his crew left their families and other colonists to make a supply run to a nearby planet. But before it could reach port, the Moonraker vanished.”

Again, Fiach nodded.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“There was a search, of course,” Sik continued, “but the ship and the three power gems – now known as the Lost Stars of Arcade – were never found. The rich man’s family chose to remain on Arcade, which is today covered with terraformed jungles. His descendants continue to rule there to this day. And for four millennia, the people of Arcade and Allanteen VI have searched for the starship, which could be identified by a marking of a divided crimson circle. Incredibly, a derelict has turned up that matches the Moonraker’s description. It was found yesterday, drifting through space, right here in this sector. We’re heading for it now.”

“Who found it?” Fiach asked.

“At present, that’s unclear,” Sik admitted. “But from my sources on Allanteen VI as well as Arcade, I’ve been able to piece together the following details. Yesterday, an Arcaden freighter failed to return from a trip. Arcaden authorities contacted the Allanteen VI Space Patrol, which sent a patrol ship to search for the freighter, starting in the area where it should have dropped out of hyperspace. But instead of finding the freighter, the patrol ship found the derelict that fit the Moonraker’s profile. They tagged the derelict with a salvage buoy, then launched a message droid to give the derelict’s trajectory coordinates to the Director of Space Patrol.”

“Why use a message droid instead of their transceivers?” Fiach inquired.

“It may have been their only option,” Sik replied. “The message noted that an unknown anomaly was interfering with sensors and transceiver frequencies.”

“Perhaps it was caused by the three power gems you mentioned,” Fiach suggested. “The ones that they kept on the Moonraker.”

“Might have kept on the Moonraker,” Sik corrected.

“If all these details are true,” Fiach said, “why is it unclear about who discovered the derelict? Sounds to me like it was the space patrol ship’s find.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“I was getting to that,” Sik said. “At about the same time, space patrol received the message droid, Arcaden authorities intercepted a signal from a distress beacon in space. Evidently, the beacon came from the missing freighter and it had been deployed eight hours before the space patrol ship launched their message droid. The beacon was transmitting a message that the crew had found the Moonraker and it also provided coordinate trajectory data. I compared that data with the message droid’s and I extrapolated that the freighter would have crossed the derelict’s path...” She looked to Fiach, waiting to see if she had been paying attention.

“Eight hours before the Space Patrol ship?” Fiach conjectured.

Sik nodded. “Exactly. Further extrapolation indicates the derelict entered the sector by way of uncharted space, from Unknown Regions.”

“There are numerous inhabited systems between the Unknown Regions and Allanteen VI ,” Fiach noted. “It strikes me as suspicious that no one reported the derelict until yesterday.”

Sik nodded and continued. “Allanteen VI sent a salvage hauler, and Arcade sent a rescue runner. The rescue runner arrived at the derelict first and the salvage hauler just minutes later. To the surprise of the salvagers, there was no sign of the patrol ship – the one that launched the message droid – or the salvage buoy. To sum things up, both Arcade and Allanteen VI claim the derelict and they have exchanged dangerous accusations of sabotage, theft, and abduction. Meanwhile, the freighter and the patrol ship are still missing.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Fiach said, “If the derelict is indeed the Moonraker, I can imagine that the Arcadens would want it because of its historic value, but why is Allanteen VI so determined to make the claim?”

“I suspect they want to make money off of it,” Sik answered.

“And you truly believe both worlds are prepared to go to war over this?”

“Yes,” Sik said. “There is much animosity. The citizens of Allanteen VI view the Arcadens as simple-minded nature lovers, and the Arcadens regard Allanteen VI’s population as the worst kind of industrialists, who would sooner level a forest than plant a tree. Arcade sends food to Allanteen VI in exchange for protection from the Allanteen VI Space Patrol, but beyond that, they try to avoid each other.”

“Until now,” Fiach noted.

“True,” Sik said. “When I learned that the leaders of Allanteen VI and Arcade were readying armed ships to travel to the site of the derelict, I convinced the leaders they would be wise to allow the Jedi to negotiate the situation.”

“How did you manage that?” Fiach asked.

“I told them that if they could not resolve their differences, I would be forced to turn the entire matter over to the courts. They knew if the courts were involved, a resolution might take years.”

“We’re meeting the leaders at the derelict?” Fiach asked.

Sik nodded. “Senator Patty of Allanteen VI and Santon Pilar of Arcade are already waiting for us. All we have to do is figure out a compromise.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Over my dead body,” snarled Santon Pilar, the ruler of Arcade, as she smashed her fist on the table.

“That would be convenient,” retorted Senator Patty of Allanteen VI as he leaned back in his chair and examined the shape of his fingernails.

They were seated at the round table in the salon pod, to which they had been ushered after their respective ships – the Allanteen VI-based salvage hauler and the Arcaden rescue runner – had docked with the cruiser. The three ships, linked by the docking ports, travelled at an apparently safe distance alongside the massive derelict.

Senator Patty, like the two aides who bracketed him, wore a black uniform. Santon Pilar and her two guards wore more colourful and exotic apparel. Santon’s robes appeared to have been made primarily from the skins of large lizards. Sik Solty was also seated at the salon pod’s table. Fiach stood a short distance behind Senator Patty’s chair.

Sik took a deep breath, then said, “If we may proceed beyond discussions of salvage rights, I believe we can reach a solution for all concerned.”

“Oh, I’m concerned, all right,” said Senator Patty. “In approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, the Moonraker will drift into the Rimma Trade Route, and we could lose our claim. I’m not going to allow such an important relic to be seized by pirates or snapped up by a salvager. The best plan is to let my team tow the Moonraker straight back to Allanteen VI .”

“So you can transform it into a commercial facility?” Santon spat.

“I never said commercial facility,” Patty replied. “I said an amusement centre. Think of it as an orbital museum of interstellar travel.”

“As I said earlier,” Santon grumbled, “over my dead body.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“Please be reasonable, Santon,” Patty said, trying to remain calm. “I mean, you don’t want the Moonraker to be lost again, either. We can resolve the issue of ownership later.”

“Ownership is not an issue,” Santon interjected. “As the direct descendant of the ship’s owner, the Moonraker is my property. You only want the Moonraker because you believe it contains the Lost Stars of Arcade. I assure you, you are wrong.”

Patty sneered. “If the legendary power gems are not on the Moonraker, how do you explain the anomaly in the area that prevents us from using our sensors?”

“I cannot explain the anomaly,” Santon answered. “But I know the gems are elsewhere. And as with the Moonraker, you will never have them.”

Sik placed her hands on the table and folded them. “The fact that you both agreed to negotiate suggests you desire a resolution instead of a conflict. Let us consider a mutual effort to–”

“Allanteen VI claims the Moonraker,” Patty interrupted.

The Santon glared at the Senator and countered, “It is not yours to claim!”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Sik Solty looked up from the table to Fiach, and said, “We don’t seem to be making progress.”

Fiach stepped away from behind Senator Patty’s seat and moved to the side of the table where she could face both Patty and Santon. “We all must consider the facts objectively. A derelict emerges from out of nowhere, disrupts sensors and prevents transceiver communication, and may be involved with the disappearance of a Arcaden freighter and a space patrol ship. And despite all outward appearances, we don’t know for a fact that the derelict is the Moonraker. Is it possible that the missing ships are being hidden within the derelict?”

“You mean, in an internal hangar bay?” Senator Patty asked.

Fiach nodded. “The derelict is certainly large enough to contain the ships. Santon, did the original Moonraker have an internal hangar, perhaps shielded by retractable hull plating?”

“I regret that knowledge has been lost to time,” Santon answered.

“In other words, you have no idea,” Patty sputtered. “But speaking of losing things to time, the derelict is only drifting further. I want to know, right now, this very minute – will the Jedi grant permission for Allanteen VI to salvage it?”

Fiach’s gaze fell to the center of the round table. She said, “I sincerely believe that if time were not such a significant factor, Allanteen VI and Arcade could have easily resolved this matter without Jedi negotiators.” She raised her eyes and let them travel from Santon to Patty. “But given the circumstances and information presented, there really is only one logical course of action...”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

It seemed that everyone in the room was holding his or her breath. But before Fiach could issue her judgment, a sudden, lurching sound reverberated through the salon pod.

Then the lights went out, and there was total chaos.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

No one in the salon pod knew what had hit them. The moment that the lights went out, it felt as if an invisible hand had suddenly upended the entire cruiser and hurled it sideways across space. Inside the ship, anything that wasn’t bolted down went flying. Fiach stumbled back and slammed against the walls. Sik Solty, Santon Pilar, and the two Arcaden guards clung to the round table. Senator Patty and his aides toppled out of their chairs. Then, just as suddenly, the ship stabilised and the emergency lights came on. Incredibly, no one appeared to be injured.

“What happened?” Patty shouted as his aides pulled him up from the floor.

“It felt like we were sideswiped,” said Sik Solty.

Patty shot a look at Santon and said, “Is this your doing? Some kind of trick to gain what you want?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing!” Santon answered indignantly.

Fiach pulled herself up next to the pod’s sensor panel. The pod had been engineered to eject from the cruiser in emergency situations, and had it ejected, the sensors would have displayed the pod’s position in relationship to the ship. But the sensors did not display any useful information because they were not working. At all.

“Looks like all systems are disabled,” Fiach said. “Including communications. We can’t even hail the bridge. Did the salon pod eject?”

Sik scrambled over to the main hatch and visually checked its bolts. Six rectangular yellow panels set around the hatch’s frame indicated that the pod was still secured to the main ship.

A small octagonal shield was set in the center of the hatch. Sik slid back the shield to peer through a transparisteel window, which permitted a view into the docking tube that linked the salon pod with the ship. Within the docking tube, the ship’s captain was approaching the salon pod’s hatch. She saw Sik through the small window and signalled her to open the hatch. She did.

“What happened?” Sik asked.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

“The derelict’s sublight engine fired, and then it veered out of its trajectory,” the captain reported. “At the same time, we suddenly had a ship-wide power surge. It disabled most of our systems. Engines, sensors, and communications are down. We’re adrift.”

“You saw the derelict’s engine fire?” Fiach asked, surprised.

“Yes,” replied the captain. “That thing was operational.”

“We can only guess who’s controlling it,” Fiach said. “Could you determine its new course?”

“It looked like it was angling for the Allanteen VI system,” the captain answered. “I tried to launch a message droid to warn Allanteen VI Space Patrol, but I’m afraid the launch activators are fried.”

“What’s my salvage ship’s status?” Senator Patty asked sharply.

“Still locked on to one of our docking ports, as is the Santon’s rescue runner,” the captain informed him. “But it seems all three ships were disabled.”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Santon whirled on Patty and fumed, “I suspect foul play, Senator. I would not be surprised to learn that your patrol ship’s crew has seized the Moonraker!”

Patty retorted, “I was about to accuse your freighter crew of the same thing!”

“This is no time for accusations,” Fiach interjected. “Has it occurred to either of you that there could be disastrous consequences if the derelict reaches Allanteen VI or Arcade – especially if it crashes?”

Santon Pilar and Senator Patty exchanged nervous glances. Collectively, there were more than a million beings on Allanteen VI, Arcade, and the orbital starship yards. Santon turned to the Jedi and implored, “What can we do?”

Sik Solty said, “We don’t know who is controlling the derelict’s course, but we know they must be stopped. And if there are innocent captives on board, they must be rescued.”

“But how?” Santon said. “We’re stranded here!”

Patty said, “Starfighter.”

“What’s that, Senator?” asked Fiach.

“My salvage ship carries a starfighter,” Patty said. “Since it won't have been in use when the power surged, it won’t be disabled. It might be used to catch up with the derelict.”

Santon faced Fiach and asked, “Can you stop the Moonraker without destroying it?”

“I’ll do my best,” Fiach said. “Now, take me to that starfighter!”

 

[Fiach Dubh]

Once they’d reached the starfighter, Fiach quickly removed her robes and slipped into a g-suit.

“Because of the sensor-disrupting anomaly, I won’t be able to communicate with your ships’ transceivers when I reach the derelict.”

Sik nodded. “May the Force be with you.”

Fiach scrambled into the starfighter and belted in. After activating her engine, she exited the salvage ship’s docking bay and out into space. From there, she looked back to see the bizarre configuration of the interlocked salvage ship, cruiser, and rescue runner. She hoped the respective crews would work together to restore power to their disabled ships.

 

[Fiach Dubh]

The system was easily located without sensors, as its sun was one of the brightest bodies in the starscape. Squinting at the sun, Fiach sighted the tiny speck of light moving in the direction of Arcade. She knew the speck was the derelict.

She punched her sublight engines to close the gap.

Despite the derelict’s lead, it was no match for the acceleration power of the sublight engines that drove the starfighter across space. Ninety-three seconds after blasting away from the salvage ship’s docking bay, she caught up with the derelict.

Matching the derelict’s speed, Fiach steered closer to investigate. Much to her surprise, she saw a small black spot appear on the hull, in an area that had a moment earlier been pale grey. A split second later she realised the black spot was not a spot at all.

It was a missile silo. And a missile launched, headed straight for Fiach.

She veered away from the ship and sent her fighter into a tight roll to avoid the oncoming projectile. She saw the missile go by, then pulled her ship into a loop, steering it up after the missile’s tail. The missile swerved hard to port. Fiach had not known until then that the missile was equipped with a guiding sensor, but she knew better than to let a missile out of her sight before it exploded. As the missile attempted to bank to lock onto her again, Fiach threw her controls hard to the side until the projectile was dead in the sights of her targeting scope.

Fiach fired her laser cannons. The missile exploded into a glittering spray of light, and she steered through the debris.