Vestara's flagship was massive, yes, but it felt far larger than it had any right to. Okay, maybe it was because we were sneaking around... thankfully, it was a ship with only a skeleton crew manning it, making it much easier to get by without being spotted. It also added a tiny bit of creepiness to the situation, going past so many empty corridors, but we kept ignoring that feeling.
Getting closer to the mark HK gave us, Vila and I moved in silence, guided only by the faint illumination strips flickering above us. The air grew colder the farther we walked, thanks to most systems running on low power. Still, seeing my own breath gave a new twist to the creepy atmosphere, and my fingers tightened slightly on the hilt of my saber, not drawing it but just feeling its presence. It... helped.
Finally, we reached the forward maintenance array. A panel on the wall blinked red, but before I could ask how to open it, a familiar, distorted voice rasped from the shadows, coming from a wall-mounted speaker.
[Invitation: Come in, meatbags. The door has been overridden.]
The panel hissed the next moment, its metal groaning slightly as it slid open. What was inside was... not what I expected.
The room was long and narrow, with conduits running along the floor like exposed veins, power running through them, slightly pulsating. The lighting was subdued, just a bit of faint orange glow strips illuminating the outlines of racks, shelves, and consoles along the wall. At the far end, in a recess surrounded by thin, flickering projections, stood a slab of obsidian stone shaped like an altar. Hovering just above it, suspended in a translucent field of shifting blue light, were two pieces of metal.
An armored torso.
And a single arm.
"Huh..." Vila huffed as we walked closer, examining them.
I didn't need much time to realize what I was feeling. It was HK's, as the two items had the same feeling emanating from them as his head. It was HK-01's torso and arm, part of his original body, just as rusted and orange-colored.
"Is that yours, HK...?"
After her question, the droid emerged from behind a nearby column, his slimmed-down protocol chassis clicking and groaning as if he were trying to make sure we realized he needed a replacement.
[Statement: That is me. Or rather, what was me long ago. Before... the dismemberment of my poor form. Before I became charmingly compact.]
"You found your original body," I muttered, moving closer, trying to put things together. Reaching out to the Force, my senses shifted around the room, trying to get a sense of how they ended up in there. "How did you know it was here?"
[Wistful Reflection: I did not. I only knew they were here when I received a pingback from my main processor. Like a phantom limb itching. It wasn't until we docked that I realized why.]
I circled the stasis field slowly while listening. It wasn't just a suspended display. The field holding the parts was inscribed with golden patterns—thin, swirling glyphs that looped in and out of themselves like vines. Whatever they were, they were for sure not Jedi-related or something I had seen before. While I was thinking about it, Vila reached out, pausing just before her fingers touched the energy.
"This isn't a normal stasis field," she whispered. "This is... Force-imbued."
[Confirmation: Ancient Sith sorcery, crossed with Rakatan lattice rituals.]
"And how do you know about that?" I asked, looking at him.
[Honest Answer: I have no recollection. I just knew how to run partial scans to identify their origin. Conclusion: The field is alive. It pulses on a rhythm only Force users can sense. Addendum: I can't get my parts back; only a Jedi can.]
"No wonder you called for us." Vila chuckled, shaking her head.
"Yeah, and I am sure if we do so, alerts will go off."
[Statement: Possible. Advice: Please retrieve them without tripping the system. That would be preferable.]
"Yeah, easy to say..." I grunted, trying to study the little 'prison' before us. "I don't even know this type of Force-based machinations..."
"I don't think they put it here for safekeeping," Vila muttered, crossing her arms while looking at HK's floating torso. "It had to be for a reason. Clearly, you were some kind of important Sith-based relic, HK. Maybe they are using you as a shrine? To call forth some kind of ancient Sith spirit?"
[Sarcastic Answer: I don't have spirits living in my chassis.]
"Maybe they're using your body as a... what? A relic? Something to use to learn of the Sith and Rakatans? You do seem to know about them, even if you only remember it accidentally." I started, trying to jog his memories, and it seemed to work as HK's voice dropped lower.
[Correction: I am not a relic. Conjecture: They use my precious body as a compass.]
"What?" Vila and I said at the same time.
[Elaboration: The field acts as a resonance chamber. My original power core—still embedded in the torso—contains fragments of long-lost Rakatan data. From what I recall, it includes encoded Star maps. A safe pathway through a bundle of distortion fields. Also, some navigation signatures that no longer exist in standard Republic records.]
"Most likely, they weren't even there a few thousand years ago either," I grunted while my stomach turned slightly. "You're saying... they're using your body to navigate?"
"It makes sense," Vila said, looking at me. "Vestara told Master Skywalker that she needed help from a Jedi... She probably got the route already, but she can't traverse it."
[Angered Agreement: My scattered corpse has been repurposed as a map. A beacon. A Sith-fueled GPS, if you will.]
"Well, I won't feel sorry for you if that is what you want," I stepped back, trying to take in the full picture: the altar, the runes, and the pulsing light. "But it does make sense that this is how they found the place they want to go to," I murmured. "I wonder if you visited it before, HK."
[Honest Answer: I don't remember. Addendum: Its probability, though, should be high. Conjecture: It has to be how she stays on that route. Without me, the path becomes invisible. Maybe unstable. The hyperplanes twist themselves into oblivion from what I read out of the main computer's records. My stored memories are what project predictive coordinates based on ancient gravitational patterns and from possible, previously traversed routes.]
"Your previous master came here then..." Vila stared at the torso, then at me. "Kael... If we take his body back, would it mean we make it so that Vestara fails to reach her target?"
"Yeah," I nodded. "Yeah, it does sound like that."
"Maybe we should destroy it."
[Hurtful Comment: Meatbag Vila has a very unnecessary habit of cracking bad jokes.]
"I wasn't joking." She countered, a small smirk on her lips.
"What do you want us to do?" I asked HK.
[Query: Are you asking if I wish to destroy my own beautiful corpse? No. I am pragmatic, not emotional. I want it back.]
"That is emotional," we both said at the same time, but he ignored us. Instead, he moved to the side of the chamber and activated a holo screen, from which blue symbols flared up.
[Clarification: No, I am not. However, I believe the field is feeding on the torso's lingering neural entanglement. It is not inert. My secondary processor inside is still learning. Which means... it may soon predict more than just coordinates.]
"I lost you there." Vila looked sharply at me. "What is he talking about?"
"I think..." I muttered, scratching my chin, "He means it could become sentient."
[Optimistic Hypothesis: Possible. If that field keeps pulling data from my core, it won't just calculate routes. It will start to think and create new predictions and algorithms to compensate for my missing main processor. And if it starts to think... it might not want to be reassembled. I may end up with a second version of myself—one I can't control.]
The silence that followed his words was heavy. I took another step toward the stasis field, letting my senses drift into it, reaching out with one hand. The Force around the torso wasn't Dark, exactly. It wasn't Light either. It was... old. Also, it felt burned like the residue of a fire that never fully went out. As I tried to delve deeper, I heard something. It was just a whisper, and it did not come to me in basic or not even in words. It was a thought.
"Find me."
Suddenly, I stumbled back, my eyes snapping open.
"Kael?" Vila caught me.
"I... heard something," I said, shaking my head. "It spoke to me."
[Observation: That is new. And highly ominous. Congratulations. You are now a participant in ancient Force prophecies. Shall I begin carving your tombstone?]
"HK—" Vila snapped at him.
[Apology: Sarcasm is how I process existential dread of the meatbag kind.]
Shaking my head, ignoring his chatter, I turned back to the stasis field, staring at it hard.
"Ben needs to know of this. We tell them. Now. Until then, we don't disturb this... thing!"
"I guess what you felt inside was not HK's new little brother?" Vila asked me with a half-joke.
"No... Whatever I felt was just using it as a conduit. It wasn't him."
[Relieved Statement: Good. I don't want to get infected by a meatbag virus that turns me into a human. It sounds appalling. Careful Agreement: Caution is preferable to proceed, I agree. Becoming a Force-wraith echoing in someone else's navigation system is not my preferred outcome.]
Vila nodded, agreed, and headed toward the door, as there seemed to be no time to waste.
...
....
.....
Far above the chamber where Kael and Vila uncovered HK's body, Ben Skywalker remained seated in perfect stillness, meditating. His legs folded beneath him, hands resting gently on his knees, the pulse of the Force moved through him in slow, recurring waves.
Then... A ripple. A soft, deliberate surge in the current of the Force reached toward him.
"Ben." A familiar voice called his name.
"Vestara." He answered as their minds connected.
It wasn't the first time they touched like this. It happened in the past, multiple times, and she wasn't forcing her way in.
"You know already, don't you?" she asked. "They found it. Your students."
"Yes. I just don't know what exactly they found, but I guess you let them do so?"
"I already learned everything from it, so yes. They will tell you what it is, and you will understand why I need your help. But... let me speed up the process of why I invited you here."
Suddenly, images passed between them, coming straight from her thoughts. He saw the altar, the stasis field, and HK's rusted body suspended in light. He felt the pull of the Force humming around it and then he also heard the whispers.
"It's a compass," Ben replied mentally. "You do realize that you are being led to something that has its own mind... Did you tell this to your disciples?"
"They know that danger comes with opportunity. And I know that I alone can't face it... That's why I need a Jedi. That is why I need you... Ben. The path reacts only to balance. If I go alone, it will twist and collapse. If I go with you... We faced a lot together. We can do so much together!"
"..."
"Ben... Together, whatever is calling out, we can face it. We'll succeed." Her presence didn't flicker; she wasn't lying. She was confident and honest. "I don't know what lies beyond the unknown. But it's part of something older than the Sith. Older than the Jedi. I believe it was buried for a reason, Vestara."
"If it can reach out to me... It can reach out to others, too. Ben, if not me, then someone else will find it. One way or another, someone will get to it, and I want it to be us." Ben's mental presence remained quiet for a moment, not answering. "You still don't trust me."
"No... I don't."
"But you believe me."
Once again, he didn't answer. Instead, he reached deeper into the Force, going beyond their conversation. Beyond even the current moment, for a moment, forget about time itself. He opened himself to the currents of the Force, the subtle flow of potential outcomes, glimpses that came only in rare moments of true alignment.
And for a breathless second, he saw it.
Stone towers rising from oceans in the middle of a storm. Machinery fused with... the Force. Voices—thousands—crying out in unison, not in fear, but in worship. Something ancient...
Ben's consciousness was suddenly jolted back to the moment, but he didn't speak. As if on cue, Vestara's voice returned, softer this time.
"So... will you help me? Will you stand beside me for this?" It seemed like... she didn't notice the change and Ben's sudden vision.
"Yes."
She didn't answer at first. But he felt her surprise and, beneath it, the actual relief.
"Thank you..." she said at last, her voice warm, like that of a lover.
Then, before more could be said, the connection faded, slowly, gently, like smoke trailing off into the night. Even after he reopened his eyes, Ben sat in the silence that followed as he had made his decision.
He would go with her.
Because whatever waited on the other side of the Rakatan Cliff... needed to be destroyed. And he was the only one who could make sure that happened.