Chapter Text
Jedi Master Avar Kriss stands aboard the bridge of the Ataraxia, watching the battle before her unfold in horror. As Avar watches, she feels life after life go out through the force, their notes disappearing from the song the force weaves before her. It may have been only moments ago, but it is already hard to remember the joy from those moments just minutes ago when it was clear the Republic was winning the battle against the Nihil fleet. Instead, Avar feels only dread as yet another one of the medium-sized Nihil ships takes a dive across the battlefield the way another ship might set up for a bombing run.
As the ship swings around, reveal its course, Avar sends a desperate message to any pilot on that course to move, to flee the ship’s pathway. It does little to abate the dread. The countless previous times have shown Avar that she will reach perhaps half of the pilots she needs to, and that fact boils under her skin. She can be better than this. She was better than this just days ago during the crisis in the Hetzal system – the one the press was now calling the Great Disaster, that had started all of this. She had done the impossible in Hetzal, had saved the system by tapping into and connecting the song of the force in every Jedi in the whole system. Why, Avar grits her teeth and stretches just a little farther, reaches two more pilots, was her range so much smaller now? (She knows why. There are far more people to reach inside the smaller range, and so few of them are Jedi. When she connected to the Jedi, she only had to reach half-way, the other Jedi would meet her in the middle. A force-null pilot cannot do the same, so it takes twice as much energy to meet each one of them.)
The instant she had to warn the pilots passes in the span of a heartbeat. Avar has reached a little over half this time. She is utterly exhausted, but still, she watches. The Nihil ship completes its turn and tilts to the side as it soars over the pilots Avar couldn’t reach. She renews her efforts. Maybe she can save a few more, maybe she can still reach the ones farthest from the ship. As she watches, a panel on the side of the Nihil ship slides open, and she can see for just a moment the glint of the dark engine byproduct that the Nihil ship pours over both ally and enemy indiscriminately. Avar drops. Even with the force, she cannot see where the engine byproduct has gone, and it is invisible to both the ship’s scammers and her eyes. Avar can only helplessly wait for the feeling of the rot setting in in the force signatures of those pilots and crewmembers, marring the notes they play in the song of the force. She feels it setting into the first of the pilots hit in that run now, the highly radioactive nature of the byproduct seeping into the ships that were hit and irradiating all who were within them.
Avar pokes one of the Jedi healers farther into the ship, showing them the new batch of irradiated pilots. It’s excessive, she knows, the healers will feel what is happening to them perhaps more acutely than Avar does. She does it anyway. There’s nothing else she can do for the pilots she failed. Avar watches as a small contingent of Vectors deploys from the side of the Ataraxia – two for each irradiated ship, both those fighting for the Nihil and the Republic. Radiation is slow and painful and no Jedi worth their Kyber would let anyone die from radiation poison, and the Nihil aren’t picking up their own pilots. She follows the first two Vectors with her eyes as they link to either side of the ship, the Jedi driving the Vectors grabbing it with the force, and begin the journey back to the Ataraxia before her attention is drawn away. Another Nihil ship is setting up to dump more byproduct, and the cycle begins again. Avar steels her mind again. She’s tiring, she knows it, but there are lives on the line that she has to warn.
Avar is reaching out, reaching to connect to those bright notes in the melody that are in danger of being corrupted now, when something strange happens. The whole day has been strange, this whole week inexplicable, but still, this manages to be surprising. There is a wash of fear from the Nihil pilots, one at a time, and then, in the blink of an eye, the pilots vanish. It’s almost as though the ships are jumping to hyperspace, but there are no hyperspace lanes there. Before Avar has time to ruminate on the question, there’s an explosion from one of the Republic cruisers ahead of her.
“We’ve been hit!” There’s a cry over the intercom, and then suddenly there are many more just like it. For every ship that disappears before her eyes, Avar hears another collision. Before long, it isn’t just the big cruisers being hit. The smaller ships begin to explode as well. There’s screaming and fear in the force, drowning out the song, barring down onto Avar from all sides, and it’s all she can do to remain in control of herself, to keep the fear outside of her, to keep breathing, to not lose herself in that moment.
Suddenly, there’s a loud ring in the force, and the panic that was bearing down on Avar quiets. She looks up from where she buried her face against her palms and knotted her hair in her fingers. She hadn’t noticed herself do that. Gently, she untangles her fingers from her hair and looks up. In the middle of the battlefield, where previously there were hundreds of ships engaged in a firefight, there now is a huge battleship, unlike anything Avar has ever seen before. It looks almost like it is emerging from hyperspace, but again, there is no hyperlane there. She can see the flashes of light on the hull of the cruiser (maybe? Was that a cruiser? Could a ship that big be called a cruiser?) where the Nihil ships were colliding with it. Avar makes some gesture at Admiral Kronara, she doesn’t know what, but the Admiral has served with Avar enough in the past two weeks that he knows what she wants, and hails the new ship.
“Hello.” The voice that plays over the call as it connects is unmistakably Kel Dor, and also sounds remarkably unconcerned about the quantity of explosions on the hull of his ship. The hologram springs to life in front of Avar. The Kel Dor looks slightly on the older side, but definitely not older than middle-aged. More interestingly, he is dressed in robes that Avar is willing to guess are a shade of red when not washed blue by a hologram. Clipped to the Kel Dor’s side hangs what is unmistakably a lightsaber.
“Hello.” Avar inclines her head slightly to him. “This is Jedi Master Avar Kriss. Who are you, and what are you doing here?” It’s horribly impolite of her, but every bone in Avar’s body is tired so that even the force sings with her weariness, and she hasn’t slept properly since the crisis in Hetzal. She’ll forgive herself a little rudeness. She’s so tired she almost misses the way he starts a little at her name, or the motions he’s making with his hands.
“My name Jedi Master Plo Koon with the ship the Triumphant, and as for the second question, I was rather hoping you knew the answer to that. I haven’t the slightest clue. This certainly isn’t the Devaron System, where we entered hyperspace, nor is this our intended destination.” Avar can feel herself sag. More hyperspace confusion is exactly what the Republic needs after everything that has happened. Somehow, she doesn’t think this counts as one of the emergences. Those had been the debris of the Legacy Run being thrown from hyperspace. The ship in front of her is definitely not debris.
Besides, Koon is definitely a Jedi. Elzar hadn’t signaled that he felt a lie in the force when he introduced himself, and Avar hadn’t felt one either. Curiously, however, Avar has never heard of any Jedi with the name Koon, and certainly no Master.
Another man steps into the hologram beside Master Koon. This man is covered in white armor that looks almost Mandalorian in design, although it shines like plastoid. It’s painted with what Avar assumes is grey, and there are elaborate decorations on the shoulders and geometric patterns on the rest. The Kel Dor’s face scrunches with contemplation in response to whatever the new man says – the call doesn’t pick it up. Master Koon strokes his chin before nodding. “Yes, thank you, Wolffe. That sounds like a good plan.” Master Koon places a hand on the other man’s shoulder, and Avar can see him preen. The Kel Dor returns his attention to the call. “We are launching some of our fighters to fight off the ships which continue to slam against our hull, please do not panic.” He says it so calmly, that Avar feels a laugh bubbling up inside her at the sheer craziness going on. She manages a nod instead.
The door to the bridge slams open and Avar feels Master Jora Malli stride in behind her. The Togruta commands the attention of the room as she calls out to Avar.
“Master Kriss, what in the nine sith hells is happening?”
Avar can’t help it, and she doubles over into what she is sure is insane-looking hysterical laughter.