The Wanderer awoke with a start. From the very start of this mission, he had an unsettling feeling in his gut. This same feeling had arisen when Daala was checking their clearance to board the Star Destroyer. She had initiated a targeting lock while the proper codes were being sent. The codes had checked out and their ship had been taken in. Disembarking, the Foundation was greeted by 60 troopers in elite army. The Wanderer had learned that these New Order troopers were being bred to hunt Jedi.

The Wanderer was still wearing the Inquistor’s robes. He missed his bass mando. That and his senate rifle did not fit with the disguise. A Sith lightsaber now hung at his belt. The lightsaber, elegant and civilized, had been warped by dark minds to serve evil. The Wanderer knew that he, too, must be refined or else he would suffer the same destiny. He must learn the ways of the Force. He would need to talk to Master Don when conversations could be more secure.

His commlink buzzed. With alarm, he listened as Daala requested his presence on the bridge. Across the galaxy, people were making sacrifices to spread liberty and the chance to live one more day. His thoughts drifted to Jeht, whom they had seen in a censored holorecording fighting off two Inquisitors and their dark minions. Jeht had been labeled a traitor who had murdered innocent Imperial citizens. Burgh Talhek knew that he must play his part in the unfolding of the galaxy. As The Wanderer, he walked out of his quarters adding Inquisitor Li to his identities.

 

Don, Silas, and The Wanderer walked briskly and confidently down the corridor leading to the bridge. Don reviewed the plan in his head. Qoren would free the rest of the Foundation from the prison block and take out the secondary bridge. This way no course correction could be made.

The Wanderer glanced around for any monitoring devices as he stood with Silas and Don waiting to enter the Star Destroyer’s bridge. Silas looked grim. “There is a disturbance in the Force. I feel that if we cross this threshold, we face our deaths.”

The Wanderer muttered under his breath, “Isn’t that what we do every time?”

 

Qoren made his way to the brig. His ooglith masquer still held shape, cloaking its master in the form of an Imperial officer. Qoren bathed in the pain as the prongs of the ooglith dug deeper into his pores.

A door whisked open. Qoren was faced with a squad of stormtroopers and a security officer. Qoren stared at the officer. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

 

The door to the bridge opened. Commander Daala stood with her back to Silas, Don, and The Wanderer, arms folded behind her. She stood at military parade rest. Flanking her were two hulking warriors, faces obscured by giant helmets. They stood at attention with enormous vibroaxes.

Don whispered, “Imperial sentinels.”

As the group walked onto the bridge, they could see that New Order troopers lined the room, their silver armor shining in the artificial light. Having come just out of hyperspace, the transparisteel windows allowed a view of the New Order station directly ahead.

Daala turned to meet The Wanderer. “So, who are you?”

“I am Inquisitor Li of the Imperial Inquisitorium,” responded The Wanderer.

Silas rested his hand on his lightsaber.

A wall retracted into the ceiling to reveal a five meter wide viewscreen. A woman’s face encompassed the entire screen. She was laughing. “The charade has gone on long enough, impostors.”

The Wanderer jabbed a finger at the screen. “How dare you accuse a citizen of the Empire and a servant of the Emperor!”

“I know, because he is my master. I run the Inquisitorium.”

“Darth Opressa. What is a traitor like you doing here?” questioned Don.

“Master Don. I wouldn’t expect a fellow Jedi to fall in with such rabble. You wouldn’t happen to be those sandfleas the HoloNet calls the Foundation, would you?”

His lightsaber flying into his hand, Don resolved into a defense stance. The sound of readying blaster rifles echoed throughout the room.

Silas ignited his lightsaber and lunged at the closest New Order trooper. The trooper’s armor sparked and held up against the assault.

Flinging his purple inquisitor robe back, The Wanderer quick drew a blaster in his left hand and the crimson-bladed lightsaber into his right. He fired shots across the room the harass as many troopers as he could.

Don advanced on a trooper, deflecting blaster bolts as he went. He sliced down a trooper.

The Wanderer keyed his commlink. “We’re in combat!”

 

Qoren heard this and demanded of the officer, “Release these prisoners at once!”

Not budging, Qoren ran to the door to open it. He tried entering a variation of codes into the keypad but the door would not budge, even with his keycard. Qoren stalked towards the security officer’s console. Qoren touched the side of his nose. A jelly-like substance seemed to pull apart from his skin, leaving traces of red on his cheeks. His face now was no longer the dashing Imperial officer but instead a scarred visage. Defying the officer, Qoren pushed the button on the console to open the cell door.

Lance and Eli ran out. Qoren lashed at a stormtooper with teeth-razored fists. The white helmet cracked backwards. As the trooper’s rifle was falling to the steel floor, Eli tucked and rolled to it to come up firing. Lance’s arms bisected, his four hands reaching out and summoning sabers into his grasp. Qoren wove in and out of the melee as blue and green lightsabers divided the troopers. The combat ended quickly for this half of the Foundation.

 

Daala, seeing the lightsabers, leapt down onto a communications console and disappeared down a passageway. A hulking Sentinel covered her retreat. The Wanderer attempted to hold him at bay firing point blank into his stomach. The Wanderer held the tip of the lightsaber to cover his rear flank, fending off encroaching New Order troopers.

Silas and Don each smashed into troopers and Sentinels, trying to cause as much damage as they could. These were no Outer Rim troops; these Jedi-killers held their own. The Emperor had bred them to his liking. Don knew that the Republic would not had been victorious in the Clone Wars had Dooku engineered such terrors.

The muscles in Don’s throat constricted. The sound of rumbling air clouded his thoughts. He managed to look at the viewscreen. The Dark Lady manipulated the Force to crush his throat. Don called upon the Force and slashed at the viewscreen, sending sparks flying and breaking Darth Opressa’s connection.

As blaster bolts surrounded him, The Wanderer ducked and wove between the closest Sentinel’s axe-swings. The Imperial Sentinel was undaunted and continued his advance.

The Wanderer saw images of his farm on Dantooine. He saw the grain flowing in the breeze against a deep blue sky. The scene had an overexposed quality to it. As he looked around, the New Order was replaced by the dark man. This shadow had haunted every waking moment of The Wanderer’s existence for the past few years. The shadowy figure stood with his fists clenched. The Wanderer felt the ground rumble and had a difficult time standing. Sod burst towards the sky as a giant worm connected with the dark man, enveloping him. Blue shockwaves exploded from the site that used to be the worm and the shadowy figure. The Wanderer looked closer at his family’s speeder. Sitting in the driver’s seat was his brother. Next to him was his brother’s wife. Other family members were sitting and grinning in the back bed of the speeder. The Wanderer tried to wake from this dream but could not. He knew that these people had been tortured by Beel Acton. He had buried these people. How could they look so happy? The door to the speeder was open. As he sat down, The Wanderer could hear faintly on the audionet the strumming of a bass mando. The song that he had wrote about never leaving the Foundation was playing for everyone to hear.

“No!” screamed Don. An Imperial Sentinel, with its four meter reach, slashed into The Wanderer with an over-sized vibroaxe. The Force adept collapsed to the ground as his body became lighter.

Silas grunted as a blaster bolt grazed his arm. “We can’t take much more of this. We have to complete our mission. There’s no way Jedi recovering from the purge could withstand an army of these things.”

Silas and Don stood back to back, Don deflect and Silas slashing. Silas grimaced as more attacks connected. He was finding it more and more difficult to move.

Recalling lore of Jedis of old, Don flipped the switch to keep his lightsaber on even if he didn’t hold it. “Hold onto something,” he whispered. He flung the blade into the largest window, directing it with the Force. The vacuum of space grabbed the troopers and welcomed them into its cold embrace. The Star Destroyers safety features kicked in too late and created a sealing field around the hole. This allowed Don to lay in a course for the space station. He smashed the controls. If Qoren’s team had done their job, the Star Destroyer would act as a giant missile and destroy the training facility for the New Order troopers.

 

Qoren, Eli, and Lance made their way towards the hangar bay. They had smashed the auxiliary controls. No one would be able to adjust course now. This made it imperative to escape quickly. “I thought the Empire would have thrown more at us,” Lance quipped to the rest of his group. The door to the hangar bay opened. The sound of a squad’s worth of blaster rifles aiming greeted them. Too many New Order troopers were standing between Lance and his ship.

Lance yelled out, his face contorting and splitting. The hairs on Eli’s arm started to raise. He backed up.

Lightning shot out from Lance’s fingertips. He pushed more and more, a continuous flow of electricity scorching New Order troopers. Those that did not immolate on contact were too dazed and wounded to make chase. Lance boarded the ship, his eyes a yellow tinge.

 

Don helped Silas into the medical bay of the ship. He then lay down the now-cold body of The Wanderer. Silas had used some of his last remaining strength to hold the body in the Force so that it did not go out the window of the bridge. No Jedi deserved that anonymity in Silas’ book.

A comm frequency could be heard as the Foundation’s ship escaped the doomed Star Destroyer.

 

The Foundation had made it into hyperspace by the time the space station had stopped exploding.

 

Resting and meditating in the Force, Silas sensed that something was not quite right. He woke Don to investigate the cargo hold. The two drew their lightsabers as they entered the dark room. Silas ripped the lid of a larger crate off with an invisible hand.

Emerging quickly was a gray-green insectoid figure with two sonic emitters drawn. Unlike a blaster scorch, a sonic emitter ripped flesh off of a body. Both emitters were trained on Silas. The Gand demanded, “Where is the Dark Woman? Take me to her!”

Both lightsabers ignited.