Chapter 77: The Long Way Back

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all of it's Intellectual Properties is owned by George Lucas and Walt Disney, This fictional work and all of it's original characters are however mine.

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Tarek's P.O.V. :

We were currently burning through hyperspace, streaks of blue swirling past the viewport as we made our way back to the research station—our base, as everyone was calling it now. A base of our own, like a proper operation. If you asked me, that was pretty kriffing cool. Sure, it was an abandoned research station with a whole mess of history we still didn’t fully understand, but it was ours. We had a home beyond the Stellar Envoy, and that meant something - UNIFORMS!!!!

Kado and Mira had been running around gathering intel for the past week, and from what little they’d let slip, it had been a strange mix of confusing, frustrating, and apparently useful. What that actually meant, I don't have a clue. Because every time Shmi or I tried to press them on the details, they shut us down, insisting that whatever they found needed to be shared in person with the whole group.

I’d suggested we just comm the others instead of making a whole show out of it, but that idea was immediately shot down.

“Face-to-face only,” Mira had insisted. “Some things don’t belong on an open frequency, encrypted or not.”

Shmi and I exchanged looks more than once, wondering if we should be worried with all this secrecy, Anakin is busy playing with Zero - I'm kind of envious of Anakin's no stress days. It wasn’t like them to be cagey unless something was actually serious. When we asked outright if we needed to be concerned, Kado had just given a casual shrug.

“Relax. If it was urgent, you’d know. It’s concerning, yeah, but not immediate. We’ve got the time to figure things out.”

Somehow, that wasn’t as reassuring as he probably meant it to be.

Even with Kado’s assurance, we weren’t about to be careless. The others had me plot a complicated course back—several jumps, randomized locations, all meant to shake off any potential tails, real or imaginary. I didn’t mind; it was solid strategy, even if it meant an extra few hours of piloting. For every exit from hyperspace, every re-entry, Nick-03 was running full sensor sweeps, checking for any blips that looked out of place or anything suspicious. And so far, there's nothing. No pursuit, no lurking ships, no unwelcome surprises - which is actually normal, the complicated flight patterns however is what concerns me.

“Still clear,” Nick-03’s voice crackled through the cockpit speakers after our latest exit from hyperspace. “No anomalies detected.”

“That makes six jumps now,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair as I glanced at the navicomputer. “If anyone was tailing us, they would’ve had to be the most patient and paranoid sleemos in the galaxy to still be hiding.”

“Which means we can finally head home,” Shmi said from her seat, relief evident in her voice.

“Correction,” Nick-03 chimed in from the co-pilot’s position. “We can finally head home.”

“Finally,” I agreed, setting in the last jump coordinates for the research station. “Nick, one more scan when we drop out, then we head in.”

“Understood.”

The moment we reverted to realspace, the research station came into view—silent, dark against the stars, its skeletal frame still giving off an eerie presence despite the fact that it was now fully under our control. We still hadn’t named the place, which was something we really needed to get around to. It felt weird just calling it the station when it was going to be our base.

“All clear,” Nick-03 confirmed once again. “No signs of pursuit or surveillance.”

“Then let’s get this over with,” I said, guiding the Stellar Envoy toward the docking bay. Whatever Kado and Mira had to share, we were finally about to find out.

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The moment our comms connected to the station, Davik’s voice crackled through the speaker.

“About time,” he said. “You all take the scenic route or what?”

“We took the ‘paranoid and making sure no one’s on our tail’ route,” I shot back, flipping a few switches as I prepared for docking.

Before Davik could reply, a much younger voice piped up in excitement.

“That was fun!” Anakin’s enthusiasm was unmistakable. “You guys were jumping all over the place! Was that so you could practice flying?”

I smirked, shaking my head. Kid probably thought all those random hyperspace jumps were for the thrill of it. “Something like that, yeah.” No need to dampen his enthusiasm with the reality of it being more of a security measure than a joyride.

We made some small talk as I guided the Stellar Envoy closer. Davik asked how things went on our end, so I gave him a quick rundown of the past week. “Kado had me running around with him on one of his errands. Wasn’t too bad. A little lesson in navigating the battlefields of business and negotiation. It’s got the same appeal as dodging debris fields at high speed—just, you know, fewer explosions.”

“And fewer chances of getting shot,” Shmi added dryly.

“That too,” I admitted. “But hey, it was a learning experience.”

After that, Kado and Mira had gone full throttle on their information hunt, which wasn’t turning up much at first. That’s when they pulled Shmi and me into the mix, having us use the ship’s systems to cross-check bounties and reports. “Still,” I continued, “Kado won’t share the full picture till we’re all in the same room.”

There was a pause before Davik spoke again. “So let me get this straight… You two spent a week gathering intel, refused to share it over comms, made us wait until you got back, and now we gotta sit through a meeting to hear it?”

“Pretty much,” I confirmed. “Kado insisted.”

Davik let out an exaggerated sigh. “Should I be prepping for a fight, then? I swear, if this is some ‘we pissed off the wrong people’ situation, I’d rather know now.”

“Relax,” I assured him. “Kado said it’s concerning, not urgent. Nothing that requires battle stations just yet.”

“Yet,” Davik repeated. “That’s not exactly comforting, you know.”

Shmi cut in before the conversation could spiral further. “What about you guys? How was life on the station without us?”

“Oh, you know,” Davik said, his tone deliberately vague. “Nothing too wild. But maybe save the chit-chat till after you’re not actively flying straight into the docking bay?”

I blinked, realizing just how close we were to docking. Focused as I was on the conversation, I hadn’t noticed how much time had passed. With an easy grin, I toggled a switch and adjusted our approach. “Fine, fine. But this conversation’s just on hold, not over.”

Shmi chuckled. “Agreed.”

Davik didn’t respond right away, but I could practically hear the smirk in his voice when he said, “Don’t scratch the paint, flyboy.”

Rolling my eyes, I guided the Stellar Envoy toward the station’s docking clamps. Whatever Davik and the others had been up to while we were gone, we were about to find out.

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Regardless of Davik’s smart-mouth comment about me scratching up the Stellar Envoy, I still landed the ship with the kind of precision that would make even a Coruscant docking officer jealous. Smooth as durasilk. Not a single rattle, no sudden lurches—hells, I was willing to bet my passengers didn’t even notice the moment we touched down.

I powered down the thrusters, satisfied with my work. That should show Davik.

The moment the landing gear locked in place and the all-clear signal flicked on, the others wasted no time getting off the ship. Kado and Mira were the first down the ramp, Shmi following close behind while Davik waited at the bottom of the recenty opened ramp, arms crossed like he’d been expecting some kind of catastrophe to unfold the second we landed. He gave me a look, but I just smirked and sent him a lazy two-fingered salute from the cockpit.

I still had a few system checks to run before I could leave, so I stayed put, flicking through diagnostics while the others made their way deeper into the station. I glanced toward the hangar entrance when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

Jake had arrived. And, of course, he wasn’t alone.

Ten of the same bulky sentinel droids that he’d been tinkering with the last time we were here followed behind him in a neat formation, their servo motors whirring quietly as they marched. It didn’t take a genius to guess why they were here—Jake had probably decided to repurpose them as temporary worker droids. Given that we were still setting up shop on this station, that actually wasn’t a bad idea.

I tapped the cockpit speakers. “Nice of you to bring your army, Jake. We expecting trouble or are they just here to carry our luggage?”

Jake looked up, distracted from greeting the others who’d just disembarked. He gave a quick wave in my direction before turning back to his droids. As expected, the sentinels were already boarding the Stellar Envoy and hauling the cargo down the ramp, moving with mechanical efficiency. I went back to checking the ship's systems, I was uninterrupted for a few minutes.

That was when I felt it—a sudden tap on my shoulder.

I jumped, twisting in my seat so fast I nearly clocked my knee on the control panel.

Laughter rang out from behind me.

Jake.

“Kriffing hell, Jake,” I grumbled, running a hand through my hair. “A little warning next time?”

Jake just grinned, clearly enjoying himself. “What’s the matter? You looked real focused in there. Thought I’d check if you were still alive.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Hilarious.”

Still chuckling, Jake leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “So? How was the trip? Run into any trouble?” His tone was casual, but there was an edge of curiosity behind it—like he was already expecting me to say we’d gotten into some sort of firefight.

I snorted. “You’re not gonna believe this, but no. No firefights, no shootouts, no bounty hunters popping out of nowhere. Just a lot of hyperspace jumps and Kado being cryptic.”

Jake’s grin faltered. He blinked, looking genuinely gobsmacked.

“No firefight?” he repeated.

“No firefight,” I confirmed.

Jake stared at me like I’d just told him blasters stopped working. “Huh,” he muttered, looking vaguely troubled. “Maybe I really am the trouble magnet…”

That was… a concerning reaction. So, naturally, I changed the subject.

“How about you guys?” I asked. “How was the week here without us?”

That was apparently the perfect way to get Jake talking, because next thing I knew, he was off being a chatterbox.

“Well,” he started, “I spent most of the time working out the kinks in the sentinel droids' command structure. You remember last time, when I tried linking their processors together and, uh… forgot to add limiters and a proper win condition during the combat trials?”

I groaned. “Oh, you mean when you basically let them beat the scrap out of each other with no off-switch? Yeah. Vaguely.”

“Right,” Jake continued, completely unbothered. “Fixed that. The ‘soldier and commander network system’ I designed is a lot more stable now. Instead of each droid running purely on individual programming, they operate under a hierarchy—like a command structure. Subsystems control communication and coordination through what I call a ‘hive-link.’”

I nodded like I understood, but in all honesty most of that went right over my head. Something about networks, command structures is not really my thing… I was good at flying, not slicing and programming droid brains.

Jake was still talking or is it considered monologuing.

I subtly glanced at Nick-03, hoping the droid might bail me out. But no, Nick-03 looked way too interested—like it was genuinely enjoying the explanation. Oh great. The traitor.

Alright, time for Plan B.

“So,” I interrupted smoothly, “how’s Rina been?”

That did the trick. Jake’s entire train of thought immediately switched tracks.

“She’s been busy, and the quiet was quite welcome” he said, shifting gears without missing a beat. “She updated the station’s data security, she also ran sweeps for any hidden viruses or buried intel. She's also been helping me map out the station’s existing defense grid.”

That caught my attention. “Wait, existing defenses? I thought this place was a sitting duck when we found it.”

Jake smirked. “Oh no. This station was definitely not defenseless. The only reason we strolled in here without getting vaped was because the entire system was offline when we found it. Turns out, there are turbolaser emplacements all over the station. That’s why there are so many derelicts floating around out there—looks like a bunch of ships tried to get in the hard way.”

Well. That was a little bit mighty unsettling.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “We’ve been sitting on a fully armed station this whole time and didn’t even know it?”

“Pretty much,” Jake confirmed.

I let out a low whistle. “Stars.”

Jake grinned. “Lucky us, huh?”

I wasn’t sure I’d call it luck. But it was definitely something we needed to talk about with the others.

For now, though, I still had ship checks to finish. And with Jake now preoccupied with explaining something to Nick-03, I finally had a chance to get back to work.