Chapter 67: Echoes of the Past

Mira's P.O.V. :

[Flashback – At the Same Time as Jake’s Team]

By the time Jake, Davik, and Kado made their way toward the security office, Rina and I had already slipped into the station head’s office. The door creaked as it slid open, the durasteel frame groaning from age and disrepair. The room itself was a mess—scattered datapads, overturned chairs, and a thick layer of dust coating everything that hadn’t been disturbed in centuries.

Blasters drawn, we did a quick sweep. No movement. No immediate danger.

Rina holstered her weapon first, heading straight for the office’s main data terminal. “Let’s see what secrets you’ve been keeping,” she muttered, tapping at the screen.

I kept my guard up as she worked, occasionally glancing at the doorway. It wasn’t long before the screen flickered to life, and the terminal’s logs started pulling up archived records.

“Got something?” I asked.

Rina nodded. “History logs for the station. And… jackpot—station head’s personal journal.”

I moved to stand beside her, scanning the information as it scrolled by. The more we read, the more things started falling into place.

The station had started as a mining outpost—our first guess had been right—but that was just the beginning. When the Republic came under siege by the newly risen Sith Empire, the station was expanded into a hub base, a supply point, and, eventually, a testing ground. Experimental weapons were being developed here, and a Jedi Lord—who conveniently wasn’t named—had personally overseen the creation of a weapon designed to hunt Sith.

Rina and I exchanged a glance.

“That explains the giant droid,” I muttered.

Rina nodded grimly. “And the ones we haven’t seen yet.”

We continued digging, sending updates to Jake and the others as we found them. Meanwhile, we kept receiving messages from Jake’s team about their own progress—first about some security access, then something about an armory of all things, and finally, that they were looking for a control station to bring a massive machine down to ground level.

That last part had my attention.

A machine big enough that it had to be lowered?

I had a bad feeling about that.

By the time Rina finished making copies of the records, I straightened and stretched out my shoulders. “Alright, let’s go meet up with Jake and the others. They sent me the location we need to head to.”

Rina tucked away her datapad and gave me a nod. “Copy that.”

As we stepped out into the corridor, a thought hit me. “What’re the chances we’ll trip another alert like last time?”

Rina shrugged. “Depends. If Jake was successful in adding us into the station’s database as part of the staff, then the alarms shouldn’t go off at all. Unless, of course, Jake absent-mindedly added us as the lowest-level staff.”

I snorted. “Come on, he wouldn’t be absent-minded during all this.”

Rina turned to look at me like I had just made a joke.

I raised an eyebrow.

“Mira,” she said exasperatedly, “we are surrounded by ancient technology. Technology that he could pick up and bring home.”

I thought about that for a second. “Okay, yeah, fair. But I’m choosing to be optimistic.” I gave her a smirk. “Have some faith in Jake to know when to have his tech fugues.”

Rina just sighed.

A bit later into our walk toward the rendezvous point, we passed a door that made me slow down.

It screamed important compared from the others.

The frame was reinforced, the durasteel plating thicker. But the real kicker? The label above the door—faded, cracked, and barely readable through the dried blood smeared across it.

But even through the stains, the words were clear:

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

I felt my stomach do a flip, and specially that Rina is with me. I anticipate trouble ahead.

“So this is where they designed those Sith-hunter droids.”

Rina tilted her head, examining the door. Then she turned to me with a look I immediately didn’t like.

“We should take a look inside.”

I exhaled. “Rina—”

“Come on,” she said, crossing her arms. “The station head’s journal only gave us one account. But what if there’s more than what's recorded? Like other projects, other experiments—we might find something important.”

I hesitated.

I knew better than to let Rina convince me of things.

But kark it, she had a point.

I sighed, already regretting my decision. “Fine. But quickly.”

She grinned. “Quickly.”

I had a bad feeling about this.

And for good reason.

Because stepping into that room?

It was the beginning of a whole new problem.

--------------------

Stepping into the hallway leading to Research and Development, I immediately noticed the same eerie details that were present in the rest of the station—corpses, shattered droids, and the kind of destruction that made my gut twist.

Some bodies had long since decayed into husks, while others were just skeletal remains in old uniforms. The broken droids were scattered in unnatural positions, some slumped against walls, others missing limbs or heads entirely.

Not a simple battle then.

Too chaotic, A massacre perhaps? but some organic crew looks like they killed each other, so definitely not a droid vs organic kind of fight then.

We moved carefully, our boots crunching against loose debris and the occasional spent power cell. The dim emergency lighting flickered now and then, casting shifting shadows that made the place feel alive in the worst possible way.

After a few more minutes of creeping through the ruined corridor, we finally arrived at what looked like the entrance proper to Research and Development.

The passageway stood open.

I exchanged a glance with Rina. No slicing required, no heavy security still in place—just an open path leading inside.

"That’s not promising," I muttered.

"Depends," Rina replied. "Might mean everyone ran. Or something left."

I grimaced. "Yeah, because those are both great options."

Along the way, we passed by more rooms with doors left ajar—some forced open, others completely ripped from their frames. The ones that had been torn apart from the inside made me uneasy.

Doesn't look like an assault if the dents are going outward instead of in.

A breakout then.

I didn’t like the thought, but I kept it to myself. No sense in voicing things I’d rather not be true.

Rina, always one step ahead when it came to terminals, spotted a working one near the entrance.

“I’ve got something,” she said, already at work. The terminal flickered weakly, its screen still functional despite the station’s age. “Looks like security logs.”

I frowned. "You’re telling me the security feeds are accessible from a publicly usable terminal?"

Rina shook her head. "Limited access. Seems like these are just for this section of the station. Still, might tell us what went down here."

She worked her usual magic, navigating the system with practiced ease. After a moment, the screen loaded a list of archived security logs, each one marked with timestamps spanning decades.

She scrolled to the most recent entry.

“Well,” Rina said, finger hovering over the screen. “Let’s see what the last folks in here had to say.”

I exhaled and nodded. "Play it."

The terminal clicked, the screen flickered—

And the last security log began.

--------------------

The holorecorders were everywhere in Research and Development, covering almost every angle of the facility. If we wanted, we could spend hours sifting through the archives. I exhaled through my nose. Jake would be all over this.

Onscreen, the recording played out like a glimpse into the past. Organic crew members, dressed in uniforms that screamed ‘researcher,’ moved through the station’s halls, their expressions focused, some tired, others excited. Sentinel security droids patrolled at precise intervals, their glowing optics sweeping the corridors in rigid patterns.

Rina switched the view to different rooms, scanning through whatever projects these researchers had been working on before things went south. Most of what we saw was standard weapons testing—blasters, vibroweapons, a few experimental energy-based arms that looked fancy but weren’t anything special compared to what’s available today, let alone weapons upgraded by Jake.

Then, something caught my attention.

Among the weapons and scrap, a few skeletal frameworks of unfinished droids were scattered across workbenches.

I frowned. “Think those are more variants of the Sith-killers?”

“Not in the station head’s logs or personal journal,” Rina muttered, scrutinizing the designs. “Could be unfinished. Maybe even abandoned.”

I let out a breath. That’s a bit of good news, at least.

Rina switched to another view. The next room was larger, an open-floor workspace filled with researchers surrounding something in the center. At first, I just noted the size difference, but then my gaze locked onto the reason why.

Right there, in the middle of the room, was one of them.

The Force Null Sentinel Droid—the same model Jake and Rina had way too much to say about back on Malachor V. A Sith-killer, built specifically to neutralize Force-users.

I clenched my jaw.

Even knowing this was old footage, having proof that one of these was on this station made my gut twist.

I forced myself to focus. The giant droid was in bad shape, its body covered in deep, jagged gashes. Only its left arm remained, and even that looked half-missing. Researchers were prying open its chest plating, exposing damaged components underneath.

At least it’s wrecked. I filed that as another small relief.

Then I noticed something—something that didn’t match up with the reports we’d read earlier.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Rina.”

“Yeah, I see it,” she said, voice dropping slightly.

The reports mentioned that the droids were powered by Kyber crystals—all either blue or green. But the one we were looking at?

Red.

A deep, pulsing crimson glow sat at the center of its open chassis.

I didn’t know much about Kyber, but even I could tell that was different.

“Think the color means something?” I asked.

Rina exhaled. “If we’re lucky, it’s just aesthetic.”

If we’re lucky.

We kept watching, piecing together the scene as the researchers continued their work. These weren’t repairing the droid—they were instead studying it, analyzing its data, dissecting its programming.

And then the head researcher spoke.

The audio log crackled through the speakers, his voice carrying the clinical detachment of someone who’d seen too much go wrong but still needed to record the facts.

“The Force Null Sentinel Droids have proven highly effective in eliminating Sith targets. However, despite their success, Jedi observers report a concerning flaw in their engagements. Lower-ranking Sith—acolytes, apprentices, troopers—fall swiftly. But true Sith Lords according to the Master Jedi, those with the title of ‘Darth,’ have managed to destroy these droids, relying on excessive use of telekinetic abilities but luckily not easily. The Force Null armor reduces effectiveness of energy-based attacks most of the time even render them moot, including Sith Lightning, but the resistance is not absolute.”

Rina and I exchanged glances. That tracked with what we’d already seen in the logs. The Sith Lords had still been able to wipe some of these things out. It just wasn’t easy but they still were able to.

And then the researcher continued.

“This unit, currently under inspection, is a unique case. Unlike the others, it did not fall in battle against a Sith, if only that was what made it unique. Instead, it... was changed. Witness reports confirm that during its last engagement, it and a sister unit were battling a Sith Lord. The Sith’s acolytes and troopers had already being eliminated by other Force Null Sentinel units alongside Republic Troops and a Jedi Knight, and the droids had begun successfully weakening their primary target. At this stage, the Sith abandoned direct attacks after seeing how ineffective they were, opting for full reliance on telekinesis, as their lightsaber and lightning proved inefficient.”

I leaned in, listening closely.

“The droids prevailed. The Sith Lord was eliminated.”

There was a pause, Rina and I unconsciously swallowed, invested in the audio report.

Then the researcher’s tone shifted, taking on a note of something close to hesitation.

“However… something occurred in the Sith’s final moments. Witness accounts indicate that the Sith Lord did something before dying—details remain unclear, but the immediate result was undeniable. Both Force Null Sentinels involved in the battle immediately went rogue.”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

“The rogue units turned on their own, eliminating their sister models first. The surviving Force Null droids were caught completely off guard, unprepared for sudden hostility from their own kind.”

My grip tightened on my arms as I listened.

“By the time organic forces—both Republic soldiers and the Jedi Knight present—realized what was happening, the rogue droids had already wiped out their entire squadron of fellow Sentinels. The remaining soldiers and Jedi were forced to defend themselves against both the rogue droids and the remnants of the Sith forces simultaneously. Reports confirm heavy losses. Sixty three percent casualty rate. Among the dead, the Jedi Knight, who managed to aid in the destruction of one rogue unit before succumbing to their wounds. The second rogue unit was critically damaged but continued to resist but was eventually defeated.”

There was a crackle of static. The researcher’s voice returned, this time clipped, hurried.

“We do not yet understand what happened. The Sith Lord’s actions prior to death remain a mystery, but the effects were catastrophic. This unit—the only remaining Force Null Sentinel Droid retrieved from the battlefield—is being analyzed in an attempt to determine the cause of its corruption.”

The audio cut.

Rina and I sat in silence.

I exhaled slowly. “That’s not good.”

“Yeah,” Rina muttered. “Not good at all.”

I stared at the screen, gaze flicking back to the damaged droid in the recording.

It went rogue.

It turned on everything.

And now, its wrecked body was sitting somewhere in this station.

Waiting.

I clenched my jaw.

I really, really hope it stayed broken.