A long hesitation. "Flying into the rings is madness, Captain."
"Yes. It seems to be going around. Just do it."
Jaden thumped Khedryn on the shoulder. "I appreciate the trust."
Relin said, "You said you have no weapons, but what do you have?"
"Nothing. A tractor beam mount on the rear. We use it for towing derelicts."
"Take me to it."
"What do you have in mind?" Jaden asked him.
"Perhaps nothing. But perhaps something. Jaden… Harbinger's captain and I have a personal connection. The fighters will follow you into the rings."
"Understood."
"Nearing the rings," Marr said. "The fighters are fast, Captain."
"They're kriffin' antiques! How can they be fast?"
"Antiques? I don't under-"
"Never mind, Marr. Jaden is on his way up."
Jaden thumped Khedryn on the shoulder again. "I'll be sure to get a piece of Marr's chewstim."
"Get two."
The Blades poured out of Harbinger's belly and swooped into view on the viewscreen, streaking toward the Jedi ship. The ship turned, its engines flared blue, and it accelerated toward the gas giant's rings.
"Where is he running to? The rings?" Llerd asked. "There's not much room to fly in there."
Saes watched the Blades bear down on the ship. "If he goes into the rings, order the Blades to pursue. I want that ship destroyed. He will try to jump if we allow him to clear the planet's gravity well. The Blades are not to allow that."
Llerd did not hesitate. "Yes, sir."
Saes turned to 8L6, the replacement science droid. "I want a course back to Primus Goluud as soon as possible. And I want a subspace transmission on the ship-to-ship frequency. See if you can raise Omen."
He doubted he was anywhere near Omen, but he needed to confirm.
"Captain, I am getting very odd readings," said 8L6.
Saes leaned forward in his chair. "Specify."
"Astronavigation is unconnected to Harbinger's base chrono."
The words pulled Saes away from his chair to 8L6's side. He made sure Llerd was occupied before continuing the conversation. "How can that be?"
"Unknown, but standard astronavigational markers are not where they should be given the time."
Saes studied the readings for himself. Everything was out of place. "Something fouled the ship's chrono. Double-check it."
"I ran several diagnostics before bringing this to your attention. The chrono is functioning correctly."
A nervous tingle moved up Saes's spine. "Then you have mislocated us in space. Astronavigation was damaged."
"I have located our new position with ninety-nine point nine nine percent confidence. I know where we are."
The implication of the words hung in the space between them, unmarked on 8L6's expressionless face. Saes's yellow eyes reflected off the droid's surface, stared back at him.
Saes spoke in a low tone and asked the question, though he already knew the answer. "What are you saying, Elsix?"
The droid, too, spoke in a quiet tone. "I am saying that given our position, my long-range astronavigation scans strongly suggest that significant time has passed since we entered hyperspace."
Saes glanced around to ensure that no one was listening. "How significant?"
"More than five thousand years."
The words settled like weights on Saes's mind, heavy with meaning. He put a hand on a nearby chair and locked his knees. The tingle creeping up his spine spread to his entire body. His legs felt weak under him but the chair kept him up. He turned and stared at the viewscreen, at the stars that looked the same to him as those he had left behind but were five millennia out of position.
"How?" he said.
"The most likely explanation is that the misjump resulted in Harbinger's never quite entering hyperspace. We had a hyperspace tunnel in front of us but never entered it. Instead, the ship accelerated to near lightspeed only. For us, only a short time passed. For the rest of the galaxy, five thousand years passed."
Five thousand years.
Thoughts bounced around in his mind, unconnected, inchoate. His mind felt unmoored.
Five thousand years.
He struggled to focus, to analyze the situation, but he knew nothing. He had no information with which to perform an analysis. He had no knowledge of the state of the galaxy. What of the Sith Empire? The war with the Jedi? His homeworld?
It occurred to him that he and his crew were artifacts, living fossils heaved from the strata of a misjump.
"Anything could have happened in five thousand years."
The droid said nothing, merely cocked its head as if intrigued by Saes's reaction.
Saes's connection to the Force began to ground him. Five thousand years had passed, but the Force remained constant. He fought down the panic.
"Say nothing of this to anyone," he said to 8L6. "I must think."
The droid nodded, its servos whirring, and turned back to its station.
"Blades are entering the rings in pursuit," Llerd said, the eagerness in his voice betraying a desire to see something die.
Saes realized that Relin would be as lost as he, two men of purpose suddenly left purposeless. Neither had an Order to which to report. The Battle of Kirrek was long over. Yet it suddenly seemed more important than ever that he kill Relin.
In the need for that act he found his purpose.
Meanwhile, he had a damaged but functioning dreadnought, a hold filled with Lignan, and a full crew of soldiers. He had little doubt he could make his presence felt. Once he understood the state of the galaxy, he could make contact with the current Sith Order, if it existed. He could use the Lignan as a way either to secure a place in the hierarchy or seize control of the Sith himself.
And if an Order no longer existed, he would remake it.
Finding his mental footing, he said to Llerd, "Do not monitor or scan local subspace channels. Understood?"
Llerd looked puzzled but acknowledged the order.
Saes did not want local comm chatter, should there be any, to prematurely indicate to the crew what had happened to Harbinger.
He turned his eyes back to the viewscreen, watching his Blades hunt his former Master through a storm of stone and ice.
He wondered, in passing, who else was aboard the ship with which Relin had docked. Not other Jedi, surely.
Kell had watched, his spirit aflame, as the damaged cruiser streaked out of the darkness toward Junker, as fighters of a kind Kell had never before seen launched from the belly of the cruiser and pursued Junker into the thick bands of rock and ice that caged the blue gas giant.
"Lines intersect and grow tangled here," he said. His heart was racing.
He needed only to unknot them and revelation awaited. This he knew. And he knew Jaden Korr to be the key.
He used a nose cam to take pictures of Junker, of the cruiser, of the fighters, and stored them in a holocrystal. He watched Junker dart toward the rings, watched the sleek fighters follow. He did not fear that Jaden would die in the rings. Jaden's destiny was to die while Kell fed on his soup.
He scanned all frequencies until he picked up the signal from the moon that had started it all, the signal that would, in the end, summon Kell to the altar of understanding.
He amplified it, let the heartbeat of its repeating cadence fill the cockpit. Having performed services for the Empire decades earlier, he recognized the signal as Imperial in origin. Predator possessed an advanced decryption package, and Kell loosed it upon the message. In moments he had it decrypted.
"Extreme danger," said a female voice. "Do not approach. Extreme danger. Do not approach."