After everyone had left and the Organa troops that Armond had volunteered to help guard the base had settled into their patrols and patterns, the Sith Hunter base was silent, calm even. I wandered the halls mostly, checking in on everything I could think of. My mind was full of thoughts, of Syn and our new daughter, of the implications of a New Empire, but mostly about how this would all turn out. My whole life until just before the war had picked back up, I'd had one goal, to find my father and get to know him. Then, when I'd managed that, I moved on to preparing to care for a strong, brave, and intelligent young boy who's father had met an unfortunate end as my own.
I chuckle as I think back on some of the memories I had with HJ and smile. That I wouldn't change any of for the world, except maybe give the lad back his dad.
The things we'd do for love... Raising HJ after the end of the war, that had been nice, no ambushes, external threats or anything of the sort had come out of the blue to try and send us all screaming into the afterlife. Sure, I had never really liked the crowd he and Hayden had picked to hang with, but Gavin, Cosen, hell, even Gendry, didn't seem like much more than your average kids with bad attitudes to match.
I stop outside the mess hall, watching several Organa soldiers joke around while enjoying a drink and smile wistfully. Alderaan in particular had enjoyed the peace that had come with the end of the Great War, with House Thul being forced to help repair the damage they had caused and House Ulgo shamed by the Usurper King's actions against House Panteer. They had taken time to heal from the loss of the queen and her son all those years ago, but they had come out stronger for it. Organa had done well for themselves as well, having spearheaded the charge to push the Empire off the planet and Thul down from their high horse.
"And now there's this," I say quietly as I turn to head towards the training room.
It had begun with Hayden acting out more, egged on by Gendry and encouraged by Cosen and Gavin. Cosen had briefly managed to drag HJ into it, but he figured out that everything was less than OK. Entering the room, I set the training bots for level 3 and draw my blasters and stand in the center, waiting for the countdown to resolve itself to begin. Gressh's return and reveal to be heading the Revolution hadn't been fantastic, but that had ended itself, after Hayden had first stripped Jaesa and then Marek of the Force respectively before and after supposedly killing Jorg Sucal and then joining the Revolution after the Republic turned on her. The first few droids came out of their charging decks, stun bolts flying and I dove to the left, returning fire and downing two of them.
With Gressh and Marek dead, we'd turned to Xanthippe Naberrie for help, but she'd had her own agenda, especially after finding out Sucal had used the Force to impregnate her handmaiden, a young girl who'd done nothing wrong, only gotten caught in the crossfire between two scheming Sith and a family who'd spent their lives fighting off the darkness in the galaxy and now just wanted peace in their lives in exchange. Another flurry and the last of the droids went down and I sighed, thinking about the others and their missions. Luci's getting taken by the Kiliks after a failed attempt to rescue Hayden from herself had been a double edged sword while it lasted, getting us the information we'd needed to find the Tempest Eye, but nearly at the expense of a dear friend. I made a mental note as I started picking the droids up and putting them back to consider tossing napalm on the next Kilik nest I saw, though there was a time and a place and soon wasn't either.
Heading out of the training room, I head for the hangar and the speeder bikes. I needed to talk with Iwan and Jude about something, and if they were alright with it, then I needed to speak with Korre as well. I couldn't shake this feeling that Jorg Sucal wasn't going to let us hide here so easily.
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