Visions of darkness (Jedi X Clones)

Chapter 30. - The enemy within

WORD COUNT: 10462

I couldn't sleep after we arrived at Ingenuity's main hangar, so I went to the main common area to try and meditate. It didn't help much. I was still tense when a small figures of master Windu and master Yoda popped up on the main comtable on the bridge a few hours later.

"How's the situation there, masters," I asked before they got a chance to divert the topic.

"The murderer of master Kenobi, arrested by Skywalker was," master Yoda said, his big black eyes measuring me, "His trial, he'll be waiting for in prison." I felt a big stone falling off of my shoulders. Anakin arrested the man, he didn't kill him. Which meant that he was able to see through his anger.

"You need to be heading towards your next mission immediately, knight Sharr," master Windu said, "What is the status of your ship, is it able to jump?" I shot a quick look towards admiral Preat, who was standing a few steps away, giving me privacy and now stepped forward.

"We are capable of jumping and have all the spare parts on board, but it's not certain that the jump won't fry the circuits again," he said, "The repairs are far from over."

"Nevertheless, you need to go, your padawan should be arriving at your station any minute," master Windu continued as if he didn't hear him,"We have received an urgent call for help from a Sanbra sector."

"Sanbra sector, master?" I asked, confused momentarily, "There's nothing interesting there." I felt Blitz, who was standing next to me, stiffen all over.

"Your troopers, familiar with the sector are," master Yoda nodded,"Under their previous general, relief several times they provided there."

Under their previous general. It would explain why the temperature in the bridge dropped several degrees the second the name of the sector was mentioned.

"Do we know why they need our help?" I asked.

"It was a planetary distress call from the system capital planet," master Windu didn't let on any emotions as always,"We have tried to contact them several times since, but nobody responded on their part."

A ship with Sui docked about ten minutes later and I sent my yawning padawan straight to her bed, just as we jumped into the hyperspace.

I myself wasn't able to sleep yet again, so I walked over the ship to check in with my troopers. They generally seemed to be happy to see me, but everything was shadowed by the nervous energy of being reminded of Krell once again. Nobody knew what we were supposed to expect on the planet either.

"The settlements there were rather small, general," Zany shrugged, when I asked him about their relief missions to the sector, "Nothing of particular interest, last time we were there they needed help after a hurricane season destroyed towns over the whole planet. Krell... general Krell wasn't very pleased about it, he wanted more action and this was too peaceful."

We jumped out of hyperspace a few hours later with a loud screeching sound that shook the whole ship.

"What was that?" I held onto the comtable before the tremors eased.

"The hyperdrive, general," Sunny who was at the analytics station again tapped a few keys, "I don't think we will be able to jump anywhere else any time soon, but otherwise the repairs are holding."

"Send a maintenance squad to start working on it immediately," Admiral Preat rubbed his forehead with one hand, "This ship can take a lot general, but at this pace, we're gonna end up with a pile of scrap metal soon."

"We're going to take the Javelin and the gunships to the planet," I nodded. I wasn't willing to risk that if the Ingenuity landed it might not be able to fly again.