My Unfortunate Fate

chapter 37

The truth can be easy to conceal, but extremely difficult to forget.

Upon our return from the planet Dathomir, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka and I are sent out into the Crelythiumn system, beyond the far reaches of the Outer Rim, to investigate a distress call. The Jedi Council can't figure out where it came from or who sent the distress call, so, natually, they sent us to find out.

Our cruiser—no longer the Resolute, as it got blown up during one of our last battles—has been waiting for us at our arranged coordinates, since it's supected this might be another Separatist trick. I won't ignore the suspicion, it's quite valid, actually. The Separatists have gone far in terms of tricks, and I don't doubt this could be one.

When we emerge from hyperspace at the given coordinates, we're faced with something unexpected. Empty space. All I can see is a blanket of darkness, dotted with the bright light from faraway stars, but no Jedi cruiser. Maybe they're late.

"Rex. Rex, do you read me?" Anakin frantically contacts the cruiser. Rex, appearing to us as a hologram, nods. "We're at the rendezvous point awaiting your arrival. Where are you?"

"Sir, we are at the rendezvous point," Rex says, "there's no sign of you on our scanners." Wait, what? We're right here, and there's nothing.

"Oh, come on," Anakin complains, leaning forward in his seat. "That's impossible."

Perhaps it's only a miscalculation of their coordinates or a malfunction on the part of their scanners. That's what the logical part of my brain thinks. But it is impossible that they could be at the same place as us, yet be nowhere in sight.

My stomach starts churning. There's something extremely wrong here, and it makes no sense. I don't even know what the problem is, none of us do. And if the current situation isn't bad enough, I know it's about to get a whole lot worse.

"Something's wrong," Anakin shrugs, turning to me in the co-pilot seat. "We're at the exact coordinates where the distress signal originated, but there's nothing here. Rex is at the exact same coordinates, and he's not here." Way to point out the obvious. Of course there's something wrong.

"This is getting interesting," Obi-Wan says. Interesting isn't the word I would use, but I guess it does suit the situation.

"Un—ble to find you. Where are you, sir?" Rex asks as the cruiser's transmission flickers in and out. The signal must be weak, but how? Why? We're in the same place, and they aren't here? What's going on?

"Something's blocking the signal," Ahsoka says. That must be it. What if it's a Separatist trap after all? They wouldn't want us contacting anyone. Maybe we got the coordinates set wrong.

Suddenly, the shuttle's power goes down and all the lights turn off. Well, kriff. That's not very encouraging on our current situation, and now all four of us are panicking.

"I've got a feeling we're going to figure out who, or what, is doing this pretty soon," I say, trying to get the ship up and running again. It's no use. Nothing's working.

"Everything's dead, even the life support," Ahsoka informs us.

"Hmm, this is really strange," Anakin remarks, and the ship mysteriously powers up again. There must've been something else influencing our shuttle. A whole ship doesn't just shut down out of thin air...right?

"There. See? Nothing to be concerned about at all," Obi-Wan says in an attempt to calm us down. I would try to calm down, but everything points to us being in trouble.

"Then what's that?" Ahsoka points to the viewport in front of us.

Master Kenobi leans over my seat as she stands in the aisle of the cockpit, trying to figure out what's materializing before our eyes. A large diamond-shaped structure appears in the space in front of our ship, and it pulls us in like a tractor beam, rendering any attempt to control our trajectory useless. The lights inside the cockpit flicker on and off constantly.