Chapter 2
Zyjin Onmikhan, Age 19, born on planet Hahka of the Hahkas
system.
1.76 meters tall, dark hair with green eyes.
Not discovered by the Jedi order until he was five years
old.
Jedi Ranking: Apprentice, senior
Zyjin was the oldest children ever accepted in to Jedi
Training prior to the discovery of Anakin Skywalker. Discovered by Mace Windu
when he was five. An important factor of his acceptance was his unusual high
levels of midi-chlorian count, one that report to have been rivalling Master
Yoda. The reason for Zyjin’s force sensibility remain a mystery, since his
parents were normal Hahkasians and Zyjin was conceived and born on a research
ship operated by the family. Like Anakin Skywalker, and before Anakin’s
arrival, Zyjin was seen by some senior Jedi council member as the one…
General Grievous, the supreme commander of the CIS force is
looking into the information given to him by Count Dooku.
Grievous was not happy with what Zyjin and three other Jedis
has just pulled off. The destruction of two of the gigantic carrier ships has
forced Grievous to delay an entire campaign.
Grievous also has the data of the three other Jedi on his
datapad.
Skywalker and Kenobi!
Them again!
These two has been giving him a lot of trouble ever since
the first weeks of the War. Intelligent has shown the duo has put down entire
army group of droids each, so far.
What about the other two? He did not pay much attention once
he has his focus on Skywalker and Kenobi. Had Grievous gave the patient to read
a little further, he would learn the other duo may have been responsible for levelling
three droid foundries and five supply depots, taking out four dozen droid
transporter ships, disabling a ship yard. Effectively this duo eliminated
another army group even before any of those CIS weapons fire a single shot in
battle.
In reality Grievous wouldn’t careless even if he knew how
much damage Onmikhan and his master has caused. Grievous brought up his war
statistics summary. One third of his a billion droids are on the reserve list.
Grievous still has with him a gigantic force. The problem he was facing is to
recruit more flesh and blood commanders with a better brain to give orders to
the automatic droids and vessels. The talent at his disposal was really thin
and limited. A large number of them made vital mistakes he would never dream of
making himself far too often. As a result, more CIS commanders die by his hands
instead of to the guns of the Republic.
He was concerned there was a leak in his logistics
department, some sort of mole, feeding information to the Jedi, caused him one
cruiser, two gigantic freighters and over one million droids.
He needs to find a way to flush out the dirt one way or
another.
Grievous reach out with his mechanical arm and punched a few
bottoms quickly.
A separate hologram popped up next to his statistics
display. On the hologram was a Geonosian.
As soon as the Geonosian saw Grievous, he began to speak his
native tone. Fortunately for Grievous, his droid alternations allow him to
immediately translate what he was speaking.
‘Greetings General Grievous, how may I be at your services?’
‘We need to resupply the tenth fleet under command of
General Zoovhoco, immediately. Can you arrange a shipment of one million droids
for him?’
‘Certainly sir! It will be done in two days time. I believe
Zoovhoco is fighting on Hector system in the Drekano sector? Shall I contact
him?’
‘No! Don’t worry about that, I will inform him personally,
you simply send me the confirmation and shipping details when the droids are
ready! Grievous out!’
Grievous then punched more buttons, another hologram
appeared. This one was a deceptive looking creature with a duck beak and an
angular forehead.
‘Ah...General Grievous! Here to check on progress? I was
reporting to the Count just five minutes ago. In short, evacuation is going
smoothly! My troops are fighting back, the Jedi are in retreat. I believe they
are sending general Kenobi and that Skywalker boy to deal with me in the coming
days. I will greet them well.’
This Zoovhoco appear to be a no nonsense guy, straight to
the point and does not fear Grievous as he reports directly to Count Dooku.
‘I am issuing a direct order for you to send part of your
fleet to this rendezvous point, on this date. It does not have to be a large
force, but I need your most experienced men there. You know what I am talking
about! This is a top secret operation, I have special orders from the Count to
use any force at my disposal. Good luck General!’
Grievous keyed in the terminate button also beamed the
necessary data to him.
Zoovohoco has been whispered as a possible replacement for
Grievous if anything unfortunate happen to the droid general. Such whisper
rarely escape Grievous’ sensitive hearing aid, therefore any chance to sideline
or have any thing unfortunate happen to Zoovohoco was always one of his agenda.
What better chance for him, this time around? Kenobi and Skywalker
is going to deal with Zoovohoco, when he has the rights to drive Zoovohoco’s
best man: his elite all-rounder assault guard group away from him!
* * *
Zyjin Omnikhan was looking at the milky way of stars filled
his forward cockpit view screen. He knew he was looking at one of the Galaxy’s
spiral arm. As he was looking at it, a million stars are looking back at him.
He knew he was looking back at the past, as the light travelled to his eyes has
left those stars tens of thousands of years ago.
Being an apprentice under the famous Master Toorani, the Jedi
star fighter designer, he was allow to expand his hobby in technical
development under much better guidance than Skywalker, whom was left unchecked
on that front all by himself.
Omnikhan had a concept of building a special telescope that
was powerful enough to capture light emitted from a distant planet that allow
him to see the past as if it was happening before his eyes. He knew this is
possible, thanks to hyperspace travel that connect the whole galaxy instantly.
In theory, if a fleet of ships was mysteriously destroyed in
one star system, this device would allow him to see what happen in the near-by
system a few months of years after. It may not be useful for solving trouble
that has to be solved right away, but it would ultimately unveil long unsolved
mysteries as if they were old video recordings.
The biggest mystery he wanted to unveil was what happened to
his parents on that fatal trip that left him an orphan. He was not force
sensitive before that incident and he was now using the force as he if force
was part of him since he was born. Some of the Jedi explained this as the will
of the force, more would have agreed with them with the discovery of Anakin
Skywalker. Skywalker was given birth by the force. If that has happened, so
would the force decided to appear strong in a boy at its wish.
Omnikhan, less committed to the religion of the force like
other Jedi of his age, partly perhaps because he was a lot older when he was
dragged into the order, partly perhaps his parents were intergalactic
archaeologies whom believe more on explaining mysterious with facts, and partly
thanks to Omnikhan’s current Master, Toorani, an engineer and a Jedi master,
always reluctant to use his gift with the force, as if it was only the last
reserved on solution to his problems.
Omnikhan somehow modelled his way of thinking with Toorani,
therefore there would always be an explanation that may not necessary involve
the force as something all mighty. To him it is always possible, someone from
the past has invented something, a device or a method, that is capable of
implanting the force at a extremely strong concentrate into an living entity.
Simply, boost someone not remotely gifted with force to someone with force
power potential rivals Master Yoda. Although no evidence of such method or
device was discovered, it remained a possibility.
There may be clues if Zyjin can construct that light capture
scope that is powerful enough to let him watch what happened on that bright fiery
red planet on that very fatal day.
It was always easy to be carried away by thoughts when Zyjin
was looking at the milky way. He did not notice the line of text displayed on
his secondary view screen until R3-R8, his astro droid beeped a string of
signals to wake him up.
‘Ops!’ Zyjin woke up from his day dream. He saw the line of
text. It was a code, encrypted with strange encryption only the special decoder
in procession by Toorani would read.
The mission lead to this decoder was Zyjin’s first mission
as special agent assisting Toorani. They were dispatched with a team of elite
clone commandos to a low gravity planet in Xencyp system. The Geonosians has
built a droid foundry there building super battle droids and spider droids. The
operation was a success and the Geonosians was defeated. Then, in the
communications room, Zyjin found the decoder device and a star coordinate
written on a piece of paper on the middle of the empty floor, on top of a pile
of bombs counting down to blow. It took short work for Zyjin to disarm the bomb
and retrieved the items. Yet the way it was arranged, it was clearly asking to
be discovered.
The coordinates brought Zyjin and his master to a system
where its local star has turned into a red giant. The last planet was a huge
gas giant with a massive and beautiful ring. The magnetic field and gas around
the planet filtered out the space radiation allow anyone station on the orbit
of the rings to have a crystal clear view to the millions of stars of the
galaxy.
The system was used to be a busy transport hub before the
sun changed its condition suddenly and violently, there were still a lot of
junks floating around. Among them was an old hyperwave transceiver (hyperspace
communication) beacon*, once used by the banking clan. It was configured to
repeat a recorded message with optical reading only. This message would be
deleted by the beacon a few hours after it was received, erasing all traces.
Therefore if the intended readers missed it, they will miss it forever.
For the past five months, they have been getting highly
valuable locations and activity reports of the CIS from this mysterious
channel. It was working for Toorani’s ever since they confirmed secret location
of a droid cargo container rally point. Their latest success was the location
of those two gigantic droid ships.
Since this source was being treated as safe and solid, Zyjin
was dispatched to retreat the latest data alone. Without his master around him,
Zyjin’s mind began to pounder, sparkles of curiosity exploded. He wanted to
trace the source of signal! Something he would have done in day one, if it
wasn’t his master always at his back. Zyjin however, knew it would be risky
business. Doing so would made the beacon to self destruct and worst it would
turn into the worst of both worlds as he may expose the informant from the CIS
to everybody, friend or foe and get he or she killed.
Yet, it is too tempting not to risk it since Zyjin studied
the design of the model of the beacon knowing there is little room to plant
bombs of any sort into the aged device.
‘All right! R8, you got the whole message?’
The astro droid beep in confirmation.
‘Good! I want you to help me with something. I see an access
port at the beacon. I want you to see how much you can read from it.’
The droid replied: ‘I do not recommend this action. Master
may not permit.’
‘I just want to peek. I don’t even need you to fly over
there R8 by your own thrusters. I will help you.’
Before the little droid can object or agree. Zyjin detached
R8’s coupling with the fighter then reach out with the force. The droid was
lifted from its socket and gently moved by the force to the beacon.
‘I hope I got you to the right spot R8!’
The droid stopped right in front of access port. All it
required for R8 is to extend its computer reading arm and jack into it.
The droid did so with ease. After a while it spin its dome
head toward it rear, signalled Zyjin to pull him back to his socket.
R8 made a copy of the configuration of that beacon.
It confirmed the theory Zyjin and Toorani agreed upon, this
beacon was indeed part of the network used by the banking clan. The Banking
Clan** have their own secured network, the biggest after the republic
holonet*** and republic’s official diplomatic and military network. It was a
lot bigger than the network used by the Jedi. It was the most secure compare to
the rest. This beacon was the legacy of the days where the banking clan was
still pretty much engaged with the republic. The original local network this
beacon belonged to was semi open to access to all ships in the system. Even the
old protocol was no longer in used, the beacon can’t access the current
communications, and it was still part of original banking clan’s gigantic
network. It would still relay information that match the configuration of this
beacon. Therefore packet of information piggy back on the massive main traffic
would always be intercepted by this beacon. If the user stick to one way
transmissions like a telegram, it would be very hard to trace its origins.
Therefore extremely secure.
A network of such old beacons would form a secret
communication network of its own provided the user can always mask the origins
of the signal. If there is a force of resistance within the CIS, they would be
using this method to communicate with each other.
‘If I can locate these beacons in other star systems, we may
be able to track down these resistances forces and coordinate with them.’ Zyjin
expend his thoughts. ‘I can calibrate a star destroyer’s scanner to scan for
these beacons every time we enter a system.’
The droid beeped and a message hurrying Zyjin back to base
was displayed on the secondary screen.
‘All right all right! When did you become Master Toorani’s
supervisor to keep an eye on me? Did he programmed you?’ Zyjin powered up the
star fighter and swings his vessel towards the open stars. He kept an eye on
the display keeping up with the conversation, ‘OH! R2-G9 did it? So my master’s
droid is your master now? My goodness! Please don’t tell on me! I will give you
a good oil bath first thing back to base! Deal?’
Zyjin’s fighter joint the billions of star light as he
entered hyper space.
Notes:
* The hyperwave communication system is part of the data /
visual communications network system in the Starwars universe. It can be seen
as the radio, internet plus TV network. The biggest of these open network is
named Holonet.
** The Banking Clan was a major fraction in the Star Wars
Clone wars era. They sided with the CIS in attack of the clones. Their leader
was the tall thin guy in the movie. Supporting material claim the Banking Clan
has itself a special network for securely transfer funds of its many banks
across the galaxy. Its star ships carry powerful mobile hyperwave transmitters.
In my Star Wars galaxy, the Banking Clan has the largest private network, even
bigger than the republic / Jedi military network. The Banking Clan network was
used by the CIS as a major part of their own military network during the clone
wars.
*** Holonet is the biggest communications grid that was
developed and used by the Galactic Republic and, later, the Galactic Empire.
Messages were routed along millions of non-mass hyperwave transceivers buried
in hyperspace and routed through massive computer sorters and decoders to reach
their sometimes very distant destinations through s-threads. This technology
enabled data to be sent and received at faster-than-light speeds, ensuring
near-instantaneous communication from one end of the galaxy to the other. (extract from wookieepedia.)
