A/N: Sorry for the short chapter. Been extrely busy and exhausted from work.
The Balance Keeper continued to press him, swinging his lightsaber very aggressively against Cael who couldn't really counter. Step by step he was forced back until he almost ran into a wall.
But Cael just wasn't about to take it without fighting back. He watched the Balance Keeper's moves until he spotted an opening and created so distance between the two. Using this chance, he released a Force wave which shattered nearby consoles and hurled debris across the room.
The Balance Keeper stepped back, dodging the debris and brushing off the Force wave like it was nothing.
Cael wasn't surprised since if what he learned about the Balance Keepers were true, then such an attack wouldn't harm one of them. Still, he had to try sothing or else he would not survive long.
Not wasting any ti, Cael lunged forward at the Balance Keeper. Their sabers collided again, but this ti Cael fought more erratic, hoping to throw his opponent off by attack from strange angles, and Force attacks that involved throwing objects at the Balance Keeper's blind spots.
But the attacks weren't working as the Balance Keeper either dodged them or used his own Force abilities to push them back.
Cael used his blade to destroy so of the stuff thrown back at him. That's when the Balance Keeper rushed him, putting him back on the defensive.
Cael twisted his body just enough to avoid being dealt a killing blow. His free hand was used to freeze the Balance Keepers arm in place.
"Got you." grinned Cael thinking that he had just discovered sothing revolutionary.
The air around the Balance Keeper had compressed and started to crush inward. The floor beneath them cracking under the pressure.
For a mont the room was still. Then the Balance Keeper shattered whatever hold Cael had him in, causing him to stagger.
Before Cael could recover, the Balance Keeper was already inside of his guard and had delivered an elbow to his chest, causing him to lose breathe.
Cael practically flew back, grabbing his chest as he tried to catch his breath. But whatever move he was just hit with was just too much.
And before he could make his next move, his body just froze.
"Is this the ringleader." ca a voice. Cael moved his eyes and looked at the figure walking in. It wasn't even a second later and he recognized who the voice belonged to. It was the Emperor of the Veldari Imperium himself.
The Balance Keeper turned his lightsaber off and stepped aside. "Yes, My Lord. When we got here, all the pirates seed to be protecting him."
Daimon walked up to Cael who was terrified in this mont since this was the last person he wanted to et.
Two Balance Keepers walked up and placed handcuffs on Cael that were designed to hold Force users. Once they were on, Daimon released his hold on Cael and questioned him.
"Now, will you tell willingly why you attacked Kamino and who is behind you." asked Daimon. But Cael kept quiet as he didn't want to give away his master's identity or plans.
Seeing this Daimon sighed. "Take him away. We'll deal with him later." he said.
He turned to the Balance Keepers and pointed to the unconscious Kaminoans around the room. "Start rendering aid to those scientists."
The Balance Keepers moved in and began to Force heal the Kaminoan scientists. Cael was walked out of the room by the Balance Keepers and would be taken for an in-depth interrogation with the Imperial Intelligence Directorate.
anwhile, above Kamino, the Luminary had disabled the pirate ship and was now boarding it.
The boarding party moved through the freighter's corridors just as they always practiced for hundreds of years. A squad of Ascendants led the breach, moving deck by deck from the airlock inward.
The crew they encountered offered little resistance. Most threw their weapons down the mont they saw the Imperial insignia on the boarders' armor. A handful tried to reach the engine room, presumably to trigger a self-destruct, but they were subdued before they could reach it.
The freighter's interior was completely revamped from what a normal freighter should have had. The cargo holds had been modified to serve as troop bays, capable of carrying far more personnel than the vessel's original design had ever intended. And from what they could tell, the modifications were not recent.
In the ship's central data core, an Ascendant technician began extracting records while two others stood guard outside.
"Navigation logs go back approximately fourteen months," the technician reported over comms to the Luminary's bridge. "Seventeen distinct jump points recorded. Most of them are in the Outer Rim, but three coordinates don't match any registered system in our charts."
Commander Erevan Thoss, who had been transferred from his Coruscant stabilization posting to command the Luminary's escort contingent so years prior, forwarded the report to Cortana imdiately.
"Unknown coordinates," Cortana noted when the data reached her. She was still on the surface with Daimon but her processing extended across every connected Imperial system simultaneously. "I'm cross-referencing against deep survey records from the past three centuries. Two of the three coordinates correspond to regions the Imperium has flagged as low-priority exploration targets but has not yet formally charted. The third is in a section of the Outer Rim that our surveys have passed through but not catalogued in detail."
"Flag all three for investigation," Daimon said from inside the Kaminoan facility where the Balance Keepers were finishing their aid work. "But don't send anyone yet."
"Understood."
The Kaminoan scientists who had been rendered unconscious during the raid were recovering thanks to Force healing from the Balance Keepers. Three of them had minor injuries from being dragged through the corridors, while one had a more serious head wound. All of them were healed of those injuries and were escorted to be looked at by Kaminoan doctors.
Taun Lara had co to the laboratory shortly after the fighting ended. She stood near the entrance now, watching her people escorted to be seen by doctors.
"How many of your security personnel were injured?" Daimon asked.
"Eleven. None fatally." She paused. "Your forces arrived considerably faster than I anticipated."
"We were already on the planet," Daimon said.
Taun Lara thought about this for a mont. "Yes. I suppose that is a variable we had not accounted for when we sent the invitation." She looked at the laboratory around her, cataloguing the damage that had been done.
"The materials they took in the first raid," Daimon said. "Walk through exactly what they were."
"Accelerated maturation research primarily. We had been working on reducing the developntal tiline for certain biological processes across multiple species. Not cloning specifically, but the underlying chanics of growth acceleration that cloning relies upon." She moved to a damaged terminal and examined it briefly before turning away. "In isolation, the sequences are incomplete. Whoever took them would need significant additional expertise to make use of them."
"But it's possible." asked Daimon.
"With sufficient resources and the right minds, most things are possible," she replied. "That is precisely what concerns us."
Daimon nodded. The raid had not been random, and it had not been opportunistic. Soone had known exactly which laboratory to target, exactly which sequences to take, and had co back a second ti with significantly more force when the first attempt had co up short. That pattern suggested planning, resources, and a specific objective that extended beyond simple theft.
The accord we discussed before the attack. "My offer stands unchanged." said Daimon.
She inclined her head. "We are grateful. This event makes the accord even more favorable for us."
Daimon agreed. Whoever did this attack probably didn't plan for him to be here on the planet. Now Kamino was about to enter into a mutually beneficial agreent between the two ensuring Kamino remained safe while engaging openly with the greater galaxy.
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