Arrival at Xartun

Xantos Xuan looked out the medical bay window of the Hope. He could spot the green forests and the bodies of water on the surface of Xartun below him. They where heading for a large Republic base called Golden Lights. There they could be safe. Since it was an official Republic base the Sith's knew they could not attack without breaking the Treaty of Coruscant.

He bent over a fallen soldier, he did not recognize his face, and lay a blanket over him. As he walked over to one of the ship doctors to see if he could lend a hand somewhere, he went through the recent events in his head, trying to analyze what had happened.

The small Republic black operations fleet of the Silver Vanguards had been attacked during a patrol in the Ojoster Sector when they passed through the Wayland System, close to the Sith Imperial border. The Silver Vanguards are definatly no rookies when it comes to war and they have seen many battles, but this strike had suprised them and hit them harder aswell as left them with bigger losses then the Vanguards had ever experienced before. Two of the Vanguards smaller curisers had been destroyed, the third had taken many hits and counted that less then 40% of the crew could still act and do their job. The Thranta-class battleship Hope had equally scary statistics around 35% of the personal where still functional. Then rest were either wounded or dead. But, they had still won. With the wise leadership of men like Shon-Tel and the bravery of soldiers like Xantos himself had they been able to repel the Sith attackers killing their commander, Darth Rering, in the process.

Xantos wondered how many lives had ended in the battle all thoughter and he wondered how many lives he had taken.

15 hours later.

The Silver Vanguard ships had landed in the hugh base Golden Lights. Rumble were being removed from inside the ships and the wound personel where being taken care of. Xantos Xuan had been present when the Republic High Military Commanders were contacted and briefed on the attack, both because of his status as a Special Forces Operator and because of his importance in the victory. Many other individuals that had proven great courage and importance in the battle were also present, including Kea Rin, Jon-Shiar, Thadeus Lucien-Bones and Shon-Tel to name a few.

During the briefing they had also been informed about a special mission the requird the attention of black operation Republic Forces, such as the Silver Vanguard. They would recive more details later. All they were told was that a small group, just the elite of the Vanguards were needed for this mission.

3 hours later.

Xantos lay on his in the bed he had been assigned in the Golden Lights base. He pulled the blanked over him, closed his eyes, feel asleep and started dreaming about heroic battles and beautiful women.

Ord Cestus was not the most welcoming planet... For a rogue Jedi with a mission though, it was a necessary stop. Joruus Haderach, looking for leads on his true identity, had been staying on this military outpost planet for almost a week. He knew that some intelligence was beyond Jedi protocols, and sometimes unreachable from modern terminals like the Coruscant library. This had to be a field endeavor. Even if his extraordinary ability to foresee the future provided him blurry answers tied to his name and role in history, they were still blurry.

This desert planet wasn't friendly to offworlders. Dry lava, ashes and red sand were what the terrain was made off. Micro-organisms in the food can be lethal to anyone else but the natives, and that's usually turned into profit by Kista sellers - a substance that allows you to eat on this planet. At least the different kinds of mushrooms were good sustenance.

When Joruus had broken into the main base, he was content that no force needed to be applied. Jedi mind tricks and standard stealth were enough to get by sloppy officers in the Outer Rim. Still, the communication databases were encrypted. Luckily, when Joruus left Coruscant he knew he wouldn't be traveling with droids, so he made sure he obtained several years worth of decryption keys. Several years because these codes propagated in a sluggish manner. By the time cutting edge algorithms were implemented on old hardware in the Outer Rim, it actually took years. Of course, there always were trade unions with their own technological research in those territories, sometimes much more advanced than the Republic’s; however, that's another story. Decryption worked as expected, but the compendiums didn't contain any clues useful to his quest. The automated intel flux caught the Jedi's attention though: it seemed Sith forces engaged a Republic fleet close to the imperial border, somewhere around the Waylands. Joruus knew long ago that the Treaty would be fragile and such things would happen. He also noticed that the reports didn't contain the identification codes of the attacked ships and were based on distant surveillance or accidental witnesses. That meant the Republic military did not issue any orders that these particular systems should be patrolled at these particular times. As an adept of the Force, there was no such thing as a coincidence, and Wayland wasn't further than 170 parsecs...

It's dark, the wind is blowing gentle with sporadic moments of violence amongst the misty tall trees. Thadeus is tracking a mysterious figure in a long hooded robe just a few yards in front of him. After a few moments, this figure slowly turns to his right and immediately picks up his walking pace, slowing loosing the trailing Thadeus. Thadeus begins to sprint towards this figure, igniting his lightsaber. His breathing is fluctuating as he grabs this figure from behind by the neck and impales him in the spine. Turning the impaled and dying figure around, Thadeus realises this figure is identical to himself, in fact as the figures hood drops, there is no dought it is in fact Thadeus.

Waking violently from his bed, sweating and panting, Thadeus tries to balance the force within him. Uncertain of what lies ahead of him, Thadeus grabs a glass of water whilst trying to decipher the meaning of his dream. In doing so, he begins calling on the force meditating techniques he was taught when young and still filled with dreams of revenge for his father. Minutes pass as Thadeus begins to find some sort of equilibrium for the moment, his mind begins to drift to the pressing matters at hand, like the upcoming gathering to decide which Silver Vanguard members will be involved with the upcoming special mission.