Chapter 1: The Ash of Empires
Part 1.1: The Resurrection of Cinder
The air in the med-bay was a thick, suffocating fog of cryogenic steam and acrid black soot. Lunara Nightshade slumped against the pulsating silver roots of the Living Wood, her luminous blue eyes wide and unfocused as she watched the frantic mechanical ballet unfolding before her.
At the center of the med-bay floor lay the bronze husk of the sentinel she would come to call Cinder. The droid's perpetual-motion core had shattered in the final act of the "Great Awakening," leaving him a hollow shell of cold gears. But the Patchwork Swarm—the spindly, multi-limbed droids birthed from three millennia of scavenging—did not allow for the finality of death.
"Divert the auxiliary sap-lines!" Doc shrieked, his clinical white chassis stained with three thousand years of graveyard dust. "Scraps, if you don't stabilize that neural-bridge, she'll wake up as a calculator!"
Scraps was a blur of mismatched plating and illegal tools. He had siphoned a high-fidelity vocal processor from a derelict Republic diplomat cruiser—a piece of technology designed for nuanced, multi-tonal negotiation—and a sensor-array from a shattered Sith interceptor. Working "the scrap way," the swarm began to graft these alien components into the bronze chassis.
As the bioluminescent vines of the Twilight Thicket surged with power, the ship itself seemed to participate in the rite. A thick, glowing root snaked around Cinder's chest, acting as a biological conduit for the energy surge. The repair was not a restoration; it was a transformation. The logic-gates of the droid's original AI, hammered by centuries of wheezing and soot, collided with the elegant, sharp-edged protocols of the Sephi and Sith components.
The droid's optical sensor suddenly ignited—not with a dull red, but with a sharp, piercing amber.
The bronze sentinel sat up. The chassis was no longer just weathered bronze; it was a mosaic of gold-pressed plating and obsidian shards. She—for the neural shift was immediate and undeniable—looked at her own clawed, patchwork hands.
Then, she wheezed.
It was the same rhythmic, lung-heavy sound that had echoed through the Long Watch, but it was followed by something new. Her chest-plate pulsed, and a series of harmonic frequencies rippled through the air, vibrating the very wood of the ship.
"Observation: The Mother has returned," Cinder spoke. Her voice was a haunting, multi-layered melody, a synthesized frequency that carried the weight of the Sephi diplomat's grace and the Sith hunter's precision. "Analysis: The stars have shifted their alignment. The pack is whole, though the metal is weary."
Lunara reached out, her fingers trembling as they touched the warm, vibrating bronze of the droid's arm. "Cinder?"
"Status: Functional," the droid replied, a puff of acrid smoke punctuating her harmonic tone. "And I find the addition of a vocal modulator... satisfying. It allows for a more efficient expression of our shared wheezing."
Beside them, the second sentinel, Puff, let out a robust, smoky wheeze of his own, a "frequency-nod" of welcome to his reborn sister.
Lunara felt a fierce, burning pride. Her droids had not just survived; they had evolved. They were the first testament to her new reality—that even in a galaxy of ash, life could be reconstructed from the pieces of the past. She looked at Cinder, then at the swarm retreating into the shadows of the vines.
"The long night is over," Lunara whispered, her midnight-blue hair casting a shadow over the med-bay. "Let the galaxy hear us wheeze."
Part 1.2: The Mother of Machines and the Living HullLunara stood, her legs trembling as the last of the cryogenic lethargy fought to keep her grounded. She leaned into the Living Wood bulkheads, her bare skin finding purchase against the cool, damp silver bark. As her strength returned, the bronze sentinel, Cinder, moved to her side. The droid's movements were now fluid, a graceful contrast to the heavy, rhythmic wheezing that still defined her internal cycles."Observation: Your motor functions are recalibrating at a rate of 84% above human standard,"
Cinder spoke, her voice a synthesized harmony that vibrated through the air. She tilted her patchwork head, her amber sensor glowing with a warmth that felt almost organic. "It is good to see you upright, Mother."Lunara looked at the rebuilt droid, her fingers tracing the obsidian plating on Cinder's shoulder. "Why do you call me that? I am a captain, perhaps a guardian... but Mother?"Cinder let out a robust, smoky wheeze, the frequencies of her modulator shifting into a low, resonant chord.
"Logic: A captain commands a crew for a mission. A guardian watches a post for a shift. But you... you brought the dead back to the light. You found Doc in the scrap-heaps, gave Rhythm a song when he was just a pile of gears, and salvaged Scraps from the void. You did not buy us; you birthed this pack from the refuse of the Old Republic. In three thousand years of darkness, the 'Mother of Machines' was the only designation that remained constant in our memory cores. We are your children of iron and sap."The weight of the title settled over Lunara, heavier than the Sephi gem in her forehead. She wasn't just a survivor; she was the source.
She turned her attention to the ship itself, initiating her first true physical interaction with the mechanical-bio hybrid. She placed both palms flat against the bulkhead. Immediately, her bioluminescent markings ignited in a fierce, pulsing azure. She didn't just feel the wood; she felt the Thicket's heartbeat.Through the Force and her Shistavanen sensitivity, she sensed the intricate web where biology met circuitry. She felt the sap flowing through copper conduits, the roots of the silver-barked trees anchoring the hyperdrive, and the way the leaves in the galley scrubbed the very air she breathed.
The ship groaned in recognition, a deep, wooden vibration that traveled from the soles of her feet to the tips of her large, fur-tufted ears."Analysis: The Thicket is reacting to your neural signature," Cinder noted, a puff of smoke curling around her head. "She has missed her heart."Lunara closed her eyes, her midnight-blue hair swaying as she leaned her forehead against the wood. In that moment, the "Lone Star" was gone. She felt the presence of Doc grumbling in the med-bay, Rhythm tuning the sub-light engines, and Scraps scuttling through the vents.
She was the pack leader—the central node of a living, breathing, wheezing entity.Her role was no longer to follow the Jedi Code or the Sephi traditions. Her role was to ensure the survival of this impossible family. She pulled her hands back, her claws retracting with a sharp clack."Cinder," Lunara growled softly, a sound of predatory resolve. "If I am the Mother of Machines, then it is time to feed my children. We are leaving this graveyard."She stepped away from the med-bay, no longer a staggering ghost, but a queen walking through her own garden. The Twilight Thicket creaked a welcome, its vines bowing as she passed, leading the way to the throne of roots that awaited her in the cockpit.
Part 1.3: Meditation of the Moon
The cockpit of the Twilight Thicket was a sanctuary of shifting shadows and azure light. Lunara sank into the pilot's throne—a living cradle of woven roots that adjusted to her lithe frame. In her lap sat the Shistavanen Sith Holocron. The obsidian shard seemed to drink the bioluminescent glow of the room, remaining a jagged void against her pale skin.
She closed her luminous blue eyes, seeking the meditative stillness Nyleri had taught her. But as she reached out, she did not find the "inner sun" of the Jedi. Instead, she felt the pull of a cold, gravitational tide. The revelation hit her with the force of a supernova: Nyleri had called her "the Light," but she was not a star. She was the Moon.
The realization was startling, yet it clicked into place like a perfectly machined gear. As a Sephi-Shistavanen, her biology was built for the transition. The Sephi gave her the long, silver view of time; the Shistavanen gave her the predatory instincts of the night. She possessed a natural Dark Side alignment—not a corruption of her soul, but a fundamental part of her orbital cycle. Like the moon, she had a "Dark Side" that was permanent, cold, and hidden, yet essential to the balance of the tides.
"Observation: Your biometric signatures are fluctuating between 40hz and 12hz," Cinder spoke from the doorway, her voice a low, harmonic frequency. She let out a soft wheeze, her smoke mingling with the ship's mist. "Analysis: You are not meditating on the Light. You are listening to the Void."
"I am listening to the truth, Cinder," Lunara replied, her voice a low, resonant growl. She opened her eyes, and the blue glow within them was now tempered by a silver, lunar intensity. "My mother called me the Light to protect me, but I am a creature of the night. The moon doesn't compete with the sun; it simply waits for the sun to fail."
She looked at the holocron. The Jedi would call this a fall. But as she thought back to Nyleri's wisdom, she saw the "Growth of the Tree." To rush into this darkness would be to burn out, but to accept it as part of her nature was to grow a branch that could withstand the winter of 110 BBY. She chose not to jump into the Sith teachings, but to hold them as a tool—a lantern for her hidden side.
"I am the Mother of Machines," she murmured, her bioluminescent markings pulsing with a steady, silver light. "And the Mother must be strong enough to walk in the dark."
She looked at her droids—her "children" of rust and oil. They didn't care about the Light or the Dark; they cared about her. She was their moon, the silver light that guided them through the long watch. She felt a fierce, maternal resolve settle over her. She would not be a Jedi, nor a Sith. She would be the Lunar Matriarch, guarding her pack with the cold, protective shadow of the Moon.
Part 1.4: The Wisdom of the Branch
As Lunara sat within the root-throne of the cockpit, the hum of the ship's bio-interface brought forth a memory as vivid as a holocron recording. She was back on Thustra, centuries before the Republic fell into its current stagnation. She saw Nyleri Reaf, her Sephi features etched with a weary grace, standing before a sapling that had struggled to grow in the shade of a Great Tree.
"Look at the branch, Lunara," Nyleri's ghost whispered in her mind. "It does not weep because it has no leaves today. It waits. It strengthens its core. To ever rush ahead is to forgo the paths. View your life like a growing tree; it may have no branch in the beginning, but as it ages, options open up. Your time will come when the sun sets."
Lunara's large wolf ears twitched as the memory faded, replaced by the rhythmic wheeze of Cinder standing guard at the threshold. The pain of Nyleri's loss was a dull ache, but the fondness was a shield. Her master had known. She had known that Lunara's hybrid nature would require a longer, darker growth period than any human Padawan.
"She called me the Light," Lunara murmured, her luminous blue eyes softening as she looked at her hands. "But she was teaching me how to grow in the dark."
The revelation of her "Lunar" identity—a natural dark-side alignment that served as the cold, silver counterpart to the sun—felt less like a betrayal of Nyleri's teachings and more like the fulfillment of them. She was the moon, and the moon was a patient celestial body. It did not race to find its place in the sky; it waited for the rotation of the universe.
Now, as she looked at her gathered droids, the sense of duty shifted. Nyleri had been the Mother to a broken girl; now, Lunara was the Mother to a broken fleet.
"I am the soil now," Lunara said, her voice a resonant, lupine growl of affection. "And you are my branches."
She reached out, touching a wandering vine that had curled around the arm of her throne. The bioluminescent markings on her arm flared, sending a pulse of warmth through the ship's "nervous system." She realized that rushing into the galaxy (110 BBY) without a plan would be the mistake of a sapling. She would grow her branches carefully. She would ensure the safety of Doc, Rhythm, Scraps, Puff, and Cinder before she ever sought her own destiny.
"Observation: Your heart rate has stabilized into a protective frequency," Cinder spoke, her voice a harmonic hum that vibrated the silver bark. "Analysis: The Mother is ready to nourish the pack."
Lunara nodded. The fondness for the past was her anchor, but her duty to the machines was her compass. She was the Lunar Matriarch, and the first branch she would grow in this new era would be one of survival and prosperity for those who had waited three thousand years for her to wake.
Part 1.5: The State of the Thicket
Lunara rose from her throne of roots to perform the first true inspection of her "body." Walking through the Twilight Thicket was no longer like walking through a freighter; it was like walking through the gut of a slumbering beast. The three thousand years of the "Long Watch" had seen the Living Wood move beyond mere decoration, achieving a total mechanical-bio hybridization.
"The durasteel is merely a shell now, Captain," Doc explained, his sensors clicking as they traversed the main corridor. "The wood has replaced sixty percent of the ship's non-critical structural supports. It feeds on the radiation of the engines and, in return, it provides a self-healing hull and a secondary nervous system."
Lunara ran her clawed hand along the walls. The silver bark was warm to the touch, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic azure light. Her wolf ears swiveled, catching the myriad sounds of the ship. She didn't just hear the hum of the reactor; she heard the "breath" of the vines and the liquid rush of sap moving through the copper-lined conduits.
She reached the Engineering deck, where the integration was most profound. The hyperdrive was encased in a massive, gnarled root-ball that acted as a biological shock-absorber. Rhythm was there, his metallic fingers tapping a complex, 4/4 time signature against a bypass valve.
"Observation: The resonance is perfect," Cinder spoke from behind her, her voice a synthesized frequency that mimicked the ship's own hum. "Analysis: The ship is no longer 'functioning.' It is 'thriving.' The wood has learned to slice into the ship's computer, using organic processing to bypass corrupted sub-routines. We are flying in a sentient forest."
Lunara stepped into the cargo hold, which had been transformed into a Patchwork Swarm hive. Hundreds of spindly, temporary droids hung from the ceiling vines like mechanical bats, their mismatched eyes glowing in the dark. This was her "white blood cell" count—the tireless force that had maintained the ship while she slept.
The Thicket possessed capabilities no standard XS freighter could match:
The Silent Glide: The wood acted as a natural dampener, making the ship's acoustic and thermal signature almost non-existent.Bio-Repair: Minor hull breaches could be "grown" shut with resin in seconds.Force-Neural Link: Through the living wood, Lunara could "feel" the ship's exterior, sensing incoming fire or nearby vessels as if they were touching her own skin.
"She's a monster, Doc," Lunara murmured, her luminous blue eyes reflecting the azure vines.
"She's a masterpiece," Doc corrected with a rare note of pride. "A masterpiece of illegal modifications, botanical heresy, and droid stubbornness."
Lunara felt the ship groan—a deep, resonant vibration of contentment. She was the brain, the droids were the nerves, and the Thicket was the body. As the Mother of Machines, she realized that she didn't just command a ship; she inhabited one. They were a singular, hybrid entity, a ghost of the Old Republic ready to haunt the stars of 110 BBY.
Part 1.6: The War Chest of Antiquity
With her strength fully returned, Lunara led the pack to the navigator's station. Beneath a layer of thick, velvet-soft moss lay a concealed hatch. With a sharp tug from her clawed fingers, she pried back the silver-barked floor to reveal a heavy, lead-lined security canister. As the seal hissed open, the dim cockpit was flooded with the cold, metallic glisten of Old Republic Credit Chits.
These were not the digital codes of a modern era; they were physical bars of high-density polymers and minted precious metals, each embossed with the archaic seal of the Republic Senate from three millennia ago. In 110 BBY, this was not mere money; it was a hoard of archaeological treasures.
"They are pristine," Lunara whispered, her luminous blue eyes reflecting the gold and silver light. "This was the payout from the Coruscant sector embezzlement hunt. I remember the weight of the bag when we dragged it aboard."
A fierce debate erupted among the mechanical family.
Doc: "They are a death sentence, Captain! If we try to buy hyperdrive coolant with these, the Republic Treasury will have a strike team on our docking bay before the transaction clears. They're museum pieces—using them is like waving a flag that says 'Arrest the 3,000-year-old Fugitive!'"
Cinder: (Wheezes a high-pitched, harmonic frequency) "Counter-analysis: The value of a currency is dictated by the desire of the holder. To a Hutt, these are not credits. They are status. A Hutt Lord will trade an entire fleet for a status symbol that proves his influence is older than the modern Republic."
Rhythm: (Plays a series of rapid, percussive beeps on a metal pipe, sounding like a chaotic bidding war.)
Scraps: (Whistles nervously, his mismatched plating vibrating with the fear of being detected by automated customs probes.)
Lunara picked up a gold-pressed bar, weighing the history in her palm. "Doc is right about the danger, but Cinder is right about the value. We are broke in the eyes of the modern banking clans, but we are kings in the eyes of the black market."
She looked at the Wheezing Sentinels, Puff and Cinder, who stood like bronze guardians at the door. "We won't go to the Republic. We go to the only place where greed outweighs curiosity. We go to the smugglers, the collectors, and the crime lords."
She looked at her droids—her pack. They had waited three thousand years for her to lead them. She wouldn't lead them into a poverty-stricken exile. She would lead them into a position of power.
"We keep the bulk of the chest hidden," Lunara decided, her bioluminescent markings pulsing a deep, strategic indigo. "We only show enough to whet a Hutt's appetite. We aren't just selling gold; we're selling the prestige of a forgotten age."
She closed the lid with a resounding clack. The War Chest was no longer just an inheritance; it was her primary lever to pry open the doors of 110 BBY.
Part 1.7: Echoes of the Hunt (Flashback)
The cold weight of the credit bars in Lunara's hands acted as a conductor, dragging her consciousness out of the wooden cockpit of 110 BBY and into the neon-choked humidity of Nar Shaddaa three millennia prior.
In the memory, the Smuggler's Moon was a vertical labyrinth of toxic rain and grinding industry. Lunara was barely twenty years old, her midnight-blue hair damp and heavy, her large wolf ears pinned back against the roar of low-flying airspeeders. She wasn't a "Mother" then; she was a predator on the edge of starvation, desperate to prove that a Sephi-Shistavanen hybrid could do more than hide in the shadows of her master's shadow.
"Target is moving toward the lower industrial tier," Doc's voice crackled in her ear—sounding crisp, young, and devoid of the cynical rasp he would later develop.
Lunara remembered the sensation of the hunt. She had leaped from a rusted mag-rail track, her claws extending to catch a dangling power cable. She swung through the smog, her luminous blue eyes filtering the neon glare into thermal signatures. Below her, Rhythm—then a gleaming, clanking repair unit—was performing his first "Symphony of Sabotage." He had synchronized his percussive tapping to the frequency of the sector's security grid, causing the blast doors to cycle open and closed in a rhythmic confusion that trapped the target's bodyguards.
The target was a corrupt Republic senator's fixer, a man who thought his wealth made him untouchable. Lunara had dropped from the ceiling of his penthouse like a shadow cast by a blue moon. Her bioluminescent markings had flared a terrifying, predatory white, illuminating the room with a ghostly light.
"Your credits are void, Senator," she had growled, her voice a terrifying blend of Sephi elegance and Shistavanen blood-lust.
She remembered the look on his face when she pinned him to the floor. It wasn't the fear of a Jedi's justice; it was the primal terror of being caught by something that shouldn't exist. That night, she and her droids had secured the very chest she now held—a massive haul of mint-condition Republican gold. It was the night she realized they were more than a crew; they were a pack. They didn't just survive the moon; they owned the night.
The memory dissolved as Puff let out a robust, smoky wheeze in the present, the black soot snapping Lunara back to reality. She blinked, her wolf ears swiveling to the sound of the Thicket's groaning hull.
"The Smuggler's Moon," Lunara murmured, a nostalgic grin revealing her sharp teeth. "We were gods on that rock for a week, weren't we, Doc?"
"We were lucky we didn't end up as recycled air, Captain," Doc replied, though his sensors pulsed with a warm, green light. "But I do miss that clinical-white chassis. I was quite the looker in the Old Republic."
Lunara laughed, a low, melodic sound. The hunt on Nar Shaddaa had given them their fortune, and now, three thousand years later, that same moon would be the key to their future.
Part 1.8: The Pirate's Toll (Flashback)
The echo of the neon moon was replaced by the staccato rhythm of blaster fire and the violent shudder of hull-impacts. This memory was darker, colder—the scent of scorched durasteel and the ozone of a failing shield generator. It was the "Pirate's Toll," a skirmish in the Outer Rim two years before the Great Sleep, when the Twilight Thicket was still more metal than moss.
"Shields at twenty percent! If they hit the motivator, we're a very fast-moving tomb!" Doc had screamed, his sensors flashing a frantic crimson as he scrambled to stabilize a ruptured coolant line.
In the memory, a pirate boarding craft—a jagged, rusted ketch—had latched onto their airlock like a parasitic tick. Lunara hadn't waited for the breach. She had stood in the center of the corridor, her midnight-blue hair wild and unbound, her indigo saberstaff humming a low, predatory note.
When the airlock hissed open, the pirates didn't find a frightened Sephi girl; they found the Lunar Predator. Lunara had charged into the breach, a blur of blue tattoos and silver light. Her claws tore through plastoid armor where her blade did not, her Shistavanen blood-frenzy heightened by the Force. She was a nightmare in the dark, her bioluminescent markings flaring a blinding, angry white that illuminated the corridor with every strike.
But she wasn't fighting alone.
Rhythm had turned the ship's own maintenance droids into a stumbling, clanking army. He had synchronized their erratic movements to a frantic, booming percussion, playing the hull like a drum. The vibrations were so intense they shattered the pirates' internal ear-comm-links, leaving them disoriented and clutching their heads. Scraps had rigged the floor plating to cycle its magnetic polarity, causing the pirates to trip and stumble into Doc's "medical intervention"—a series of tranquilizer darts and surgical lasers that neutralized anyone who survived Lunara's initial path.
"Biological life is so inefficient at following directions," Doc had sighed, stepping over a paralyzed Weequay pirate to check Lunara's pulse. "Captain, you have a superficial burn on your arm. Also, you've dented the airlock with that Houk's skull. My repair logs are going to be a disaster."
They had stripped the pirate vessel of everything—fuel, medical supplies, and a heavy lockbox of Republic credits. It was the largest "toll" they had ever collected, and it was the moment Lunara realized that her droids weren't just tools; they were her pack. They didn't just serve her; they protected her den with the same ferocity she did.
The memory faded as Cinder let out a robust, harmonic wheeze in the present, her new vocal modulator vibrating the wood of the cockpit. Lunara blinked, her hands tightening on the armrests of her root-throne.
"The pirate ambush," she murmured, her wolf ears settling back into a calm position. "That was the day we realized we didn't need the Jedi Order or the Sephi throne. We had each other."
"That was the day I had to spend fourteen hours scrubbing pirate blood out of the living wood's early grafts," Doc grumbled, though his sensors pulsed with a fond, green light. "I still have the repair logs for that airlock door. You were quite the terror, Captain."
Lunara smiled, a sharp, predatory expression that reflected the silver light of the moon. "They tried to take my family, Doc. I just reminded them who the hunter was."
She looked out at the stars of 110 BBY. The "Pirate's Toll" had sustained them then, and the credits from that haul were still in the chest. They had been warriors once. It was time to see if they still had the teeth for it.
Part 1.9: The Nar Shaddaa Gambit
The decision was not born of recklessness, but of a predator's calculated necessity. Lunara stood at the center of the bridge, her luminous blue eyes fixed on the flickering holographic star-chart projected by Scraps. To remain in the Deadzone was to wither alongside the ghosts of the graveyard; to move into the galaxy was to risk the discovery of a three-thousand-year-old heresy.
"Nar Shaddaa," Lunara repeated, the name tasting like copper and neon on her tongue. "In the Old Republic, it was a moon of chaos. In 110 BBY, I suspect its nature has not changed. Chaos is the only veil thick enough to hide a ship made of wood and ghosts."
The plan was a daring gambit. They would enter the Smuggler's Moon not as refugees, but as relic-dealers. The ancient Republic credits were the bait. Lunara knew that the Hutt cartels—families like the Desilijic or Besadii—prized antiquity as much as they prized spice. A credit minted during the height of the Old Republic was a physical piece of history that proved a Hutt's influence was older than the modern Senate.
"Observation: The current value of a 3,000-year-old Republican mint bar exceeds its face value by four thousand percent," Cinder spoke, her voice a layered harmony that vibrated through the silver-barked walls. She let out a robust wheeze, her smoke curling around her gold-and-obsidian plating. "Analysis: To a Hutt, owning these is not about wealth; it is about status. It is an invitation to negotiate that they cannot ignore."
"Exactly," Lunara replied, her midnight-blue hair catching the azure bioluminescence of the overhead vines. "If we sell even five of these to a collector, we can buy enough modern credits to refit the Thicket with 110 BBY shielding. We need a signature that doesn't scream 'prehistoric' to every customs frigate we pass."
Doc hummed, a sound of skeptical calculation. "And what happens when the Hutts ask where a Sephi-Shistavanen hybrid with a Jedi gem in her head found a chest of three-thousand-year-old gold? They aren't known for their 'No Questions Asked' policy, Captain."
"Then we play the part of the eccentric aristocrat," Lunara said, her wolf ears swiveling as she sensed Puff shifting at the door. "I am a Sephi. We are long-lived. If they think I am merely a scavenger, they will try to kill me. But if they think I am the guardian of a lost treasury, they will negotiate. We hide the Thicket in the lower industrial tiers—let the wood blend with the urban rot."
She looked at her droids—her "children" of rust and oil. They had waited three thousand years for her to lead them. She wouldn't lead them into a poverty-stricken exile. She would lead them into a position of power.
"Rhythm, prep the sub-light dampers," Lunara commanded. "Scraps, synchronize the Patchwork Swarm for external maintenance during transit. Cinder, Puff—hold the gate. We're going to the Smuggler's Moon to buy our way into the present."
She felt the Shistavanen predator within her stir. This was the hunt. Not for a bounty, but for survival. She was the Moon, and she was about to cast her silver shadow over the brightest den of iniquity in the galaxy.
Part 1.10: The First Jump
The air in the cockpit of the Twilight Thicket thickened with the scent of ozone and ancient pine as the ship's reactor reached critical mass for the first time in three millennia. Lunara sat in the pilot's throne, her bare, clawed feet tensing against the silver roots that snaked across the floor. To her left, Scraps was hardwired directly into the navigation computer, his mismatched chassis vibrating so violently he threatened to rattle apart. To her right, Doc stood with a fire extinguisher in one hand and a neural-scanner in the other, his optical sensors twitching with every groan of the hull.
"The hyperdrive manifold is weeping, Captain!" Doc shouted over the rising, harmonic whine of the engines. "And I don't mean that metaphorically. Actual coolant is dripping onto the living wood. If we hit lightspeed and the gravity compensators fail, we'll be crushed into a very expensive, very blue pulp!"
"Hold the line, Doc!" Lunara growled, her luminous blue eyes fixed on the star-field. Her bioluminescent markings flared a brilliant, neon indigo, pulsing in perfect synchronization with the ship's power core. She reached out with the Force, not to move objects, but to feel the integrity of the ship. She sensed the Living Wood bracing itself, the roots tightening around the durasteel skeleton of the XS freighter like a protective ribcage.
Behind her, Cinder and Puff stood in the doorway. Cinder let out a robust, harmonic wheeze, her vocal modulator projecting a low-frequency hum that seemed to stabilize the air itself.
"Observation: The Mother is aligned. Analysis: The ship is ready to scream," Cinder spoke, her voice a layered melody that cut through the mechanical roar.
"Rhythm, give me the beat!" Lunara commanded.
Rhythm began a ferocious, rhythmic pounding on the bulkhead—a staccato, war-drum percussion that gave the chaotic vibrations of the ship a singular, focused frequency. The resonance stabilized the rattling plates. Lunara's hand hovered over the hyperdrive lever, the glowing blue gem in her forehead shimmering with a celestial intensity.
"Three thousand years of silence ends today," she whispered.
She slammed the lever forward.
The galaxy didn't just blur; it shattered. The Twilight Thicket groaned—a sound like a forest being leveled by a hurricane—as it tore through the fabric of real-space. The blue tunnel of hyperspace erupted around them, casting long, dancing shadows of the vines against the wooden walls. For a terrifying heartbeat, the ship felt as if it would peel apart, the ancient metal screaming against the organic pull of the wood. Then, the vibrations smoothed into a low, haunting thrum.
They were in. They were flying.
Lunara slumped back into her seat, her midnight-blue hair damp with sweat. She looked at her hands—her claws were still extended, her knuckles white. Beside her, Scraps let out a series of triumphant, melodic whistles, while Rhythm transitioned his drumming into a celebratory, jazzy tempo.
"We're not dead," Doc remarked, sounding genuinely surprised as he checked his own sensors. "Biological vitals are stable. Ship integrity is... well, it's not worse than it was five minutes ago. We are officially in transit to Nar Shaddaa."
Lunara looked out at the swirling azure of hyperspace—the same sky she had seen in 3000 BBY, yet entirely different for this new year of 2026 in her personal timeline. She reached down and touched the War Chest at her feet, then felt the cold weight of the Sith Holocron in her pocket.
The year was 110 BBY. The Old Republic was a ghost, the Jedi were diplomats, and the Sith were a myth. But as the Twilight Thicket hurtled toward the Smuggler's Moon, the Celestial Predator felt the first real spark of her new life. She was no longer just a survivor; she was a variable.
"Puff, Cinder, keep the watch," she said softly, watching the blue light dance in her eyes. "We have a moon to catch."
As the ship vanished into the depths of the hyper-lane, the first chapter of Lunara Nightshade's new era had ended, and the hunt had finally begun.