Acme, Part One
Posted on Tue Apr 7th, 2026 @ 2:42pm by Sotah & Reave & Thane & Bomoor Thort & Amare & Thurius & Mentis & G2-O7
3,730 words; about a 19 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Red Raptor, Sleheyron
Timeline: In the day after "The Sleheyron Transmission"
The Red Raptor's approach vector was clean, deliberate, and entirely unremarkable against the wider traffic patterns of Sleheyron’s orbital lanes. Undervos Holdings codes cycled through her transponder in quiet succession, each one resolving without challenge, each clearance granted with the kind of procedural indifference that came from systems built to process volume rather than question intent, especially this deep into Hutt Space. The ship slipped through them without resistance, another sanctioned movement in an empire that had long since learned not to look too closely at its own activity.
Below, Sleheyron revealed itself in layers. The upper atmosphere held a faint, persistent haze, tinged with the dull amber of industrial output that never truly dispersed. Beneath it, the surface resolved into a spread of dense, uneven development, factories and processing complexes pressed into one another with little regard for cohesion beyond function. Heat signatures bled into one another across the landscape, vast sections of the planet radiating a constant thermal presence that made distinction difficult at a distance. Nothing about it suggested comfort or permanence - it was a world built to be used.
The Undervos facility sat within that expanse, in the Wastes. From orbit, its scale became apparent only in relation to what surrounded it. A broad industrial complex, layered vertically as much as horizontally, its upper structures bristling with great active vent stacks, loading platforms and reinforced access points that spoke to both production and defence. The roof itself was not flat, but segmented, sections raised and lowered to accommodate machinery, storage, and landing vectors that had been added over time rather than designed as a whole. It was functional, efficient, and entirely without aesthetic consideration.
Rex guided the Raptor down through the haze with a steady hand, his posture forward, attention fixed on the descent vector as the ship responded in subtle adjustments around him. He had flown into worse, through tighter corridors and under heavier fire, but there was something about Sleheyron that resisted casual familiarity, despite the fact his line of work had brought him to the world before. His eyes flicked briefly across the instrument readouts, then to the forward viewport, then back again, as if expecting something to shift without warning.
"All good so far," he muttered, more to confirm it aloud than to inform anyone else. "No flags. No queries. No cultists making suicide runs in pods."
That, more than anything, seemed to bother him.
Mentis sat close at hand, eyes on the vapourous horizon and then on the steel of the facility closing in on them from below.
"I cannot sense them. Not yet." He murmured, "But they have been increasingly good at shielding themselves from me. Or perhaps I have just become less attuned to it."
Rex's eyes stayed forward, fixed on the descent, on the slow, looming spread of the facility below them. One hand adjusted their vector by a fraction, more out of habit than necessity, the ship responding smoothly beneath him. He let a breath out through his nose.
"Yeah," he said finally, low. "That’s kinda what I mean." He made another small unneeded adjustment on the controls before leaned back just slightly, enough to glance toward Mentis without fully turning his head. "I’ve got a bad feeling about this," he admitted. There was no humour to soften it, no sarcasm to dress it up.
"I know, I know," he then added quickly, almost pre-empting the dismissal. "Place like this, it’s always something. But this ain’t that. It’s… off." He let that sit for a second, then shifted slightly in his seat, lowering his voice further. "Look," he said, quieter now, more direct, "you don’t have to be here for this."
Rex didn’t look at him this time. Kept his eyes forward, on the landing path, as if saying it any other way would make it easier to take back.
"You’ve already done more than enough," he went on, his tone still conspiratorial. "More than anyone could’ve expected. Hells, more than I expected when we first met." A faint exhale. "You remember that, yeah? Us trying to get off Nar Shaddaa in one piece. You dragging me through that mess that got us marooned on the most Sithspit of all Sithspit planets?" A small shake of his head followed, as even his comments around their initial meeting and crashlanding on Korriban did not carry the same frustration it used to. It was almost affectionate, now.
"I wasn’t… I wasn’t much use back then. Still ain’t, most days. But I’m not that guy anymore - not the one just running from everything and hoping it works out." His mouth twitched, something almost like a smile, but it didn’t quite land. "That’s you, that is. You did that. Got me thinking a bit straighter. Acting a bit… better." He hesitated on the word, as if it didn’t quite belong to him. The facility loomed larger in the viewport as Mentis listened.
"So, I’m just saying…" Rex continued, quieter still, the words more careful now. "You’ve come as far as you needed to with this lot. Maybe further than you should've. You don’t need to keep walking back into it. Not with him. Not with… all this. I know I've said before, but there’s a whole galaxy out there that could do with someone like you. Not big, flashy stuff. Not saving worlds. Just… helping. Like you did with me. Small things. Right things."
The landing vector locked in, buying Rex a moment to pause before he continued speaking.
"We could do that," he added, almost as an afterthought, but it lingered heavier than anything else he had said. "You and me - and Reave. No crusade. No wizards. No cults. Just… free. Let the Pale Prince and Big Boomy crack on with all this."
The ship dipped lower and Rex didn’t look at him again.
"I mean it," he said, quieter now. "You don’t have to prove anything else."
Mentis sunk into his seat, Rex's words seemed to press down upon him, likely mixing with the fearful anticipation that already clung to him.
"That's not..." he began, shifting awkwardly, before trying again "Well, that's a beautiful sentiment, Rex, and I do really appreciate how we have both been a force for good on our own journeys..."
His mismatched eyes drifted outside as the dark steel of the facility eclipsed their view.
"But this is my journey. My duty to see through. Not for Thane or Bomoor, not for Axion's victims, but for me."
Rex then heard the faint metallic fluttering of Mentis running his fingers along the saber hilt they had constructed together in what remained of the Vickers' family shop.
The Rattataki's voice dropped low, barely audible over the landing thrusters.
"I mustn't let a fantasy tempt me away. Not until His whispers stop."
At the rear of the cockpit, Reave arrived, interrupting the moment. He moved with a restless, purposeful energy, dragging a crate into position with more force than was strictly necessary before forcing it open. The contents were excessive by any reasonable standard, accrued over the past few weeks of escalating violence. Weapons of varying scale and intent, some of them clearly not designed for use within enclosed environments, others modified beyond recognition. He selected from them with a kind of irritated satisfaction, muttering under his breath in his own tongue as he slung one over his shoulder and checked the charge on another. Smoke clung to him in a thin, persistent veil, trailing in his wake as he moved.
The ship, meanwhile, continued its descent.
Within the strategy room, the holo display remained active, Sleheyron’s schematics rotating slowly, overlaid now with the additional data Scivo had provided. Entry points, internal routes, pressure zones, structural supports. It was all there, laid out in a way that suggested comprehension, preparation, control.
Thane stood opposite it. The formal style of his earlier attire was gone. In its place, the dark grey and black of his former Jedi tunic sat closer to his frame, stripped of any outer layer, the lines cleaner, more deliberate. There was no attempt to soften the silhouette, his robe absent, a simple cape clipped it its absence.
The molten gold of his eyes reflected faintly in the projection as it turned, his gaze moving across the schematics with slow precision, assessing. Each marked entry point was considered in turn, each route followed briefly in the mind before being set aside. He did not reach for the Force in any overt way, but there was a stillness to him that suggested something deeper at work, an alignment rather than an action.
"They have not altered the primary access points," he said, his voice low, measured. "If they intended to deny entry, they would have forced adaptation." His left hand hovered briefly over the projection, not touching it, but close enough that the light caught faintly against the material.
"Then we have several avenues of ingress," came Bomoor's firm reply, arms propped along the rim of the table so he could crane down upon the facility, his eyes looming over the factory like twin moons, "Including the possibility of the underwater access ways Amare mentioned."
At the mention of her Sith moniker, Amare, dressed for trouble in her black form-fitting sleeveless bodysuit and cloak, folded her arms to her chest and nodded silently. She had the access codes handy courtesy of Scivo, and her traversal through the deepwater vents would be much less harrowing this time now that she could set the underwater heat dispersion rotors into a temporary maintenance mode through an access panel. It would set off no alarms, and give her plenty of time to swim through unhindered into the facility proper before the blades began spinning up again.
Bomoor jabbed at a triangular button twice in quick succession and the upper levels of the factory model disappeared as the display zoomed in on a series of rooms and walkways displayed in the holographic wireframe diagram.
"But if we follow the rooftop entry points accessible from the landing platform, we will find ourselves first in the administrative offices. From there, we could diverge either towards the factory floor or towards the loading bay..."
He trailed off, rising from the display, eyes flickering with momentary hesitation as he set them upon Thane across the display.
"But, something does give me pause," he hummed, allowing his own brown robes to sink down with a quiet calm, as the storm gathered around them, "Setting aside the limited intel here, the closer we get, the more of a disturbance I am feeling about this. At first, I thought it was the ripples from Bothawui, but it has only gotten stronger and more frantic. Do you sense it too, Thane? It seems to resonate with our bond most of all."
Bomoor’s words settled into the space between them, the quiet note of concern hanging against the low hum of the ship. For a moment, he remained as he was, gaze lowered slightly toward the rotating schematic, as though considering the question on its own terms.
Then his eyes lifted. The faint blue tracery along his jaw seemed more pronounced in the stillness, his expression tightening not with uncertainty, but with a growing, contained intensity.
"I sense it," he said at last, his voice low, but carrying a harder edge than before. "But not as you do." His gaze shifted, not to Bomoor, but beyond the projection, beyond the room, as if the structure below them could be perceived through the layers of metal and distance. He closed his eyes briefly, sensing it and drawing it on. "There is no concealment here. No absence. No distortion... only saturation. The rot of it. The filth. It bleeds through everything." His jaw worked once, controlled, but the tension was there now, visible in the set of it. "Axion has not hidden himself; he has steeped this place in his presence."
His attention returned to the table, but it did not soften, his fists clenching. "For two years, we have hunted this!" The words came more firmly now, no longer purely analytical. "Pulled apart his enclaves, dismantled his networks, followed every trace he has left behind across systems that barely knew he existed until we forced him into the open." His gaze flicked briefly toward Amare, then back to Bomoor. "And for far longer than that, he has been doing the same thing unchecked. My family was not the beginning of it. One act in a pattern that stretches back decades, perhaps longer." His eyes narrowed slightly, focus tightening. "House Wyrd. Bespin. Varl." Each name was placed with deliberate weight. "And those are only the fragments we have uncovered." A faint, humourless edge touched his expression. "How many others have there been? How many centuries has this thing been allowed to take root in the shadows of the galaxy while no one chose to see it for what it is?!"
He straightened slightly, not dramatically, but enough that the shift in posture carried intent, his eyes boring into his friend, the ethereal glow shimmering with more intensity, more anger, than had been seen outside of conflict.
"And, now, he chooses to be visible." The words sharpened with his darkening expression. "He chooses to take something that is ours, to mark it, to shape it, and to wait for us to respond." A slight tilt of his head, something almost incredulous in it, though it did not quite reach disbelief. "He believes this is his design... He believes he is drawing us in. But, this this is not his advantage. This is the first time he has chosen to stand within reach. It would be irresponsible not to act."
His voice had softened as he had made his declarations, although the burning gold that distorted his eyes and the paleness of his face marked by the unnatural blue staining of corrupted veins did nothing to ease his appearance into something credible or balanced in this moment. Where a form of dark wisdom typically crept across his young features, he now seemed older, angrier - and determined.
"We have forced this, and we have prepared for this. We understand more of him now than at any point since we began, and more than anyone else alive in this galaxy. We are ready - and we will end it."
Amare felt more than a little inspired by her master's words, ready to dive into the unknown and remove the Cult of Axion's head once and for all. However, there was a deep and dark disquiet scratching somewhere in her head. Something felt truly off about all of this and it perturbed her greatly. She told herself to shake it off and focus on victory, but she had come to know over the last year that the Force often had a vastly esoteric agenda of its own that had a way of destroying even the best laid plans.
Thane's words settled between him, Amare and Bomoor as the ship dipped lower. In the cockpit, the facility now filled the forward view, its upper structures resolving into detail. Walkways and reinforced plating. Heat vents exhaling in slow, steady pulses that distorted the air above them.
Rex adjusted the descent, bringing the ship in line with one of the designated landing segments on the upper level. The guidance systems accepted the approach without resistance, the platform responding with automated precision, lights shifting to guide the final vector.
The landing struts extended with a controlled mechanical whine, the ship settling the final distance with a soft, heavy contact that travelled through the frame and into the deck beneath their feet. The engines idled down a fraction, not powering off, but lowering into a ready state that suggested departure would be as immediate as arrival had been.
Reave flinched and spun around, heavy pistol in hand, as G2 zoomed across the cockpit, emitting a sharp warble, followed by a string of chirps.
Mentis flashed the Jawa a wide-eyed glare to 'cool it' and held up a hand at the droid to silence it.
"Slow down, bleep it slower," he said to the astromech, before listening again to the less frantic bursts.
"Oh, okay," the Rattataki nodded, turning to Rex, "He worried you've left key ignition systems on. I take it you meant to do that?"
Rex did not look away from the forward viewport as Mentis relayed it. For a moment, his hands remained where they were, resting lightly on the controls, as if the ship were still in motion and needed the input. Then one of them lifted, tapping a control out of habit more than necessity again, confirming what was already obvious.
"You're karking right I meant to do it," he said, flatly. He leaned back a fraction in the chair as was his wont, finally turning just enough to look at Mentis properly, one brow raised as if the question itself had been mildly offensive. "Korriban," he began, ticking a finger. "Bastion." Another. "Bespin." A third, sharper tap. "Hells, imagine we’d had this on standby on Tatooine, yeah?" A faint shake of his head followed, humourless. "Every time we’ve landed somewhere like this, it’s gone sideways faster than anyone planned, and we've not always had a ship ready. I’m not switching her off just so we can all feel a bit more… 'settled'." He turned back to the viewport, eyes narrowing slightly as he scanned the silent platform beyond. "Nah, she stays hot," he said, quieter now, more to himself than the others. "Ready to lift the second this place decides it remembers what it is."
One hand reached across the console, flicking a control that caused a subtle shift in the engine readouts, stabilising them into a sustained idle.
"G2 and that TRIO spider can keep an eye on the systems," he added, nodding briefly toward the astromech without looking. "Brick too, if his battery's up to task. And-" as if suddenly remembering with a shudder, "-that walking nightmare good Master Thort has been toying with can stand by as well. If anything tries to get clever with the ship, I want to know about it before it gets halfway through the hull." A summons from within the ship called them to join the others.
Rex's shoulders slumped slightly, but he summoned the energy to rise from the chair, although he gave its backrest an affectionate squeeze.
"Destiny awaits, I guess."
And then they were gone.
Once again, G2-O7 was left in the ship. Yet, the usual calm sanctuary was polluted: ignition thrusters still running, corrosive atmosphere nibbling at the outer hull and now, the tranquil balance of the lone astromech with the ship's computer had been upset not only by the admittedly unobtrusive NX unit but now this odd FA-series abnormality that refused to speak proper droidspeak, preferring either some archaic binary or its command line basic.
"Dweeble. Zwaap." the ship's droid grumbled to itself as it sat plugged in at the cockpit, feeling duty-bound to keep an eagle sensor array on the engine status in this precarious state.
I will not be the one to blow up the ship, it thought, I'll leave that up to the organics!
A notification chimed up on the dashboard, repeating a few times until it could not be ignored. G2 checked it briefly, logging it as a secure transmission in the strategy room but quickly silenced it for the organics to check later when they were back. It was more concerned with ensuring stable power levels.
Barely a moment later, the cockpit door slid open and a rickety clank of bare foot pads on the metal floor grille was registered by G2. It swung his orb-like head around in the vertical plane so his red and blue optical sensor stared right at FA-1S who was obviously entering.
"Beewap?" the astromech queried with an irritable beep.
The bare-circuits humanoid droid angled down towards G2, it's burning orange photoreceptors dimmed and brightened as they focussed in on the diminutive unit.
"NOTIFICATION: This unit has detected an incoming transmission on the encrypted terminal in the strategy room with urgent priority," its resonant male-sounding basic was still unsettling, not quite human or droid, "QUERY: Is it your duty to answer and patch it through to the crew?"
"Bwaap, zeeboop," G2 shuffled its legs slightly, indicating it was busy where it was and not about to move.
The taller droid angled its head slightly, "CLARIFICATION: I would answer it myself, but I lack the appropriate interface and would need to be wired in," there was a micro-pause, evident only to the two machines, "As you know."
G2 jerked its chassis slightly before relenting
"Dwoop!" it emitted, detaching itself abruptly from the central console and zooming straight backwards and out the door, being sure to give FA-1S a little bump on the way.
The fabricant droid wobbled, servos whirring with lightning fast recalibration to ensure it not lose balance. Simply turning to pace behind the droid, following it back to the secure terminal down the hallway.
"OBSERVATION: Believe me, I am certainly not thrilled at requiring the assistance of such a simple binary machine," the unit called after the speeding astromech, "But what can one do when the galaxy insists on reverting to primordial computing in my absence?"
When FA-1S reached the room, G2 had already connected to the central terminal, minimising the previously spinning model of the factory they had landed on and instead, loading in the incoming transmission. It took a moment longer than usual as the encryption checks ran and the signal was screened for any hidden tracker code.
Stopping beside the projection, where Thane, Amare and Bomoor had stood just minutes ago, the FA unit considered out loud, "CONTEMPLATION: The organic units seemed quite unsettled by this place. For their sake, this had better not be too important."
As the droid finished speaking, the projection reformed and began to settle onto the weathered faces of a Selkath and a Cerean.
TBC
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