"Evasive maneauvers!" barked the captain, as the diplomatic vessel rolled and banked upwards to evade the missiles. Although the artificial gravity meant the move wasn't felt, looking out the viewscreen was enough to make anyone dizzy.

The missiles swerved and exploded all around, battering the comparatively delicate craft, but it squeezed between the explosions and emerged alive on the other side as its' escorts squeezed in on either side.

Arriving into the combat area, Coalition guns added their thunder to the vaccum of space and turned the surviving enemy ships into fine clouds of smoke and metal - even the missiles were caught in the crossfire, thus clearing the field temporarily.

With the way clear, the captain sent out a transmission to friendly forces in the vicinity (he himself being uncertain as to just who to address). "This is the Coalition, I think I speak for everyone over here when I say what the hell was that?" He fumed, and wished he still had his cigarra. "Those didn't look like Trandoshan or Wookie separatists, and they didn't look like Serendivus mutineers either - who are we dealing with now?"

Elsewhere, Jargur and Oaxaca worked their way free of the break room and set off quickly towards the bridge. "Who do you think it could be now?" said Oaxaca, as they ran.

"Honestly? I have no idea - and I bet our friends know as little as we do. I didn't want to say it before... but I think we might be over our heads." Jargur was clearly grim as he made the next suggestion, "We better tell Jan and the Cren, we'll need to roll in the big guns."

Rages wiped the sweet from his forehead, his flight suit was soaked and he didn't really have time to change out. "Sir, communication coming from the coalition ship."

He nodded and listened to the message, he wiped the sweet head some more and then straightened his jacket up and hit the reply button

"This is Rages, second in command of the Seren Response Flagship, these forces are unknown to us." he lied. "but they seem to have an organic and metal making, which makes me wonder if we might have an enemy that doesn't exactly 'want' to allow the peace proceeding's to continue." he said and switched off

"Lets just hope that idiot Miknak decides not to waste anymore resources." Rages said and got up. "I'm going to my quarters, message me if anything else happens."

"Yes Sir!" An officer said

Rissonik surveyed the damage the space to ground ordinance did to his property: one barracks had one whole side blown away. With a sigh he just accepted it, for besides property damage there were no causalities: you couldn’t ask for better. Still he worried if there were more of those things around.

“This thing was after me…even though I don’t really have any political power on our people as a whole.” He thought. “Unless I was targeted because I was secondary leader to the Separatist Movement…but that’s been over a long time now…so this doesn’t make any sense.” His heart sank as a dreadful possibility occurred to him. “Unless Miknak intends to try to take out Naosha as well….”

If one of those droids was indeed on it’s way to do that, the carnage it could cause would be extensive. In the middle of the city…with mostly unarmed civilians…against a droid that common fighter and blaster fire have little to no effect against it… Beside himself he started fidgeting and pacing with worry.

“What has gotten you so worked up Riss?” A familiar voice said. “And what the skrag happened here?”

Rissonik turned around to see his beloved Naosha and without thinking caught her up in a big embrace.

“Riss!” Naosha protested. “PDA. PDA!”

“Don’t care…” Rissonik said. “You’re safe…that’s what important.”

“Well at least let me breathe!”

“Sorry…” Rissonik loosened his grip on her. “Our unseen foe saw it fit to send a droid after me, one that took capital ship fire to take out.” He pointed at the damage. “I was worried one was after you as well…”

Naosha paled considerably and looked behind her. One of the warriors approached them then. “Sha’tor, according to the sensors, only one of those pods landed nearby and from the scan the pod was big enough to only hold one droid.”

“Only one then…” Rissonik let out a big sigh of relief, Naosha doing the same. “Keep an eye out regardless. Miknak will likely try again once he knows this one failed.” The warrior bowed and went on his way.

“There’s going to be a full Counsel soon.” Naosha said. “So you need to find and dust off your old Counsel robe.”

“Oh lovely…my favorite outfit…” Rissonik said with a roll of his eyes. Then he spied Varcanna walking toward them, looking a little nervous as she should be: she did disobey Naosha’s orders not to fly.

“I saw the Gory Teeth flying over the grounds while I was traveling.” Naosha said with a bit of venom. “That better not have been you flying it…”

“It was me mother…” Varcanna admitted, unable to meet her mother’s angry glare.

“Don’t be hard on her dear.” Rissonik said. “I did command that everyone get whatever firepower they could to combat that droid and if it wasn’t for her, I would be nothing but a blood splatter on the ground.”

Naosha’s hard gaze softened at that. “Alright…but you are still grounded young lady.” She said.

“Yes mother…” Varcanna said meekly.

Meanwhile, a Keshir approached Angella and tapped her on the shoulder. “A message from Vice Admiral Tiosk for you madam.” He said, holding out a datapad for her.

The message within was simple, but very comforting: Data has been secured.

Angella sighed in relief. "That... is very good news.... Lavality would be very proud." she said and looked at Noasha and Rissonik. "I'm glad Vice Admiral Tiosk took the job to protect the shipyard." she smiled slightly then looked at Varcanna, then at Naosha. "Most likely Miknak's realized that there are to many forces present in the space above, hopefully he'll think twice before attacking... but.. now I'm worried about Lavality." she began to pace back and forth and that look of 'what the hell should I do' was present on her face

After about five minutes of this, and causing a small ditch to appear where she had threaded, she turned to Naosha. "I have a request to make, Lady Naosha. Please allow Lady Varcanna to find and locate Lavality, I don't know if the admiral knows she's a target, or if she is already in danger, but I must know if she's alright." Angella said in a manner that spoke for her professionalism.

She turned away and at the court yard. "I also... forgot to mention this because of the seriousness of what I had come here to discuss." she said and turned back to Naosha, the wind picked up and caused the cloak she wore to flutter in the wind. "One of my informants told me that Trazu and Asri weren't on Naboo, in fact, they where last seen with Lavality on Nar Shaada." she said and looked at Lady Naosha. "it's almost certain that they aren't there anymore, but if not ... where..." she said and looked. "If you do agree to letting Lady Varcanna do this, I must also stress the... importance of keeping it professional." she said and turned to Varcanna. "The Seren's where very disturbed in your reaction to Lady Asri, Lady Asri is considered an important person to the Serendivus, she's also important to Admiral Lavality."

She smiled slightly, but then put on a serious face. "I haven't told the Admiral about how you treat Lady Asri, because if I do, Lavality would more than likely cancel all trade agreements and any further negotiation would be meet with silence. Don't forget, " Angella sighed and then made the choice.

"Over 90% of the Trandoshan population wouldn't want to have anything to do with her in the first place!" Varcanna retorted

Angella grinned. "Yes... yes your right... but are you sure thats 90% of the population here on Trandosha? Or 90% of the total trandoshan population in the universe?" She said. "Don't forget, you can't speak for ALL trandoshans, espically those within the Serendivus that respect Asri for what she is. Lavality's second in command is a Trandoshan, when he saw Asri for the first time he didn't feel any anger and such toward her, in fact, he was glad to be back to Trandosha itself." she said to Varcanna

"Now, there's also one other thing you should be aware of." Angella took out another data-pad and handed it to Naosha. "If you want to, have Lady Varcanna read this as well." she said and walked away from the group and over to the wreakage, the reason for this was because she already knew what was about to happen, the shock, the confusion, and of course, Varcanna possibly wondering how the hell that is possible

The captain frowned as the last embers of battle died away. So much for the fun, I guess. It was not that he was a naturally violent man, or one quick to dismiss the dangers and costs of battle, merely that the destruction of all enemy forces he could see meant they were back to sitting around, waiting for contact.

Oaxaca and Jargur reached the bridge, and he turned to meet them. "Ah, gentlemen," he said. "Good to have you back. Our enemy's down for the count and I need someone to find out just who the hell they were."

"I can't guarentee that even our allies know that, captain," said Jargur. They were taken just as much by surprise as we were. Still, you're right - we should get in contact as fast as possible, to be sure."

They fired up the comm, delivering a broad-spectrum address for all sides in the system that they'd identified, including the space forces and whatever leaders and ambassadors they'd idenitified so far. "This is the Coalition, we're getting increasingly concerned about the situation in orbit. Have you any idea who just attacked and why? More importantly, will they do so again soon? Be advised, we have military forces on standby to deal with any threats you identify."

"That was pretty straightforward," said the captain. "Think it'll help?"

"Maybe," said Oaxaca. "We should probably focus on what we're going to do, however. Now that the 'enemy' knows we're here they may field an even larger force to best us. We don't know what we face or how strong they are, so we cannot afford to waste time."

The captain considered this, before picking up his comm. "All hands, prepare to move into a defensive position - we'll be seizing the ground betwee the two planets and forming a tight buffer. No perimeter or scouts, just a wall, and hop to it!"

Rages watched the coalition ships. "what the-" he said before noticing a sensor ghost near one of the Trandosha's moons. "whats that?" he asked his sensor officer

"No idea sir, it could be a ghost or it could be a-" she said before something peirced the comm. lines

~Ahhhh... the Coalition.. here in Kashyyyk....~

Rage's recognized that voice all to well.... Miknak. "Grrrrr.... he has the ardastity to show his ugly mug here..."

~And Rages, of the Serendivus Second Response Fleet~

Rages blood ran cold. "How the hell?" he said while staring at the view screen, it was purely voice but apperently it was being broadcast all over the system

~So, what is the 'mighty' Coalition doing here? Trying to enslave another world to your whim? Or are you here purely for the warrior clans and then will take the wookie's as bait?~

On board Tzhali's ship he was getting rather tired of this fellow, he'd read intelligence reports about him. An extremist is what he pretty much was, but he was also a terrorist, employing unknown technology to do his dirty work. A trandosha is what he was, a Trandoshan who purely believed that his race where the only one's who deserved to live.

~Is the Coalition so weak.. they must pry on two races... I don't care what you do to those smelly wookies, blow up there planet if you would. In fact, do me a favor and elimanant Traitor Naosha and her dip shit life mate~

On board Rage's ship several of his trandoshan officers suddenly went into a fury, pissed off at his words, one of them even went for the weapons console but was struck down by another officer, a taller one. "Calm down!" Rage's ordered and those three officers stared at him before turning away

Rages watched the sensor ghost near that moon

~By the way...... you Seren's seem to like to let your Admirals go places.... how about we make a deal. You stop this peace negotiations and elimanant those wookies, and I'll spare Admiral Lavality's life, along with the annoying Trazu and Asri.~

Rage's eye's dimmed at the last two words. It wasn't possible that he had them, and Lavality would rather die that let this peace negotiation go without success. He gestured to the communication's officer and she nodded. "We will never adhere to those 'terms' Miknak.."

~Are you so sure? Right now her shuttles orbiting a planet, which I won't say, one of my ships is currently observing her's so all I have to do is give them one order and they'll vaporise that shuttle.~

Rage's was getting tired of this conversation. "Whats his shield status?"

"Huh?"

"His shield status!" Rages repeated

The officer jumped to the task and scanned the ship. "He's operating four shield cores."

"And his ship appears to be a combonation of a moncalamari cruiser and a super star destroyer." Rages clasped his hands in thought. "wait.. check sector 9" he said and watched as the online display blinked and zoomed into a portion of that ship. "Good lord of mercy..." he said and straightened himself. Just that screen alone showed well over thirty turbo laser turrets, all of which where aimed at there ship.

He watched this for awhile and allowed Miknak to keep preaching his bull. "Arm salvo cannons one through four." Rages ordered and his officer's nodded. He planned to force Miknak out of his sector, at least until the Coalition could set up a stronger defense barrier, his own forces wouldn't stand a chance against that ship

Miknak's voice was short of Trandoshan, but also quite Human. He didn't leave any chance for any side other than the Seren's to Respond, of course that was until Tzhali had spoken out of turn. "Your stupid smelly scale head." Tzhali said, surprising anyone on his ship and the Seren ship. "You think you can just come here and 'order' the trandoshan government to stand down?!"

~That was my goal you fur ball, although I find that they are quite weak now thanks to those traitors~

"My government has already agree'd to the alliance. Meaning that in order to to 'them' you'll have to go through me." Tzhali's voice rang in the communication's line. Rages grinned when he heard Miknak's voice again, only this time it sounded annoyed

~You insolent fur ball!~

On the front of Miknak's vessels several of the laser batterie's came about and aimed at Tzhali's ship

"Deploy Shield Squadron!" Rage's yelled

On board Tzhali's ship a collision alarm suddenly sounded as two medium sized frigates suddenly appeared out of hyperspace just a short distance off his port bow. The sudden entrance into normal space caused his own vessel to rock suddenly but not causing any 'real' problems.

The two frigates came about, drone's appeared from the front and sides of the ship and took up a defensive sphere formation around Tzhali's fleet. Miknak's vessel suddenly opened fire, but the lasers didn't get anywhere near Tzhali's fleet, all being stopped by the shield grid

After about a minute Miknak stopped firing

Thats when Rage's took this opportunity to attack. "All stations.... FIRE!" he yelled

On the hull of his ship, four area's of the hull suddenly opened up and a large, laser like cannon appeared of course in the very center you could see a barrel. The front of teh cannon's lite up and a second later all four fired in unison

Angry hot plasma burned space between the two opposing forces, but something was differen't about these, they ignored the shields all together and went straight into the hull, burning through so many layers that the ship itself began to list.

The comm. line that Miknak had set up had obviously died because he was no longer getting the usual sounds of Miknaks grumbling. The ship stayed there for several seconds before it entered Hyperspace and vanished

Rage's sighed. "Open a channel with the Coalition," he said and wiped the sweet from his forehead. "Channal open"

"This is Captain Rages of the Seren Second Response Fleet, that my friends is who are up against. Don't take him lightly, for I have no idea how he had obtained such technology.... nor how he plans on using it... All will become even clear once Grand Admiral Lavality of the Serendivus gets back." he said and closed the comm.

"This..... is becomming one hell of a week..." Rages said and laid back into his chair

"You think it's over?" An officer asked

He smiled and nodded. "Miknak doesn't like fighting battles... he'll flee with his tail tucked between his legs and won't come back until our forces leave."

"Ah...."

Naosha stared at the contents of the pad in disbelief. “How is that possible…” She muttered.

“I had the same question myself dear.” Rissonik said. “Only two possibilities come to mind, either she’s a clone or she went under some rather invasive gene therapy. Neither of which she is aware of.”

“Well it explains why those two get along so well…” Naosha said with a sigh. “And Angella is right…if Lavality finds out about how Varca treats her…”

“But Varcanna is also right about one thing.” Rissonik said softly. “It is a bit extreme to threaten to drop allegiance over the actions of one person. Granted, she’s your daughter and is in line to take your position, but she’s not in your position right now.”

“Should we tell her?” Naosha asked, glancing at Varcanna who was fuming slightly nearby. “To be honest I am not sure it will ‘improve’ things.”

“I say we do…at the very least it should put a lid on some of her negative behaviors.”

Naosha nodded and motioned for Varcanna to approach. Once she complied she handed her daughter the datapad. Varcanna’s eyes went so wide she feared they would fall out of her sockets. “How the ziss….” Was the only thing she could utter.

“Now you see why she is so important to Lavality and the Serens.” Naosha said calmly, but seriously. “Though they may not know it themselves just yet, they will eventually. To act against her in any way will risk alienating us from the Serens.”

“Don’t forget that your brother has taken a fond liking to her.” Rissonik added. “And so has the rest of the Clan. To continue with this behavior would also risk alienating yourself from the Clan and your own family.”

Varcanna visibly shuddered: to be alienated from the family would be a kin to being disowned. A Trandoshan without a family was considered to be the lowest caste in Trandoshan society. “I take it you understand the situation?” Naosha asked.

“Yes mother.” Varcanna said, though there was no emotion in her voice: she was likely to shocked.

“Good. Then you will do as Angella requests and find Lavality. I would suggest using the Gory Teeth since that ship isn’t as well associated with our name as Hunter’s Way.”

“I would recommend arming up as much as possible. This Miknak character will no doubt be gunning for whatever ship Lavality, and your brother, is on.” Rissonik said.

“Sha’tor!” A warrior came up to him then and handed him a datapad. “This communication just occurred a few minutes ago in Kashyyyk space.”

Rissonik scanned the contents and groaned. “And it seems time is of the essence…Miknak has a bead on Lavality’s ship and has threatened to blow it out of the sky.”

“But I have no idea where to start looking!” Varcanna protested. “It’s already been made fairly certain that they are no longer around Nar Shadda!”

“Out of everyone here my daughter…” Naosha said coolly. “You have the tools best suited to find them.”

Varcanna groaned, knowing what she was referring to. “Mother…I told you before. I can’t pin point Trazu’s location with our bond. I only know what he is feeling and I am not sure I can sense them at such a distance…”

“A feeling may be all that you need.” Naosha said. “And you won’t know unless you try.”

Varcanna looked about to retort again, but ultimately sighed and said. “Yes mother.”

Stunned at the exchange they had just witnessed, the captain picked up his comm and replied "Roger that, Rages. Be advised, we've been approved for additional deployments to secure the area."

"Have we?" asked Oaxaca.

The captain quickly cut the comm, and hissed "What does it matter? It's obvious this place is dangerous as hell, we're better off calling in some reinforcements. Besides, what they don't know won't hurt them."

Jargur shrugged, and said "It's your field, captain. I'll trust your judgement on this one. Come on, Oaxaca, we're still no use until the heat dies down."

With the two ambassadors resigned to waiting, the captain returned to his duties as the rest of their assigned forces arrived from Jan and the Cren. The Coalition forces now outnumbered all native ships in the area combined, something normally seen as socially awkward if it wasn't for the constant attacks of varied and unknown enemy warships.

The captain was starting to like the situation less and less - at first it had seemed a simple peace-keeping job. All they'd have to do is keep clans and tribes in line until each nation naturally improved. It was the best kind of peace-keeping there was, because the only responsibility they had was to keep the two sides from fighting each other for a while. Now all of a sudden, third and fourth parties were launching surprise attacks, and apparently someone in intel had dropped the ball by not alerting them.

In fact, the more he thought about it the more the captain felt angry about how they'd been left out of the loop. It might have really helped knowing something about some of these enemies beforehand, like who they were, where they came from, and what they were angry about. Why hadn't they been warned at the meeting.

"Ibrams, any suspiscious activity out there?" asked the captain.

"Negative, captain. Our squadrons report conditions have returned to normal."

"Right... take a few squadrons and expand your patrol to sweep the area. Keep your eyes on those Serendivus guys... and keep your distance. I don't like this one bit..."

Rages rested his head up against his seat. "This was suppose to be a general mission to protect the system." he said while rubbing his temples. "It turn's out that someone doesn't want peace to occur."

On the side monitor Tzhali's image was present, the wookie nodded.

~At least you and the Coalition pushed them back, I don't think we'll have a problem right now~

"What about the ship yard?" Rages and watched Tzhali's head as it turned to the side, he spoke in wookie for a few before turning back and speaking in human.

~It's still secure, no problems. We did get a report that apperently the workers on board completed a few fighters and would really like to get them off the deck because they are currently in the way~

Rages nodded and waved his hand, Tzhali smiled and the comm. went dead

"Keep sensors active, inform those shields ships to recover drones." Rages ordered and looked at the screen next to him. "Further more, send order's to Blue and Red squads to continue patrol."

"Those two squads have been cloaked for over two hours now sir, they are reporting an instability in there cloaking drives." The flight officer reported

"Very well then, have them return to base. Deploy Green and Gold squads to take there place, make SURE those fighters CLOAK before they leave the ship." Rages said and the officer nodded

Varcanna paced in front of the Gory Teeth, wondering just how to do as both Angella and her own mother had asked. Around her Erikita were scurring about, arming up her ship to her specifications. She could do it herself, but she had the mystery of where her brother was to figure out instead.

A feel may be all I need she said...but I've never tried to sense Trazu from this distance before. She thought. The memory of when she sensed that the K'Satizitus had completely taken him over resurfaced, but she shook her head. That was that spirit's doing... She told herself. It 'wanted' me to know that and it had the power to do it. This is different. The crimson scaled female stopped her pacing and leaned against the skipray's hull.

Trazu's life was in danger, as was Lavality's. Even the threat to Asri's life bothered her a bit and they all were depending on her to find them and get them to safety. Well, just find technically. She reminded herself. Still, I'll need to do what I can to keep them alive until backup arrives. That requires 'finding' them first....

Which left her in a dilema as she didn't know how to purposely sense her brother's feelings: Trazu was the Force Sensitive one...not her. I have to try though...for Trazu's sake. The question though was how to start. I suppose just thinking about him could get somewhere.

With that thought she closed her eyes and thought back, recalling memories and feelings about her brother in the past. As each memory ran it's course, she recalled more recent ones, though there were understandably large gaps in the 'timeline', especially between the last contact she had with him and the present. Suddenly she got a chill and beside herself she rubbed her arms. Why am I suddenly cold? She thought. It's a comfortable 90 degrees out here.

It dawned on her then that it wasn't 'her' feeling cold...but Trazu. He's someplace cold... She thought. But that could be a number of places. Being a reptilian race, Trandoshans started getting 'cold' sooner then many other species. He could be locked in a giant freezer for all she knew! No, he must be in a ship...Uncle said that Miknak had their ship in his sights. Which means he must have just left someplace cold...but where?

As she stood there rubbing her arms, the Erikita giving her odd looks, a final clue came to her: frozen hellhole of a planet.

A frozen planet... She thought, tapping her teeth with her claws. "Hoth!" She shouted suddenly, frightening an Ekrita that nearly dropped the torpedo he was loading. Varcanna shouted at them to hurry up and she pulled one of them the side. "Find Angella and my uncle and tell them that Trazu and Lavality must be close to Hoth." She said. The Ekrita, a bit shaken, nodded and took off. Not wasting any more time, she boarded her vessel and did her flight checklist as fast as possible. Fortunately the last torpedo had been installed at the same time, so all she had to do was take off.

It was an angonizing wait to get out of the planets grav shadow before she could engage her hyperdrive.