Reason to Fight

They could no longer see what happened to the Sith troopers in the forest. Based on their screams and blaster fire it wasn't anything good. The first Jedi crouched there with her hands on the ground. The mud and water were pushed aside as though to keep her clothes from being sullied.

The other two Jedi stood by their fighters and watched; Along with the rest of the Republic troops.

Finally, the screams stopped and the Jedi rose to her feet. She glanced backward and made her way to the soldiers. The other two Jedi flanked her sides as she approached.

"I am Jedi Master Aulat, this is my Padawan Jysyal, and Master Terpfen." She gestured towards the female Mirialan and male Nautolan.

"I'll be the one organizing the war effort on the ground. I know you used to be criminals, and were forced to come here. Many have already given their lives for a Republic they don't even believe in." Her voice was very soothing. As she spoke everyone listened and their emotions calmed down.

Her eyes scanned the crowd and finally stopped on Lon. "So I won't ask you to fight for the Republic. Fight for yourself. Fight for a chance to make it off this planet alive. I know you may not trust me, but here I am, standing right next to you, fighting with my life on the line to make it back home as well."

"If we're all going to fight anyway, let's fight together."

Lon looked around, there were a little over nine hundred people still left alive. He took the first step forward. "I'll fight with you."

"And I." Jido was next, followed by Dash, and Koobis was last.

When the eight of them, seven different species, stepped forward to volunteer it set off a chain reaction. Two more volunteered, followed by twenty, then a hundred, until everyone was ready to fight.

Not because they were moved by her speech, but they didn't want to be alone in a warzone.

"Lon Alder, I heard of your bravery over comms and witnessed it with my own eyes. If not for you to lead away those Sith Fighters, even fewer transports would have made it to the ground."

Everyone turned to look at Lon as she spoke. "You also attacked and destroyed an outpost, giving us our first advantage in the war. And once again, you and your comrades came in to rescue us."

"By my power as a General of the Republic, based on your spirit of sacrifice I promote you to a Military Officer with the rank of Lieutenant." Her eyes turn to the other seven next to him. "And for your brave exploits, you will be promoted one rank to Corporal."

Some looked at them with jealous eyes, but no one complained. They may be criminals but they're not ungrateful fools.

Master Aulat's face suddenly became serious. "Now is our most desperate moment. Before they regroup, we need to occupy one of their outposts and turn it into our forward command."

She led the forces forward and moved through the forest. Sith Troopers were strung up in the trees like Christmas ornaments.

Bodies were half-buried in the ground from the roots pulling them and the vehicles overturned.

It didn't take long to reach the first outpost, this is where the first group of troops to assault the landing craft came from.

"Master, they've switched their shield generators from ray shielding to particle shields. If we want to make it through, we have to walk through real slow." Jysyal came back and reported to her master.

Terpfen shook his head. "There should only be a hundred troopers left, but walking up to the shields will make us a target."

"It's fine." Aulat waved her hand. "Divide the troops and come in from three different angles. They can't stop us all and the particle shields can't stop our blasters."

They split the group into three, Lon and the gang were separated and he followed the Padawan. She wore a simple gray tunic and had long black hair with the iconic Padawan braid.

"Lon Alder." She turned to him. "That lightsaber doesn't belong to you, where did you get it?"

"Don't you know?" He glanced at her face with a questioning look. "There are Sith in the outpost, two in the one I attacked."

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "Not every outpost has a Sith to personally keep watch. Most of them probably haven't even landed planetside yet. For you to kill one is impressive."

"Two, I killed two. It almost killed me." He felt his lifeless legs with his hand while walking forward and sighed. The rest of his body trembled but he tried not to move much as he walked.

When they surrounded the outpost on three sides they attacked. It didn't take much to weed out the last survivors in the base and they finally had a camp of their own.

While they guarded the base, the three Jedi went back for their A-wings. Lon sat with his back on a building and ate some kind of bar made of edible plant fiber.

Kom'seca came next to him and sat down. He took a bite out of the bar in silence. "You seem pretty hurt, how bad is it."

Lon glanced at him and smiled wryly. "My legs are scraped. I can't run or jump anymore, not until I get them replaced."

Kom'seca patted him on the shoulder. "I left Ryloth because my sister was sold as a slave when I was a child. I swore I'd get her back, for twenty years I've looked for her. Every time I thought I had a lead, by the time I arrived it turned out she was sold to someone else."

"Even now, I haven't given up looking for her. But it seems like fate doesn't want me to find her. I found her location on Eriadu, sold to a wealthy merchant from Alderaan. Now, look at where I am." Kom'seca chuckled.

"Why are you telling me this story? Do you want me to marry your sister?" Lon gave him a strange look. Confused about what he was trying to say.

"I just wanted to tell you what I'm fighting for. I don't know what's driving you, making you so desperate. Just know that everyone has a story. So you don't have to fight so hard. you're not the only one with something to lose."

Lon watched him walk away. He didn't know how to say he had nothing to fight for.

--

While Lon was busy on King's Galquek, Prometheus was flying through real space.

Khan was in the lab performing his nanofluid research while Belia, Natasha, and Sheva were in the training room.

The three stood in a triangle formation and attacked. Their lightsaber moved like flashes of light as they both tried to attack Belia.

No matter what they did, they couldn't break her defense.

Belia's hand stretched forward and a wave of force pushed them both back. She jumped into the air and kicked Natasha's stomach. At the same time, her waist twisted and she chopped Sheva's shoulder with her hand.

They both crashed to the ground and Belia landed in between.

"You two are too focused on using physical abilities, you left yourself open to force attacks." Belia stepped back and rotated her blade.

Natasha stood up straight and held her stomach. "I understand Mistress Belia, but Master only lets me practice the Sense and Control aspects of the force."

Sheva shook her head. "He hasn't given me any guidance after explaining the force to me at all.". She's had to figure everything out for herself.

"Natasha, we practiced the same way at first." Belia turned towards Sheva and paused. "Patience, I know Khan well. What he does may seem strange, but everything is a test. That's how he teaches anyone anything. He hardly gives anyone the direct answer but leads them to it themselves."

"He took you on as an Acolyte, he must have his reasons."

Sheva nodded in response to Belia's words. She wasn't too discouraged, Natasha would train with her and explain a few things as they did.

Belia retracted her saber and left the room.

When they saw her leave, they called out three training droids and continued practicing.

Belia went up to the lab and saw Khan still working on his research. "Your students feel like you've forgotten about them."

Khan glanced at Belia and smiled. "Their conditions are better than ours were. Imagine if we had advanced training droids to practice with for the full seventy years."

"Our bodies develop slower compared to them. Natasha is already physically older than us both." Belia moved next to him and sat down.

Her eyes scanned the lab, the number of people in here decreased every day from his experiments. Her eyes finally stopped on the central computer on the back wall.

It's oval in shape, transformed from the original Habitat ship. Behind it was the engine room of the ship. The power systems, thrusters, and reactions are accessed from there.

Right now, the computer is running at full speed. A donut-shaped space station with a central hub in the middle ring is being analyzed and assembled.

Khan didn't even have to look to know what she was staring at. For ten years, they analyzed every piece of space junk in the Rakata Prime system.

While most of it was destroyed, a lot of the star forge still remained. They pieced everything together that they could, and designed the rest of it themselves. Afterward, they gave it to Habitat to complete.

Now, some of the capabilities have been recreated. The only problem is the power source. The star forge used the power of a star, Khan wanted so much more. He wanted his station to be mobile and unrestricted to a single system.

That had always been his biggest problem, but now, Habitat had changed everything to run on kyber crystals. He combined the elements of the Star Forge with the Death Star.