Laughter cryptically emanates from one of the Starfighters near Garon and Tok.

A moment later Sonya's head pops out of the ship. "That is why a master, I am not."

She then returns to "meditating" in the pilot's seat, mentally going through several forms of lightsabre katas.

Kellen sat in the cockpit, the systems and engines firing up, and a sensation washed over Kellen. He felt himself sink into the Force and his consciousness retreated into his mind, his body and the starfighter seeming more distant and hazy.

"The starfighter was dredging up some sort of memory? But I don't have any memory loss like my fellow icicles...?" Kellen thought. But the starfighter was familiar and now....

Two screams echoed in his mind.

One was a scream of both rage and triumph.

The other sounded dull and hollow and almost familiar...ah, yes, this scream was coming from Kellen himself....

Sadness and anger filled Kellen and his vision blacked out. He had lost...something? Someone? Forever. It was important but he couldn't quite remember what or why.

But now he felt the Force soothing him...or was it the Force reminding him of a decision made long ago?

"Let go." Came the familiar whisper of his Master. And Kellen obeyed what didn't feel like for the first time.

Kellen's vision came back and he sat in the cockpit. His eyes were focused on some trinket he hadn't noticed before.

An oblong object with Devaronian carved on it. Kellen reached out for it and it felt familiar in his hands. He instinctively knew how to slide it and open it up. He saw a picture of another Devaronian male standing next to a beautiful Devaronian woman. "My parents?" Kellen was startled. "Why would I have this?"

But Kellen would have to solve the mystery later as he needed to be ready to fly with the squadron....

Micc'm's eyes open and and he stands. "Tok, I believe I have a suitable solution, though you and Garon may not like it. It will allow you both to endure the next test suitably to your skills. Do you accept? Time is short." His form flickers slightly as he speaks between full color and a goldish yellow.

"Do I get to know what I'm agreeing to or will it be a surprise?"

"It will be tricky, but I will send you to a Sith cruiser Nexu Squadron successfully defeated during the escape to combat Imperial soldiers. You will need to escape the cruiser by any means necessary and return to the Jedi cruiser before the end of the memory. The Jedi pilots on the other hand, must help defend the Jedi cruiser from Sith attack fighters. They too must return to the Jedi cruiser before the end of the memory. Questions?"

"Yes, many, but I get the feeling there's not a lot of time, so I'll stick with the obvious one: how is this going to help them?"

Micc'm regains clarity for a few moments and replies calmly. "As I said, we successfully downed this particular Sith cruiser. A feat that should have been impossible with only a handful of fighter craft. I'm sure you can come up with something."

Tok looks at Garon.

"Well, I'm game to cause some chaos if you are. Let's do this."

Garon laughs.

I tried to convince the Council I was better on the ground than in a fighter. But for some reason they wanted to stuff me in a tin-can and launch me into a dogfight. Killing Sith? Yeah. I'm in.

[Deleted]

Micc'm raises his voice so all can hear. "Jedi! It is more important now than ever that you trust one another and those who choose to aid you. The challenges you face here are only a small taste of those to come. You have traveled so far and will travel farther still. The Force has chosen you to be the protectors of the Galaxy from the Dark Side in this age. I wish you luck in the remaining tests, my friends."

He pauses a moment, and a small DUM pit droid made of blue crystal toddles over to him and leans against his leg. He smiles down at it and pats the top of its head. When he looks up, the faint shimmering forms of five other Jedi masters have joined him - a Twi'lek female, a Whiphid male, a Devaronian male, a Selonian male, and a Zabrak female - all looking on with pride. When he speaks, his voice is joined by five others. "May the Force be with you."

The vision fades around the assembled masters and Micc'm, leaving the companions alone with the ships for a moment, the everything fades to black...

[End of Session 2b]

[session 2c]

When light blossoms once more, Kellen, Xaramis, Sonya, Ren-Do, and Rin are seated in their respective DeltaX-1s in the same hangar as before. This time around, the X-1s are a golden yellow in color and the cockpit interiors are in full color, making it easier for the five companions to pilot their ships. However, the hangar is now filled with twenty-five other DeltaX-1s of the same color and scurrying individuals rushing about, their arms filled with scrolls, datapads, and other materials. The skies, instead of being a healthy color, are sickly red and pulsing purple. The very ground rumbles and shakes lightly; flaming chunks of something fall from the skies, crashing to the ground near the library. "All right, Nexu Squadron," Micc'm's voice comes through the communications headsets of the X-1s, "This is the final run. The Council has issued the final order to evacuate the Great Library. We are to escort the remaining transports to the cruisers in orbit, then defend the cruiser while it prepares to enter hyperspace. No heroics. We all need to get out of this alive to carry on teaching the codes of our Order. Am I understood?"

A chorus of voices answer over the comms in the affirmative.

~ ~ ~

Tok and Garon are floating in pitch black. Micc'm appears before them, shimmering lightly and completely transparent. "You two must remain here for a short time. I cannot transfer your entities to the Sith cruiser until the others have reached orbit. I apologize for the inconvenience."

Micc'm appears strained and heavily fatigued, which should be impossible, since he is merely a ghost, right?

Ren-Do fiddles with the dials, making sure his fighter is ready to fly. Trust the Force, let it guide you, he thinks to himself as he tries to calmly and smoothly lift his fighter off the ground. The result is not what he hoped for as the fighter is lifted almost to the ceiling of the hanger in a single jerk, and then slams back down again, nearly impacting the deck.

"Those controls are more sensetive than I thought," he mumbles to himself as he engages the engines and slowly increases power until the fighter exits the hangar at slow speed, jerking slightly to each side as he accelerates as he tries to adjust the heading to exit safely.

As he follows the other fighters a brief memory comes unbidden to his mind.

He is exiting the hangar doors of a large starship in this starfighter. His fighter. On the comms he hears other members of the squadron calling in. He is the last one who does. ++"Nexu-30, standing by,"++ he hears himself saying. Then, Micc'm's voice. ++"Nexu squadron. Form up in flights, stay close to your wingman. Cruising speed."++

Ren-Do maneuvers his starfighter closer to Rin's, giving his friend a quick wave to signify he's alright. When the squadron has formed up, Micc'm speaks again. ++"This is Nexu leader. This is it, Nexu Squadron. This will be the last drill we‘ll have time for, if our intel is right. I don‘t know if we‘ll be flying in the battle to come, or if we will be needed on the ground. But I know you‘ll do me and your masters proud either way. Now let‘s finish this last training maneuver with style. Rancor Squadron is out there somewhere playing the bogeys. Remember your training. Stick to your wingman. Listen to your flight leader. Force be with us all."++

Ren-Do shakes his head vigorously and focuses again on what he's supposed to be doing. He takes his fighter on a steep climb with the other fighters, a knot of nervousness in his stomach.

"Master Dao!" Sonya frantically tries to free herself from the pilot's harness to go to her mentor as the vision fades.

When the world reforms, she nods at the instructions of Micc'm and mechanically readjusts everything back to flight ready position. "I understand Master Dao, take your place on this ship, I must. Everything seems to fit because the same size, we were."

She looks to the ship, the idea of piloting a living thing appeals to her for some reason. "Outside a holocron, inanimate you may be, or whatever it is droids are; but have a name you must. Call you del Taxi, I will."

A sudden chirping comes from the side of the ship. "Oh, hello there. Glad to have you with, I am. Sonya Damascene I am called, and you are?"

A short series of chirps is the response...

"Well," she imitates the chirps, "time to save some refugees, it is."

As everything seems in place, she sends the ship rocketing off in the direction of the ships in need of an escort.

Kellen looked back twice. Was that an image of himself standing by near Micc'm?

No. That was...his master. "How could I forget what my master looked like?"

Something started to come together in Kellen's mind - strands of memory weaving together.

"He looks just like..." but there was no time longer to meditate and put it back together.

------------

"Understood".

Kellen put some power to the engines and began to take off.

"What's your name little buddy?"

Kellen looked at the display for the readout interpretation of the beeps and whistles.

"Alright, B2. Let's give the Sith Empire everything they deserve."

Xaramis turns to face the fighter, approaching the wing and clambering on top of it. He crosses the flat wing to the cockpit, and an astromech plugged into the port flank rotates to face him, warbling lightly. "Good to meet you too," he grins, "My name is Xaramis Herbray, and I'll be your pilot for today's flight," he clambers uncertainly into the cockpit. The cockpit seat is definitely set for Garon, and he spends a few moments moving the seat from the furthest setting back to the furthest forward - with nearly two feet in difference between them, the move really did need to be made.

Acclimating to the cockpit, the screens light up as he switches on his systems. He has rather a lot of trouble getting everything functional, but once he does so he is pleased to see the Garon had had some sort of training program activated prior to the craft's final flight. Welcome, the central panel flashes up, Flight assist mode activated. Please choose flight setting. Various options flash up - atmospheric flight, long-distance flight, and others - but he goes straight for combat mode. Acknowledged. Searching for targets...no targets found. Locating wing man...contact found. Nexu Seven - Apprentice Sonya Damascene. Activating flight plan...offset formation. Route visible in heads-up display. Fly well, Apprentice. With the onboard systems guiding - or more accurately enabling - his movements, Xaramis lifts off and begins moving out of the hangar. "Nexu Five, standing by."

Master... oh I hope you forgive me for bloody abandoning you Thinks Rin as the ghosts of their masters begin to fade. Ok its flight time, deep breaths, relax "Lets get these birds in the air, Ren-Do form on my wing, stick close and lets see if we cant get through this thing"

"M8, you ready little buddy? keep those shields between us and our enemies and fix this thing as fast as i break it!"

Nexu Squadron lifts off slowly and escorts several transports up into the skies, two wings of five X-1s per transport. The going is slow: the cumbersome transport vessels are secondhand castoffs from the previous generation of Republic Navy and are incapable of pushing the speeds needed for the evacuation.

As soon as the miniature flotilla escapes the upper atmosphere of Ossus, it is immediately apparent what is causing the flaming meteors on the surface. The space around Ossus is filled with chunks of starship debris, mostly from capital class ships from both sides of the conflict. Meanwhile, visible waves of destructive energy can be seen rapidly approaching from where the Cron Cluster used to be only days ago. Sith fighter craft are harrassing the remaining Jedi cruisers in the area and haven't yet noticed the transports or Nexu Squadron. "All right, pilots! Focus on the task at hand. Let's get these transports squared away first, then we'll move on from there. May the Force be with you."

~ ~ ~

The darkness begins to fade around Tok and Garon. "One last piece of advice," Micc'm offers. "Anger is not the answer. Let peace fill you and the Force will guide you to victory. Farewell for now..."

Micc'm disappears, and the darkness fades around them completely. Tok and Garon find themselves strapped into the chairs of a tiny transport ship that appears to have crashed into a hangar bay. A loud siren can be heard blaring through the cracked cockpit viewport. The hangar is filled with fire and smoke, many fighter ships are in ruins...

Garon braced himself for transportation to the Sith Cruiser.

That was when he saw him.

He was large. Even for a Whiphid he stood nearly 3 meters. The vision did not show him in defined color, but Garon could practically see the dark grays in his fur and the yellowing of his tusks. To all who saw him, he was a large and powerful being, but Garon knew that he was perhaps the most gentle Jedi he had ever met.

Garon should have been sad, happy, or even inspired to see the vision of his late master, but a coldness crept in his heart.

He should have listened to Micc'm's words of advice - were it not for the spark of angler igniting within him. Seeing Hakkar only served to remind him of the loss he left, and the irrational anger he felt for his death.

Only a part of him registered the Gatekeeper's wisdom. By the time his vison came too, he was already on a Republic boarding vessel, entering the bowels of the Sith battle ship.

Garon grinned as he unstrapped himself and took note of his immediate surroundings. He had some aggression to misplace.

Kellen took a moment to survey the battle and assess where best to place his fighter in order to intercept the Sith fighters should their little convoy get noticed...

"Ok, B2, we're going to place ourselves on the port side of the nearest transport. Keep scanning for incoming fighters."

In orbit over Ossus, the Sith starfighters are busy harassing the Jedi cruisers, since the cruisers do not have a fighter escort of their own. The Sith cruisers, meanwhile, are hanging back outside the weapons range of the Jedi cruisers, actively scanning the system for any further threats or arrivals from the planet surface. If the DeltaX-1 pilots don't act quickly, they will be detected by the Sith as soon as they leave the debris field. Luckily, the debris field has clustered into dense patterns around larger chunks as long as the planet's gravity and Lagrange Points can withstand the energy waves originating from the Cron Cluster.

~ ~ ~

The small invasion force on the Sith cruiser doesn't have much time before a maintenance team will arrive in the damaged hangar for fire control and to patch the hole in the ship.

Tok unstraps from the transport and is determined to get his bearings, but the flames and smoke are too much for him to be able to make out anything other than basic outlines and shapes. Coughing he fumbles his way out.

"We need to find engineering," he shouts to Garon. "We can take down almost everything vital on this ship from there.

"Let's move!"

Tok begins running toward what he hopes is the exit.

Rin's ship is blasting through space, dodging the occasional bit of rock or starship. [theres a heck of a lot of junk here now, this clusters making a right bloody mess... I wonder if its clumping anywhere?] he hits a couple of buttons and does a quick calculation, then scans the right area for confirmation before keying his com.

"Everyone see all this debris? Well there are some dense spots, one in particular off to our left. It should show up on your scanners. It's being held by the gravity of Ossus and the star in the L4 position. We can use that to shield us from the Cluster but also the scans of any of the Sith. It's going to be single file for the transports, with squads in between, let's use it"

"I hear you Doorinta Bahh."

Sonya slalomed the ship smoothly through the debris, following Rin's instructions.The cheerful chirping of Bleepity Bleep, as well as its help in flying the starfighter, made navigating the area possibly the most relaxing part of the holocron experience so far. Looking at the barely functioning computer systems around her, she thought "Only confuse things, those would. Trust in the Force, I must."