Off the Grid

Prologue

Somewhere in deep rift space, rimward of Shili and nestled between the galaxy's lazily spiraling arms, a small dense star suddenly popped out existence. It had no inhabitable planets in its orbit, it was not bright or beautiful enough to have ever been included in some far-flung civilization's constellation charts, and even its final moments were unimpressive. It simply imploded upon itself, its gravitational mass contracting to a singularity. No supernova, no glorious transmutation into star-shards and striating bands of fantastic light. Nothing – just a black hole.

The only being who witnessed the star's demise was the CIS tactical droid TX88. The star's death did not fill TX88 with any degree of melancholy or inspire him with any philosophical reflections – because he wasn't programmed for these inconvenient anthropomorphic quirks. Instead, he rubbed his blunt metallic hands together and immediately began calculating the effect of the gravitational disturbance on outlying hyperspace routes.

"Ha ha ha," he laughed, a peculiarly flat emotionless sound. His programmers had found it expedient to provide him with a modicum of pleasure-response. He was designed solely and simply to function as an independently operating strategist on lonely and boring outposts belonging to the Separatist Confederacy. Droid cybernetic pathways imitated the complex and essentially unpredictable nervous systems of living beings; and everyone knew that a person (albeit an artificial one) was best at what he truly enjoyed doing.

The sight of all seventeen Republic controlled hyperlanes which passed through the affected sector falling inevitably into disuse over the next three months – a calculation allowing for the standard irregularities and the Reeshak differential – really got his pleasure motivators going. "Ha ha ha," he cackled.

In one hundred fourteen days, he estimated, things were going to get busy out here. In five months, the Republic intelligence network, driven by sheer desperate necessity, would guess that he and his secret outpost were out here. In five months, three days and eleven standard hours – he estimated – he would have Jedi visitors.

"Ha ha ha ha," he chortled again.

Chapter 1

Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker leaned far out over the safety railing which rimmed the topmost spire of the space traffic control tower at Chancellor Palpatine Intergalactic Spaceport. The maintenance platform was strictly off-limits; a warning placard behind him said Authorized Personnel Only in Basic and a dozen other languages. He grinned, noting that Huttese was not among those languages. Hutts didn't bother with beaurocratic nonsense like warning signs. On a Hutt world, if you weren't authorized personnel, you got shot. Problem solved.

The cool late morning air stirred the hem of his cloak and whipped at his long hair. He could see all the way to the slightly curved horizon – kilometer upon endless thousands of kilometers of city, stretching away in a horizontal plane as far as the eye could see. But he wasn't interested in Coruscant's horizontal plane today. Nope….he was here to glory in the freedom of the third dimension.

He loved flying.

And he loved what he was watching now. It was Padme who had put him onto it – inadvertently, of course. She had complained this morning of a sub-sub-committee in the Senate, some group of busybodies who wanted a ban on everything fun. Not that Padme had seen it quite that way. They wanted a ban on pod racing, a ban on cage fighting, a ban on sky sailing…you name it. Oddly enough, Padme hadn't really seen his point of view during the ensuing debate. But she was beautiful when she was angry, so it didn't matter – and she had gone so far as to mention that some people were "idiots" enough to skysail over the spaceport.

So when she had huffed off to her important Senatorial business, he had nipped over here to take the edge off his loneliness…and to check out the idiots.

They were having fun. Good old fashioned, harmless fun. A skysail was basically a length of flexible plastifiber with a handhold set in the leading edge. A flimsy harness attached the sailer underneath. Depending on the angle of the sail, he could float like a hunting thranctill, drop like a stone, or soar and swoop and dive and roll. The thermal updrafts from the cooling hulls and starship engines made the perfect playground for the sport. Right now, a couple intrepid youngsters (that's how he thought of them – though they were his same age) were playing Flinch; they dove off a high repulsor sled overhead and plummeted a thousand meters in wild freefall before pulling up at the last moment and skimming along the long landing strips used for cruisers and heavy freighters.

Anakin leaned a little further out over the edge of the railing, feeling the pull of gravity just begin to overbalance him. It was tempting to let go, to just let himself drop gracefully over the edge and fall all the way to a Force-cushioned landing on the tarmac below.

A security swoop pulled up, blue lights flashing. "Hey! Hey! Sir! Get away from the edge!" The officer's voice, taut with fear, snapped at him. Anakin glared at the unwelcome intruder. Couldn't this guy see that he was a Jedi?

The well-intentioned policeman edged the swoop a little closer. "Look…easy now…whatever your problems are, there's always a better solution than this. No need to jump, now." He held out an arm, ready to stop the would-be suicide from a precipitous fall.

"I'm fine," Anakin growled at the solicitous nincompoop. He had missed the outcome of the sky-sailing contest. Other police speeders were moving in on the participants, breaking up the fun, sending people home with a stern warning or a fat citation.

The officer accosting him finally noticed the lighhtsaber hilt hanging at the young man's side. "Oh…my apologies, master Jedi. I thought – see, we get a couple o' jumpers here every month, you know. Makes me nervous."

"No trouble," Anakin replied sullenly, only somewhat mollified.

"Can I give you a lift?" the man asked, clearly anxious to reestablish cordial relations.

"No thanks," the young Jedi smirked. "I'll take the short cut." He gripped the railing with both hands, vaulted himself up into a handstand and back-flipped off the edge into a swan dive. He thought he could hear the man's muffled shriek of horror over the rushing wind.

The wind screamed in his ears, his body accelerated harder and harder toward sudden and certain death, his heartbeat picked up…he heard himself laugh with joy. I'm crazy, he thought abstractedly, even as he summoned the Force, summoned it and pulled it out the power of his headlong fall, out of the howling, rushing air, out of the thrumming in his veins, and pushed against the ground rising so insanely fast to meet him. Harder – harder –

He landed in a crouch, with a little jolt to his spine and knees. But nobody needed to know about that. Breathing deep in satisfaction, letting the adrenaline slowly subside, he rose to his full height. The comlink on his belt was insistently buzzing. Casually he hit the receive button. "Skywalker."

"Anakin!" a clipped, impatient voice chided him. "Where are you?" That was Obi Wan, sounding a wee bit aggravated. "Dare I ask what you are doing?"

"Right now, master? I just finished falling off a very, very tall building. Why?"

But Obi Wan didn't seem amused by the flip answer. "Really? I don't suppose you remembered about the briefing scheduled for this morning?"

"Oh." In truth, his few brief hours with Padme and the excitement of the sky-sailing demonstration had driven all thought of it from his mind. "I guess I'm running a little late. When does it begin?"

"Five minutes ago," Obi Wan growled. "The Council will be waiting eagerly for the moment when you deign to grace us with your presence."

Poodoo! Anakin cursed silently. "Master-" But Obi Wan had already cut off the transmission. Typical – he always had to have the last word and he never listened. That was just how he was.

"Not your Padawan anymore," Anakni grumbled, looking around hastily for the nearest air taxi, and wondering if he had enough credits on his person to bribe the driver into taking a few illegal shortcuts.

The shimmering holoprojection of the galaxy slowly rotated in mid air, suspended in the darkness od a circular tower room. Amid the map's glimmering points of light, somewhere rimward of Shili and nestled between the galaxy's lazily spiraling arms, a small blue dot of light suddenly popped out of existence.

"There is the new imploded star nucleus," the deep, measured voice of Jedi Master Plo Koon boomed into the silence. A small blip and the projected map rearranged itself to display the affected area in closer magnification. Red and green lines arced between star systems, designating terminal points of hypersapce lanes. "As you can see," Master Plo continued, "The resulting gravitational disturbance has disrupted every jump point in the sector. The arm-to-rim transit is effectively destroyed until the nucleus stabilizes."

There was a stirring of dark robed figures around the observation balcony rimming the glittering star map. What members of the Jedi Council were still present on Coruscant, and a few other Knights and Masters, had gathered here to witness the imploded star's last unkind legacy: the destruction of certain key hyperlanes which might upset the balance of a war the Republic was already in grave danger of losing.

"But surely this development cripples the Separatists as badly as it does us," Obi Wan Kenobi pointed out.

Next to him, the diminutive Yoda rapped his gimer stick against the marble inlaid floor. "Never so simple is it," he reminded the younger Jedi.

"Indeed," Ki Adi Mundi put in. "It would appear the Confederacy has alternative routes which pass through uncharted space near the Triburon Ghost Nebula." A web of yellow and orange lines appeared in the projection field, a series of long cuts around the black hole's area of influence. "These are calculated and purely theoretical routes provided by our own best celestial navigators."

"That's impossible," Mace Windu asserted. "Every one of those routes posits an unbroken jump far in excess of what even a supercruiser can handle. There's nowhere to revert and refuel out there. Republic intelligence has been combing the entire sector for months." Mace's tunic shone faintly in the reflected light of the map.

"Impossible?" Yoda huffed. "Foolhardy words, where Dooku is involved," he reprimanded his colleague.

A door hissed open to admit a tall figure dressed in unrelieved black. A stir of annoyance flitted around the broad chamber.

"Masters," Anakin Skywalker said, striding up to the railing surrounding the map. "Forgive my tardiness."

"By all means," Obi Wan replied flatly, as the young Knight found a place directly beside him. "I was beginning to wonder if you got my message," he added, sotto voce.

Anakin glared at his former mentor, even though the darkness concealed his expression. He knew the other Jedi would feel the look through the Force. "Did I miss anything important?" he whispered.

"Of course not. We would never discuss weighty matters without your input."

Acid was practically dripping off Obi Wan's words. Annoyed, Anakin noted that Yoda, standing serenely on Obi Wan's other side, had overheard the exchange and was chuckling quietly to himself. That's right…. the young Jedi thought. Tell that upstart Skywalker to go jump off a high building…

"For stars' sake, Anakin, now that you've managed to arrive, do at least pay attention," Obi Wan hissed.

"I'm sorry," Anakin growled back.

"Nonetheless," Ki Adi was saying to the assembly, "The Separatist navy has somehow managed to utilize one or more of these hyperlanes. They have a means of access through this sector which our fleets do not."

"And that opens up the Mid Rim in the sector to imminent attack. Our response time would be greatly delayed," Mace concluded grimly.

"They have a refueling station out there somewhere," Anakin stated confidently. He could feel Yoda's gimlet eyes slide sideways to consider him.

"So sure are you, young Skywalker?" he asked, in that infuriating way of his.

"There are no inhabitable systems in that quadrant, and long run scanner sweeps have revealed no energy signatures matching something of that size," Mace Windu said dubiously.

"It's there," Anakin insisted, feeling his cheeks flush at Mace's implied criticism. "If you sent me out there, I could find it," he added on impulse. Because it was true, no matter what Master Windu might think.

"Hmmmm," Yoda mused. "What thinks the Council about this suggestion?"

"We know little about the Triburon Ghost Nebula. It is considered uncharted space," Ki Adi replied. "Even th archive records are limited on the subject."

"True," Plo Koon agreed. "It may be necessary to seek out unconventional sources of information."

"Less reliable intelligence sources have hardly worked to our benefit in this war," Mace Windu pointed out heavily.

"Yet they are sometimes all we have," Obi Wan gently reminded him. "And we have no time to spare. Dooku could launch an attack on the Mid Rim at any moment. We must find and shut down that refueling station."

Anakin glanced over at his former teacher, suddenly feeling much less resentful. Now they were talking.

"Shut down?" Yoda repeated. "Aggressive is this action you propose, Master Kenobi."

But Obi Wan wasn't in a mood to back down. "Yes, master…but we must defend the Mid Rim. Quickly and decisively. I will go to the Triburon sector and discover how the Separatists are making their transit. If there is indeed a station out there, it must be destroyed."

Ypda sighed. "Dangerous is this undertaking, but unavoidable. Take young Skywalker with you. Perhaps together our enemies you can outwit."

"Yes, master. We will proceed without delay."

"May the Force be with you." Mace Windu dismissed them with the traditional words of parting.