Chief Of Operations for GAL Ltd.
LISTEN IN THE SHADOWS
The Hidden Path was more than a rebellion; it was survival given form. Every shadowed chamber, every concealed sanctum they raised was another chance to resist the Empire’s grasp and keep alive the memory of freedom. But as their network grew, so did the demand for sanctuaries strong enough to protect the hunted, yet hidden enough to remain unseen.
While many were deciding on potential locations, Connel Vanagor remembered such a place. The Shadow Temple—half-forgotten, buried deep in the roots of an ancient Wroshyr Tree just outside of Kachirho, its corridors carved into the living wood, its chambers fortified by the earth itself. Few outside the Jedi ever knew of its existence. Fewer still survived long enough to see it.
But Kashyyyk had changed. Once a world of towering forests and proud warriors, it now bore the subtle but unyielding weight of Black Sun control. The syndicate’s claws dug deep into the planet’s trade routes and cities, their eyes everywhere. Setting foot there openly was to invite pursuit, at a time where frankly they were not prepared to deal with. To reclaim the temple, they would need a way in—a path hidden even from the syndicate’s gaze.
And Connel knew where to look. The answer lay not only in old maps and older memories, but in old allies. Coren Starchaser, who had walked paths few could even sense, or Matsu Ike, whose insight into shadows eclipsed his father’s let alone his own. Either might hold the key to moving unseen across a world that belonged to hunters. To reach the Shadow Temple again would mean calling on trust forged in darker days—and risking that the past might finally answer.
OBJECTIVE 1 - INSPECTION
The decision was made quickly. The Shadow Temple could be more than a refuge—it could be a bastion, if it still stood beneath the Wroshyr’s weight and the centuries of silence. But to know for certain, the Hidden Path would need boots on the ground.
That meant assembling a team. Their route would not be through the syndicate’s stranglehold above Kashyyyk, but through the Kattadda Temple, where ancient gateways still whispered with the power of the Force. A portal buried in its depths opened directly into the Shadow Temple’s heart.
The assignment was simple on paper—enter, scout, and return. In practice, it meant threading through crumbling halls and half-lit chambers where the living wood of the Wroshyr had swallowed entire corridors. Their task was to judge if the temple could stand again: was it only a matter of clearing rubble and cleaning out nests of vermin, or would they find something worse festering in the dark?
This would not be a reclamation—yet. It would be reconnaissance, brutal and direct. The question wasn’t just whether the Shadow Temple could serve the Hidden Path again, but whether it was safe for anyone to stand within its walls at all.
OBJECTIVE 2 - SNEAK OUT AND LOOK AROUND
While Connel prepared the team to move through the Kattadda portal into the Shadow Temple itself, the Hidden Path authorized a second operation—one that would unfold in the open spaces around the Wroshyr colossus.
A smaller unit, built for stealth and long-duration fieldwork, would slip onto Kashyyyk’s surface under the guise of traders and surveyors. Their mission was not to fight or reclaim, but to listen. To map the syndicate’s presence without being seen.
Their tools were not blasters or sabers, but devices barely larger than a hand: sensor beacons hidden in roots and crevices, wideband receivers disguised as moss growth, and microtrackers embedded into wildlife. Wyyyschokk spiders, armored katarns, even the songbirds of the upper canopy—each could become a wandering node in an invisible net of early detection.
Every movement of Black Sun patrols, every unmarked transport that dared to hover near the ancient tree, would be recorded and relayed in silence. The squad knew the syndicate trafficked in flesh and spice, but if they were using the Shadow Temple’s shadowed groves as cover, the Hidden Path would know first.
This team wouldn’t get glory. If they did their job right, no one would ever know they were there. But without them, the main strike force would be blind—and blind men don’t survive long under Black Sun rule.
OBJECTIVE 3 - GET AND PREP SUPPLIES
While one squad prepared for reconnaissance inside the Shadow Temple, and another worked the forests outside, a third team was assigned to a task less glamorous but no less critical: preparation.
Gathered in one of the yet to be named Temple’s lower hangars, the team assembled pallets of equipment—power cells, portable generators, reinforced lighting rigs, field medkits, and modular construction gear. Droids clicked and whirred as they were calibrated for excavation and repair, each one fitted with cutting torches, repulsor lifts, or sensor arrays. All loaded into unmarked Osprey Undercover mission ships that would serve to get them in, but show no identifiers whatsoever, using flightlines from the old Shadow Temple flightplans.
It wasn’t just hardware. Food rations, water filtration systems, and collapsible shelters were sorted and packed, ready to establish a forward base inside the temple if it proved safe enough to occupy. Even tools for restoring sacred spaces were included—holo-recorders to archive inscriptions, scanners for detecting Force echoes, and cleaning kits to preserve the Wroshyr’s living wood without scarring it.
There was no urgency in their movements, but there was purpose. Every crate strapped down meant fewer surprises later. Every datapad logged meant one less reason for a supply chain to falter. They weren’t warriors heading into danger; they were builders laying the first stones of a possible sanctuary.
If the Shadow Temple stood ready, this team’s work would turn ruins into refuge. If it didn’t, their supplies would keep the Path mobile and prepared for the next site. Quiet work, but the kind that decided whether or not hope had a roof overhead.
