B A S T I L A S A L - S O R E N
OBJECTIVE 3
The viewport glass reflected little more than the glistening orb that was Sepan 8 and the thin golden flares of distant starships. Bastila sat forward in her seat, hands gliding over the shuttle’s console. She’d been forced to argue, at length; the need to fly her own ship without an escort that felt like half of Naboo’s defense ministry. But in typical Sal-Soren style, she had gotten her way.
In her hand, she held a diplomatic clearance badge; polished, official, and currently, completely useless.
“Sepan Port Authority to inbound craft,” crackled the voice across the comms, clipped and impatient.
“Transmit clearance credentials again for approach vector six. The approach is for High Republic craft only. Your designation does not match current...”
She tried again. Fingers filtering through input menus, she re-entered her authorization with a flicker of annoyance crossing her face. They had
insisted this would work.
A long silence followed. Then the voice returned; colder now, clearly agitated.
“Clearance code invalid. Your craft is not listed on the registered diplomatic manifest. You will divert or be escorted to a holding zone, by order of the High Republic.”
Bastila exhaled through her nose, once. Sepan 8 wasn’t exactly hostile territory, not yet, but the High Republic’s grip here was thin. A civil issue had been simmering beneath the surface for months, threatening to break open at the slightest push. Any lapse in protocol might become political kindling, especially with the High Republic stretched too thin across too many systems.
She tapped at the console, pulling up her security suite and frowning at the mess of authorization logs and outdated protocols that had trickled into her ship’s systems over the last year.
“Of course,” she muttered.
“However, I am here on a diplomatic mission to…”
She stopped. A beat of silence, then her lips curved into a dry, private smile; like she’d just remembered something very interesting.
“Hold. I misentered. Transmitting codes now.”
With a few swift taps, she accessed the credentials archive she’d built when she was younger, back when slicing records was more of a game between siblings than a crime. There it was, nestled deep in her encrypted cache:
Briana Sal-Soren’s access code. Surely it wouldn’t still be valid.
She remembered the moment with eerie clarity, thirteen, maybe fourteen, bored and petty after being left behind on some planetary trip. She’d stolen the code just to prove she could. And now?
Well, Briana wouldn’t mind. She’d understand.
Bastila keyed in her sister’s clearance and waited. The system blinked.
Active.
The confirmation light flicked green. It wasn’t just valid; it was a
senior code.
Then the comms answered:
“Clearance accepted. Welcome, Grandmaster Sal-Soren. Descent vector approved.”
Bastila rolled her eyes. Briana really needed to change her passcodes more often. But she couldn’t hide the flicker of affection toward her sister, Briana’s authority had just opened every door.
“Thanks, Bri,” she murmured.
“I promise I’ll make it worth it.”
Her fighter dipped toward Sepan 8, its sleek profile slicing through the upper atmosphere. Below, the city shimmered like emerald lakes ringed by golden spires like an oasis set within a planet still scarred by ‘negotiations’ that hadn’t quite turned into war.
She adjusted her robes as the nav lights flickered for final descent, tucking the diplomatic seal back into place. Her mission was clear: meet the president, perhaps the royalty, and most importantly; avoid causing any galactic incidents.
That was until a galactic incident found
her.
The moment her landing struts touched down, the frequencies exploded.
Emergency alarms.
Comms cut out or screamed into chaos.
High Republic channels jammed against each other, panic and static flooding the airwaves.
Even with her effort to distance herself from over-reliance on the Force, Bastila felt it;
a pinprick in the tension of the world, and then a sudden shattering, like summer rain falling into dust. Something had broken.
“What the frakk…” she muttered, fingers racing across the controls, trying to isolate any signal that would tell her what was happening.
“High Republic sector control, come in,” she said, voice low but firm.
“This is Bastila Sal-Soren of the Jed...of Royal House Sal-Soren. Do you read?”
Static.
She paused. What now? Wait for extraction? Or was it expected of her to launch back into orbit and jump to Naboo?
Then, nearby, an explosion. A building ruptured in the distance, fire and smoke billowing into the skyline.
That was her decision made then.
Climbing out of the fighter, she stripped off the outer layer of her delegation robes, expensive silks and embroidered cotton pooling at her feet. She wrapped the fabric around one arm and tossed it into the cockpit before sealing the hatch.
Her black undersuit; sleek, reinforced, designed for pilots, would have to suffice. It allowed speed. Stealth, if needed. She checked the weight of the blaster at her hip. Then, with a breath of hesitation, she clipped on her lightsaber.
“Right…” she muttered, half to herself.
The city had fallen eerily quiet in the moments after the blast. Too quiet.
She stepped forward, into the smoke settling across Sepan’s golden streets.
