Solna expected to find many things when they landed on Selvus. A hostile welcoming committee seemed the most likely. The condemnation of her teachers and caretakers was all but a certainty. It had crossed her mind that an Expunging Rite in progress was not entirely out of the question either.

Instead what she found, what they all found, was chaos.

Goldie had touched down briefly at a starport named Dolos Station. Those who were intending to go ashore were promptly swept out of the ship, while those who chose to remain with Goldie as she rocketed off to pursue her parents remained clustered on the bridge.

Those who disembarked included Rassi and Solna, Tovos and his crew, and the Horizon Knight Monfi. Ravas and Kelda had expressed a desire to come with the shore party but given the cloaking field Tovos’ crew was still employing their ability to serve as messengers would have been severely limited.

“If you need us, you need only call,” Kelda said.

“Though you’ll want to make it a loud one,” Ravas added.

Everyone could sense that Nix and Ayli were in pursuit of the Enclave’s leadership and that a struggle awaited them. Kelda and Ravas would be the first line of support for that battle, followed as quickly as possible by Lasha, Nulo, Moffvok, Bopo, and, of course, Goldie.

Sali had opted to join the shore party since a battle with the elder Force Users didn’t seem like a good time to her.

Also there was the fact that Zin had contacted them as soon as they entered the planetary landing grid.

“Well my plan backfired,” Zin had said. “I specifically followed them in case they needed backup, but they never even made planetfall here.”

“What happened?” Goldie had asked.

“Apparently a ship broke the lockdown one of my Sisters had put on the port and Nix and Ayli followed them into hyperspace.”

Which was ridiculous. Everyone agreed it couldn’t have worked since you can’t simply jump after someone who goes to lightspeed. Without know they jump calculations, the chance that you’d even wind up in the same solar system were microscopic. 

“If Ayli did it, she had way to make it work,” Goldie said. “We just need to figure out where they went.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Kelda said. “Ravas and I can simply ask them.”

“Let’s do that then. Now,” Goldie said.

“We’ll need to drop our guests off on the planet first,” Kelda said.

“They’re getting a free ride. We can drop them off after we have Nix and Ayli back,” Goldie had countered.

“Except we won’t be able to come back here while their projecting their cloak,” Kelda said.

“And if they stop projecting their cloak, the Death Shadows will flock down on them and  us.” Ravas said.

Goldie sighed, which certainly wasn’t something she’d been programmed to do.

“Fine. Aunt Zin can you get us landing clearance asap?” Goldie asked.

“Already on it my dear,” Zin said. “You’re cleared for a landing on Pad C11 in ten minutes.”

Which was ten minutes longer than Goldie had wanted to wait, but it gave the shore team enough time to gather their stuff and collect what information Zin had to offer on the current state of the Silent Enclave.

Ten minutes and about fifteen seconds later though and the shore team was all on their own, with Goldie once more lifting off for orbit at maximum speed.

“We should go see how this Enclave of yours is doing,” Monfi said, hailing an auto-mover down that had enough space for them all.

“Sister Wenley is watching them still,” Zin said. “If anyone else had tried to leave she would have alerted us.”

“The others won’t be leaving,” Tovos said. “The Elder’s would have commanded them to stay behind when they left.”

“How long will those orders hold in the Elders’ absence?” Monfi asked.

“Until the Elders return or until someone in the Enclave grows old and skilled enough to be named a new Elder.” Tovos wasn’t saying anything Solna hadn’t expected to hear. The idea that the Elders were to be followed unquestioningly had been stamped in her since she was a able to understand words. Her current perspective on the Silent Enclave brought with it a new emotion in place of the desperate devotion she’d once felt.

Rage.

Beside her, Rassi blinked and pulled Solna in for a quick side-hug before offering her hand for Solna to hold.

Which was the right gesture. Holding Rassi’s hand was always comforting, and Solna knew that greeting the situation which lay before them with anger wasn’t going to lead to a good outcome for anyone.

“Let’s get you all back home then,” Sali said as she inspected the most obvious of the blasters she was carrying. Solna couldn’t quite sense where the other ones were, which was a feat in its own right, but the Force was quite clear that Sali, even after passing through the starport’s security was still bristling with more armaments than most New Republic fortresses possessed.

“I gather there will be some danger involved but this is an event which I need to record for the Order’s records,” Zin said.

“Which is why I’ll be right there with you,” Sali said. “Us pirates thrive on danger after all.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. Solna could sense that Sali was more unconcerned with the danger before her than thriving on it. She’d seemed reasonably happy to come along and corral Zin but beyond that a life of relative safety and ease seem to suit the pirate queen quite well.

That thought led to Solna ponder what it was she desired in her life.

Safety and ease always held their fascinations, but Solna wasn’t sure she was ready for either one. Not until she’d sorted out the Silent Enclave, or at least done her part to try.

What “that part” might be still escaped Solna. Even as angry as she was, the prospect of taking on the entire Enclave was daunting. For several reasons, not the least of which being that she could see how the Elders had done what they had, could see the techniques they’d used to manipulate the Enclave and if the Enclave fought back against her hard enough, she wasn’t entirely sure she could resist using those techniques too.

“The local security force should have the rest of the Enclave under house arrest by now,” Zin said. “After their ship blasted out of the port, the rest of them are being investigated for being part of a criminal conspiracy with a high flight risk level.”

“Security won’t find them,” Tovos said. It should have worried Solna that he was doing a field rebuild of his blaster rifle. That was standard procedure at the start of a combat mission, but they weren’t going into combat with the rest of the Enclave and Tovos knew that.

He believed it too which Solna found deeply at odds with the Tovos she’d known.

The Tovos she’d left behind at the Enclave was a bully and was among the least flexible of people when it came to the Enclave’s doctrine she knew. The young man who sat across from her in the auto-cab had found something important but at an unbearably high cost. What peace he’d been able to make with the loss of not only his crew member but the person he’d believed himself to be seemed to be based on anger at those who’d abused them as much as a love for his teammates he’d never let himself acknowledge before.

That Solna could reach all that from his stray thoughts was the most shocking thing of all though and the most absolute proof of how much he’d been changed.

Rassi squeezed her hand again, calling her attention away from concerns of the future to the reality which was rapidly approaching them.

“This is supposed to be the Enclave’s temporary berths?” Zin said as the auto-cab circled over an empty field where a few security enforcers remained milling about.

“Looks like they’re smart enough to falsify their landing coordinates,” Sali said. “Which means we do not want to go down there.”

“The auto-cab’s destination is already locked in,” Zin said.

“And you already have its controls hacked. So have it take us to the empty berths on the other side of the main terminal.”

“You have such faith in me,” Zin said as the auto-cab gently banked away towards another unused landing field at the outskirts of the starport.

No one asked why they weren’t going to land and talk to the security enforcers. Showing up at a mysteriously empty crime scene was a sure ticket to have all the blame for what happened pinned on you and while Zin’s contact could probably deal with the legal troubles for them, Security Enforcers were just as likely to shoot first and file charges against the corpses later since it cut down on the chance that their version of events would be challenged.

“We can find where they are,” Rassi said.

“They’ll be under a stronger cloak than we have,” Osdo said.

“And they have a lot more emotions to hide,” Rassi said. “Solna and I can find them, if we work together.”

“Should someone better with the Xah help her?” Felgo asked, not intending it to be a rude question, but simply still trapped in the impression he had of Rassi for the last decade or more.

“She’s much stronger than any of us,” Tovos said.

“I know Solna is. Everyone knows that, but Rassi…” Felgo said but Tovos cut him off.

“Rassi is who I’m talking about. Do you know why she was ‘always tripping up’? It’s because she’s so much closer to the Xah that it can’t help but resonate with her emotions. We were idiots not to see it.”

“And she wasn’t ‘always tripping up,” Osdo said. “She beat me at the last City Walk test we did. She was…she is pretty talented. But they never let us see that.”

“We never tried to see it.” Tovos had paused in the rebuild of the blaster with his head hung low.

“We could help them now though right?” Felgo asked.

“Why would they want us to?” Tovos asked. “Do you think they could trust us? Do you think they don’t hate us? We won’t do anything but disrupt their connection to the Xah.”

Solna had a free hand.

So she took one of Tovos’ hands from his blaster rifle.

“We don’t hate you,” she said.

Tovos shook his head and looked to Rassi, who had a far greater right to hold onto the animosity they’d both felt for him.

“I did,” Rassi said. “But I don’t want to anymore. You didn’t have to do the things you did to me. Or to Solna. Some of that wasn’t you. The Elders made us who we are, and so a lot of that is on them.”

“But some of it is on us,” Tovos said. “And we can’t ask you to forget that.”

“I’m not going to,” Rassi said. “But if you really are sorry for what you did, then I make out a lot better if I give you a chance to prove that.”

With her free hand, she took Felgo’s hand in her own to begin the circle which the children of the Silence Enclave formed with no more words.

Solna glanced over at Monfi who could have joined them as another Force user, but he shook his head with a smile. This was something he was an outsider to, and he clearly did not want to intrude.

Which was probably for the best. As the circle sank down into the silence of the Xah they swiftly passed the point where other Force Users could have easily quieted themselves. Unlike during a Silent Dance though, the ritual Rassi was leading them through was one predicated on supporting each other as they stilled the Force within them and cast their awareness outwards.

Solna had expected she and Rassi could cover the starport without endangering themselves. Together with Tovos, Felgo, Osdo, Polu, and Yanni though, they covered the planet.

Which was how they found the Silent Enclave.

And how they discovered the host of Death Shadows that were descending upon them.