Thanks to everyone for reading! Please comment on any characters and universes you’d like to see in the future below the chapters. I can’t guarantee they’ll make it in, but I want to have some fun and fit in the audience's favourites if I can! Thanks again, and a huge thank you to my Patrons! I can’t make this content without support, and I’m super grateful for our first two supporters! This fanfiction is also available on my Patreon, I’ll always keep it free, so please visit! Any support there makes this work possible, and if enough patrons want this novel to be a priority, it will be!

 

https://www.patreon.com/maizeblu

 

Now, on to the chapter!

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“Greetings!” A well built human, hands tucked into his wide belt, flashed Dan a grin. “My wife tells me that you’d like to talk with Sekot?”

 

Dan sized up the planet’s magistrate, Leor Hal. The man dressed like a Jedi, course robe half-hidden beneath a luxurious cape. His brown hair faded to silver at the temples, while his deep brown eyes were almost black.

 

“That’s right,” Dan gave a short bow of his neck. “I have a few different propositions for it… her?”

 

“Her,” Leor nodded, corners of his mouth turned up in a smirk. “And I can already tell you, she doesn’t like you very much… that wife of yours is the only reason you were allowed to land.”

 

“You’re a force user…” Dan rolled his ring as it warmed around his finger. A pressure rested on his shoulders, not from Leor, but from the ground below. “Jedi exile? No… you come across a bit different.”

 

May was still few hours from being finished, the ridiculous number of ship-seeds worked at their own, creepy pace. Dan had decided to make use of the time, but he hadn’t expected Ako’s husband to be human, or for him to be connected to Sekot.

 

“I might as well be,” Leor laughed as he leaned back in his throne-like chair. “I left before I could finish my trials, a protest against the rigidity of the council.”

 

“Hmmmm…” Dan squinted closely at the relaxed man, a tingle at the back of his mind. “You seem familiar… wait a minute!” Dan snapped his fingers. “Leor Hal, founder of the Pontentium cult, that’s who you are!”

 

“We were not a cult!” Leor scowled as he half-rose from his seat. He cleared his throat and settled back. “We believed in the unity of the force, with only a being's intention to determine right and wrong.”

 

“Right…” Dan prodded at Venom with his mind. Best to be ready, Jedi branch sects were ALWAYS run by broken bulbs. “Wasn’t your philosophy just a rehash of ancient Jedi history, a history that ended in one of the largest genocides in galactic memory?”

 

“You sound like the council,” Leor snorted. The pressure on Dan’s spin increased, his ring heated enough to glow. “Who are you… why can’t we get inside your mind?”

 

“I’m just built different,” Venom rushed to cover Dan, prepared to fight. “Now why don’t you practise some Jedi restraint, before I stop being polite. “

 

The pair stared each other down, neither interested in backing down. Dan’s ring seared his hand, flesh restored by Venom's regeneration.

 

“Fine, you made your choice,” Dan stepped forward. “I…”

 

The pressure on his body vanished. Leor twisted to look at the sky, horror on his face. The planet groaned, a deep resonance that pierced Dan’s ears, the tip of a knife pressed to each eardrum. Venom shuddered within him, agitated by the tone.

 

“They’re back!” Leor charged from his open air throne room, cape stretched behind him in a line. Dan kept pace, suspicion in his heart.

 

“Who’s back… and what the hell is that sound?”

 

“I’m not sure who they are…” Leor threw open the door and pounced into the jungle beyond. “We call them the far outsiders, Sekot thinks of them as rebellious children who lost their way.”

 

Dan frowned and extended his arm, wrist pointed toward the ex-jedi. A twist of silken thread arced through the air, targeted at the man’s back. Leor jerked, pushed to the side by an act of reflex that raised Dan’s eyebrows.

 

“Puta! What are you trying to do?” Leor stopped his movement and squared against Dan. “I need to get to my starfighter and help with the battle!”

 

“Just slow down and answer my questions first,” Dan raised his hands. “You said these ‘far outsiders’ were Sekot’s children?”

 

“That’s what she says…” Leor raised an eyebrow as Dan paled. “Why?”

 

“They shouldn’t arrive for years,” Dan cursed. His comlink surfaced from Venom’s inky flesh, already active. “Ultron, get the ship in the air, I want to know what’s going on in orbit.”

 

“Understood…”

 

Dan turned and bolted into the forest, toward May’s location. Zonama Sekot had many children, but only a single group ever betrayed her, Dan understood that much about the living planet. Yuuzhan Vong. Fanatical purifiers, their technology made death stars look like toys.

 

“Hey!!!” Leor charged after him, hand extended to ward off the cascade of branches in Dan’s wake. “Answer me! Do you know who these invaders are?”

 

“I hope not, but we’ll see in…”

 

“A single large capital ship, with three smaller escorts, have entered orbit,” Ultron’s voice interrupted his words and cemented a frown onto Dan’s face. “They have dispatched fighters and seem to be preparing an attack on the planet… should I engage?”

 

“Drones only,” Dan flexed his legs and bounded a dozen metres into the air, one hulk jump after another that shortened his path to May. “Bring the ship to pick us up, we need to…”

 

“I have been spotted, drones deployed… evading…” a wash of static consumed carried over the com, mirrored by a deep explosion in the distance.

 

The scout ship steamed into sight, twin trails of flame ignited from within its hull. The rear section was mostly intact, but the bridge was gone. Ultron clung to the broken hull, connected to the ship by dozens of cables. 

 

Strained to the limit, their only spaceship crunched into the earth, lower decks compressed almost flat. It ground to a halt, a line of broken jungle aflame in its wake. Dan’s brain froze up in mid air, a momentary lock that broke as he crashed into the trees below.

 

“Shit…” Dan extracted himself from a devastated trunk and used his webbing to slingshot himself skyward again. “We need to go faster!”

 

“THEN WE WILL FLY!” Venom’s voice rasped out as the back of his suit rippled. A vast pair of black wings extended from his shoulders to blot out the sun.

 

Controlled by an instinct that wasn’t his own, Dan soared through the skies. The joy of flight failed to take hold, his focus locked on the clearing where he’d left May and Ako. They could still use a different ship, the scout was replaceable, they weren’t.

 

“Dan!” May staggered toward him as he slammed into the ground. “What the hell is that noise… it’s cutting my ears!”

 

“AROOO!” Bear rolled on the ground by her feet, head half-buried in the sand. Stormy darted to Dan’s shoulder, fur fluffed to his fullest.

 

“The planet is warning its inhabitants,” Dan had blocked out the painful noise. “We have to find a ship, now!”

 

“These seeds can be turned into a vessel,” Ako’s voice sounded out weakly from the ground. “You just need a basic structure for them to bond with…”

 

“Our vessel might fit that description at this point…” Dan hefted the woman in one hand. He turned to May and her horde of seed pods. “Sorry, but I’m going to carry you both… will these things follow us over a long distance?”

 

“They will follow her until she, or they, die,” Ako huffed as Dan placed May, bear in her hands, under his other arm and jumped into the air. “What are you people…”

 

“We’ll trade details later,” Dan grunted, eyes on a series of fighters as they dived from orbit. “Let’s make sure we’re alive to see tomorrow first!”

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Thanks again, and a huge thank you to my Patrons! I can’t make this content without support, and I’m super grateful for our first three supporters! This fanfiction is also available on my Patreon, I’ll always keep it free, so please visit! Any support there makes this work possible, and if enough patrons want this novel to be a priority, it will be! Updates for this series will be at five a week, a chapter part monday-friday, with bonus chapters whenever I can get them written and edited. 

 

https://www.patreon.com/maizeblu