The T-6 shuttle eased forward with deliberate grace.
Its engines deepened from a restrained hum into a steady, resonant thrum as Kael guided the craft toward the open mouth of the hangar. The massive blast doors framed the sky like a widening horizon, bright daylight spilling across the cockpit canopy in brilliant sheets of gold and white.
Beyond the threshold, Coruscant awaited — endless, radiant, indifferent.
The shuttle crossed the boundary and emerged into open air.
Immediately, the city enveloped them.
Skylanes braided in luminous ribbons between towers that pierced the atmosphere in defiance of gravity. Speeders darted through assigned corridors with elegant precision, their contrails tracing momentary lines of light before dissolving into nothing. Larger transports ascended in slow, heavy arcs from lower platforms, while sleek diplomatic cruisers cut clean trajectories toward orbital stations high above.
The Temple receded behind them, its stone spires rising like ancient sentinels amid the durasteel sea.
Kael guided the shuttle upward, banking slightly to avoid a designated traffic lane. The rotating cockpit adjusted smoothly, keeping their ascent aligned with approved vectors. Sunlight flooded the canopy, glinting off the Galactic roundel emblazoned on the shuttle's hull and catching faint reflections in Kael's blue eyes.
Coruscant from the ground was overwhelming.
Coruscant from the sky was infinite.
Layer upon layer of architecture stretched outward beyond comprehension — a planet consumed entirely by its own construction. The uppermost towers shimmered in polished brilliance, while far below, shadows hinted at forgotten depths where daylight seldom reached. The skyline did not end; it simply curved with the world itself.
"I always enjoy this part," Kael murmured quietly, hands steady on the controls.
R2-X9 emitted a curious series of beeps from its socket behind the cockpit, dome swiveling slightly as if sharing in the observation.
"Leaving," Kael clarified.
A faint smile touched his expression, brief and private.
"Not the war. The view."
The shuttle climbed higher.
The atmosphere thinned subtly, the bright blue above beginning to deepen into darker hues. Traffic grew sparser the farther they ascended, replaced gradually by orbital traffic patterns and the distant silhouettes of defense platforms stationed in quiet vigilance around the planet's perimeter.
Below them, Coruscant transformed.
What had been individual towers and lanes blurred into intricate geometry — a living mosaic of light and metal that wrapped seamlessly around the planetary curve. The sun reflected in sweeping arcs across its surface, illuminating entire districts while others remained cloaked in relative dimness. From this altitude, it appeared less like a city and more like a singular, unified entity — a constructed world beating with constant motion.
Kael adjusted their pitch incrementally, aligning with an outbound vector transmitted automatically by planetary control. The T-6 responded with fluid precision, its engines adjusting output in smooth intervals.
Behind him, in the main hold, Yoda remained silent.
He did not comment on the view.
He did not interrupt the ascent.
The Force felt different at this height — thinner in some ways, quieter in others — as though the density of life below created its own resonance that faded the farther one moved from it.
Cloud layers passed beneath them.
The sky darkened from azure to indigo.
Stars began to appear faintly against the upper reaches of the canopy.
Coruscant's curvature became unmistakable now — a luminous arc edged in sunlight, its vastness both humbling and familiar. Orbital docks rotated slowly in synchronized motion, Republic cruisers stationed like patient guardians along defensive perimeters.
R2-X9 emitted a soft sequence of confirmation tones as altitude thresholds were cleared.
"Atmospheric exit in thirty seconds," Kael translated absently.
He let his gaze linger one final moment on the planet below.
War would soon spread from its Senate chambers outward.
Geonosis would burn.
And somewhere beyond mapped space, a hidden world named Kamino waited with an army none of them had spoken of openly until today.
The shuttle broke through the final veil of atmosphere.
The hum shifted subtly as the T-6 transitioned into full vacuum flight. The blue above dissolved completely into black — not empty, but endless. Stars sharpened into brilliant clarity, scattered across the void in silent abundance.
Coruscant remained below them, brilliant and impossibly alive.
Kael exhaled slowly.
"Alright," he said quietly.
His hands adjusted the controls with deliberate calm as the shuttle continued its climb toward open space.
Behind them, the Republic's heart shone.
Ahead of them, the unknown waited.
Coruscant diminished behind them.
What had once filled the entire canopy now occupied only a portion of it — a radiant sphere suspended in velvet black, wrapped in artificial daylight and the faint shimmer of orbital defense grids. The Republic's heart pulsed in silent brilliance, traffic lanes glinting faintly along its curvature like veins beneath translucent skin.
The T-6 continued outward, engines steady, until the planet's gravitational hold lessened to manageable tolerances.
Kael's hands moved across the control panel with practiced precision. He toggled stabilization dampeners, verified hyperspace calculations displayed in clean blue lines across the central console, and cross-checked the coordinates transmitted by the Temple against R2-X9's internal astrogation matrix.
The astromech emitted a confirming trill, dome rotating once as final trajectory corrections aligned.
"Final check," Kael murmured quietly, more to himself than to either of his companions.
The starfield before them was sharp and endless — pinpricks of white scattered across an infinite void. No traffic crossed their immediate vector now. No Republic cruisers loomed nearby. Only distance.
Behind him, Yoda remained still within the main hold, hands folded lightly over his cane. The Grand Master's presence in the Force was steady and contained, like an ancient current flowing beneath the surface of everything.
Kael adjusted the throttle forward slightly and rested his fingers over the hyperspace lever.
Kamino.
A world erased from common charts.
An army waiting.
He cast one last glance at Coruscant, now small enough to fit within the arc of his palm against the canopy.
"Let's see what's hiding out there," he said quietly.
R2-X9 chirped once — sharp, anticipatory.
Kael engaged the drive.
The effect was immediate.
Stars ahead elongated, stretching into luminous streaks that blurred into brilliant lines. The black of space dissolved into a sudden flash of white — blinding, instantaneous — as the T-6 pierced the threshold between realspace and hyperspace.
Then the tunnel formed.
Blue light flooded the canopy, swirling and bending into a corridor of stretched luminosity. The void transformed into a flowing river of cobalt and white, streaks of energy racing past the shuttle in silent torrents. It was as though the galaxy itself had been drawn into motion, time compressed into forward momentum.
The engines' hum deepened into a steady resonance as the hyperdrive locked into its lane. The T-6 rode the corridor smoothly, cocooned within a stream of distorted starlight.
Inside the cockpit, the sudden brilliance cast shifting reflections across Kael's face, blue light dancing in his eyes.
He eased back slightly in the pilot's seat, tension bleeding from his shoulders as the ship stabilized within the hyperspace tunnel.
Outside, there was no up or down — only forward.
Coruscant was gone.
Geonosis lay in another direction entirely.
Ahead of them, days of travel through the stretched fabric of the galaxy awaited.
Kael rested his hands lightly upon the controls, gaze fixed on the endless blue corridor unfolding before them.
The tunnel of hyperspace held steady around them, blue-white light flowing past the canopy in endless motion.
Kael watched it for a few seconds longer, ensuring the hyperdrive's resonance had settled into a consistent rhythm. The controls glowed softly beneath his hands, systems stable, trajectory locked. The T-6 rode its corridor cleanly, no deviation, no fluctuation.
He leaned back slightly and let out a slow breath.
"Well," he said quietly, "at least we're not doing this in a starfighter."
R2-X9 emitted a sharp, amused whistle from its socket.
Kael glanced over his shoulder at the astromech. "Keep monitoring the drive. If something critical happens, come get me."
The droid responded with a short sequence of affirmatives, dome swiveling before returning to its quiet watch over the instruments.
Kael unstrapped and rose from the pilot's seat. The cockpit's hum remained steady behind him as he stepped down into the main hold. The spacious cabin felt calmer now that the shuttle was committed to hyperspace. The retractable table remained flush with the floor, unused; overhead lighting cast a soft, neutral glow that kept the chamber from feeling cavernous.
"One advantage of the T-6," he muttered as he moved toward the center of the hold, "is that you can actually stand up in it. I'd hate to be wedged into a Delta-7 for a week."
The idea alone made him shake his head faintly.
Yoda sat near the center of the cabin, cross-legged upon a meditation cushion, eyes closed, hands resting lightly upon his knees. His cane lay beside him, forgotten for the moment. The faint blue wash of hyperspace light flickered through the forward viewport and into the hold, tracing soft patterns across his green skin and the fine white hairs at his temples.
The Force felt quieter here — insulated by the steady hum of the ship and the distortion of space beyond its hull.
Kael paused a few steps away, watching the Grand Master in silence.
There was something almost paradoxical about Yoda's stillness. Small in stature, ancient in presence, yet carrying a gravity that seemed to anchor the entire Order. Even here, traveling through the stretched fabric of the galaxy, he appeared unmoved by velocity or distance.
Kael's gaze drifted toward the durasteel chest resting against the wall.
He crossed to it slowly and crouched beside it, resting one forearm across its top. The metal was cool beneath his skin. His fingers traced the seam along its edge, where reinforced locks held firm.
"About time to check everything," he murmured under his breath.
He hesitated.
The chest remained closed.
After a moment, he rose again without opening it.
"Master," he said quietly.
Yoda's eyes did not open immediately, but there was no doubt he was listening.
"If this becomes war," Kael continued, choosing his words carefully, "what happens to us?"
The question lingered in the air, heavier than its simplicity suggested.
"We are peacekeepers," he went on. "Diplomats. Mediators." His gaze drifted briefly to the forward viewport, where blue hyperspace light continued its endless flow. "I understand life without peace. I was raised in it. I know what war does."
He turned back slightly toward Yoda.
"Will the Order adapt?" he asked. "Or will it fracture?"
The shuttle hummed steadily around them.
For a long moment, Yoda remained silent.
Then, slowly, his eyes opened.
They were not distant. Not evasive.
They were tired.
"Uncertain, the future is," Yoda said softly. "Always in motion."
He drew in a measured breath.
"Peacekeepers, we are," he continued. "Not soldiers. Not conquerors. To preserve peace, trained we were. Yet peace, fragile it can be."
The blue light flickered across his features as the shuttle pressed deeper into hyperspace.
"War," Yoda said quietly, "changes those who fight it."
Kael did not move.
"Adapt, we must, if conflict comes," Yoda went on. "But lose ourselves, we must not."
There was no illusion in his tone. No pretense that such a balance would be easy.
"Hope, I do," Yoda added, "that war is not necessary. But if it is… the Force will guide us toward what must be done."
He studied Kael now, more directly.
"Different, you are," he said, not unkindly. "Raised among warriors. Understand battle, you do. But remember — to fight is not the same as to become war."
The words settled in the cabin like something fragile and deliberate.
Kael absorbed them in silence.
"I don't want the Order to become something it isn't," he said after a moment. "But I don't know if everyone here understands what it will take."
Yoda's ears shifted slightly.
"Understand fully, none of us do," he admitted. "Even now."
That honesty struck more deeply than any confident assurance could have.
Kael glanced once more toward the chest.
His fingers flexed faintly, then stilled.
"Several days to Kamino," he muttered quietly.
He exhaled and stepped back from the chest entirely.
"It can wait."
The durasteel remained untouched against the wall.
Yoda's eyes closed once more as he returned to meditation.
Kael moved to one of the fold-down benches and lowered himself onto it, leaning back slightly, gaze drifting toward the forward viewport where hyperspace continued its endless surge of blue and white.
The war was moving in one direction.
The Order was moving in another.
And somewhere between them, something inevitable was beginning to take shape.