Terenta-Tech 4 (Patreon)

Darth Terent readily admitted that he was unimpressed by both the quality of the various battle droids as well as the apparent skills of the various jedi in the arena when he and his shuttles arrived. The looks of confusion on the myriad of faces as the multitude of shuttles formed a perimeter, on the other hand, were just as delicious and amusing as he’d anticipated. The sheer terror from the nemoidians, the disguised wariness from the elderly human, the simple-minded fear from the geonosian drones, and the sheer, unadulterated confusion from the surviving jedi, all combined into a potent bouquet of emotions that positively sang through the Force.

Clad in full armor, Darth Terent opened the landing ramp of his still hovering shuttle, staring down at the group as the two sides were herded together in the middle of the arena. Even if it wasn’t visible through his mask, Darth Terent had a feeling that his amused smirk was felt by all of his new hostages/bargaining chips.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Darth Terent asked teasingly as he jumped the five meters from his shuttle to the ground, using the Force to reinforce his body and absorb the shock (the fact that it looked absolutely wizard had nothing to do with it, honest). Standing to his full, if unimpressive height, Darth Terent walked past the troopers keeping the hostages honest and continued, “I drop out of hyperspace, and find the jedi on a planet I was supposed to meet the rest of the fleet at. Well, I suppose that’s what happens when some Republic SIS kriff up a sabotage mission.”

Even more confusion from the assortment of hostages, but Darth Terent ignored that in favor of calling out, “Quick question before I start providing exposition about who we are and why we're holding everyone hostage, does anyone here have any familiarity with the assorted components that go into a functional hyperdrive generator?”

A single hand hesitantly raised up from the mass of befuddled jedi, and Darth Terent pointed to it, “You, the tall one with the stupid haircut! Step to the front.”

As the jedi in question moved through the crowd, Darth Terent muttered quietly, his helmet’s microphone still catching and projecting it, “Seriously, who wakes up and decides, ‘You know what, I’m going to cut my hair really short except for a tiny bit on the right side of my head, I’ll braid that.’ It’s even dumber than what Dad’s class vids showed Veradun’s hair was like before he started shaving it all off.”

The jedi’s face was flushed red, and Darth Terent could taste the hate and anger radiating off them, so he got back to the point, “Now, jediling, answer a question for the audience: what happens if you engage the hyperdrive and the Relativistic Shielding is nonfunctional?”

The jedi blinked as he considered the question, before taking another look at Darth Terent and his forces, his eyes widened as the realization sent a bolt of shock through him, "By the Force…"

"Padawan Skywalker?" a bald jedi asked.

"How long were you in hyperspace?"

"Not sure, when was the Hundred Year Darkness and the Great Hyperspace War?" Darth Terent asked, ignoring the older jedi; his question causing several of the crowd to perk up.

"The Great Hyperspace War was roughly five thousand years ago," the formal, classy looking human who'd been standing with the nemoidians answered.

"Then we were stuck in hyperspace for approximately three thousand, seven hundred years. Well, that answers that question. Now: everyone on the shuttles, you will all be interrogated so that my ship and I may obtain the full context of the galaxy we find ourselves in, before being ransomed back in exchange for assorted concessions."

The soldiers all began herding the hostages into the shuttles, Darth Terent traveling in the shuttle containing the jedi to keep them from using the Force to escape. Really, a single warship worth of soldiers and equipment were enough to subdue a gaggle of jedi and take out several battalions worth of battle droids. Darth Terent didn't have high hopes for the rest of the galaxy.

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“Anakin, anything you can tell us?” Obi Wan asked his padawan as the shuttle they were crammed into broke atmo. The hostage part of their situation was annoying, but it was the palpable aura of quiet that surrounded the armored individual that had captured them that unnerved him the most.

“Well Master, if I’m correct about the design of the shuttles and the armor of the soldiers,” Anakin began hesitantly, looking over at one of the soldiers in question. “I think we’re being held hostage by a Sith.”

“Any relation to the one on Naboo ten years ago?” Master Windu asked, even as Anakin shook his head.

“No, from what he was saying, they’re from the era of the Great Galactic War or the Cold War. They’re from an era when the Sith had an empire that rivaled the Republic.”

“So how’d they end up here?” Padme asked, her forehead furrowed in confusion. History was never her best subject.

“The leader mentioned sabotage and relativistic shields. If a hyperdrive’s relativistic shields are damaged, you can end up centuries, or apparently millennia, after your originally expected arrival time. A few years back there was a man who made a trip that only lasted a few hours for him but arrived two hundred years after he left.”

“So we’re being held hostage by an enemy of the Republic thousands of years displaced out of time. Wonderful,” Master Windu drawled as he rubbed at his forehead.

Any further conversation was put on hold as the shuttle came to a stop and the soldiers shepherded them into the hanger bay. The group of jedi, politicians, businessmen, and geonosians were herded into a group in the middle of the hanger. The sith that was the apparent leader came to a stop at a table that had been set up and all the confiscated lightsabers placed upon it.

“Boring, boring, basic, boring,” the sith muttered as he examined each lightsaber in turn, before coming to a stop at Windu and Dooku’s lightsabers. Picking up Windu’s, he ignited it, examining the purple blade for a moment before deactivating it and returning it to the table. Picking up Dooku’s, he ignited the blade, bathing the hanger in crimson light, shattering any doubts as to the Count’s allegiances. “Hmm… curved hilt, synthetic crystal, meant for Makashi, I’d wager.”

Deactivating the lightsaber, he placed it back on the table and turned to face the hostages/unwilling informants. Clapping his hands he spoke cheerfully, “Now, off to the brig with you lot, you will be called out one at a time and brought to me for questioning. Once the last of you has been questioned, we will contact your respective governments in order to arrange your return home. You will be treated with the standard rules and regulations regarding Prisoners of War, assuming you all still know what those are. Follow Corporal Darron in a calm and orderly fashion, and we won’t have to use the stun blasters.”