In the central meeting chamber, the others were already gathered. The hum of the ship's advanced systems echoed faintly beneath the metal flooring.
Padmé—still dressed as a handmaiden—looked around the room, eyes scanning the elegant interior of the vessel with curiosity.
"I must say… this is a pretty big ship. What exactly did you equip it with?"
Jin-Woo walked in with zero hesitation and lied with absolute ease.
"Most advanced hyperdrive I could get my hands on. Probably Rakatan in origin. Maybe."
He leaned slightly on the edge of the table. "Also has cloaking capability. You won't see this thing on any sensors."
Morgan nudged Padmé's side with a soft grin.
"What did I tell you? My husband's awesome, right?"
Rey crossed her arms nearby, leaning against a support beam, smirking as she added,
"Please… make this a normal field trip. Just once."
Suddenly— BOOOOMMM.
The entire ship jolted as hyperspace engaged with a sudden flash. A minor shockwave rippled through the interior like a sonic boom in a sealed vault.
CRASH. Several advisors and Jedi tumbled from their seats, sliding or grabbing onto panels.
"Everyone alright?" Panaka shouted as he stumbled back up.
"I'm fine," Obi-Wan muttered, dusting off his sleeves. "Nothing to fear. Interior's still intact."
Sabé, still in her queenly posture, pressed her palm to her forehead with a long sigh.
Why didn't I listen to my gut… and just insist we use Padmé's ship instead?
Then—
A static-laced voice crackled through the ship's internal comms.
It was Ric Olié.
"Uh… everyone. I think I made a mistake."
The room went dead silent.
Jin-Woo's eyes narrowed. "Define 'mistake.'"
No one had to wait long for clarification. The ship's reinforced windows shifted their tint, revealing the unmistakable interior of a Trade Federation Lucrehulk's hangar bay. They had breached its hull cleanly—lodged right into the main deck. Somehow, hyperspace had dropped them inside the enemy ship.
They were cloaked. They were undetected. But they were right there—in the heart of the Viceroy's flagship.
Everyone stared through the window, stunned into silence.
"…We just knocked on the enemy's front door," Qui-Gon finally said, voice dry.
Suddenly, an internal broadcast echoed across the Lucrehulk's intercom system.
"Seal off the breach immediately! That must've been an asteroid impact!"
Nute Gunray's voice. High-pitched. Panicked.
Inside the corvette, Jin-Woo gave a deadpan look, then slowly turned to the others.
"Hey… look on the bright side."
He pointed up toward the hangar ceiling.
"The Viceroy's probably up there."
Padmé gave him a side glance, unimpressed.
"Haha. Very funny, Jin-Woo. We still have to fight through hundreds of thousands of battle droids."
Suddenly, the hangar's intercom crackled to life with a nasally B1 droid voice:
"Sir, there is no asteroid debris… but we've detected a liquid leak near Hangar Bay Fourteen."
Nute Gunray leaned forward in his command chair, eyes wide.
"Then find the source! Immediately!"
Inside the corvette, Jin-Woo narrowed his eyes.
"Olié," he called out toward the cockpit, "tell me the ship's intact. Engines still online."
A beat of silence. Then Olié's voice came through, tense.
"Hyperdrive's damaged. Looks like it needs a manual jumpstart. We can't move without one."
Sabé stepped forward, already taking charge.
"Deploy the repair droids. Now."
With a hiss of compressed gas, a maintenance tube beside the main console slid open—and from within, a familiar dome-shaped droid rolled out. R2-D2 beeped once, lights blinking furiously as he zipped toward the access port.
Jin-Woo smirked slightly.
"Well well. You're awake."
He turned his head slightly.
"Despondent Pyre. Assist him. If anyone gets near the reactor, kill them."
The floating Forerunner construct—Despondent Pyre herself—glided forward with a low harmonic hum, her core shining faintly.
"Affirmative," she replied in perfect binary cadence, hovering beside R2-D2 and following his path.
Without another word, Jin-Woo stepped toward a sealed container and opened it—pulling out the outfit and armor set he'd prepped in advance. The black-and-silver Revan-style robes shimmered faintly with weave-bound reinforcement. He clipped on the mask, securing it with a faint magnetic seal.
Panaka blinked, then tilted his head.
"…Are you some kind of Armored Man fanboy now, Jin-Woo?"
Qui-Gon, arms crossed as he leaned against a bulkhead, smirked faintly.
"Maybe he's just planning to reenact a scene we're all about to become part of."
Jin-Woo didn't respond. He finished adjusting the vambraces, then stepped toward Padmé.
He paused for only a moment—then reached out and gently patted her shoulder.
"I'll be back," he said flatly. "Keep the ship sealed. I'll buy you as many time's needed ."
Without waiting for a reply, Jin-Woo turned toward the airlock—cloak billowing behind him—and stepped into the hangar's shadows, vanishing without a sound.
Inside the corvette, the silence lingered before Obi-Wan finally spoke, concern tightening his voice.
"We should help him. He's alone out there."
Qui-Gon didn't answer right away. His gaze shifted instead—toward Morgan and Rey.
He knew better. This wasn't just some lone warrior walking into a battlefield. There were layers here. Personas. Plans.
Suddenly, the lights in the hangar flickered—and died. Total blackout. The only remaining illumination was the dim glow from the corvette's emergency lighting and the vast starfield outside. A heavy silence fell—until it was shattered by the voice of a panicked B1 droid through the Lucrehulk's comms system.
"H-Help! There's an unknown intru—"
Static. The signal died in mid-scream.
Everyone inside the corvette tensed.
Morgan smiled faintly, stepping forward with a quiet confidence.
"Jin-Woo has a flair for performance," she said calmly. "This is one of his more theatrical ones. But it won't take long."
Rey, seated beside her, closed her eyes. The bond—their dyad—flared to life. A thin thread of golden awareness slipped through the Force as she reached out with her thoughts.
Alright, Jin-Woo, she said silently, Morgan already gave you the perfect opening. You're free to switch persona however and whenever you like.
If we really did land inside the Lucrehulk… then you've got ten minutes. Good luck.
Inside the command section of the Lucrehulk, the atmosphere was already strained. Red emergency lights bathed the consoles, and the room buzzed with the faint static of failing transmissions.
Suddenly, the comms crackled to life again. The shrill, panicked voice of a B1 droid rang out in terror.
"Help! Helppp! Rakghouls—! The creature that's fighting the viceroy is—"
Static. Then silence.
Everyone in the room froze.
Daultay Dofine's face went pale as he backed away from the console.
"That… that name… Rakghouls… that means… Joever Bideney is here…"
Rune Haako took a shaky breath and slowly turned toward the others, his voice low, nearly a whisper.
"He's real… the most horrifying villain in the Outer Rim… a monster who wears a face like a man…"
Nute Gunray's hands trembled slightly. He slammed the console with one fist.
"Seal the blast doors! Now!"
The control officers began tapping frantically, locking down corridor after corridor. The command room hissed as thick, reinforced panels began sliding into place around the entrances.
Dofine stepped back again, voice faltering.
"We'll be safe here… r-right? We locked it all down. He can't get through blast doors… can he?"
BANG—BANG—
Two deafening cracks echoed like thunder in the sealed command room.
Dofine and Haako dropped instantly, unconscious before their bodies even hit the floor. Sparks burst from consoles as the stationed officers slumped over their controls, their systems overloaded by an unseen pulse. The B1 battle droids seized, jittered, then collapsed in a heap of twisted metal—lifeless.
Then, from the far end of the darkened room… a flicker.
A small desk lamp—the kind meant for late-night reports and battlefield charts—clicked on. Its yellow light barely cut through the gloom, illuminating only a small circle on the central command table.
A hand reached into the light. Gloved.
Then the face followed—emerging from shadow like a ghost.
A twisted mockery of a politician's smile. Hair slicked back. Wrinkled skin pulled tight over inhuman calm. The face of a man who should've been nothing more than a forgotten figure from some galactic backwater. Joever Bideney.
He stood casually at the edge of the light, one hand resting on the table, the other raising a massive magnum revolver with mechanical precision—aimed straight at Nute Gunray's head.
Gunray's lips trembled as he tried to steady his breath.
"I… I suppose I should be flattered. That I've been targeted by you."
Joever didn't blink. His voice came low. Crooked. Unforgiving. "You don't get flattered. You get audited."
Gunray's trembling eased—just slightly—as he tried to adopt a facade of composure. He reached down, hand brushing against the hidden drawer in the side of his chair. From it, he calmly pulled a slender flask of Corellian gin and took a slow sip, lips curled in faux confidence.
"My employer… Lord Sidious… says you're weak," Gunray said with measured arrogance. "Weaker than the Sith."
Joever didn't flinch. His stance remained unchanged, but the glint in his eye sharpened like a scalpel. "Your employer," he said slowly, "is targeting my prey."
Gunray narrowed his gaze. "And you're here to stop me? You're too late. Naboo is already part of the Trade Federation."
He raised his chin, trying to hold onto his delusion of leverage—but his eyes betrayed a flicker of fear. That same fear deepened when he noticed Joever's right palm subtly begin to glow—a slow, eerie pulse of bluish light that warped the space just slightly around it..
The infamous Bideney Blast was charging.
Gunray's throat tightened. . Joever was here—in the room. Breathing the same air. Bringing with him an energy that made lesser men fold before the first shot.
Joever took another step forward, eyes locked.
"Naboo's still part of the Republic," he growled. "Because you haven't signed shit with Queen Amidala yet."
Gunray flinched.
Joever didn't stop walking.
"Where's the data?" he asked, voice flattening now. "The logs. The trade deals. The illegal shipments. Your Federation's entire operation—where is it?"
Gunray's voice cracked under the weight of the silence that followed Joever's final step forward.
"I… I put the data inside my heart," he stammered, tapping his chest with trembling fingers. "If my heart stops beating… so does the Trade Federation. You'll never get the whole picture."
Before the lie could settle, a shimmer of pressure warped the air—and Joever was already in front of him. Closer than Gunray realized.
A cold dagger rested just an inch from his eye, its edge gleaming beneath the flickering lights.
Joever's voice dropped to a whisper, venomous and absolute.
"No," he said. "I don't need you alive. I just need pieces of you. Your heart. Your head."
Gunray gasped, the fake confidence vanishing instantly. Sweat pooled down his neck as he raised both hands in surrender.
"O-Okay! Okay!" he stammered. "It's not just in me! Part of the data's stored in my subdermal node—yes! But the rest—it's on Pure Neimoidia. Very secret. Underground vault. No transmission uplink!"
Joever didn't blink. His blade never wavered.
"I need access. Now."
Gunray swallowed hard, nodding frantically.
"The—The username is 'meel-kaas-doont'," he muttered. "And the passcode… the passcode is 'Zee-oh-trak-fen-nal-tor-ahk.' It changes every twelve hours with biometric confirmation!"
Joever Bideney stared down at him—expression unreadable behind the mask. Then came the final words. "Thank you for your service."
Without flair or cruelty, Joever's palm snapped forward with a quick, decisive strike—knocking Gunray unconscious. The Neimoidian collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud.
The mask dissolved. The dark aura peeled back.
The shadows lifted to reveal Jin-Woo—his true form re-emerging as the liquid-metal disguise of Forerunner alloy slithered off his frame like mercury, retracting into a small node on his shoulder before disappearing completely.
He exhaled quietly, cracking his neck once.
"Bias," he said. "Your turn."
The air shimmered. A golden-hued sentinel AI construct descended from a narrow slipspace ripple—Offensive Bias's interface avatar pulsing with cold precision.
"Affirmative, Supreme Executor," came the response, voice mechanical and calm.
The AI hovered closer to the unconscious Gunray and extended a filament-thin probe. It slid beneath the Viceroy's skin like a scalpel—finding the subdermal node near his heart. There was a click as the probe locked in place.
"Now using Gunray as a live relay beacon," Bias confirmed. "Initiating remote breach sequence to hidden vault beneath Pure Neimoidia. Biometric override engaged. Username and passphrase accepted. Rotating cipher neutralized."
A glow swept through the room.
"Connection stable. Accessing Federation central archive… now."
Jin-Woo stepped forward.
"Light up the control room," he ordered. "I'm going to use it."
The overhead panels hummed to life. Cold white light bathed the command chamber. Holograms flared across the central console—dozens of data streams appearing at once in Neimoidian script, encrypted manifests unraveling in real-time. Supply chains. Bribery trails. War plans. Slave contracts. Financial laundering.
The entire shadow ledger of the Trade Federation.
Jin-Woo stood still, the glow of alien letters flickering across his eyes. His fingers moved fast—cutting through menus, screens, archives—until he reached one section labeled under Hutt-controlled sectors. A list of slave contracts on Tatooine scrolled upward, categorized by date, location, and previous ownership.