Kessel Rendezvous: Into the Furnace

Prologue

After a moderately successful raid on an Imperial shuttle on Sleheyron, the two had to bail out faster than intended. Bannon sat back in the pilot seat, and for a moment he remembered leaving Endor exactly like this. So much had changed.

Amus found an officer's coat and kepi, and an old DC-17 blaster. He took the seat next to Bannon. “We’ll need help if we’re going to get into the Maw.”

Bannon returned to the presence. “Do you have someone in mind?” Bannon asked.

Amus was inspecting the DC-17. He put it back in its holster, and looked at Bannon. “I only know one with the level of clearance we need.. She owes me, but it’s not exactly a debt I’ve been eager to collect!”

“Who is it?” asked Bannon.

Amus reached for the comms panel, and started entering digits. “Doesn't matter. She’ll either help us, or turn us in! The way I see it, that’s where we’re headed anyways..”

A few hours later the comms started beeping. Amus immediately flipped the receiver switch, and glanced at the comms screen. He shrugged and looked at Bannon. “What a coincidence. She’s enroute to Kessel. She’ll meet us there…”

Some time later, on Kessel…

As they made their way across the mining pit, towards one of the mine entrances, Bannon looked around at the mine workers covered in yellow Kesselstone dust. He looked at Amus. “I thought you said this was an abandoned mine!?”

Amus kept looking at the entrance. “It is..”

A blaring claxon cut him off, and the workers stopped, and looked up. A deep raspy voice blasted from speakers across the pit. “ALL PERSONNEL REPORT TO 81-B!” The message was repeated a few times, in basic, and huttese, while workers as well as guards hastily cleared the pit.

Amus looked at Bannon, and faked a smile. “See?!”

The main entrance door hissed open, and a dark masked woman walked out. Bannon immediately noticed the lightsaber in her hand, and steadied his aim. “Amus! You've got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled.” Her voice was the same deep, distorted voice they heard a moment before on the speakers.

Amus shrugged and nodded towards Bannon. “Not my idea!”

Bannon lowered his blaster, and took a moment to find the right words. “I need to save my son. He’s being held at the Maw Installation. I need your help to get in!”

The woman lowered her head, as if going over what she just heard. She removed her helmet, and looked at Bannon. “I’m afraid you wont find your son at the Maw!” Her voice was no longer distorted by the helmet vocoder. She continued; "You're still putting the pieces together. Let me help you. This won’t be easy to hear…”

The woman, Mara Jade, explained how the clandestine Stygian Society had been abducting force sensitive children across the outer rim, and taken them to the Maw Installation - all part of a sinister project to harvest their powers. All under the command of Lord Eniro Hassat, her former master. After realizing what was really going on, she had cut ties with the Society. She explained how the Society had been absorbed by the new Empire, and how any remaining children from the Maw had been taken to a dark fortress, deep in the Stygian nebula within the Crim Empire. 

It would take more than a lightsaber wielding hero, and a couple of ex-imperials to take on a fortress crawling with Imperials, and other agents of darkness.

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I wish I could do more with Kessel. It's a real challenging terrain, and I'd love to try out more ideas. I hope you like it regardless. Thanks for watching.

Spoiler

Additional photos

Kessel cannon, as seen in Solo.

New door design..

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L2388P

Source of inspiration..