(set: $truth to 0)
(set: $credit to 0)
(set: $people to 0)
(set: $heat to 0)
<h1>Star Wars: Embers of Kheled</h1>
<img src="Kheled-desert.png" alt="A windswept desert moon with wreckage, dunes, and abandoned industrial structures under a dim sky">
The moon of Kheled never looked dead from orbit.
From above, it shimmered gold and rust beneath a thin veil of dust, its old refinery scars catching the light like broken glass. On the ground, everything groaned. Wind scraped across sheet metal. Generators coughed. Settlements survived in the spaces the Empire had failed to finish destroying.
Mira Venn lowered her freighter, the Dust Kite, onto the edge of the salvage zone and listened to the hull cool around her.
From the co-pilot seat, the battered utility droid T0-BE gave a chirping, impatient beep.
"Quick job," Mira muttered. "In and out."
That was when the signal found her.
Not a public beacon. Not a guild ping. Something old. Military old. Buried beneath the dunes east of the wreck fields.
A dead Imperial channel had just come alive.
[[Track the signal->The Signal]]
[[Ignore it and head back to port->Port Veyra]](set: $truth to $truth + 1)
<h2>The Signal</h2>
The signal pulsed every seven seconds, faint and stubborn beneath layers of static.
Mira guided the Dust Kite over a collapsed trench line and the buried skeleton of an old comms dish. T0-BE leaned toward the scanner and let out a sharp electronic whistle.
"Underground," Mira said.
Below the sand, a blast door waited beneath the bones of a ruined relay tower. The Imperial crest had been half-burned off the metal, as though someone had tried to erase what this place was and failed.
A weak current still fed the lock.
Someone had not left this station dead.
Someone had left it sleeping.
[[Cut through the blast door->The Relay Station]]
[[Mark the location and bring the coordinates to Sera Nall->Sera Offer]]<h2>Port Veyra</h2>
Port Veyra was all steam vents, fuel stink, and faces pretending not to be afraid.
Dockworkers dragged ration crates under patched awnings. Children ran between hanging cables and dented cargo loaders. A cracked holoscreen flickered with broken New Republic updates that nobody trusted enough to celebrate.
Sera Nall was exactly where she always was, beneath the shade canopy outside her shop, dressed like she owned every debt in the settlement.
When she saw Mira, she smiled without warmth.
"You look like someone who found trouble," Sera said.
[[Tell Sera about the signal->Sera Offer]]
[[Keep quiet and visit Brother Calen at the ridge shrine->Brother Calen]](set: $truth to $truth + 1)
(set: $heat to $heat + 1)
<h2>The Relay Station</h2>
The blast door opened with a scream of ancient servos.
Inside, the air was stale and cold. Emergency lights flickered red across a control room frozen in time. Broken terminals. Buckled durasteel. Restraint cuffs bolted into a wall.
Not just a relay station, Mira realized.
T0-BE rolled toward the central console and plugged in. Corrupted files crawled across the main screen. Cargo transfers. Prisoner movement. Redacted names.
Then one clean header surfaced:
<b>KHELED CIVILIAN RELOCATION PROGRAM</b><br>
<b>AUTHORIZED BY SECTOR SECURITY COMMAND</b>
Mira stared at the list below it.
Hundreds of names.
The Relay Station</h2>
The blast door opened with a scream of ancient servos.
Inside, the air was stale and cold. Emergency lights flickered red across a control room frozen in time. Broken terminals. Buckled durasteel. Restraint cuffs bolted into a wall.
Not just a relay station, Mira realized.
T0-BE rolled toward the central console and plugged in. Corrupted files crawled across the main screen. Cargo transfers. Prisoner movement. Redacted names.
Then one clean header surfaced:
<b>KHELED CIVILIAN RELOCATION PROGRAM</b><br>
<b>AUTHORIZED BY SECTOR SECURITY COMMAND</b>
Mira stared at the list below it.
Hundreds of names.
<img src="relay.png">
[[Download the names->Recovered Names]]
[[Search deeper for who ordered this->Captain Varo Arrives]](set: $credit to $credit + 1)
<h2>Sera's Offer</h2>
Sera listened without interrupting. That alone told Mira this was serious.
When the story was done, Sera leaned back in her chair and folded her arms.
"Names are dangerous," she said. "Proof is expensive. And men like Captain Varo pay well to keep old ghosts buried."
She slid a data spike across the table.
"I can help you do one of two things. I can get the archive off-world. Or I can introduce you to someone who'll buy it with no questions asked."
She glanced toward the port lanes.
"Either way, once this moves, you won't get to pretend you're neutral anymore."
[[Ask Sera to help broadcast the truth->Broadcast Plan]]
[[Agree to sell the data->Sell the Data]](set: $people to $people + 1)
<h2>Brother Calen</h2>
Brother Calen's shrine stood above the settlement, built into older stone than anything the Empire had ever touched.
Wind moved through hanging chimes made from melted scrap and pottery fragments. The sound was soft, hollow, and strangely peaceful.
Calen listened as Mira explained what she had found. When she showed him the archive, his face sank.
"I was young when they started taking people," he said quietly. "We were told they were sent to labor colonies. Many wanted to believe it because the truth would have broken them."
He rested a hand on the data chip.
"Truth is not clean, Mira. It wounds the liar and the listener both."
He looked down toward Port Veyra.
"But it is still truth."
[[Take the names to the people of Kheled->The Uprising]]
[[Ask Calen to help you hide while you plan a broadcast->Broadcast Plan]](set: $truth to $truth + 1)
(set: $people to $people + 1)
<h2>Recovered Names</h2>
The names filled the screen in slow blue lines.
Families. Mechanics. Miners. Dock clerks. Children.
Some Mira recognized from stories older residents told in half-sentences and then refused to finish. Some matched weathered memorial stones outside the port. Others had no grave at all.
At the bottom of the archive, one final audio file remained intact.
A tired voice crackled through the speaker.
"It was never relocation. We were processed. The records were altered. Do not let them bury us twice."
T0-BE gave a low, uneasy chirp.
Then engines thundered overhead.
Someone else had found the station.
[[Hide and prepare for intruders->Captain Varo Arrives]]
[[Take the data and flee to Brother Calen->Brother Calen]](set: $heat to $heat + 1)
<h2>Captain Varo Arrives</h2>
Boots echoed down the corridor.
Captain Renn Varo stepped into the control room with four soldiers in scuffed Imperial armor painted over too many times. They were not the Empire at its height. They were something smaller now. Hungrier. Meaner.
Varo removed one glove and studied Mira as though he already knew who she was.
"You should have left this buried," he said.
His voice was calm, almost tired.
"People survive because some histories stay dead."
His gaze shifted to the glowing archive.
"That data does not leave Kheled."
[[Defy him and run with the archive->Broadcast Plan]]
[[Pretend to cooperate and hand it over->Hand It Over]](set: $truth to $truth + 1)
(set: $heat to $heat + 1)
<h2>Broadcast Plan</h2>
The old port transmitter was barely functional, but it could still push a signal across Kheled and into nearby relay space if someone aligned the dish manually from the exposed upper platform.
Imperial patrols were already moving.
Sera could scramble the source long enough to protect the signal. T0-BE could patch the archive into the transmitter. Below the tower, angry citizens gathered in the alleys, waiting to hear whether the rumors were true.
Everyone looked at Mira.
The first version of the truth to reach Kheled would decide what happened next.
(if: $people > 1)[
The grief of the settlement is already turning into something harder. The names mean more now because they are no longer abstract.
]
[[Broadcast every name publicly and send the archive off-world->Ending Truth]]
[[Use the archive to rally the people into open revolt->Ending Ashes and Hope]](set: $credit to $credit + 2)
<h2>Sell the Data</h2>
The buyer never showed a face.
Only a ship. A code phrase. A transfer balance large enough to leave Kheled forever.
Sera handled the exchange without emotion. No speeches. No blaster fire. Just information traded into darkness, the way too much of the galaxy still worked.
When it was over, T0-BE gave a low, disappointed beep.
Weeks later, Port Veyra was quieter. Too quiet. Patrols doubled. Questions stopped being asked in public.
Mira had money. Fuel. A path out.
But every time she looked at the stars, Kheled stayed with her.
[[Continue->Ending Profit]]<h2>Hand It Over</h2>
Captain Varo took the archive and looked at Mira for a long moment.
"You are practical," he said. "The galaxy is built by practical people."
He kept his word, in the way men like him always did. Rations improved. Patrol brutality eased. Trade lanes reopened under remnant supervision.
For a while, life even looked better.
But the names disappeared again.
No memorial. No justice. No graves.
Only order.
The kind built on silence.
[[Continue->Ending Order]](set: $people to $people + 2)
(set: $heat to $heat + 2)
<h2>The Uprising</h2>
The names spread through Kheled faster than fire.
Mothers recognized sons. Mechanics recognized fathers. Old lies cracked open in kitchens, workshops, cargo bays, and prayer corners.
By the time Captain Varo's soldiers moved in, the people were already waiting.
Miners carried cutting torches and demolition charges. Dockworkers ripped plating from loaders to use as shields. Someone painted the missing names across the walls near the port in white dust and engine grease.
Kheled was done being quiet.
Mira stood in the middle of it, archive in hand, while blaster fire cracked in the distance.
She could stay and lead.
Or she could escape while the chaos opened a route off-world.
[[Stay and fight beside the people of Kheled->Ending Ashes and Hope]]
[[Flee in the Dust Kite and carry the archive to the wider galaxy->Escape Kheled]]<h2>Ending: Truth</h2>
<img src="transmission-screen.png" alt="A glowing transmission console sending archived names and records into space">
The archive left Kheled in fragments first, then in full.
Names. Dates. falsified records. Proof.
The New Republic did not arrive immediately. Justice rarely moved that fast in the Outer Rim. But eventually investigators came, then historians, then families looking for answers they had been denied for years.
Kheled's dead were finally spoken aloud.
Captain Varo's men lost control of the story, and once truth escaped into the wider galaxy, they could never bury it the same way again.
Mira never became a hero in any grand galactic sense. No medals. No legends.
But on Kheled, memory returned.
And for the first time in a long time, that was enough.
<b>Outcome:</b> You chose truth over safety.
[[Play again->Start]]<h2>Ending: Ashes and Hope</h2>
<img src="uprising.png">
The uprising did not look noble from a distance.
It looked loud, frightened, and desperate. It looked like smoke over landing pads and names shouted across blaster fire. It looked like ordinary people deciding that fear had already taken enough from them.
Captain Varo's forces hit hard, but Kheled hit back harder.
When dawn came, parts of the port were in ruins. So were parts of the old remnant command. The cost was real. So was the victory.
No one on Kheled would ever call it clean.
But it was theirs.
In the days that followed, the missing names were painted onto walls, carved into shrine stone, and spoken aloud in every district of the moon.
The dead were no longer hidden.
And the living, at last, were no longer afraid to remember them.
<b>Outcome:</b> You chose resistance, memory, and a future paid for in sacrifice.
[[Play again->Start]]<h2>Ending: Profit</h2>
<img src="profit.png">
The credits cleared fast.
Fuel tanks filled. Repairs were made. Exit routes opened.
By every practical measure, Mira had won.
Yet the silence on Kheled only deepened. More patrols. Fewer questions. More fear.
The archive was gone, traded into hands that valued secrecy more than memory. Whatever truth might have lived in those files was now just another commodity in a galaxy built on unequal bargains.
T0-BE never said anything about it.
He did not need to.
Every jump to hyperspace carried the same thought with it: survival is not the same thing as peace.
<b>Outcome:</b> You chose profit over truth.
[[Play again->Start]]<h2>Ending: Order</h2>
Captain Varo understood something most conquerors did.
People will forgive cruelty sooner than chaos.
Under his supervision, Kheled stabilized. Food shipments became regular. Smuggling lanes quieted. Street violence fell.
It was enough to make some people grateful.
But stability came at a price. The archive vanished. The names vanished with it. Families were left with rumors instead of answers and silence instead of mourning.
Mira could tell herself she had prevented bloodshed.
Some nights, she even believed it.
Most nights, she did not.
<img src="order.png">
<b>Outcome:</b> You chose order over justice.
[[Play again->Start]](set: $truth to $truth + 1)
<h2>Escape Kheled</h2>
The Dust Kite lifted under blaster fire, engines shrieking against the storm.
Below, Kheled burned in scattered pockets of orange against the night. Not consumed. Not defeated. Changed.
T0-BE replayed the prisoner's final message through the cockpit speakers.
"Do not let them bury us twice."
Mira looked back once, then set a course for the nearest New Republic relay.
Too late to save the dead.
Not too late to make them known.
[[Continue->Ending Truth]]