A fleet of Imperial ships is on its way to secure the newest addition to the Sith Empire. It's not a large fleet, only seven ships total, but ships are spread a bit thin, and the planet's nowhere near Republic space anyway. It doesn't need a large armada to defend it. It needs archaeologists to explore the ancient tombs present on the planet, it needs colonization infrastructure with which to establish a base of operations, it needs... well, admittedly, it does need a little bit of military force. These are Imperials, after all. A new foray to an old planet wouldn't be complete without soldiers to blast the local wildlife, burn the local flora, and soak up the majority of a Sith's body count when they inevitably lose their temper and take it out on those conveniently located nearby.

Unfortunately for the soldiers present, there are two Sith in this fleet. Worse, one of them is in charge. He's already killed six, whose bodies have been quietly disposed of, because this is an Imperial vessel. They're used to this sort of thing. A Sith killing people? Just a thing that happens, sometimes. The other sith has yet to kill anyone, but she's kept mostly to herself and the small crew of her personal ship, so it's likely only a matter of time. They'll keep the incinerators on standby. They know what happens to people that spend time around Sith.

Besides, the fleet currently has bigger problems than the Sith in their midst. The organization of the jump to hyperspace goes normally, the hyperspace route is new, but it's stable, and none of the ships have any damaged hyperdrives. The nav computers are well built and calculating without errors. They should, by any rights, have a perfectly ordinary trip to the planet.

But the universe is not always fair. For example: while they are in hyperspace, something - goes wrong. The blue of hyperspace shifts purple, twists in a way it shouldn't. No one's quite sure what causes it - some techs argue that a nearby star went nova, others think the hyperspace route was faulty, some insist that nothing they know of could possibly explain this result, it must be a new phenomenon - but the end result?

Seven Imperial ships drop out of hyperspace, one by one, and they are not at the advertised destination.