The Force Wills - Chapter 145

Setting a new record getting into my beskar’gam had not been intentional at all.

It had been made to quickly get in, but this was the first time I’d used a minor Force Jump combined with Speed to get my legs in.

‘I take it this an emergency, mistress,’ said M8 wryly. The poor thing had been frightfully bored on this mission so far. She couldn’t even go onto the Holonet because of EMCON procedures and had to be content with her internal databases.

“Oh yes,” I said emphatically as the back plating closed and I donned my helmet.

Another burst of Speed and I was outside the Talon, catching up to Gregor who was kneeling behind the cover of the landing legs, scanning the kilometer long spinal bay with his weapon and Katarn visual systems.

He had an almost visible twitch of surprise to seeing me in the Mandalorian style armor, but kept his cool professionalism.

“Nothing so far, commander.”

“Good. QT come in.”

“QT here, commander.”

“Cloaking device status,” I demanded.

“Repairable, ETA seven hours.”

That was an eternity and we might as well invite the enemy to a fight already. “Any way to speed that up?”

“Estimate is as accurate as can be calculated within a five percent margin of error.”

“Fine, keep me up to speed, Tano out.” I grit my teeth in frustration, watching R2 and Bunny escorting the two gonk droids up the now open embarkation ramp and into the Talon. They moved so frustratingly slow on their two legs, that I made a note to send a message to Industrial Automation to develop a wheels add-on kit for the Resolute’s GNKs. “Tano to R4, I want you to trickle charge the capacitors of the Talon’s guns and the aft laser turret. Then make sure you’re on standby with the guns.”

“Roger, commander.”

Gregor gave me a brief look, “Are you worried about the buzz droids, commander?”

I nodded, “They swarm the Talon, we’ll be left with so many damaged systems that she won’t be able to take off.”

“Odd that they’re being used this way, normally they’re in anti-fighter missiles.”

“Yes, but these are definitely a new model, with extended battery life akin to normal droids.”

My farsight was ranging along every predictable path that a buzz droid could take, which didn’t make it easy at all, considering they had the size and leg articulation to act like beach ball sized spiders, moving along the maintenance crawl ways and many other pathways that weren’t standard. The closest one I had spotted so far was roughly 300 meters away in the starboard side of the Vanguard. They were crawling about like ants all over the main superstructure of the ship and their patrol pattern was not really evident at a glance.

It almost made me wish there was some portable way for my perceptions in the Force to be transferred into a digitized format that R2 could analyze. It just had the problem that you’d need to somehow make a proxy droid interface chair and all its associated systems much smaller. To the point that you could wear it and eventually integrate it into an armor set? 

It was a nice idea for the future at least, but went nowhere in solving the current problem.

I would give a million credits though to have the latest spy drones that Fulcrum was fielding and have my own swarm to fight these buzz droids.

HK-47 had gone even more crazy with some of my ideas in that regard.

The assassin droid had recently managed to bring a small hidden factory online on the Concordian moon, which was producing spy droids of varying capability and sizes, ranging from interstellar stealth probes all the way down to coin sized spies that could infiltrate almost anywhere. He was also trying to get homebrewed nanodroid production going but was running into the problem of just how long it would take. In the meantime, he was planning on ‘liberating’ a production machine for them in a suitable way that wouldn’t raise red flags.

Nanodroid production was one the most tightly scrutinized and regulated fields of science in the galaxy. There-

I whirled around in the direction of the large blast door that led into the starboard section from the ship’s spine.

My WESTAR shot out of my holster with the Force, aiming and firing even faster than what could be achieved with good ol’ biological hand MK1 with a Force buff.

The blue bolt nailed the buzz droid that had just popped out of a maintenance hatch near the door.

My farsight immediately spotted every buzz droid across the ship freezing in place for a brief moment, before they skittered with speed in the direction of their now dead kin.

“Shabla! Guess it was too much to hope for that they weren’t networked. Gregor, we have incoming! R4, QT control the guns. The rest of you keep working on the cloak. Under no circumstances are you to come outside!” I shouted into my comlink.

A wave of my hand and the embarkation ramp hissed shut.

I took a few steps in front of the Talon, whilst Gregor remained in cover underneath.

With the Force, I reached out to Pull a number of heavy durasteel floor plating slabs out of their housings, putting them to either side of me. 

With the Darksaber in my right hand, two lightsabers and a WESTAR blaster pistol hovering around me, I was as ready as I could be under the circumstances.

The next buzz droid to investigate where its kin had died, was shattered to pieces as Gregor’s DC17 fired.

This made things even worse as every buzz droid folded up into its spherical form and began rolling with greater speed, exactly like droidekas.

“Okay there’s definitely been some more improvements!” I shouted at my WESTAR fired as rapidly as I could articulate the trigger.

The next dozen buzz droids to roll in died to our combined firepower.

There was a sudden reprieve as no more were forthcoming.

“Is that it?” Gregor asked with surprise.

“No, now that they have enough data on us, they’re massing in greater numbers.”

They were also coming closer through the crawl ways under the spinal bay floor, where they would use the hatches in the pillar superstructure that separated each hangar bay.

“Gregor, get into the Rho shuttle and use its lasers, now.”

He burst into a sprint immediately, but halfway there the first buzz droids began popping out on either side of the Talon, just twenty meters away, whilst more used the conventional port and starboard entrances.

I fired the WESTAR once, then flipped it to the left and fired again, and repeated the pattern as fast as I could, turning the floating blaster pistol into a blur of movement and spitting blaster bolts.

As fast as I was managing to kill each buzz droid, more rolled in at a speed far greater than a droideka.

I activated and sent my lightsabers in port and starboard directions, turning them into rapidly spinning discs of death that scythed through four buzz droids with each revolution they made.

Yet they kept coming in an inexorable tide of programmed metal.

It got to the point that they were close enough to unfurl from their spherical forms and began even jumping to try and crawl on the Talon’s hull.

The rear laser turret at last came to life in a bright blue beam that scythed through numerous droids that were attacking the ship’s rear arc, turning them to glowing slag.

I had to pull my lightsabers back in closer as a number of buzzers were trying to snag the hilts out of the air to munch on and disassemble. They shut down and settled on my belt, freeing much needed focus for my next main weapon.

Both durasteel floor slabs abruptly rose into the air with such speed that they caught thirty buzzers on them.

I grit my teeth with the effort in the Force, as both slabs came together, creating the galaxy’s largest and loudest clap of durasteel on durasteel - turning what were buzz droids into flattened pancakes of debris.

I separated both slabs and slammed them to the ground on either side of the Talon, crushing yet more buzzers.

The Rho transport shuttle’s lasers also joined in the fight, as Gregor remotely controlled the turrets, sending multiple beams of light to destroy and bite into the swarm.

The Darksaber burst into life as I cut through four buzz droids that wanted to jump into my face, even as I lifted the slabs of durasteel to continue their carnage, acting like a giant’s boot and crushing the enemy.

“Frak,” I cursed, and Force jumped onto the dorsal hull of the Talon and ran on its spine, swiping the Darksaber left and right with precision to swat away buzz droids that were falling from the dorsal hangar doors above.

The little bastards had climbed all the way up there already to rain down on us!

I used my durasteel slabs to stomp more droids to scrap, buying some breathing room for the Talon before throwing upward a wide kinetic wave to slam into the raining buzzers.

This push was not the relatively gentle wave of kinetic redirections used by most Jedi. The speed of this technique was over 90 meters per second and the results on any buzz droid unfortunate to be caught in it was to be swatted aside and crushed as if an unyielding freight train had slammed into them.

Now the bay rang with a tinkling rain of metallic debris.

I winced as the thick dorsal bay doors high above me rang like a galaxy’s largest bell.

My mind tingled in an unfortunately familiar way and I inwardly groaned as the first symptom of excessive Force usage presented itself.

I really hadn’t wanted to use my own spin on Starkiller’s Force Repulse, as it was still a work in progress and could absolutely not be used in any situation when friendly forces were nearby. My biggest headache with it was keeping the bloody thing under control and not wrecking everything around me indiscriminately. 

There was no choice in this situation, however.

My will grabbed the durasteel slabs again and the bay echoed with the hard ringing of steel on steel and the energetic whine of lasers firing.

Whistling Bird munitions from my vambrace launcher also shot out, puncturing a multitude of buzz droids right through their optics.

I fell into a battle trance and just kept fighting.

It wasn’t until I sank to my knees and was gasping for breath, that I snapped out of it.

The bay around the Talon and the transport shuttle was an utter mess of droid debris and laser scorching.

And more importantly, the swarm of buzz droids had been depleted utterly.

I stood wearily on wobbly legs and deactivated the Darksaber, whilst my WESTAR, whose barrel shroud was glowing as it dumped all its accumulated heat, was summoned to my left hand.

Yikes, can’t holster that now.

“M8, you’re going to have to take over, get my meatbag ass off the Talon.”

“At once, mistress,” she said eagerly in my helmet.

I relaxed utterly and went with the flow as my beskar’gam took over, walking a few steps before jumping off and flaring boot jets to slow down the fall.

“Stay here for the moment, M8. Tano to R2, Gregor and Gascon, status?”

“We’re all right in here, commander,” Gascon spoke up first. “Talon will need some minor bits of repairs, but if the mission was to defend it, then we did splendidly.”

“All good here, commander, no hostiles in sight.”

“I managed to keep the enemy tactical droid from usurping local systems,” R2 reported. “It will have seen the battle through the buzz droid optics, but I’ve managed to deny it control of our side of the ship, so it’s blind to our current state. It will have to use a B1 to gain any visual intel on us.”

“Well done, all of you and especially you, R2,” I said with relief. The battle would’ve been for nought if the bloody tac droid had opened up a dorsal hangar door to suck us into hyper space or do any of the other nasty tricks when you had control over life support or artificial gravity. “Gregor, how long can you keep watch?”

“Ten hours, commander,” he answered.

“That won’t be necessary, but I’d appreciate at least six for me to recover from this exertion. Colonel Gascon will be in command until I awake. I doubt the tac droid will send his remaining forces our way, as he will risk losing complete control of the ship, but keep on your toes.”

“Yes, ma’am! I have command,” Gascon said with gusto.

I chuckled at his exuberance and cut the link. “M8, get me into my cabin, I’m going to pass-”

Sweet oblivion claimed me.

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“Get that circuit fixed BZ,” Meebur Gascon ordered from within his command center in the droid’s dome. “We can’t afford the Talon in less than 100% condition.”

“Yes, colonel,” the droid responded with a flat blurting chirp in binary. Meebur had at least been with M5-BZ long enough to know that the droid didn’t truly appreciate his presence. It was something that he could understand, as the zilkin could well imagine how he would feel if his own head had been hollowed out to make room for another sentient being to live inside.

Despite the commander and Captain Gregor’s amazing performance in keeping the Talon in one piece and literally crushing the buzz droid swarm, some had managed to latch onto the ventral hull in spots here and there, shorting out systems and cutting into it.

At least until the commander’s blaster pistol, which she sent flying around like a fast zephyrskift through the air and shot them off the hull.

Just looking at the replays from the various sensor feeds on the battle still left Meebur with a sense of deep surreality.

He knew that Jedi wielded the Force - he had conducted the mid level strategic and tactical considerations of more than eighty distinct battles in the war so far. He had seen hundreds of post-battle analyses from across the galaxy, a fair number of which had Jedi either commanding or wading into the battle themselves with lightsaber in hand and the sheer odds against which they mostly triumphed. Therefore, he privately considered himself somewhat knowledgeable of the Jedi and their feats in battle.

He would without hesitation rank Commander Tano right alongside Mace Windu in terms of effectiveness on a battlefield, especially after her most recent performance.

R2 rolled out of the Talon with urgent speed and approached with M8 in striding fluently behind.

Now hadn’t that been another surprising revelation, that the commander’s integrated droid intelligence could take command of the armor itself to act with its own agency. And in this case, could even convincingly fake that Commander Tano was still inside it. A necessary ruse, as the enemy tac droid would probably attack if it knew that she was flat on her back to recover from the exertion of battle.

“We’re being contacted by the enemy on holo, through the ship’s network,” R2 declared.

Meebur popped open the BZ’s hatch, “Really? Are they still trying to take back full control?” 

“Yes, but QT and U9 are working together to keep the droid out of our portion of the network. It’s one of the new ST models.”

“That is surprising,” Meebur scratched his chin in thought, “I didn't think the ST series was ready enough for wide-scale adoption yet. Did it have a name for itself?”

“No.”

“M8, you ready?”

The droid folded her arms, the stiffness of her movements vanishing and now he could actually believe that there was a togruta within. “Always, colonel,” she said with the commander’s voice.

“R2, do it.”

The astromech’s base holo-emitter lit up and a high resolution 3D image of a super-tactical droid shimmered into existence. It had a white painted armored chassis with dark green-gold patterns on its chest that definitely denoted some expression of personal individuality from the thing. R2 had projected it in a one to one ratio, so its 1.9 meter bulk towered over them. Its three yellow eyes flashed and even narrowed, projecting its intense scrutiny.

“I assume I’m speaking to Commander Tano of the Jedi Order,” declared the ST droid leadingly.

“You assume correctly, and you are?” said M8, tilting her head in the slightest displays of body language. Meebur could only guess that it was second nature to the droid to be able to mimic her master to that degree.

“My name is Viperion, tactical commander of the CIS Navy.”

“You chose your own name, interesting. It seems the Separatists are committed to giving your kind individualized sentience.”

“I will not get drawn into a debate of my own existence or the wisdom of those who created me. This conversation is being held merely to inform you that I am willing to give you a chance to evacuate the ship when we emerge in the Castell system.”

“Really? And what makes you offer this kindness?”

“It is easy to conclude you will make some attempt to delay or even sabotage this ship from carrying out its primary mission. Historical data suggests a high likelihood you will even sacrifice yourself if it should prove necessary for the protection of my primary target. The best way for me to prevent that is to appeal to your natural self-preservation instincts.”

M8 chuckled, “I see. I’m afraid I will have to decline your generous offer, Viperion. We will leave when we’re ready. We’ve defeated all your buzz droids and if you wish to throw your remaining forces at us, you’re welcome to try.”

“Which you know I will not do, as I will be unable to properly command and control this ship if I lose too many droids. We seem to be at an impasse in that respect.”

M8 shook her head, her body twitching in silent laughter. “You assume that I can’t go on the offensive against you?”

“I have been programmed with the known feats of many Jedi and yours as well, Commander. You have exceeded the calculated threshold and such must be paying a price in exhaustion. There is a high probability that you will not be able to attack before we reach the Castell system. You command at most a small handful of elite clones. If you set foot in the parts of the ship I still control, I will not hesitate to overload the gravity plating and crush you.”

“Well, we do seem to be at an impasse after all. There can be no further point to this conversation. Tano out.”

R2 took his mark and cut the connection.

“He was fishing for our numbers,” Meebur declared in the heavy silence afterward.

“Indeed, Colonel,” said M8 with a nod. “He also initiated a renewed offensive in the ship network while he was talking to us. I had to help QT and U9 fend off the slicing attacks remotely. As a droid intelligence he is naturally quite powerful, but with me helping we’re back to a stalemate.”

“Would R2 and R4’s help make a difference?”

“It’s not a matter of processing power anymore, we’re both using the ship systems we have control over to aid our efforts. At this point, we have to wait. If we push Viperion into a corner, where he believes he’s losing too much, he may just decide to blow up the ship.”

“War droids do not have self-preservation protocols, I wonder if he shares this trait.”

“That is a good question, colonel,” M8 shrugged. “Mistress theorized that General Kalani was definitely sophisticated enough to actually have a preference for his own survival despite what orders were given to him by the Separatists. They would at least humor him with the illusion that he has that freedom, but there will be hidden kill switches embedded within. No, I think that Viperion definitely has his own escape method to leave the Vanguard before it explodes on its target. Probably a small hyperspace capable shuttle that has been integrated into an escape pod launch tube, which he will take before the ship makes the jump from Castell to Carida. He’ll leave a B1 commander droid in charge to do the final run.”

Meebur couldn’t help but be impressed, “That’s certainly a logical analysis on his original plan. Our presence on board will keep him here though, he has to know that his mission can’t succeed while we’re here.”

“We’re playing a game of who will blink first, unless the mistress comes up with another plan in the meantime or Viperion tries a gambit of his own to upset our stalemate. We have to be vigilant.”

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“Anything to report?” I asked before diving into a much needed meal in the Talon’s multifunction room.

Colonel Gascon stood at attention on the far end of the small lunch table in front of me, “We’re just under an hour from reverting to real space in the Castell system, Commander. Our enemy, an ST droid by the name of Viperion, has so far kept his attempts to regain full control of the ship limited to electronic warfare, which we have been stopping with no problem.”

So, a second named ST droid. I had always wondered if Kalani was a unique one-off phenomenon. The implications for the future could be rather dire if the CIS wasn’t careful - a droid revolution being the least of it. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry too much about this, since this ball was in Palpatine’s court, who would not want such an event potentially derailing his carefully laid plans and contingencies.

Just in case though I resolved to send a Fulcrum directive for keeping a general eye on any Republic droid manufacturers, especially Holowan Labs with their IG-86 sentinel droids - who in the original timeline would go on to cause a minor droid rebellion. 

Holowan was another case of a business that straddled both sides of the Clone War, under the purported flag of ‘neutrality’ and that their droid products were essential for both sides. Their subsidiary, Holowan Mechanicals, built the IG100 Magnaguards in the CIS, which kept the company books as clean as a whistle in the Republic. 

“Good,” I took a few deep gulps of water.

“You should also be aware, commander, that Viperion offered us a chance to withdraw safely from the ship in Castell. Clearly a trap to try and blast us with the Vanguard’s guns.”

“Not so hasty, colonel. He would know after communicating with us via holo that our ship is a class that can cloak.”

“Then you think the offer is genuine?”

I chewed on another bite of meat and swallowed, “Yes.” 

“That makes no sense, we’re the enemy. He’s literally programmed to try and kill us.”

I deflected the course of the conversation, which was getting to dangerous territory. “He’s programmed to achieve his mission, colonel. Getting us off the ship will do that in his calculations. We’re not dealing with a run of the mill T-series droid here. How’s our cloak, by the way?”

“Fully repaired, commander. As is all the minor damage the Talon suffered during the battle. D-Squad has outdone themselves on this.”

“Excellent. My compliments to all of you. I resume command.”

“Command is yours, ma’am.”

“Dismissed, colonel.”

When I finished my meal, M8 approached and I quickly got into the beskar’gam before leaving the Talon.

Gregor was dutifully where he was supposed to be, sitting in the co-pilot seat of the transport shuttle.

He gave a salute, “Commander, enemy has kept his forces to his side of the ship so far.”

“Good, I want you to remain on standby for our deceleration in the Castell system. The moment we jump for Carida, I want you in the sack and sleeping.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I left the shuttle cockpit and headed to its small engineering deck. It took a few moments to find the ship’s transponder system and pull it out of the housings.

Just from a quick examination, I could tell that the CIS had already done the work in disconnecting it from the onboard hyperspace antenna - preventing it from connecting to the Holonet to broadcast its position on an encrypted frequency. A standard system on almost every GAR ship that did not have a cloaking device.

“M8, generate fourteen ship transponder profiles for me. Backdate them and be ready to upload to Fulcrum when we reconnect.”

“Done, mistress.”

I shoved my armor’s logic spike into the transponder assembly port, uploading the new profiles.

A few seconds later, it was done.

“All right, M8, step one done.” I pulled a nearby toolbox closer, and grabbed the hyperspanner inside.

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Vanguard emerged from hyper in the Castell system and immediately caused a bit of stir among the ships nearby. 

Civilian ships generally appreciated the presence of the Republic Navy, but many captains this far in the war had begun seeing the presence of a Venator at a waypoint as something of a bad omen, especially this far from the front lines. They were a visible reminder of a galaxy at war along with the increasing fuel costs and the slashed revenues due to traffic restrictions to the Outer Rim.

We watched the course of the Vanguard closely and sure enough, the ship adopted a leisurely cruise, keeping a shipping convoy that had the bad luck to be there within its theoretical blast radius.

“We knew it would happen, but it feels so infuriating being able to do nothing about it,” growled Gascon, jumping three times his height and stomping BZs head to vent his anger. “That clanking bastard is taking hostages and they don’t even know it.”

We could even monitor the holographic clone crew on the bridge, as they perfectly interacted with Castell’s aerospace control, giving not a single hint that anything was wrong or suspicious.

The Vanguard arrived in orbit of Castell III, then to our frustration, smoothly found an outbound ship leaving, heading to the Carida hyper point and tagged along.

It was a beautiful ship, slightly larger than a Venator, that was delta shaped as most KDY ships were. It had two pyramidal superstructures emerging from its dorsal and ventral sides and the hull was a pure white ivory color with 4 massive transparisteel domes offering 360-degree views of hyperspace or planetary vistas.

I could sense nearly seven thousand, carefree souls on board.

I felt my stomach turning into a black hole.

“R2 can you identify that ship?” I asked, as Gascon looked on in horror.

“Referencing database, it’s the Aurodium Star. Stellar class cruise ship. 6000 guest capacity, 2000 crew.”

“Please tell me that they’re not heading for the Carida jump point.”

“I can’t do that, commander. Course projection is accurate,” R2 declared, his binary becoming a grim, sad whine.

“This is not a coincidence,” I felt my hands ball into fists and strain with anger, even as I shrugged it off to maintain my equilibrium.

“Of course not,” snapped Gascon, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “A ship like that has its schedule determined years in advance! Carida’s mountains combined with the binary stars of the system are among the most picturesque locations in this part of the galaxy, perfect for tourists.”

“How long until the Carida hyper point, R2?”

“97 minutes.”

We watched as the Vanguard closed to within five kilometers off the Aurodium Star’s port side and gave the passengers in the domes a nice close look at the star destroyer.

I felt the naive wonder of children gazing at the amazing ship that carried the Jedi and their brave clone defenders into battle. The satisfaction of teenagers seeing the ‘wizard’ ship that defended the Republic on the front lines. The adults mostly felt safer knowing that the warship was nearby, though quite a few wanted it gone, as it marred the beautiful view of the stars beyond.

In the probability lines ahead of me, where the Aurodium Star was destroyed along with the Republic strategic conference, the infinite potential of all those lives to impact the future in countless small and large ways - it was like watching a horrific cosmic train wreck. I’d been staring at the blindingly complex convergence of probability lines in Carida like an idiot, made especially worse because Anakin and so many other important figures in the galaxy were there. My worry for him had stopped me from taking one step back at probable events in Castell.

“That ship must not make the jump to hyperspace,” I said grimly.

Gascon shook his tiny head, “Even if we could contact them, the only person that they'd listen to and who has the authority, is you, commander.”

He was absolutely right and that meant I was wasting my time being here on the Vanguard.

If only I had the skill of absolute remote Force projection like Kina Ha, I could appear to the captain of the Aurodium Star and warn him that way.

Yet, it was well within range of my Battle Meditation. I could find the captain that way and… what, make him super depressed?

Nonsense.

Even if I managed to pinpoint him, then somehow influence his mind through his spirit, with enough strength to present an intelligible image, which I didn’t have the first clue of how to do at the moment - the captain also had to believe me. He couldn’t just rationalize it away. There was also the matter of his 2IC and other crew who could also come into the picture.

I turned to Gregor, who had been stoically watching events behind me, awaiting the order that even he could see coming.

He nodded to me.

“Colonel Gascon, I leave you in command of D-Squad and the Talon. Captain Gregor and I will take the transport shuttle. We are going to give Viperion a nice big dose of certainty.”

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The timing of this plan was down to the minute.

If we did it too soon, then Viperion could enact contingencies. He had to calculate with high certainty that his mission was going to succeed.

Gregor was piloting the shuttle, whilst I was in the airlock, my armor fully buttoned up for a void walk.

“Nine minutes to Carida point, all ship systems go, hangar door spike is online and ready,” he reported.

The Vanguard had slowly pulled ahead by about a kilometer in front of the Aurodium Star, and would reach the hyper point first.

I tapped my comlink, “Colonel, are you ready?”

“Ready, commander. You can count on us, we’ll make sure it's done.”

There is always the plan with Palpatine. Either he wants someone dead on the Aurodium Star or even a group of people for some reason, or he wants the death of so many influential and rich core worlders to act as another excuse for more security reforms. Even if he doesn’t want Anakin or myself dead in this scheme to assassinate the entire High Command, he wants the Aurodium Star to blow up with all souls when both ships exit hyper in Carida.

Yet another task for Fulcrum would be to thoroughly research the passenger list to see who the possible target/s were.

In any event, I had to give Palpatine credit for striking while the iron was hot. The ripples of Keitum’s orbital bombardment were still being felt across the galaxy. Everyone had woken up to the unpleasant reality that the old ways of a planet being sacrosanct from direct assault from space, was a thing of the past. It had been weeks and they were still screaming in the Senate about it; demanding action from both Palpatine, GAR and the Jedi Order.

I could already see the initial result in the near future - the Jedi Order would dust off the ancient Old Republic schematics for planetary shields from the Archives. Research would begin on modernizing the designs for current needs and barely a thought would be given to the economics of it - which was what had killed off their use in the Post-Ruusan galaxy that was desperately trying to rebuild itself after the last war against the Sith.

Why would Palpatine want planetary shields to make a comeback?

It didn’t take prescience to figure that out.

A planetary shield could be modulated with the push of a button to become what was known as a shutter shield. It would encase the planet and prevent ships from coming in and out, except at a designated point where a circular interrupter space station was placed in the plane of the shield. If you wanted planetary security in a galaxy where pirates, rebels and insurgents had access to starships, big guns, missiles and hyperdrivers, that was your best bet. It could also double as a prison for the planet’s entire population, assuming you kept the ground based shield emitters and power plants secure enough.

“Two minutes to Carida point, ten seconds to mark alpha… five…four… three… two…”

The ventral hangar door of the Vanguard opened with the emergency explosive releases.

Gregor punched the Rho shuttle’s upward facing thrusters, using that and the escaping mass of air from the spinal bay to push it clear.

The Talon, which clung to the deck with EM clamps on its landing legs, cloaked and gave a brief burst of engine thrust.

The Rho shuttle orientated itself to the Aurodium Star and fired a brief acceleration burn.

I slapped the emergency release for the airlock in front of me and fired my armor’s boot jets at max the instant I had clear space in front of me.

In my HUD, M8 had already calculated my course and highlighted my target.

The five kilometer separation towards the Aurodium Star could be crossed in fourteen seconds.

With the embrace of the Force, it felt much longer.

Every tiny thruster firing to adjust the course to my target was critical.

The 1.2km long passenger ship surged towards me and at six seconds to target, I flipped myself over to begin desperately slowing down.

I made a mess of my course briefly in the process, which M8 thankfully corrected.

The luxury liner felt like an unyielding wall that was surging forward to splatter me into meaty mulch!

Three seconds before contact I could make out my target with the naked eye.

“Shit… shit, shit, shit, shiiiiiii…”

My beskar’gam’s boot jets flared on last time, red lining their output.

The remaining momentum bled off into the Force and my hands and feet thumped directly into the transparisteel of the Aurodium Star’s main bridge.

Beyond the window I could see the crew in their fancy green uniform’s gaping at me with slacked jaws and other vocal orifices.  

My senses surged forward to encompass the entire bridge and my TK and technometry had enough precision at this range to do the job.

My will took over the navigator station, keeping a firm grip on the hyperdrive motivator lever.

“Mistress, the Vanguard is translating to hyper.”

“Understood.” My focus was on the bridge though, as the ship’s captain - a fairly old, distinguished looking, human male - was the first to regain his wits after the surprise of seeing what was clearly a Mandalorian space jump onto his front window.

He pulled in a breath to shout for a security alert, but instead his eyes rolled up as he slumped back into his chair, fast asleep.

I blanketed the bridge with the Force Sleep, but one of the bridge crew was a gran, whose mind was sufficiently different to not be affected.

That problem was solved by kinetically slamming him into the bridge ceiling and floor, giving his brain just enough of a jostle for a concussion.

“Tano to Gregor. Bridge is neutralized. The Aurodium Star is staying in this system.”

“Understood, commander. Will you be all right?”

“I’ll be fine, already heading for the nearest airlock. You get your ass going and head for Mandalore.”

I pulled myself down to reach the hull, magnetized my boots and stood, gazing at the shuttle hovering nearby.

“Commander-”

“Don’t have to call me that anymore, Gregor. Go, you only have a narrow escape window.”

“...thank you…Manda’lor.”

“Not your Manda’lor either, from now on that would be Kal Skirata.”

“I know, but I can never repay you for this… Ahsoka.”

“And you’ll never have to, Gregor.”

He was now so close with the shuttle that I could see him through the forward transparisteel of the cockpit.

He stood and saluted me one last time.

I returned it.

With a final nod he sat down and the shuttle backed off to a safe distance before reorientating and burning hard in the direction of the Shulstine hyper point.

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Anakin Skywalker glared through the transparisteel windows that looked outward from the huge briefing amphitheatre aboard the Valor space station.

The Carida Military Academy had kindly loaned the use of the station to the GAR for this conference and after just a few days he was already bored out of his mind.

If every member of the conference had just been naval clone captains, then he could only imagine what a breeze it would’ve been to get a consensus. Instead they had to endure hours long speeches from natural-born captains and admirals who insisted that their doctrinal proposals should be considered by High Command. Even the Jedi Masters, such as Ki-Adi Mundi, Tiin and Oppo Rancisis had delivered what could best be described as naval doctrine sermons, that Anakin knew were thinly veiled attempts to put a new coat of paint on Yularen-Tano to call it something else. Then there were the nostalgic idiots who wanted to actually go back to the times when ships only traded turbolasers. Thankfully, these efforts as a whole gained little traction among the admirals and Jedi who mattered in the decision making process and Vice Chair Mas Amedda, who was representing Palpatine, didn’t give the bombastic idiots any serious consideration beyond the appearance that he was listening.

The conference had been called to come up with a coherent strategy in the face of orbital bombardment and the majority of the time was being spent on old ground of now settled strategic and tactical doctrine in the ever evolving war.

He actually wished that Ahsoka and Yularen could be here to verbally rip every pathetic attempt at a new ivory tower doctrine to shreds.

Only now, after days of pontificating had the true issue of the response to orbital bombardment begun.

Three camps of thought were immediately apparent; Reciprocity - adding orbital strikes to the GAR’s toolkit which would only be used in a proportional response to any Separatist attack on a planet from space. Escalation - those who wanted orbital strikes as a free option for any command level officer at their own discretion and finally; Ruusanites, who were firmly against orbital strikes even in the face of it being used by the enemy.

So far the consensus was favoring either Reciprocity and Escalation, with the two schools of thought filling the amphitheatre with debate and arguments, whilst the Ruusanites were in a firm minority.

“This has to be the worst part of our jobs,” he grumbled, scowling into the distant void.

“Cheer up, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in an entirely too amused tone, his blue eyes twinkling. “You’re going to get your turn soon and you’ll have every chance to voice all your complaints about unnecessary military protocol, whilst also defending the contributions of your padawan.”

“It’s not about that,” he tried to quickly deny.

Obi-Wan lightly elbowed him in the side, “Of course it is. Almost half of everyone in this room wouldn’t be alive if we had stayed in the old gun doctrine, yet instead of recognizing that fact, a minority of them seem content to only try to tear down what she has built.”

A rapid blur of light that solidified into a Venator arrived beyond Carida’s mass shadow.

“Ah, another straggler,” Obi-Wan shook his head wryly. “I’ll inform Windu.”

His former master ambled away towards the center of the amphitheater where the Master of Vaapad was having a very tense conversation with Mundi, near the holotank.

Seeing that, Anakin was really beginning to have doubts about his own long term goal of getting on the Jedi Council. For the longest time, he had quite naively imagined that the Council was supposed to be enlightened beyond petty mundane politics - but experience with the day-to-day reality was a bitter teacher. The politics was there, but it was very subtle; carried on the level of singular gestures of body language and the Force itself as a-

Rapid movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention back to the recently arrived Venator, which was now powering forward at full burn towards the station and the system defense fleet arrayed in a defensive wall in front of it.

Something small detached from the bridge superstructure before a flash of blue light then a streaked blur vanishing into the void - the hyperspace jump of a very small craft.

“Someone’s in a hurry,” he mumbled.

The Venator’s burn continued, its speed climbing as it raced towards the outer defense perimeter of Valor station.

Anakin’s instincts made his spine shudder - something was very wrong and he plunged his limited prescience into the future with effort-

He slapped his comlink so hard, it almost broke on his wrist, “Skywalker to Damors, raise the station shields!”

“Skywalker? What? What’s the meaning of this?” blubbered Admiral Flom Damors, the Caridan security commander.

“Raise shields, now!” Anakin reached through the link with the Force, not only augmenting his words, but also pushing on the mind and will of the obstinate fool who had egotistically rebuffed every suggestion Anakin had made on securing this conference. Ahsoka’s warning had been a constant niggling feeling in his mind and unfortunately, Admiral Damors had not taken any of Anakin’s suggestions well. The old caridan who was also the director of the military academy saw it as an infringement of his own territory and expertise.

Damors, however, was not weak of will and mind, “No, I will not. There is no threat-”

The flash of light was blinding and Anakin winced, instinctively closing his eyes against it, holding up a palm to try to see beyond.

In the next instant, it was gone and he stared into the distant void with astonishment.

Where the racing Venator had been was now only a vast expanding nova of multi-hued energy that was racing outward in an utterly stupendous explosion.

The particle shockwave was just barely visible as it expanded at close to the speed of light and washed over every ship and the station, eventually going on to slam into the planet’s magnetosphere.

Innate particle shielding held, but the bigger problem was coming as what had been one kilometer of starship was reduced to variable sizes of debris racing outward with the expanding energy wave.

“DAMORS, RAISE SHIELDS DAMN YOU!”

The man finally did his frakking job and Anakin felt the station shield energize.

Debris began pelting it at significant velocities.

The entire conference filled with Jedi, admirals and captains could only sit and watch in horror as larger pieces raced towards them.

The station shuddered after what had been a chunk of a Venator’s bridge superstructure slammed against one of the mounted outer hangar bays.

Anakin felt it shudder under his feet as the giant piece of debris was deflected off and continued its course towards the Carida itself.

That would not burn up in the atmosphere and Anakin could only hope that it wouldn’t land on anyone.

The entire station was now flashing with red emergency lighting along with the battle alert blaring in their ears.

He stared with transfixed fascination at the residual particles of the explosion slowly changing colours and reflecting all sorts of colors in the unfiltered glare of the local star. It had clearly been intended to go off much closer… it had missed.

His mind instantly gave the answer as to the question of what could’ve caused the explosion as there was only one substance that produced this effect when ignited.

‘Ahsoka,’ he said flatly along the Bond. ‘A warning about the massive rhydonium bomb heading my way would’ve been nice.’

The reply came instantly, ‘Sorry Skyguy, you had to give a convincing performance. Palpatine’s eyes are watching this conference closely.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Next door in the Castell system. Had to stop an inbound luxury liner from also getting caught in that blast.’

‘Knowing you, it was probably in a way that will generate lots of flimsiwork for us both.’

‘Small price to pay, Skyguy.’

‘Good work, Ahsoka. Now get over here for a debrief. I’ve a feeling the Council is going to want some words with you.’

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A/N: Palpatine just doesn't stop scheming, does he ;-)

Hope you enjoyed, have a great weekend and stay awesome.