The Force Wills - Chapter 143

“Try increasing the capacitance here, R2.”

The astromech prodded the tool into the rear maintenance panel of the disabled B2. We had already finished working on the other one I had disabled, but this one was proving a problem. 

We had to leave the com vault exactly as we had found it, and this whole mission would be for naught if we left behind two clearly disabled B2s that needed repairs. As much as I had worked on the Disable Droid technique to do exactly as the name implied, it wasn’t perfect and there was no way I had perfect control over the flow of every electron or induced current. Combine this with the ‘good enough’ build philosophy of the CIS battle droid factories and you had droids going through their quality control process with oddities.

‘I see the problem now, we’ll need to bypass this circuitry here,’ R2 bleeped and chirped rapidly.

“All right, do it. Can’t be helped at this point. We’ll just have to hope that this droid’s future maintenance inspection doesn’t trigger a red-”

My attention was instantly drawn to movement as an incoming turbolift entered my sphere of awareness.

‘Don’t stop here, don’t stop here,’ I thought, gritting my teeth. ‘Shuk'orok, kriffing osik!’ (Damn it, kriffing shit!)

We weren’t so lucky and the lift stopped on C Deck.

Coming out of it was the human ensign I had seen earlier with a tool belt around his waist.

The probability lines weren’t looking good and revealed… oh of course, he was coming to the com vault.

“What’s wrong, Ahsoka?” R2 bleeped worriedly. 

“Colonel Gascon, we’ve got incoming, looks like that ensign we saw earlier in the elevator was a tech. He’s coming here and if he sees all this…”

Gascon jumped out of BZ’s head, his eyes worried, “You can just render him unconscious, can’t you?”

“Easily, but it’s waking him up that’s going to be… problematic. I’m going to need to construct a believable scenario that’s going to explain him passing out, a minor memory gap and implant a hypnotic suggestion. His own mind will do the rest as long as I do it properly.”

Thirty seconds later I was in the exterior corridor, walking with purpose, frowning and tapping furiously into a datapad - playing the part of a maintenance engineer frustrated at some form of problem.

Mr Tech who had ogled me in the elevator was walking towards me and naturally smiled at seeing me again, even as he quickly composed himself to not be caught staring at a superior officer.

I looked up to meet his eyes as the distance separating us grew smaller, my expression growing stern with expectation.

“Lieutenant,” he saluted me again.

“Ensign,” I returned the salute just as we were passing each other, using the action to disguise a slight mnemonic for the Force Sleep.

His eyes rolled upward and I caught him under the arms as he fell into La La land.

He wasn’t exactly big, taller than me by half a head, roughly 70 kg. I was strong enough to carry him without the Force, and slung him into a Fireman carry over my shoulders.

I hurried back into the com vault anteroom and closed it behind me.

“How long?” I asked with a weary sigh as I gently put down the tech. Unexplained bruises were not something I wanted to worry about.

“18 minutes,” Gascon huffed, pacing in a circle on top of BZ’s head, clearly showing his own anxiousness.

I searched the tech’s tool belt and pockets, eventually finding a hand sized datapad. Not wanting to touch it, I levitated it out to hover in front of me and began using telekinetic fingers to tap the buttons and bring it to life.

“What ya looking for?” Gascon asked curiously.

“Duty roster,” I mumbled absently, staring at the screen.

Great, it’s his personal pad, I thought. It should’ve been obvious from the size, but as I scanned the screen and the programs on it… He even had CSO? How the hell? We hadn’t rolled out to the Outer Rim, that was probably a decade away and even then it depended on enough localized server infrastructure.

It was then that I spotted another Holonet interface program that was effectively spoofing the datapad’s location.

He wouldn’t be able to access advanced features or even earn credits, but he could make an account, read posts and write them.

You would think Hermione would’ve maybe mentioned to me that people had figured out a local VPN equivalent for the Holonet!

“Problem, commander?” Gascon asked.

“No, well yes, but it's not relevant right now.” I tapped another program that looked like a time scheduler and sure enough found the personalized duty roster. “All right, good news is he has an hour of time assigned for the com vault maintenance. If there’s nothing wrong it should just be a checklist. So we also have to make sure when we leave that the checklist is also done. R2, U9, get into the local system and see if you can’t find it, then carry it out.”

“Yes, commander!” the two droids chirped in chorus.  

I returned to examine both B2s and found R2 had done his usual excellent job. They were ready to reactivate and just needed a singular nudge from my technometry to do so.

Now to bite the blaster bolt.

I kneeled next to the unconscious tech and placed two fingers on his right temple.

He was thoroughly in the throes of REM stage sleep, but I had to nudge him up a bit to get enough of the proper brain activity to work with.

“Name?” I threw the thought into the dull gray landscape of his mind, which was teeming with seemingly endless, hovering plasteel boxes, carried on a slow unseen wind.

A singular box was attracted to my spear of thought like a magnet and unfurled for me.

Ensign Diras Uran, born on Serenno, but considered Raxus his homeworld. He was lean but wiry, with the practical strength of someone who spent hours crawling through maintenance ducts and hauling equipment. Dark brown hair, cropped short and perpetually disheveled from wearing a tech’s headset. Further probes related to family gave me a general history. He was the son of a droid factory overseer and he had been surrounded by droid foundries and scrapyards from a young age. He was thoroughly disillusioned with the Republic’s bureaucracy and drawn to the CIS’s promise of autonomy for Outer Rim worlds, enlisting as a technician a few weeks after the first Battle of Geonosis.

This was his first posting of note on a major capital ship, but he had worked on Lucrehulks before this and had actually been in a few battles. His last ship had been blown up in the north-eastern front in the Lianna system and he had made it to an escape pod.

I explored the mental landscape more, trying my hardest to find another angle of attack on the problem, but found nothing else that would work.

Figures. We’re both in the same bloody boat in that respect, so to speak.

Now to craft the hypno-suggestion.

It would be an effective artificial memory, which if done correctly would be taken by his own mind and when combined with his subconscious feelings and instincts, would act like a virus - the idea would replicate and fill everything out properly.

It began with a seemingly normal conversation, a query on a problematic subsystem in a tactical droid. This engaged his enthusiasm for the topic, which led me to comment directly on it. That led to the reveal of his history in the droid business - all the while I was subtly stoking the flames. The path from there wasn’t too convoluted, he also understood the very obvious hints I was making. It was a delicate balance, but I figuratively spread the treats on the ground, which he gathered rather eagerly. From there we let nature take its course-  

“Commander?”

I blinked at the disjunction, getting my bearings and turned away from the mildly handsome face of Diras, who had a slight twist of satisfaction to his mouth now.

Gascon was standing on BZ and the rest of D-Squad was behind him, all in the com vault anteroom. Behind them, the inner vault was sealed again and the swarm mines were lazily doing their patrols.

“Do we have the module?”

“Perfectly copied and tested twice, just be sure, commander,” Gascon declared with satisfaction. “K7 did his job perfectly. We saw you go very still and figured you were doing your Jedi hocus pocus, so we just got on with the job.”

Got a bit carried away, Ahsoka, I remonstrated myself 

I stood and winced at my protesting knees from the awkward position I had kept whilst kneeling next to Diras.

A quick levitation brought him into the spare parts storage room, where I leaned him seated against the wall. Further uses of TK on his clothes and hair also set the scene; pulling off his uniform jumpsuit so that it was bunched around his knees. His toolbelt discarded to one side, tearing off his now stained underwear and chucking it down a nearby disposal chute. Then pulling up the uniform to at least waist height as ‘Nande’ had politely preserved his dignity after the steamy encounter they had.

So steamy and mind blowing it had been, that he had passed out in the aftermath.

I wasn’t worried about him making enquiries after my alias. My crafted suggestion made it clear that Nande was due to be transferred to the actual front lines - where chances for survival weren't high. This was a final hurrah on her part.

Back in the vault anteroom, I levitated both B2s onto their feet and gestured for D-Squad to leave.

I backed out as well, holding up a hand and with a bit of dramatic flair, flicked my fingers in imitation of a certain omnipotent being’s style.

The bulkhead doors closed as I hurried away and both B2’s flickered online, quickly catching their balance from the slight centimeter drop I had given them.

In the storage room, Diras Uran blinked awake, smiling widely at the very pleasant memories of his amazing encounter with Lieutenant Birkonas. He was hardly able to believe his luck, but it had clearly happened. Passing out was rather embarrassing but he dared any guy to have such mindblowing sex and not need a little nap afterward…

I checked his emotions and thoughts one last time, “Time to go, D-Squad.”

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Thankfully our further exfiltration was entirely uneventful.

The only rather frightening highlight was jumping up off the hull of the Indomitable into seemingly empty space for fifty very long meters, only to find myself slipping right through the Talon’s cloaking field and literally threading the needle into the ship’s airlock.

From there we slipped away from the enemy fleet with a minor course correction and six minutes later left the planet’s mass shadow for the jump to hyperspace.

The instant we were safely on our way, I excused myself to get out of the enemy uniform and restore my lekku and face to my usual style.

I zipped myself into my undersuit and climbed back into my beskar’gam with some relief.

“All right, R4, let me see it,” I said, walking back into the cockpit.

“Yes, commander.”

The red and gold astromech opened a panel on his body, where an internal claw produced the perfectly copied CIS encryption module.

I carefully picked it up by just touching the edges and probed it with technometry.

It was fascinatingly complex and I also realized that there was another layer of encryption in the very layout of the components within the module - that was the only way to explain the odd placement of the microprocessors that made no sense from a pure engineering standpoint.

“All right, R4, I want you to forward all your data on this module to every droid in D-Squad and M8,” I tapped my armored chest.

“You’re worried about losing it, commander?” Gascon asked. “Our mission is successful, we’re in a cloaked ship bound for Republic space.”

I stored the module in the hidden compartment of my armor in the small of my back, alongside the Darksaber.

“I’m afraid our mission is not over, Colonel,” I sat down in the pilot’s seat and began manipulating the holo controls.

He deftly jumped on the headrest of my chair and stared at the controls, “You’re altering our heading in hyperspace.”

I let the Force mostly guide me, but I had seen the planet we needed to reach. The fear of navigating this way was cast off and I just… let it happen as my perception expanded into the future of the Talon. “Yes, we are the only ones who can be in a position to intercept a particularly nasty Separatist plot that is targeting the Republic strategy conference in Carida.”

“What?!” Gascon was gaping like a tiny fish out of water. He then scrutinized me to see if I was playing a joke on him, but clearly saw that I was dead serious. “How can you know? Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I know as many Jedi know things, Colonel. We occasionally receive flashes of the distant future and can act based on that information. I know the planet we are heading to right now is central to what will happen and that we have to get there as fast as possible. Hence, why I’m navigating us in hyper directly. And besides, do you really think that the Separatists don’t know about the Carida conference?”

“Well, yes, they do I suppose,” Gascon stroked his nonexistent chin. “But how do they expect to achieve anything? The security at the conference will be overwhelming-”

“Yet, they are still going to try, I have seen it, Colonel. As things stand now, whatever they’re going to do will obliterate Valor space station and a significant chunk of the defense fleet. Republic High Command will be gone, I trust you can imagine the consequences.”

Gascon’s stilted eyes twitched to the left and right, his body language expressing horror at the sheer idea. “The entire Navy will be left in the hands of all their subordinates that are still on the front lines. The news will dash morale at the worst time possible, when all fronts are under major attack and with the uncertainty of orbital strikes being on the table… We’d reorganize, but… ”

“We’d lose a lot of systems before that can happen, some of which would be critical crossroads or strategic in nature.” My hands stopped moving and I breathed a sigh of relief. “All right, we should be on our way. We’ll arrive in five hours.”

“And just where will we be then?”

I brought up the navicomputer and let it compute the course we were on. It immediately threw errors and warnings, but I dismissed them and forced the process to continue.

A star chart of the sector eventually appeared, which zoomed in to eventually display our destination.

“Abafar system?” Gascon mused. “Doesn’t jog any memory. It’s not a Separatist stronghold that I know of.” 

A swipe brought up what the database had on it. “It’s firmly in the backwaters of the sector, claimed by neither side. Used to be a major rhydonium supplier, but after millenia of mining it’s been practically depleted. There’s still deposits left but the economics of getting to them just isn’t there for the large mining houses. All that’s left these days is a single small city of miners barely eking out a living selling to anyone who will buy.”

Gascon winced as he read further, “That planet is going to be murder on my hydration levels, it’s all desert. If I go down there, I’ll have to stay buttoned up in BZ.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem depending on what we find in the system. Now I suggest you get some rest, Colonel. I’ll be in my quarters. I think we have a long couple of days ahead of us.”

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I was mashing the holocontrol to cloak the Talon as it streaked out of hyper into a high orbit above Abafar.

The planet itself was just barely within the inner edge of the star’s habitable zone. I took in the expanse of gray-white and beige, with no oceans visible at all with a mild horror. There was not a single cloud in the sky and the atmosphere, whilst breathable, was not something anyone should subject themselves to for long. It was Tatooine, but worse, yet just short of being uninhabitable.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Gascon squinted his tiny eyes. “There at bearing 271, is that a ship?” 

I adjusted passive scans in that direction and soon the sensors resolved a very familiar image.

“A Republic Venator?!” he exclaimed. “Are they here to refuel?”

“Whilst that is entirely possible, there is no reason. If they were part of the Botajef front, they have much more convenient logistics than to go all the way out here. I’m referencing the ship in the database now.”

It took a while, especially as the star destroyer wasn’t broadcasting its own transponder on the appropriate frequency, which was doubly suspicious. 

“The computer identifies it as the Vanguard, a ship that was listed as destroyed after a battle three months ago at the Botajef front.” 

“Hmmm, it hardly looks like it's been in a battle at all,” Gascon scowled, he made a specific gesture and the computer generated an appropriately sized holointerface for him. “Take a look, a Rho class shuttle leaving for the planet below and… another one coming back up.”

“I’m plotting an intercept.”

A few minutes later I brought the Talon to a relative stop fifty kilometers from the port side of the Vanguard.

“Passive sensors are kriff for detecting life signs but at this range I should be getting something, there’s no crew on board according to these readings,” Gascon folded his arms, scowling at the mystery before him.

“That is correct, I sense no life on this ship,” I confirmed.

“But there’s clearly something. Look, another group of shuttles coming up from the surface. Passive sensors can’t find any life signs-” He cut himself off and shook his head. “No, impossible, but…” He adjusted his scans and stared at me grimly after looking at the results. “Droid power signatures consistent with B1s in all the shuttles and dozens inside the star destroyer’s bridge tower.”

“The Vanguard has been captured and taken over by the enemy,” I nodded in agreement.

Gascon’s tiny frame seemed to burst with energy as he began pacing on the headrest. “How is that possible!? These ships have thousands of clone crewmembers. Even if the Separatists launched a covert action against it and it was successful, how did they manage to stop all those clones from using the life pods? Or prevent any of the command crew from sending a distress signal?”

“Those are very good questions, Colonel. However, it’s ultimately irrelevant to us in the present. I’ve tracked all these shuttles and they are coming and going from the only settlement below; Pons Ora. They’re either loading something up or unloading. The only thing of note that this planet still produces is rhydonium fuel.”

“So they want to top up the tanks to take this ship somewhere.”

“Clearly,” I nodded. “However, I find it curious that our passive sensors are getting nothing from the main body superstructure of the ship.”

Gascon’s eye stalks bobbed up and down before he gave me a weird look, “You’re right, I can’t even detect the ship’s main hypermatter reactor. Yet it’s clearly online by the looks of it.”

“It’s been purposefully masked, there’s something on board that they don’t want passive sensors to see. I also bet that we’ll get the same results if I dared to use active sensors,” I concluded.

“We need to find out what the Separatists are up to, commander. I don’t like the idea of infiltrating that star destroyer if we can’t at least get some idea of what we’re walking into. I suggest we land near the settlement below, see if we can’t capture a droid to analyse. If you change up your armor’s markings, you could pretend to be a Mandalorian hunter.”

I shook my head, “If we’re going incognito then it’s best I don’t wear the beskar’gam. COMPOR has made me too famous and those droids will immediately connect the dots if they see a togruta Mandalorian. I’ll get in one of my other appropriate disguises.”

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If the planet had looked uninviting from orbit, it was a hundred times worse when the Talon landed invisibly on the outskirts of Pons Ora.

The particulates in the atmosphere twisted the light from the sun to give it an awful hue of light orange. With no clouds to break up the visual monotony, Meebur Gascon found he could only look into the seemingly infinite expanse for a few seconds. It made no sense! He had no problems with space and staring into that void, so now why was this happening?

He tore his eyes away from the view beyond the cockpit and focused on the ‘small’ city.

It was as if someone had carved out a giant circular piece of the flat gray desert landscape, nearly ninety meters deep and built hundreds of multi-floor buildings out of the desert soil. Water was pumped from an underground source a few kilometers to the east and channeled via an artificial river to flow towards the city. What the database called ‘void striders’ - reptavian creatures on two legs were gathered in a herd and calmly drinking the precious liquid. They were totally unbothered by the bustle of the local denizens going about their day.

“Ready Colonel?”

Meebur turned around on BZ’s head and was momentarily flabbergasted.

He had expected many things when he had heard that he was going on this mission with Commander Tano. You’d have to be blind gloomwisp to not know of the celebrated victories she and General Skywalker had achieved in the war. He had also done his research when the assignment for this mission had come through and even the official reports he had access to did not truly capture her sheer commanding presence… charisma? It was the only real word he had for it.

It felt like… D-Squad could achieve anything they set their mind to, as long as she was there with them.

They had already achieved what the mission analysts had only given them a 9% chance of doing - getting a copy of the encryption module without the Separatists having the first clue.

Now out of nowhere, thanks to her Jedi abilities, they had found a captured Republic star destroyer and clearly the Separatists had some sort of greater design with it. He didn’t even think there was an analysis droid in existence who could calculate the odds of this eventuality.

The accessible parts of her GAR file mentioned her infiltration abilities and accomplishments, but only with codenames, enough to indicate that there were very few strongholds and locations she couldn’t get into if she wanted. It also mentioned her penchant for disguises and now he was getting a front row seat to that.

The first word to come to mind was dangerous. 

A WESTAR blaster hung on her right thigh, holstered in a dark syn-leather belt with multiple pouches. Armored boots that rode high on her calves and an outfit that could only be worn by species with sweat glands in their skin, which she was showing quite a lot of - with brown shorts and white sleeveless tunic that clung to her form. Her lekku and facial patterning had changed again and somehow enhanced the sense of danger radiating from her. A narrow sun visor was also being worn in preparation for the glare outside.

“Eh hem,” he coughed uncomfortably, coming back to himself. “Yes, we can go.”

He jumped into his seat inside BZ and closed the hatch, turning up the interior life support for increased cooling and humidity.

They left R4 behind to keep watch inside the Talon and to come guns blazing if it should prove necessary.

“All right BZ, I’ll take it from here.”

His hands settled on the two control booms on his chair, pushing his droid ride to follow Commander Tano on her right side as they exited the Talon via the rear ramp. It was lucky that this city was recessed into the giant pit that had been dug for it, so no one had a direct sight line of four droids and a togruta seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

They covered the distance to the edge of the pit with no issue, but now the problem was getting to the lower city level. Jedi wouldn’t even hesitate to make that jump, but her current disguise didn’t allow for such supernatural feats.

The commander didn’t even let it break her stride.

She walked right up to R2 and took a seat on his upper dome.

The droid’s leg jets came out and easily took off, despite the extra weight.

“All right, BZ, get us down there.”

His ride chirped in an affirmative and extended his own jets.

D-Squad landed and they attracted their first attention from the locals in the form of a rather startled resident.

A human woman taking out her garbage. She gaped at them with astonished eyes, the large bag dropping from nerveless hands with a loud clatter.

The commander just nodded at the woman, her hands resting casually on her belt as she walked - the picture of a dangerous, well trained bounty hunter with their own ‘style’ as it were. Who didn’t need accoutrement or armor and whose flowing, dancing walk spoke further volumes.

She retreated into her house, totally forgetting about her bag of garbage.

They walked deeper into the small city.

This was not the kind of planet that favored staying long outdoors and any who did moved as quickly as possible, usually with a water bottle strapped to their waists. Most of the locals were aleena, with dugs, humans and sullustans sprinkled into the mix. All of them had a gloomy air about them, their body language furtive and paranoid. Their eyes and heads twitchy at every loud noise. Almost everyone on the street was dusty and involved in some way with rhydonium mining, judging by the clothing or tools they kept on their belts. 

After a few minutes of walking they joined one of the main outer ring roads of Pons Ora and spotted the first ramshackle, ancient speeders in use.

All of them were single or double seaters and they moved slowly with their engines and repulsors clattering loudly, kicking up fine dust in their wake. Meebur was very glad he was safely buttoned up in BZ at the moment.

Their first destination was the local cantina, which they only found after walking a fair distance  to the inner ring road of the city.

“All right, can’t exactly waltz in there with four astromechs,” Tano mused. “R2, QT, U9, go for a scout around town, check the spaceport. You have authorization to defend yourselves with lethal force if need be. I’ve already spotted a dozen crimes on our way here and I don’t want you getting captured and sold for parts.”

R2 took the lead and led the other two droids away.

They entered the cantina, which turned out to also have a rather large section devoted to dining tables as well. The large counter facing them had numerous sentients on the bar stools drowning their individual sorrows in a myriad of alcoholic drinks.

Their entrance caused an immediate stir, as many whirled around in their paranoia to see who had come in.

Most looked at the commander with understandable weariness and fear, quickly going back to their food and drink.

“Anything I can get you?” asked a rather fat sullustan behind the bar. He seemed to be the cook and manager of the establishment, given the authoritative bearing and how he was occasionally glaring at the various waiters moving about the cantina-diner.

The commander tilted her head to scan the brightly colored menu hanging overhead. “The Saltha Skewers and a Dustquench Spritz,” she answered in a dangerous, lilting way that made even Meebur slightly shiver.

The fat sullustan blinked before nodding, looking disturbed as he turned to shout the order through the small window of the kitchen behind him.

She took a seat at the bar and Meebur drove BZ forward to stand next to her like any other obedient droid. He twisted BZ’s head on its axis to give a direct view of the cantina entrance and the other patrons. Two thuggish aqualish were grunting at each other in a booth nearby and giving looks towards the commander’s back that did not look promising for the continued peace and relative quiet of the establishment.

They both stood and marched over to stand just a few meters away. Meebur knew many galactic languages but aqualish speech was unfortunately not one of them. He quickly engaged a translation program, which BZ helpfully executed and displayed on his main viewer.

“...that’s a fine blaster you have there, little togruta. Can you even use it?” said the left aqualish thug wearing a dirty red jacket and miner’s overall.

“Go back to your seat or you’ll find out,” threatened Tano with a sweet, dangerous smile, not even properly turning to face her interlocutors.

What happened next was over so quickly that Meebur didn’t even see it.

One moment, the left thug was lunging, the other aqualish reaching inside his jacket for a weapon-

The loud energetic whine of the WESTAR firing twice.

Both thugs collapsed to the floor, smoking holes in their chest.

The cantina’s reaction as a whole was dead silence, except for the annoying background music playing. Commander Tano just holstered her blaster with a single twirl and turned back in her seat as if nothing had just happened. She reached into a belt pocket and flicked a 50 credit chit towards the sullustan owner.

He caught it easily and nodded at her. “Thanks, but just so you know, those were Voids. You have less than a day before their gang buddies are going to come looking for revenge.”

“Local syndicate?” she asked.

“Yes. Hey, Nintas, Falrin! Get this mess cleaned up. We’re working with food here!”

Two waiters rushed over and dragged the bodies outside.

“The name’s Borkus. Owner of the Power Slider Cantina. You here hunting for someone?” He began cleaning a glass and making the drink the commander had ordered.

“You could say that.”

Borkus scoffed, “Figures. Abafar is the planet of the lost or those who want to be lost. Out here you’re either a miner, drifter or a smuggler and everyone has a long sob story for how they ended up on this spirits forsaken rock. Bounty hunters will occasionally stop by checking if any poor bastard on their lists have ended up here.”

“And I assume you have such a story as well.”

Borkus chuckled throatily, “Obviously, but it's not the kind of trouble that would cause someone to hire a bounty hunter, so that’s why I’m talking to you and you look like a customer of ways and means.” He put down the finished drink in front of her.

She took a small sip to test the drink, before chugging down a mouthful. “Nice, refreshing.”

“Guaranteed to lessen any thirst, my own recipe. So… how can I help you…?” he trailed off leadingly.

Tano smirked into her drink, “Shelda Lah and no, I’ve already found my target. I’m just here to eat.”

“Ah, all right.” He was clearly disappointed in the missed opportunity to ‘sell’ any information he might have had. “Gregor, hurry up with that food!”

“Coming boss!”

A few minutes later Meebur heard the thunk of a plate on the bar counter and the commander began eating with a quiet efficiency.

“I see you have some CIS presence.”

Borkus grunted in annoyance, “Yeah, bloody droids. They came into town months ago and took over one of the old mining shafts. Blasted their way down into a new rhydonium vein and have been mining it ever since. One of the local gangs tried to muscle in on it, but they got wiped out to the last man for their trouble. Also took over the tiny spaceport we have to ship out the fuel. It chased away a lot of smugglers and even legit traders - importing food to this rock got much more expensive and our tunnel crops can’t feed everyone.”

She nodded in understanding and picked up a skewer to bite off the meat on it directly.

New customers walked in and Borkus was neatly distracted from further conversation.

Soon after, the commander paid for the meal and had a single skewer wrapped for a takeaway.

They left the diner and ducked into a nearby alleyway where the other droids of D-Squad were waiting.

The commander knocked twice on BZ’s head, “Colonel, your lunch awaits.”

Meebur popped the hatch and immediately winced at the bitingly dry atmosphere that slapped him in the face. He grabbed the skewer stick and settled the big thing next to his chair. It smelled delicious and he quickly unwrapped it to tear away at the skewered meat. “Mmmm,” he mumbled in appreciation as he chewed. It was quite kind of the commander to purposely order a food item that he could easily eat.

Dining in a galaxy of big’uns was quite difficult when some food portions were almost as big as you were.

“R2, report,” she ordered.

“Enemy droids at the spaceport and on patrols around town,” R2 engaged his holoprojector to show a tactical map of the location. There was at least a company strength of B1s and three squads of B2s. “There are also engineer type B1s coming and going to a mine shaft in the north-east of town. They’re not just pulling rhydonium ore out, they also have three large mobile refineries parked outside.”

“The CIS aren’t so strapped for fuel that they have to go all the way to Abafar to mine more,” Meebur shook his head thoughtfully as he ate, recalling the latest intelligence figures he had seen on reported enemy fuel supplies in this corner of the galaxy. “They’ve been at it for months and the locals don’t seem to even know there’s a Republic star destroyer over their heads. Well, given this awful sky, it’s not that surprising. Only you’d think that the smugglers coming and going would mention it to them.”

Tano shook her head, “Oh, they know, colonel and they know to keep their mouths shut about it. No, I think we have enough to deduce what the enemy is doing. Months of round the clock rhydonium fuel mining and shuttling it up to the Vanguard. What do you get?”

Meebur frowned, “A fuel tanker.”

“From a certain point of view, entirely correct, colonel. But why would you need sensor masking on a fuel tanker?” she asked leadingly.

He almost choked as the answer finally hit him over the head and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it sooner. “It’s a bomb!”

She nodded in agreement, “There you go. Imagine a Venator with all its hangars, storage and crew quarters filled to the brim with rhydonium fuel. If it blows up, you’d have something powerful enough to destroy an entire fleet formation in one surprise blow.”

Meebur stood on his seat and with fervor declared, “We must get back to the Talon, infiltrate and stop it!”

“Yes, but the question of how to do that safely is the issue. If the Vanguard blows up in its current orbit around Abafar, the explosion is the equivalent of a mini-nova. It’ll be enough to do catastrophic damage to this planet, which will still have deep veins of rhydonium that hasn’t been reached yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the resulting secondary explosions overcome the gravitational binding energy. That means we need to commandeer and fly it at least a few million kilometers away before detonating it.”

“And there could be an overwhelming number of enemy droids on board that would stop us,” Meebur fell despondently into his seat.

She smiled knowingly, “Which is why we need to recruit some local help.”

“Everyone here has been intimidated, commander. And besides, you’d need to at least show and tell them everything we know. We’d need to recruit a small army, arm them and maybe we would have a chance.”

“We don’t need an army, colonel. However, I think the clone commando working in Borkus’ kitchen as a cook would be a good recruit for our cause.”

Meebur blinked in astonishment as the words registered in his head, “What?!”

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Five hours later the working day was ending for the locals, but the local sun still hadn’t set due to the position of Pons Ora in the far northern latitudes of Abafar.

D-Squad had positioned themselves in an alley across from the Power Slider Cantina and watched as Borkus exited from the front entrance, giving the emptying street a suspicious glance before stepping aside and letting another tall figure walk out.

Meebur stared at the human in his forward screens, zooming in with BZ’s optics. The height, stature and skin tone was definitely a match for a Republic clone, only this one had a messy clump of short dark hair and a full beard that was just enough to somewhat disguise the very familiar face beneath. 

The clone who Borkus had called ‘Gregor’, gave a casual wave to his employer and walked down the street.

The commander waited until he had turned a corner before gesturing to D-Squad to follow her.

“How do you know he’s a commando?” Meebur asked softly from within his droid.

“Even if I wasn’t a Jedi, I could tell you that just from the way he walks.”

Meebur tried to replay in his mind how Gregor had walked and couldn’t see how that would be a tell-tale sign. “I don’t see it, commander.”

She sighed, “Just trust me on this, all right? It’s a Mandalorian thing.”

They continued to follow the supposed commando through street after street, until they neared the outer ring of the town. He approached a building that had seen better days but was still at least fit to live in. Then climbed down a set of stairs that led into a basement level and disappeared from view.

The commander nodded, “This is his residence. R2, BZ, you’re with me. QT, U9, stay outside and watch our backs.”

D-Squad rolled and walked forward.

Meebur let BZ handle waddling awkwardly down the stairs, a technique he couldn’t master despite years of trying.

They stopped at a solid durasteel door after walking down a small hallway.

The commander tapped the door chime on the small control panel and waited with a casual stance, examining one of her nails with an annoyed expression.

It took a few moments, but the door hissed to the side with a slight groan from a very old motivator that should’ve been replaced decades ago.

Gregor stood in the doorway, frowning as he took in who was disturbing his early night from a long day of work. “Yes? Can I help you?” he asked wearily.

“You most certainly can,” Tano smiled, mildly gesturing to him.

The clone’s eyes rolled upward and he collapsed to the ground in a seemingly dead faint.

She quickly hurried inside and lifted him up by the armpits, dragging him into a living space that barely had anything resembling furnishings; a single bed, one table, a few chairs, cabinets and a very small kitchen tucked away in a corner. It was surprisingly quite clean and organized to near perfection. Meebur could well imagine that whoever lived here had been raised in the regimental upbringing that the clones underwent on Kamino. 

Tano dragged him into one of the chairs and propped his back up with a pillow.

“Not even giving him a chance to talk, Shelda?”

“We can’t afford the time to do this the conventional way.” She pulled another chair closer, sat down and placed a hand directly on Gregor’s brow before closing her eyes. “He has injuries consistent with old brain trauma. R2 scan his ID chip.”

Meebur opened up BZ’s hatch and sat down on the droid’s head to watch this with own eyes.

R2’s upper holoprojector lit up and displayed a screen, showing a definite match with a clone on record.

“Well, I’ll be, he was a commando. CC-5576-39. Last known to have participated in the… Battle of Sarish. Declared missing in action,” Meebur read, shaking his head sadly as he easily recalled the details of one of the worst Republic defeats of the early war period.

Tano nodded, her brow creased in concentration. “He was injured in the battle, but managed to help dozens into an evacuation transport. They were unable to evade pursuit and were finally shot down above Abafar. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a ground transport with Borkus - with no clue who he is - retrograde amnesia from the head trauma.”

“You’re reading his mind?” Meebur asked with interest.

“That’s a vast simplification of it, but for the purposes of conversation, yes. I’m also talking with him at the moment, helping him come to terms with the memories of his previous life that I’m guiding him through.”

Meebur looked on in fascination for a while at those near-fantastic pronouncements. He could see Gregor’s face occasionally twitching, his eyes rolling and moving behind his eyelids.

A heavy silence fell in the apartment and he realized after two minutes that this was probably going to take a while.

He began pacing around on BZ’s head, trying to figure out some way to stop an entire star destroyer that had been turned into a gigantic hyperspace capable guided torpedo. D-Squad was an infiltration team! They weren’t commandos! They had one armed scout shuttle whose weapons wouldn’t even really scratch the paint of a Venator. Unless they used the Talon, remotely send it under cloak into the star destroyer and opened fire on the rhydonium tanks.

No, no, we also needed to get the encryption module back to Republic space! Think Meebur. Think.

The Talon was the only ship that could safely achieve the primary mission objective. Therefore, what about-

Gregor jerked in his seat and his eyes flew open with a harsh gasp.

“Easy, easy, Captain Gregor, you’re back,” Commander Tano soothed.

The clone commando met her eyes with a haunted intensity before visibly calming down and looking around at his current surroundings with a calculating gaze. Tano lifted her hand from his head and stood back.

“I know I already said it, commander, but… thank you.”

Gregor stood with crisp efficiency and saluted the Jedi.  

“You’re welcome, captain.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Gregor walked over to a storage cabinet in the small kitchen, removed a broom of all things and snapped it half easily over his knee. He ripped the bristle head off and twirled his new makeshift weapons in both hands experimentally. “I have to go pay a visit to my former ‘boss’.”

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D-Squad stood outside one of the nicer buildings in the mid-ring of the town.

That didn’t mean much in Pons Ora, but the three floor building looked in good repair, clean and the residents definitely lived in much greater luxury than any other I had seen so far.

Borkus was currently not enjoying his evening as he had opened his front door only to be greeted by the fist and makeshift weapons of a highly trained clone commando.

Gregor had endured more than a year of humiliation at the hands of Borkus, practically living in indentured servitude. The owner of the Power Slider Cantina had given the amnesiac commando a job, paid him in one hand, but took nearly eighty percent of it away with the other by being the owner of the apartment Gregor was living in. Combine that with the bullshit info Borkus had fed the vulnerable clone; a solid case could be made that he had in effect created a slave for himself. No need for an implant at all.

‘There’s only war beyond this rock, Gregor,’ , ’The galaxy is a dangerous place, Gregor’, on and on the excuses and gaslighting had gone. Using the truth and twisting it in just the right way.

Reconciling Captain Gregor from before the amnesia with the meek servile creature that Borkus had created was very difficult and it wasn’t a process that was totally complete. In ideal circumstances, he would be shipped to the Jedi Temple’s Halls of Healing for a complete psychiatric mind healing that lasted for weeks. Realistically, as a clone commando, Gregor would be taken by the Kaminoans and their psycho-conditioning would ‘fix’ him in a very destructive manner to both personalities. 

The front door of the apartment building burst open and Gregor emerged with two heavy duffel bags on his shoulders.

“So he still had your Katarn armor, gear and weapons?”

“Yes commander, it’s not like he could really sell it in a place like this without uncomfortable questions being raised. Borkus is just a greedy bastard at the end of the day, not a criminal mastermind and he wants nothing to do with the local gangs. With the Separatists present as well, if they found smugglers trying to take my gear offworld, it would eventually be traced back to him as well. I would’ve been captured by the enemy and he would’ve lost my services.”

“That’s behind you now, Captain and you have your whole life ahead of you. You know what’s at stake,” I said carefully, giving the commando a pointed look.

Gregor pursed his lips and nodded, “That I do, commander. What are your orders?”

“Colonel Gascon has come up with a strategy that should allow us to fulfill most of our objectives. We’re going to liberate one of the Rho-class shuttles the enemy has been using. Think you’re up for it?”

He smirked dangerously, his eyes lighting up with a fiery but controlled hunger for battle, “Commander, right now I feel like I can take on every droid on Raxus Secundus.”

“Then let’s be about it and may the Force be with us.”

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A/N: Bit of a bridging chapter here and setting things up. Enjoy your weekend and stay awesome.