The Force Wills - Chapter 140

“Padawan Tano, while I normally would never question the commanding Jedi of the Crucible on a training mission, in this case-”

I turned away from the forward viewer showing the ventral hull of the Reaver, as it had clamped itself onto the dorsal of the Crucible, beyond that was the much slower spiralling of hyper, representing the added mass that the pirate ship had to propel through the dimension. It was naturally putting much greater strain on the Reaver’s hyperdrive and it was going to need a thorough overhaul afterward. The cost of which would be going to the Jedi Order - one of the details I had negotiated with Hondo.

“This is no longer a training mission, Professor.”

“Precisely, you have us strapped to that pirate ship hurtling straight into a war zone!”

“Yes, an element of the Separatist shadow fleet is there,” I explained and gestured to bring up a holo of Ansion, around which three Munificents and a single Lucrehulk was hovering. “However, it seems Ohnaka has been rather industrious of late. He has been aggressively recruiting and crewing pirate ships to his banner, working on the fringes and in the voids left by both sides in the war. Where he’s actually getting his funding is a rather intriguing mystery, as there’s not enough plunder in these sectors to really justify it. However, in concert with the Ansionians they’ve been putting up enough resistance to contest the orbital space of the planet. How long they can last is another question, but without the Republic’s help it’s just a matter of time.”

“Which is how far away?” Huyang asked archly.

“The 42nd Fleet is currently hunting the main shadow fleet around Keitum, more than half a day away, best speed. Yes, Professor, that is an eternity in military terms but my priority is to see these adepts to safety on Coruscant. Which I can’t do with a busted hyperdrive. The only way to fix the hyperdrive is on Ansion. A Separatist force is in my way, therefore they must be removed. The only way to do that, is to enter into an alliance with a pirate who has found himself on the wrong end of a plot by Dooku.”

The holo zoomed out to show the complete Ansion system, which had six orbiting bodies. “That is the gas giant Trauchta with its six moons and very handy radiation belts. You’ve managed to repair the Crucible’s shields, so it can handle hiding within them. In the meantime, I will be going with Ohnaka to help him fight the Separatists. You can use your own discretion on where you want to hide, but I suggest the moon of Verneth."

The view zoomed in to show a rocky, volcanic moon with active geothermal activity. Its surface is scarred by lava flows, ash plains, and jagged obsidian ridges. 

“You could conceal the Crucible in a crater, shielded from detection by ash clouds and the electromagnetic noise.”

Huyang looked at it and nodded, “That is certainly a plan that shields the adepts from danger. However, you will be going into the jaws of the rancor, padawan.”

“Yes, but there’s no other choice at the moment. This shadow fleet has to be destroyed to the last. Even if the 42nd is successful and we allow this element to escape, then we’ll still have these ships terrorizing the Republic rear.”

“Do you have a plan for doing that with a pirate fleet of second hand retro-fitted ships and scrap?”

“I plan to have a plan at this point. Ohnaka has been very cagey about his ship strength. The Ansionians also have a planetary defense force, but only fighters and half a dozen old frigates.”

“I hope for your sake that he’s been a very busy pirate, Padawan Tano.”

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“But we can help, padawan,” said Katooni with an expression that should’ve been illegal given how puppy-cute it was. 

I stood my ground however and shook my head as I surveyed the six adepts who had ambushed me near the Crucible’s airlock.

“No, you are not ready for the potential combat that I’m going into. You’ve done none of the anti-droid training courses or familiarization. I’m going into battle alongside pirates and the Ansionians, both of whom I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw a planet. I can’t fight having to worry about protecting you as well.”

“We’ll totally not be in the way, we can handle ourselves,” Petro asserted.

“If you are going to fight alongside the pirates, you’re going to need someone to watch your back,” Gungi growled, thumping his big chest.

“I appreciate the thought and the risk you are all willing to take, but this isn’t a negotiation or argument that you can win. Professor Huyang will be in charge while I’m away and you will listen to him in all matters. He is a consummate survivor of this galaxy and I want you to take the time you are waiting on the moon to learn further from him. Understood?”

I hammered my words with the Force, pushing it into the young minds before me with the lightest touch of Battle Meditation.

This was not going to be the lighthearted original timeline - there was no travelling circus, no relaxed and drunk pirate gang who could be taken advantage of - this was a full blown warzone that extended from orbit all the way to the surface.

“Yes, padawan,” said Ganodi, her face almost pouting.

“Come along, young ones,” Huyang called sternly.

The six turned around with slumped postures and walked off behind the architect droid, but Katooni abruptly rushed back with a brief burst of Force Speed and suddenly I was caught in an awkward hug.

“Please be safe, Ahsoka,” she mumbled into my armored abdomen.

“I will endeavour to do so,” I patted her scaled cranium.

“Force be with you.” She abruptly let go and hurried in the wake of her classmates, radiating embarrassment.

I went through the airlock and let it close behind me to board the Gilded Reaver, making my way quickly to the frigate’s bridge. 

The Reaver had emerged from hyper 150k clicks from the gas giant and now let go of the Crucible, letting the ancient ship power its engines and make an immediate burn for the relative safety of the jovian system.

I felt the pirate ship maneuver for its own acceleration towards Ansion, which would take a further ninety minutes given the current astro-geography of the system.

“All right, Ohnaka, what’s the situation?” I demanded as I walked onto the bridge.

The five weequay pirates who were manning the stations visibly twitched with fear and anger, hands instinctively going for holstered blasters, but quickly thought better of it.

“Well, Tano, my dear, not as bad as I feared, but it’s far from good,” he pointed at the far end viewscreen. The bridge was circular as the ship and the layout almost felt like a grungy, Corusca tech version of Kirk’s classic Constitution class. 

The screen showed a tactical projection of Ansion, which judging by the telemetry was transmitting from the Ansion defense militia. That in itself was interesting, because it meant that Hondo was fully working with ansionians. Perhaps even funded? Now why would, what was essentially a proper mid-rim Republic world, employ a pirate gang?

Those were questions that could be asked and answered later though as the tactical plot resolved further.

The three Munificents and single Lucrehulk looked like they were being harassed by bees - if those bees were frigates and fighters. Curiously, it didn’t look like there were that many Vulture or Hyena fighter droids contesting the ansionian and pirate fighters, it was barely enough for all four heavy CIS ships to maintain a screening formation. It took me a few seconds to spot what was missing from the picture.

“No missiles or torpedoes from either side.”

“Ansionians used up everything on their end in the opening minutes of the conflict, so did my ships. The Separatists also fired, but nothing like the massive missile barrages that the news talks about on the front lines,” Hondo explained.

“Seems like the shadow fleet is either being frugal or they’re actually running low on ordnance.”

“You won’t hear me complaining about that!” he said jovially. 

That smile was wiped from his face as a pirate frigate managed to get bracketed by all three Munificents and blew up.

“Idiots!”

“Whose in command over there?”

“That would be Vryss, my second.”

“Well, tell them to stop poking at every enemy ship with their cannon fire, and start to focus on a single target. They’ll run out of ships before you can even make a dent.” I rushed up to the viewscreen and pointed. “Focus all your fire on this Munificent.”

Hondo frowned in consideration before shrugging and slapping the control on his elaborately decorated captain’s chair, “Hondo to Vryss.”

“Vryss here, rather busy, boss,” came a female voice over the com system.

“I can see that, my blue shadow.”

“Oh, you’re in-system, what are you doing that far out?!”

“Circumstances, my dear, circumstances and a story for when you’re not about to get blasted out of space. Now I need you to order all ships to shoot at the Munificent I’m marking to you.”

“What? Why?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, dear,” he said with a slightly menacing edge.

“Fine.”

The response time was abysmal but eventually the tactical plot began to show ion and heavy cannon fire shifting away from the haphazard spray and pray - to begin hammering only the Munificent on the starboard side of the CIS formation.

I watched as five Corona class frigates put themselves into a swooping run on the enemy’s port side, dipping into firing range and pouring out everything they had.

Pirate and ansionian fighters attacked the screening Hyenas, both sides suffering terrible losses in the process.

Finally, the port shields collapsed and every allied ship pounced with a bloodthirsty fervour, every large laser and plasma bolt resulting in an explosion of hull armor, debris and components.

An ansionian fighter lost control after being damaged by the Munificent point defense and the fighter was unable to perform any evasive and ended up ploughing straight into the port aft engine cluster. 

It was the spark that lit the fire and as more ion and blaster cannon fire came pouring in, the Munificent’s suffered a cascading reaction of secondary explosions before it was blasted entirely in half in a massive conflagration.

“Well, how did you know that would work?”

“Lucky guess,” I waved him off, not wanting to get into it, concentrating on the tactical plot. “Target the central Munificent next.”

It took an eternally long nine minutes before that Munificent died, losing four allied frigates and an entire squadron of fighters.

“Full retreat, Ohnaka, all ships, now!”

“And lose the orbitals?”

“You’re losing too many ships chewing through the Munificents, what you have left won’t make a dent in that Lucrehulk. Retreat now to fight another day!”

Hondo growled, slamming the armrest of his chair, unable to deny my logic. “Vryss, full retreat, scatter.”

“On our way!”

I watched on the plot as every symbol representing the remaining frigates and fighters turned and burned in every direction away from the primary battlespace.

The Hyenas gave chase, but quickly returned once the ranges reached more than 10k clicks from their parent craft.

Most of the fighters headed for the planet itself, whilst what looked to be Hondo’s frigate fleet broke orbit and retreated into hyper as soon as they left the mass shadow.

“Boss, we’ve got a comlink coming from that Lucrehulk,” said the pirate helmsman.

I quickly retreated to a blindspot in the bridge scanner to the side of the viewscreen and held up a single finger to my mouth, glaring at Hondo.

He quickly got the message, “Make sure the holoscan only captures me, got it?!”

“Yes, boss!”

The image that appeared on screen was the ominous, fearsome visage of Durge himself.

My eyes widened as I perceived through the comlink that the frontman general of the CIS Army was aboard the Lucrehulk.

Hondo did well to keep his poker face but I could feel his internal panic with a hint of dread. An entirely understandable reaction when faced with the 2000 year old gen’dai bounty hunter turned warlord general of the CIS. He plastered his best genial face and sat back in his chair.

“General Durge, welcome to Ansion.”

“Ohnaka, I have little patience for word games. Count Dooku wants to show you the same level of hospitality you showed him. You will come and surrender yourself to me.”

Durge’s arching narrow helmet and formidable armor that encased his very alien physiology was the same as I remembered, however, there were a number of repaired heavy blaster impacts on it. Clearly his time behind enemy lines had also taken its toll. That he also was the actual commander of the shadow fleet shouldn’t have been a surprise, given that its modus operandi was causing chaos and slaughter.

“As much as I would enjoy meeting Dooku again, I will have to politely decline that invitation.”

“There is no choice in the matter, Ohnaka. Right now my forces are on Ansion and I know where your compound is. If you do not surrender, you will lose everything.” 

I frowned in confusion. What was Durge playing at? Hondo was a pirate who, at the end of the day, only cared about himself. Threatening his assets and wealth couldn’t really work. Any pirate worth their salt knew they had to be alive and free to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. If Hondo had to, he could wash his hands of everything he had in Ansion and live to start another day. He also had other holdings in the Florrum system, unless he had relocated, since Dooku would clearly remember where he had been held captive.

Yet something Durge had said or implied clearly troubled the pirate.

“When you say everything-”

“Your entire gang, massacred to the last, every ansionian dead. I will turn the guns of this battleship on the planet.”

Insanity!

Was Durge seriously going to be the one to break the prohibition on orbital bombardment that had been carefully held to by both sides?

I plunged my perceptions forward along the probability lines and recoiled as I saw the kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted to bring the awful answer. I knew that the prohibition couldn’t last, but like everyone else had fallen into the trap of hope that the day wouldn’t come. That the war could be kept from crossing that Rubicon.

Yes, Durge was entirely willing and able to do it.

His inherent insanity from his long life and the natural gen’dai tendency to psychosis had finally reached the tipping point.  

“I will make sure it is known that it is your cowardice that inspired me! The galaxy will know that you could’ve turned yourself in, but you didn’t. You will be shunned, reviled, forever condemned.”

Naturally it was unfair, but both Hondo and Durge knew full well that life wasn’t ‘fair.’ There was no equation in the universe for that and the sentient condition would also ensure it.

Hondo’s poker face had completely collapsed, his mouth open with wide-eyed horror. Even his nominally bloodthirsty pirate bridge crew were shocked and appalled.

“You- you-” Hondo coughed, struggling to regain his wits. “You would kill over 25 million people… just to get me?!”

“Yes,” answered the insane gen’dai simply.

His deep voice echoed distantly in my montrals as I belatedly realized I was also experiencing shock. 

“Your ship will keep its current course and rendezvous with mine. Any deviation and I will give the order to commence bombardment.”

I numbly realized there was only one explanation for all this.

Palpatine was ready and he wanted the escalation. He wanted the excuse to introduce the Base Delta Zero doctrine for the Republic Navy - the order for a fleet to bombard and glass an entire planet, exterminating the entire population in the process. Could a single Lucrehulk and Munificent do it? Not completely, but the difference was entirely academic at this point.

His reason was going to be Ansion. He would point at what the CIS had done and justify the escalation on the blood of the millions that would be lost here.

I wanted to reach out and scream to Anakin.

Warn him, tell him to spread the warning across the entire Fulcrum network…

I barely stopped myself in time.

If there was one moment that Palpatine would be carefully watching, if he even had the slightest suspicion that someone else was also sitting across the chessboard from him, then this moment would be it.

The battle within my mind exploded without preamble or warning.

Preserve Fulcrum or possible partial exposure to the enemy. Save the few now, only to possibly lose billions more in the future.

I felt my breathing speed up.

My fists clenched, teeth gnashed.

My emotions surged, the Force twisting and bending around my body.

I heard and felt the steel paneling against my back vibrate and bend.

Control Ahsoka. Focus. Don’t fuck it up now! I berated myself.

“I- I’ll be there,” Hondo said in a dazed disbelief.

The viewscreen went blank, replaced with the old tactical view of Ansion.

“Ohnaka,” I said hoarsely, only to see the old pirate was still in shock. “Ohnaka!”

No response.

I walked up to his chair and shook him by the shoulder. “Hondo!”

He blinked, staring up at me in surprise, “Pa- Pada- Tano?”

“Listen very carefully, Hondo. Whether you give yourself up or not. He’ll still do it.”

Some wits returned to his mind, “What? But-”

“Think Hondo. You don’t casually threaten to murder a world just to capture one person. Dooku is not that desperate for vengeance against you. No, this is all just pretext, a convenient narrative that will lead into the first orbital bombardment of the war.”

He struggled to internalize or make sense of it, his emotions getting the better of him. “What- what do we do?”

It was amazing how quickly I became ‘we’, when you were staring certain doom in the face and the prospect of millions dead. 

“The only thing we can. We keep this ship on course and then with your help, I’m going to infiltrate that Lucrehulk and kill Durge.”

“That’s- that’s crazy. You can’t kill him. People have tried for literal centuries and failed!”

I glared at Hondo. “The difference between me and them is that they didn’t have to defend millions from death. Now, I’m going to need a few things.”

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The small cargo hold of the Flarestar class attack shuttle, which normally held the planetary survival equipment, was a rather tight fit for me even with everything dumped out of it.

The Reaver had a complement of six smaller saucer shaped shuttles that it could launch and Hondo had chosen one given the name ‘Ember’. It had a class 2 hyperdrive, two blaster cannons, two torpedo launchers, and could squeeze in eight people.

“Mistress, the Reaver is heading for the edge of the mass shadow, they will jump to hyper in twenty three seconds,” reported M8, showing the Ember’s own sensor feed into my helmet HUD.

“Good, they’re playing their part at least.” The part of a desperate pirate crew saving their own hides from the coming massacre. “Is my life sign masking still holding up?”

“All readings are stable, mistress. The Lucrehulk hasn’t repeated its initial scan.”

I tapped the comlink, “How you holding up, Hondo?”

“Do you even need to ask, Jedi? This is crazy!”

“Yes, it is. But crazy is the only way we can stop this. They’re going to take you to a cell. Just sit tight and I will get you out of there. Durge is not going to care one whit about you, not with the prospective slaughter he is about to engage in.”

“Why wait? He could just open fire anyway the moment I land.”

That was an entirely good point, something was putting the brakes on Durge giving that order immediately. There was a larger picture at work here and I only had part of it. It would’ve been nice to ask Hondo to pull an Anakin Skywalker and fly the Ember straight through the core hangar that spanned the length of the Lucrehulk to deliver its small complement of torpedoes straight into its guts. However, prescience revealed this was a later refit version of the battleship that had firmly done away with that weakness. There was no way any fighter could deliver torpedoes to the firmly enclosed main reactors anymore.

“Yes, but whatever story the Separatists are trying to spin, they have to give time for it to play out. That’s what gives us room to act. We might not be able to stop the guns from firing entirely, but this is just one ship, not a fleet. It’ll take further time for its fire to rake over every population center. Ansion is also a planet of wide rolling plains, grassy fields and wide valleys - the population is spread thinly all over.”

“Kriffing void! What in the seven moons of Corellia is this madness! Blasted bantha fodder! By the twin suns of Tatooine, if I survive this I’ll make the poodoo-eating Separatists pay!” he roared, smashing his fist against the cockpit seating.

It was a roaring rage I could entirely empathize with.

A few minutes later the Ember was approaching the massive form of Durge’s Lucrehulk, which utterly swallowed up the view of Ansion below.

“All right, Hondo. Remember, be yourself in this situation. Rage. Despair. Give up all hope. You can’t act in any way as someone with an ace up your sleeve. Durge is crazy, not stupid, and should you give any hint-”

“Yes, yes, Jedi. I get it.”

“Approaching release point, mistress,” M8 warned.

I did the final check of my harness, weapons, utility belt and backpack, before folding my arms across my chest, pushing away the minor embers of fear at what I was about to do.

“3… 2… 1…”

The hatch in front of me slammed open and the escaping air gave a rushing initial impetus, throwing me out into space.

Minor thrusts from my jet boots and maneuvering thrusters all over my beskar’gam straightened my orientation as I streaked head first through the void towards the looming hull of the Lucrehulk that swiftly became a horizon of metal from my perspective, with the infinite blackness of space above it and a slice of Ansion that was also rapidly disappearing.

The Ember was left behind as it began its final deceleration towards the large port landing bay of the Lucrehulk.

“Mistress, brace yourself. Flip in 3… 2… 1…”

The universe spun around me as my orientation shifted into a feet first posture and M8 took full control to manage our deceleration.

We couldn’t go full blast on any jet boots or thrusters, the risk of detection being too great.

“Mistress, I need at least 20 meters per second gone to manage a safe touchdown.”

The Force answered the call and I bled off inertia and momentum into it.

“How’s that?”

“Good enough, mistress.”

I looked down as the outer hull of the Lucrehulk came closer and closer, becoming a jagged landscape of white-gray armor littered with boxy bumps and piping.

Finally, there was a brief hiss that rumbled through the beskar’gam as M8 gave a final pulse to shed the last of our momentum, before I bent my knees slightly as my feet met the hull.

“Touchdown. Mistress, maintenance airlock is at bearing 277 degrees.”

I looked in that direction, “Got it.”

M8’s navigation was really appreciated when I only had to walk thirty meters to reach it.

The interface spike from my vambrace extended and I stabbed it into the logic port.

M8 did her usual excellent job of slicing, isolating the airlock and associated sensors on the network, reporting nothing wrong before triggering the outer door.

When we were crouching beyond the inner door, in the darkness of a system maintenance tunnel, I brought my WESTAR and Darksaber to hand.

“Ready M8?”

“Always, mistress.”

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He secured the last systems of the Ember, and looked out of the cockpit bubble at the droid reception party that was waiting for him.

How did it come to this?

Hondo Ohnaka looked back and could only conclude that someone had probably put something in a drink that night after Dooku had left Florrum in the company of Skywalker and Kenobi.

He knew it wouldn’t be wise to remain on the planet, no matter what the current front lines of the war was, with the widespread use of cloaking by both sides for scouting and special operations there would be no warning of a surgical attack. Florrum itself was too remote and there was every chance that the Separatists could sneak through a capital ship among the dense maze of hyper routes in that part of the galaxy.

So he had pulled up stakes and moved to the north-west.

Then Vryss had joined… that beautiful cunning twi’lek.

Sharp-witted, fiercely pragmatic and so good with that DL-44 blaster, she blazed a path through the gang, leaving broken bones and bodies in her wake.

It had been her initial idea to go mercenary. She had taken one look at the situation around Ansion, the fact that it was part of the Malarian Alliance - a treaty that bound four local worlds in the sector into a mutual defense and commerce pact - and declared that going pirate here would just be a quick way to die. She showed him the military assets the worlds had, their response times and it all seemed so logical.

She had been the one to make the initial pitch, using her charms to put the best foot forward and whilst the Alliance had been very reluctant to sign on a bunch of pirates.The desperation and the war itself left them with little other choice in the matter, not with all the hardware and experience they brought with them. No more was it Hondo’s Gang, now they were privateers!

They’d get paid steadily, there’d be little risk and it also meant a bit of mutual protection if ever a CIS commando squad came calling.

Yet, the allure of the big gamble and payout called to his soul.

The bounty on kyber crystals, the intel on the Jedi training mission - the opportunity just couldn’t be resisted!

He flicked a switch, causing the pilot seat to descend out of the dorsal cockpit bubble into the central compartment of the assault shuttle.

A few moments to get some measure of composure, before he walked down the passenger compartment, triggering the seals to break and the embarkation ramp to extend.

Meeting him outside were two dozen B1 droids in their perfect formation, forming a narrow passage and waiting at the end were four commando droids and a single tactical droid.

That Durge hadn’t even seen fit to meet him was a blatant insult - you’re not worth my time.

“Hondo Ohnaka, you are an enemy of the Confederation of Independent Systems,” droned the tac droid. “You are under arrest, submit to incarceration or be destroyed.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, stepping off the ship, trying his best to ignore the gnawing hollow feeling in his stomach.

In short order, electrocuffs were placed around his wrists by one commando, whilst another waved a scanner wand up and down his form.

“No weapons detected,” reported the commando.

“Take him away,” ordered the tac droid.

You better live up to your end of the deal, Tano, he thought grimly.

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“Recite your mission.”

“I am to take control of the power distribution system in engineering,” said the B1 with the yellow striped chassis, standing at attention.

“And?” I asked insistently.

“Assimilate others to the Republic cause?”

I sighed in annoyance, “M8, what’s going on?”

“Mistress, it seems that the B1 hardware that this unit was manufactured with has a deficiency at a base level in the BIOS. Let me correct it.”

The B1 unit slumped as it was powered down, then a few seconds later M8 sent the restart sequence. It immediately stood to attention, saluting.

“Commander. What are my orders?”

I growled in annoyance before taking a deep cleansing breath, “Access file Tau 31, everything is there.”

“Roger, roger. Orders understood, commander.”

“Go, quickly.”

“Roger, roger.”

The B1 turned and ran away with a clatter of metallic feet on the deck.

This was the thirteenth B1 we had subverted so far and each one had some form of significant trouble in either the hardware or software level. If this was representative of the majority of the droids of that model on board then it was a wonder that the ship was even functional to the degree that it was.

“M8, your opinion?”

“These droids are not spending enough time in their recharge cradles, mistress.”  

Given that the cradles were also responsible for code debugging and memory wipes, then it was not surprising. 

I brought up the Lucrehulk schematics in my HUD, watching the dot that represented the latest converted droid rushing towards the central engineering area. It paused for roughly eight seconds and a new dot appeared next to it, before that one also began running.

There was no time to be subtle here and M8 had changed the assimilation programming accordingly.

Already there were over 180 B1s and 32 B2-ACMs converted to Republic loyalty, with that number increasing every second exponentially, as each converted droid headed to strategic areas of the ship; bridge, engineering, armories and life support. The latter was not so critical in a droid controlled ship, but gravity control was part of it, and that was a system I wanted at my fingertips.

I gave one last look up and down the deserted corridor I was crouched down in and shorted out the local sensors before bursting into a sprint. My speed carried me through a heavy bulkhead that represented the docking joint between the Lucrehulk’s central sphere and the C-shaped primary hull.

I skidded to a halt before the first intersection, pushing my senses further out whilst shorting yet more sensors.

Durge was close now.

It was painfully obvious in the Force. He radiated a miasma of sociopathic madness that felt like I was dipping my tongue into a corrosive. It was vile and I felt like I needed a thorough scrub and bath after just being on the same ship as he was.

My infiltration continued, by the time I sensed Hondo ensconced in a detention cell and the number of assimilated droids ticked over the 1000 mark, I was within a mere twenty meters of Durge.

It was no surprise that the gen’dai was on the bridge, where else would he be to give the order to bombard the planet and get the best possible view of the carnage to come.

I crouched next to the main bulkhead entrance, finding that it was firmly closed, but crucially only the inner of the two bulkheads were sealed. I also only had two assimilated droids in there, one of which was at the helm station and the other at main weapons control.

It would at best only delay Durge by a few seconds, even if the converted droid refused the order.

“M8, give me a feed.”

The point of view of the B1 droid at the helm was piped into my HUD, with that link my awareness of the entire bridge crystalized to full.

Durge stood in the center of the bridge, a three meter tall armored behemoth, not even bothering to sit down in a chair that seemed to have been specially designed for his bulk. He bristled with impatience, eagerness and a steadily rising anger, his massive arms that were as big as my waist folded across his chest.

“Any incoming transmissions?” he growled to the B1 at communications.

“No, sir.”

That just made him angrier, but rather impressively he didn’t take it out on anything around him. There was something to be said for the level of control he developed over his two thousand years of life.

I stabbed my armor’s logic probe into the bulkhead door’s maintenance port. “M8, get to work.”

“At once, mistress.”

In my HUD, the counter of assimilated droids was ticking up in surges and reached the 1500 mark. It wouldn’t be long now until something went wrong, a missed droid seeing the assimilation, raising the alarm or some other bad luck. Every assimilation was a roll of the dice and while the programming instructed the newly converted Republic droids to remain undercover for as long as possible, there was only so much that could be accounted for.

“We have a transmission from Dooku, sir!”

“Well, put it up already!” grumbled Durge.

The full body holo of Dooku projected on the bridge. I had already made myself as small as possible in the Force, as I felt the enemy’s own awareness through the Force bloom outward in a wave.

“Durge, you are to open fire immediately! And be aware-”

“M8 kill it,” I said harshly.

My armor’s droid intelligence unveiled herself like a vengeful digital goddess into the ship’s network. The first thing she targeted was the holocommunications of the bridge, cutting off Dooku’s transmission.

Every Republic droid on the ship threw caution out the window; jumping and mobbing every CIS droid nearby to convert them. Republic B2s opened fire on their unconverted counterparts, destroying hundreds all over the ship within seconds.

Chaos erupted.

The lighting of the ship dimmed and shifted to red, the high pitched alarm echoing through the corridor.

“What is going on?!” Durge demanded of the tactical droid.

“Invasive pro- pro- pro-”

Durge pulled from his back a heavy repeating blaster cannon that he handled like it was a toy and unleashed a barrage of red plasma that utterly wrecked the droid, leaving it a smoking ruin.

“Open fire on the planet!” demanded Durge.

“We are still not in an optimal position, sir,” reported the B1 at the weapons station.

“I don’t care! Open fire!”

The B1 didn’t obey and instead jumped out of the seat, rushing at Durge, its overloading power cell causing electric arcs to jump from its chassis. “For the Republic!”

Its detonation against Durge was rather pathetic, but crucially it had given its life to badly damage the repeating cannon in the gen’dai’s hands. It was now sparking dangerously and badly scorched.

He whirled around, and began gunning down every droid on the bridge with rapid precision, before ripping out the large tibanna cell from the weapon and throwing it into the adjoining ready room.

I felt the explosion rumble through the deck plating.

Durge dropped the now useless weapon to the floor and began turning on the spot. “You can probably hear me. Know that you will die painfully and slowly, little slicer.”

“Open the door, M8.”

I pulled out the logic probe and stood, bringing my weapons to hand and lighting the Darksaber.

The bulkhead doors pulled aside, revealing me to Durge.

He saw me and I felt his anger reach new heights, then he began cruelly laughing.

“Oh, ho ho, it’s you… the Mandalorian Jedi, the two things I hate most in the universe, conveniently united into one person.”

His large hands came to rest near his sides, where his two holstered blaster pistols were.

With frightening speed his left arm came up, pointing directly at me and the machine gun gauntlet fired off a dozen flechette rounds simultaneously.

Which was stopped cold by the flat pane of TK I had already willed into existence, catching each flechette round two meters from my body.

“Oh oh, ha ha ha! Wonderful! It’s been centuries since a Jedi was good enough to completely stop that attack,” he declared with a mad glee. From behind his back he produced his spiked flail, whilst from his left vambrace the red energy shield sprouted into existence. “I shall enjoy taking the Darksaber from your corpse, only to grind it to dust under my heel.”

He burst forward into a sprint, lighting his jetpack to add speed.

I dodged right in a blur of Force Speed, the flail swinging harmlessly through the air where my head had been.

The Darksaber fended off his deadly red shield’s attempt to bisect me, whilst my WESTAR discharged five high power lethal shots within two seconds directly into Durge’s left side.

The first merely scorched his armor, but the second created a flaw, the third, cored it, letting the fourth and fifth shots penetrate and dig into the gen’dai directly.

I whirled and came to a stop eight meters down the corridor, whilst Durge slammed feet first into the corridor wall. It dented under the force and he landed on his feet, before turning to face me and looked down into the fist sized hole and wound I had created.

“That hurt little Mandalorian.”

Even as I watched, the scorched flesh there rippled and shifted, replaced with seemingly brand new flesh.

It was a clever psychological trick to demoralize his opponents, but the truth was the gen’dai didn’t actually heal that fast - he was just shifting his mass around, the wounded flesh now in another place within that huge armor.

We stared each other down for a very long three seconds.

My WESTAR blurred with motion and I sent three blasts directly at his helmet.

He burst into a forward sprint, bringing up his red energy shield to absorb my shots easily.

At the last moment, I blurred backward dodging his flail, letting the Darksaber slash into his trailing arm in the small gap in his guard, before the red shield could close his defense.

A second later I was nine meters away, firing again, my bolts dug into his huge left leg, directly on the knee joint.

I scored another wound in the process.

“Haaaaa! You think you can outlast me, Jedi?! String me along?!” he roared.

My answer was a burst of Force Speed, reaching the corridor intersection and another rapid fire burst of bolts from my WESTAR.

He blocked them contemptuously and engaged his jetpack.

I ducked left, engaging my own jet boots and used my TK to leave him a warm surprise gift.

I was already twenty meters away down the next corridor, when Durge turned the corner with a snarl.

“Boom,” I flicked my finger, using technometry.

The thermal detonator from my backpack that I had kept levitated there exploded in a thunderous flash of light and heat, right in Durge’s face.

The concussion thundered through the tight quarters of the corridor, rippling and warping the paneling.Thankfully I had got the yield settings just right - not enough to compromise the ship’s structure or strain my Tutaminis too much, but enough to thoroughly give Durge a bad day.

“M8, order a replacement droid crew to the bridge, time?”

“Done, ETA 3 minutes, mistress.”

“ARRRGGHHHHLLL!”

He emerged from the smoke, the majority of his armor torn open and ruined, revealing the rippling ribbons of gray flesh that made up the actual form of a gen’dai. Atop this rippling mass was his head, which was surprisingly humanoid in general structure, with two furious yellow eyes, brows, with a snarling lipless maw with teeth the size of fingers. There were also the blinking and metallic points of cybernetics stippled in that flesh. The armor had absorbed most of the detonator blast, but not everything and a large swath of his flesh was clearly burned, which quickly rippled as he shifted mass.

Now I was confronted with a half-naked Durge who only had the legs of his armor left.

“Not winning any beauty contests, are you?” I said dryly.

“DIEEEEE!”

He charged me down again, his flesh shooting outwards, forming tentacles, grabbing onto the ruined corridor walls to propel him even faster.

With the Force and my armor’s mobility, I kept myself airborne and shot backward, keeping my WESTAR trained up and firing into his mass.

Flying within the tight confines of the Lucrehulk corridors was a distinct challenge, yet I had to be careful not to go too fast.

Durge’s mass just ate up my blasts, shifting the wounded flesh around and presenting healed flesh as quickly as I injured it.

He managed to send six tentacles of flesh forward, topped with nasty metallic spikes that had vibro functions to try and impale me.

I dodged at the last moment, not even bothering to lop off the tentacles with the Darksaber.

“Haaarrgghg! Come here, little Mando!”

It was like being chased by some awful hybrid of cthulhu with the healing abilities of frakking Wolverine!

I had to slow down considerably to take the next intersection and flew right over the heads of six waiting B2-ACMs, who already had their arms deployed.

“M8, good thinking, but remember the plan.”

“Of course, mistress.”

Durge turned the corner right into six streams of plasma from rapid fire wrist blasters.

“AAAARGGGH!” he screamed in pain, getting huge chunks of flesh burned and outright vaporized but still surged forward in the blink of an eye, his vibro tentacles spearing forward to burst right through the B2’s armor, exactly in their weak spots.

Far from leaving them behind, those tentacles grabbed the heavy droids like toys and flung four of them at me.

I dodged low, right, then sped off.

“HA HA HA! Yes, fly away! Run! Little Mando!”

My eyes widened as I saw Durge was now using the two dead B2s as makeshift clubs, slamming against each other and even used them as shields to absorb the next burst of blaster shots I sent against him.

“Frak,” I muttered. “M8, no more droid ambushes please.”

“Yes, mistress.”

I kept kiting Durge for another nerve wracking minute. Leading him in a rough circle around the sphere section of the Lucrehulk. I considered using more grenades but the range was too close and I didn’t want any part of Durge blown off and lying around for some future idiot to grab and clone.

“Mistress, droid crew is at the bridge and awaiting orders.”

Finally, I thought desperately as I avoided more tentacle spikes sent my way. “Break orbit, target the Munificent, maximum firepower, full alpha strike.” I ordered after making sure to isolate my helmet, letting no sound escape from it. 

“Order given.”

My WESTAR fired the last of its power pack.

A replacement hovered out of my utility belt and slotted home even as I pushed off the side of the corridor to spin and dodge around more spiked tentacles shooting my way.

“Munificent is destroyed, mistress. Orders?”

“Max burn towards the sun!”

“Burn towards the sun, confirmed.”

I resumed shooting, flying and dodging.

“Oh, what fun, little Mando! But it is hopeless. Sooner or later, you will make a mistake, then I will have you! Rip you apart! You can fire your little gun at me all you want!”

I threw my legs and arms forward at an approaching T-junction, slowing down to take a right turn.

Durge caught up to me in mere moments.

Rapid fire shots picked out every tentacle he sent my way, allowing me to blast off again.

My destination was a mere twenty meters away now.

“M8, Lucrehulk velocity?”

“Target velocity in seven seconds.”

Frak!

I threw my legs and hands forwards again as I almost kissed the bulkhead at a nasty velocity.

I landed on my feet and faced the onrushing tentacled mass of cybernetic gen’dai flesh.

The Force, waiting for that exact moment, exploded out of me in an onrushing tide, not into the Electric Judgement, the Crush or anything fancy, but into one of the most basic applications there was.

From below, levitation lifted the onrushing gen’dai into the air, even as M8 triggered the bulkhead door behind me.

A Force Speed, to push me out of the way at the last moment.

The backlash of the sheer mass and momentum I was trying to manipulate slammed into my mind.

Durge, without any control, unable to arrest his momentum or shoot out tentacles against my TK Control, crashed right into the waiting embrace of the escape pod.

The bulkhead closed as M8 triggered the emergency ejection system.

I was left out of breath, lying on the floor, trying to regain my equilibrium in the Force… feeling a sense of utter disbelief despite everything.

“M8, did it work?”

“Yes mistress, the Lucrehulk just engaged a decel burn. The pod is on course and does not have enough power or fuel to change the trajectory in any meaningful way. Durge will die by the time the pod reaches 5 million kilometers from the sun’s surface in 1.54 hours from now.”

“Keep the ship within at least a light second of him for as long as possible and a full sensor and weapons lock. Destroy any other ship trying to rescue him.”

“Mistress, should I give you the odds of such an eventuality?”

“No, just do it.”

“Yes, mistress. My droid forces have the upper hand and should take full control of the ship within the next twenty minutes. What should I do with Ohnaka?”

I stood with a groan and leaned on my knees.

“Let him out and escort him to the bridge when it's safe to do so.”

“Understood, mistress. Congratulations are in order on a brilliant plan.”

“It was a team effort.”

We had saved Ansion, Durge was about to die, but it still felt hollow.

I knew that somewhere else, Palpatine had already enacted a contingency and obtained his excuse for Base Delta Zero.

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A/N: Goodbye, Durge :-)

Hope you had a fun read and enjoy your weekends. Stay awesome folks.